HungryforMore



Tarte aux Noix de Pecan
Pecan tarte with crème anglaise and French vanilla ice cream
—JAMES LACHANCE, Meal of a Lifetime,THE MENU: DESSERT

Chapter 28


Roni felt a strange vibe from her son, as if he was avoiding her. She didn’t blame him; she had been feeling so physically ill lately, she could hardly bear to look at herself in the mirror. He was probably disgusted with her. He was so strong and independent, she often felt like the child around him. Finally, during the lull between first and second service, she got a minute alone with Troy at the barista station.
He met her eyes with his alarmingly intense ones. “Mom, are you okay?”
“Just tired. Why?” Roni was always exhausted. She remembered the constant, overwhelming fatigue of the first trimester with Troy. At least her hands weren’t shaking. But she had taken maybe three—well, she had lost count—pills to get there, and she felt woozy. It was so hard to keep track, especially with her mind spinning like this. They were just herbs. That website had assured her they would be fine, “but everything in moderation!”
“Mom, when you brushed that guy’s shoulder at table five, did you hear the voice?”
“Of course I did,” Roni said irritably. What was Troy going on about? She poured herself some water from a pitcher and drank quickly so no one would see her transgression.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Troy, what are you getting at? Shoot, table seven needs bread.”
He grabbed his mother’s arm to stop her from leaving with the basket. “Mom, stop. Remember when you said that Andrea wasn’t my One True Love? But Amy said I didn’t have a One True Love, that I was too young. You didn’t know that, did you? Why didn’t you know that?”
“Troy. This is not okay on the floor.” Her eyes flashed to Elliot, who was smiling at a party of recent arrivals.
“Mom, I have the voice,” Troy whispered.
Roni stared at her son. “What?”
“Just now. In the walk-in. It came to me. Mom, James and Amy are each other’s One True Loves. Did you know that? You must have known that, if you had the voice. And—”
Roni felt the blood drain from her body. “Did you tell her?” She could hardly find her voice. A pain started in her stomach, sharp and jagged.
“Yes, of course I told her—”
“No!” Roni cried, much too loudly. The soft murmur of the dining room stopped. All eyes fell on the two of them. Amy, who was across the room, stared the hardest. But Roni didn’t care. She hit Troy on the shoulder with her too-small hands. “Stupid! I don’t believe you! You’re lying!” She pushed Troy in the chest, her tiny weight having no effect. “You’re ruining everything!”
“Mom?” Troy looked dumbfounded by her anger. He glanced around the room, which was totally silent now. It was as if two actors had abandoned the script and tossed aside their costumes in the middle of the stage. The play was over. Amy and Elliot rushed over.
“Take it into the kitchen,” Elliot hissed.
“Troy?” Amy grabbed his arm.
Roni turned and strode to the kitchen, one hand on her stomach, Troy and Amy on her heels.
James looked up as the three Gypsies burst into his kitchen: Roni white and shaking harder than ever, Troy white as a ghost and sweating, and Amy watching them both like they were two fighting cats she was afraid to touch but badly wanted to control. “After second service, tear each other’s heads off. But now, back to work!” James commanded.
Without hesitating, Troy pushed for the alley door, leaving a trail of cursing runners and line cooks behind him. James stared in amazement at the awful breach of kitchen etiquette. Troy knew better than to push through a busy kitchen like that. Something must be really wrong. James looked to Amy, who looked grim and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Roni followed Troy, elbowing everyone in her wake, a transformation so remarkable that no one even cursed her, but just stared after her in shock.
“I don’t believe you have the voice,” Roni cried, her voice icy and booming. James had never heard anything but near-whispers from the tiny woman. Apparently, no one else had either, as they had all turned to stone, the kitchen at a complete standstill. “You’re lying. Amy, he’s lying!”
Troy’s hand was on the handle of the door to the alley, his knuckles white from his death grip. He didn’t turn to face his mother. Every eye watched the boy’s back as if he might spin around and come out shooting.
“Prove it,” Roni challenged, coming up behind him. She sounded desperate, a woman who was on the verge of losing everything.
Roni’s bitter tone must have been too much for Troy. He turned around so slowly, Raul crossed himself. An eerie vibe filled the kitchen like smoke as mother and son faced off.
Stu crashed into the kitchen, stopping just inside the swinging doors when he saw the showdown. Dan pushed through a moment later, bumping into Stu. It took Dan a moment to adjust to the wrongness of the silent kitchen, his server’s aloofness transforming into mute alarm.
“What’s on?” James called to his servers. “Orders. Now!” But his call was met by utter silence.
“Okay, I’ll prove it,” Troy said so calmly James’s skin went icy. James stood in mute horror as the boy started down the line, touching each person in turn. “Lucille Cartwright,” he said to Denny. “She’s your One True Love. Your soul mate, buddy.”
“The spirit-voice!” Eduardo said, crossing himself. “The boy has the Gypsy power to foretell True Love!”
“My high school girlfriend!” Denny cried. “How did you know? That is some weird shit.”
“Ralph Vishnu,” he said to John-John.
John-John went red as Troy named his “roommate.” Snickers rose from two of the runners, then abruptly stopped as John-John raised his enormous knife and glared at them.
James stood aghast at his stove. He should stop Troy, but he felt powerless to move. The looks of recognition, shock, and then happiness on the faces of his crew as Troy told them the names of their One True Loves were too astonishing. It was clear most of them had heard the names before, remembered their owners fondly.
How could he come up with all these names if there wasn’t some truth to the voice?
Troy worked his way down the line. When he got to James, he stopped.
“Chef? You want to know?” he asked as if the sight of James made him remember where he was for the first time.
James looked at the boy. Then he looked across the room to Amy. She met his eyes, and the look she gave him was half fear, half hope.
He felt about the same. “Yes,” James said. “Tell me.”
Troy closed his eyes and put his hand on James’s shoulder. “Amy Abigail Lester Burns.”
James swallowed hard. He looked at Amy, even though he knew his face must look like everyone else’s: full of joy and wonder. She held his gaze, shrugged, and smiled, as if to say, “So do you believe in spirits now, Chef?”
When Troy had made his way down the line, the kitchen was so silent, they could hear the low murmur of the diners on the floor.
Stu and Dan still stood frozen in the doorway.
Troy took Dan by the arm. “Julianna Smith,” he told Dan, who exclaimed, “Hey, I’ve slept with her! Twice!” He paused. “If doing it drunk counts.”
Stu flinched away from the boy, taking a step backward.
“No!” Amy yelled to Troy. “Don’t!”
But it was too late. Troy touched his shoulder. “Daphne Herrellos,” he said.
Stu grimaced and a weight settled over the kitchen like a blanket. Stu’s wife’s name was Carol. Was their happy marriage over? Was the pull of True Love too great to overcome, even for a family man like Stu?
Troy backed away from Stu, realizing what he had done. He murmured, “Sorry,” to Stu and then to Amy, and then to his mother, then to the kitchen in general, and finally, to James.
James stared at his stove. He didn’t feel like cooking anymore. Looked like no one did. But it was his job to keep this show going, even if the place was on fire. Which in a way, it was. He was about to speak, when a blur out of the corner of his eye stopped him.
Roni had slumped to the floor with a dull thud. James was the first to her side. “Someone call an ambulance,” he yelled. “Dan, go and see if there’s a doctor in the house. Now. Move it, dammit. She doesn’t look good.”
“She’s pregnant,” Stu said, kneeling at her side.
They all stared in shock.
“No,” Troy said.
“How do you know?” Amy asked.
“I’ve been suspicious for days—she showed all the signs. So last week I asked her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Troy demanded.
“Because some things are private,” Stu shot back.
Troy turned red.
No one said another word until the EMTs arrived.
Amy had rushed with Troy and his mother in the ambulance to Jefferson Hospital, just a few short blocks away.
Now, an hour later, everything was calm. Bad, but calm. Amy hesitated outside the door to Roni’s room. Roni would be fine, the doctors said, but she had lost the baby.
Poor Troy. First the voice and now this. Amy took a deep breath and entered the room, trying to look confident. Roni was asleep in the narrow bed, Troy in the chair by her side, paging through a book. Mercifully, the other bed in the room was empty.
Wordlessly, Troy handed her the book.
“The nurse told me she’s doing great, Troy.” Amy tried to sound upbeat. Great for having lost a baby. Amy glanced absentmindedly at the book. The Art of the Con. She had read that way back when, in her early days. “What’s this? You planning to give up cooking to take your new power on the road?”
“I found it in her purse,” Troy said, his voice flat. “Open it.”
Amy didn’t want to open it. She wished she could tell Troy she would help him by taking the voice back, but she wasn’t sure she could anymore. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Maddie going to Troy from Roni had confused her. What was Maddie up to? What did she want from Amy? If only there were a rulebook somewhere so Amy could know exactly what was required of her, instead of having to guess all the time. Did Maddie go to Troy because she knew that Troy would tell the truth about Amy’s soul mate? Watching James’s face as he heard her name made something inside of her solidify. He was happy. And even better, he wasn’t surprised. He had known. She felt whole for the first time since Maddie had left her. Her usual urge to flee evaporated like smoke.
But now, in this sterile, cold hospital, when she had some time to digest it all, she wasn’t sure.
Amy sucked in her cheeks. “Troy, nothing that happened in that kitchen was your fault. She was taking some kind of herbal pill to calm her nerves, the doctor said. She didn’t know not to take too many. She messed up, Troy. Not you. None of us knew.”
“The book. Look at it,” Troy said, as if he hadn’t heard her. He was gray with sorrow. “Page forty-two.”
Amy glanced at Roni, asleep in the bed. The nurse had given her something to help her sleep after the tragic night. Amy sighed and opened the book to the page he had indicated. Passages were underlined, and Roni had scribbled notes in the margins in her spidery, barely there hand. Amy tried to concentrate on the type. Highlighted in bright yellow and then underlined in ballpoint three times were the words You can only make a person do what they want to do already. Roni had scribbled, Leave T. alone w/ A. so they can bond? 2 wks too long? in the margin.
Amy lowered the book and looked at Troy. Her heart began to thump uncomfortably.
“Amy, she never even had the voice,” Troy said. “Look at page twelve.”
Amy looked. Sure enough, scrawled in the margin over an underlined passage about finding opportunities by observing the troubles of others were the words Oprah episode w/ A.B.? Pretend to have True Love voice? Find A.B.? How?
Amy looked at the sleeping form in the bed. She waited to feel anger rise within her, but instead she felt even more sadness. “Well, she did a good job. I never guessed she didn’t have the voice.” Amy tried to sound calm, but she was starting to come apart at the seams. It was worse than she thought. The whole thing was a lie. The last few weeks were nothing but lies. Amy felt sick. Maybe she could take the empty bed next to Roni and sleep for a week, trying to sort out what was going on.
Troy handed Amy a piece of white paper, crinkled and folded. “It was stuck in the book.”
Amy read it all the way to Step four: fake channeling—pretend Maddie says she’ll come back to A. if she helps Troy w/ $$$ .
Amy felt dizzy. So the channeling was a lie. Both of them? “I swear I felt Maddie at those channelings.”
“I think she was there,” Troy said. “She was there for me, though. I sensed her, too. I felt her enter me.”
Amy crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash. She should have known. Roni’s shaking hands were such an obvious tell, and she had seen them and ignored them because she wanted so badly to have found Maddie. She felt incredibly sad for Troy and for his mother, despite the failed con. And sad for herself, too. The last channeling was a lie; Maddie had chosen Troy. It was over. “Come and sleep at James’s tonight. He called a few minutes ago. He wants you there.”
“No. I’m staying here. The hospital people said it was okay since there’s an empty bed.”
She couldn’t force the boy to come. “Okay. But I’ll be back tomorrow morning as soon as I can. Troy, I’m sorry. It’ll all be okay.”
“Yeah, right,” said the kid, looking at his sleeping mother.
Too bad he wasn’t dumb.