Mark Dunn - American Decameron

“I can’t believe that crazy woman would let this go for seventy-five cents,” Josephine said to her husband Quentin. “I know the right thing to do would be to take it back to her.”

Quentin looked up from the television. He was watching My Three Sons for personal reasons; like Fred MacMurray’s character Steve Douglas, Quentin used to be an aeronautical engineer. He had worked in St. Louis for the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, and small world that it was (though this fact would never be known to him) he and his wife, during their ten-year sojourn in “the Lou,” had lived not so very far from none other than Irma S. Rombauer herself.

“For once,” said Quentin over his shoulder, “don’t do the right thing. Didn’t you say the woman didn’t care if it was a first edition or not? Keep it. Do something nice for yourself for a change.”

“All right. I will. Don’t have a heart attack from the shock.”

Quentin laughed.

Josephine sat down at the dining room table where the light was good. She was almost as bad as the woman from whom she’d bought the book; she’d hardly even opened it herself, so busy was she visiting the local library and a couple of book dealers in Manchester and Nashua to try to figure out how much it was worth. Josephine already owned a later edition of the cookbook, published by the commercial printing house Bobbs-Merrill Company. It was the book dealer in Nashua who encouraged her to spend some time with the first edition. “It’s very conversational in tone, really quite quaint. My dear, there are recipes for preparing raccoon and squirrel in there. I kid you not.”

In looking for the raccoon and squirrel recipes, Josephine happened to open the book to the dessert section, specifically to a recipe for something called “Jelly Tots” (otherwise known as Hussar Balls, Jam Cookies, Thumbprint Cookies, Deep-Well Cookies, and Pits of Love). But she couldn’t give much of her attention to the recipe. Her gaze was drawn to a small envelope taped down upon the page.

The Scotch tape was old and had lost most of its stick; the envelope came up easily. On the outside was written in a delicate hand, “To my favorite niece: Surprise! And now you can make Jelly Tots just like your Aunt Sue. (Because this is where I got the recipe!) I hope that you’ll enjoy this cookbook in the first year of your marriage just as much as I’ve enjoyed it in the last years of mine. And there’s a little something else, which you’ll find inside the envelope. A wedding gift that should help you and Lyman build yourself a beautiful kitchen in that new dream house of yours. With love, Aunt Sue. March, 1946.”

Josephine opened the envelope.

“Quentin?”

“Just a minute, hon. Bub’s about to — I still can’t get used to seeing William Frawley without Vivian Vance. It’s like Ethel never existed.”

“Quentin, get over here. I want you to see this.”

Quentin pulled himself from his recliner and lumbered into the dining room. “See what?”

“It’s a check.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“In the book, Quentin. Where else would I find it?”

Josephine handed her husband the slightly yellowed check. He tipped up his glasses so his nearsighted eyes could give it a closer look. “It’s for fifteen hundred dollars.”

Josephine nodded.

“Who’s Bette Merkel?”

“She’s the woman I bought the book from. Merkel’s probably her maiden name. This check was a wedding present. She never cashed it.”

“Well, she probably didn’t cash it because she never saw it.”

“Because she never even opened the book. Now here’s what I think. Sit down.”

Quentin minded his wife; he pulled out one of the dining room chairs and sat down.

“I think this aunt must have made these — what are they — these Jelly Tots for her niece and now the niece is all grown up and about to get married and the aunt’s passing the recipe down to her. But it’s not some family secret — it’s in The Joy of Cooking . Anyway, the recipe was Aunt Sue’s way of surprising Bette with the fat check.”

“But how could Bette be surprised if she never saw it?” asked Quentin, scratching his chin.

“There’s a bigger question than that , honey. Why didn’t the aunt tell her the check was in there? I mean, after she didn’t figure it out on her own. That’s a lot of money.”

“Of course it’s a lot of money. Too much money to give to a niece who doesn’t appreciate you enough to even look inside a book you gave her, whether she liked to cook or not.”

“You think that’s it?”

“That would be my guess.”

“I really need to know for sure.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I wonder if Aunt Sue is still alive. I wonder if she lives around here.”

“Josephine, how are you going to find her? And let’s say you do find her — what are you going to say to her? This isn’t any of your business.”

Josephine pushed the check back and forth across the table as she thought. “Do you think I should just give it to her? To Bette? It is hers, after all.”

“I don’t know. It might just stir things up. There’s a reason that the aunt didn’t break down and tell her niece where to find it. Something soured the relationship.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. She didn’t give me a very good feeling last Saturday. She was very flip, very dismissive. I didn’t like her.”

“Let it go, Josie. Tear up the check, and let it go. Can I get back to My Three Sons now?”

“All right.”

As Quentin was heading back to the TV alcove of the couple’s living room, he said, “Hey, make something fun out of that cookbook for dinner tomorrow night.”

“All right. I’d already decided to make those infamous Jelly Tots for dessert.”

“Whatever those are.”

Josephine didn’t tear up the check. She couldn’t. She had never been the kind of person to let go of something that gnawed away at her. And there was so much that was gnawing at her. There was a story here she was dying to know. Hadn’t the aunt called Bette her “favorite niece”? And then, suddenly, something must have happened to permanently erase that special status. Could it be exactly what Quentin surmised: a niece’s lack of interest in a book her aunt obviously treasured? Josephine had to know. She’d never tell Quentin, but she absolutely had to find out.

Josephine knocked on the door, even though it was already open. A truck was in the driveway and there were moving men lifting a bedframe into the back of its large, capacious trailer. “Hello?” she called into the house.

The husband appeared. He was dressed in a soiled sweatshirt and jeans and he looked tired.

“Is your wife — is Bette here?”

“She’s around here somewhere. You’re not selling anything, are you?”

“Oh, no. I came to your yard sale last week.”

“Well, everything we were going to sell’s already been sold.” The husband disappeared into the house. “BETTE! THERE’S SOMEBODY HERE TO SEE YOU!”

Josephine waited.

At last Bette appeared. She wore knockabout clothes like her husband — an old sweater and Capri pants with a patina of dust on them.

“Hi. I’m Josephine Charles. I was at your yard sale last week.”

“Yes. I think I remember you. You bought some baby clothes, didn’t you?”

“Um. No. I was looking at the cookbooks.”

“Oh, okay. I guess you can tell that we’re just a little busy here. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I’m sorry. Do you want me to come back?”

“If you like, but I won’t be here. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”