When in Doubt, Add Butter Read online

  It beats the hell out of the obsessive dieting and exercising that characterized those thin years.

  Look, I’m just being honest, not self-pitying. Because I also happen to know I’m quite charming to the right type of person. And a lot of men have called me beautiful. Even if that always feels like an exaggeration and almost always like a ploy of some kind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a compliment I will absolutely relish, but deep down I know it’s not something construction workers see when I walk past them on the street. Those wolf calls they’re supposedly famous for? It has rarely been a problem for me.

  So there you go. It was actually Lynn’s use of the word spinster that made more of an impact on me.

  I was fine being alone.

  I just didn’t like feeling like I was stuck being alone.

  “Women aren’t spinsters anymore.” I carefully set three more hens onto the large screaming-hot pan. They sizzled as soon as they touched the scorching steel. “Plenty of women choose to be single because the alternative is too appalling.”

  “What, marriage?”

  “Yes, for one thing.” That idea had never appealed to me, though I’d been semi-engaged once. Back when getting engaged and married and so on seemed like the Right Thing to Do. “Relationships in general. Show me a good one.”

  “Don’t look at me! I’ve been married twice, and look what I have to show for it!”

  I was so shocked, I burned my arm on the side of the pan when I turned to look at her. “Ouch! Shit!” I felt my face go hot, as well as my sleeve. “You’ve been married twice?”

  “I never mentioned that?”

  “No!”

  She shrugged. “Then I guess you know everything there is to know about my marriages.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head and looked at the baking sheets full of seared brown hens. “I’m amazed you’re even willing to date, given that every hookup could lead to something—”

  “Don’t say it!” She held up her hand and laughed. “Don’t. Say. It. I fall in love easier than a toddler falls down. From now on, it’s just sex or nothing.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  She smirked. “Thanks.”

  “So, chickie, what are you going to do for work on Friday nights now if this gig is up?”

  “I’m going to have to find another client,” I said, feeling a twinge of panic in my stomach. It was like looking at a steep, slippery hill and knowing I’d have to climb it. Money was tight. Really tight. I couldn’t afford to luxuriate in a few Fridays off; I needed to get someone new quick. I had a small list of people I’d had to turn down in the past, but experience had taught me that when you call someone after the mood has passed, usually they’re no longer interested in your services.

  So it would be another costly Washingtonian ad for me. My clients were not Craigslist kind of people. Craigslist was for bargain hunters, and I couldn’t afford to be a bargain.

  “Want me to spread the word?” she asked.

  “If you know anyone who wants a private chef”—I nodded—“absolutely.”

  The conversation was interrupted then by Marie Lemurra herself, marching in to ensure that her servants didn’t waste a moment of her hired time chatting amongst themselves or having what could, in any way, be perceived as an enjoyable time on her dime.

  “Work, work!” she trilled, but there was an unmistakable edge to her voice. “There’s no time for chitchatting. Not right now, anyway.” Her eye caught mine, and in that split second, I knew exactly what she was saying.

  I was definitely fired.

  So now I had Friday to contend with. Or, more specifically, the lack of Friday.

  The Lemurras hadn’t been exactly what you’d call a pleasure to work for, but mostly they stayed out of the kitchen, which made them comparatively easy. There were always moments of exception, of course. Like that one time I had to tell her I was unable to come devein and grill five pounds of shrimp on a Sunday for an impromptu soiree Marie was holding, and her response was to close her eyes and whisper, “I hate you.”

  All you can do in a situation like that is rationalize that that was probably just her thing, something she said to people without really realizing how ridiculously harsh it sounded. She probably said it all the time, to the dogs, to the neighbors, to her friends. Even Pepe the Peacock probably heard it more than once in his short but glorious tenure at her house.

  I’m almost sure that was what she was shouting behind me as I drove away that last evening after she grudgingly handed me my check and told me she no longer needed my services. Ever. Although then, it has to be said, she was expressing herself with a good deal more feeling and verve than most people would ever feel, much less reveal.

  There was no question of whether I would ever be back.

  I was never very good with the whole … like … “savings” thing. I hadn’t put money aside for a rainy day or a dead peacock, so if I didn’t get a new Friday soon, I might really be screwed.

  And I couldn’t ever let that happen.

  But it was times like these that I looked back at my choices and felt a certain peace that, no matter how hard it had been to give up that baby, it had been the right decision. Because look at me: looking ahead at forty and still worried about my financial security in a very real, immediate way.

  You know that old rule of thumb that you should have at least six months’ worth of expense money in the bank “just in case”? Yeah, I was not even close.

  It made for a lot of stress about day-to-day living, but to look at the bright side, it was a hell of a motivator to find more work.

  Chapter 3

  No one promised life would be easy or that the game wouldn’t change without warning. There you are, all ready to pass Go and collect two hundred dollars, and suddenly Colonel Mustard is trapped in the conservatory, ranting and raving and waving a wrench, and no one knows what exactly a conservatory is or why anyone thought a wrench—of all things—would be a good murder weapon, or what branch of the military Colonel Mustard even served in! Has anyone seen his credentials?

  Well, you get my point: You’ve got one life with zero guarantees, so you do your best, adapt if possible, and keep on breathing. I recommend striving for happiness, but many opt for duty and responsibility. Mileage varies.

  Your life, your game, your rules.

  Here’s the only thing I know for sure: Chopped pineapple is incredible on hot dogs. Honest to God, I love pineapple on everything—I would probably even eat it off a cadaver’s hand—but toss it with a little chopped red onion and put it on a hot dog, and it’s bliss. There’s not a lot you can count on in this world, but pineapple? It’s solid.

  Once upon a time, I thought I had bypassed the entire issue of dating into my dotage. Of course, thirty-seven is not dotage, but when I was a teenager, it sure seemed like it was, and given that I had a boyfriend who I thought was my Forever and Ever at the time, I was pretty smug—as only a seventeen-year-old can be—in the knowledge that I’d never have to deal with the dating world again.

  That all changed the day I realized that I’d been happily cavorting in the pool in my swimsuit for two months straight without ever having my period. One EPT three-pack later—BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE!—I was a different person. Right up to that moment of confirmation, I had been myself, even though, of course, the confirmation was just that, and the fact existed with or without it.

  But I will never forget the feeling of standing there in front of the beige counter of my bathroom in my mother’s house—a counter that had, over the years, held everything from plastic tub toys to muddy summer science experiments to Tampax Juniors to my first Maybelline eye shadows—looking at three positive pregnancy tests that confirmed, without any room for doubt, that I would never be the same person again. I would never be the same person I’d been that very morning again. Amazing how your perspective can change your reality, huh?

  I know it seems stupid; to this day, I hear stories about people going months and months
without knowing they were pregnant, and I think, Just how stupid are you? for a moment before I realize I know just exactly how stupid someone can be in that situation. It’s a very easy thing to be going along in your life, doing all the things you always do, feeling the way you always have, and not realizing that something—either within you or outside you—has shifted.

  His name was Cal, by the way. This boyfriend I thought I would be with forever. The father of my child.

  Cal Isaakson.

  As I worked through the shock over the next few days, I wrote that name down a million times, like the child I was myself instead of the woman I should have been in order to handle this situation responsibly.

  Cal and Gemma Isaakson.

  Gemma Isaakson.

  Mr. and Mrs. C. Isaakson.

  And so on.

  There was never a point of relief for me. Never a point at which I thought to myself, Phew, now I really have him. Whether that was because I believed so thoroughly that I did have him or because I knew deep down that I didn’t, I can’t say.

  All I know is that telling him was harder than I expected it would be, and that, right there, was my first clue. He was, immediately, a person I didn’t recognize.

  This is going to fuck up my whole life!

  How could you let this happen?

  I’m not missing college to get married and raise a kid.

  Find a place to get this taken care of.

  Don’t. Tell. Anyone.

  The guy I had believed was the love of my life—a guy I’d been with for a year, through all four seasons and one of every holiday and birthday—suddenly viewed me as his enemy. Not even a person anymore. He dehumanized me thoroughly. I was just something trying to block his way to happiness and success.

  Obviously, I realize that we were young, I had no idea what “the rest of my life” would look like, or how long that really stretches (if you’re lucky), but even now, I am shocked at the vehemence of his response. The cruelty of it.

  And yet I guess I’m glad it was handled that way, rather than in a more mediocre fashion, because if he’d hidden his coldness, or if he’d grudgingly agreed to marry me, I would have ended up in what I have no doubt would have been an epically terrible marriage.

  As it was, I told him I’d take care of it.

  He didn’t even ask how. Or if I needed help. Or even if it was done.

  That was the beginning of August. We spent about three more awkward weeks together, pretending nothing had happened, and when he left for Rutgers at the end of the month, I’m not even sure we went through the pantomime of kissing good-bye.

  And that was it.

  He was gone.

  In those days before e-mail, it required more effort to stay in touch. Not a lot of effort, of course, just some paper, an envelope, a stamp, and a few minutes to jot down a few words. But he didn’t even bother to do that.

  Neither did I, of course.

  But I was busy floundering in the previously uncharted territory of teenage pregnancy. Wild hormones, terrible mood swings, depression that felt like something separate from me, yet something I’d never be free of. I had real problems, to be sure, but hormones can take whatever you’re feeling and make it a million times worse. PMS was nothing compared to pregnancy.

  And PMS was bad enough.

  To say nothing of getting bigger by the day, despite the inability to keep down anything I ate. “Morning sickness” was a great fallacy for me, since it lasted all day and well into the fourth month.

  Finally I was able to eat macaroni and cheese, as long as it was made with Velveeta and topped with Frank’s hot sauce. Lots of it. I don’t think a vegetable crossed my mind, much less my lips, during those nine months.

  What did cross my mind was lots of thoughts of baby names and tiny clothes and locks of wispy soft hair and an increasing determination not only to keep the baby but also devote my life to being the best mother I could possibly be.

  I didn’t see marriage in my future. Not only did Mrs. Rooks’s warning ring hollowly back in my subconscious, but Cal’s turnaround made me feel like I could never trust another man again.

  Time has set me straight on that, fortunately, though I never came back around to the marriage idea. For a few years, I didn’t think I could ever trust anyone again. I didn’t even think I could trust myself to have reasonable judgment about anyone else. After all, I’d been sure I could trust Cal forever, and until he was put to the test, I had no idea that wasn’t the case.

  What if he hadn’t been put to the test? What if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, and our relationship had limped along until eventually we did what might have been expected of us and got married? I might have learned what was already a very hard lesson in a much, much harder way.

  In fact, I could even still be learning it today if it weren’t for his showing his true colors when he did.

  So I guess I had to be grateful for that. Still, it was a very hard time for me, as well as for my family.

  I worked as many hours as I could get at the Roy Rogers Restaurant where I’d been working since I was sixteen, saving my pennies and living in my mom’s house with the idea of staying at home with the baby as long as I could.

  I gestated.

  Ate macaroni and cheese. With Frank’s hot sauce.

  And gradually, I came to view the baby as my own and let go of the fear that some resemblance to Cal would forever haunt me and keep me from giving as fully to the child as I wanted to. This was a human being, a person—boy or girl, eventually man or woman—that I was being granted temporary custody over, to guide in life toward whatever he or she would be. Sure, genetics mattered. They existed and potentially had implications for health and heredity, but that was just the physical. That had nothing to do with the soul, or with the true essence of the person who was being formed.

  This baby was no more Cal than I was.

  This baby was … Well, I didn’t know who the baby was. But I wanted to find out. To take that emotional journey for the next sixty or seventy years together.

  I was ready.

  Or so I thought.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, it all changed. Things went wrong: I lost my job over something stupid and found it difficult to find another because I was pregnant. My mom was as supportive as she could be, but her anxiety problems were increasing and I felt her detachment as clearly as if she were encased in ice. My memories of the time involve a lot of her sitting on the couch, smoking cigarette after cigarette, shaking her head. I knew I couldn’t live a suspended childhood in her house myself and raise another baby. This wasn’t a crazy TV movie where Baby Tender Love came to life and I had to step up until the spell could be reversed; I had to get it right from the beginning. Losing my meager income made me realize that if it was that difficult to get a job while pregnant, how was it going to be trying to get work when I had a child to take care of?

  How much did day care cost versus the minimum wage I was earning? How could I get a job that would pay enough for me to cover day care?

  And what about college? I had always planned on going to college. A college degree was as expected in my family as a high school diploma. I was an only child, and thanks to my father’s life insurance policy, my mother had saved enough for me to go to, and live at, a Maryland state school, and she offered me the option of using that money toward another school if I preferred, with the understanding that the responsibility for the rest—whether grants, loans, scholarships, or whatever—was my own. I was expected to succeed, not just exist. I wanted to succeed, not just exist.

  So when I had a child, I wanted to be a great example for him or her to do the same. With my lack of experience and job marketability, it was easy to imagine being the clichéd single mother—exactly like my own—working to death at a low-paying job, too tired to play, too spent to contribute meaningfully to my child’s development.

  As much as I wanted it, there was no way to truly make this work.

  The veil was lifted, s
o to speak, and I realized with deadly clarity that I had been living in a fantasy world. I was a seventeen-year-old kid playing house like a six-year-old, with an imagined baby and no husband or father around. That idea had its place as the game of a child, but in reality, I was barreling forward, fully intending to raise another human being in a life that would inevitably be defined by struggle from day one.

  For months, my future visions had involved rocking a baby and playing Santa Claus and other idealized Disney Channel movie moments, but very little reality.

  Reality was grim.

  So with the kind of certainty people usually describe as “a religious moment,” I decided that if I really loved this baby, I had to give him or her up for adoption to a family that could provide everything I would want to provide myself but never could.

  My heart was broken. The decision itself gnawed a hollow inside me that I didn’t think would ever be filled. Knowing I was doing the right thing, the best thing, was some comfort, but it didn’t do squat toward helping me imagine a future in which I would ever have peace of mind.

  I was just going to have to wait that out and hope for the best. Hope that time would heal, the way so many songs and poems promised it would.

  The adoption process was easy, though it’s a blur in my memory. I worked with a private agency and got to be involved in the choice every step of the way.

  My only stipulation—and to this day, I don’t think I regret it—was that I didn’t want the child ever to find out who I was. Not because I didn’t want to be “bothered,” but because I knew myself well enough to know that, for the rest of my life, every time I saw a kid who looked about the right age and who resembled either Cal or myself in any way, I would wonder, and it would be painful. The idea of adding a cocktail of hope and potential disappointment to every day from the eighteenth birthday on just felt like torture.

  Time passed.

  Labor started in the movie theater, where I was seeing the second run of an old Tom Cruise movie.