Luscious Lemon by Heather Swain

Author:Heather Swain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down Town Press
Published: 2004-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Eddie and I sit at the head of the front table, with Bucky and ’Scilla to our right and my grandmother to my left. Radiating out from us are my aunts and their families. Eddie’s poor second cousin in the fruit hat has been surrounded by my aunt Joy’s extended family, including my cousin Teddy’s two teenage boys, who fight over the bread basket and flick figs at one another.

“I understand that you’re quite the cook,” ’Scilla says to my grandmother over the salad. “Is that where Lemon learned her trade?”

My grandmother holds up a forkful of baby greens. “I don’t cook fancy like this.”

“Eddie has raved about your home-cooked Italian food. I’m surprised that Lemon doesn’t have more of that kind of thing on the menu,” says ’Scilla. Somehow she makes it sound like an insult that I don’t have Grandma Calabria’s Home-Cooked Pasta Sauce for sale at the front of the house.

“She learned to cook gourmet food in Europe,” my grandmother says with the slightest hint of pride. This is the first time I’ve heard her talk about my time abroad as something good. “Went from country to country, cooking for different chefs. Came home with recipes for things that I’d never heard of. That’s what makes Lemon such a special restaurant.”

“Now I’ve been wondering about something since the first time we met you,” booms Bucky. His voice echoes around the room and quiets the tables near us. “You named your restaurant after yourself, but how did you get the name Lemon?”

My Aunt Adele leans over from the next table and says, “She looked like a lemon when she was born.”

“She really did,” Aunt Joy adds from the other side. “All puckered up.” She scrunches her face in a very unflattering way.

“With blond fuzz sticking straight up all over her head,” Aunt Mary calls from across the room.

“We’d never seen a blond baby with so much hair,” Gladys yells from her table at the back.

“Dark-haired babies, sure. Remember my Vincent?” asks Adele. She points to her son, whose hairline starts right above his eyebrows, which meet like a hedge across his nose.

“He looked like a chimp,” says Grandma.

“Still does,” says Adele and slaps him playfully on the back of his furry skull.

“You know,” ’Scilla says, “I’m just realizing that I don’t even know your given name, Lemon. No one’s ever told me.”

“Ellie,” Grandma tells her.

“Short for Eleanor?” asks ’Scilla.

“Just Ellie,” Grandma says.

“That’s gorgeous!” says ’Scilla. “Why don’t you go by that, dear?”

“Ellie Manelli?” I ask. “Sounds like a joke.”

Grandma looks up from her salad. “What do you mean, a joke?”

“I sound like a defunct pop band.”

My aunts have all risen from their chairs to encircle my table.

“Your father gave you that name,” Adele scolds me.

“When she was born, we all called her Lemon,” Gladys explains. “But her mother said we had to think up a proper name.”

“So her dad wrapped her up in a blanket and danced around with her in his arms, singing,” Joy says.

I’ve heard this story many times before, but like anyone hearing the story of herself, I never tire of it.

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