Aimee Bender - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Ah! said Monsieur, hitting the counter. I don’t know why we keep going to him, he said. He is such a jerk.

You can taste that? said the red-scarf woman.

In the way it was picked, I said. He picks it rudely.

Madame stepped back, into the bar area. Nice job with the milk, she said. Did you look in the fridge?

How about nutmeg? said the woman with the red scarf. Madame nodded, and the woman flushed. It’s a tricky one, said Madame, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her apron strap. People never expect it.

Monsieur looked at me directly, waiting.

Far, I said. Indonesia? Standard fare.

Dough, said the big man.

Local, I said. I think you made it yourself.

I made it, said Monsieur. Myself. Last night.

Delicious, I said.

Why are they eating at the wine counter? asked Madame.

Sea salt, said the woman with the red scarf.

You’re not even eating, said the jowly man.

It’s a food tasting, I said. Instead of a wine tasting.

The crust, mused the man. The crust is-

I took another bite. Let the information rise up, slow. Monsieur had stopped working on the crossword, and I could sense him watching me now. Alert. The sharpened feeling of being paid close attention to.

The cook is a little disillusioned, I said.

Mmm, said Madame, leaning against bottles of wine.

The big man next to me wiped his brow with a napkin. Disillusionment is not an ingredient, he said.

But I had her eyes in mine, and I was keeping them.

But the cook loves to mix, I said. Loves the harmony of putting the right ingredients together. Loves to combine.

That’s true, said Monsieur, nodding.

The woman in the red scarf stopped sniffing her glass to listen.

There was also a little hurry during the mixing, I said. It’s about eight minutes fast? I said.

The man next to me raised his hand. Or chives? he said.

Eight minutes, I said. Were you rushed?

Maybe four, dismissed Madame.

Monsieur looked up at the ceiling, thinking.

While she was making the quiche, she was planning on calling Édith, he said. Our daughter, he said, looking at me. Remember, Marie?

Behind the counter, Madame was rearranging wine bottles. It looked like she was taking one bottle out, and then trading it with another bottle of the same brand.

It tastes about eight minutes too fast, I said.

Édith was in crisis, Monsieur said. She cannot pass Japanese.

Madame put down a bottle. Not eight minutes, she said, to me.

Eight, I said.

She is bad at writing kanji, said Monsieur.

Five minutes, said Madame.

Monsieur shrugged. A very small smile settled on his lower lip.

There is also a tinge of sadness in the cook, I said.

Now he put down his pencil for good, and folded up the crossword.

In us all, he nodded.

I shifted in my seat. Re-rolled my napkin. It was the first time in a long time that I’d gone full out with my impressions. I had wanted to introduce myself, to people I wanted to meet. That was the whole of it.

On my other side, the woman in the red scarf stared at my plate again.

The pastry crust is made of flour, butter, and sugar, she said.

Done! said Madame, stepping forward.

The focus broke, and Madame poured the woman a free half-glass of wine, and the man finished his quiche, and talked to Monsieur with great animation about various kinds of bacon. I stayed in my seat. While Monsieur and the man laughed, Madame stepped a little closer to me.

How did you do that? she said, in a low voice.

I don’t know, I said. I just can do it.

She reached her arms over the counter. Someone called to both of them from the kitchen, and they spun off to tend to other customers, but I knew I wasn’t done. While I waited, the woman with the red scarf tapped me on the shoulder.

She smiled at me.

Hi, she said.

I told her good job, on guessing the dough without even tasting it.

Now, did you know all the food information in advance? she said. She was fumbling in her purse for something. She had an awake face, eyes shining like a small bird’s.

No, I said.

You’re quite knowledgeable, said the woman, pushing aside gum wrappers and pens. She blinked up at me. The red scarf brought out something in her cheeks, some good kind of redness.

Thanks, I said. I pushed my napkin around the table. It’s just this thing, I said.

The woman said aha! and brought out a business card, sliding it over to me across the counter. On it was her name, and a job description for something to do with the schools.

So you can tell things, in the food? she said. Fixing her eyes on me.

I didn’t blink. Yes, I said.

Many things?

Yes, I said. Many.

Why don’t you give me a call, then, she said, and her giddy guessing self dropped away, and her eyes settled firmly on mine, and she seemed nice, nicer, suddenly. I might be able to use you, she said.

I picked up her card, held it at all four corners.

I work with teenagers, she said.

She turned, and left the room. She didn’t look back, but the card was a little rectangular piece of her. I put it in my pocket.

The bar had cleared by then. The jowly man had left, joining the rest of the daily traffic. Monsieur and Madame were busying themselves at the counter, sorting through orders, putting away glasses. Madame still kept her eyes on the tables, checking, but the feeling of it had changed. The distance of before was now the discomfort and shyness of going on a first date with someone you think you might like.

Monsieur walked to the front of the bar, from the other side. He held out his hand. We shook.

What’s your name again?

Rose, I said. Rose Edelstein.

Well, Rose Edelstein, he said, it looks like we should all go grab some coffee.

So you want to become a cook? Madame said as we walked to their car, together.

I’m not sure yet, I said.

Am I giving you cooking lessons?

Maybe, I said. I just want to be around while you cook. Is that okay? That’s the main thing, I said.

A food critic?

I just want to learn more about it, I said. I didn’t go to college.

I don’t care about that, she said. How old are you again?

Twenty-two, I said.

Can you chop onions?

I think so, I said.

Well, then, she said, pulling a red net bag of onions from the trunk of her car. Then that’s where we’ll begin.

When people asked my mother where Joseph had gone, she said he was on a journey. It was a word she liked, full of quest and literature and nobility of spirit. Sometimes she said he was in the Andes, learning about ancient cultures. Other times a deep-sea diver, off a coast in Australia, or else a surfer; depending on her mood, he either rode the waves or searched beneath them. She moved his grandparent fund into a high-interest low-activity account at the bank, where the money built upon itself.

She still spent most of her time at the studio, and for a while, her projects became very small and intricate: Wooden marbles, or wooden pillboxes, with embroidered flowers. Refined wooden tripods, on which to place small wooden frames. She befriended a little girl down the street solely for the purpose of making an entire furnished dollhouse, but the girl was a tomboy, and when my mother found her perfect tiny bedroom set smashed by a basketball, she stopped.

Twice a week, I cooked for her. We took out the recipe books together, and she sat and asked about the restaurant and told me about the carpentry innovations while I went through the Joy of Cooking systematically. I insisted that she sit, that I didn’t need help, that she’d cooked enough for a while. Once again, my salvation looked to any outsider like good and generous daughterliness. For months, we ate only appetizers, and then I moved to soups, and salads, and entrées. I skipped the recipes that sounded too difficult, and my mother picked her favorites and made requests.