Short Story / Brookside

BROOKSIDE

Charles looked at the stack of paperwork on his desk as he played Kenda’s message again.  “I’m in trouble.  I need your help.  Please come to the restaurant.  Hurry.”

The stack of paperwork seemed to pout like a jilted middle child:  employee reviews, phone logs, third-round calibrations statistics from the new Marchwell-Hammarschach steel buff press, a folder of cc’ed emails from the Hamburg offices that may or may not contain the initial specs for the new Schampfer high precision osteoablation sonic drill, and the latest printed lists of which parts for the old Schampfer were at which factories around the world.

There was something almost sexy in Kendra’s words, a little hint of danger, and Charles felt a flush in his cheeks as he ran her request around in his head.  The paperwork was never in trouble.  The Marchwell-Hammarschach never said please, no matter how much it needed his help.  What was that woman thinking?  

Hurry.

There were clocks on the phones, clocks on the walls, a clock on his idle Blackberry, but Charles didn’t check those; he didn’t check his father’s Rolex, bought in Germany in 1954 for $25 American – a price the old man remembered long after he remembered much else.  There was only one clock in the whole building Charles ever looked at twice.  There, on the corner of his desk, the digital readout was like a tiny caption under the huge framed picture.  Every time he saw it, it made him smile.  

There they were, standing on the deck of the Disney Wonder cruise ship last April:  Charles, Kendra, tall Justin and little Sarah, who refused to smile and insisted she wear those ridiculous Jackie O sunglasses (“Beyonce, Dad!  God, don’t you know anything?”)  A minute before, Charles had threatened to punch any costumed character who tried to get into the picture; this threat was the only thing that made Sarah smile during the entire two week vacation, and the shutter clicked on the digital camera just one second too late.  In Charles’ mind, though, his daughter grinned and said, “You tell ‘em Dad.”  That picture represented everything Charles Wilson ever wanted from his life.

I’m in trouble.  I need your help.  

The clock read “4:45,” and Charles knew that anything else he could possibly do that day would either get half-done or be done half-assed.  Suddenly, he couldn’t prioritize anything other than his scarf, hat, coat and gloves.

What was the problem?  Did something happen to Kendra’s Subaru?  Was she stuck at the restaurant?  Was there an accident?

Charles picked up the phone.  The clock there said it was only 4:40, but he never paid attention to the time there, either.  If anyone asked, he’d point to the family picture and say, “That’s where I keep time.”

He picked up his Blackberry and dialed the number for the Brookside as he found his briefcase and sorted through the paperwork, looking for something he could finish at home in bed.  

When there was no answer at the restaurant, he dialed Rajiv.  “It’s Charles.  I’m leaving early.  My wife needs me.”

Rajiv chewed and swallowed.  “Do you need me to do anything for you, Mr. Charles?”

“I emailed Jurgen the original Schampfer specs.”

Rajiv slurped a beverage.  “I’m sorry.  Did you say you need me to email them?”

“No…Um…Just…if anyone needs me, tell them I’ve left for the day, and I’ll check my Blackberry later tonight.”

Rajiv gave out a heavy sigh, loaded with disapproval.  “You must not let that device control your life, Mr. Charles.  You are a married man.  I tell you this ten times a day.  Blackberries are for men like me.  I have no life.  I go home and I play the same video games over and over, alone in my apartment, and I pray for a crisis on the factory floor that will distract me from the miserable pit of soul-crushing despair that my life has become.  You have a wife and two children.  Go home.  Be with them.”

Charles smiled as he hung up, put on his suit coat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, and pulled on his thick tan overcoat.  As he shoved his soft, engineer’s hands into his fleece-lined gloves, he looked out of his second-floor window at the falling snow lit up by the amber lights in the parking lot.  He would have to sweep his car; it looked thick out there.

He decided to leave the paperwork, but took his briefcase out of habit and his travel thermos so he’d have it in the morning.

Patricia, his young secretary, was talking on the telephone with her fiancée.  “Hold on, hon.”  She cupped the receiver.  “Are you leaving, Mr. Wilson?”

“I think so.”

“Be careful on the roads.”

“You too.  See you tomorrow.”

On the way to the stairs, Charles called home.

Sarah answered.  “Hello?”  

“Hey, sweetie.  Is your mom there?”

“Dad, Justin’s hogging the Xbox!  Tell him it’s my turn!”  Sarah hollered into the living room, “Justin!  Dad wants to talk to you!”

Justin picked up the other line.  “Hey, Dad.  You want red sauce or just veggies with your pasta?”

Sarah cut in.  “It’s my turn to play Xbox.  Dad told us we had to share.  You had it all day and you’re supposed to be making dinner, you stupid perv.  Tell him, Dad.”

“Justin, did you hear from your mom this afternoon?”

“I haven’t seen her since she dropped us off at school.  She said she had to go in to the restaurant to work on her desserts.”

Charles grimaced:  that’s right.  Today was Wednesday: Sarah had figure skating, Justin was off from hockey practice, and the Brookside was normally closed.  Kendra had mentioned something about desserts last night.  Why wasn’t I listening?

“Dad, tell Justin it’s my turn!”

“Justin,” said Charles, “you’re in charge there.  Do the right thing, son.”

“You’re going to let him get away with this?” Sarah screamed.  “You always take his side!  This is so unfair!  I hate you!  I hate you both!  I hope you die!”  She slammed down the phone.  Charles heard her screeching in the background from Justin’s end.

“Is she breaking things?” asked Charles.

“She’s going up to her room to write in her blog about you.  You want me to print a copy when she posts?”

“Don’t you dare.”

The conversation carried Charles through the humid interior offices of the Penfield-Weissman Medical Engineering Equipment plant.  He waved to the people he passed, nodding as they asked if a man with his scarf, hat, gloves, and overcoat was leaving.  It didn’t bother Charles; they were just being polite, just chattering to make a little noise and get a little noise back.

Justin echoed them.  “So are you heading out?  The roads are nasty.”

“Go ahead and eat without me.  I have to go to the village to meet up with your mother.”

Justin covered the receiver to shout something back at Sarah.  Then, “Do you think it’s a good idea, Dad?  You know how Mom feels about that.”

Charles nodded.  The one time he’d brought the kids to see her at work, Kendra seemed embarrassed and gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the week.  It was Rajiv, of all people, who told him to let the woman have a piece of her own life.  “Good, God, Mr. Charles.  Don’t you think she’s earned it?”

Now, Charles felt a stab of fear.

I’m in trouble.  I need your help.

How it must have hurt her just to say those words.

“We’ll see,” Charles said.  “And make sure your sister eats something, okay?”

Once on the road with a clear hole scraped through the ice on his windshield, slowly warming air blasting up through the defroster vents on his second-hand Jeep Cherokee, Charles felt his stomach grumbling.  He wondered if he should stop and get a piece of pizza at least before going to Brookside to sample some of Kendra’s desserts.

He knew these weren’t going to be the same old Pan Fried Fritter Cakes she would make when he was getting his Masters in Rochester, or the Chocolate Decadence cupcakes she used to sell at Justin’s PTA bake sales when they were living in North Carolina.  This was going to be all that haute cuisine French food, cream sauces and truffle butter, caramel glazes on baked fruit, sliced just so, set on a sugar-dusted plate and garnished with a pristine mint leaf, a floret of frangipane, or a dynamic zag of elderberry syrup.  They weren’t meant to be eaten; they were meant to be framed and critiqued by goateed men in black turtlenecks.

Partly because of Rajiv’s advice to let Kendra have this to herself and partly because of his ongoing problems with the constant maintenance and calibrations on the stupid Marchwell-Hammarschach machine, Charles didn’t ask Kendra about her job.  Tonight, feeling his SUV slipping on the salty slush on the two-lane country road, he felt guilty, and tried to remember what little he had absorbed through simple osmosis – by being in the same bed with her every night.

Some wives took up painting or community theater when their children were old enough to fend for themselves.  Some took up fundraising or politicking.  Kendra decided to become a fully-trained gourmet chef.  

After two years at Cornell, she studied under a French-trained Japanese artiste at the world-famous Dimpler House on Cayuga Lake, then moved to the Four Seasons in Rochester, then to Jonathan’s in Syracuse, until, finally, she was the sous chef in the kitchen of the fanciest, most expensive restaurant in the wealthiest bedroom community between the Hudson Valley and the Great Lakes.  

The owners loved her; they thought having a black woman in the kitchen gave them a postmodern edge.  Philippe, the executive chef at Brookside, looked down his nose at Kendra because she was a mother, a housewife, and a victim not of McDonald’s but of genetically-modified strawberries.  His advice to her was simple:  go to Berkeley and eat at Chez Panisse.  Instead, Kendra and her family went on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas; Philippe told her she had betrayed his trust, and from that day forward, refused to teach her.  She was on her own.

Charles grimaced; he never fully digested what that Disney cruise had cost her.  She never complained, never argued about it, seemed as happy to go as he was to pay.

I’m in trouble.  I need your help.

Kendra talked, when pressed, (by the kids), that she was taking on more responsibilities in the Brookside kitchen; that Dave and Carol were obviously moving Philippe out; that he had only come in to train the staff and design the menu.  Dave and Carol wanted to have a Philippe Argenite-Brichel menu, but they didn’t necessarily want to limit themselves to serving Philippe Argenite-Brichel desserts.  They’d hired Kendra because she said she could make “friendly” desserts – desserts that rich Americans could feel good about putting candles in and singing “Happy Birthday” with.

I’m in trouble.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, he thought.  In the twenty-four years he’d known her, Kendra had never once bitten off more than she could chew, never once agreed to do something she couldn’t, never made a single empty promise.  When she said, “I do,” she meant it.  She was rock-solid, grounded by a good family of church-going people that Charles the Army brat understood and appreciated.  He often asked her – normally on their anniversary – how he got so lucky to marry a woman like her.  She always gave him the same answer:  “The first time you took me out, you said you’d pick me up at 7, and you did.”

Hurry.

He put his foot down on the gas to catch time before hitting the village and its 20 MPH speed limit.  He pictured her on their first date, wearing that light yellow dress with a green sweater and a pink ribbon in her straightened hair.  Her thick, strong legs looked ready to walk by his side all night.  He only had four dollars in his pocket, but she was the one who suggested they walk to Centennial Park to watch the Atlanta philharmonic’s free concert.  She was the one who said she only wanted a hot dog and a diet soda.  She was the one who said family was more important to her than a career.

Charles slowed as the forested hills of Central New York gave way to the rows of tight little houses, their salted walkways dug through the thick snow at perfect right angles to the sidewalk.

He cruised past the Pasta Garage, past the news stand and cigar shop, past the $10 burger joint and the fish fry hole, past the stationary store, the wine shop, and the five gift stores Kendra called “knick-knack paddy whacks” with their window displays of wrought iron candle holders, crocheted tea cozies, mercury immersion barometer wind chimes, hand-crafted harlequin dolls, yoga mats and buckwheat throw pillows.

He turned and followed the creek road past the P&C supermarket, past the Bank of America and the Yarn Hut.  He pulled into a parking lot in front of a huge Victorian mansion built out over the shallow stream that flowed to the inlet, and then into the lake.  

There, nearly buried under the soft white snow, was Kendra’s silver Subaru Forester, the only vehicle in the lot.  The front of the house was black, but each upstairs window was set with an electric candle, something Charles believed was connected to the Underground Railroad.  Behind the darkness of the ground floor dining room, Charles could make out a dim glow coming from the kitchen.  Lights spilled out from the back porch, illuminating the thick snow clinging to the naked trees along the stream.

Charles locked the Jeep out of habit and made his way to the steps at the side of the Brookside mansion.  He could see Kendra’s footsteps in the snow along the staircase, filling in with fresh powder.  He followed them to the overhang, where he stomped the snow from his duck boots and opened the flimsy porch door.  “Kendra?”

There was no answer.  He slipped into the back terrace, closed up for the season, storm windows nailed over the screens, the furniture stacked next to the house like it was huddling there for warmth.  Charles stomped his feet again on the worn pile carpeting to knock the last chunks of snow from his boots.  He thought he could smell cake, coffee, and a whiff of something citrus.  “Kendra?  Are you here?”

“In the kitchen.”

Her voice was weak, and Charles hurried towards it, imagining the worst – I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!  Had she cut herself?  Locked herself in the freezer?  Was she held up?  Was she attacked?  Mugged?  Worse?

He pushed against the swinging door leading to the vestibule, then another that took him into the pantry.  It was like entering a cheap carnival’s haunted house, the way the track crashed the cart through one door to take riders out of the sunshine and another to take them into the dark.  “Kendra, where are you?”

“I’m in here.”

He followed her voice past the racks of dishes, glasses, linens, condiments cleaned and stacked in crystal jars on dark-stained wood shelves.  Now he smelled liquor and cinnamon and heard the motor of a space heater blowing nearby.  He peered through the service counter between the pantry and the kitchen, saw the lights on in another part of the renovated kitchen, illuminating stainless steel counters, convection ovens, a gas range, but no Kendra.  

Charles followed the counter into the dining room, where it vanished into the formal, dark-paneled room, where tall sago palms cast spiky shadows across naked blue tablecloths.  “Kendra!  Where are you?”

“In the kitchen!”

He hurried back into the pantry, rushed past the service, and pushed open a swinging door hiding in the shadows.  Heart pounding, he stepped into the remodeled kitchen, all stainless steel and light Scandinavian wood, squinting under the bright lights.  Momentarily blinded, he ran into his wife like a traffic accident.

“Kendra!”

“Hey!”

She grinned, her dark skin covered in splotches of pale dough, flecks of cream, and a streak of flour.  Her curly, highlighted locks stuck out at the back of what Charles thought was a surgical cap.  Her white apron was smudged with chocolate and bore small orange stains.  The sleeves of her pristine white Oxford were rolled up to the elbow.

Charles took a deep breath.  “Oh, sweetie.”  He felt the rush of relief at seeing her there, unharmed.  He reached out and pulled her into his arms.  “Oh, baby, don’t scare me like that!”  He kissed her cheeks and lips.

“Nice to see you too, hon.”

He broke the embrace, holding her shoulders.  “I thought something happened to you!”

The smile stayed on her lips, but her eyes softened to sadness as they shot across the kitchen.  “Something did happen to me.”

He followed her glance.

The kitchen was a disaster.  Out of the view from the pantry, there it was:  lemons, limes, oranges, kiwi, apples, pears, mangos, pineapples, carrots, bins of flour and sugar, jars of spices, cartons of heavy cream, light cream, 2%, buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese, egg cartons, bottles of rum, brandy, Kahlua, schnapps; sifters, graters, copper bowls, an electric mixer, a large tray set with spoons, forks, beaters, whisks, all coated in various mixed puddings and batters.  Orange peels, carrot peels, glass pans with bits of cake stuck to the sides, reams of heavy parchment, baking trays loaded with little lady finger pastries, and a large trash can set next to it all, steam rising from something discarded.

“Oh, baby…what happened here?”

“Forget it,” she said.  Her hands went up to his shoulders, slipping under his two coats, pushing them off.  “Kiss me.”  She leaned in and puckered her lips.

He pecked her quickly, unable to tear his eyes off the mess behind her.

“No, no,” she chided, angry.  “Kiss me like you mean it.  Kiss me like you did the day you proposed.”

Charles took his hands from Kendra’s shoulders just long enough to allow his jacket and coat to slide off and fall to the floor.  She pressed her tight, plump body against him, and he felt one leg entwining itself around his knee.

He kissed her again, pulling her close, and then realized with a shock that her breath was ripe with alcohol.  “Baby, are you drunk?”

“Shut up and kiss me, lover,” she ordered, her hands loosening his tie, slipping down his shirt to his belt, fumbling with his buckle the way he used to fumble with her brassiere.

He let her work while he kissed her cheeks, but his eyes darted nervously around them; were they alone?  He felt dirty, like they might get caught.  This wasn’t the Kendra he knew.  She was never aggressive, not even after those candlelit meals in their one-bedroom in Rochester, not even when they were trying to get pregnant.  She was a different woman in this kitchen.  She was in charge here.

“Baby, you’re drunk.”

“I am,” she admitted.  “So what?”  She stepped back and rolled up the apron to unbutton her black slacks.  “We’re a married couple.  We’re not kids.  If I want to make love with my husband, there’s no law against it.”

Charles was about to mention health codes and liability insurance, but she struck him dumb before he could begin.  She shoved her slacks, her long underwear, and her white cotton briefs down around her ankles and kicked the whole wrapping away.  Charles was stunned.  Kendra never undressed in front of him, never stripped, was never even naked in the same room with him if she could help it.  And they never made love with the lights on.

Nevertheless, Charles found his own pants puddled around his black socks as he stood there in front of her, seeing that look of intense yearning in her eyes, feeling himself respond to the situation the way nature intended.

She had always been stocky, but lately she had kept her body fit by swimming.  It showed as he drank in the sight of his wife in nothing but that white apron and Oxford shirt, her hair peeking out from under her tight cap, a slightly glazed look in her eyes that said she might just be willing to do things tonight that her mother would never approve of.  As he hurried to kick off his own pants, Charles wished he had worked to keep off that spare tire, done a few more pushups and situps, joined Justin at the gym, done something more than just eat salad.

Kendra turned to the counter, picked up a fork, and dug it into a tray.  Charles found his gaze drawn to her naked rear, something he had rarely seen in 24 years of marriage.  She was fit.  God, that woman had a rear end.  

She spun around, something creamy and layered on a fork, and beckoned him with a crooked finger. He pushed in against her body and she slipped the forkful into his mouth.  He tasted cinnamon, espresso, cake, cream, and – unmistakably – rum.  It was far from the best dessert he’d ever had, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.  He chewed and swallowed as she tossed the fork across the counter, not caring where it landed.

He said, “Mm.  Tiramisu.”

She twisted around from the hips, rubbing against him with friction that an Iroquois could have used to start a fire.  She put a finger against his lips.  “Don’t talk, lover.”  She hopped up on the counter, pushing back the debris to make room.  Bottles knocked together.  A bowl fell to the floor with a loud bang.  Kendra didn’t even turn to check which one.  She pulled him by the necktie, guiding him in between her open thighs.

Charles couldn’t remember the last time he and Kendra made love.  They did it on that Disney cruise, and one time over the summer, but it was perfunctory, something that happened in the early morning when they were both half-asleep, something that lingered like last night’s news, without meaning, provocation or consequence.

Tonight, alone in the Brookside, they made love like they never had in their bedroom.  He picked her up.  She clung to him.  She groaned and cried.  He grunted.  The soft nuzzling of his lips on her neck turned quickly to ravenous bites.  He ignored the strain in his flabby muscles as he carried her off one counter and set her on another.  Their lips met and locked, tongues like jousting lances basted in rum and espresso.  Her nails dug into his collar.

It lasted just as long as it had to.

He collapsed into her arms, his exhausted wheezing and her heavy panting the only sounds.  She kissed him, sated, and sat there on the counter top while he caught his breath.

Finally, she said, “I have to get back to work.”

He kissed her again.  “No, you need to come back home with me, Mrs. Wilson.  I’m not done with you.”

She put her finger against his lips again.  “No, Charles.  Just let it be what it was.”

She was right, of course.

“You mean this whole thing was just a…”  He tried to remember the words Justin taught him.  “A bootsy call?”

“Booty call,” she laughed.  She stood up, swayed a little, held the counter to brace herself and then went to collect her panties, longjohns, and slacks.  “The truth is, I called you because I was drunk and I didn’t want to drive home.”

Charles grinned.  That was the Kendra he knew.

“Now be quiet and listen, and I’ll tell you everything.”  She had already turned her back on him, carried her clothes behind the counter to hide her nakedness from him like the shy girl he married.  He did the same with his own pants.

“I came in today because Carol wanted me to create a dessert called ‘The Brookside.’  And all she told me was that it should be like tiramisu.”
She pointed at the wreckage on the counter.  “I made seventeen different tiramisus today.  Seventeen.  Not one of them was any good.  I started with Philippe’s recipe.  I followed it to the letter.  I did everything right, but it just tasted…flat.  So then I started adding stuff.  Dash more nutmeg.  Brandy instead of rum.  Port instead of marsala.  Cognac instead of brandy.  Kahlua.  I tried zesting citrus.  I tried everything, and it just kept getting worse.  The more I tried to make it my own, the worse it got.  Seventeen times.”

Now he didn’t feel so bad; she knew the dessert she gave him wasn’t up to her new high standards.  She just wanted to put something in his mouth to shut him up.

“After I called you, I sat here and cried, and I realized why my tiramisu was so awful.  It was because this kitchen, this place, this part of my life…it’s a job, honey.  There’s no love here.  There’s no…”  She shrugged.  “No love.  A kitchen needs love.  It needs…it needs you here.  Does that make any sense?”  

Charles remembered the picture on his desk.  “It makes perfect sense.”

Kendra buttoned her slacks and came out from behind the mountain of fruit, liquor, and spices.  “I need you here,” she said.  “Can you wait for me?”
Charles cinched his belt and went to her.  He took her into his embrace, pulled her against his belly and felt her, soft, relaxed, like well-kneaded dough.  “Of course I’ll wait, Kendra.  Whatever you need, baby, you got it.”  He kissed her and felt tears in his eyes.  “I love you so much.  I’m sorry for everything.  I’ll make it all up to you, I promise.”

“What are you talking about?” she said with a smile.  “I’m the one who should apologize.  It was wrong of me to keep you away from here.  It was wrong to think I could do this without sharing it with you and the kids.”

“Then why, baby?”

She sighed.  “If I say it, you’re going to think I’m not happy with you, and I am happy; you’re my man, and nothing’s going to change that.  But this…being a chef… This was the last chance I had to be Kendra.  The last chance I had to be somebody besides Mrs. Wilson, Charles’ Wife, Justin and Sarah’s Mom…the last chance I had to be…me.  To show the world what I could do by myself.  But tonight it just hit me:  I’m not by myself, am I?  And tonight, I realized I don’t want to be.  That’s why I married you in the first place.  That’s what family’s for.”

Charles said nothing, just let a tear fall.

She looked up at him and cooed as she wiped his cheek.  “Oh, stop it; you’re going to get me started.”  

She took a deep breath to steady herself.  “I’m going to make one more tiramisu.  I can get you a cup of coffee if you want to work on something in the staff room.”  She pointed vaguely to the pantry.  “Just give me half an hour, hon, and then we’ll go home.  I’ll leave the Subaru here.  Please…wait for me?”

“Can I watch?”

“Well…”

“I won’t say a word.”

“Alright.  Over there.”  She pointed to a stool in front of a tray of sliced oranges.  “And honey?”

He turned back to her.

“It’s not tiramisu.  It’s the Brookside.”

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