Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  I found I didn’t mind as much as I had expected to. After Dad’s death I retreated into the cocoon of Berkeley, grateful for the support of commune life. My father was dead, my mother was manic, and my husband was away, but in Berkeley I had another family.

  It was, at the moment, slightly larger than usual because it included Ellen Frank, one of the many people who turned up periodically on Channing Way. Ellen never outstayed her welcome as others often did; one friend was with us for a year before we told him it was time he found a place of his own. But Ellen came when the weather back East got cold, spent a few weeks, and then moved on to Santa Monica and other friends. And she was a very good guest.

  “I bought some shrimp,” she said, walking in with a bag one day. “Let’s make a big curry for dinner.”

  “I love curry,” said Jules, coming into the kitchen and washing his hands. “I’ll peel the shrimp.”

  I was tempted, but I had work to do. “Count me out,” I said reluctantly. “I have to go research an article I’m writing about restaurants at the top of big buildings. The food will be terrible; it’s almost impossible to get a good meal with a view.”

  “Cancel your reservations and go tomorrow,” said Ellen. “The shrimp won’t keep.” She saw me hesitating and added, “If you put it off a day, I’ll come with you.”

  “Me too,” said Jules.

  “You’ll both have to bring guests,” I warned them, reaching for the phone.

  “Gee, how are we ever going to find people willing to go out and eat a fancy free dinner?” said Jules as Ellen began melting butter in a skillet. She added chopped onions and an apple, then stirred in turmeric, cumin, ground cardamom, and some chilies. As the aroma began to fill the kitchen Ellen turned and said, “Remember that cute guy I met last time I was in town? Can we invite him for dinner?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The investigative reporter,” she said. “The one who works at your magazine. He did that piece on nuclear terrorism, the one that started on the cover and everybody made such a fuss about.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Him. Michael Singer. I’m all for improving your love life, but I hardly know the guy.”

  Jules put down his shrimp and said, “I know him. I’ll call.”

  In those years there was always enough for one more, but just to be on the safe side I made extra rice. Nick went out to get another gallon of wine, and Susan bought an extra loaf of bread. By the time Michael Singer walked in with a bottle of wine under his arm, ten people were tapping their toes in the kitchen, dancing and chopping while Muddy Waters blasted at full roar. As I wiggled my hips and stirred the curry I thought how lucky I was to live in such a lively house.

  I could see why Ellen had remembered Michael; he was good-looking in a macho way that was rare in Berkeley. He had a barrel chest and slim hips and he walked with a kind of swagger, as if he were a gift to the women of the world. When he held out the bottle and asked, “Got a corkscrew?” I felt myself swell with irrational irritation.

  “Real wine,” I heard myself say. “Can the people stand it?”

  He was not fazed. “The people?” he threw back at me. “You’re a restaurant critic, aren’t you? That’s not exactly the people’s profession.”

  “I may write about the life of leisure,” I replied, “but I don’t live it. And I’ll have you know that the hospitality industry is America’s largest employer.”

  “I see,” he said, laughing. “You write about restaurants to keep all those nice people employed. How silly of me not to have known that you had a serious political mission.”

  He opened the wine, pulling the cork as if it were the pop-top on a can of beer. He flexed his fingers, reveling in his strength, and I saw that he had the sexual confidence of a big cat. He seemed to be sucking up all the air in the room, and Ellen was preening and purring as if she were in heat. I was embarrassed for her, and then embarrassed for women everywhere. Who did he think he was?

  “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that you might deign to set the table?”

  “Just point me to the silverware,” he replied, laughing at me. “Jules and I were in the same men’s consciousness-lowering group. I think I can handle that.”

  “I’ll bet,” I retorted, rather lamely, and returned to stirring the pot. By the time we got to dessert and I was asking if there was anyone who didn’t want ice cream on the apple pie, all he had to say was, “None for me” to make me reply, “Watching our weight, are we?” And for him to shoot back, “Yeah, you got a problem with that? All of us aren’t quite as disciplined as you are.”

  * * *

  “What was that about?” Ellen asked when he left.

  “What?” I asked, even though I knew perfectly well what she meant. I had barely recognized myself.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know him. You acted as if you’ve been hating each other for years.”

  “A man like that you can hate on first sight,” I replied.

  “Well, please don’t hate him too much,” she said. “Because I asked him to come to dinner with us tomorrow night.”

  “Oh no!” I said, although the thought of seeing him again thrilled me.

  “Well, you said I should bring a friend. He’s it.”

  “Some friend,” I said.

  “He’s so cute,” she protested.

  “Not my type,” I replied. “You’ll notice he did not offer to do the dishes.”

  * * *

  Michael Singer was standing by the glass elevator at the St. Francis Hotel, wearing a suit and tie. “Figures,” I muttered to Ellen, “a radical in a suit. What a phony.”

  “God he’s good-looking” was all she said.

  I ran my eyes over him, searching for a flaw. “His feet are too small” was what I came up with.

  “Look at his hands,” she said. They were so big they swallowed up the reporter’s pad he was holding as he inclined toward a middle-aged couple, writing as they spoke. “For those prices,” I heard when we reached him, “they should put paper umbrellas on the drinks. You’re absolutely right. And the view?”

  “Oh,” the woman said, patting the navy silk dress that pulled too tightly across her stomach, “that was worth every penny. They sure don’t have anything like that in Iowa.” She gave Michael a big smile, touched his arm tentatively, as if she knew him, and said, “You be good, hear?” as she and her husband walked away.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him.

  “Trying to be helpful,” he said, showing me his pad. “I was early.”

  “I bet you always are,” I heard myself say.

  “Yes,” he said curtly, “I am. It’s rude to be late.”

  “So now I’m rude,” I said.

  “You are,” he said. “But if you can manage to let me say something, I interviewed these people to get you some color.”

  “Look,” I said coldly. “If I need local color, I can manage on my own. Let me worry about my work; you’re just here as a hired mouth.”

  Taking Ellen’s arm he swept into the elevator and pushed a button. The door shut in my face, and as the car ascended I could hear him laughing. From the glass cage he gave a jaunty salute. Ellen looked very happy.

  I gritted my teeth and got into the next elevator. “What a jerk!” I said, punching the button. By the time I reached the top, Ellen and Michael were already seated at a big table by the window with Jules and his date. Michael was obviously enjoying himself; his arm was draped loosely over the back of Ellen’s chair and he was laughing a big, boisterous laugh. As I approached the table he jumped up and poured wine into the glasses all around him, like a gracious host.

  “I see you didn’t wait to order wine,” I said. I had meant the words to be light and easy, but they sounded sour.

  “Anyone who’s late,” said Michael easily, handing me a glass, “has to accept the consequences.”

  “Even if she’s paying?” I asked.

  “Especially if she’s paying,” he
said. “It’s only money, and it’s not even yours.”

  I sat down in the only available seat, directly across from Michael. He held up his glass, mockingly clinked it against mine, and said, “Welcome.” I had invited everyone to dinner, but he had appropriated the party. I tried to ignore him, but he pointed out the window where the sun was starting to set, spreading a pink glow across the city sprawled at our feet. “It’s so beautiful,” he said, his tone suddenly reverent.

  “And all it costs is money,” I said. Even to me it sounded mean.

  Michael shot me a dark look. “Am I the only person here who’s hungry?” he asked.

  “No, but you’re the only person impolite enough to talk about it. I bet you’re used to eating at six,” I shot back.

  “Where I grew up,” he said, “we ate at five.”

  * * *

  What did we eat? I can’t remember. Just drinking wine and more wine as the conversation flowed around me. He talks a lot, I thought and had a sudden vision of Doug, so silent, sitting across from me as I struggled to keep the conversation going. I looked up, startled to find Michael staring at me. He was talking as he watched me, shouldering the conversation that eddied around us like water, like silk. After a while he wasn’t talking anymore either, and we were just staring at each other.

  “Let’s go.” He was the one who said it; I didn’t even like the guy. But I stood up and walked out with him, just like that. And when the elevator doors closed and he pulled me to him, my heart lurched with the elevator, and I melted into him. We stood in that glass cage, locked together, going down. I had left my friends at the table holding the bill, but I was suspended in the air, flying, in the grip of something I did not understand and did not question. In the morning I had one strong thought: This is going to hurt.

  But by then it was too late.

  * * *

  He lived in North Beach, in a third-story walk-up apartment over Malvina’s coffee shop. When we went downstairs for coffee he borrowed ten dollars from Franco, the owner, and stopped at each table to talk. He promised one woman to go running with her the following morning. She asked if he would crack her back before he left, and when he did a sharp arrow of jealousy shot through me. He seemed to touch everyone he passed: a dark man who asked if he’d meet him for a drink that night, and a couple who invited him for dinner the following week. And when a little girl sitting with her parents tugged on his shirt as he walked by, Michael knelt down beside her, took her hand, and said, “Hello, sweetheart, still waiting for me?” She nodded, her big green eyes looking worshipfully into his.

  But at our table he kept his hands to himself, and his eyes were masked, guarded. When I tried to touch his hand, he withdrew it, and when he finally looked at me, I shivered. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I can survive another affair with a married woman,” he said.

  “So don’t,” I replied, and walked out, past all those people he had touched. I could feel my face burning, a slow fire just above my cheekbones. There’s probably one of me every morning, I thought as I tried to remember where I had parked my car.

  * * *

  Nobody on Channing Way said much, but Ellen walked around looking miffed for a few days, and it was easy to imagine what she was thinking. Jules was the same as ever, but when I tried to draw him out about Michael he just turned away. Nick made it very clear that he couldn’t understand what I was up to. It was that pre-AIDS time when people did not judge each other, and I knew that none of them would say anything to Doug. Still, knowing that my friends disapproved did not make me feel good.

  But all I had to do was think of those big hands and my heart went swooping down an interior roller coaster. I replayed moments of that night, over and over, and they never lost their thrill. When I went to write “Rooms at the Top,” I found myself searching through my purse for the interviews Michael had done. I inserted them into the article, just to spite him, but found they gave the piece new life. Remembering that couple from Iowa, how excited they were to have seen the view, changed the article for me. I started seeing the restaurant with their eyes. In fact, I liked having their opinions so much that I began to do interviews myself when I went to other restaurants.

  But I didn’t have Michael’s ease with people, and I was awkward in my approach. After a while I discovered a trick: All I had to do was pretend to be my mother, a person who could ride a bus and know everyone’s life story before she got off. “People like to talk about themselves,” she always said. To her, and to Michael, they did.

  * * *

  I knew he would call. I sprang for the phone each time it rang. He had to call. Surely, I thought to myself, this kind of connection doesn’t happen that often, even to him. I lost my appetite. I dreamed of him. I waited for him to call.

  He didn’t. I began thinking up excuses to call him. Could I have left something at his house? No, too transparent. I couldn’t just invite him for dinner. What could I ask his advice about?

  In the end, I just called. “Hi, it’s Ruth.”

  His voice was distant. “Yes.”

  “Do you remember me?”

  “Yes.” It had gotten icy.

  “I’d like to see you again.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do this, Ruth. There’s nothing in it for me.”

  It was like being splashed with ice water. He hung up, and I wished I could recapture the past few minutes, rewind them so they hadn’t happened. How could I have made such a fool of myself? I was trying to rationalize all this, organize my thoughts, make some excuse, when the phone rang.

  “That’s not exactly true,” he said, no less coldly. “I do want to see you. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Could we talk about it?” I asked, grasping.

  “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “Why don’t you meet me at the Savoy Tivoli.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “How soon can you get there?”

  I calculated. Half an hour on the bridge, a few minutes to park. . . “An hour?” I said.

  “An hour,” he said.

  “I’ll be on time,” I said, trying for lightness. “I know how much you hate it when people are late.”

  He did not laugh. “It always has consequences,” he said.

  * * *

  He was sitting at the bar when I walked in, wearing a navy blue shirt and rimless glasses that gave him an intellectual air. He was fingering a glass of scotch, joking with the bartender. He was laughing, but when he turned and saw me the laugh died and he looked grim. I thought of some apocalyptic figure; this was not a guy who took things lightly.

  He touched my hand. He slid off the bar stool and grabbed me, kissing my mouth and then pressing his whole body against mine so the electricity went everywhere. Without releasing me he threw some crumpled bills on the bar, said, “Forget about drinks,” and walked me out the door and down the street.

  When we got to his building he opened the door, pushed me inside and up against a wall. It was still light, and we were standing on the staircase, but he put his hand up my shirt and rubbed my breasts so hard that it hurt. I threw my whole weight on him and we began tearing off our clothes.

  “No, wait,” he said, pulling me up the stairs. We stopped on each landing, so that by the time we reached his door we were completely naked, and when the door closed behind us we fell on the floor and made love with a sort of gentle violence I had never experienced before. When we were done he pulled me into the bedroom and we sank onto the bed and did it again. And again. Finally, exhausted, we fell asleep.

  I woke up feeling that I had entered a foreign country I had read about but never before visited. I had been living with my best friend, my brother; sex with Doug had never been an important part of our relationship. Sleeping with Colman had not been the main point either. With Michael, I felt I was in new territory, in the grip of some force larger than myself. It was as if all the ions inside of us yearned toward each other, and for the first time
in my life my body felt completely awake, as if it was in the place that it was meant to be.

  Michael ran his hands gently, lovingly, across my face. “I can’t do this,” he said, not angry anymore. “I can’t give my heart to a woman who’s not available.”

  “Very sensible,” I said, turning to kiss him.

  “I won’t see you again,” he said.

  “Fine,” I replied, and we made love so sweetly that I found myself crying at the end.

  We went to dinner afterward and he told me how the civil rights movement had changed his life, and then the war in Vietnam had goaded him into action. “I joined a collective of antiwar filmmakers and lived out of cartons, sleeping on people’s floors,” he said happily. When he talked about the movement it sounded wonderful, exciting, and I asked myself what I had been doing while he was following his conscience.

  After dinner we went back to his house and, because it was the last time, I stayed the night. We talked until it was light. In the morning we went to the coffee shop, and although he had a word for everyone, I somehow wasn’t jealous. Even when he made a date to go running with a woman with long blond hair and good legs it didn’t bother me. He went off to get us cappuccinos, and when he came back he kissed the top of my head as he placed the cup in front of me.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this happy,” he said. “Once,” he added thoughtfully, “when I was eight years old, I asked my mother why I was so unhappy.”

  “You knew you were unhappy at eight?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I would go to my friends’ houses and see what nice lives they all had. In my house all we ever did was fight. But all my mother said was ‘Where is it written that you should be happy?’ ”