Delicious!

by Ruth Reichl

  “Oh, no!” My response was so immediate, so obviously heartfelt, that she stood up quickly, pushing her chair carefully back beneath the table, and said, “I can tell you the end of the story. But not until I get our brunch. Mr. Beard wasn’t entirely right about fear: Soufflés do fall.”

  When she’d left the room, Dad leaned across the table. “I don’t think—” he started, just as Lulu returned, the soufflé rising with majestic grandeur above its dish. He bit off the sentence as we watched it collapse.

  I accepted a piece, although I had no appetite, and then a second because the flavor was so rich, the texture so light. Lulu was not always what I’d expected, but she certainly was a wonderful cook. “More?” she asked, and I said, “Well, just a tiny piece,” thinking that no cook can resist an appreciative eater.

  “So what would you like to know?” The soufflé was gone. Dad shot me a glance, and I knew he was warning me to ease in slowly.

  “What happened to Tommy?” It seemed a safe place to start.

  “He passed away almost twenty years ago. Heart attack. But we remained good friends all his life. He was the closest thing I ever had to a brother.”

  “He wasn’t your boyfriend?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “He was, but only because in those days we couldn’t imagine a boy and girl just being friends. People are so much healthier today; my grandchildren are very sensible about all that. But Tommy and I spent months trying to find the courage to tell each other goodbye. It was comical, really. We were both in love with someone else and both convinced the other would perish when we told them. So stupid. Tommy’s wife, Gayle, was much better suited to him.”

  “What about the Cappuzzellis?” I watched her across the table to see if that was all right, but her gray eyes were clear and untroubled. “I looked them up in the Akron phone book, and there isn’t a single one still living there. The store’s gone too.”

  “The boys all went to college on the GI Bill. Mario became a pharmacist, Mauro started a contracting business, and Massimo, the artistic one, went into advertising. Mr. and Mrs. Cappuzzelli were so proud! One by one they all went west, and sometime in the early fifties Mr. C. sold the store and they moved to California, closer to the grandchildren. We all thought Mrs. Cappuzzelli was immortal—she was never even ill—but one Thanksgiving morning she dropped dead as she was taking the lasagna out of the oven. She was almost a hundred.”

  “How perfect!” I could see it. “That’s how I want to die.”

  “It’s how we all want to die.” She said this so naturally, so easily, that I forgot about being cautious, and the question foremost on my mind slipped out.

  “Was your father a spy?”

  Lulu’s eyes grew wide and her left hand flew to her mouth, trying to hold in furious little choking sounds. Dad shot me a horrified look. I had blown it. I was frantically trying to formulate an apology when I realized that this wasn’t anger: Lulu was trying not to laugh. She finally succumbed to mirth, and Dad and I watched, bewildered. At last she wiped her eyes. “He was many things, my father, but certainly not a spy.”

  Dad’s look of relief, I knew, mirrored my own.

  “Where did you ever get such a crazy idea?” she asked.

  “From Bertie. Anne said he had some notion that the letters might be code of some kind.”

  “I’d expect nothing less from a person who goes to all that trouble to hide a few old letters. Surely you realize the man must have been quite mad?”

  “But in the most wonderful way.” The lightness of her tone gave me courage. “But your father—did he ever come home?”

  Lulu’s laughter faded. “He never did.” Something about the way she said it suggested there was more.

  Dad heard it too. “But he didn’t die in the war?” He asked it matter-of-factly, the way you might inquire if it was raining or if a recipe called for one tablespoon of sugar instead of two.

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “He survived, then.” Dad said it without any emotion.

  “It’s not a pleasant story. I’ve never told anyone—not even my children.”

  “But I think you’d like to tell us. I’m guessing it’s why you asked us back,” Dad conjectured.

  Lulu was quiet for a moment, deciding whether to trust him. Her face was easy to read—you could see the conflict, then the resolution. “I do want to share this story with someone. I need to get it off my chest. Having it bottled up inside has been awful. If Peter were still alive …” She stopped, gathering her thoughts. “But I need your word that none of this will ever leave this room.”

  “Of course. I’m a lawyer. You’re not my client, but I’ll consider it privileged information. And Billie can keep a secret.”

  Lulu folded her hands on the table and took a deep breath.

  “The letter came five years ago next week. The postmark was French, and I didn’t recognize the handwriting. The first words were, ‘Hello, my sister.’

  “The writer began by apologizing for waiting so long to contact me. She said that her father—my father—our father, I guess—had told her his terrible secret as he lay dying. She’d spent years trying to summon the courage to contact me, but now she was very ill, and her priest insisted that she do it while there was still time.”

  Lulu was looking down at her hands, talking very fast. “The odd thing is that I wasn’t surprised. In a sense I’d been waiting for that letter all my life. When Father didn’t come back from the war … I knew he wasn’t dead. I just knew it. And after all this time, reading that letter, what I felt was primarily relief. I finally knew the truth. And I was grateful that Mother was gone and would never have to hear how he’d betrayed us.”

  She turned and gazed out the window, avoiding our eyes, talking mostly to herself now. “I try to understand how it must have been for him. He was wounded twice, shot out of the sky. A Frenchwoman saved his life—and they fell in love. I imagine it happened more often than we know.”

  “Did you meet her?” I couldn’t help asking.

  She took a sip of water. “My sister? Lucette? By the time I got to France, she was gone.”

  “Lucette!” I had promised myself to stay silent, but it burst from me. “That’s terrible!”

  Lulu smiled briefly. “It made my skin crawl too. I tried to convince myself that he was thinking of me when she was named, but I never quite managed that. In any case, by the time I got there, Lucette had already passed. But she had three girls and two boys, and they told me stories about the man they called Grand-père. If I’d had any doubts that it was really Father, they vanished pretty quickly. One of my nieces, Claudine, told me that Grand-père took her out to the woods and showed her where to find morels. It was just what he’d done with me.

  “They showed me the house too, and when I saw it … well, it wasn’t hard to understand why he’d stayed. It was stone and very old. Beautiful. How does the song go? How you gonna keep them down on the farm, after they’ve seen Provence?”

  “Have you forgiven him?”

  “Forgiven him?” Her eyebrows went up and her hand went to her cheek. “Forgiven him? Of course not! I am furious. Even now, all these years later, just thinking about it makes my blood boil. How dare he abandon us like that? How dare he abandon me? And do you want to know what makes me angriest of all?” She tossed her head. “He didn’t have the courage, even at the end, to tell the truth and say he was sorry that he’d hurt us, to beg our pardon. I can’t forgive him for that. I never will.”

  “But you told Mr. Beard that you hoped he was happy!” I remembered how I’d felt when I read those words in her final letter, recalled admiring the eighteen-year-old Lulu for her extraordinary generosity.

  Lulu looked at me with something I can only call pity. “I was very young, and I was trying to be heroic. It seemed like what I should be feeling, what a truly good person would feel.” She met my eyes. “That’s one of the best things about writing letters, you know: You get to be the person you wish yo
u were. I can see that I’ve disappointed you, and I’m sorry for that, but it’s the truth.”

  “I’m not disappointed, Lulu.” I wasn’t. “I’m glad you’re angry at him. It makes me feel less selfish about how I feel about my sister. She was hit by a car, killed in a stupid accident, and when I think about that, I’m furious at her. How dare she be so careless with her life? How dare she go off and leave me here alone? And then I feel terrible about feeling like that. After all, she’s dead and I’m still here. How can I be angry at her?” To my horror, I began to cry.

  Dad got up to comfort me, and I let myself go limp in his arms. When I looked up at his face, I saw relief, as if he’d finally gotten the answer to a question. Lulu stood, left the room, and returned with a box of Kleenex.

  “You’re right, of course.” Lulu spoke as if she were picking up the thread of an ongoing conversation. “When you’re young and you lose someone you love, it doesn’t matter how and it doesn’t matter why. What matters is that they’re gone and you’re still here.” She folded her hands again and put them on the table, as if in an effort to keep them still. “But I want to be fair. So many men came home broken by that war. I think about Tommy’s brother, Joe, and the bitter man he became. If Father had left someone he truly loved behind and come back to us … Maybe we had a lucky escape.”

  She stopped, looking out the window. “Mother was very happy, you know, with Paul Jones. I think that in many ways they were much better suited than she and my father ever were.”

  “Then,” Dad finally hazarded a few words, “why not tell your children?”

  “That their grandfather—their real one—was a sneak and a liar?” She turned on him. “Oh, no, thank you very much. I don’t want them to know that the ‘hero’ they’ve always heard about was really a man without a shred of decency. Is that something you’d want your children to know?”

  Dad considered the question, unconsciously stroking his chin. He looked tired. “It would be a difficult conversation.… The truth is often uncomfortable, but that doesn’t give us the right to hide it.” His eyes shifted to me. “I’m just learning that myself. There are things I kept from Billie.… It was for the right reasons; I was trying to protect her. But now I see that it wasn’t up to me to decide what she could bear. I don’t think you have the right to make that decision for your children either. They’ll find out sometime; better that they find it out from you.”

  “You may be right. Sometimes, in my imagination, I discuss it with Peter, and he agrees with you. But what makes you think that Frankie, Jo, and Jim will ever find out?”

  Dad pounced. “If I’d had a lengthy correspondence with one of the most famous chefs in the world, I’d find a way to leave my children that legacy. They’d be so proud of you.”

  I was a little slow, not quite sure I understood his meaning. Lulu, quicker, gave him a steely glare. “I told you: The letters are gone. They vanished in the fire.”

  “You did. But I don’t believe you.”

  “And why is that?” She sounded amused.

  “We were at the library yesterday. They said that you had donated some documents. Before the fire.”

  Admiration and dismay played across Lulu’s face. I watched her struggle, wondering which would win. We sat there in silence, the three of us. “I did give the letters to the library,” she finally conceded. “But I left instructions that they’re to remain sealed until twenty years after my death. You may be correct that I should tell the children about their grandfather, but I see no reason to share our story with the world.”

  “But no one would ever have to know!” I cried.

  Lulu turned on me. “And how long,” she asked, “do you think it would be before people found out? You came looking for me, and you wouldn’t be the last. No, I’m sorry; I can’t do that to my children. Or to my father, for that matter. It’s not a very nice story, and I’d prefer to keep it in the family.”

  She got up then and removed the plates. She returned with coffee and cookies, but as far as she was concerned, all discussion of the letters was at an end. “You haven’t told me”—she passed the plate of cookies—“how you managed to find me.”

  “It was serendipity.” I told her about Mrs. Cloverly and her closet.

  Her eyes flew to my face. “She’s still alive?”

  “You know her?”

  Lulu colored. “I’m sorry to say that I do. She was one of our best customers for many years. But when her husband died, she changed, and we began to dread her visits. She was so difficult that every time she walked into the shop, salespeople would mysteriously vanish, one by one. Nobody wanted to wait on her.”

  “She was a legend at Delicious! too,” I admitted, “but it was probably different on the phone. I looked forward to her calls.” I told her about Babe’s letters, and by the time I got to the scallop mousse, Lulu was shaking with laughter.

  “She substituted canned clams for scallops?”

  “And I believed her! That’s the thing. But she did it all on purpose. She made up this totally ditzy alter ego so she could call and complain.”

  “Pathetic, really,” said Lulu, “to be that lonely. I suppose it was the same with the shop; I’ve often wondered who she found to torture once we were gone. If I were a good person, I’d give her a call.”

  “That would be very kind.”

  Then came a smile so full of mischief, it was as if the Lulu of the letters had finally decided to join us. “Someday, when the urge to play Good Samaritan strikes, I’ll invite that poor soul to supper. But for the moment I’ve used up all my Good Samaritan points. On you.”

  Her playfulness emboldened me. “Did you ever see James Beard again?”

  “Just once, after that first trip.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “I can see that getting rid of you is not going to be so easy. I don’t have time for more questions now, but I’ll make you a proposition: You come back tonight for that dinner we planned. By then I’ll have figured out a way to fob you off.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Would you be very upset if I declined your kind invitation? I’ve been in Cleveland longer than I’d intended. It’s time I went home.”

  “Just us girls, then,” said Lulu.

  Gingerbread Girl

  LULU OPENED THE DOOR, LOOKING HARRIED AND HOLDING A WHISK. “Sorry”—she handed it to me—“I was giving a foraging class and I got a late start. If we’re to eat at a reasonable hour, I’m going to need your help.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, following her down the hall. “But I’m a little nervous about cooking for you.”

  “Why does everybody always say that?” Lulu swept me into the kitchen. “It’s so ridiculous!”

  Lulu’s kitchen was calm, the cheerful disorder reminding me a bit of Aunt Melba’s style. A bookshelf took up one entire wall; the jumble of books was so dense that half the volumes were in danger of tumbling to the floor. Pots of herbs waved gaily from the windows, and an Aga stove sat in one corner, filling the room with gentle heat. A long, well-worn wooden table stood in the center of the room, and Lulu went over and began gently shoving at the big orange cat stretched luxuriously across it.

  “Get down, Stanley.” She pushed at him again. “Billie will think we have no manners.” The cat gave her a baleful yellow look before slowly deigning to abandon his perch. I watched him leap from the table, and then a wave of dizziness came over me. I reached out, trying to steady myself; I could feel my body begin to sway.

  “Billie! Are you all right?” Lulu’s voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. “You’ve gone stark white. You’d better sit down. You look like you’re about to faint.” She pulled out a chair. “Try putting your head between your legs.”

  The panic attack was so sudden, so unexpected; I’d thought I was beyond them. For a moment I forgot how to breathe naturally, and I concentrated on pulling air in and out of my lungs. Lulu watched me with concern.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said.
“Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” she replied, calmly reaching for a glass. She filled it with water from the tap and handed it to me. I drank slowly, centering all my energy on the sensation of the cool liquid sliding down my throat. Lulu took the glass, and the water splashed in, loud, as she refilled it.

  Lulu put her hand out and felt my forehead. “They say this new flu comes on fast, but you don’t have a fever.”

  “It’s a panic attack.” I said it a little too quickly.

  Lulu was completely calm. “Have you always had them?”

  “No. Only since my sister died. That was almost two years ago, and I thought I’d gotten past them. It’s just when I go into a kitchen … I miss her so much.”

  “Tell me about it.” She pulled out a chair and sat down facing me, then took both my hands in hers. Looking into her earnest gray eyes, I saw Lulu, my Lulu, and I began to talk. I told her about Cake Sisters, about Genie, about the Jaguar. And then, finally, about the cocaine. Lulu kept her eyes on me, nodding her head now and then as I spoke, saying nothing. “I always knew that car was meant for me,” I ended. “But now that I know about the drugs, it’s worse. I was so stupid. I should have known! I should have stopped her!”

  Lulu’s face was full of sympathy. “That’s the most terrible thing about being a child: you’re convinced that it’s all your fault.”

  “Did you feel that way?”

  She nodded. “I was certain that if I’d been a better daughter, Father would have come home. The young feel omnipotent. All through the war, I was sure that as long as I kept Father in my mind he would be safe. I felt so guilty whenever I forgot and went on with my life. And when he didn’t come back … well, I knew it was my fault. I tortured myself with every single time I’d disappointed him. I was convinced he would have come home to us if only I’d been better, nicer, more generous.”

  “But it wasn’t your fault!”

  “Of course it wasn’t!” She brought her palm down on the table; the noise made me jump. “But until you know that, really know it, you can never let it go. I thought I’d done that, but when Lucette’s letter came, I understood that deep inside I’d been clinging to the guilt. Going to France was what made the difference; I finally understood that nothing I could’ve done would have brought my father home. Nothing. It was not my fault. I was free.”