Delicious! (41 page)

The woman standing there resembled the Mrs. Cloverly of my imagination as much as the Wade Manor resembled a trailer park. I took in this small poodle of a woman and stepped backward.

“Billie!” Her platinum hair was all curls, her small face was fully made up, and her perfume was strong. She gave me a limp hug, then pulled away so she could see me. “You’re not at all the way I imagined you.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” We both laughed a little nervously. “What did you imagine?” I asked it quickly, before she could ask it of me.

“I’m embarrassed now.” She gave me a coy look. “But I never thought that you’d be so pretty.” She eyed me up and down, as if trying to replace the Billie in her head with the one who stood before her. “I thought
you’d be plump and rather unkempt. I imagined glasses. To be honest, dear, you sounded very nice but rather … hapless. What could I have been thinking? Come in, come in.”

Mrs. Cloverly led me into an airless living room crowded with a lifetime’s accumulation of goods. The theme was blue and white, and every ornate piece of furniture shouted “quality.” I was beginning to understand that nothing I’d thought about Mrs. Cloverly had been right. There were silver-framed photographs on every surface, and when she went off to make tea, I walked slowly around the room, discovering her at various stages of her life.

She had been pretty, and in every picture her husband was gazing proudly over at her, seemingly dazzled by his luck. There were no children in any of the pictures, but as the couple aged, the look on his face never varied. Even as an older man, Mr. Cloverly maintained an expression of slightly stunned pride.

Mrs. Cloverly returned carrying a large silver tray, which she set on a Louis XIV coffee table. When she saw that I was admiring the pictures, she emitted a deep sigh. “Elton passed away fifteen years ago, but I still miss him every minute of every day. Come sit down.”

She handed me a cup decorated in a fussy flower pattern and passed a plate of madeleines. “Have one.” She smiled proudly. “I made them myself.”

“Uh, no thanks, Mrs. Cloverly.” I stared at the plate. The little cakes looked nice enough, and they smelled wonderful.

She laughed. “Call me Babe—all my friends do. And please do try a madeleine.” She thrust the plate in my direction. “You might be surprised.” There was no gracious way to refuse, so I reached for one and took a polite bite. Babe was watching me intently, and I was careful with my face. But the cake was delicate and airy, the flavor rich, buttery, not too sweet. “It’s delicious!” I could not manage to keep my voice neutral.

Babe laughed again, delighted. “Surprised?”

I blushed and nodded.

“Well, dear”—she held up the plate again, and I took another madeleine—“until Elton passed on, I’d never known a moment of loneliness.
I’d never even slept alone, not one night in my entire life. When I was growing up, my sister Susie and I shared a bed, and after I was married, Elton and I were never apart. But that wasn’t the worst. The morning after he died, I woke up and didn’t know what to do with myself. I was at a complete loss. Elton loved to eat, you see, and I’d filled my days with cooking.”

“So you can cook?”

“Oh, yes.” Babe displayed not a trace of embarrassment. “I’m quite good.” She stopped, staring across the table, and I knew she was not really looking at me. “It was what I could do for Elton, and I always did my best.”

The voice was the same, but I couldn’t reconcile Babe with the dithering Mrs. Cloverly I had known on the phone. It was oddly disconcerting, listening to her voice and seeing this person. “Can I ask you something?”

She inclined her head, a queen granting a favor.

“Did you actually cook any of those recipes you called about?”

“Of course I did!” Babe was indignant. “Let me just go get those English muffins.” She returned carrying a plate covered with small rocklike lumps. The words that floated into my mind were “horrid little hockey pucks.”

“Take one,” she urged. “I know a bad recipe when I see one.” She picked up one of the rocks and turned it in her palm. “And now that Elton’s gone, this is how I amuse myself. I have no one to cook for.”

“No friends?”

“Gone.” She waved a ring-covered hand, indicating a host of departed friends standing somewhere offstage. “All of them. We had no children, so there are no grandchildren either. I go to yoga every day and to the occasional concert. I attend lectures at the library. But let me tell you, longevity’s not all it’s cracked up to be, even when you have your health. Life’s not much fun when you’re the last one standing. I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered you people at
Delicious!
, but it seemed harmless.” She allowed a small moment to pass and then added, “The truth is, I could never believe that you took me seriously.”

“How did it start?” I reached for another madeleine.

She looked pleased. “Oh, it was innocent enough.” She patted an errant curl back into place. “One day, about a week after Elton died, I was feeling very low, and I decided to bake a cake just to cheer myself up. I didn’t have much in the way of ingredients, and I was too upset to go to the store. But I found a recipe that called for powdered milk and margarine, which I always have on hand for an emergency. I wasn’t expecting much, but the results were extremely disappointing, so I called to complain. Talking to that young woman—her name was Victoria—cheered me right up. So the next week, when I got lonely, I deliberately looked for a bad recipe and called again. After a year or so I ran out of the truly vile recipes; that’s when I began to make substitutions. It was my little game, talking to the young women at
Delicious!
It gave me something to look forward to.”

“But you’re nothing like that batty old woman who calls the magazine!”

“Thank you.” She rubbed her lips together. “Thank you very much, dear. But, don’t you see, that was the fun of it! The recipes got sillier and sillier, but you never questioned them. If you want to know what I think, it’s that young people have such contempt for the old that you’ll believe any foolish thing we do. In some sense, you might say that you made me up. I was exactly what you were expecting.”

My face got red as I remembered Jake saying he’d be eating out on that story for weeks. I don’t know what Babe saw on my face, but something made her stand up abruptly on her tiny feet. “Come with me.” She held out a hand. “I want to show you something.”

She was leading me toward the kitchen, and I had a horrible moment of thinking she was going to ask me to cook with her. I hung back, making up excuses, but she stopped before we got to the kitchen door. “This used to be a hotel”—she gestured toward the kitchen—“and the kitchens weren’t intended for serious cooks. I can’t begin to fit all my equipment in there.” She flung open a door and switched on a light, revealing a large, square pantry stuffed with pots, pans, and utensils.

“You should open a store!”

What looked like dozens of cake tins were stacked in neat rows of diminishing size. There were dozens of pie plates and muffin molds galore. Fish poachers in three sizes lounged along one shelf, while another held tagines, beautiful ceramic Japanese rice cookers, and at least ten woks.

“When I told you”—she was reaching for a box—“that people were always giving me cooking equipment, I was telling the truth.” She extracted a stringed instrument that resembled a medieval lute. “I bet you’ve never seen one of these.”

“Actually, I have.” I took it from her. “It’s a chitarra for handmade pasta. We sell them at Fontanari’s. Do you ever use it?”

“Of course.” She was pulling down another box. “There’s nothing here I haven’t used. But I prefer my good old pasta machine.” She pulled a battered object with a well-worn handle out of the box. “Elton did love his pasta.… Why, whatever is the matter?” She was following my eyes. “What are you looking at?”

“It’s nothing.” But my strangled voice gave me away. I was staring at the label on the box. In bright red script, it said,
The Cleveland Cookshop
. And underneath, in smaller letters,
Lulu Taber, Proprietor
.

Babe looked at the box. “I told you that people were always giving me presents, didn’t I, dear? A bit irritating, if you want to know the truth; how much equipment can one person use? I was constantly returning duplicate pots and utensils. When the shop closed—oh, ten years or so ago—I still had a large outstanding credit.” She shook her head, annoyed. “I guess it was my own fault; some of those credits went back years. It was such a shame, their closing like that.… ” She stopped, clearly puzzled. “Whatever have I said? You’re giving me the queerest look.”

“It’s the proprietor’s name.” I couldn’t stop staring at it. “The reason I’m visiting Akron is that I’m looking for a Lulu.”

“Lulu’s a common name around here,” she said. “Or it was in my time. Every Lucy, Lucille, and Louise was shortened to Lulu. I must know”—she stopped to correct herself—“I must have known at least five Lulus.”

“But the Lulu I’m searching for was very interested in cooking.” I could imagine that Lulu might have opened a cookware shop. “It’s probably not the one I’m looking for, but it can’t hurt to check.” I handed the box back, but not before I’d copied the address into my cell. “How long will it take me to get to Market Avenue?”

“The shop’s gone,” she protested, “I told you. There’s no point in going over there.” It was the querulous voice I knew so well, a reminder that Babe had invented that silly old lady for a reason. She was lonely, and she was loath to let me slip away.

“It’s time I was leaving in any case.” I turned toward the living room. “I need to check in to my hotel; tomorrow’s going to be a long day. But I think I’ll drive by Market Avenue if it’s not too much out of the way. You never know; somebody might know something about the Cookshop. Or Lulu. It’s worth a try.”

“You’ll stay in touch, won’t you?” Her voice was anxious.

“Don’t worry, Babe.” I bent to kiss her. “I may no longer be at
Delicious!
, but you won’t get rid of me so easily.”

“Take a madeleine for the road.” She wrapped one in a napkin and thrust it into my hand. “To remember me by.”

T
HE GIRL WORKING THE COUNTER AT THE FLYING MANGO HAD NEVER
heard of the Cleveland Cookshop. “Maybe you should ask over at the West Side Market?” She handed my coffee across the counter. “It’s one of the oldest markets in America, and I’ve heard that some of the stalls have been in the same family for a hundred years.” She looked at her watch. “They close soon. But it’s only a couple blocks away.”

I sat down at one of the small tables, remembering how the end of the day felt at Fontanari’s, how eager we always were to get the last customers out the door. It could wait until morning. Babe was probably right: Even if I found someone who remembered the Cleveland Cookshop, chances were slim that it would have anything to do with my Lulu.

I pictured Babe, alone once more in her fussy little palace. She was nothing like the dithering old lady I’d been expecting, but the loneliness was real. It was pathetic—she’d had to make up an entirely different person just to reach out and make friends. The last line of that Randy Newman song Genie used to like kept running through my head: “You know I just can’t stand myself; It takes a whole lot of medicine, for me to pretend that I’m somebody else.”

The lyric was caught in my head now, and it stayed there like a stuck record, playing over and over as I thought about Babe. What if Lulu turned out to be like Babe? If that was the case, I’d rather not find her.

I finished my coffee, got back into the Camry, and headed toward the hotel. I was glad I’d decided to spend the night in Cleveland, but
when I got to the Hyatt Regency I discovered an added bonus. As the valet took my car, I looked up and saw Cleveland’s huge marble library right across the street. I’d go over first thing in the morning to see what I could find out about the Cleveland Cookshop.

I picked up my traveling bag and walked into the lobby, only to find a distressingly long line at the registration desk. I wanted a bath, a room-service burger, a huge pile of fries, and a mind-numbing television show. I didn’t want to think. Somewhere in the back of my mind, Mitch and everything he’d said were waiting for me. I’d deal with it, I would, but not tonight. The song kept repeating in my head, and all I could think was how glad I was to be alone for the moment, among strangers.

I stood in line, so wrapped in this invisible cloak of solitude that I didn’t register the voice saying, “Billie? Billie?” Nobody knew me here. Even when I turned and saw the attractive silver-haired man standing right behind me, it took a few seconds.

“Dad?” There was my father, still trim at fifty-something, wearing a conservative navy suit. I looked at his plaid tie, realizing it was the rather garish one I’d given him for his forty-third birthday. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, Billie!” He seemed so stricken that I wished I’d been more welcoming. But what was he doing in my hotel? And why was he staring at me with that strange expression? “I’d forgotten”—his voice was so thick he could barely speak—“how beautiful you are.”

He didn’t even seem to register the haircut or the fact that I wasn’t wearing glasses anymore. To him, I think, I’d always looked like this. “Me?” I said.

He reached out to touch the wisps of hair around my face. “Don’t you ever look in a mirror?”

I could feel the words engraving themselves on my heart, and for one moment I pitied Genie. They could never have meant to her what they meant to me; she had been too accustomed to them.

“Thanks, Dad.” I grabbed his hand. “But what’re you doing here?”

Dad looked down. Eyes on his shoes, he said, almost shyly, “I had a deposition in Chicago. And Cleveland’s a short hop. Melba said you were here alone, and she thought you might welcome a little help.” He offered an embarrassed half smile. “Did I do the wrong thing? It’s been a while since you and I spent any time together.”

Suddenly I was flooded with happiness. “Thanks, Dad.” I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “I’m glad you’re here.”