35. Fried Artichoke Hearts
FRIED ARTICHOKE HEARTS
*fresh herbs take the batter from good to personal.
T he hinges on the metal gate creaked as I dragged my two enormous suitcases into the front yard of Lea’s little blue house in Belmont.
I’d just been dropped off by Lawrence, the driver from Prideview, where I had stayed about twenty-four hours following my return from Paris—long enough to gather my things, submit my official resignation with Winnifred Lyons, and bid Ondine goodbye.
Autumn had arrived in New York while I’d been gone.
The first days of October had brought cooler weather, and there was just enough chill on the breeze that the day merited one of my old cardigan sweaters over my jeans and fitted black T-shirt.
It was good to be back in Belmont again, with the familiar streets and shops that I’d grown up with, even if I felt completely changed.
“Aunt Marie!” Tommy wrenched open the front door, then, to my surprise, wrapped his gangly arms around my shoulders with surprisingly fierce intensity.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, returning the hug. “I think you grew some more in the last month. You’re taller than me now.”
“Yeah, Ma says I’m gonna be taller than her by Christmas,” he said as he stood back and fixed his Yankees cap. It was the same one his dad used to wear. “Are you going to stay with us?” he asked as I stepped inside. “Ma said you can if you want to. Please . She’s driving me nuts.”
He looked at me hopefully with a face that was a carbon copy of his father’s, God rest his soul. He even wore the same quiet sadness that Mike used to wear like a mask, complete with dark circles under his deep green eyes and the hint of bruising at his jaw from another recent fight.
I ruffled his black hair, just like his mother’s.
Maybe it was a good thing Lea was thinking of leaving the city for a quieter life.
“I’m not sure,” I said as we brought my suitcases inside. “Right now, I’m just here to store my things and make Sunday dinner. And say hi to you, of course.”
Lea appeared from upstairs, carrying a basket of laundry. MJ and Pete were on the sofa, glued to some cartoon, while Lupe sat in front of them on the carpet, happily babbling as she stuffed each of the rooms of her Barbie playhouse full of GI Joes.
I gave my niece and nephews each a kiss, then crossed the room to give Lea a hug too.
“Welcome home,” she told me as she brought the basket of folded dish towels into the kitchen. “The couch is all yours for as long as you need it.”
“I doubt that will be necessary.” I sidestepped a few toy servicemen as I followed her.
With a quick check that his siblings were all right, Tommy darted upstairs, clearly eager for some alone time in the crowded house.
Lea watched him go. “At least he’s not headed for the park again.”
“Still getting into trouble? I saw the bruise.”
She sighed as she shoved some towels into a drawer. “He was suspended for a week last time. I’m scared he’s going to get kicked out permanently.”
“Can a public school even do that?” I wondered.
“Oh, yeah. The principal called me in last week to tell me he’s got one more chance before they contact the district to have him transferred to the alternative learning center in Hunts Point.
To make matters worse, Pete started a fight the next day.
” She looked pained. “Marie, I can’t have my kids going to school there. ”
I nodded in agreement. Although I’d spent plenty of time in Hunts Point at the enormous restaurant supply markets on the piers, it had always been straight trips to and from Prideview with the estate’s driver or Ondine.
Anyone who grew up in the Bronx knew it as one of the most dangerous parts of the city.
No one, especially young kids, should be walking around there on their own.
On top of that, Lea certainly wouldn’t want her children in a school full of other troublemakers.
“What does he say about it?” I asked.
She refolded a few more towels and put them away.
“He says he’ll try harder. And the school counselor agreed to start seeing him more than once a week, which I hope will help.
I’m trying to find some extra work so I can afford to send him to an actual therapist, but it’s just so expensive. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Why not just ask Mattie or Frankie to spot you?” I asked. Granted, it was their spouses who were absurdly wealthy, not them, but that shouldn’t matter now that they were married. “You know Nina and Xavier wouldn’t mind.”
Right on cue, Lea shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Not even for Tommy?”
She seemed to consider that for a moment but still shook her head. “I need to help my kid myself. Not teach him to depend on handouts.”
Unbidden, Lucas’s advice about taking advantage of connections, of accepting help from people who care enough to give it, pointing out that it was a fundamental part of the world, not something that made you weak, echoed through my mind.
I opened my mouth to tell her that myself. But then I remembered the advice had, in fact, come from Lucas , and swallowed it right back up.
“So, everything with you and your boss is…”
“Over,” I said flatly. “I quit this morning.”
Lea’s brows lifted. “Permanently?”
I nodded. “I got my things from Prideview this morning. Ondine helped me pack everything up for storage until I get settled.”
Lea raised an eyebrow. “And did Mr. Lyons have anything to say about it?”
My family didn’t know all the gory details that brought me back to New York, but they knew the fundamentals were basically the same.
“He did not.”
I avoided her shrewd gaze. Not because I feared her reaction. And not because my extremely protective family members were more than happy to condemn Lucas Lyons to a horrible and fiery death when asked.
It was mostly because I didn’t want her to see the disappointment I’d felt when I’d arrived at Prideview this morning to find Mrs. Lyons more than happy to hand me a severance check.
It wasn’t quite as much as the one Lucas had imagined, but it was still quite generous.
When I accepted it, she instructed Lawrence to transport me and my two suitcases’ worth of clothing back to New York as fast as she could possibly get me off her property and away from her son.
Neither Lucas nor Daniel was anywhere to be found.
Ondine bid me goodbye and implored me to visit her in France when she made it out there eventually. She also gave me a list of towns to explore when I was ready to pursue the restaurant idea still gestating in the back of my mind.
An idea that involved the permanent residency visa sticker now on my US passport.
Standing in Lea’s kitchen, I felt the weight of that possibility settling over me. I had a few things to do in New York, but they wouldn’t take me much time.
Pack up my belongings, which had basically already been done for me at Prideview.
Figure out my budget for the next year, including a financial plan for the business.
Say goodbye to my family.
The last one, I knew, would be the hardest. I was going to take my time.
“Want to help me make dinner?” Lea asked, apparently sensing that I needed something to do with my hands. “I was thinking Nonna’s cannelloni. The kids have been asking for it, and I bought all the ingredients last week.”
I smiled. “With fried artichokes?”
Her grin lit up her otherwise exhausted face. “Obviously.”
We fell into the familiar rhythm of cooking together, just like when Nonna would supervise us making Sunday dinner for the whole extended family.
As the eldest daughter and often the one tasked with helping Nonna with most of the domestic chores around the house, Lea cooked efficiently, but with little artistry, in the matter-of-fact way of a woman who needed to get food on the table for a bunch of mouths within a quick timeframe and on a tight budget.
“Here, let me do the pasta,” I said, taking the flour and eggs needed to make the dough. “Just give me this counter.”
She looked at me dubiously. “Don’t you want the machine?” She pointed at the old hand-crank roller that used to be Nonna’s.
“No, just give me the rolling pin, and I’m good.”
I actually preferred to roll dough like this. It was more enjoyable to feel my food this way, and I swear, it made it taste better.
Lea put on some Beyoncé, her favorite. She cooked the meat and spinach filling while I kneaded enough dough for a tray of pasta shells.
It was like we were kids again—her a too-capable teenager acting as a surrogate mother while I, a too-quiet eight-year-old, learned how to dice and cut and peel from the big sister I idolized.
“So, where are you thinking of working now?” I asked as I washed the flour from my hands. “Please don’t tell me it’s Uber. Or Salt Lake”
Lea snorted as she dropped a combination of ground beef and pork into the frying pan with a sizzle.
“As it happens, I just got a new job doing remote bookkeeping for this guy in Idaho. He does a bunch of transport in and around the US—trucking and things like that. The pay is decent, and I can work from home. It’s just part-time right now, but if it goes well, he wants to fly me out to meet him in person, discuss expanding the arrangement. ”
“Would you have to move there?”
She shrugged as she stirred the filling. “Honestly, I don’t know. But…I’m actually open to it.”
“Idaho?” I tried to imagine my city-bred sister in a place known mostly for potatoes. “Really?”
“I know. But it’s pretty. He lives in the northern part of the state, somewhere called Coeur d’Alene. And you know I’ve been thinking about leaving. Now with the issues at school…” She shook her head. “I think it’s time.”
I had to wonder if she was talking as much about herself. “What about somewhere closer to Matthew? Or Frankie? You could even move to France with me. It’s so much cheaper there than here.”