American Cookery: A Novel - Softcover

THE DOUGLASS WOMEN HAD A LONG TRADITION OF trouble. They had been known to borrow trouble as well as money and time. They often fed the many on a few beans and a hambone, on loaves and fishes. They wielded ten-pound fry pans and hoisted ten-gallon stockpots. Their instincts were to preside, to direct, and, when necessary, to defend. Woe unto the shiftless, the no-account stragglers, the thoughtless and thankless, the whiners and the weak. In that family, if you felt the surge of a strong tide, an all-but-lunar tug, it was always the women; they pulled people in their wake. Their men sometimes resisted, sometimes got distracted, misled by weaker, more pliable women, by religion, or drink, or get-rich-quick schemes, by great obsessions like Eden's father's Timetables, or great disasters like her husband's Westerns, sauced with dreams and debt. Sometimes these men gave up and made their exits. Some stewed in their own discontent. Some took braying refuge in a notion of patriarchy and the rights bestowed by an all-knowing God on wise men who were to be obeyed by submissive women who knew their place. The Douglass women just never did know their place.

So when little Eden Douglass, hauled into the Fourth Street School office for a serious schoolyard infraction, and about to be sent home in disgrace, asked the principal to call her aunt, Mrs. Afton Lance, or her grandmother, Mrs. Ruth Douglass, rather than her mother, Kitty, the principal blanched. Mr. Snow said he would call whomever he wished. He picked up the telephone by its long neck, put the receiver to his ear, and rang Miss Moody, St. Elmo's operator and chief gossip.

"Who are you calling?" Eden asked, more curious than truly humbled. "My aunt or my grandmother?" Mr. Snow glared at her, gave her a quick tongue lashing. Intuitively Eden knew what Mr. Snow wanted from her, so she feigned tears.

His sense of superiority thus happily underscored, Mr. Snow said he would call Afton Lance. "You must leave. Go out into the hall and sit in the Miscreant's Chair by the door."

Shoulders hunched, Eden shuffled out to the hall and sat down on the hard wooden chair outside the office door. Fans turned slowly, churning the smell of stale bread from a hundred lunch buckets, shoe rubber, long-spilled milk, and unwashed linoleum. In the high-ceilinged hall, the lights were off and the doors at either end were open to keep the building cool in the September heat. Eden pulled one knee up to her chest and rested her chin there, a posture forbidden to girls. She scratched at a flea bite through the hole in her black stocking. Eden Louise Douglass had short straight hair, thick, lusterless, dusty, unevenly cropped just below her ears. She wore a gingham dress, a hand-me-down from Bessie and Alma Lance, the blue and white faded equally into gray from drying in the hot California sun. She hummed under her breath the very songs that had gotten her into trouble, "Hot Tamale Molly" and "Keep Your Skirts Down, Mary Ann," and songs about creeping into tents late at night, songs she heard all the time on the Victrola at home, songs that everyone was singing in 1926.

A teacher had overheard Eden singing in the schoolyard and snatched her elbow, marched her to the principal's office. Though naturally the teacher could not repeat the offending lyrics, she had alluded to their general nature, and Mr. Snow had declared that Eden's mother should be called in and apprised of her daughter's crime, and the girl sent home in disgrace.

But Kitty Douglass was unreliable, and Eden knew this. Unpredictable. Kitty might laugh off the offense, and call the principal a pumpsucker, or, if she had been at the Bowers Tonic, she might...well, there was no telling. Eden had asked him to call her aunt or her grandmother because she knew what they would do. They would wash her mouth out with soap. No question. She would be in serious trouble, quickly punished, and it would be over. She was glad he'd called Afton instead of her grandmother. Ruth Douglass would be working at the Pilgrim Restaurant, the interruption unwelcome. At Afton's house--after Eden had her mouth washed out with soap--Afton would give her a honey and banana sandwich. Eden hankered after one of those. Her own lunch bucket held the remains of a cold fried-mush patty left over from last night's dinner.

Eden looked up from the scab on her knee to see Afton Lance framed, silhouetted by the sunlight in the arched double doors at the end of the hall. She pushed the baby buggy into the hall. She was never without a child clinging to her hand or her hem, and she always smelled of starch, a whiff of rosemary on her hands and breath. Her thick, dark hair was wound neatly atop her head. A solid, skirted figure, she wore her church hat, at odds with her weekday housedress. Her firm step echoed. She stopped in front of her niece and inquired after Eden's crimes.

"I didn't think the songs were so bad," Eden said in her own defense as she stood up. "I didn't think they were bad at all."

"What you think does not matter. What does the principal think?"

Afton dealt with Mr. Snow out of Eden's hearing. She had sent three of her children through this school, Lucius, Bessie, and Alma. Two were still here, Junior and Sam. The toddler in the buggy, Constance, would be a student here in due time. Afton was pregnant with a son, Douglass, who would be born six months later, in March 1927, and the last of her eight children was born in 1931. She was a legend in her own way. The interview with Mr. Snow was brief.

Leaving the school, Eden and her aunt walked side by side in silence while the baby Connie babbled in her buggy. For a woman as talkative as Afton Lance, silence was a sure indicator of the seriousness of the offense. They were halfway home when Afton asked, "What does your father think of these songs, Eden?"

"I don't know. Does he think of them?"

Afton gave a combined snort and shrug, a gesture so eloquent and singular that everyone of her acquaintance, from the youngest child to the oldest church Elder, braced for consequences.

Eden braced, but she defended her father just the same. "Pa mostly thinks about his Great Timetable."

"He'll never finish. How can he? History goes on, don't it?"

"But he's at it all the time. Almost every night after work he goes to the library. He can draw the charts at home, but he has to read in the library."

He goes to the library, thought Afton, because it is a remembered heaven. As a boy, a young man, Gideon had shown such scholarly promise and then had squandered his chances when he rejected the offer to attend a Gentile college. He could not imperil his Mormon faith, he had said. His very soul. Well, he imperiled his very soul now, didn't he? What else could you call it? Living with Kitty in sloth nigh unto sin. Afton wanted to pity her brother, but pity without action was unworthy of a Saint. Instead, she took up the redemption of her brother's children with an energy that bordered on vengeance.

Eden's grandmother Ruth was equally appalled by Gideon's fate and his wife. However, Ruth's steely nature did not admit of enthusiasm, even in the matter of rescuing. And redemption? Ruth did not think in such terms. Afton and Ruth differed on many things, including the Church and family: Ruth had long since bowed out of being an observant Mormon, and had found her own large family a burden. Afton unquestioningly adhered to the Saints and all their teachings. Afton enjoyed the noise and tumult of a large family. Still, they agreed that hapless Gideon and godless Kitty were beyond help or hope. But the children? Something must be done.

Afton and Ruth concentrated their rescuing efforts on Eden Louise. They saw her as one of their own. Her two siblings resembled their mother, fat, blue eyed, pink as little piglets, spiritless, and easily amused. But Eden Louise had the dark hair, the green eyes, the sallow coloring of the Douglasses. Moreover, she had the spirit, the smile, and the intelligence of her father's eldest sister, Eden, who had died in a train wreck in 1911. She had been named for this lost girl, this lost Eden. Of all Ruth's children and grandchildren, Eden Louise was the favored, the beloved. Her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother all competed, not so much for Eden's love--she could love all three--as for her loyalty. Each wished to shape her into a particular vision of what it meant to be a woman. Ruth valued independence and respectability, two values often at odds. Afton valued the energetic fulfilling of obligation and adhering to the Mormon religion. Kitty valued the fanciful and took her religion from the Saturday matinees at the Dream Theatre, from risqué, romantic novels; Kitty often confused the word with the deed, especially if the word was put to music, and could be hummed.

Once back at Afton's, Eden had her mouth washed out with soap. Crying and coughing, Eden spat into the sink and took a towel, wiped it all over her face, streaking the dust.

"Now, let's go into the kitchen," said Afton, the disagreeable duty done. "I made you a honey and banana sandwich. You eat it, and then Connie and I will walk you home. It's time we talked to your mother. A serious talk. Another one."

The two regarded each other, the first-grader and the Mormon matron. They both knew that if Afton walked Eden home, they might well find Kitty Douglass the worse for wear, happily numbed by Bowers Tonic--once a medicinal compound originated by Nana Bowers, the matriarch of St. Elmo's premier black family. Now, in these dire times of Prohibition, Bowers Magic Bitters Tonic had evolved into bootleg hooch manufactured and sold out of the back room of the Bowers Barbershop, and in the balcony of the Dream Theatre. They knew, too, that they might find Kitty still not fully dressed. They would certainly find her wreathed in cigarette smoke, reading a cheap novel, the Victrola playing one of the very songs that had gotten Eden into trouble. They would probably find the toddler Ernest roaming the house, a nasty smell emitting from his unchanged pants, and four-year-old Ada unsupervised. They knew the dishes would be unwashed, the beds unmade, the floor sticky, and the dog, Buster, scratching at fleas. And they knew for certain that when Afton actually beheld these dreadful sights, she would be compelled to act in some dire and redemptive fashion.

"Do I have to go home just now?" asked Eden. "Couldn't I stay? I'm still hungry. Maybe we could bake."

"Someone needs to tell your mother what happened today in school. Will that someone be you?" The question sounded biblical.

Eden's shoulders slumped.

"A sin of omission is still a sin."

"They were just songs," said Eden. "I didn't kick or hit anyone. I wasn't mean."

"Of course not. You're not a mean child. You are a very sweet child. You are the image of our own dear Eden."

"Eden Douglass REGRET," replied the girl. This was the name on the gravestone in the St. Elmo Cemetery, as though Regret were Eden Douglass's real name, her true name. The thought made her prickly under her arms and behind the knees.

"Will you tell your parents what happened then?"

It was no good lying to Afton. You might make up a story after the fact and hand it to her, all buttery with falsehood, but that wouldn't work now. "I'll tell Pa," Eden offered. "Let him tell Ma."

"I see," said Afton, making her own plans. "Very well then. You eat your sandwich while I put Connie down for her nap."

The wretchedness at school, the taste of soap all but forgotten, Eden sat at the table, swinging her legs, savoring the honey and bananas, still humming "The Sheik of Araby." Light filtered through the dusty windows and the pepper trees outside and rustled over the dish towels drying on a string across the kitchen window, among the childish drawings pinned to the walls along with the array of ribbons Afton's baking and canning had won at St. Elmo's Citrus Exposition since 1914. The old dog, Chester, lay against the door, content with dog dreams. A fragrance wafted, emanating from the stove: a great squat enterprise with an oven, a separate water heater, and a plate warmer. From a speckled enamel stockpot on the back burner there rose wisps of scent. What was in that pot and the smell it gave off depended wholly on the leftovers that were then transformed into soup or the basis for sauce or gravy, for something to soften the baby's bread in. That smell defined Afton Lance as much as the scent of starch in her clothes and sprigs of rosemary she kept by the bathroom sink for breath freshener.

Afton returned, and tied on an apron, tossed one to her niece. "Well, let's bake something nice for everyone."

"What?"

"Well, we'll just have a rummage in the cupboard and the icebox, and we'll see what we come up with. We'll see what's at hand. The good cook wastes nothing, uses everything--and not just everything in the kitchen, but here, and here." Afton touched the top of her head and her heart.

Eden smiled. All was forgiven.

"There is a recipe for everything in life."

"What if you don't have what you need to make it?"

"Then you adapt."

"What's that mean?"

Afton considered, though she was not a pensive person. "That means you invent. A recipe is a license for invention. You take what you have and turn it into what you want. It requires imagination. Not your mother's sort of imagination. The good kind."

Eden wasn't about to ask after the bad kind.

Afton had on hand stale cake, milk, eggs, brown sugar, and a few overripe bananas. "Banana cream pie," Afton announced, setting Eden to work at the kitchen table with a rolling pin over the cake crumbs in a bag. Afton heated the milk and went to work on the eggs, flour, and brown sugar. Bits flew out of the bowl under her strong rhythmic beats. "You know, when I was a girl, my mother would never let any of us, not even the girls, work at the Pilgrim Restaurant. She used to say we had better things to do than to stuff people's guts, that education was your ticket out of the kitchen. I said to her, Well, Mother, people have to eat, don't they? Why should the kitchen be any less worthy an undertaking in God's eyes than, say, teaching school or lawyering, or the like? God is as happy to see a small task well done as a great masterpiece achieved."

"Is that in the Book of Mormon?" asked Eden.

"Somewhere." It was in fact her own bit of wisdom, and as such might as well be Scripture in this house.

Under her direction, Eden mixed the crumbs and some melted butter and pressed the mixture all over the sides and bottom of the deep dish. Eden poured the heated milk into the sugar and egg mixture while Afton's wire whisk, a tool of her own devising that her husband, Tom, had made for her, beat in a steady cadence. Then the whole went back into the pan. Afton drew a chair up to the stove and turned the heat on low. "There, now, Eden, your job is to be certain this don't burn, nor the eggs scramble. That's the trick of it. The skill. Keep your eyes on it and your hand moving. While you're at it, I'll teach you some good songs. Some useful songs you need never fear to sing."

Eden had not feared to sing "Keep Your Skirts Down, Mary Ann," but she did not say this. She just kept stirring and joined in as Afton warbled in her tuneless contralto, "Shall the Youth of Zion Falter" and "Welcome, Welcome, Sabbath Morning" and a few other Mormon anthems, including Eden's favorite, "Now Let Us Rejoice." Afton taught everything by example.

They heard Connie fuss, and Afton went to fetch her, setting her finally on the kitchen floor with some pans and a spoon to bang. She came to the stove. "Very nic...