The Tyranny of Annie’s Kitchen - (February 2017)

As the bells of St. Catherine announce the evening with five evenly-spaced tolls that ring out from its majestic brick tower, loud enough for most of North Cambridge to hear, Lorenzo unlatches the white-wooden gate and walks toward the front door. He hears the music before he steps across the threshold. The sounds of cooking greet him, the sizzle of oil and the garlic roasting in it, and he feels something he can’t quite place. Then he thinks, it smells like home, as he walks into the kitchen and watches Annie grinding the oversized peppercorn mill while singing along with Aretha Franklin. Before announcing his arrival, Annie turns her head, smiles at him and then nods her head toward Nona, asleep in her chair by the television in the living room. She grabs the joint smoldering in the ashtray next to the stove and takes a deep inhale. “We had a great day,” she sings out, after blowing the white smoke through the open kitchen window.

He stands for moment in the kitchen doorway, watching Annie at the stove and wondering how life could have been. The music is too loud, he prefers NPR, but seeing Annie lit up and purposeful fills him with unexpected joy.

“You surprised me!” she says, moving the pan to the back of the stove while crushing the burning tip of her half-smoked joint in the plate resting on the windowsill. “Don’t worry, I’m blowing the smoke out. And Nona’s been asleep for a while, but before that she was singing along.” Annie picks up the cell-phone on the counter and turns the volume down. “The night nurse should be here by seven and I gave Mrs. Green the afternoon off.”

“Thank you for taking so much on, you’ve been very helpful,” he says raising his head to take in the smells of the kitchen. “I love the sound of cooking, oil and garlic sound like the patter of rain fall on a tin roof,” he says while walking over to inhale the full aroma of Annie’s sauce. “Food is more than smell, it’s sight and sound. That’s what Nona always told me.”

“True,” Annie agrees. “And cakes sing when baked properly. Listen for, pu pu pu when its ready to be out of oven.” She smiles. “Tomorrow I’ll bake a cake.”

With his head lowered, Lorenzo takes a step back toward to the wooden kitchen chair and sits before looking back up. “Does that mean you the week was a success, you are going to keep helping out?”

“Of course! I’m staying until Easter now and it was so nice to be with Nona. Do you know I was only ten when Nona started teaching me how to cook. This sauce,” she says, pointing the pan with the red-bubbling liquid,  “that was the first thing Nona taught me.”

“How was your day?” he asks, settling himself into the kitchen chair as she places a small plate of olives and cheese in front of him.

“So great! Nona and I walked to that cute little grocery store in Davis Square and then picked up some cheese at that great shop in Huron, Formaggios. I forgot how fun it can be to make friends while getting groceries. It was one of the few things I really liked about Nashville. But in LA, well. Everything was delivered or we ate out. But turns out, I love it here, never leaving.” She smiles and he feels her joy. “Thank you Lorenzo.”

“What else did you get done today?” he asks.

“Well, after our walk and Nona asked to take a nap, I lined the shelves with contact paper and cleaned out your spice cabinet. By the way, when was the last time you deep cleaned the house?”

“I’ve been trying to keep up, but I’m better with the outside. The church ladies are great with Nona but they aren’t housecleaners.”

Annie stands still at the windowsill, the joint held tightly in her right hand and looks out the at the yard. “We could plant a vegetable garden in the Spring. It would be nice to have fresh herbs and vegetables. I could help plant it, or at least get the yard ready.”

“Does that mean you’re staying past Easter?” he asks, trying to contain his hope.

“Maybe,” she answers coyly. “I feel like we have collective self-interest, now. I can help take care of Nona, for a while. Besides, I haven’t felt this good in a very long time,” she says, and twirls in a circle, the white-ruffled fabric of her apron floating out around her thighs revealing a short-black-sequined skirt.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, watching her twirl. Lorenzo turns his head, surprised by his delight in having her so near.

 “I found this in the kitchen closet, always loved this apron. Dottie made it for Nona, you know, to thank her for taking care of Maeve when I left freshman year.” She stops and stands still, her back pressed against the edge of the white porcelain sink. “You know, when I went off to MIT I just assumed I would become a person of importance and leave this world. But here I am back to where I started.”

“It’s a good world,” Lorenzo adds quickly.

“I’m afraid this is all I’ll ever be. A domestic servant.”

Lorenzo leans forward on the kitchen table, folding his hands on the table’s edge. “The strongest of us understand we can, we must, acknowledge fear. You are very strong, Annie.”

Annie takes three short steps toward the kitchen table, pulls the wooden chair out and sits down with a loud thump. She places both her elbows on the table and leans in close to Lorenzo. “What does God expect me to sacrifice? I’ve been silent for so long. I know I can learn from trauma and I’m  not justifying what JP and Khadijah did. But when life hurts us it forces us to shift, to confront the shit and create an opening to see with greater clarity. Is that true?” she asks breathlessly.

“It is said that we are revealed, when things change. We can emerge a little wiser into who we are meant to be when we know what is important,” he says. “What is most precious, to you?”

“Colette,” she answers without hesitation.

He reaches out and holds both her hands in his, hers are cold but his feels soft and warm to her.  “Loving her cost you, but you still believe. You still served. We are all called to serve in different ways,” he answers without humor in his voice.

  “I hate to admit it, but after that summer on Martha’s Vineyard with JP and Mama Sarfati, I was embarrassed of this place and said I was never coming back,” Annie says, pulling her hands away from Lorenzo. “But it’s home,” she announces as she slaps the table’s edge with her open palms causing the plate of olives and cheese to fall onto the tile floor.

 “Yes it is and when’s supper ready?” Nona calls out when the clattering plate and Annie’s cry of shit wakes her. Annie and Lorenzo turn to her sitting in the chair, eyes wide, lips pursed. “Is that you, Annie? When did you get here? Lorenzo,”  she says, grabbing the bell from the table and ringing it with force, “I need supper.”

************

“I have to go,” Annie says as she stands by the sink, Lorenzo by her side. “This is the last dish. We’re a good team. Nona fed, kitchen cleaned and a little time to spare before you head back to the rectory.” Are the words she says has she hands him the last dish to dry.

He smiles and nods. “The night nurse will be here in about an hour, I can’t leave until then.”

“You’ve done a good job taking care of Nona,” Annie answers as she wraps the brownies she’d baked earlier in the day in colored plastic wrap. “I do like baking,” she says, grabbing the half-smoked joint from the ashtray on the kitchen sink, “and not just this kind. Maybe I’ll open a bakery one day. Want to watch the sunset before I go?”

Lorenzo places the dish on the counter and moves toward the living room to make sure Nona is still watching Jeopardy. “We have fifteen-minutes, let’s go,” he smiles.

Annie grabs her coat and his hand, and together they run up the back-staircase giggling like children.

“Wow!” she says, stepping across the familiar threshold into Lorenzo’s childhood bedroom. The twin bed replaced with a brown sofa and the dresser replaced by a small wooden desk. “When did Nona add the sliding doors? This is much easier than crawling out the window.” Annie smiles as he unlatches the glass door and opens it for her.

“Ladies first,” he says, with a grand sweep of his right arm.

Annie steps out onto the balcony where they spent so many years together. “I love that you have chairs out here. And when did Mr. Potter cut down the old tree? You can really see the sunset now,” she says. Annie reaches out and touches the top of Lorenzo’s hand with her fingertips and he feels that familiar jolt through his body, and the soft, tingly pleasures building in him relaxes his resolve not to love her just as she pulls her hand from him.

Annie doesn’t look at him as she settles herself into the slanted Adirondack chair and lights the half-smoked joint. “This is nice,” she says with a long exhale of smoke.

“Glad you approve,” he says enthusiastically. “You’re the first girl I’ve brought up here.” He smiles mischievously.

“I miss having someone to flirt with,” she says.

“Priests don’t flirt,” he answers.

Annie cocks her head in his direction with a half-smile on her relaxed face, “Ok.”

They sit for a moment in a comfortable silence.

 “You know it was my baking  talents that got Byron and Todd to let JP and me  live with them when we moved to Nashville. I promised pastries every morning if they let us move in with them. I learned that baking things brought me joy, and gave me a little bit of power.”

 “You are very odd,” Lorenzo answers without looking at her. 

“The boys loved that I fed them. The food connected me to the band and it was on the road, when I didn’t know what to do with myself, that I understood I could be the best version of myself in the kitchen. I learned that from Nona.”

“She loved you,” he says quietly.

“Even if she can’t remember I’m here, or why I left,” she says quietly, and then looks up with a smile. “This porch reminds me of my room in Oak Bluffs, when I lived with JP and Mama Sarfati on Martha’s Vineyard. I had the most amazing view of the harbor from my bedroom, it had a little deck. Just enough for two small chairs.” Annie sits quietly watching the pink clouds darken under the last golden lights of sun and thinks of the sunsets on that deck from so long ago.  “Tomorrow I can restock Nona’s kitchen with all the things she’s given away. The mix master. The Cuisinart. The rice cooker. The pasta maker.” Annie begins thinking of all the dishes she will make with them. “ It’s all still in boxes in Mom’s basement. Even the muffin pans and baking sheets she’d given to Maeve. Maeve was never great in the kitchen.”

“True enough,” Lorenzo laughs. “Remember when Maeve tried to make a carrot cake and used grated parmesan cheese instead of sugar!”

  “When a girl is as ambitious as Maeve maybe she doesn’t need to cook.” Is all Annie will say.

   They turn away from each other and watch the sky above the houses turn shades of blue and pink. The sun having disappeared in the horizon beyond leaving a rose-gold glow shining above the tree-line.

“I learned to bake the French way with Mama Sarfati. She didn’t like to be in the kitchen, but she knew how to bake French pastries. Said it was something her nanny had taught her before leaving Paris for boarding school. I also learned how to break eggs the correct way in her kitchen that summer. She taught me how to make croissants, brioche and at the very end of the summer she finally gave me the secret to her French lemon poppy seed cake.”

“You can cook Italian and French, that’s what makes you such a great chef.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. And she did share her family’s ratatouille recipe, that’s when I thought she liked me. By the end of that summer I had memorized all her recipes just to  impress her. But by then, it was too late. We’d broken her heart and she shut me out, so easily.”

When you shut me out too, Lorenzo thinks reflexively. But says the words, “She was just so angry. So surprised. We all were,” instead.

“You know that sinking feeling you get when you’re about to lose. Can’t explain it, just know it when you feel it. I had it. That night on the beach. Right before you found us.”

“I saw you but I didn’t find you. I didn’t lose you,” Lorenzo says solemnly. “I messed up.”

They sit in the uncomfortable silence, neither willing to say more.

“Funny, you know,” Annie begins, breaking the silence. “I married him for the music, but if it wasn’t for the cooking, I would have had nothing. Not even with that fancy degree from MIT helped me. Then I was so focused on the cooking, creating the world that nourished everyone else, that I stopped hearing the music. They loved me but they couldn’t stay in the kitchen all day. I know I was too controlling and it should have been where I was my best self. I just wanted,” she stops and takes a breath, surprised by the force of the emotion. “I just wanted company.” She leans her head down between her legs and lets out a long sigh.  “On the last tour, in Portugal, JP confronted me on the beach when I was frantically searching for the best sardines, I wouldn’t compromise. He said I was becoming a tyrant. Funny, right?” She says quietly, lifting her head to gauge Lorenzo’s response who is quietly staring at her.

 “Then he tried to buy my forgiveness. When he apologized and he said we could remodel the kitchen in LA. I know it was just a symbol, not a repair. But it was something. So I did.  Remodel that is. And it brought us together, for a while.”

  Lorenzo laughs. “Like having a child to save a marriage.” And feels his mistake as the words leave his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

 “I know,” she says softly. “JP said I was the only person who could ruin his day, that was the power of  his love for me. He used to like that I didn’t treat him special and he claimed that kept him humble. He claimed to be grateful. But I could feel his resentment. But he knew, he knew from the day we met. I was not like his mama.”

“Why did you stay?” Father Lorenzo asks, leaning forward in his chair.

“In the beginning, it was just fun. That first tour was like being on a field trip with a group of toddlers, but I liked it. I liked being with the boys and when it was just JP, Byron and Todd, I earned the title Band Mama. But after a few years I was tired of the chaos and was ready to come home. But then, we met  Khadijah. In Nashville. Well, not met so much as, she appeared.  And  that’s when everything really changed. Before that, I was starting to think I would come back home. Back to Cambridge.”

“That would have been nice,” he answers.

“But it wasn’t realistic.”

 “I always thought you were going to change the world with some great science discovery. That you were going to spend your life looking for answers in the stars.”

“True.” She pauses for a moment to think about what used to be. “Love makes you change, it does. You know that,” she says looking at Lorenzo, slumped in his chair his eyes focused out at the blackness descending. “But in the beginning, there is nothing I would have changed. Everyone wants to be in the show, but not me,” Annie says without looking at Lorenzo. “I really liked the helping with the business when I wasn’t in the kitchen. The negotiations with the clubs, making everything happen. I loved taking care of everything and then just enjoying the show. Every night felt special to me, until one day it didn’t.”

A golden light appears as a burst above the dark clouds and Annie thinks of stage lights and feels something lost inside. She knows her life doesn’t make sense to Lorenzo, but his doesn’t make sense to her. Not sure how to explain the inexplicable she says,  “I stayed with him because that was my life.” Annie reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a pink leather case the size of a deck of cards.  “I took this cigarette case from Dottie, it’s perfect for holding joints and a lighter.” She snaps the gold clasp open, and from the opened- mouth of the leather pouch she pulls a pink joint and a glittery lighter. “In honor of Dottie,” she laughs while lighting the tip of the pink paper letting it burn in a small flame for a moment before smoldering out to a red-orange glow.  She inhales deep before finishing her thought.  “When JP asked me why I was so sad, my only answer was that the music was gone and everything felt ordinary. And then we looked at each other and cried.”

She turns from Lorenzo and gazes out over the roof of her house and watches the darkness descend on the neighborhood. Takes a long drag of the pink joint, not wanting to let the moment end, and taps the tip on the edge of the Adirondack chair. 

“I thought it was me,” she blurts out into the dark night air. “That’s the crazy part. JP and Khadijah had this big secret and they let me think I was the crazy one, they did. Turns out that sexy-witch thing may have been true, because when I finally understood that everything wrong between me and them had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them, it felt like I’d been released from a spell.”

But her words are drowned out by the bells of St. Catherine ringing in 6:45. “I used to hate that the bells went off every fifteen minutes, but now it’s quaint. Like I’m visiting an old European village.” She laughs and Lorenzo joins in.

“I love the bells, but I know it makes the new neighbors crazy. We’ve had petitions to stop them but you know how we Catholics are. Love our traditions, crazy as they are.”

“Embrace the crazy, is what JP would say to me,” Annie says slumping back in her chair, squinting at the last rays of light. “I think that’s when I stopped being funny, I can almost pinpoint the moment things stopped making me laugh and I started to just feel crazy. Sad. Confused. And, nothing helped.” Annie looks at Lorenzo with tears in her eyes. “I know that when Colette arrived JP’s dreams stopped including just me, but I wasn’t jealous because I loved her too. And I thought he loved her so much because we’d never had our own. And we could imagine we were a real family when Colette was with us, even if she wasn’t ours.”

“Love makes a family. You always had love,” he answers.

“But always, there was a crackling in my head that I ignored. I knew that something was wrong. That unsettled feeling never went away, we wanted a baby of our own but I couldn’t. He knew that. He always knew that. And after she was born he was flirty and sexy and honestly, we were more connected than ever and he and Mama Sarfati stopped talking about adoption.” She pauses to think of what she missed or simply chose not to see. “She lied to me and I lied to him. Said I could never leave him, that we were enough. We didn’t need a baby. I think he counted on that, but turns out I lied. JP accepted me just as I was. I am, he loved me.”

“Loves you,” Lorenzo corrects her. He can feel Annie’s sadness heavy in his chest and the pressure below his eyes makes him feel unworthy of love.

“But I’m not like that, not anymore. I don’t feel lucky to be loved, I know that I am. Mom, Charlie, and Maeve.”

“Me.”

“You know what my biggest mistake has been. Being born with a vagina,” she laughs and the shock that fills his chest reminds him that all love is not the same. Annie has a devilish look in her eyes. “The only thing I’ve ever been really good at is cooking and baking. But really, I always wanted to be like Dolly Levy and spread the money around.”

“From Hello Dolly? I saw that on Broadway with Nona when Carol Channing was on stage. She’s marvelous,” he says.

“No, the real Dolly Levy, Barbra Streisand from the movie,” she corrects him.

“I think it’s time you start promoting yourself. You could open a bakery, here in Cambridge,” he says with conviction Annie can feel. Not wanting to let the moment go he feels the need to preach. “There’s a story the Rabbi told us at last week’s Interfaith gathering about money and fire. We people of faith don’t like to talk about money, but we understand that money can be used for both good or for evil. Like fire, it can burn everything you love or you can use it to cook and warm your family. Maybe it’s time to rethink how your wealth is used.”

They watch the gray clouds extending out like dark shadows above the glowing house tops. “I lived up there for too long,” Annie says looking up at the gray clouds. “We were always on planes. Flying around. So much drama. But I need to live down here, now.”

 “The storm has passed. That’s what Nona would say. You’re ready to begin. New. Pivot.”

“I am,” she says, surprised by the truth of her words. “I want to stay here. I want to have my feet on the ground. Will you help me?”

The sun set pinks disappear behind black silhouette houses, with the gray wisps lingering  just above, touching the last remnant of the blue-black sky. Annie feels peaceful slipping into the night. They watch the rose-gold light disappear behind the trees in the horizon. “Watch it,” she says. The rose-tinged glow spreads across the sky and she feels the tears welling in her eyes. “Grab it when you see it, Dottie likes to say. I’m grabbing it. I want to stay.”

Before Lorenzo can respond the bells begin to ring in the hour of seven and he knows he must go back. “Let’s go, Jeopardy is over.”

Annie lifts her arm with the pink joint still burning, takes one last drag, and before placing it back in the leather case she extinguishes it on the arm of her chair. “The bakery could work,” Annie says quietly as she pushes herself up from the Adirondack chair and back into Nona’s house.

**************

 Annie opens the front door of Nona’s house and when she turns her head to say good night, Lorenzo leans in to kiss her cheek. But his lips graze hers, and for a moment they are connected and silent until he pulls from her with a jerk of his body and his left arm pushes her chest from him just as she turns to her right causing her head to hit the open wooden door.

“Ow! Shit!” she cries out, the pain pulsing above her right eye and down through her cheek. “This is not going to be pretty tomorrow,” she says touching her face where the door hit her.

“I’m sorry!” Father Lorenzo cries out. “Let me get you ice.”

“No, I’m ok,” she answers, holding a hand to her cheek as she places her ear-pods in. “I’ll put ice on it at home.”

As she makes her way across the street, despite the pain pulsing through her soft flesh, she feels it was a really good day and lets the music fill her head with hope before opening Dottie’s front door.