Kitchens of the Great Midwest

by J. Ryan Stradal

  “I’ll buy a Moonglow, to try it.”

  “Thirty cents,” the vendor said.

  “Well dang,” Lars said. “At that price, it would cost me two bucks to make anything.”

  “Cheaper by the pound. Individually, thirty cents.”

  Lars sighed, but then exchanged a pair of gray coins for a soft, gleaming orange ball. He just had to. He bit into it like an apple, and orange water flung across his mouth and stuck to his beard. The sensation bothered him just for a moment before the flavor of the heirloom broke across his palate.

  The approach was wonderfully sweet, but not sugary or overpowering; there was just a whisper of citric tartness. As he chewed the Moonglow’s firm flesh, he closed his eyes to concentrate on the vanishing sweetness in his mouth. He thought of Cynthia and how the last time they were here, they bought Roma VFs for a dish to pair with a light-bodied Corvina Veronese. He thought about how much she’d love this—how she’d be coming up with wine pairings for each of this guy’s tomatoes—and wondered where she was in California right then. He thought about how this trip had been the longest yet and how it had been three days since he’d heard from her.

  • • •

  Lars shook himself from these thoughts and knelt to hold the other half of the Moonglow to Eva’s mouth. Grinning, she smeared its bright carcass across her radiant face.

  He introduced himself to the vendor, told him what he did, and asked the man his name.

  “John,” the vendor said, not smiling, shaking hands firmly but briefly.

  “Best thirty cents I’ve ever spent in my life, John,” Lars said. “I had no idea that the Hmong grew such brilliant tomatoes.”

  “They don’t. But if they’re lucky, maybe I’ll teach one of them how.”

  “Oh jeez, I suppose I thought you were Hmong.”

  “Christ, you people. I’m Lao, from Laos. Big difference. The Hmong, we let them in from Mongolia. Never should’ve done it. They were trouble from the beginning. Their Plain of Jars? Lot of poppy fields up there. I don’t have to tell you what they kept in those jars. It wasn’t water.”

  Lars was taught always to listen politely, but the prejudices of this heirloom tomato grower—a sharply opinionated lot regardless of national origin—began to make him feel a tad uncomfortable. Because of this, his awareness clouded, and he only saw Eva out of the corner of his eye as she grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and pulled her way over to the tomatoes. The soft thud of massive amounts of fruit hitting the ground was unmistakable to anyone who’s ever worked with food.

  “Oh crap!” Lars said, taking in the pile of tomatoes on the ground. “Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.”

  John pushed past Lars with the decisive force of a first responder at the scene of an accident, and knelt over his tomatoes, unsentimentally sorting the resellable from the irretrievably broken.

  When Lars pushed the tomatoes aside from his daughter’s face, he was shocked to find that she wasn’t crying, but rather trying to cram a broken Moonglow into her tiny mouth.

  While Lars and John were able to save most of the San Marzanos, about half of the Moonglows and almost all of the pink Brandywines were bruised or splattered from their impact with the ground, the stroller, or baby Eva.

  “How much do I owe you?” Lars asked, afraid even to look John in the face.

  “Accidents happen,” he said. He put the broken fruit in a box under the tablecloth and sat back on his milk crate.

  Lars removed a twenty and a ten from his billfold and held them out to John. It hurt him to do it; it was almost half a day’s wages.

  “Here,” he said. “Please take it.”

  The vendor didn’t speak or acknowledge the cash. As passersby and other vendors stared at him, Lars’s face burned with shame. After fighting through several seconds of silence, he had to put the bills away and understand that the depths of this debt might occupy a different space than money could fill.

  • • •

  On the fourth day without hearing from Cynthia, Lars started to call around. Their manager, Mike Reisner, had heard nothing, and neither of the owners, Nick Argyros or Paul Hinckley, had heard from either Cynthia or Jeremy. By the afternoon, he was calling wineries he knew they might have visited: Stag’s Leap, Cakebread, Shafer, Ridge, Stony Hill, Silver Oak. He even tried a few of the Rhone Rangers, like Bonny Doon and Zaca Mesa; they all knew Jeremy St. George, but no one had seen him or Cynthia.

  “Are you sure?” he asked the guy at Shafer. “They’d be there for the harvest.”

  “Our harvest isn’t for several weeks,” the guy said.

  Lars’s brother Jarl didn’t seem alarmed. “They’re probably driving back,” he said, lying on Lars’s shag carpet, still wearing the white dress shirt and tie from his job as a paralegal. Once Jarl had left the tyranny of their father’s empire, he’d wanted a job that required him to wear a tie every day; in Jarl’s world, people wearing ties would never have to make lutefisk or stick their hands in a hot oven or lift pallets of pullman loaves or otherwise suffer physically on the clock.

  “But they flew out there,” Lars reminded him.

  “Aren’t there wineries in Arizona and Texas, and places like that?”

  “None of the big places in Napa saw them,” Lars said from his easy chair. Eva was on his lap, sucking on the end of a turkey baster.

  “Maybe they didn’t go to the big places,” Jarl said. “Or maybe they’re somewhere good, like Riunite.”

  “Riunite’s not a place.”

  “Yeah it is. It’s in here,” Jarl said, pointing to his heart. “Get over yourself and like something that normal people like for once.”

  “I like normal things. I just also like quality healthy things.”

  “I like quality healthy things sometimes,” Jarl said.

  This was not true. For a guy who insisted on dressing nicely all of the time, Jarl had terrifyingly provincial taste in food and wine.

  “You, I haven’t even seen you eat a vegetable since the early eighties.”

  Jarl seemed surprised. “Where was that?”

  “And it hardly counts. The coleslaw at Charlie’s Café Exceptionale.”

  “That was the best place in town. Not someplace snooty like Faegre’s.”

  Lars shook his head. “Best Caesar I’ve ever had.”

  “Christ, you’re a snob,” Jarl said, and looked at Eva. “Admit it. And you’re going to raise her to be a snob, too. She’s going to be the biggest snob of all time. Between the two of you, the fancy food chef and the fancy wine drinker. Next time I babysit her, I’m feeding her Cheetos.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Cheetos and Hi-C.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  “We ate that kind of stuff as kids. What’s your problem with it now?”

  “I just want my children eating stuff that’s actually nutritious.”

  “Children?” Jarl asked. “Got some news?”

  “Yes, we’re having another kid.”

  “When? I thought you guys were going to wait five years or something.”

  “No, last time I talked to Cynthia, I told her I want another one now. I don’t want to be a fat old man chasing around a toddler.”

  “Then lose some weight, lardo,” Jarl said.

  Lars’s phone rang.

  “Can you get it?” Lars said, pointing to the baby on his lap.

  “Oh sure,” Jarl said. He did four push-ups, with a clap between each one, his tie hanging to the floor like a long striped tongue, and rose to pick up the receiver in the kitchen. “Hello, Thorvald residence,” he said.

  “Who is it?” Lars asked.

  “It’s your work. Paul somebody.”

  “One of the owners,” Lars said, setting his daughter on the carpet before running into the kitchen. “Keep an eye on Evie,”
he told Jarl as he put the phone to his ear.

  • • •

  “Hey there, Lars,” Paul Hinckley said. He’d previously been a big-time lawyer in the Cities, and he didn’t know much about food, but he was more than a tad detail-oriented as a restaurant owner. He didn’t hire a graphic designer or an interior decorator for anything; he chose the logo, the typeface on the menu, the dining room’s color scheme, the design of the flatware and stemware, and even the names of some of the dishes. He also liked to know what was going on with everyone on his staff all the time.

  “Hello, Paul. What’s happening?”

  “Well, hi, Lars. Say, just have a quick bit of news for ya here.”

  “Sure, what’s going on?”

  “Just wanted to tell you, we had a staff parking space open up, and we thought maybe you’d want it—you know, for all the hard work you’ve done for us.”

  “Yeah, sure, it’d be nice to park on the property there.”

  “That’s what we were thinking—you know, me and Nick. We thought, who deserves it? And your name came right up, so.”

  “So yeah, is that it, then?”

  “Yeah, pretty much, I guess. But I thought, maybe you’d want to know, the reason the spot opened up is because Jeremy St. George tendered his resignation today, effective immediately. So, you can have his spot when you come in this afternoon already.”

  “You heard from Jeremy St. George?”

  “Yep, he called us from the airport, and said he was quitting, so.”

  “What did he say about Cynthia? Did he say anything about Cynthia? She’s with him, you know.”

  “Oh, I figured she talked to you. Well, we asked, we did ask, and he said that she had her own decision to make, so I guess we’ll see. We’ll see on that. Oh, I got a call on the other line. Can you hold, please?”

  “No, that’s all right,” Lars said. He hung up the phone and stared out into the living room at his daughter, who was lying on her back, sucking on an egg separator, as her uncle tried to make her smile.

  • • •

  Three days later, Lars opened his lobby mailbox to a letter, postmarked San Francisco. He saw the swoops and curls of the hand behind the blue pen that had written their address, and he tore open the envelope right there.

  My Dear Lars,

  I don’t know how to say this. I suppose I should’ve called, but every time I picked up the phone and started to dial our number, I started to cry. Plus I knew you would try to talk me out of this, and at this point, you can’t. Since I last saw you five weeks ago, I’ve had experiences and made choices that would make it impossible for me to return to you with a whole heart. You could argue for me to come back, but the person you want no longer exists, and maybe never did.

  You are the best father the world has ever seen. But I wasn’t cut out to be a mother. The work of being a mom feels like prison to me. I know this might sound horribly selfish to you, but out here in California, I found a sense of happiness that I haven’t felt since before I was pregnant. If you truly want me to be happy, you must try to understand this. I will never be happy being a mother. Having a child was the biggest mistake of my life and I honestly believe that our daughter will be better off having no mother instead of a bad one.

  I’m leaving today for Australia or New Zealand. I haven’t decided which yet, but by the time you read this, I’ll be in that part of the world. You’re free to keep, give away, or throw away anything of mine I’ve left behind. Don’t try to send anything to me and please don’t come looking for me.

  A lawyer will be serving you with divorce papers. I’m giving you full custody of our child and complete ownership of our shared property. Please sign it as written. Otherwise, it will only lengthen the process, because I will not return to the U.S. for any reason, perhaps for a very long time.

  Maybe it won’t seem like it to you, but the reason I have to make such a clean break is because this is absolutely heartbreaking to me. I love you so much and I will think of you every day for the rest of my life. You have made me a better person, a person brave enough to know what she is and what she is not.

  I am so sorry to put you through this. I didn’t mean to lose you. But you are just so passionate about being a father, I feel that the kindest thing I can do is to free you from our marriage so you can find a woman who’s equally committed to being a mother. I know she’s out there for you. You’re an incredible guy, the kindest man I’ve ever met, and any woman would be lucky to have you. I want you to actually have the life, and the family, you thought you had with me. If I come back to you, you will not have that.

  I have to go. I will miss you so, so much.

  All my love, forever,

  Cynthia

  • • •

  Lars unlocked the front door of his quiet apartment. He’d intended to just leave Eva alone for a moment while he checked the mail. She was still sleeping on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor, as if he’d never left, and what he’d found in the mailbox never existed. He walked the letter into the kitchen, softly opening a child-locked drawer under the counter. His daughter should never see this letter or know the words inside it, he decided, so he would burn it, right now, in the sink, but now he couldn’t find his butane BBQ lighter. Or even his crème brûlée torch. He wanted to burn the letter now, so that maybe all of the bad thoughts would be burned along with it.

  He heard his daughter stir and start to cry. He ignited a gas burner on his stove and held the letter to the flame. It caught fire so fast that he dropped it on the kitchen floor and watched it whisper out on the brown vinyl.

  His daughter started to wail.

  “Just a minute,” he called out. He picked up what was left of the letter and held it to the gas flame, leaving it on the burner this time. He watched as it caught fire and curled, and once it was aflame, the heat lifted it into the air and dropped it perfectly into the crack between the stove and the kitchen counter.

  “Shit,” he said. He picked up a coffee mug full of tepid water in the sink and dumped it into the crack, onto the irretrievable, smoldering envelope.

  Satisfied that the kitchen wouldn’t catch on fire, he ran into the living room to lift his daughter into his arms. She would never hear that she was a mistake, he decided. She would never read a letter in which her mother abandoned her without even saying I love you. In fact, she would never even hear a bad word about her mother, not one—at least not from him—as long as he lived. What he would tell her instead, he hadn’t yet decided, but now was not the time to think about such things. Now was the time to sit with his little family of two people, and cry.

  • • •

  Jarl lifted his brown necktie and yellow polyester shirt and scratched his hairy gut. “What do you mean she left for Australia because you’re fat and ugly?”

  Fiona, sitting next to Jarl at Lars’s kitchen counter, put her hand over her thick, cherry-lipsticked mouth. “Oh my God,” she said, her eyes bulging beneath fake eyebrows that looked like cartoon mountains. “I’m so sorry, Lars.” She got up and hugged him. It occurred to Lars just then that he hadn’t been touched by a woman in several weeks. It felt disorienting, like waking up from a car nap, but her sweet, lumpy, perfumed body next to his was comforting.

  Jarl took a sip of his Grain Belt Premium. “This is where you’re supposed to say he’s not fat and ugly, Fiona.”

  “But I am fat and ugly,” Lars said. “I’ve never looked worse in my life.”

  “We need to get you in shape. It’s what I’ve been saying,” Jarl said. He turned to Fiona. “It’s what I’ve been telling him.”

  Lars shrugged and lifted his beer, but Jarl grabbed it from him before he could raise it to his mouth.

  “Let’s start right here,” Jarl said. “No more beer.”

  “You brought it over.”

  “I can’t believe a mother could j
ust abandon her child like that,” Fiona said. “She can’t be serious.”

  “She didn’t abandon our daughter,” Lars said. “She was very clear about that. She abandoned me. I wasn’t making enough. I let myself go physically. It’s all on me.”

  “When she comes back,” Fiona said, “maybe we can knock some sense into her then.”

  Jarl nodded. “And drag that Jeremy St. George behind a car, that’s what I’d like to do. He seduced her, I bet. I bet you it was all his idea.”

  “We’re going to leave them alone, Jarl,” Lars said. “I gotta get on with my life.”

  “That tall skinny bitch,” Fiona said.

  “Please,” Lars said. “Don’t ever talk about her like that, especially around my daughter.”

  Jarl looked over his shoulder. “She’s sleeping.”

  “I mean, ever. All right?”

  “But she did a terrible thing to your family,” Jarl said.

  “Maybe her mother did a bad thing to me,” Lars said. “But not to Eva.”

  “But she abandoned her.”

  “Her mother loves her very much,” Lars said. “She just has to find her own way in life.”

  “That’s so selfish,” Fiona said. “Forget her. She’s dead to me.”

  Lars leaned forward across the counter. “What’s more selfish? Working a job you hate just to come home and be an exhausted, frustrated, unhappy mom? Or following your dreams and becoming a successful woman that our daughter could feel proud of?”

  “I think a baby wants to be with its mom,” Fiona said. “And the mom should want to be with her baby.”

  “What if the mom doesn’t want to be with me?” Lars said.

  “I agree with Fiona,” Jarl said. “Screw her.”

  “Yep, screw her,” Fiona said. “And I mean the other word, by the way.”

  “Oh, and besides,” Jarl said, “Fiona has a ton of single lady friends. They’re younger than you, mostly, but some of them are super cute. And they wouldn’t mind a bald guy, right?”

  Fiona shook her head. “Just whenever you’re ready.”

  Lars nodded.

  Fiona turned to Jarl. “Which ones do you think are super cute?”