Sunday Scribbling #181: Hungry

Image: San Pascual

Another excerpt from Scarred Angels:

Two more people came into my life that summer, the first in late July. I was on the second floor at school, piling up the junk my old friend Lipscomb had left behind. His revenge, I suppose, for any number of unnamed offences I had committed. I looked up and saw Mrs. Garcia from the rectory standing about two feet inside the door of the classroom. Behind her in the hall was a short gray-haired woman in a flowered print shift, holding two grocery bags.

Mrs. Garcia spoke first, though tentatively. I imagined her days with Bastrop left her gun shy around men in general.

“Mr. Bollinger,” she said, “I was wondering if you’ve hired anyone for your kitchen job yet.”

I hadn’t. Between having to face the actual fact of Mary’s leaving and the likelihood of playing footsie with Bastrop about the money for wages, I’d just left the thing alone.

“No,” I replied.

“I think I have the person for you then,” she said, walking further into the room. The other woman moved into the doorway and stopped. “This is my aunt, Mrs. Gloria Martinez. Until last week, she ran the kitchen for forty years at my grandfather’s restaurant on the south side of town. It burned down a week ago, and my grandfather decided it was as good a reason as any to retire.” As if reading my thoughts, she smiled and added, “Don’t worry, my aunt had nothing to do with the fire.”

I smiled, a little embarrassed at having my mind so easily read. “Perhaps your aunt and I could sit down and talk for a few minutes.” I started to the door to help the woman with her bags, but Mrs. Garcia took my arm gently.

“She has no English, Mr. Bollinger.”

“None?”

“None. She would, however, like to cook for you.”

“But I’ve got no food in the kitchen.”

“That, Mr. Bollinger, is what’s in the bags.”

The three of us went downstairs to the kitchen and while Mrs. Garcia and I made small talk I watched Mrs. Martinez take charge of the kitchen. The first two things she pulled out of her bags were an apron and a candle in a tall glass, with the picture of some holy man plastered on the side.

“San Pascual,” said Mrs. Garcia. “He’s the patron saint of kitchens.”

I noticed the saint was holding a stack of bread loaves in his hands, and had a jug tied around his waist. Mrs. Martinez lit the candle, which in time filled the kitchen with a vanilla scent. She then rolled her eyes at the state of what I had considered a clean kitchen and set about scrubbing and mopping the work area before pulling any of the food out of her bags.

“Tia Gloria’s kitchen was always spotless,” said the interpreter at my side.

After the cleaning, I think I got a little delirious in anticipation of the foods I smelled cooking. I didn’t eat cheese and bologna because I liked it. That was just pure laziness on my part. And though I’d come to appreciate the goodness of Agnes’ healthy alternative lunches, they didn’t make me drool the way the mere sight and smell of the old woman’s stack of hot flour tortillas did.

She went overboard, but I was in hog heaven when she set three platters in front of me filled with cheese enchiladas, flautas, chicken and beef tacos, carne asada, rice, beans, salad, and guacamole. She pulled out a jar of salsa which stung my mouth for several minutes before I’d shoveled in enough buttered tortillas to act as a salve. Mrs. Garcia ate a small plate of the food, but Mrs. Martinez just sat and watched me like I was some starving ape at the zoo.

I left a little on the plates, but I should have left more. I pushed back from the table and looked at both women. One small worry clouded my mind.

“You know,” I said, “this is wonderful. But can your aunt handle franks and beans for four hundred kids?”

Mrs. Garcia turned to her aunt and translated the question. To my surprise, the old woman spat an answer back that left her niece blushing.

“What?” I said.

Mrs. Garcia blushed some more and then said finally, “It’s probably a good thing Tia doesn’t speak English. She is, I guess you’d say, a little raw.” She paused, still blushing. “She says if she can handle a three hundred seat restaurant, she can sure handle the shit you’ll have her cook.”

I laughed and swiped my finger through some leftover beans on my plate. “Tell her she starts August 30th.”

_________


Not surprisingly, the second person who entered my life came accompanied by John Bastrop himself. That should have told me everything I needed to know, but it was a long time before I started seeing things that clearly.

In late August, about a week before school started, Agnes and I were lunching under the oak tree when a back door opened and Bastrop stepped out with a woman on his arm. I had never in two years seen anyone, not even any of his cronies, touch him in such an intimate way. The few times I had felt his touch it made my skin crawl.

Bastrop and the woman laughed at something he whispered and then walked our way. I tried to extend the woman the same disinterest I typically gave her escort, but I found that impossible. The mere sight of her set off something inside of me I wasn’t sure I had ever felt.

“Miss Fisher, Mr. Bollinger,” the smiling priest said as they reached us, “I’d like to introduce Miss Charlotte Hunter. She’ll be joining us this fall as Director of Development.”

Charlotte Hunter was tall for a woman, about 5’8”. In her heels, she was about my height. She towered over the priest at her side. Agnes and I stood from our chairs, and Agnes took the hand offered her. It looked like alabaster, I thought, an unfreckled, snow white hand with red-painted nails. She seemed to touch Agnes’ hand with the softness of a feather, smiling beneath the sunglasses on her face.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Fisher,” she said, in a voice low and soft.

Turning to me, she pushed her glasses up into a thick mane of auburn hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. Her eyes were green and held me as firmly as the hand she placed in mine.

“Mac, I believe. John has told me all about you.”

Meaning what, I thought, still trying to resist her pull. The anxious feeling in my gut was the kind I had previously used drink to quell. As if sensing my struggle, she relaxed her grip on my hand, but left it there for another fifteen seconds or so. The effect was that of a first shot of bourbon flooding and feathering out into my stomach.

Bastrop picked up the beat. “Well, I just wanted to let the two of you meet the new face in our family.” He was at his oily best, sporting, if I was not mistaken, a new black costume to go with his new fall loafers. To me he said, “You’ll find Charlotte on the second floor of the A-wing. I’ve given her the spare librarian’s office.”

I’ll find Charlotte. Was that a command? The two of them turned and walked arm in arm back into the school building.

“I guess you’re the sacrificial lamb this year,” said Agnes. She looked at me hard, checking to see if I understood what had just happened. I saw later, much later. At that moment, of course, I saw nothing.