Bread on Arrival

by Lou Jane Temple

  She opened the refrigerator and took out a large bottle of Chimay, the Belgian beer. Heaven didn’t usually drink beer but she knew both Hank and Iris liked this ale. She found a tray and loaded it with plates, cutlery, and glasses. Then she remembered something and went back to the refrigerator. She found half of a green tomato and apple pie that she had made on Sunday. September was a time when tomatoes were coming out of everyone’s ears in Kansas City. Heaven had several plants in the alley behind the cafe. It was easy to pick some green for this tart pie.

  Just as Heaven was getting ready to mount the stairs with her bounty, the phone rang. She picked up the kitchen phone, dreading a problem at the restaurant or worse, a call from the hospital where Hank was a resident, summoning him back to work. It was neither.

  “Heaven, love, that you?”

  Heaven felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Yes, Stuart, its me. What are you doing up so early? It must be the crack of dawn in England. Or haven’t you been to bed yet?”

  There was a hollow laugh from the other end of the line. “No, love, those days are long gone, except when we do the occasional concert, you know. Iris keeps me on the straight and narrow now. I can hardly wait for her to get back over here. Can I speak to the darling girl, Heaven?”

  Heaven felt the bile rising in her throat. “Just a minute, Stuart,” she put the phone on hold and took a deep breath. Then, trying hard to control the tone of her voice she called up the stairs, “Iris, the phone is for you.” She sat down at the big table and listened to her daughter’s delight when she picked up the call. Her laughter drifted down the stairs. Heaven held her breath, listening.

  Suddenly Huy Wing, who was called Hank only by his Anglo friends and at the hospital, appeared beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

  “Heaven, why do you disapprove of Iris and this Stuart being a couple?”

  Heaven flared. “Oh, I don’t know. Could it be that he’s as old as her father, that he’s a member of her father’s band, her father’s song writing partner, that he’s the most notorious bass player and drug user and womanizer in the history of rock and roll? Could that have something to do with it? When Dennis asked if Iris could go to college in England I agreed because Dennis has always been a good father and he had cleaned up his act. Now I wish I’d never let her go.”

  Hank rubbed her neck soothingly. “Wait a minute. Stop right there. Has that changed? Hasn’t Dennis been good to Iris? Hasn’t he stayed clean?”

  “Apart from the expensive French wine with dinner, he’s sober as a judge,” Heaven conceded.

  “And hasn’t Stuart cleaned up his act, too? And couldn’t Iris have found a boyfriend you didn’t approve of right here in Kansas City? The two things, Iris going to school in England and getting to be with her father, and her having a boyfriend you don’t like, are unrelated.”

  “This isn’t a boyfriend. This guy has to be close to fifty.” As soon as those words were out of her mouth, Heaven realized how ridiculous that must have sounded. After all, she was close to fifty and Hank, well, Hank wasn’t. What was the difference? She kept quiet though, hoping Hank wouldn’t bust her. Hank was too smart to let her get by with it.

  Hank reached down and kissed Heaven’s neck. She felt a rush of heat move down her body. “And what do we say about my mother and her reluctance to accept our relationship?” Hank asked softly.

  Heaven felt the heat turn into a blush. Why did Hank always have to be so damn clear-headed? It was just like him to bring up his mother, to point out the similarities in the two situations. “We say she doesn’t understand how real, how genuine, our feelings for each other are.” Surely Stuart couldn’t love Iris the way she loved Hank. She stood up and picked up the tray of plates and food and beer. “I can’t help it. I know this guy too well. I don’t want Iris to be…”

  Hank took the tray from Heaven “Hurt? I have to speak up for Iris by telling you how I would feel. You are older than I am, yes. What would hurt me more? The chance of you breaking my heart or not being able to be with you at all? I can tell you I want to take my chances, and if Iris is in love so does she. No one can predict the future. I learned that the day I left Vietnam when I was four. Iris could just as easily break this Stuart’s heart.”

  A happy voice yelled from upstairs, “Hey, where’re the forks? I’m starving!”

  Heaven followed Hank to the stairs. Or you could just as easily break mine, she thought. “So what you’re telling me is, chill out?”

  “What I’m telling you is I love you and yes, chill out.”

  Green Tomato and Apple Pie

  Your favorite pie crust recipe, enough for a two-crust pie

  1 cup sugar

  ¼ tsp. kosher salt

  ½ tsp. cinnamon

  1 T. grated lemon zest

  2 cups peeled, cored, and thinly sliced apple, ‘Early Jonathan’ or ‘Granny Smith’

  2 cups thinly sliced green tomatoes

  2 T. lemon juice

  ½ cup sweet unsalted butter

  1 egg white

  Line your pie pan with dough. Combine sugar, salt, zest, and cinnamon. As you slice the apples, drop them in a separate bowl containing the lemon juice so they won’t turn brown. Slice the tomatoes in a separate bowl. At this point you should have three bowls going, one with the sugar mixture, one with tomatoes, one with apples. Toss the apples with half of the sugar mixture, the tomatoes with the other half. Layer them in the pie pan and dot with butter. Place your top crust and brush with egg white. Bake for approximately 50 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Check it once in a while; it never hurts to turn baked goods halfway through the process in case your oven has a hot spot (most of them do).

  Four

  Patrick Sullivan reached in his bottom desk drawer for the bottle of cognac. Placed there for medicinal emergencies, Patrick knew this didn’t exactly qualify as a life-or-death situation. He pulled it out anyway.

  Going to the registration and opening reception for the bread conference had been a less-than-positive experience. Wherever he looked, there was a chef or baker he wanted to meet. When he went up and introduced himself and they saw his name tag, most would smile politely, say hello, and walk away. That was most. Then there was that woman from Chicago who flat out asked him how he had the nerve to show his face. He tried the old “we-have-to-feed-billions-of-people-on-this-planet-and-they-can’t-all-afford-expensive-artisan-bread” line on her. She had countered with, “take some of those gross profits you make and help establish village ovens in third world countries. Poor people shouldn’t buy bread, especially bread that isn’t good for them,” she said. “Poor people used to survive without BIG BREAD and it would be better for everyone if they did again,” she said.

  Patrick had smiled and told her the village oven idea was a good one, that he would pass it on. In his hurry to get away from her, he turned and stumbled into a worse situation. Several of the ARTOS board members were in a huddle with some of the Kansas City host committee members. They were quite upset about the proposed tour of the BIG BREAD facility that was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Why would anyone want to go into that den of iniquity, they asked. This was just the kind of bread that had ruined the country, that the ARTOS organization was out to eradicate, they said.

  Having walked into this group, the Kansas City host committee members now looked at Patrick for some help. “Let me remind you ladies and gentlemen that you all have production issues in the course of creating your own hearth-style breads,” Patrick had said cordially. “The Kansas City committee thought that it might be interesting to all of you to see how the largest bread manufacturer in the United States does it. After all, you came here to experience things you can’t find in New York City.”

  That had mollified the snippy New Yorkers and had saved the host committee from humiliation. But Patrick could tell they hated him. All of them. In his former life, as a chef, he had always been judged for what he produced. It was mano y mano, something between you and the g
uest. Now he was the symbol of a whole company. He could be the nicest guy in Kansas City and they would still hate him for making white bread for the masses.

  Patrick poured a heavy shot of cognac into his office coffee mug. It was after five o’clock. He could hear the exodus of the office workers outside his door. Patrick imagined them all going home to loving husbands and wives, well-mannered and intelligent children, clean and beautifully decorated homes. He was lonely. He had been married once, in college. He hadn’t heard from his ex-wife in three or four years now, didn’t even know if she was still in St. Louis.

  His social life hadn’t really jelled since his move to Kansas City.

  “Okay, admit it,” Patrick said out loud to himself after a big swig of cognac. “You were looking forward to being around real chefs again and they hate you for who you work for. You’re going to be an outcast this weekend. Unless…”

  Patrick Sullivan got up from his desk and paced around for a good twenty minutes, every so often getting something out of the file cabinet. Then he filled up his coffee mug from the cognac bottle again, grabbed his lab coat and the files, and headed out the door. “Maybe there’s another way to skin this cat,” he mumbled as he went down the hall towards the research and development lab.

  * * *

  Dieter Bishop couldn’t wait to get to his room. The last twenty minutes of the reception had been the longest of his life. He knew everyone was trying to be nice, that they were all supposed to introduce themselves to the keynote speaker, but he could only feel his heart pounding a million miles an hour and hear the ringing in his ears. He tried to keep it straight, here was the famous baker from Berkeley, California, there was the one from upstate New York. Was the man who asked him to come and talk to students about rye sourdough from the Culinary Institute of America, or from Johnson and Wales?

  Dieter threw his bags down on the bed and went into the bathroom. He turned on the cold water full blast and splashed his face.

  The trip had been a nightmare. A two-hour layover at JFK airport in New York had turned into five hours. He had expected to be able to shower and rest before the reception. Instead he had staggered into the hotel and been snatched to a meeting room immediately by a host committee member. The opening reception was in full swing and the whole room swooped down on him.

  Dieter threw himself on the bed for a moment, eyes closed. But that ringing in his ears could not be denied. He started searching through his bags. He was so tired by this time, he wasn’t sure where he had put it. In a moment, he was in a frenzy, throwing clothes and toilet items everywhere. Finally he found his kit, wrapped in a sweater. He pulled the syringe out and fumbled with the rest of the equipment.

  He must never wait this long again.

  * * *

  “You haven’t said a thing since Topeka, Mom. Everything alright?”

  “Oh, you know, honey. It’s just your Mom being corny.”

  Iris laughed. “You sure picked a good place for it, although those look like soy beans to me, not corn.”

  Heaven smiled weakly at the joke. “Your life has been going so well that I haven’t had much to complain about, except the fact that you’re going to college across the Atlantic ocean. But you’ve been doing great in school, you’ve started writing, which is what you want to do, you and your father have had a good time together, I was hard put to find a worry. So now that I have one…”

  Iris interrupted, her voice sharp. “By that I guess you mean Stuart. Mother, my life is still great, even better with Stuart in it. I’m twenty-two, for God’s sake. Its about time I fell in love. There are girls I went to high school with that are already divorced.”

  “I understand that, honey. Its just who you fell in love with that is giving me sleepless nights.”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. You, of all people, have no right to criticize my choice in boyfriends,” Iris snapped in a combative tone.

  Heaven was stung. Iris had never mentioned any particular dislike of one of Heaven’s husbands. “If you weren’t my daughter, I’d just say butt out. Who are you to judge? But you are my daughter. Have you been hating the men in my life all these years? You certainly are an accomplished actress if that’s so,” Heaven said quietly.

  Iris softened a little but she wasn’t going to back down entirely. “Mom, what do you think your Mom would have said if she had lived to see you marry five times?”

  “Jesus, Iris. Where is all this coming from?”

  “No, Mom. I mean it. Your Mom died in a car wreck when you were married to Sandy. He was your teenage sweetheart and judging from the photographs you had a storybook wedding. You married your high school boyfriend and you two went to college together. That’s where your Mom left you. You haven’t had to explain anything to a mother since then. I might not be here if you had.”

  Heaven smiled in spite of wanting to pout a little longer. “You mean you think my sensible Midwestern mother might have been opposed to me running off with a rock ’n’ roll musician, getting married in a neon-lit wedding chapel in Reno?”

  “I think enough said about that one, Mom. And then there was Ian Wolff, the world’s most wonderful painter, to hear him tell it.”

  Heaven was surprised at the tone of Iris’s voice. “OK, I know you were little then, but I thought Ian was nice to you. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “Mom, you were such a chump when it came to Ian. Yes, he was as nice to me as can be. He was as nice to me as he was to you. He was, and I guess he still is, a great painter. And just as long as we hung on his every word and worshiped the ground he walked on, he loved us. But have I heard from him in the last ten years? Not once have I heard from him.”

  Heaven drove in silence for a while. Why was her first instinct to defend this man? She had been madly in love. She had hung on his every word. And he had run off with a Brazilian performance artist. Heaven had been so discombobulated after Ian left she had committed a felony and lost her law license. Not that she could blame him for that. She was a lawyer. She knew better. But she also was definitely not thinking straight at the time. That was Ian’s fault. She guessed she would never stop pining for the man, but she knew what Iris said about him was true. He was an egocentric monster, very similar to Stuart Watts. She was dying to point this out but kept quiet. She looked over at Iris hopefully. “Surely you’re not gonna tell me you didn’t like Sol Steinberg? He sure did love you.”

  Iris smiled. “If Sol hadn’t kicked the bucket, we’d still be a happy family. He was the greatest. The Sol years, in that big house in Mission Hills, the Sol years were fun.”

  “There just weren’t enough of them. Poor Sol. He wasn’t even sixty. Poor us.”

  “Yeah, it was back to 5th Street for Heaven and Iris,” Iris said wryly.

  Heaven grimaced. “One thing your Mom won’t argue with you on. She was never good at getting their money. I ended up in the hole almost every time. Well, we’re getting to the end of the list. What about Jason Kelley?”

  “Mom, I was a teenager by then, and I didn’t pay much attention. He was funny and very handsome and you two seemed to really like each other until you opened the restaurant. Then neither one of us saw much of you. But I understood. First, you have to make a living. You’ve been around Kansas City for a long time, and you were right to trade in on your ‘fame’ and try a restaurant. Second, I knew I’d be leaving for college. You had to take care of yourself. Jason didn’t see it that way.”

  “Do you think I … no, I can’t go back. Something happens along the way. Even if they offer to take care of you, and Jason did offer, you get gun-shy. You don’t want to have to make up for lost time later.”

  Iris punched her Mom’s arm. “If you had just had a better divorce lawyer over the years, you wouldn’t have to work these long hours at the restaurant. Its a good thing Hank has long hours too.”

  “I’m afraid to hear what you have to say about Hank after this little session.”

&nbs
p; “Don’t worry, Mom. Hank is too young to have many bad habits yet.”

  The two women laughed. Heaven wanted to go back and defend herself over all the men, all the mistakes, all the history. She touched her daughters arm. “Was it horrible for you? I always just went doggedly ahead, one foot in front of the other. Was it just terrible?”

  Iris shook her head and seemed to be examining her lap. “There were times when I wanted the perfect family, with a Mom and a Dad and a brother or sister and a dog. But you and Dad both did a good job of making me feel loved and that’s the bottom line.” Iris folded her arms. “But Mom, do you see? I wasn’t making you relive the past just to be mean. I’m sure you had a very good reason for each one of those relationships. I have a very good reason for Stuart. I love him. I went along for the ride with you. Now you have to do the same for me.”

  Heaven took the Council Grove exit off I-70. They were driving into the late afternoon sun, so Heaven had to watch what she was doing. As they turned down a county road, heading for the farm where Heaven grew up, Iris cleared her throat. “Mom, there’s one more thing. Now is as good a time as any to talk about it.”

  Heaven looked at her daughter in horror. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “Mother, please. Of course not. I have no intention of having kids for ages. And I’ve been here all summer so if I were pregnant with Stuart’s child you would have known it long ago. No, its just that when I finish Oxford, I don’t plan to come back to Kansas City to live. And this isn’t something that is dependent on Stuart. Even if we aren’t together next spring, I’m not coming back.”

  Heaven was sick at heart. She had feared this. “Will you stay in England?”

  “I don’t know right now. If I want to write for magazines I should go to New York. I know I don’t want to do the daily newspaper thing. If I wanted that I should have stayed here and gone to MU at Columbia. They have one of the best journalism schools in the world. If I want to try to write novels … well, I just want you to know that Kansas City isn’t on the short list. And that doesn’t mean that some day…” Iris trailed off, exhausted all of a sudden. She had been dreading telling her mother about this, as much as she had dreaded telling her about Stuart. Now it was done, and she just wanted to take a nap. Stress always made her sleepy.