Love and Other Four-Letter Words by Carolyn Mackler

Author:Carolyn Mackler [Mackler, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2009-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

On Friday, Mom's forty-third birthday rolled around. She'd been saying all week that she wanted to low-key it, that she wasn't up for a big celebration. But it still seemed like she needed something to snap her out of the malaise that has descended over the past few weeks. I'd already trekked back to the boutique where she'd gotten that vanilla spray and purchased an assortment of fruit-scented soaps. But the real present I was saving for dinnertime.

I spent the morning scouring Moosewood, the bible of vegetarian cookbooks. Moosewood Restaurant— located in none other than downtown Ithaca—is Mom's favorite place to eat. Since Dad and I used to take her there for her birthday every summer, I decided to recreate the granola-lovin' café right in our apartment.

I had to hit three different grocery stores to find all the ingredients for Balkan cucumber salad, eggplant curry with basmati rice and, for dessert, homemade berry sorbet, which I would mix right in our blender. And just before I reached the cashier at the second place, I tossed a box of plastic straws into my shopping basket. I can't remember if Moosewood is too ecopsycho to use straws, but I thought it would give it more of a restauranty feel.

As I chopped and peeled and sautéed and spiced away the afternoon, I made Mom steer clear of the kitchen. I even served her a glass of iced coffee and a plateful of Oreos when she said something about being hungry. So by the time dinner rolled around, as I led her to the table blindfolded by my hand, I'd successfully concealed the Moosewood theme.

“Ta-da,” I sang, steering her into her chair. “Happy birthday!”

“Wow,” Mom said as she surveyed the spread. I noticed her eyes resting on the sheet of loose-leaf paper that I'd tacked above the table, with the words Moosewood Restaurant scrawled in neon-pink highlighter, the only marker I'd been able to find for my last-minute inspiration.

I hovered above her chair, grinning expectantly.

“Wow,” Mom said again, with even less gusto than the last time.

I didn't want her lack of enthusiasm to get to me. But after fifteen minutes of me declaring how sumptuous the food was, exaggeratedly wiping my lips with a (ahhem) cloth napkin and generously helping myself to seconds of everything, I began to worry. Mom had eaten about three bites of the salad, and besides picking out a few fresh peas, she hadn't even touched the eggplant dish.

I set down my fork. “It's delicious, Sammie.” Mom nibbled at a walnut. “Really it is.”

I tried not to let my lower lip protrude too much. Mom began rearranging the food on her plate. “I'm just not that hungry tonight … you know …the hives …”

As Mom's voice trailed off, I noticed her looking past me, over my shoulder. I followed her gaze to my Newport poster, which I'd finally gotten around to straightening this morning.

“The first year Dad and I were together, we went to hear Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie play at Carnegie Hall.

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