Allegra Goodman - The Cookbook Collector

“I wonder who she was.”

“That’s Hannah Glasse,” George said after a quick search online. “And watch the binding please.”

“I didn’t mean the author.” Jess folded the little nudes away again.

“Oh, my God,” George gasped. “This is a signed Mrs. Fisher.”

Jess leaned over the table to view the book he held open in his hands. The book was slender, the pages smooth and unspotted, with clear simple type. Recipes for Sweet Pickle Pears, Sweet Pickle Prunes, Sweet Watermelon Rind Pickle, Onion Pickles .

Colm shook his head. “I think you’ve got to bring somebody in.”

For once they could speak freely. Sandra was tending the front yard—at least for the moment. She never stepped outside for long, and when she did, hacking back the blackberry canes, she didn’t venture far. Through the window they could see her in her old straw hat.

George told Colm, “If we bring in a specialist, we risk another rival.” He’d informed Sandra that he knew Raj was looking at the books, and he’d tried to find out who else she had invited in, but she only turned away.

“You could get a scholar and pay him up front as a consultant and he doesn’t get to bid,” said Colm.

“It wouldn’t work that way.”

Colm whipped out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “I think you’d get a more accurate estimate—maybe lower than what we would come up with.”

“Maybe higher.” George turned back to the reference books and catalogs in front of him. “I just don’t know what Raj is offering,” he murmured. “If I had a …”

His voice faded as Jess returned to the kitchen for another stack. How strange the disemboweled room looked with its cabinets open, emptied of their treasures. A skin-deep kitchen, cupboards bare, while the countertops remained cluttered with cheap cookware, spotted bananas, coupons, receipts, bills. A calligraphed card lay open next to the toaster.

“Come in here! You have to see this.”

“Don’t tell me you found another Gouffé,” Colm called back.

“No, it’s really strange.”

“Could you just bring it out?” George didn’t want to stop typing.

But she was afraid to pick up the card. Dramatically, she thought: What if Sandra caught her prying? What if Jess’s fingerprints were on it? “No, you have to come here.”

Reluctantly, Colm came in. He stood with Jess and the two of them gazed at the card. “George …,” Colm called in a weary voice, “you’d better have a look.”

Evidently unworried about fingerprints, George picked up the card and read it twice.

A DONATION TO THE GAY AND LESBIAN LEGAL ALLIANCE

HAS BEEN MADE

IN HONOR OF SANDRA MCCLINTOCK

BY

RAJEEV CHANDRA

“Raj!” George was amazed at his ingenious friend.

“I didn’t know Sandra was gay,” Jess said.

The three of them stared at the card in George’s hand. “I don’t know what she is,” George said at last.

“Maybe we should find out,” Colm suggested.

“We aren’t even half done.”

“Why isn’t Raj sorting?” Jess asked.

“I’m sure he’s seen everything,” George said nervously.

“How do you know?”

Because that would be just like Raj, George thought, to assess everything in advance and on his own time and then make his own preemptive offer. “He’s very experienced,” George said. “And very clever.”

“He knows Sandra,” Jess said. Softly, Geoffrey slipped into the room. On little cat feet, he sprang onto the kitchen counter. Unconsciously, Jess lowered her voice in front of the cat. “What have we found out about her?”

“I know enough,” George said. “She needs money. She wants to play me against Raj for the best price. She claims she’s afraid to sell the books. She’s nuts.”

“That’s not the way to think about it,” Jess said. “You’ve got everything backward.”

“Oh, really?”

“This strategy of assessing books is wrong.”

“And what would you suggest, Jess?” George inquired.

“Hmm,” Jess said, delaying her answer just a moment, for the simple reason that she enjoyed seeing George exasperated. “I would suggest that instead of focusing on the collection, you think about the owner.”

“The lichenologist.”

“No, I mean Sandra. She’s the one you should assess. You need to figure out what she really wants.”

“Money,” said George.

“That would be easy,” Jess said. “I don’t think it’s purely money that she’s after. I think she wants to tell someone her story.”

“Oh, God,” said George.

“She wants to be heard.”

“Obviously, Raj has been listening.” Colm replaced the calligraphed card on the counter.

“But she’s looking for the best listener.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” said George, “because hearing this woman’s superstitious, delusional …”

“How do you know that she’s delusional?” Jess asked him.

“I don’t have patience,” George said.

“Don’t you want this collection?” Jess pressed. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

They heard Sandra at the door, and rushed back to their places.

Sandra did not say hello. Well aware they had been whispering, she set her hat atop the bookcase full of cut glass and marched upstairs into—her bedroom? Her study? They heard her shut the door.

Jess and Colm looked at each other. Jess mouthed to George, “Go talk to her.”

George shook his head and put his finger to his lips.

You’re making a mistake , she scribbled on a note card. They all looked at Sandra’s closed door. Something was up, Jess thought. One of them would have to speak to Sandra. One of them had to learn the thing Raj had already discovered: her history, her crisis, her fantasy.

George tried to keep working but he stopped, hands hovering above the keyboard.

Colm took off his glasses. He had to sneeze, but he could not. Then he had to sneeze again. He saw cat hair everywhere. “Send her,” he said, and he meant Jess. “Send her.”

It was one thing to theorize about Sandra, and quite another to climb the creaky blond wood stairs and face her closed door. “Sandra,” Jess called softly, but she heard no sound.

She descended the stairs halfway and looked back. Colm pantomimed his suggestion to knock again.

Up she went. “Sandra,” Jess called, knocking louder.

“It’s unlocked,” Sandra said, and Jess let herself in, shutting the door behind her.

The study was so tight that when Sandra turned around in her swivel chair, she almost ran over Jess’s toes. The room was slanted, tucked under the heavy angled roof of the house; its single window, large and low, looking out on the riotous garden; the desk, rough boards, built under the window. The walls were lined with scientific journals. The Lichenologist, International Journal of Mycology and Lichenology, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Moss and Liverwort . A framed black-and-white photo stood on one shelf. A serious and homely looking man in wire-rimmed glasses.

Sandra was wearing a long flowing batik dress, but her posture was schoolmarmish as she sat up paying bills, stamping and addressing envelopes; her mouth tight, puckered in concentration. Jess had a fleeting memory—or was it her imagination? The image of her mother sewing, with her mouth tight, full of pins.

“What is it?” Sandra asked, glancing up.

Jess took off her knit hat and held it in her hands. “Your cookbooks are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you seen a lot of cookbooks?”

“They’re the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen,” Jess amended. “I just want to assure you that we are treating them with respect. And we realize that they have sentimental value.”