12

The doorbell rings sometime after noon on Sunday, and I hear a familiar voice. MaDea.

Conflicting feelings of happiness and wariness propel me into a quick shower. By the time I get downstairs, my grandmother and Mom are deep into gospel CDs and eating lunch, sitting comfortably tucked up by the fireplace. They stop talking when I come in, and the way my mother looks at me tells me that my wish for her to just “get it over with” has been answered. My heart sinks.

“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dee,” I greet them, trying for an enthusiasm I don’t feel. I sit on the back of the couch and lean down to hug my grandmother, who smells like citrus peels and rose petals.

“Well, good afternoon.” My grandmother smiles, resplendent in her pearl gray velour tracksuit, a paisley silk scarf knotted around her throat. I smile at that paisley scarf. My beautiful, stylish grandmother always makes me smile, even when she makes Mom sigh and roll her eyes.

“Elaine, did you get any breakfast?” my mother asks neutrally, eyes on my eyes. She’s wearing her usual weekend uniform of clogs and faded flannel, much like I am. Dea makes us both look orphaned and underdressed.

“I had something.” I shrug and lean down to look into Dea’s plate. I don’t like the way Mom is staring at me, like she’s trying to read headlines in my face.

“Something decent, I hope? A girl can worry herself to skin and bone about a boy, you know.” Dea’s smooth brow has a little pucker in it, and I can see my face reflected in the panes of her glasses.

I tense, and I can sense Mom picking up on my tension like a leopard scenting prey. Now I know how much Mom has told Dea and that this isn’t going to be pretty. Simeon’s troubles are about to become a family matter.

“I’m not worried; I just wasn’t all that hungry,” I blurt, trying to forestall my mother launching into the Conversation. “I’m ready to eat, though.” I push off from the couch and take a step toward the kitchen. “What’s there to eat?”

“Your grandmother brought you some cottage cheese loaf, and I brought home that mushroom soup of Pia’s that you like, if you want that.” Even when she’s upset with me, my mother is never one to miss an opportunity to push food into my face. “And come on over here and sit with us when you’ve filled your plate,” she goes on. “We need to talk about this. You’ve been holed up in your room for long enough.”

“Yes, ma’am.” That isn’t an invitation, so I decide to take as long as I can. I make a salad.

Cabbage heads are the best thing on earth to whack against the counter really hard when you’re trying to drown out the sound of your mother talking about you to your grandmother. I chop about a cup of red cabbage and pulverize the remaining wedge of regular green that was in the crisper drawer until I get out some of my aggression.

“Elaine? What is that racket?”

“I’m making cabbage slaw. Um, I’m about done.” Unfortunately, it really is so easy a dish that I can’t linger over it for long. The cottage cheese casserole smells so good I have to sneak a piece before I put it on my plate. Yum. Flavored with caramelized onions and mushrooms and bulked out with panko bread crumbs, it’s one of Dea’s best experimental-vegetarian-granddaughter recipes yet. I have got to learn how to make this.

I dish up, sprinkle the crunchies on my salad, then come around the bar counter into the living room and pull out a stool. Mom said to come back and sit, but I’m not going to cuddle down on the couch between her and Dea for the Inquisition. No, thank you.

We all nibble from our plates for a while, and Dea says some innocuous things about the cold snap we’re having and the ladies in her church. Mom answers something else, mumble, mumble, and we let the voices of the choir glide between us. Finally, Dea sets her plate on the edge of the table.

“Can I get you something else, MaDea?” If only we could all just keep eating.

“Not right now, baby. If you like that cottage cheese loaf, I wrote the recipe for you.”

“Thank you, Dee. Mine won’t taste this good, though.”

“Hmph.” My grandmother smiles smugly. She really is an excellent cook, and she doesn’t mind being reminded. She could have had a cooking show, but there wasn’t even cable back in her day, not to mention a place for an African American woman chef on TV.

“You ever cook for that boy?”

I’m yanked back from my thoughts. “Simeon?”

“Elaine, who else?” my mother snaps, suddenly losing her air of civility. “I know I did not raise a stupid child, so stop acting like one and tell me exactly what went on here last week.”

Has she found out something? I open my mouth, but I’m saved by Dea’s placid tones.

“Now, Vivianne, you’re making a mountain out of what might be a little bitty molehill. Give the child a moment to answer before you go jumping all down her throat.”

I swallow. “Mom, I told you.”

“Well, Elaine, tell me again.”

A little spurt of anger flickers along my cheeks, making my face go hot. I set down my fork.

I’m starting to feel like she’s interrogating me, asking me to tell her over and over again to see if I change my story. It takes all I have to keep my temper.

“I told you I was making myself some food and then Sim came in with his key, and then I told you I gave him dinner, and he left. And that was over a week ago, and I don’t know where he is right now, I don’t know who he’s with, I don’t know where he slept last night, and I don’t know if he’s coming back.” I’m bordering on disrespectful.

Mom is leaning forward on the couch. “And what did you make him for dinner Friday night?”

The question seems odd. “I told you, Mom, when you called. I made soup and latkes.”

“And rolls?” Mom asks.

“Rolls? N—” And then I see the trap I’ve walked into. “I made him some sandwiches. For later.”

“From rolls I brought home after midnight on Friday,” my mother says flatly.

I’m dead.

“Did you count all the eggs in the fridge too?” I push my plate back with shaking hands. “It’s not a crime to eat something, Mom.”

“So, you knew he was running away, and you packed him a lunch, did you? In the morning? Where did he stay the night?”

“I didn’t say he was running away! He didn’t say he was running away either. He’s just…gone. I don’t know when he’s coming back. He didn’t say.” I close my mouth, afraid now. It is too easy to give things away.

“Elaine,” my grandmother interjects. “Do you know why your mother is so concerned? Your mother is concerned because there’s been a car…sitting outside of this house, since she went out to get the paper this morning. There’s a man….”

I jerk off the stool and move toward the front window. “What? A man? Is it Mr. Keller? Where?”

My mother pulls me back from the drapes. “Lainey, don’t point…. I already called the police. He’s an investigator; the Kellers hired him privately. He’s just watching…to make sure Simeon isn’t here.”

“Seriously?” I pull away from my mother so she can’t see how badly I’m shaking. “That’s crazy. Mom, this is ridiculous!”

“No, it is not ridiculous. Lainey, the investigator has pulled phone records for Simeon and knows that you’ve made a lot of calls to his cell phone. They know that boy came over here, and they know the two of you have been as thick as thieves since you were little kids.”

Stop calling him “that boy.” His name is Simeon. His name is Simeon. You can’t have forgotten already.

“His parents are going to be watching you, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they watched the school, our house, his apartment, the coffee shop where he worked, the restaurant….”

It’s suddenly hard to breathe, and my throat feels like someone has rubbed it with sandpaper. “But, Mom, I told you. He isn’t here and I don’t know where he is. Do they think something happened to him?” My stomach crawls.

My mother rubs a hand over her face and softens her tone as she tries to herd me back toward the couch. “Elaine, if they hired an investigator, they’re not playing around. The police haven’t been by to ask us any questions, so we can probably assume that there are no criminal charges, but this investigator represents some serious intentions—and some serious cash. The Kellers want to find their son. And that’s why I want you to think again, dear heart, think it through all the way and make sure that you have nothing to do with this, Lainey. We haven’t got the kind of money it would take to fight off a lawsuit from the likes of them.”

“Money?” Is that what this is about? Doesn’t she hear what she’s saying? The Kellers want their son back, but when does he stop being theirs to have?

“It’s not just the money,” Mom says. She stops walking and looks into my face. “It’s just the principle of the thing, Lainey. I don’t like you getting so involved in a family that’s so…unstable.”

Unstable describes exactly how I feel right now. I want to slide down the wall. Instead, I stumble across the tiles to the stairs and sit there, trying to get some distance.

Everybody’s asking me to say something to get Simeon “back where he belongs.” More than anything in my life right now, I want him back, but even if he were here, things wouldn’t be the same. Everything had so much potential just a week ago. But now…

I can’t stay here. I don’t want to.

“Elaine, don’t cry. I’m not trying to be unkind—I know Simeon’s your friend. I’m not accusing you of hiding him. I just thought if you would tell me again, from the top, what happened, maybe I could get some idea of where he went or what he plans, and maybe we could—”

“Mom, I don’t know!” I beat my fist on my knees in frustration, feeling the truth piling up behind my clenched teeth. “He came over, I gave him some food, and…and we talked, and he told me he just wanted to have a normal life, and I just can’t—” I wave my hands in the air, fighting for words. “How am I supposed to say that to his parents?”

Mom squats down in front of me, intent. I feel the power of her gaze and shrink back. She’s trying to psych me out, I can tell. My flannel shirt seems too warm.

“Tell them what? What can’t you tell them, Elaine?”

I look at my mother coldly. “Aren’t you listening?”

“Did you give him any money?” My grandmother’s voice slides in between us, and I flinch. My mother sinks her face into her hands. “Oh, Lainey, no…”

“Mom, please, it wasn’t much. He didn’t have any money. I just wanted to be sure he slept someplace warm, okay? He was going to leave no matter what. He wouldn’t go home. I couldn’t make him go home.”

A tear leaks from my right eye into my mouth, and I swallow it like a little kid. Simeon didn’t even think of this part, but the disappointment and unhappiness in my mother’s face catches me like an unexpected punch to the gut.

“So, you gave him money, and you made him food.” Dea’s voice is soft. “Is that all?”

“That’s all. MaDea, you don’t know him, but he wasn’t bad, he just wanted to get away. He told me right before he left that he was just going—” My thoughts flounder. “Just going to hitchhike,” I finish abruptly. “I don’t even know who picked him up. I didn’t see the car.”

My mother glances at her mother, her back stiff. “And that’s all?”

“That’s all, Mom.”

“Well, I know you did what you thought best.” Dea stands up from the couch and crosses the room toward me. “There’s not too much you can tell a boy when they’re that age, though, is there?” Dea’s knees creak as she sits down on the stair next to me.

“This boy…” Mom sighs, her eyes closed, as she leans against the wall.

“What?” I’m quivery and nervous, tired of feeling on edge.

My mother opens her eyes. “I’ve always thought it was nice that you were his friend, but I’ve also wished you spent your time with some other kids. Whatever happened between you and Lorraine? Or why don’t you get on with Ana’s boy anymore?”

I glance up angrily. “Lorraine? Mom, you know why she was friends with me? Because she wanted to hook up with SIMEON, okay? And Christopher—look, I’ve got other friends, Mom, okay? I don’t need you to help me with this.”

My mother takes a deep breath and rubs her hands as if she’s dusting them clean. “Elaine…I’ve been doing some thinking. I really think it would be a positive thing if you started looking ahead to your life and working toward your goals and dreams. You filled out only a couple of applications for college…why don’t we work on some school tours, see what else is out there? Or maybe you want to travel. There’s a lot out there in the world for a girl your age instead of thinking about going straight through from school to the restaurant business.”

What does Mom mean, it might be “a positive thing” if I was working toward the goals of my life? I’ve been thinking about having my cooking show forever. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking that maybe you’d enjoy going down south this summer, maybe stay with your great-aunt May and take some classes at a junior college or something.”

“What? No offense, Dea, to your sister, but I’m not going. Mom, there’s no way.”

My mother’s chin goes up, and her eyebrows clamp down. “Laine, you are not telling me where you will and will not go. Obviously I haven’t been watching you well enough here. You need more supervision, and La Salle isn’t the place—”

I’m on my feet, hands clenched. “Mother, I am almost eighteen. I know what I’m doing this summer, and it’s not going somewhere so I can be babysat by some people I don’t even know.”

“Elaine. Vivianne. Both of you sit down. You look like bantam roosters.” MaDea is sitting on the stairs shaking her head.

I glare at my grandmother. “MaDea, I’m sorry, but I think Mom just asked you to come down today so you could help her make me do what she wants. It’s not going to work.”

“Isabelle Elaine, I don’t know whose house you think you’re living in,” my mother begins.

“So now you want me to move out?” My voice is too high.

Dea pats my leg and clambers to her feet. “Now, you all pipe down. Laine, you have no idea how much you sound like your mother when she was your age. Come on back to the table now, both of you. I brought cobbler and peach ice cream…oh, and some of that healthful soy ice cream for you, Miss Lainey.”

“Wait a minute,” Mom says to me quietly. She leans forward and brings her eyes level with mine. “I know it doesn’t seem fair, Elaine, and I apologize, but you are my only child, and you will succeed in this world even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming.”

I shrug, arms crossed.

“I’ve been concerned about you and Simeon, and I’d made up my mind to get to know him better if he was going to be spending time here…without his shirt on.” Now Mom smiles humorlessly.

My throat constricts. That seems light-years ago.

“No matter how all of this comes out,” my mother continues, and I can feel my eyes stinging and a lone drop making its way out of my nose, “I think you should spend some time working on your goals. As a matter of fact, I’m going to insist you spend that time. Elaine, you’ve been chasing after this boy for how long? You’ve spent too long waiting on what he’s going to do and where he’s going to be. A great girl like you—there will be all kinds of people who are going to think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to them. I’d like you to start thinking about where you’d like to do a summer internship. If you can get some distance from…everything, I’d like to see you start striking out on your own.”

“How about Alaska?” The angry tone of my voice makes my mother step back. “Maybe that’s the kind of distance I need.”

Mom sighs. “Elaine…” She shakes her head. “We don’t need the dramatics.”

“I’m sure there’s a restaurant there that needs an intern. And I’ll be happy to go.”

My mother’s shoulders slump. “Lainey, you’re taking this the wrong way.”

“I’ll be interning this summer somewhere away from home. Fine. I’ll start looking.”

“One day you’ll thank me.” My mother’s voice is light, but I can see that she feels it’s time to put in her last word and end this conversation. “I know you don’t see what I mean about Simeon,” she adds, “but take my word for it, this once. It will do you good to get away for a while. This hasn’t been good for you.” She sighs and places her hand on my tightly clenched fists. “Go wash your face, Lainey bug,” she says as she gets up. “And come eat some of that nasty soy ice cream your grandmother keeps bringing you.”

Deep breath. Mom is changing the menu, moving us all along to a new dish. She thinks she’s managed me, managed this whole scene. This time, I’m going to let her think what she wants.

I go upstairs into the bathroom to wash my face like my mother says. Like a good girl.

Like the girl I’m not.

I run the sink tap and sit on the edge of the tub, burying my face in a towel.

“Is that peach homemade?” I hear Mom calling to Dea.

Downstairs, my mother and grandmother are serving up dessert. Upstairs, I’m crying so hard I want to vomit.

Everywhere I look, I’m being forced into lying. Simeon’s making me lie to Mom. Mom’s making me lie about Simeon. I have to go intern somewhere, and I will, and I may go there and stay a whole year, but right now I’m not even sure I want to be a chef anymore. I’m not sure of anything.

How did it end up like this? Sim went from being my best friend to being the guy who only talked to me when he needed something. Why did I think this time he would be any different? Just because I wanted him to be?

I’m going to have to get a job. I’m never going to be able to take my trip to Saint Julia’s, especially now that I’m five hundred dollars in the hole. I have to do something or Mom’s going to manage everything, just like I’m still some little kid who doesn’t have a clue.

What makes it worse is that she’s right. I have been waiting for Simeon. I’m lying to my mother, I have investigators watching my house, and where is he?

Saint Julia always said that in cooking, there are very few mistakes that can’t be corrected. You can add a pinch of salt and some chopped herbs to the butter if you forgot to put salt in your bread. If your soufflé falls, you can serve it with a sauce over it, and it’ll look just fine. Gummy mashed potatoes can be resurrected as potato pancakes. But once you add too much pepper to something—it’s over. You can’t make something less spicy than it is.

I stand and rinse out my mouth. My stomach feels like a fist, knotted and quivering with tension.

Sim’s history. And now I have to figure out what to do next.