The Accidentals(54)

The weather turns colder, and Frederick is back in L.A. His Instagram feed is full of photos with Ernie and the guys in a recording studio somewhere.

With Frederick’s credit card, I buy myself two new sweaters and a winter coat. One of the sweaters is cashmere. Spending Frederick’s money is something I do without much thought these days.

“Thanksgiving is coming,” he tells me one chilly morning when I answer my phone. “I have an idea.”

“What is it?” I’ve been eying the approach of the holidays with trepidation.

“Let’s go to Boston. We’ll stay in a hotel, eat turkey in a restaurant, and see a couple of movies.”

“What do you usually do on Thanksgiving?” I ask.

“Eat in a restaurant and see a movie.”

“Okay, then. Sure.” I think about this for a second, and then blurt out another idea. “Aurora has no plans for Thanksgiving.”

“Huh. I guess Thanksgiving doesn’t play well in Spain. May I speak to her, please?”

I go into the bedroom and stand over my roommate, who is sorting her notes for biology class. “Frederick would like a word.” I hold out the phone.

“Si, se?or?” she says to him. “That is a very tempting offer. One moment, please.” She covers the phone. “Do you want me to come?” she whispers. I nod vigorously. “I would love to.” She gives the phone back to me.

“She’s in!” Frederick says.





Boston is wonderfully distracting. Together, the three of us eat out, shopped for winter coats, and watch the Christmas decorations go up on Newbury Street.

As I watch Frederick and Aurora try on parkas in the Patagonia store, I wonder if he designed this weekend around my need for preoccupation.

Probably not, I decide. It’s more likely that Frederick is simply a guy who knows how to have a good time, and is comfortable telling tradition to go suck it.

Either way, the first holiday without my mother is somehow endured. It helps to have Aurora there, a cheerful spirit unburdened by the ghosts of Thanksgivings past.

There is no one to remind me of the previous year, when Mom and I survived a tense holiday under the cloud of her relapse. We’d gone to Mary’s house for dinner. Mary’s little boy made place cards for the table. “Rachel” and “Jenny” had been scrawled in crayon.

My mother had asked what we could bring, but Mary replied that she had way too much food, and not to bother.

But my mother couldn’t show up at someone’s door with nothing, so we brought a bottle of white wine. My mother ate and drank almost nothing, ill as she was from chemo.

From the perspective of a year gone by, moments like that seem so obvious now. There were clues about how it would end.

I hadn’t caught any of them.

On the Saturday night before we go back, Frederick decides we should dine at Oishii, a chic Japanese restaurant. He makes a call to California. “Henry, dude, sorry to bother you. Can you do me a favor? I need a reservation at this place. Seven o’clock would do it. Thanks.”

“Can’t you just use Open Table?” Aurora asks.

“Tried,” Frederick says. “They’re booked.”

Aurora’s eyebrows go up. “So you’re ‘dropping a name.’”

“That’s when you use someone else’s,” my father argues. “In this case, it’s my own. But Henry drops it for me.”

“Doesn’t it bother you,” she asks, “that someone who made a reservation will be turned away?”

Frederick shakes his head. “Nah. These places always save a couple of slots for regulars who call at the last minute. It’s those people who won’t have the good fortune to pay a hundred bucks a head for sushi tonight. Poor bastards.”





“Right this way, Mr. Ricks.”

Henry doesn’t even bother to confirm that the restaurant has a table. We walked in at seven and the maitre d’ is ready for us. Our table is right in the center of the room.

“Good evening,” the server greets us a moment later. “May I pour you a complimentary cup of my favorite sake to begin the evening?”

“I think a little bit wouldn’t hurt us. Thank you very much.”

The sake is poured into tiny ceramic cups. When the waiter retreats, Frederick lifts his cup. “To corrupting minors.”

Aurora picks hers up. “To name droppers everywhere. Salud.”

The first dish is a tiny taste of octopus and edamame salad drizzled with sesame.

“Oh,” Frederick says. “That was so good, I might cry.”

This is easily the finest restaurant I have ever been to. Each dish looks like a little work of art. There are tiny dumplings in tissue-thin wrappers, and sushi marching across shapely dishes.

Aurora is unfazed by the decadence. Not for the first time I wonder what sort of palace she calls home.

I’m enjoying myself, but I have that feeling again of looking in the window at my new life, and finding it difficult to believe.

We sample broiled eel and fatty tuna. But I draw the line at foie gras sushi, so Frederick and Aurora split my piece. I sip at my tiny glass of sake, but it has a peculiar piney taste that I can’t seem to enjoy.

“So what do you do with yourself, Frederick, when you are not buying us nice dinners?” Aurora asks.