by Rand, Naomi;
“We’re home!” Brooke announced.
Win walked in behind her, carrying a bag of groceries. “Hello sis.”
“I’m going to cook after all,” Brooke sang out, making her way into the kitchen.
“God help us,” Sam muttered.
Win winked at her. “How’s college treating you, little sister?”
“Fine,” Sam said.
“Fine for you too, beautiful?” Win asked Lucy.
“Yes,” she told him.
“What’s fine?” Brooke called from the kitchen.
“College is fine. Or so says Sam’s friend.”
“The name is Lucy Westcott.”
“Sam’s friend Miss Lucy,” Win amended. He swept into the living room, pulled out the bag of weed he kept with him at all times, and rolled a perfect joint. He took out the lighter he’d stolen from grandfather’s study. When their grandmother discovered it was missing, she’d gone ballistic, but Brooke never gave Win away. Grandfather had used it to light his after dinner cigar. Their grandfather had liked his whiskey neat. He’d worn a white fedora. He’d taken his drink on the porch overlooking Bar Harbor on summer nights. Sam’s scant memories included sitting in his lap out there as he told her a story. “Once long ago in a land far, far away there was this girl named Samantha.” If he’d lived, everything would have been different. But he hadn’t, and all they had left was the lighter with the two roses engraved on it, reminding her of that folk song where the roses grew up in the old churchyard till they could grow no higher.
Win inhaled and passed the joint to Sam.
“No, thanks,” Sam said.
“You’ve given up?” Win asked.
“I’m taking a hiatus.”
“College usually has the opposite effect,” Win said.
“I’m just not in the mood right now,” Sam told him.
“That’s surprising. Why?”
“Leave her alone,” Lucy said.
“Look, a protector. What have you been telling your friend about me, Sammy?”
“The truth,” Lucy said calmly as she took the joint.
“How would you recognize the truth?”
“Sam doesn’t lie to me.”
“Wow, really?” He was looking at Sam now. “You two are that close? Soul sisters? I’m impressed.”
Lucy stood and tugged on Sam to join her. They went into the kitchen, leaving him there, out in the cold.
“You girls came to help me?” Brooke asked. “That’s sweet.”
Expedient. Brooke didn’t know how to boil an egg. The raw turkey sat on the counter, its poor plucked carcass weighing in at twenty-five pounds and seven full ounces.
“That won’t be ready for hours,” Sam said.
“We’ll play charades. It’ll be fun,” Brooke said.
Sam sighed. Charades was Brooke’s favorite game. She got to act out everything.
“I’m not really up for that,” Sam said.
“Of course you are, darling.”
Brooke’s lone cookbook, the ironically titled Joy of Cooking, lay open.
“Can you read it to me?” Brooke asked. Her eyes were bloodshot. Win’s pot was fueling this agitprop attempt at culinary mothering.
“You need a pan,” Sam said, “One big enough to hold a turkey in. You don’t have any.”
“You really think I’m an idiot, don’t you?” Brooke pulled a disposable aluminum-roasting pan out of the last shopping bag. “Let’s try it out,” she said, lifting the turkey and dropping it in. Miraculously, it was a perfect fit.
“You have to take it out of the plastic bag,” Sam noted.
This would surely put an end to the farce. Brooke never responded favorably to raw meat. She wasn’t vegetarian as much as utilitarian. If someone else had shot, flayed, and cooked her meal, she ate it. If Brooke was asked to prepare dinner, paroxysms of anxiety, then despair ensued. That poor slab of meat had been a pig or a cow! Easy to be squeamish when you were raised with a full-time cook who made bone sucking good fried chicken. Little Brooke had never had to dirty her hands doing real life chores. Big, disinherited Brooke chose to keep up the pretense of being royalty. She foisted the duties of feeding the family onto her children. In response, Win refused to learn how to scramble an egg. Sam cooked for the three of them. She was great at breakfast. Her pancakes were to die for and she could make a mean waffle. Anything dripping in maple syrup worked out just fine. For lunch, there was tuna salad or a PB and J. Dinner was beyond her but they lived in New York, so they could order out cheaply. Chinese, Pizza, Mexican, or Indian. Yet Brooke had gone and purchased this white mottled bird with blood pooling underneath it. Sam watched her mother reach out as if she were actually going to remove the plastic bag, then recoil.
Turning to Sam, she begged, “Darling, could you?”
“Could I do what? You bought it, Mom. You must have a plan.”
“You’re so good at everything. I’m sure you’ll do a much better job than I ever could. You just have to follow a recipe.”
Sam’s heart sank. Here was the Faustian bargain she’d struck by getting onto the 1 train and heading south. Peking Duck seemed more appetizing by the minute. Brooke was right, though, better Sam did the cooking. Brooke would turn them into the family who spent turkey day at LICH in the emergency room, waiting to get their stomachs pumped.
Sam read the directions. You had to baste, butter, and rub the fowl with a variety of basic spices. None of the condiments necessary were in the shopping bags, cupboards, or fridge.
“Just preheat the oven to 375,” Sam said to Brooke. “We’ll get everything else. You can manage that, right?”
“I wish you wouldn’t treat me like a baby,” Brooke said, pouting.
How else can I treat you? But Sam said gently, “I’m going to need money.”
“Right. Of course.” Brooke handed her a five.
“There are a lot of things to buy still.” Sam made sure her voice was scrubbed clean of emotion.
Another five. Sam waited. Finally, grudgingly, an additional ten emerged.
It was a gas oven. Sam told herself Brooke was capable of lighting it yet, as they trudged down the three flights of stairs, she had this horrible, sinking feeling. What if her mother turned on the gas and Win’s siren song of incredibly potent Hawaiian pot tempted her? What if Brooke chose to continue what had obviously begun hours ago, and in mid puff remembered, headed back into the kitchen, struck a match, and blew them both to kingdom come?
“I’ll just be a sec,” Sam said, racing back. Win and Brooke were in the kitchen. Win was digging into a pint of Haagen Daz coffee ice cream while Brooke puffed away on her Gitane.
“That was more than enough money,” Brooke said to her. “For god’s sake, economize.”
THEY CORRALLED THE last cart at Met Foods. “I don’t even remember what we need,” Sam admitted. “I should have made a list. I guess the whole thing was kind of unnerving.”
“Don’t worry. I can handle this. I’ve helped my mom cook Thanksgiving dinner a billion times.” Lucy filled the cart with stuffing mix, eggs, milk, potatoes, butter, even a bag of real cranberries. “Do you think she has sugar?”
“Some of those free Domino packets.”
“You get a box of sugar, I’ll get everything else.”
The baking section was stocked with dusty boxes of food coloring, mismatched sprinkles, and bricks of unsweetened chocolate. There was one box of sugar. She took it, went to look for Lucy, and found her three aisles away. At the other end, a tall, angularly beautiful woman gave Lucy the evil eye, then made sure her boyfriend was securely fastened.
There was one cashier open. The line snaked back to the other end of the store.
“Your brother’s back in town,” Lucy said.
“He must have run out of money.”
“Maybe he missed you guys?”
“A thin wallet makes the heart grow fonder,” Sam said.
“I wasn’t too mean?”
“Never feel sorry for him,�
�� Sam warned. “He senses weakness, then pounces.” She wasn’t being completely fair. Win wasn’t soulless; he was just an opportunist. “I love him. But he’s unreliable.”
“I know the type,” Lucy said.
“I wish he could figure out how to make it on his own. That sounds like I’m his mother, right? Then again, I shouldn’t talk. I live twenty minutes away from home. I barely left. I should be all the way across the country, though even then Brooke would still be stuck inside my head. I wonder if you can ever escape?”
“Just so you know, you’re nothing like her,” Lucy said.
Sam smiled, wanting to believe her. She so did.
As for Win, the problem was he broke hearts. Littered New York with them. There was that disaster with Charlotte, her best friend in eleventh grade. Poor Charlotte had ignored Sam’s warnings and snuck off to Win’s bedroom during one of their sleepovers. The next morning, her brother and her friend were giggling over Cheerios. Sam watched warily, knowing how it would end. Sure enough, a month later he dumped her. Charlotte was bereft and of course, blamed Sam.
Sam told herself Lucy was different. She had experience and better yet, she was on Sam’s side. I give thanks for this Thanksgiving, Sam thought. Those corny posters with the woman standing in front of the crashing waves are true. This is the first day of the rest of my life.
Back at the apartment, the oven was pre-heating. The turkey waited, shrouded in plastic. Brooke and Win were bent over the living room table, snorting cocaine. Brooke removed the rolled up ten-dollar bill from her nostril, Brooke rubbed the residue into her gums and said, “Sorry, Win just had enough coke for the two of us.”
What a shame, oh my, what a terrible pity. In the kitchen, Lucy was rinsing the naked, plucked bird. “Ready?” she asked.
Sam took one wing, Lucy the other. They wrestled the obstinate fowl into the aluminum pan. Lucy rubbed butter on the carcass, and then sprinkled it with salt, two packets of ground pepper, and a dash of poultry seasoning. Giggles wafted from the living room. Lucy raised a significant eyebrow as she opened the egg carton. “Can you get me a bowl? Your mom must have a bowl, right?”
Sam found several in varying heights and widths. “This one?”
“Perfect.”
Lucy cracked the eggs and whisked. She added Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix and used her fingers, molding it like clay, before shoving it into the turkey’s gutted maw.
“Done,” Lucy said. She pulled down the oven door and in went the turkey. After kicking the door shut, she reached into her breast pocket and withdrew a pack of Lucky Strikes. “I can’t believe you don’t smoke.”
Sam refrained from describing the ravages of lung cancer.
Donna Summer was calling to them from the living room. She was singing about those “bad, bad girls.” Brooke pranced.
Win winked, holding the phone. “Yeah, here, yeah, come on over,” he said into the receiver.
Lucy in tow, Sam made a beeline for her bedroom. Posters of her heroes and heroines hung on the walls, Joe Strummer, Patti Smith, and of course, Mr. Elvis Costello.
But Lucy had discovered her high school yearbooks.
“Don’t!” Sam protested.
“But I must, I must,” Lucy said, paging through junior year. “You look amazing.”
She pushed the open page toward Sam to show her. Sam was seated on a bench in Central Park. That year her hair was short and spiky and she wore her leather biker’s jacket, black jeans, and the Beatle boots she’d scored at Secondhand Rose. The caption read, Too Cool For School.
“You absolutely are, Dr. Barry. Yet here you are with little old me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am so far from cool.”
“You’re absolutely mistaken.”
“I was a prom queen. Since when are we cool?”
“Since you’re the most popular people in high school.”
“Being popular is boring and completely different from being cool.”
“I’ll let you in on a secret. Even the coolest kid wishes she could be prom queen, just once.”
“And those very same prom queens wish they were the cool kids. When you’re cool, you’re defiant. That’s how I always wished I was.”
“You aren’t exactly a pushover,” Sam said.
“You’d be surprised,” Lucy admitted. “At least back home. My room gives it away. It’s just like those curtains my mom brought with me, all pretty in pink. I always kept my mouth shut tight, what’s the point of bringing things up? I mean no one really wants to know my opinion. But you, you don’t care what other people think of you. You say your piece, regardless. And you certainly don’t smile and nod and act like some idiot guy is the boss of you because that will make him comfortable.”
“You aren’t like that,” Sam said firmly, thinking of how Lucy had turned those freshmen into dust at the West End.
Lucy opened her mouth, apparently ready to disagree.
Just then the door opened. “Sam, Mom is freaking,” Win said.
Smoke filled the hallway. Sam ran to the oven and opened it. Flames spat out. She slammed the door shut and spun the dial to off.
In the living room, Brooke waited, hapless and helpless.
“I don’t know what happened,” Brooke said mournfully.
“There was probably something in the oven. When was the last time you cleaned it, Mom?” Or even looked inside to see if anything lived there. Sam shuddered at the thought of some poor rodent burned alive.
“Where there’s smoke,” Win quipped.
Sam opened the windows, clearing the air. She felt relief, realizing that now they could simply order Chinese and leave. Win was obviously planning on a party and Sam wanted to as far away as possible when that went down.
“The poor turkey,” Brooke exclaimed, standing in the doorway watching. Her face crumpled and then she was sobbing. “I can’t do anything right.”
“Oh god,” Sam said, turning to Win. Those who do not study history, Sam thought, as Win knelt down in front of her.
“Mom, please stop,” Win tried. “It’s no big deal.”
He looked up at Sam. She met his gaze. They both knew exactly where this could go. Sam shuddered.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sam pleaded. “We can fix it. You’ll see.”
“Really?” Brooke sounded pathetically hopeful.
They weren’t having that turkey, though. The fire was smothered, but the charred bird was inedible. “I just wanted to make a nice dinner,” Brooke said, from the safety of the doorway. A sad little hiccup escaped.
Two from column A, three from column B; roasted Duck with Hoisin sauce, Moo Shu pork, a little Chow Fun, and Five Spice chicken.
“I FELL IN love with this place when I looked out this window,” Brooke explained.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” Lucy agreed.
There was a view of downtown Manhattan right out the dining room window. The twin towers, Nelson and David, ruled the island, shimmering. From here it seemed like a magical kingdom, a place where everything was possible.
Lucy deftly used her chopsticks to lift the red paper wrapper they came in and tossed it at Sam.
“You’re talented,” Win said.
“It’s what got me into Barnard. They like us to be adept.”
Brooke tittered. “What’s your opinion of my alma mater?”
“I love it,” Lucy said.
“All I get out of Sam is that it’s fine,” Brooke said. She shot a look Sam’s way and Sam avoided it, using the wrapper Lucy had thrown at her as a foil. She rolled it into a tube, then shredded it into little pieces.
“Barnard’s exceptional,” Brooke said.
Lucy nodded, smiling gamely.
“I spent the most marvelous four years there,” Brooke continued. “What are you thinking of majoring in, Lucy?”
“Philosophy,” Lucy said.
“Win considered philosophy.”
“I did?” Win said. “Where was I when this
happened?”
“Don’t joke about it,” Brooke said.
“I’m my mother’s longest running disappointment,” Win said.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Brooke insisted. “You’re experimenting, everyone does. You’ll find yourself. It just takes time.”
“A lifetime,” Win quipped.
Brooke winced. “Not everyone is as directed as Sam. She always knew she was going to become a doctor. Remember that pigeon she brought home?”
“I remember you freaking out about it,” Win said.
“She thought she could nurse it back to health. She’s always been so sentimental, so humane. Even with that nasty, rabid bird.”
“It wasn’t rabid,” Sam said. “It was a baby pigeon.”
“The babies are carriers too,” Brooke said. “But of course you’re such a Good Samaritan. Has Sam told you how she volunteered at the local hospital and worked for Planned Parenthood last summer? She’s just as good with science as with math. All her teachers were in awe. She could be the next Marie Curie.”
“I think not,” Sam said, drily.
“Can’t a mother boast?”
“Veering closer to the truth would help.” Sam speared a dumpling.
“I’m proud of both of my children,” Brooke told Lucy.
“God knows what you’re proud of me for,” Win threw out.
“Stop it!” Brooke hissed.
There was an awkward silence.
Lucy broke in, saying, “I was looking at the photographs. You know everyone. It’s so incredible.”
Win caught Sam’s eye.
“Did you always want to be an actress?” Lucy continued.
“It was the only thing I ever wanted.”
“How did you get the courage? I hate being on stage and having people look at me.”
“You hate having people look at you? I find that hard to believe,” Brooke said.
“It’s true.” Sam knocked knees with Lucy under the table, a silent thank you.
“Really?” Brooke smiled. “In my case there were objections. My mother believed that acting was beneath me. Luckily, my father was always supportive. He told me that I should follow my heart. He was a dear man. An angel.”
Win smiled at Sam. They knew the rest of the speech by heart.
