The Oakdale Dinner Club

by Kim Moritsugu

  Alex’s warm hand touched her arm. “Mommy?”

  She woke. Alex was standing by the bed. Her bedside clock showed she’d slept for ten minutes. She sat up, unfastened the Band-Aid, refastened it looser.

  “I need a hug,” Alex said. He climbed onto the bed and put his arms around her neck. He was a good hugger, always had been.

  She hugged him back. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. And after a second, “Grandma Adele is here.”

  This time, Danielle didn’t swear. She released Alex from the hug, and told him nicely to go play. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, slipped into her shoes, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, applied eye pencil and lipstick.

  She went downstairs and outside and greeted Adele, who stood on the grass in front of the house, dressed in her idea of country clothes — a Barbour jacket over pressed chinos and leather lace-up shoes, accessorized with a walking stick.

  “Hello, darling.” Adele kissed her on both cheeks. “It’s so thoughtful of you and Benny to include me in this party. I rarely have the chance to experience life à la campagne.”

  “Weren’t you visiting friends in the Hamptons this summer?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the real thing. This is far more salt of the earth.” She gestured with her stick toward the peeling wood fence around Danielle’s kitchen garden, the stacks of plastic planters lined up beside the nearest greenhouse.

  “I hope you’re not expecting an elaborate meal.”

  “Oh no. I came out here for the company, and the fresh air. I rarely eat lunch these days. It becomes so difficult to keep one’s figure.” She patted her stout waist, the same stout waist she’d had for years.

  “You came all the way out here and you’re not going to eat?”

  “Maybe a nibble. When Ethan and Alex have stopped running around in circles like little cochons, would you bring them to me to say hello?”

  Benny stepped in then, forestalled the rude retort Danielle had been about to utter, took Adele on the farm tour, offered her a glass of wine, and installed her in a chair under a shady tree that afforded a view of the arrival of Benny’s relatives up the driveway. There was no question of Adele helping Danielle in the kitchen. Adele didn’t help in her own kitchen.

  Benny’s sisters helped, though. Or rather, planted themselves on Danielle’s side of the counter, hands full of jumbo-size Tupperware containers stuffed with cake and jello, and said, “What can I do?” and, “Are those mussels? My Joe doesn’t touch shellfish,” and “Everything looks good, but what’s Dad going to eat?” They polished off the gravlax and pumpernickel in minutes, got in her way when she was trying to drain the spaghetti (three pots of it), asked her could she set aside some plain noodles for little Clarissa, and was there any white bread one of them could slice — you know how Dad likes his bread — and a cutting board, and a bread knife, and by the way, did that good-smelling pasta sauce have wine in it, because Joe didn’t touch wine, either.

  Somewhere in there, Benny’s parents arrived. They did not come in to say hello first. Benny’s mother Margaret sat Murray down alone at the head of the long outdoor table, placed his napkin in his lap, found Danielle, and said, “Is lunch ready? Murray likes to eat promptly at noon.”

  “The food’s laid out buffet-style inside,” Danielle said. “You can help yourselves.”

  “I’ll make Murray a plate,” Margaret said. “Show me where.”

  In the serving area, Benny’s sisters were running amok. “I hope you don’t mind,” one said. “The kids were hungry, so I took the plastic covering off the platters, and told them to go ahead. Did I miss anything?”

  Danielle hid her irritation and checked the buffet. Everything was out that should be — the plain food for the kids and whoever else wanted it, the spaghetti mixed with the sauce and piping hot, dishes, serving utensils, napkins, drinks. All that was missing was Alex’s food, which was hidden away, so that people who could eat anything on the table wouldn’t grab his gluten-free items and leave him with nothing. It had happened before. Alex’s food and the salad were all she needed to get. She asked Benny to look after Alex, and she emptied the prewashed greens into a restaurant-sized salad bowl, tossed them with the blood-orange vinaigrette, and brought the bowl outside.

  At the table, she noticed that Murray’s plate was filled with cold meat, cheese, and bread, looked to see if Adele had taken a large portion of pasta (she had), saw that her kids were content, and tried not to scowl when Benny stood up and tapped his water glass with a knife.

  “Now listen up, everyone,” he said, and people laughed because the dogs picked that moment to bark, in chorus, from the kennels. When the barking had died down, Benny said, “I’d like to read a poem I’ve written in honour of this meal.”

  “But please eat the hot food,” Danielle said, “before it gets cold.”

  “Yes, don’t stop eating, just listen,” Benny unfolded his piece of paper. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” someone yelled, and Benny’s sister Theo leaned over and said, “This salad is absolutely divine, Danielle.”

  “Okay,” Benny said. “Here goes: The day is fine / The sky is blue / My beautiful wife / Has cooked for you.”

  The family broke out into applause and bravos, aimed in Danielle’s direction.

  She lied. “It was my pleasure.”

  Benny held up a finger. “I’m not finished. There’s another verse: We may not be rich / But when we eat like this / We forget our troubles / And know the meaning of bliss.”

  “Amen,” Murray said, amid more applause, as Benny mouthed the words thank you to Danielle and sat down, and Adele directed a condescending smile into her wine glass.

  Theo said, “Has everyone tried the salad? These greens with this dressing are amazing! It’s the best salad I’ve ever eaten. You have to try it.”

  Murray shook his head. “I don’t eat raw food.” As if no one knew this already.

  Adele didn’t know. “Why is that?”

  Murray launched into a speech about his dietary beliefs, and Theo passed around the salad bowl until it was empty.

  “Is there any more inside?” Benny asked Danielle, at the same time as Ethan asked for more apple juice, and Alex announced that he wasn’t hungry, but could he still have dessert later?

  Danielle took the salad bowl and Alex’s plate into the kitchen, fetched some apple juice for Ethan, and found more greens, unwashed, piled up in a strainer on the counter. To wash them and spin them now, and dry them — by the time she did all that, lunch would be finished. Of course, she could always go out and admit that there was no more. Publicly reveal herself as an incompetent meal planner, in other words. Or she could simply shake the greens — they weren’t that dirty — pat them dry with paper towels, throw them in the bowl, toss them with vinaigrette, take the whole mess outside, and hope no one would notice.

  When she walked onto the lawn with a glass of apple juice in one hand and the replenished salad bowl in the other, she heard Adele say, “But surely you’re sacrificing a wealth of taste experiences based on unfounded superstitions. Are you willing to spend the rest of your life eating grey vegetables and stewed fruit? Are you willing to never again know the crunch of a raw apple, the snap of a fresh snow pea?”

  Murray’s jaw jutted forward. His bushy eyebrows lowered. He made a low rumbling sound that might have signified he was clearing his throat.

  Danielle held up the bowl. “Anyone for more salad?”

  “Give me some,” Murray said.

  Margaret waved her hands back and forth in front of her. “No, Murray! You can’t eat that.”

  “I’ll try some, and we’ll see what happens,” Murray said. “We’ll just see.”

  A trick of the mind took Danielle back to her dream. She saw herself standing over the pasta sauce, dripping blood from her finger into the pot. The scene changed, and she dreamt that Murray brought a forkful of salad up to hi
s mouth. A few clustered leaves of mache went in first, followed by a dangling piece of pale green frisée from which a large potato bug hung. Danielle gasped, then laughed when the bug hopped off the frisée and onto Murray’s chin. She laughed out loud, the hearty laugh of a sleeping dreamer. But her laugh was cut off by screams. From where?

  Oh. From everyone who stood around the table, yelling and gesticulating. In the real world.

  16

  November 2010

  Melina hadn’t applied to any big deal, hard-to-get-into colleges. There was no point, since her grades had slipped during her junior year, when she’d gone a little alternative and partied too much. Both Mary Ann and Alice had been cool about it, and acted as if they hardly noticed the changing colours of Melina’s hair, makeup, nail polish, and clothes. An attitude Melina’s parents should have adopted if they’d wanted to lower the stress level at home.

  Now that she was back in the land of the semi-normal, her hair dyed to a shade of brown found within nature, her grades were good again, her SAT scores were better, and she was applying to some colleges not too far away, like Syracuse.

  She told Alice about her applications when she came to babysit on a Saturday night. Alice was on her way out to a movie with Mrs. MacAllister from downstairs.

  “But why so close to home?” Alice said. “I thought you wanted to go away. Why aren’t you applying out of state?”

  “I wouldn’t be living at home in Syracuse. And going out of state isn’t exciting. I’ve been to South Carolina. It’s the world I want to see.”

  “So why don’t you attend college out of the country?”

  “We can’t afford it. Just to live in residence at Syracuse, I’ll need to use all my babysitting savings, work at a real job in the summer, and work part-time next year.”

  “Weren’t you saving your babysitting money for a graduation trip to Europe?”

  “Yeah, but things changed.” Melina didn’t feel like going into the details her dad had told her about their financial position — the mortgage, the insurance costs, how they needed to replace her mom’s car, how business at the hardware store had declined since the discount superstore had opened up a half-hour drive away.

  “I wish I could help you somehow,” Alice said.

  Melina wished so, too.

  In the car on the way to the movie theatre, Sarah said to Alice, “Thank you for doing me a favour and coming out tonight.”

  “I owe you many favours, I know, but I’m doing this because I’ve resolved to go out more than twice a year. From now on, I’m going to make an effort to indulge in an occasional diversion.”

  “That’s a good goal. But if you want some advice, choose your diversions with care. I recently joined a dance committee at the country club for something to do, and after one meeting, I’m in despair.”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “You should have seen the committee members: there was a pushy, know-it-all, retired businesswoman who squirmed out of taking on a single task. And an Idea Lady, who proposed one outlandish suggestion after another, then complained when they were rejected. And the shady operator, a man who had a friend who could supply a sound system, a cousin who could underprice the caterer, and a son who could take photos for cheap. Too late I remembered that one of the best things about working in real estate was being on my own.”

  Alice signalled her turn into the theatre parking lot. “I’m not too keen on meetings, either. When I’m forced to go to them, I’m always trying to move them along, speed them up, get them over with, so I can go back to my office and be alone.”

  “Oh, Alice,” Sarah said. “We always were alike.”

  At noon on the Sunday after Benny’s family party, Danielle answered the phone.

  “Hi, Danielle, it’s Mary Ann. How’d your party go?”

  “It went well. Except for the part when a bug crawled out of the salad and onto my father-in-law’s face.”

  “Really? What a scream.”

  “People did scream.”

  “And you laughed, I hope.”

  “I started to, but I had to stop myself when I saw the horrified faces all around me.”

  “I’ll never forget making barbecued corn one time — in the husk — and serving it to a client of Bob’s. The guy was a real pompous ass. I had laugh behind my napkin when he unwrapped his corn and found a worm wriggling inside.”

  “Did the client think it was funny? Or your husband?”

  “No, but I did.”

  “Well, it took me a whole day of apologizing, but by the time the family left they’d resumed speaking to me.” Though Danielle’s favourite part of the day had been right after lunch, when Adele had told her that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so much at a party.

  “And will you still be speaking to me if I come out there this afternoon with my kids to choose a puppy? Say no if you can’t stand the thought of any more people traipsing through after yesterday.”

  “By all means, come over. And if you like clams and mussels, I’ve got leftovers you could take home.”

  Benny and the boys went down to meet the Grays in the driveway. From the doorway of the house, Danielle recognized Kayla, saw two older boys who must be her brothers, and last out of the car was a man Danielle had met briefly at the second dinner club evening, and whose name she’d forgotten. Danielle walked over, wearing a hospitable smile. Later, she’d ask them to stay for ice cream.

  Alex said to Kayla, “You can’t have Hero, we’re keeping him.”

  Benny said, “I’m afraid one of the puppies is accounted for. But there are five others to choose from.”

  “Hi, Danielle,” Mary Ann said. “You know Kayla, these big guys are Josh and Griffin, and Sam is an experienced dog owner, so we brought him along as a consultant.”

  So that was his name: Sam.

  He said, “Great place you’ve got here, Danielle. Mary Ann was telling me about the produce-growing operation on the way out. I’d love to take a look at it later, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.”

  “But first, to the kennels!” said Benny and led the kids off around the side of the house.

  Danielle brought up the rear with Mary Ann and Sam, realized who he was, and said, “You’re Sam the Samosa King!”

  “Now dethroned. How did you know?”

  “Your wife told me.” Danielle looked at Mary Ann. “That woman Hallie is Sam’s wife, isn’t she? Or am I mixed up?”

  Mary Ann said, “You know, Sam, I’m not so sure you should have left the food business. Did you try those dumplings Sam made at the last dinner club, Danielle? They were scrumptious.”

  All five kids were inside the kennel now, being jumped on by the puppies. Mary Ann, Sam, and Danielle stood outside, leaning on the fence.

  “I enjoyed cooking for the dinner club,” Sam said, “but I feel pretty far removed from the prepared-food scene these days.”

  Danielle stared over the fence, unseeing. “Prepared food is such a wonderful concept. What could be more like paradise than not having to make dinner every night?”

  “Even more so nowadays,” Sam said. “That segment of the market has really grown.”

  Kayla called out, “Mommy, all the puppies are so cute! I can’t decide.” Even her surly brothers were down on their knees in front of the dogs, letting their faces be licked.

  “The problem is,” Danielle said, “that every time I bring home purchased food, Benny doesn’t like it. He says I could make it better, he thinks it doesn’t taste right, or it upsets his stomach. So he won’t eat it. Unfortunately.”

  Sam said, “A connoisseur of your cooking, is he?”

  “Uh-oh,” Mary Ann said. “Sam is getting that how-can-I-use-this-in-my-novel look. Watch what you say, Danielle, unless you want to read about yourself in Sam’s book when it’s published.”

  Book? What book? Then Danielle remembered Hallie dismissing it, calling it “Murder in the Kitchen, or some awful thing.”
>
  “If the book’s ever published, you mean,” Sam said.

  Mary Ann gave Sam’s arm a playful slap. Or was it a loving tap? “Don’t say that! It will be.”

  “Mom, come see,” Kayla said. “Help us choose.”

  Mary Ann and Sam entered the fenced area, waded into the dogs and kids.

  “It’s the best idea,” Danielle said, “to have someone else prepare your meals. The best.”

  But what with the kids’ voices raised in excitement, and the barking of the dogs, no one heard her.

  Alice called Jake, got tongue-tied, left a lame message saying she wanted to know how he was and could he call her when he had a chance. And she did not jump every time her phone rang for the rest of the day. She busied herself with work instead, so she wouldn’t be sitting and waiting for a call like a desperate single woman in a bad romantic comedy. She took care of some paperwork, checked her emails, and opened one titled “Silver Lining” from her former colleague in England, name of Roger.

  Roger’s message was excited, full of exclamation marks. A medieval church in a Tuscan village had been destroyed by fire — a tragedy, of course, in terms of the loss of

  the building and the priceless frescoes it contained — but a godsend to Roger, who had been wanting to excavate the site for years, since theorizing in his doctoral dissertation that a long-lost Hellenic shrine to Apollo had stood on the same ground.

  He wrote:

  In case you were wondering, I did NOT arrange for the fire to be set! But if I can slash my way through the government red tape, my excavation of the site will start next summer. Care to join me for it?

  Alice read the message once, twice, and quit the mail window without replying. Of course she couldn’t go. Much as she’d love to. Did anything sound better than a summer in Italy, an exciting site, her old digging friends, a farmhouse they would rent for the season, an outdoor garden where they could drink wine and eat good food after a hard day’s work? Was that the life, or what? Her former life. Her before-Lavinia life.