The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel

by Barbara O'Neal

  “ ’Bout dead now, aren’t you?” he says. It sounds almost gentle.

  “Yeah. You’re right about the partying. Sorry. I won’t do it again before our sessions.”

  “Drinking’s just a way to hide from the pain, baby. Better to just go through it, feel it. Someday, it’ll feel better.”

  That almost brings tears to my eyes. I duck away to pick up my towel. “Yeah, well, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  We’re alone in there, just me and Rueben. I’m wishing, as I turn around, that he seemed even a little bit interested in me. It’s hard not to look at his mouth. Hard not to want to kiss him, not because he’s so gorgeous, but because he’s so real. He makes me feel like I could let down my guard, sink into his big embrace. Just be … safe, finally.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

  For a minute, he doesn’t say anything at all. I stand there waiting, heat in my face.

  “Invite me again to your grandma’s house, Jade.”

  “You mean now?”

  He nods.

  “You want to come to breakfast next week, go to church with us?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I’d like that a lot.” He cocks his head toward the locker room. “Go on and get your shower. I’ll wait and walk you out to your car.”

  UNSENT LETTER ON TRUDY’S HARD DRIVE

  Dear Carolyn,

  I take it back. You are beautiful, and I can see why he fell in love with you. You’ve had a hard road and maybe this is the one good thing that’s happened in your life. I just wish it hadn’t been the worst thing that has ever happened in mine. I hope you’ll take good care of him.

  24

  TRUDY

  Thanksgiving morning, I’m awake at five a.m. I set the alarm for five thirty so I can get the turkey in, but depression drags me awake before that. I lie in my bed and have a hollow chest, remembering how it used to be. The house filled with good smells. By now, Rick would have been baking his pecan pies, so they would be finished before I put the turkey in the oven. This morning, the air just smells damp.

  “Okay, get to it,” I say aloud. I take a shower and get dressed in some jeans and a warm sweater, put on my heavy wool socks, and pad downstairs. It’s snowing, which accounts for the damp smell, and it’s so beautiful—big fat flakes—that I put on my boots and go for a walk.

  It’s still dark, and not terribly cold, and very, very still. Not a single whisper of wind. The flakes are the size of teacups, tumbling down through yellow tents of streetlights, lighting on my nose and mittens. My feet make a slight squeaking noise on the accumulation.

  I don’t realize until that minute, feeling the dampness in my lungs and on my face, how devastating the winds have been this fall. They’ve stolen all the moisture from the world, sucked the trees to brittle twigs, sucked the prairies to clinging tufts of yellow grass. Even the cacti are beginning to look withered.

  I pass the paperboy. We don’t speak, just nod to each other. I walk on.

  And the cool stillness somehow gives me a clarity of my own, as if moisture is feeding my dried-up brain tissues, opens eyes that have been squinched tight against the brutal onslaught of winds. I smell hope in the dampness, hear possibility in the stillness. In the distance, I see a quivering mirage of adventure.

  It’s scary to be alone, to start over, but maybe there is something wonderful waiting. Maybe today, instead of mourning everything that isn’t, I’ll just focus on celebrating what is. Be thankful, create new routines and traditions.

  Yeah.

  To that end, I head back home and find Rick’s recipe for pecan pie and bake two of them. My crust is lumpier than his, which has always been as flaky and light as a Betty Crocker illustration. As I do it, I play Cat Stevens’s Teaser and the Firecat, very quietly. I do it even though Rick has always sort of reminded me of Cat, do it because it’s one of the lightest, sweetest, most peaceful bits of music ever recorded. The sun comes up behind the clouds and I can turn off the overhead light. I get the turkey out and prepare the stuffing, put the bird in the oven to roast.

  I scrub celery and cut it into perfectly even pieces of three inches, then prepare my grandmother’s stuffing—mainly grated cheddar with a little onion, celery salt, and Miracle Whip. (Don’t ask me why, but we never ate real mayo and it tastes weird to me even now.) It is one of my favorite things on the planet, and there’s a lot of pleasure in singing along with “Who’ll be my love?” as I dip another fresh piece of celery into the mix and munch on it. Maybe Thanksgiving will give me back a pound or two.

  Suddenly I notice the lightness in my chest and recognize it as happiness. I’m happy. Happy to be cooking for my family, doing things I love to do, the same way I’ve always done them. I love the house filling up with the right smells, love the snow, love that I get to play with Minna all afternoon, that I am lucky enough to be healthy and alive, with so much human wealth in my life.

  Wow.

  When I finish the preparations, I sit at the table and start looking around the kitchen. It seems to me that I spend my whole life in this room. Everything that happens happens here. I’ve made love to Rick on this very table. I’ve scrubbed faces, served thousands of snacks and quick meals, had a million Important Discussions. Sitting there by myself, I realize I’m kind of tired of it, of the way it looks. The cupboards are painted a cream color that’s not anywhere close to fresh anymore, and on top of them is a clutter of little-used appliances. The border paper is a pattern of grapes that I once liked and seems now a little too homey.

  Maybe I should paint in here, too. Something bold. Maybe get a couple of glass-fronted cupboard doors to show off my collection of goblets, get rid of the scarred, rickety table and find something else. There was a pretty little breakfast bar at Sears the other day—it required assembly, which freaked me out, but I bet I can do it. The table. A couple of little stools.

  I’m nodding to myself when Rick bursts in through the back door, carrying pie. He stops when he sees me. “Good morning.” There is snow in his hair, big tufts of white against the glossy black. Dots of melted snow dampen his face. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”

  “Had to cook,” I say, gesturing.

  “Smells good.”

  “Thanks.” I don’t want him to ruin my fragile sense of well-being, so I don’t get up.

  “Well,” he says, after a minute, “I just brought you a pie. Thought the kids might like it.”

  I gesture toward the counter. “Thanks, but as you see, I already made two. I don’t think we can eat three.”

  He looks from the cooling pies on the counter to the one in hands. “Oh.” Crushed. And by the color creeping up his face, he’s embarrassed.

  As he turns to leave, I’m filled with remorse. He’s always taken a lot of pleasure in holidays, and this one is going to be rough on him, without his kids, no Joe to make him feel better, his mom gone. I don’t want to ask him to come here because it will raise expectations in the kids, and I also don’t want to think about Carolyn, in some other house, cooking a turkey her way for him to eat.

  But I can’t ignore his embarrassment, and I jump up, tug his sleeve. “Hey,” I say. “Leave it. Yours is bound to be better than mine.” I take the pie out of his hands, put it down on the counter. “That was bitchy. I’m sorry.” I meet his eyes.

  His eyes are so sad that I just reach over to give him a hug. And his arms go around me hard.

  He feels so right. Just the right height, his body so intimately familiar to me, his hair touching my nose. I close my eyes and absorb some sense of strength or comfort or maybe just rest. He smells like himself, the smell I can’t get out of my pillows, and I inhale it deeply, closing my eyes. It makes me wish to go back in time, scrub away whatever it was that happened to us. He’s holding me so tight that I can feel his sorrow thrumming through every cell in his body. It’s going to be an awful day for him.

  Before I can get maudlin, I pull away, patting his
arm. “Thanks, honey. That was sweet of you.”

  Annie comes around the corner then, her face so falsely bright that I know she’s seen us embracing. “Hi, Dad! Are you staying to eat with us?”

  He clears his throat. “No, I just brought the pie. You want to come over later, watch some TV with me?”

  Her face goes hard. “I have plans,” she says, and exits.

  * * *

  And here is the miracle: It’s a beautiful day. I spread a bright batik cloth over the table and instead of the usual family china, I take down all that old beautiful glass I’ve been collecting—one-of-a-kind things, like the black china dinner plate painted with fuchsias, and the paper-thin rose one, and the goblets of carnival glass. None of it is particularly valuable, but I love the way it looks on the table. Rick always wants everything to match. He pretends he doesn’t, but that’s how it was done in his world, and that’s how he’s comfortable. In some ways, he’s aggravatingly traditional.

  I gather up all the cloth napkins, too, and put down a different one at each place. It still lacks something. Candles and flowers. The candles, smelling of patchouli, I find in the bathroom. The flowers—oh, why have I never done this before?—are orchids from my greenhouse. They look so beautiful that I move a bunch of potted begonias into the room, too.

  Annie comes in and stops. Her mouth opens, and I brace myself for her to dislike it. Instead, she raises eyes that are shining. “Mom, this is so beautiful!” She laughs. “I always knew you were a hippie at heart.”

  “Thank you.” I incline my head. “Listen, Annie, I don’t want to upset you, so this one time, I’m asking your opinion. I would like to invite our neighbor Angel over to eat with us.” I think about adding more, a disclaimer, but the truth is, I am attracted to him and that’s why I’m going to ask him, and I don’t want to start any falseness.

  She lowers her eyes, reaches out with one hand to caress the waxy petal of a bright pink cattleya. “I guess I don’t mind.”

  “He might not come.”

  She straightens, takes a breath. “Well, I hope he does. You aren’t the only one who thinks he’s gorgeous, okay?”

  I laugh, and the sound comes from deep in my chest. “Another flower for the table?”

  “Why not?”

  “Everybody will be here in just a little bit, so I’m going to nip out and ask him right now.” Before I can chicken out. It’s only neighborly, after all. And he probably already has plans.

  Angel opens the door and I smell something hot and spicy on the air that escapes from his rooms. “Hello!” he says, and there is just the right amount of happy surprise in his voice. “Come in!”

  “No, I can’t—I have people coming any minute, but I wanted to let you know that if you don’t have any plans, we’d love to have you come over and eat with us. You know, for Thanksgiving. If you’re not doing anything.” I cross my arms. “If you want.”

  His mouth is curving upward in a smile, making those golden eyes twinkle, and everything about his physical person makes me want to jump him. No promises to keep, none to offer.

  He puts his hand to his chest, sighs in regret. “To my sorrow, Roberta already invited me and I said yes.”

  I step back. “That’s great. I just wanted to make sure you had a good American Thanksgiving.”

  “Wait.” He captures my hand, pulls me over the threshold, where the smell of chocolate and spices makes me want to lick the air. “Come in,” he says, “un momento. I have something I need for you to taste for me.”

  In the kitchen, the smell is even more concentrated, and something about it makes me light-headed, as if he’s cooked some dangerous spell. I wonder wildly if he’s even real, or if I made him up because I need something wicked and magical in my life. He dips a spoon into a beef mixture in a rich, dark brown sauce and holds it up for me to taste. I have to lean forward to do it, open my mouth, let him pour it in.

  It hits my tongue, spicy and hot. “Oh!”

  “Good?” he says, cocking one brow. “Or too much for Americans?”

  I touch my fingers to my mouth. “It’s wonderful.”

  He blinks, and there is something swirling around us, heat and the smell of cinnamon and something more nourishing, and he lifts one hand to my cheek. “Such skin,” he nearly whispers, his fingers light as butterfly wings. “Like milk. Like the moon.”

  If he kisses me, I will dissolve, melt like brown sugar on the floor, and nothing will put me back together again, but I’m looking at his mouth, almost shivering with the want of it. I imagine it will taste the way the air smells, that his tongue will glide into my mouth and deliver the moisture I’ve been dying for. My breath comes a little fast as I wait, but he only strokes my cheek a little more, then with the very tip of his index finger traces the lower edge of my mouth. He drops his hand, and the smile he gives me is not what I would have expected. A little unsure, maybe. He dips his head away, stirs the sauce.

  I stand with my hands loose at my sides. “I have to get back. It’s very good, the food. Enjoy your afternoon.”

  “Trudy,” he says, following me, stopping me in the middle of the room. The word is different on his tongue, Truuddeee. Softer. “Will you let me take your photograph, just once right now?”

  “Um.” I fling up my arms, drop them. “Okay.”

  He lifts a finger, ducks into his bedroom, comes back with a sturdy and much-used 35 mm Minolta, then takes my hand and brings me back into the kitchen. “Stand here.” He puts me back where I was a moment ago, and I realize the light coming in through the north window must be very good. I look toward it, through it, and see that my bedroom window is just visible. Has he ever seen my shadow there?

  “Look at me,” he says, his voice thick with something, and I turn toward the camera, seeing his succulent mouth below it. I wish he would ask me to take off my blouse, because I would do it, stand there bare-breasted in all my milk-whiteness for his camera. He shoots a frame, and then another, and I’m imagining how it would feel to have that camera on my nakedness.

  As if that is somehow translated, his nostrils flare and he lowers the camera. Swallows. “Gracias,” he says, and the word is quite soft.

  On the street is the sound of a big truck, and I’m startled back to reality. “Oh! That’s my son!” I pull at the neckline of my blouse, as if I’ve actually taken it off, and whirl around. “I have to go!”

  “Thank you,” he calls behind me.

  “No problem!” I dash out into the day, the cold air popping and sizzling against my skin.

  * * *

  We’re all sitting around eating pie when the ruckus across the street starts. Richard has taken his dad’s spot at the table, and it’s nice to see him carving the turkey, being a dad to his daughter. My oldest son is dark like the Marinos, with his grandmother’s smooth velvet-brown eyes and a wickedly droll sense of humor. He was my football player, with his burly shoulders and immovability on a field. Now he’s making piles of money in computer networking, consulting. He’s young to have moved so fast, but he was always one to make up his mind to do something, then just get it done.

  I have no idea where he came by this quality. Certainly it is not a hallmark of either of his parents. My astrologer friend would say it’s the double Taurus, sun and moon, and who knows, maybe she’s right. Today, his presence is jovial and warm, and I hold his daughter in my lap more often than I let her sit in the chair, because she makes me happy.

  The trouble starts just as we’re deciding whether to have pie now or wait. The first thing we hear is a loud engine, and a clatter like a bunch of tools in the bed of a truck. In spite of myself, I think of Rick, wonder if he’d dare just show up. But there’s the slam of a door, and a shout. Then another, and another, a squall out in the street. I glance at Annie, and we both jump up. Annie grabs the phone, just in case, and we cross to the window to see what’s going on.

  In front of Shannelle’s neat little house is a truck parked at a crooked angle on the grass. Once it
might have been gold, but is now faded to a patchy dull brown. A man I know to be Shannelle’s father, a balding, potbellied caricature of a disability bum, is standing on the grass, swaying and yelling. Tony comes out, neatly dressed up for the day in a white button-up shirt and a clean pair of jeans and cowboy boots. He looks like a caballero, and he’s heroic as he tries to calm the man down, putting a hand on his arm, talking quietly.

  But the old drunk isn’t having it. “Patty, you bitch, get yer ass out here and come fix my dinner.”

  Shannelle comes out on the porch. She’s wearing a dress and sandals, neither warm enough for the day. Her hair is curled around her shoulders. She says something to her father, pointing away from the house.

  But he’s not having it. He throws a sloppy punch at Tony, and there’s more shouting, and then Shannelle’s mother comes out, a woman so colorless from her defeats that she looks like a sepia photo. She starts to walk toward her husband, talking to Shannelle, who pulls her back and lifts a phone to her ear.

  Good for her. “Let’s give her a little privacy,” I say, touching Annie’s arm. “I’m sure she doesn’t want all the neighbors staring at her drunken father.”

  But then a car comes racing down the street, a muscle car I know belongs to Shannelle’s brother, and he screeches to a stop and gets out and starts yelling, though it’s unclear whether it’s at Shannelle or at his father or at his mother. Obviously father and son are cut from the same cloth—but the son is younger, and he throws a punch at Tony, knocking him down, hard. “Rich, maybe you need to get out there.”

  My sturdy son is on his feet, but Jo isn’t happy with it. “What if they have a gun or something? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  He stands there, torn, between his mother and his wife, and I relent. “Maybe she’s right. Let the police handle it.”

  “Jade’s coming,” Annie says.

  I open the front door to let Jade know I’m there if she needs me, step out onto the porch. Annie hands me the phone.