The Middlesteins(58)

She sat down next to Kenneth and Anna and smoothed the papers with her hands. She squinted, and then she was appalled on their behalf, and then she laughed at all the little loopholes that danced before her on the page. “This,” she said, “can be fixed.” It would take a bit of work, but she could make it all better for them. “I’ve got nothing but time these days,” she said.



*

He wiped the flour from his hand and onto a towel. The finished noodles rested nearby. Kenneth threw the cumin seeds into a skillet. He thought about adding cinnamon to the dish. If cumin would be good for Edie’s health—he knew she was sick, even if she wouldn’t tell him the truth; her skin was too pale, her breath too slow—the cinnamon would be good for her passion.

It took only two minutes to roast the seeds. The chilies were chopped, the garlic, too. The crunch of the cumin would be a nice contrast to the tenderness of the lamb, and he knew that Edie would enjoy it, the texture, the depth, the surprise of the pop. He mused on the cinnamon some more. How would Edie feel if she knew he was adding an aphrodisiac to her food? He decided all he would be doing was adding a little flame to an already burning fire.

His cell phone rang, and he answered it, knowing that it could only be Edie, because she was the only person who ever called him at night besides his daughter. In fact, she was the only friend he had.

“Darling,” he said. “Did you behave yourself?”

He emptied the roasted cumin into a small bowl.

“I did not,” she said. “I might have thrown something at my ex-husband’s head.”

Kenneth chuckled. “What did you throw?”

“I don’t know. It was all a blur. A roll, I think.”

“Did you hit him?”

“No, it bounced off the top of his chair, and then it landed on the table in front of him.”

Kenneth laughed harder.

“Why do I do these things?” She sighed into the phone. “I don’t even care about him. I care about you.”

“Someday you will stop being angry with him,” said Kenneth.

“But why should I care what he’s doing if I’m crazy about you?”

“We are allowed to have more than one feeling at once,” said Kenneth. “We are human beings, not ants.” Sometimes he ached for Marie, but he would never tell Edie that. He was glad she was nothing like Marie, in physique or personality, or he might have ended up comparing the two of them. The only thing they shared was their head for business. All he knew about was cumin and cinnamon.

“I have a thousand feelings at once,” she said.

“That’s a lot of feelings,” he said. “You must be a strong woman, then.”

“Or crazy,” she said.

“Fine line,” he said.

“Razor thin,” she said.

“I am making you something special,” he said. “But I must ask you something first.”

“Ask me anything,” she said, and he knew she was not lying.

“I was going to put some cinnamon in your food, and sometimes it works to . . .” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s supposed to turn you on.”

“Oh,” said Edie.

“Do you think that’s cheating?” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t need the cinnamon. Maybe I should be enough.”

“The more cinnamon the better,” she said. And then, urgently, she said, “Use a lot of it.”

“I’ll be over within the hour,” he said.

“Hurry,” she said.

What was left to do? He put on a pot of water for the noodles. He tossed the lamb with the cumin and chili and garlic. A teaspoon of cinnamon. Soy sauce. Some salt and black pepper. There was a grind in his groin; more cinnamon. He poured some oil into a pan, and heated it, then added the lamb. A pinch of salt on top of that. The noodles in the boiling water. He hadn’t had any fun in so long. He hadn’t cared about anything. A minute later the lamb had gone from cherry red to brown. A few cumin seeds popped. He pictured a small butter roll flying across that hotel ballroom and landing on the table in front of her ex-husband, and all his earlier regrets merged into just one: that he had not been there to see that happen.

His daughter, his beautiful daughter with her vibrant clothes and her sticklike legs and her boots that made her look as if she were heading off to war, stomped into the kitchen with the last of the dirty dishes from the night. How had such an original human being come from the likes of him? And she was faithful to him. His faithful child.

“You hungry?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’m mostly tired.”

He was relieved. He did not feel that it was appropriate to give the food he had made for his lover to his daughter. No cinnamon for his baby girl. His heart swelled suddenly toward Anna, as if someone had struck him in the chest. He was bruised with love. He came out from behind the stove, and then embraced his daughter. Her small bones beneath him. She was not Marie. She was something else.

“Did I say thank you?” he said. “Did I say thank you for saving my life?”

She started to cry. “Not out loud,” she said.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said.

When they finally pulled apart, her face was lightly smudged with purple streaks. She ran the tips of her index fingers underneath her eyes.