Who Writes Cookbooks?

Who Writes Cookbooks?

Copyright Catcher78 all rights reserved

Author's notes: This is a story about a man's fall into madness and recovery. It's a work of fiction. Not a lot of sex. There are redemptive moments. It is my story and not for reuse or copying.

I was irritated and realized that was stupid of me. I cater, just the cooking and although booze is a big part of those events, I can't compete with box stores. Being irritated made me focus on what I was doing. I had been asked to put together a cookbook. Eleni Asarkelian who is a fixer for events, agent to people important demanded that I do this. I had catered several events for her, including a wedding, an anniversary and a Mardi Gras event.

Armenian, Greek and Russian cuisines, respectively. Turned out her oldest daughter Sara works for a regional publisher in Seattle and her mother had assured her I was the real deal in terms of my food. So I was preparing several entrees for testing and photography, as you can't just get a bunch of recipes online and give them to the editor. You have to test them and get people to try them and rate them, which is where I found myself this evening.

I thought the idea of me and a cookbook was off, because I've never had a restaurant, but I've done stuff all over the Northwest and did stuff for some very rich software people which was the connection with Eleni and Sara. Eleni is a whirlwind, a publicist, but really a fixer. You have a mess and she fixes it. She said she'd get it published and the money to publicize it, so here I was.

I asked how and she said, "Don't ask."

I thought the book could sell because I knew cookbooks and food, but I was going to go broke before I finished trying the recipes out and getting approval from my panel of judges. I couldn't be catering while I did this, but I was trying to run between the raindrops and make it all work.

It was kind of hard as Sara, who is of Armenian descent, kept stressing that the book and the recipes had to be approachable. That was code for ten ingredients and five minute camera time. The theme was West Coast Fusion, North American and Central American and Southern American meets Asian influences. My first thought was the concept was too big, too broad to carry out in a one hundred and fifty pages.

The approachable thing was what made it difficult. I was heavily influenced by Dianna Kennedy when I started and Rick Bayless in Chicago is so good that he blows me away and the local restaurant scene was packed with prep cooks and line chefs from Central and South America and I drink with them after their shifts specifically to talk about traditional stuff, while I grew up with Japanese and Chinese kids in Seattle, which meant seafood.

Sara says to me, "Can't you use stock from the store? That's on the shelf, in those paper boxes?"

"Sure, but it won't be as good. How not as good, is a function of how important the stock is in a specific recipe."

"What do you mean?"

"Well if it is bouillabaisse, it is out of the question. If I'm braising beef shank where the beef and marrow will assert itself, I could get away with it, as long as it was unsalted."

"Well, "She said, "Time is money and if you waste a day making stock you'll go broke!"

"If I don't, I get no repeat customers. There is a balance point and my stuff is focused on food that was poor food a hundred years ago and time is what makes it better."

"Great recipe creation is art, with your senses as your palate. Recipes for home are much different for a commercial kitchen, catering or restaurant are more complex. I constantly think of combinations that make things work from technique to texture to visual impact to taste and aroma. Bayless is so knowledgeable and the range of regional Mexican food is just astounding. It would be easy to do roasted cricket tacos and they would be good, but nobody is ready for it. Line cooking in a restaurant requires a chef to make things repeatable for a cook thirty or forty times a night. That is different than catering where it's a big group."

"Who is Bayless, she said?

"The best Mexican food chef in the United States. Not burritos and rice and beans. So much more and so good. Anyway his palate is the equivalent of Van Gogh's when Van Gogh did Fields of Flowers at Arles and the extraordinary color he captured. Fresh, hyper fresh ingredients are key, but so are layers of flavor involving time and timing. I had this cartoon image in my head of a plate of sashimi laid out with avocado slices and squeeze bottle applied sauces of mole, tomatillo and aioli in a fan shape. Artful in a Warhol wannabe way, but shitty food, even if the ingredients were perfect or not great food and certainly not honoring the source, fishermen or really the original cultures. The real fusion thing for me was both cross cultural, but also looking to contrast long cooking techniques with quick as well as uncooked, often same ingredients or similar. Slow roasted pork in fire roasted tomatoes on a salad of shredded jicama, uncooked sweet onion rings, avocado and drizzled with a cheap industrial balsamic vinegar reduced to a syrup was an example. Incredible bread must be part of it, too."

"Great speech, "She looked at the camera guy, "Did you get that?

"Yes I did", he said.

I said, "This is how it goes. I'm doing prep work through plating, testing and photo shoot."

"Alright Bill, can you tell me something about your approach?"

"So I feel that there are interesting similarities between regional Mexican and Chilean cooking and Northwest Native American cuisine as well as differences that make fun counterpoints, so that was my game plan that I was working in my mind as I started this. Today I had two of my favorites going, but I thought that both were great but the tasting of them together was not an additive event. So I was sort prima donnying it, by insisting that it be done sequentially and not concurrently. I insisted that it be broke up with bread and wine. The first was a salmon filet seared off in a very hot skillet and finished in an oven, seven to eight minutes top. Plating meant putting a blackberry-mint coulis, with the salmon next and topped with crème fraiche and salmon roe.

"The other was a presentation of scallops. Big divers scallops. I roasted sweet potatoes, Serrano and jalapeno chillis, garlic and sweet onion. Whipped them with some extra-virgin olive oil and cumin and smoked paprika. The mixture was placed in a mold in the middle of the plate. The scallops were simply cooked in a very hot skillet with peanut oil. Turned once at three minutes. I put toasted sesame seeds around the dish and drizzled a sauce of tomatillo, molasses and soy around the edge. If I wanted to close a deal I'd do this or another version and it never failed."

The two sauces I felt clashed, which is why I wanted the separation for the tasters and Sara brought me back.

"It's no big deal. They'll both be good. Come on, I'm on the hour with the camera and the kitchen."

"You either believe in me or you don't. Together will ruin it!", which I delivered with almost a yell.

My first tantrum. It felt good. I could get back to my business or do it right.

They were eating the salmon now. One portion had been set aside for the photo work. The colors worked because the blackberry coulis had a brilliantine sheen, which the lights caught and the variety of salmon I chose was Sockeye, both for its vibrant orange and its incredible flavor and then the crème fraise and the roe were subtle shadings. The testers and Sara were into their second bite without comment. Their faces were turned inward, a good sign.

Sara was first, "This is unbelievably good, I thought it was a weird paring but the berry both cuts the richness of the salmon and highlights it and the roe jumps in your mouth."

"Well, "I said, "The local tribe is the S'Klallam tribe and they've been doing that for a long, long time. Everything is from here. In the spring I've substituted the native strawberries with a more subtle salmon, the Coho, which is smaller and milder."

I refilled the glass of one of the testers, a friend, McGeorge Brainer by name and builder by trade and he asked, "What was the wine."

"Andrew Will is the producer and Ross Andrew is the winemaker. It's a big Merlot, their 2019. Pretty fruit forward, but it's got enough structure. Columbia Valley grapes, which is from Tri-Cities up to the I-90 bridge at Vantage. The last six or seven years the vineyards have produced some extraordinary Cabs, Syrahs, Merlots and some Sangiovese. Red Mountain and Walla Walla both are better, but this is I bought for $20 dollars and I have paid $75 for less from Napa or France."

"Whatever, it's just good, can you leave the bottle?"

"Let me get back to you on that."

My daughter Coral started bringing bowls of bread and then some sparkling water to the four eaters.

Sara said, "Is the fish blackened? Its surprisingly good."

"Surprisingly? "It's not blackened."

"No it's just that it's awesome!"

"Well the only real fusion thing happening is crème fraiche, which alters the dish as the diner progresses, actually warms the palate. The rest is all North coast Native American. I do a version with seabass and the sauce is roasted chillis, pumpkin seeds and boiled cane sugar where I put ground cumin on the skin, but it's not really blackened like Paul Prudhome."

It was time to plate the scallops. Take them from the skillet place onto the sweet potato mousse, sprinkle the seeds and squirt bottle the sauce on and place the display item for the photographer and then serve the gang of four. Pour a Riesling from Lake Chelan Cellars, which was a rare, flinty crisp treatment that provided a cleansing and allowed the palate to be assaulted anew.

The caramelization of the scallops next to the sweet piquant combo of the sweet-potato chili thing with the sauce brought quick exclamations from the chewers.

"Wow," was wafting from mouth to mouth. Which, was the best part of cooking for me, at its core a connection between people, but artful too. Which is why I kept at it despite an aching back, feet and thieving customers and help.

From Sara, "How many more recipes like this do you have?"

"Well you know, I have thousands of recipes. Which I have used probably two thirds, but I know the others are good. The book concept is to do this in ten twelve ingredients, which as you try to do fusion with Central and South American traditions is difficult, because they layer flavors from so many different sources that are not North American, but are freshly available now. We will need fifty to sixty to have one hundred and fifty pages. So if you work to dumb down or substituted stuff you lose the recipe and its Wolfgang Pucket pizza bullshit. I mean I could do easily twenty-five fusion things based on corn, maybe a hundred. But I'd have to use both fresh American and maize, dried and new, pumpkins, chillis, chocolate, bananas, plantains, and then mix in more Native American and China and Japan, which are all over cuisines in Mexico and Chile and Peru and have been for over a hundred years. It's doing it in ten ingredients available at the grocery store that's the deal."

"Whoa, slow down Bill, "Sara said, turning to the photographer, "Did you get that?"

He nodded.

"That was great, the food was incredible and beautiful, you're awesome! We've got enough to get a deal which will set our start time."

I exploded, "We already had a deal, what do you mean?"

"Well, "Sara said, "Yeah, but this will cement it and get us the budget we need and probably help get us the distribution we need. Just relax. What you need to do is work on talking about your food to interviewers that don't get it. So that they get interested in thirty seconds."

"I don't understand a thing you said except that there really was not a deal and I turned away two prospects and one customer to do this, which means $25,000 up in smoke. I'm out of here. Coral come on."

"Dad I gotta go, "Coral said.

"Did you pack up my knives and pans, "I asked.

"Yeah, they're there, "she said.

"Come out to the truck with me, please Coral."

"Bill, wait, you don't know this business." Sara was spiking after me in her heels, Click, click, click.

"Sara, your mom is a long term friend and customer, so I'm going to be nice. I've been screwed by experts and I used to get excited about the foreplay and the promise to come. No more, my back hurts and I'm out of here. I'm done; I'll send you a bill for the food."

As we walked out to my old Isuzu Trooper four by four, Coral started to chew on me.

"You were mean to her and you didn't have to be, Dad."

"She's just a hustler, this is all bullshit. She'll never pay for the food, I probably lost $25,000 in not talking to potential customers this afternoon so I could be the big star."

I continued, "Jesus, not a day goes by that I don't get a chance to show myself that I'm such a wannabe dumbshit. I'm forty-nine, when am I going to stop being fooled?"

Coral said, "Prolly when you stop breathing."

"You should not be so disdainful of your dear father."

"It's not that. "she said, "Somebody could drop you in the deep Sahara in your shorts and you'd find some spin that'd get you moving towards water."

"That's just survival, " I grunted.

"Very fine line between that and being compelled towards success, " she said.

"Look, "I said, "Come over. I've got a Cayuse Syrah that I want you to taste."

"Can't stay long, "she said.

"I got to meet with Justin Henry's parents first thing. He's got to get married in three weeks."

"Why are they meeting with you? The girl's parents are in jail."

"I don't know, maybe she's from Venus."

"Get the money up front."

"I can do something for a hundred people and charge them $500 hundred and make $100, "I said.

"That's on the food only. Why are you doing this? It doesn't cover any of your time and you're yelling at her about a single remark."

"He treated Jack well. So he should have at least one day that is good before his nightmare starts. He's already a drunk," I said.

"See you at your place, "she said.

My name is Bill Havlicek. My daughter is Coral and my two sons are Jack and Tom. We're from Kingston, Washington and the location of the room, actually the Kingston Yacht Club is where the testing was done. I drove south towards a little arts, hippie, rich lawyer community on the western shore of Puget Sound called Indianola.

The community clings to the cliff-side at one extreme to beachfront along the water and extends further to a spit dotted with ex-patriot Californians who huddle inside their enormous residential blights from October to May.

Away from the water the land rises gently into fir and cedar forests. The homes range from Harry homemaker influenced by the Timothy Leary School of architecture to Craftsman structures from an earlier period to mobile homes to enormous custom structures owned by lawyers. One of my free time delights is to have morning coffee at the Indianola Country store and guess at whether the traffic is software worker, aging hippie or the odd Californian braving the mist. Clothes and type of smart phone are usually the giveaway.

The Californians dress like they've prepared for the Iditarod of morning walks, layers of tights and shorts with windbreakers all with homage to Oregon Shoemaker paid from shoe to headbands. They tend to have Bluetooth buds, and huge phony white teeth. The software types are split into two groups; longer hair is an architect or code-banger, ponytails pervade. Project managers tend to get a bit more button-down. Cell phones tend to hang at their belt. Hippies also have long hair. If they're driving a Range Rover they're either an artist or have a plantation of pot or have arranged with some local tribal members to import the preferred powder from Columbia. If it's a beat up old four by four, pickup or Isuzu, they're probably a struggling hippie resonating on some spiritual vibe that only rings their tuning fork.

I turned my Trooper down my long driveway to what I call home now. I designed the place and with some help from some friends got it built and it passed code and I got to occupy and actually got a bank to finance it. The driveway is lined with second growth fir and cedar and some first growth spruce and hemlock. The house is not visible from the road because of the trees and is in about two hundred fifty feet towards a little mud bay that empties out with the tide and is perfect for oysters, both Quilcene's and Kamamotos. Facing the road it looks like a one story small place, with a couple of small windows and a solid metal door. The exterior is an undulating corrugated metal, painted forest green. The roof is metal too.

When you come in the front door there is a landing with a table and coat rack and then an open stairwell with wood risers bleached blond on a set of iron stairs down to the first basement, more really a daylight basement, unlike the dug basement below it. When you descend the stairs at the foot you see a wall of tinted windows looking towards the mud-bay.

Coral had beat me and already gone in, the trunk to her old Volvo wagon was open. The house was a paean to my brief illusion of wealth when I was working for the big software company in Redmond, Washington. I was an Internet Evangelist for a few years spreading fear and disorder amongst the Redmond Software company's deadliest enemy, since died, Netscape.

They hired me and I knew spit about computer or software, but I could give a speech in front of people and use PowerPoint to preach to the discontented IT managers as they were called in those days. I build the place to some muse only I heard. I thought I talked to my wife, but I guess I didn't much listen to anything she said about the place.

When ready for occupation my then wife Betty, refused to move to it and after a series of cathartic, for her, dialogues in which she screamed at me for what seemed like a month, but was really only a couple of weeks, she left me with the boys and my daughter. That was about ten years ago. Most of my liquidity left with her too, along with the previous house to boot.

Shortly thereafter Redmond Software company said thanks and have a nice day. I really didn't know software any more, but most of the money I made got dumped into the new house.

Sooooo, to sum up I had a house and an aging Isuzu Trooper, no family although I could see the boys who were in high school now, two days a month. The four foot eight inch female defense attorney had established with the court that my software work, which now was defunct, which had taken ten to sixteen hours a day and lots of travel constituted mental cruelty and since I collected wine I was obviously a drunk.

I was required to give scheduled and unscheduled urine analysis for ninety days and there was a restraining order for the first six months so that I could only see my kids in the presence of a representative of the Child Protective Services. I could not watch my sons play basketball or baseball or my daughter play fast-pitch.

The fact that I was not a drunk, nor had struck or yelled at my wife or children was ever established was not material. I had in fact loved her and been convinced that she was going through some changes and everything would come back to normal.

After the divorce was final she called me and apologized for the inconveniences this had caused both her and me. I inquired as to how she had been inconvenienced, as I had not mounted a counter suit in hopes it would cause her to come to her senses. There was silence on her end. She then said that it was our duty to make the family work in the changed circumstances. I had not seen her or my kids in over eight months at that point. I had been told that I was allowed two days a month, but her attorney had let slide the arrangements for that since the divorce for two months. I said that if my attorney had not heard from hers in a week, I would seek a modification in the terms, which had begun to assert itself in my mind as the right step.

Coral, Jack and Tom came into my house for the first time during my first legal weekend with them, nine years ago. They were delivered to my new home, by my ex-neighbor one Friday.

He said, "It was a damn shame that things had come to where they were now. I had not heard from him or his pin-headed wife during the last eight months which caused my sincerity-bullshit alarm bell to start clanging. I thanked him for the effort to bring them to my place, turned my back on him and opened the front door and brought the kids in.

My plan for the weekend was Friday night videos after fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Saturday, breakfast out at a diner, go to the sporting goods store and update the baseball mitts, shoes and bats for all three, bookstore shopping, pizza, mall time, home, then Sunday morning church, home for newspapers bagels, chocolate and coffee.

Coral was then seventeen, Jack was fifteen and Tom was eleven. We entered through the front door and went down the stairs to the ground floor. They walked around and looked up and around and down. They were quiet. There were no hugs, where that had been the rule.

What came next was the worst blow of all when Jack said, "So you destroyed our family for this? It's not as big as our home."

"Jack, that's not what happened at all. Your mom..."

"Don't talk about her!"

He then picked a baseball off a shelf and threw it into a twenty by eight foot window shattering the inner pane and ran up the stairs and outside into the driveway. Tom and Coral followed. I stood for a moment and surveyed and then followed. Coming out the front door I could see them at the end of the driveway getting into my ex-neighbor's car. What happened had obviously been planned. I did not follow. I would not force myself on them.

Coral's graduation was the following June and it was fun. Since she was eighteen I could contact her without approval of her mother. I did and through a couple of careful events got to the point where she would talk and concede that I was still her dad and that she would accept my help with her schooling. I went to the boy's games as unobtrusively as I could, either standing at the end of the gym out of view of the stands where their mother and her friends sat. I did not want to embarrass the boys and I was nursing a pretty good case of self-pity and anger.

After the first phone call from Betty I had disconnected my number and got a new unlisted number and later with the catering business I used a cell number and would not pick up from her if I could help it. I had plenty of time to review my behavior and culpability.

I would sit in my tub at night and allow myself one large drink of sour mash. At first I was immersed in both the water and my self-pity and anger. It got tiresome after a while. Somewhere between six months and one year after the divorce, I began to see that the last six years of the marriage I had been away constantly. I had missed family milestones, relationship milestones and rather than address the fact that Betty's voice had turned into sandpaper on my psyche, I had distanced myself. So I'd start these dialogs with Betty when I was in the tub and after, in my head. I'd shape the conversation and have answers to her remarks that had lacerated my soul, back and forth and refining the remarks, refighting six years of lost fights. I didn't remember losing them, except for shutting doors and sending texts and emails. There was her voice, that caused my neck to tighten and my teeth clench. Not talking just to me, just any time I heard her voice.

I still wondered how I might have addressed that point, such as, "Well honey I want to talk about your voice. On your best days it sounds like you've gargling glass and somebody stomped on your little toe, to that of a live chicken being fed into a food processor.

I can hear Dr. Phil say or the real live counselor we had, 'Betty honey, that's a start. Let me hear you talk!'

I kept refilling the tub and my glass of bourbon too. The real sense of it was that I kept doing the same four or five arguments over and over again in my head.

I absolutely loved my kids. Their pain and the lies that been pushed at them bothered me a lot. But then, they're smart kids and Coral told me I had pushed her mom off the edge of the earth and she wasn't coming back and the boys blamed me for that.

I told her that it was because I insisted on hardwood and Betty wanted Pergo floors. It was a power struggle I thought. I still thought that was true in eighty or ninety percent of marriages that I knew about. But I'd begun to think that there were more subtle things going on in many relationships that work or endure. Strengths, weaknesses, gaps and personal drive can work or warp relationships.

In the middle of it, I'd thought that I was actually a hero, fighting and succeeding in the software battlefield that my extra hours, days, weeks and months were appreciated and even revered. My family had developed a rhythm, as the kids had grown, their lives and my wife's life were the nucleus that I spun about in an outer orbit.

I had been unaware of the depth of anger, even the presumption that I should build a house and change the life that they were comfortable with, that to do so displayed how insular I had become and how indirect our dialogue came to be.

On the other hand I had days where I felt as if I was the mule pulling her to the comfortable life she wanted and only when I expressed some of my feelings and yearnings did my feelings get any consideration. All things considered my feelings were stupid and I got whacked in the head with a large pipe and told to keep plowing.

Being married well means that money's got to flow like the Mississippi and in these times it's best for a man to shut up a lot. Not totally, but a lot. Randomly, say reassuring things. Maybe there are women out there who don't care beyond money exclusively, but they're not very common. Even I know how bitter that sounds, but in the last ten years I've kept my eyes and ears open to discern the life-signs of a woman that didn't exhale dollar signs. Other than a few nuns I'd met and most of them were fundraising too, I'd struck out.

Maybe if I lost some weight it'd work and I'd get lucky.

Coral carried my knives down the stairs and I had my skillets. I quickly lit a pre-made fire in the wood stove and scurried over to the kitchen and took some glasses down from the open cupboard. I opened the Cayuse Syrah called Bionic Frog, a 2018 that had scored 96 points in Wine Spectator and poured aggressively into an open necked carafe. It's called splashing the wine and is supposed to accelerate the opening up of younger wines. I poured us each a glass and carried it and the carafe over to the living area by the fireplace.

"Wow Dad! This is a huge fruit bomb, but it's got a ton of structure!"

"Christophe Barrone is unbelievably talented and the fruit is as good as anything in the world."

"Walla Walla grapes?"

"Yes, but he's got one from Columbia Valley too that's a 94, kind of like its little brother."

"So Dad?"

I could feel something coming, "Yes?"

"Ummm, Mom's getting married."

There was an awareness of awareness that I did not think I possessed any more, taste in my mouth of the inkiness of the Syrah, jaminess, an old ache, tears, I was aware of my breathing. I cleared my throat.

"Somebody she's been seeing?"

"An accountant a few years older than her."

"Why get married?"

"He asked is all I know. She's been seeing him for a couple of years and they've traveled."

"Oh. Really?"

"Didn't you know?"

"Well I don't really see many of the old friends any more, what with being a drunk and a brute and homewrecker."

"Don't start. I'm sorry, but the boys said I had to tell you."

"What do you think? What do they think?"

"He's nice and calm. He listens to Mom a lot. He's kind of blah, I mean he's an accountant. Jack and Tom think she's stupid for doing it, but they don't understand. I think it makes Mom feel better with her friends."

"Yes that's pretty insightful. You should be a shrink."

"Growing up with Mr. Analyst, always explaining to me relationships and leverage and who wants what had to take a little bit. You're hurt aren't you?"

"Well there's something going on, but I haven't talked to her in a long time, so I am kind of surprised but not, all at the same time. It's sort of like one last piece of the puzzle just fell out of the sky to complete things, emotionally. The timeline is wrong, I mean I wish she'd done this nine years ago, it would have made things more simple for me. I hope she's happy. That's not true. I wish I didn't know, actually. Part of me resents her being happy."

"Time for you to let go. I'm out of here. I might come by and get some oysters on Saturday. There's a minus tide. Bye dad."

I said bye and sat in my chair and drank the wine, which was extraordinary. Moment to moment sitting in the darkness, I felt at peace in the solitude and then fundamentally alone, back and forth like tennis. I concluded that solitude was an intellectual contrivance to not face the still of the night, alone. The night was so still and the moon reflected enough light to give the grass a silvery tinge.

I lowered the stairs to my loft and climbed up and raised them when I reached the loft. I ran a bath and poured myself a slug of Evan Williams bourbon with an ice cube. I took a sip and it burned a bit. I had put an old wood table next to the tub to put glasses or an ashtray if I had a cigar. It was cold tonight for May, clear. I opened the roof door and propped it open. I climbed into the tub and felt the heat deeply in my body and let out a groan. The whisky did not taste as it should because I was not ready for it. I knew that I would need it to sleep as a deep old pain had burst through the surface.

I couldn't figure out if I still loved her or did not know how to or could not let go. At my boy's ball games I would purposefully not look at her to not stir stuff up. I have a pair of Uncles on my mom's side who live yet in their eighties in the Carolinas who have told me that it's important to howl at the moon to get through life. I have yet to do so. I knew that the morning would bring coffee and purpose. I could not, would not get drunk and yet I needed sleep. Prayer and staring at the television might work. I wonder if the accountant had a name. Did Coral tell me and I forgot already?

"So, is that what you're going to do?"

"Who in hell, how'd you get in here?"

"You know me!"

Standing ten feet away, bathed in the moonscape and darkness both was a tall red-head woman smoking a cigarette and I swear it was my mom, who's been dead for a really long time. Thirty four years.

"Mom?"

"Yes, answer my question, damn it!"

I picked up the glass still half full and drank it straight down, I was obviously hallucinating.

"What are you drinking?"

"Bourbon."

"With coke? It's dark?"

"Just ice."

"Make me one with Freska."

"I don't think they make Freska anymore and the bourbon is too good. Oh and I'm not getting out of the tub."

"I used to bathe you in the kitchen sink. Make me a drink."

"Turn around." She did.

I jumped out of the tub and pulled on some sweat pants.

"Okay, " I said.

"Go make the drink!"

I stared at her, not moving, she was about the age I was born, so 29. I was 49, I was really a mess, wine and bourbon, stress and no food. I slapped myself in the face hard and then opened my eyes. She was still there.

"You're dead, Is this a dream?"

"No I can't really explain how this goes without overloading you now, except I'm here to help. Please get me a drink."

She walked over took the glass and poured some bourbon into it and drank it in two short pulls.

"You have no idea how good that tastes, get me a cigarette. I'm out."

I said, "I have a cigar, you died of lung cancer."

"I have been dying for a smoke, "she said.

"That's not funny, at all. I watched you die"

I sat down on the floor and started to cry, tentative and then I just lost it.

I could feel her patting me on the head and then she said, "Hey, hey its okay, come on snap out of it, we have stuff to do."

"OK, so my wife is remarrying and my mom dead thirty two years has appeared to me and is talking to me and drinking my bourbon. What do we have to do? I can't get to a shrink for a while and what do I do with you? Can other people see you?"

"Some of them, most can't."

"My kids?"

"Not yet? I think, I don't know for sure."

"They are not drunks yet? Is that it?"

"Nope! Can you get me a pack of cigarettes. Tareyton please."

"In the morning... Wait, wait. I watched you slowly die, in horrible pain. I saw your body. I'm just fucking nuts. Why would I get you cigarettes. They killed you and ruined my life. I don't know where to buy Tareyton's or even if they're still made."

"I hate that word fuck. Your life is okay."

"Yeah, whatever you say, but I'm 50 now and I've earned the right to say what I might. Especially now that I'm fucking nuts. Who the hell do I talk to about this now? They'll commit me to a looney bin in about two minutes. I'm going to bed, this is madness and you'll go away by the time I wake up."

"I might, but wait, let's call your dad."

"He died two and half years after you did."

"How?"

"Car wreck, smashed his heart on steering column."

"That's gruesome, "she said.

"Well he fought for a while, but it was over soon."

"Where's Jacob," she asked about my oldest brother.

""Oh he died before dad from a blood clot."

"No, "she choked back a sob.

"It was a bad couple of years for me."

"Worse for us, "she said.

"I guess, but enough about that, how come you know about my divorce, but not this stuff?"

"I don't know. I remember being in the hospital and it's like the next thing I'm seeing you in your bath tub. You should lose about thirty pounds by the way."

"Thanks... I'm going to bed."

"No damn it, make some coffee, we must talk."

"Are you a spirit, "I'd seen her cancer ridden life flea her body, yet here I was deflecting her words as I'd done as a teen ager.

"Well I guess, "she said, "But actually I have to go to the bathroom.

"Ok, you need some clothes too. Sweatshirts and pedal pushers are a little out of fashion."

"Coffee now."

So down to the kitchen and I ground some beans and started the Krupps. I heard the toilet flush. I was hoping that coming down to the kitchen would make her go away. I didn't know what was going on. If I went to my priest he'd say I needed an exorcism and think I was imagining things all at the same time, his crisis of faith, while I was diving deep into a pit of madness.

"Where is the percolator?"

"That silver thing there. Cups above in the cabinet."

"Oh, fancy. Umm, I didn't answer you, I believed in God and prayed every day all my life. I don't know why I'm here except that I'm supposed to help you."

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody, it's just in my heart and mind."

"You look like you're thirty or so, which was how old you were when I was born. Instead of eighty, your age now."

She shrugged.

"I don't want this to sound weird, but you were really pretty."

"Thanks, I heard that a lot. Do you love her?

"Did you see Coral?"

"No."

"That's your granddaughter, she looks just like you. When she told me that Betty was getting remarried, it's like something broke inside me. I don't know if I can't let go or what. I mean it's been a while since we divorced. I've seen other people, but it doesn't ever work. I mean, I just don't feel anything really towards them, except they seem really needy. Physically it works."

"Ok that's more than I want to know."

"Coral just told me like four hours ago. I don't know what I feel. Despair, failure, sadness, anger. But it's the same thing I've felt for five years now, just back to like when it first happened. I guess I feel stuck and I need to go one way or the other. What do "WE" have to do?"

"Well you need to stop the wedding of course at least until you're fixed."

"I'm not a dog."

"You act like a kicked dog."

"Thanks."

"Where's the coffee?"

"Do you want cream? Sugar."

"You need to ask me that?"

So I poured two cups and she sat down and picked up the cup and blew across the top and then sipped and exclaimed, "Wow, this is really strong, is it Yuban? I was always a Folgers person."

"No that is freshly roasted and I ground it. A lot has changed with coffee. Some people even roast beans at home."

"Well A&P used to have a grinder in the store, remember?"

"Yes, but these are different beans and this is an Italian style roast which is darker, do you want some cream?"

"No, I like this, I just wish I had a cigarette. So how long were you married?"

"Twenty five years."

"Did you cheat on her?"

"What kind of a question is that? Whose side are you on?"

"How many times?"

"She left me because I built this house. We had a home, but I made a bunch of money and this was my dream house so I built it."

"When it passed inspection, she filed for divorce and put me through hell."

"What does she look like?"

"Tall blonde. Thin, pretty. Great smile."

"I told you to never go out with blondes."

"Well, you were gone when I took up with her."

"Still. So she cheated on you. While you had kids?"

"You cheated on Dad a whole lot. Mr. Wilson, that Judge in Lee's case, three guys while Dad was passed out in the bed next to you. When he was lost in action during the war, you had kids with another man."

"Your father would fuck a snake if somebody straightened it out. I was lonely."

"It doesn't matter, but no, before, not after, but I don't know really, I was gone a lot and she held herself away from me, I mean she's a good mom."

"Means nothing. And you, answer me!"

"If I did, I never embarrassed her, nor did she know."

"Oh, she knew, but it doesn't matter, what a mess. I told you about blondes. So, what was with her?

"Her bosses, people at parties, my friends, her friends husbands."

"You did nothing?"

"Well, at first I was a fool and confronted her, but she said, 'It didn't mean she didn't love me. Everyone did it and I shouldn't take it so personally. She said she had to get it out of her system before she had kids. I hurt a couple of guys that were my friends. But, the more I thought about it, I came to conclude that why should I lose any sleep over someone that didn't care about hurting me."

"Good, why didn't you just leave?"

"Well she got pregnant."

"How, did you know it was yours?"

"I didn't at first, but she has red hair and looks like you, so that convinced me."

"How's that she has a restraining order? A permanent restraining order? You can get those?"

"No, probably not, I just stayed away, changed my phone, avoided people that were friends. I really don't know."

"Do you have a lawyer?"

"I have a guy that I've done real estate and business stuff with, why?"

"Well you can fight this."

"Fight what? I've been divorced for years."

"How long?"

"Five years. For the first three years or so I thought a lot about how I had not discerned the depth of her anger and how I had missed when she quit on the relationship. We'd always fought, but made up and got things done. In retrospect the last three months or so she'd seemed as if she was leaning over the proscenium and really hamming it up, even when we were alone. Lots of drama and screaming as if there was an audience I couldn't see."

"She was framing it for the kids and it was planned. It almost certainly means she was cheating on you and had a way out financially."

"You don't know that!"

"Figure it out, do you pay alimony?"

"No some child support, alimony is not around, it's called spousal support and I was out of work, so she didn't get that."

"Does she have a house payment, new car? Job? Does she work?"

"No, yes, she's a hair stylist for men."

"A hair stylist for men? What is that? Men get hairdos?"

"Some do. But guys like to have women giving them scalp massages and touching them and talking to them. It's like pillow talk in a way."

"Scalp massages, sure."

"Lots of things have changed. Mom."

"How much does she make?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe $50,000."

"$50,000 you're stark raving nuts, there'd be barbers, no hair stylists on every corner."

"Well I gross between $275,000 to $400,000 a year."

"Your dad made $10,000 in his best years and our house cost $7,000."

"Erlene got the house when he died."

"Who in hell is Erlene?"

"His wife."

"The son of a bitch remarried! Was I cold yet? That's that God Damned secretary where he worked. God damn son of a bitch. She's going to get a piece of my mind first thing."

"She died a couple of years ago. I absolutely detested her. He was lonely, but I still hated her and him for it. The whole couple of years changed my life, still bitter about it.

"She's dead you say?"

I nodded at her.

"He was a hound and really good looking and funny and could drink like a fish. I caught him."

"Stop, I don't want to know this. This was my whole sophomore and junior year, remember? I hated it then and don't want to know."

"Ok, ok I'm sorry honey."

"This is so damned weird. I'm twenty years older than you are now, but you remember all forty six years of your life. It doesn't add up."

"There is a reason I'm here, I just know it's important to help you."

"I have to sleep, I'm exhausted. I have to work tomorrow, it's three in the morning."

"I'm going to bed. There is a blanket on the couch over there."

"Time is wasting!"

"If I have a heart attack, I'll be with you. I'm fifty."

"Forty nine. Quit borrowing trouble."

"Good night." I climbed up the ladder and got a fresh bottle of Evan Williams out of the dresser and cracked it open and took a long pull and then another and laid down."

"Wake up! It's 7:30, Come on lets go. I'd kill for a cigarette."

My eyes hurt and my back hurt. I crossed my legs as I lay on my side and pulled on my hip with my left arm and my lower back popped. It felt wonderful. I rotated my head one ear to the shoulder and the other to the other shoulder and my neck cracked.

"That's a horrible noise, stop it."

"It stops it from hurting."

"Stops what?"

"My neck and back, go on I have to shower and shave and get ready."

"Do you have any women's clothes?"

"Yeah, look in that dresser inside that closet there, there might be some stuff, you're about her height, she might be a little taller. Her blouses will be, umm tight on you. You're much bigger."

She smirked, "I remember when you saw me, you were thirteen."

"Yep, that's how I know the blouses will be tight. I saw you with Mal Wilson and Jim Smith and that judge in the front seat of his Cadillac. Oh and your clients, remember."

"Boeing failed, there were three other ladies on the block, it was tough competition. Your dad stopped making money, you ate, I paid the mortgage."

I shaved by lathering up soap with a brush and then with a three bladed razor and brushed my teeth and showered. I put on some jeans and a tee shirt and wool socks and my Birkenstocks. I went downstairs and she was looking out the front window and turned around as I came down.

"You're wearing sandals? Are you a hippie?"

"My feet, legs and back hurt all the time. These make those feel better."

"How do I look?"

"Fine, the jeans fit good, the shirt is kind of small, really small."

"I'm not fat!"

"No, no, that's not what I mean, Not at all, you're bigger than her, just a lot bigger."

"I looked at that "People" magazine and that's how people dress now, I'm not ugly."

Her face was red.

"You're fine, it's just that you're my mom and I don't think of my mom as a cougar."

"I went to Tulsa, not Washington State."

"It means a good looking mature woman that sleeps with younger men."

"Oh, but I'm twenty nine.

"Don't worry about it, I have to adjust. If you're wearing clothes, can you see yourself in the mirror?"

"Yes."

"Then everybody can see you. I mean you were smoking when you showed up and you've had bourbon and coffee and you go to the bathroom. This is so strange. Somebody must have given me peyote, I'm losing it."

"Stop it, now!"

"So who do we say you are? If everybody sees you, they're going to ask me and you too and You will not get some of the changes since you died."

"How about Daphne Jones, I'll say I'm the granddaughter of my Aunt Julia from Dallas."

"You mean the crazy one?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It came out. She really wasn't crazy, it seems. Just a bad husband that committed her for a long time. But that works. Are you hungry?"

"I am famished, will you make some breakfast or do you want me to do so?

"Neither, let's go to Suquamish, there is a pizza place that serves breakfast."

"I don't want pizza. Where is Suquamish? I've been to Snohomish."

"Don't worry. We're on the other side of Puget Sound, between Kingston and Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo is just ten minutes further West."

"Oh."

So up and out to the car and I opened up my door and reached over and unlocked the passenger door. After a little hesitation she opened the door and got in.

"You used to open car doors for your mother."

"Put your seat belt on."

"I hate seat belts. I never wore them before."

"Put it on, it's the law. If you don't I get a $250 ticket. Here I'll show you.

I reached over her and pulled the harness out and over and clicked it in.

"It's the law?"

"Yes, "I said.

"Don't you have a car? Something nicer?"

"I had a bigger SUV but Betty got it."

"What is an S-U-V?"

"Sports Utility Vehicle, the acronyms. This is an older one, but I love it. It is very functional, good gas mileage, good in snow, lots of room for me to hall stuff around and I actually enjoy driving it. It is a perfect machine."

"It's a stick shift, "She asked.

"Yes. Five speed."

"Five speed, our Ranch Wagon had three on the tree."

"How could I forget, the smoke bomb?"

"It didn't burn oil!"

"No you guys just smoked constantly, with the windows rolled up. It's lucky I don't have cancer now, just asthma."

We arrived at Bella Luna. Parked and walked in and got a table. There were only two other tables full and so service was immediate. She was astounded to see biscuits and gravy on a menu and ordered it and coffee. I got the sausage and eggs with toast. The coffee was hot.

"Can you see if they have some Tareyton's?"

"No, they have no cigarettes. It's against the law to smoke in a public building or room."

"You must be kidding me!"

"Millions and millions of people have died from smoking."

I pulled out my smartphone and googled deaths from smoking and found the answer.

"What is that?"

"My phone, I can get the internet."

"What does that mean?"

"It's complicated, but there are satellites that orbit the earth and they are connected to this phone and in turn connected every computer in the world and I can ask it questions and get answers."

"You talk to it?"

"No, I type it in. But to the point one billion people died world-wide from smoking in the 20th century."

"What year is this?"

"2025."

She slumped back into her chair.

"Can you still call people?"

"Oh sure. I can do that and also communicate via twitter or facebook, too. Snapchat, I can text people too, take pictures."

"What does that mean?"

"I'll show you, it is just like a sorority or fraternity of people, they call them social networks."

The breakfast arrived and it was fun to watch her eat. At first tentative and then with some gusto, but very proper. After several minutes she stopped.

"What's wrong?"

"It is utterly delicious, but I want to make it last I don't know if I'll get to eat again. I am as perplexed about this as possible, even more so than you. It is hard to quit smoking and I really feel irritated and want a cigarette, but you said one billion people died from it?"

"That's from the World Health Organization and mostly from 1940 on. If you are going to be around, it is a chance to redo things and not kill yourself again."

She seemed to be looking inward her eyes focused inward. "Nobody is really left, this is very weird and I am uncertain."

"Well, I'm here and you have some grandkids."

"That will have to do, "she said and tucked into the rest of breakfast.

"I just want one pack. Then I will put it aside."

"You smoked four packs a day and knew it was bad for the last ten years of your life. Do you think you can quit? It is very, very hard. It is an addiction. Like heroin or alcohol."

"Ok, just get me a pack and you can hold them and only give them to me a little bit. What are we doing now? Can you do that?"

"Ok, but you can't smoke in this car or my house, you can stand out on the deck or anywhere else."

"Why?"

"It stinks and gets in everything."

"Oh! Alright, so let's do that and lets go see your wife."

"Well she's not my wife anymore and her name is Betty."

"If you'd been a girl I was going to name you Betty."

"That is kind of the topper to this whole thing, "I said shaking my head.

I drove to the nearby tribal smoke shop and bought her a pack of Kents. Got into the car and drove to this little park called Old Man House. She got out and pulled an old Zippo lighter out of her jeans pocket, tore open the pack, dropping the paper on the ground and lit the cigarette. I picked up the paper and put it in the waste can.

She said, "This is perfect, coffee, great meal, family and such a wonderful view, what is that over there?"

"To the left, far away that is Magnolia in Seattle and just across the water is Bainbridge Island."

She smoked and walked about and stared across the water towards Seattle.

"Would it be possible to see our house?"

"Sure, it's really nice now and worth a lot of money. Maybe tomorrow."

She dropped the butt and moved to the car. I stepped on it and put it in the trash can.

"Let's find Betty."

"We're a couple miles is all."

We drove there and pulled in. It was a single story with a daylight basement and there was a barn behind it, for lawn mowers and a dream for horses that never happened. We turned off the Trooper and got out, I was not sure what was going to happen.

"Let me talk, " I said.

I rang the bell and I heard footsteps and the door opened and it was Betty, with a little smile on her face and she came out on the porch and closed the door.

"Bill, " she said.

"Coral told me about your getting married and all. I wanted to wish you well. Who is the lucky guy?"

"Well you wouldn't know him, then she paused and said, "Aren't you going to, ahh introduce me to your, umm friend? I hadn't heard you were involved."

"I'm not, this is my cousin Daphne Jones, her grandmother was my grandfather's sister and she is from Dallas. Daphne Jones, Betty Havlicek."

There was kind of a pause, "Cousin Daphne, right. She is wearing my old Grateful Dead tee shirt, I tore the left sleeve. Cousin Daphne."

"She spent the night and had just flown in and her bags were lost."

"Sure you bring some floozy over here wearing my jeans and shirt and it's your cousin. Oh for God's sake, don't smoke here, there are kids here."

"Kids, Jack and Tom, I said, "They're in their twenties."

The door opened and a short, dark haired man walked out next to Betty,

"What's going on here?"

"Peter, this is my ex-husband Bill and his um cousin Daphne."

Then I looked at him and I knew him, "You were my project accountant, Peter Weebe, I said, "For God sakes Betty, you did this to me for Peter fucking Weebe?" I looked at her and she looked up and away from me.

"It wasn't like that, It was after the divorce."

Mom jumped in, "She's lying. Look at her face and his too, God damned blondes."

She was not done, "Peter Weebe, "she exclaimed, "Sea Biscuit for God's sake. Sea Biscuit." Then she burst out laughing and said, "Come on Bill she deserves him. Don't waste a minute worrying about this mess, let it go."

I turned and walked away to the car and she got in and put on her seatbelt. I started the Trooper and drove out the driveway and back to my metal mansion. When we got home, she said, "I would like to take a shower and then we should drink and smoke. Do you have a cigar?"

"Yes, it's a good idea."

She went up the ladder and took a shower. The ride home had been quiet except for her to remark how she actually liked the Trooper and said it was a good ride. While she was showering I pulled up the window doors to the deck and it was wide open. She came down and said, "Where is the ice?"

I pointed to the counter and there was a bucket of ice and Evan Williams and some Famous Grouse Scotch and glasses.

I lit a Cuban cigar, and walked over and put some ice in the glass for her and some in another and said, "I don't have any pop."

She said, "Water is fine."

I poured some bourbon into her glass and ran the cold water from the tap and filled it up. I added the scotch to mine and brought them over and we sat and stared out towards the bay.

"Seabiscuit," she said, which made us laugh and laugh. "How do you know about Sea Biscuit?"

"They made a movie about him, greatest little horse ever" Which made us laugh some more.

Then we talked and talked, her childhood and early life with dad and I filled in some of my life, I wanted to ask her questions about her being a kid and did. Then the front door opened and Coral walked down the stairs and said, "Mom called and was crying and said you were with some woman, " and she stared at my mom, her grandmother."

"Coral this is my cousin Daphne, from Dallas, she is your first cousin three times removed."

Mom stood up and she was a couple of inches shorter and they looked at each other and it was heart breaking for me, because they looked so much alike. Nobody said anything until Mom said, "Child come here and they hugged."

They both were crying a bit, but I didn't know what to do or say and Coral, said, "Well this is the most interesting of days, can I have a drink?"

So we talked and drank and smoked. Coral had a joint and convinced mom to try it, they looked about the same age and they laughed and laughed. I told Coral about Betty and Peter and how we'd worked together and she was really quiet and she said, "Dad I had no idea."

"I know, this is for the best. I just feel relieved about the whole thing. It had nothing to do about the house, ever. She was going to leave me any way. She didn't need to try to destroy me though."

Mom said, "Let it go!"

Then to Coral, "I want to do your nails!"

"I don't do them, I am a chef, it's a mess."

"No come on a girl's got to make a statement. Do you have a boyfriend?"

Coral looked at me and rolled her eyes and said, "Well yeah, I do."

"What's his name?

"Stewart, I call him Stew."

"Are you engaged?

"Oh no, but we've been together for six years."

"Been together?"

"We live together."

So I said, "Stew's a good guy."

"You hate Stew," Coral said.

"No I don't, I just don't talk to him much is all," I said, shaking my head at Mom.

She then asked, "Don't you want to get married?"

"Maybe at some point, we don't care, I don't care."

"What does your mom say?"

Coral paused, and said, "Well she's hardly one to talk. When Dad was travelling for work all those years, she would put us to bed all in my bed then put Wally Ballew, our dog in the room and close the door. One morning I got up and let him out of the room and it was like five in the morning and she was just getting out of her car and coming to the house and I ran back and jumped in bed and pretended to be asleep. After that, I pretended to be asleep and she left a lot. You would be in Dallas and asleep and she'd leave at eleven or so. When I was a senior I slept over at a friend's house, but not where I said I would be and she went off on me and I mentioned it to her."

Mom said, "What did she say?"

"Nothing at all, she just left the room and we never ever talked about anything other than money and the boys, ever again. I mean she's Mom, but it is like, she stopped being my parent that day."

"But you never told your Dad?" Coral shook her head and Mom said, "Why not?"

"They were already divorced, it just would have been hell and hurt him."

"Don't you think he carried a lot, too much?"

"Well, I've been close to Dad, I am close, the boys wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Is this why you don't want to get married?"

"I haven't thought of it like that, but not everyone gets married now. There is so much divorce."

By then she had produced the nail polish and some scissors and some smelly, substance that she started rubbing Coral's fingers and nails with. Coral had opened a bottle of Walla Walla Syrah from K Vintners and they were talking and laughing about silly stuff.

So I drank some more Evan Williams and went over to the couch and sat down and fell asleep.

At four hours of sleep I felt deprived and listless. At five hours it was fine after the shower. I got up and did shower in the guest shower. I went up the ladder and called, "I'm coming up and just need to get some clothes."

There was no answer. Mom was not up there. I called Coral and asked her when she left and she said about three in the morning, about an hour after I fell asleep and I asked her what she thought about Daphne."

"She is like my long lost twin!"

"Where was she when you left? Well we lowered the doors and she said she was going to have one more cigarette on the deck and we hugged and she told me to watch out for my dad and that she'd be seeing her soon and she had to get back to Dallas immediately.

I went down to the kitchen and there was a note on the counter, and it said, 'Bill, thanks for the cigs! You're going to be fine. Mom.' I picked up the note and stared at it and folded it and put it in my wallet behind my driver's license."

Her and my dad had been a mess when I was growing up and he beat the living shit out of my brother and I and mom, but for thirty four years I grieved her loss and now she was gone again forever, it was like she died again."

Betty's perfidy was resolved, but I had anger about that to deal with. Why not just say she wanted a divorce instead of trying to destroy and embarrass me, fuck my friends. Totally evil.

I had a wedding two weekends away and three weddings three, four and five weekends away. I had a facility in a warehouse with a full blown commercial kitchen that I had put together from used equipment from restaurant supply stores. Scrubbing and hot water had made them look well. I had a group of men and women, maybe seven or eight depending on the task, that I could call on to work overlapping events, whether it was prep work or actual cooking. Then I would use kids from the culinary programs at Olympic Community College to work the weddings. When it was all said and done I would get fifteen to thirty percent on top of cost. I wouldn't do anything where I had to have people at the event for under $15,000. I would prepare food and have them come and take it out for less. No wedding cakes though a total money loser for me.

I went over to the couch and sat down and laid my head back and fell asleep. The bell was insistent, but I was in a fog that didn't seem to lift. I sat up and looked at the clock. It said 11:30. My eyes were a mess as if I'd slept a long time. Why I was hung over now, I did not remember getting drunk.

None the less, I was. My head triggered nausea if I moved it too rapidly. I was thirsty. Part of me knew I was somewhere between deathly sick and maybe if I closed my eyes it would disappear in a couple of hours. I had already missed one appointment and some scheduled calls. I could not get moving. I slept and slept.

At four I moved to the shower and turned it on and stood head inches from the nozzle without washing until I felt the heat begin to lessen. There was no shampoo so I washed with a bar of soap, which had been my program for the first twenty or so years. I put on a sweat shirt and parachute pants, lowered the ladder and went down to the kitchen.

There were twelve messages on my phone and another ten on my cell. I turned the cell off and turned the ring off the phone and changed messages on both to say that I was away on business and would call upon my return. It was Thursday.

I was aware that I was in trouble, but the process seemed inevitable. I ate a little that first night, but mostly I drank red wine. I had some informal rules that booze was somehow too quick and severe and that white wine bad for my constitution. Some television and re-reading old books got sick twice and it was later, days later.

The television and books were to stop the march down into the pain. I took a couple of trips down to look at the people and the issues, but other than making me cry each time, I could not seem to reach through to any resolution as the people were irretrievably gone, either dead, divorced or so estranged from me that I could not fashion fanciful solutions.

I was sixteen when mom died a and it was a cheap and ugly funeral that had a grave side service, that two of my great aunts on my dad's side kept telling my dad they were planting my mom in the wrong spot until I told them to shut the fuck up.

Which was the extent of my outward grief, inwardly everything was out of kilter, unresolvedly so. That night, a pretty girl at a party invited me back to her house and told the story to her mom and sisters and we all sat in the front room and they stared at me expecting me to openly grieve or talk. I felt like a seal at the carnival and could not cry on cue. Thinking back on it, it was a nice gesture, but I was fucked up and stuff was inside that took years to come out.

A voice from the deep back bench suggested any pride at this point was really an insult to even my Bohemian fore-bearers. Was there an Englishman in my ancestral wood pile?

I woke in the corner of the couch downstairs and there was half a bottle of merlot sitting on the counter next to the sink. I got a mug from the cabinet, maybe someone would think it was coffee. There was no one. I poured it and drank. I thought I felt alright, but when I drank it I felt immediate pain in stomach and began to heave and threw up in the sink. My stomach was on fire and cramping at the same time. I could not stop throwing up and finally my knees got soft on me and I passed out.

I woke up with my face on the floor. My stomach did not hurt. I was very thirsty and my mouth felt like there were pieces of stale bread in there, in here actually. I sat up and my head hurt, but I did not feel dizzy. I closed my eyes and took inventory to see if anything felt broken or sick. I was afraid to drink water and start it all over.

Maybe if I washed my mouth out. I stood up and saw a dirty mug and rinsed it out and got some water in it and left the faucet running and rinsed my mouth. There was something in there dried to my cheek, it broke loose and I spit it out. I kept rinsing and then tried a swallow. Throat felt better, there was some queasiness down below. Slow down.

I looked around, lots of glasses and mugs. I'd been pretty good. Nothing broken. I drank some more water. Better. I walked over to the phone. I dialed the voicemail and there were forty-five messages. My cell said thirty-two. It was Thursday. One week obliterated. I would not think about anything other than I could not drink today and that I had not figured anything out except that I had not succeeded in my life with the people that should have been top shelf for my priorities.

I went up to my bedroom via the loft ladder, slowly and took a shower, first cool water and then warmer and cleaned. I felt like I smelled and my hands were shaking, causing me to drop the soap several times. Toweling off took a while as it made me nauseous. I put on some khaki pants and a tee shirt and tennis shoes without socks. I went down stairs again.

I boiled some water for tea. Green tea bags from Lipton. When I put the bags into steep, the smell made me vomit. All that was left was the water from the two glasses. I ruined the tea. I poured it out and rinsed the sink. I poured some water and went and sat. This was going to take a while.

I was able to sit and close my eyes and not feel nauseous or pain, but I felt hot. I got up and opened the latch on a window overlooking the back yard. There was moisture in the air, like it was going to rain. I found the position again and closed my eyes and focused on the wind hitting my face. It was good.

Two voices and the sound of people walking through grass, Coral and a man.

"I have a key."

"When did you last see him?"

The door opened and I smiled at her and the huge man in black robes and a white beard. The local Orthodox priest, Father Fyodor. I had not been to confession or liturgy in some time, the thoughts came with immediacy, but that was not why he was here.

"Where have you been and why don't you answer your phone?"

A demand or a question was what I was puzzling through and I could not find the words.

"Hi Coral, "I said. Very hoarse.

They both looked around the house. There were quite a few trophies from the last week on the counter. They both paused and surveyed the damage and then as if part of a chorus line turned to stare at me. I was not sure why, but I continued to smile and then there were tears and I was on the floor somehow. My face on the floor.

"He should go to a hospital, now. He's got delirium tremens. That's why he's shaking."

I seemed to be loose or detached within my body. The connections gone from being able to talk and move, I did feel things, though, I was hot and shaking at the same time.

"What do I do, Father?" Coral pleading.

"Call 911."

"No, he'd never forgive me."

"He needs to rest, stop drinking and survive the withdrawal and take in liquids and nourishment. Those things are in conflict. I have some sleeping pills at home that should last ten days or so and that should help the rest. You'll have to try to force water and broth into him. He might not make it. Let me go get these, I will bring them back. Does that couch open up?"

"No."

"Well let's get him up there. You'll have to get someone to come and get him in a shower in a couple of days. Did you hear me when I said he might not make it?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well he might go into convulsions, which is a larger form of the shakes he's got. I will bring by some gauze and you can tie him down on the couch, hands and body."

I wasn't sure they were talking about me or I wasn't tracking, I heard it but sometimes the volume or clarity got mixed up with my shaking and I realized that I was making noise. Or maybe I remembered it later, when I thought about this. Then I was propped up on the couch and they were trying to get my mouth open to take some water and there was sand in it.

"For the next few days, every six to eight hours give him one ground up and in the water. It says every 12 hours but he's 250 pounds. He won't be able to take a pill for a while."

Then there was sleep like none other. Very strange dream conscious times, watching Betty, watching her have sex, trying to close my eyes in a dream and knowing it was a dream because I couldn't. Waking up and not being able to move, tied down, throwing up, Coral putting a turkey baster in my mouth. There was Betty, real and Peter, more turkey baster, then sleep.

"Has he been doing this a long time," Fr. Fyodor asking.

"No, no a business deal fell through and he did this."

"Business deal? What you mean?"

"A book deal."

"What kind of book?"

"Cookbook."

"Huh."

"Seems kind of extreme." Peter chiming in.

I couldn't see that because my eyes were closed so it must have been real, no dream, I mean. Who the fuck is that? I opened my eyes and there was no one. I was very cold. I looked around and Coral was asleep on the loveseat and it was very early morning. I was tied down, I had on a tee shirt and sweat pants. I had the worst taste in my mouth.

In a week or so I could walk around and regularly take food. "Can I get something other than those chicken tenders," asking Coral.

"You must be feeling better."

"I crave two sandwiches, bologna, cheddar, tomato, onion slice on whole wheat toasted or liverwurst and Havarti on dill rye with sweet pickles and German mustard. Cold milk.

She brought them both, with some cold macaroni salad with olives and eggs. I finished the liverwurst and half the bologna. "Save that, I'll get it later."

"I can't stay much longer," Coral said softly.

"I know. What are you going to do," a feeling of dread, my last rock leaving me.

"Well, a friend of mine, Barry, wants to open a coffee house and serve pastry and have music at night, jazz gigs. I'd do the pastry, morning bakery kind of work, 4:00 or so. I'd be a partner."

"Where, "I asked.

"Portland, "quietly.

"Portland," I asled with raised eyebrows.

"It's way more hip than Seattle and there's more students and real student districts and arts and music than Seattle, friendlier. Seattle is totally fascist, too many rich software assholes. Smart but not smart. Fucking BMW drivers."

"Well", I said, "When do you go? They're not really hip, it's like Clem and Calvin get to play activist, there's no soul there. What about Stew?"

"We want to open on September first and its almost mid-July and we've got the space and it needs to be fixed and I've got to get the menu and process ready and hire some people, so day after tomorrow. I broke up with Stew?"

"Oh. Booze, what about a license?"

"You're ok, now, just coffee and juice. Please don't drink!"

"No booze, no profit. I'm going on a road trip, "I said to her.

"What do you mean?"

"Well people only buy one coffee, but they'll buy five drinks. I'm going to drive mostly south towards Mexico, and stop wherever there is a minor league baseball team and watch a game. Have a hot dog or two and write some notes about it and see if there is a cook book or travel book thing there."

"What about your business, " she asked.

"Well its dead now and I'll have to resurrect it now or in two months. This will help me get back in the mood."

"Bye pops", and she was gone. I felt despair and alone.

I had lost about twenty five pounds. None of my pants fit and I was using a very old tie as a belt and wearing a sweater that was quite a bit too big. Old leather tennis shoes reminded me of being an athlete, a baseball player and wearing sanitary socks. I wonder if they still do that. You put them on under your stirrups and then the cleats. I had packed some stuff, mostly socks, shoes and a few underpants.

Nothing fit and I felt like I was going to lose more weight, so it didn't make sense to do the pants and sweaters, since they were already too big. I could get some jeans and I felt like buying some tee shirts and sweat shirts. The old kind with no logos, maybe hooded ones and regular too. Stocking cap if I needed it.

There was the leftover food from last night that I'd have for wakeup meal and then hit the road. The phone rang. Again. It felt like a hand reaching out for me. I answered it.

"Bill, " A strident female voice in full command of her powers.

It was Eleni Asarkelian, "Umm..."

"Oh stop it. Listen, we're doing lunch today in Kingston at that Ale House. They have sockeye and Quilcene's. 12:00 in the bar. Those damn tables are claustrophobic."

"I've lost thirty pounds and I can fit into one of the booths," I noted.

"Well something good came out of this silliness of yours. Now don't be late."

She was off the phone. I reviewed what I said and I was trying to discern if I lost control or never had it. I think it was when she said sockeye and Quilcene's, which I felt were a hugely flavorful local oysters, eaten raw. Sockeye fresh was so much the best salmon in the world as to leave all others behind. It was subtle on her part. I was hungry now and my stomach was the size of a ping-pong ball. I ate the rest of the liverwurst sandwich. The bread had held its integrity despite the night in the fridge.

I wanted to ask her what we're meeting about, but to call her back would show interest, which I was not sure why I didn't want to show her. Still, I thought not. With her everything was advantage, from conversation to the best table to the first and last word. When you were with her she was either too close or too far away. There was always a smile, but I always felt it was used to keep me off balance. She had been a client numerous times and I had profited but not too much and I had been present at several events or parties at her home, when I was not working. As restaurants go she was a Michelin five star and I was a bistro, a bistro that had been closed for business for some time.

I was punctual and she was waiting. "Bill! Come! Sit by me!"

I approached the table and she stood and stepped toward me and hugged me fully and kissed me on both cheeks. Her thick black hair brushed my face as she executed the maneuver and I was conscious of her breasts against me and a scent of citrus, lemon like. My face felt hot and flushed as she stepped back to the table and her chair. She motioned me to the table with her hand, bracelets jangling on her wrist. I sat.

"God, you look wonderful. People pay through the nose to look like you do. Maybe you're onto something. You should write down what you did and we'll sell it. Oh but you do look the best I've seen you."

Again with the face. I was speechless and without warning unable to stand. It was just like Mrs. Oliver's Health class in the 8th grade as she taught sex education. We were thirteen and she was twenty-three. Not a level playing field.

She rushed right in, "You're blushing! That's too rich! You've been the only man in ten miles who has not made a pass at me. My, my, my. I was beginning to wonder."

"One would have to be dead to not be touched by you. It's good to see you too, Eleni."

I sounded very formal and very much in the eighth grade, lack of blood to the brain.

"Well, good. We'll have a delightful lunch. He says the Sockeye is very large and rich. What should we drink?"

Without a thought, I said, "What's he doing with the Sockeye and Quils?"

"Well he said, the Quils would be just shucked and he would pan sear a double cut steak in olive oil and then coat it in sesame seeds. What do you think, darling?"

The face again, which caused a low chuckle, again. Just the word, darling, caused another blush. I had not felt such a rush of feeling since I did not know when, maybe never.

"You can't possibly understand how I feel now, except to say that it's powerful and I don't really trust myself. So I'm going to ask you not to toy with me, as I probably can't control myself much longer. You are without a doubt the most beautiful women I've ever been this close to. Your scent, your hair, your face and your body, your body and your clothes. Don't do this to me. If you want me to leave I will. I understand. But I can't sit this close and not react. Can you turn it off, if we have to talk about something? If not, we must either go somewhere or I must leave before I make more of a fool of myself."

"Bill, Bill," she said softly and patted then grabbed my hand, "You poor man. What did Betty do to you?"

I started to stand up, "I must go."

"Stay, sit, sit."

She finally released my hand. Her lips lightly red and she had thin strands of gold as earrings, maybe an inch long. She wore a white dress, a beautiful cotton, I thought with some black patterns and it was very well fitting, tight around her breasts and hips. Literally a fertility goddess a foot away from me, from Greek mythology. I don't know maybe it wasn't cotton, but I thought so. She looked around the room taking it in.

"I'm sorry. I've needlessly embarrassed you and made a fool of myself. I've got to go."

"Oh stop it. You have no idea how good it feels to be with a man who's a gentleman who appreciates a woman. It makes me feel alive. You're fine you just need to be with people and with women again. You must date, I'll help you with that. Relax, what about the wine?

"Well with Quills something crisp, a Verdichio or even a Frascati. Or maybe a Walla Walla Chardonay from L'Ecole. Something French like, no oak."

"How many oysters do you want?"

"Probably a dozen with some sherry vinegar, that's all."

"You are back!"

The owner had been hovering nearby, and I was fearful for what he heard.

"A dozen and a half Quils, John. Do you have Verdichio or Frascati chilled?

"We have a Chelan Riesling that is very crisp. Is that what you want?

Eleni looked at me and lifted her eyebrows, "Sure, I'd love to try that. Do you have any Walla Walla Syrahs for the Sockeye?"

"I have a 2019 Amavi that is quite nice and a Woodward Canyon that is beautiful."

I returned the eyebrow to Eleni and she said, "The Amavi is fine. Isn't that a Pepperbridge second label?"

"Yes, sort of. It's still got excellent sourcing of fruit, it's more like he is less structured with the Amavi and has let the fruit have more of a run. I think I might like it better."

She smiled and sighed and leaned forward into the edge of the table and took my hand again, "I've got some good news for you."

She leaned back and pulled an envelope and handed it to me and said, "Take it and open it."

Her teeth were very well structured and very white against her full lips as she talked. I watched her as she talked, her eyes and mouth and her nostrils would flair and her body and hands would move. Perfectly ripe, perfectly beautiful and chic and aware and smart. I must have been freeze dried to not have noticed this before. I wondered what else I'd missed.

"Open it," insistently.

"What is it?"

I felt like she was pulling me to the surface from an ocean I'd never swam in.

"Now!"

I tore off one end and pulled out a check. It was for me, for $50,000, drawn on a New York Bank and written from the account of a New York Publisher.

"What is this?

"Well the way things work now, is they think a book will sell better after the TV show. So next Monday, you are to be in Seattle, in studio to begin the process to shoot eight shows. The deal Sara and I negotiated was a $60,000 advance against sales to PBS stations for a thirteen show season up to a max of $250,000 for the first season. We were able to do that from the video work you did. They like you on camera. You have an edge to you. What do you think?

"This is my day to be overwhelmed.

She laughed and took my hand again, "To get to Pascha, you must go through Good Friday."

I was powerfully in her thrall, fifty thousand dollars was chump change to her. She was fully aware of her affect upon me and was reveling in it. The Riesling arrived, trailed by the oysters. The owner opened the wine and Eleni mixed some horseradish with some sour cream and put some on one of the oysters and leaned towards me and using the small fork fed me. It was extraordinary, I was aware of her with every sense of my body and the oyster was great.

She burst out laughing, "You are primal! Try some wine"

"I will. But, I will have you right here unless you stop this. You're toying with me and you're still married aren't you."

"Oh Bill, No I am not. So you are not violating anyone by being seen with me. It's just Sara and I now and my dad."

"But the owner here sees us and the waitress."

"Bill do you see anyone here besides us?"

"No. And that's odd."

"I own fifty one percent of this, alone, through a trust. This is for you."

"I want you." Where did that come from?

Eleni leaned over and brushed my lips with her hand. "You will. But you're not ready for me now. I don't want a slave."

The sense of disappointment was enormous. Again where did that come from. It's like my emotions have been locked away, or never really used. I looked at her and she was smiling at me. This must be the thunderbolt, I thought.

"I must go."

"You are so like my father. Sit, enjoy this, Dessert is later.

"The oysters were incredible and the wine was perfect, Wapato Point Riesling.

The salmon arrived and it was like an extra-large filet mignon in size. Seared on the outside and then rolled in sesame seeds. There was a cherry reduction on the side and some sautéed spinach. The salmon was as good as I've ever had. Eleni went through hers with great enthusiasm.

"Are you enjoying this?"

"Yes, I'd have to be dead to not enjoy this," We had again held hands, but I'm not sure how that began.

"Oh my, where have you been hiding?"

The waitress brought a tray with some pieces of pie and tiramisu and cheesecake. There were pears and figs drizzled with balsamic, which we requested.

We had coffee too. At the end of the meal we were not talking just content our knees were touching.

"Have you ever seen the wine cellar here?"

"Below?"

"Yes, it's quite big. Do you want to?

"Sure, yes I'm interested." I didn't want anything else to drink.

She got up and I followed her into the kitchen and she bent and pulled up a portion of the floor. There was a stair-ladder and the floor was well lit. She motioned and I went first down and saw a huge room with a table some forty feet away. As she came down the ladder, she slipped the last stair and I caught her under her arms from behind her. She straightened up into me and turned into my arms and said, "Kiss me."

Words do poorly for what happened next, but she was so passionate and made noises that were so female and womanly that I have never felt so fulfilled and yet never more giving of myself. She lay against me and was so absolutely beautiful and voluptuous and ripe. We were down there for several hours. I was aware that dinner had begun.

"We can't go up there now, they're serving."

"It's ok."

"No I won't have you embarrassed."

She laughed out loud and touched my face with a soft faint kiss."

"There is another way."

We dressed and went to the end of the cellar where there was a steel door. She pulled a key ring from her purse and unlocked it. We were now underneath either a coffee shop or an Italian restaurant. We walked upstairs. It was a gift shop, even further down the block. Eleni walked me to the front door. The business was closed and it was dark. She kissed me and unlocked the door and gently pushed me out and closed the door. I was parked up the block and across the street on the street corner.

I drove home which took about seven minutes. I came in and pulled down the stairs to my bedroom in the loft. I felt very loose and slack and my hair felt dirty and my face felt raw. I felt at once better than I'd felt since I was a kid. I did not trust the feeling. I took my clothes off and looked in the mirror. I was very white, no lines anywhere. There were red marks across my chest, a couple of scratches on my shoulders and a hickey low on my neck. A hickey. I heard myself chuckling.

I went to the phone and called a number that popped into my head from long ago.

"Hello," said a very deep voice.

"Father Fyodor. This is Bill Havlicek."

"I was wondering if you would call. How are you feeling?"

"Physically good. I've lost weight. I need to lose more and I think I will get that done. But I need to talk and have someone tell me if I am being a fool or if it matters if I am."

"Are you drinking?"

"That's not a problem."

"So you are."

"I had a drink with lunch, but none since. I am not going there. I am going on with my life and I don't trust some feelings I have towards another person."

"Your wife?"

"No, no. I'm done with that. Something really strange happened to me which caused me to drink like I did and I did meet someone Could I have some time with you tomorrow morning?"

"I can meet with you at 10:00 at my office."

"Do you want to meet at the coffee shop?"

"Do you want to talk in public?"

"I'm happy, you're right, I wasn't thinking. I will see you at your office."

He said good bye and hung up.

Immediately I reproached myself. Why look a gift horse in the mouth, which image somehow did not jibe with her. She was not delicate, but not big either, very athletic. I confronted myself in the mirror and said well now it's not your looks and there is very little money and she has more. So maybe there is something you don't understand.

I was suddenly very, very hungry. I found three tomatoes on the vine from the boxes out on the deck. I boiled some water and found some dried spaghetti. I carefully diced the tomatoes and split the dice into two groups. I cut up some parsley and found a tube of anchovy paste. I put half the tomatoes in a large stone pestle and added the parsley and a short squeeze of the paste and I pulverized all of it into a sauce. I drained the noodles and poured the sauce on to them, added the rest of the tomatoes and some extra virgin olive oil from Spain, very green. I cut two pieces of bread from a frozen loaf and toasted them. More olive oil on the bread and I ate it with a jug of milk. It was very good.

I started to worry. Nothing good had happened to me in a long time and I distrusted it. A PBS show, a book and her. I had this incredible urge to want to find her, to see her and smell her.

It had to be wrong.

Yet I found myself eager to talk with the good Father. One, he was very smart and full of insight gained from experience in his and other's lives and two, I had no one else to talk with, which was a fine state of affairs and a great comment on the corner I'd gotten to, staring at the wall.

Orthodox priests can be celibate or married, and no that's not a Groucho Marx comment on their marriages, rather, if they are single when ordained, they stay single. If married, they stay married. If widowed, they stay widowed. Celibate ones get to be bishops and hierarchs and stuff, while married ones make the best parish priests, by far. Had both during my life. The married ones don't get stampeded emotionally, and they are not ambitious, which gives them perspective and very little immediacy. Which meant they work on something until its right and they're late against their or other's schedule a lot.

As a teenager skirting on the age of hippies and eastern philosophy and religion, the concept of the Bodhisattva from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism described someone deeply into the journey towards extinction or Nirvana.

Orthodox spirituality and mysticism contemplates a similar progression towards sanctification through prayer, fasting and meditation so that if you encounter an Orthodox monk or priest that was an aesthetic, there is the sense of being around someone, something that is beyond you. Fr. Fyodor was widowed, with a half dozen grown kids and he was moving towards a life in a monastery. The local parish did not want to let go of him because of his years of service and love and familiarity of him. It was as if he was a member of the family.

Eleni, was also Orthodox, though Armenian, sometimes came to our parish, but more often to the rich Greek parish in Seattle St. Demetrious. At one level I was very embarrassed to admit of this to him, as if I was sixteen. And because she was Orthodox and married, but she said she wasn't, I asked myself if she was Baptist would it be better?

The Church was wooden, reminiscent of the structures in the Northwest of Russia in Karelia. Bare on the outside, rich with icons in the sanctuary. His office was in an added on structure in the back. It looked out into a marshy field that bordered a creek on the property. He was waiting.

"Hello Bill."

"Father, good to see you."

"Bill I have an emergency, I have to take care of it. Can we try next week?"

"Sure Father, take care."

I got a call from Eleni as I sat in my car starting the engine. "

"Bill, do you have recipes?"

"Yes, yes I have recipes."

"What would you call what you do?"

"Fusion cuisine is not very au current, but it describes it, how about 'North Coast Food, A cuisine of the American West?'

"What is that?"

"Well, bringing things together. In this case, coastal traditions from the Pribilofs to Peru. Lots of fresh fish, herbs, layered flavors, heat, sweet, sour, salty stuff.

"What does that mean?

"Smoked Sablefish steamed, with deep fried fiddleheads and a root mash of Yukon gold potatoes, with little chips of jicama and a sauce of a tiny bit of chipotle, cream and hazelnuts. There are parts of three cultures there, food wise and technique wise. Swedish immigrant, Chilean and coastal Indian. It reminds me of Dave Brubeck and how he'd be as a chef.

I realized that I should approach this like a standard catering gig and thus set out drawing up the menu and alternatives, making an inventory of materials from spices to equipment, deriving the shopping list, which pushed me back to the menu to alter it and then I asked myself who amongst my stable of prep cooks would I want and who would work for me since I dropped off the face of the earth.

Two problems, on the show I had to show some knife work, but only some glimpses, sort of like flashing some cleavage, but the plating of the preparation and my antics were what was going to sell the thing. Two people I thought would be best. One fellow Gustavo Perez was from Ecuador and was unbelievably fast with his hands and great with sauces and a woman I'd worked with who was great with both pasta and pastry and not worried about going back and forth named Elisabet Nelson. Her grandparents founded the local chapter of the Sons of Norway in nearby Poulsbo, Norwegian for Paul's borough.

My conversations with both were surprisingly quick and went well. We would meet tomorrow to stage Monday's event and figure out shopping and logistics. So it was ten o'clock in the morning and most of my tasks that could be done were done. I wanted to call Eleni, terribly, but thought that I should let it play.

I put on some music, an Edvard Grieg CD with some small piano pieces that was unbelievably beautiful but sad in tone. I had not listened to that CD in over ten years and do not know why my eye saw it and I picked it up. He was influenced by folk songs and the music was very melodic. I laid down on the couch and fell asleep very, very fast. When I woke it was dark and I'd been asleep for close eight hours. I do remember waking briefly and turning and going back to sleep feeling exhausted. I still felt that way, but desperately needed to go to the bathroom and was thirsty. This must be what a race car feels like.

As I stood and released torrents of liquids, about mid-stream the phone began to ring. Unlike Bill Clinton, I did not have a ringer in the john and was not about to stop a necessary and pleasurable event, so the water kept running and the phone kept ringing. At what seemed like two minutes I was empty and I ran to the phone and picked it up.

"I was beginning to think you'd gone to ground!" Eleni.

"No, no, my umm hands were full."

"Sure, what's her name."

"No, no really, nothing like that, come on up I'll show you."

"Oh no, I can't, we're doing Sara's first meeting with the priest to begin the wedding planning.'

"Oh I didn't know she was engaged."

"Yes, a nice young man that Perry knows and his family in Los Angeles. He does documentaries, PBS, that kind of thing. USC film school, nice boy, very tall and very smart.

"Is he Orthodox?

"Yes, he's Greek and you know what that means.

"Pascha, Christmas, weddings, baptisms and funerals mostly. Not always but mostly, but culturally totally Orthodox."

She resumed, "I thought I'd lost my touch."

"Umm?

"Most men have called three or four times by now. Was it not to your liking?

That rang like a flat note in my head and heart, "Eleni, I have thought of nothing since. I have been sorting out, how I might go forward and there are seemingly some barriers that I can't tell how high they are. I did not want to shower or wash my clothes, because they smell like you. I believe I'm capable of complete commitment in a relationship and I suspect that you expect that as a matter of course, but it's the only thing I have to spend."

"You take my breath away. Bill, it's too soon, it's not that I don't want that, but it needs to develop and we need to see if we work together."

"You need to do what is best for you, I can only say what I can say."

"I want to see you, badly," she said.

"Come on up," I lay awake smelling you in the blankets and on my shirt."

"We're jammed pack with this meeting and his parents are staying with us. I have to take them to the airport Sunday afternoon and I could come by afterward."

"Okay."

"Bye, "And she was gone. I was a small note in her music.

I did not feel sleepy at all, in fact my heart was pounding and I was elated. I wanted to tell someone. There was no one to tell.

The phone rang. I picked it up. It was Betty.

"I understand that you know, but I wanted to tell you personally that I'm getting married. His name is Charley."

"Well you're living together and you left me for him, no it's ok, well, that is good for you. I hope it works and you will be happy."

"Really, I thought this, this, suicide attempt was because you still wanted to get back together, which I can assure you won't ever happen."

"Betty, this was a nice gesture to call me. In all candor, what I went through was a concentrated version of what I refused to go through when you left me and took the kids."

"You destroyed us.

"Maybe I did. Not purposefully, nor was it my intent, but I bottled up my anger and grief ever since and it all came out when Coral told me. Should have done it a lot sooner, talked to someone or something. That's not your concern. I am moving on completely. I had moved on in other ways, but am trying to finish. I'm seeing someone that I care a lot about and I hope it works out."

"Who?"

"I don't want to get into that."

"You're just making that up."

"I'm a huge fool if I am, but it shouldn't concern you. Does it," we had quickly fallen into an old dance of fighting. Except I was ahead on points.

"No, not at all."

"When's the wedding? Do you need a caterer?"

"That would be a little too California for me. Next May after the tax season, we're going to Finland."

"Finland?"

"He's Finish."

"As long as he's not done."

"Who is she, tell me?"

"I will say this, you know her."

"So tell me."

"No that has to be an agreed upon thing between us and we're not there yet. Listen I've got to go. See you and congratulations."

I hung up. 'But good bye's too good a word, gal. So I'll just say fare thee well,' bubbled up in my mind to say except I should have said it long ago. Kids and all. Where's Dylan when you need him?

I felt as if she called expecting to grind her stiletto into my open wound of a life and it had backfired. Which made me pleased at a top level, the uncertainty to what was going on with me belied how I was feeling. A great sense of emptiness and aloneness seemed to resound within and as I looked out the front, towards the bay the cloud-covered sky permitted no light. I wondered if Einstein when he figured about black holes, if he ever contrasted them to the whole universe, which was so empty and yet the black hole was utter concentrated nothing. What was that? Did he ever think where God was in all of that?

I pulled the ladder down and climbed up to my loft and pulled the ladder up. I ran a bath and poured myself a short Evan Williams and fired up a Churchill sized Montecristo and settled into the bath. The heat almost scalded me and then it seemed to cause my body to relax bit by bit. The cigar was incredibly good and rich. The Evan Williams sweet and smoky.

There was an old paperback of Dashiel Hammet's short stories called The Big Knockover which I enjoyed. Ironic and cynical, with a moralist view of corruption, his prose was so tight as to squeak. I smoked and read until I finished one story and the drink was done. I laid the book and cigar each down. Into a ceramic ashtray for the cigar and closed the book upon the table. I rubbed myself red with a big towel and put on a too large navy blue sweat shirt, a pair of cotton swim trunks and some wool socks. I picked up the cigar and it was still fired up and brought the ashtray over and set it on the bedstand. I got a bottle of chilled water and set it on the stand next to the ashtray. There was a biography of Douglas McArthur.

I was enthralled with his intelligence and genius and fallibility. He won the medal of honor in World War I and accomplished much in World War II, fought in Mexico against Pancho Villa, grew up in a fort in the Wild West with his father who was fighting the Indian Wars. But running through his life was a bizarre collection of women. First his mother went to college with him at West Point and then followed him wherever he was stationed. He took up with a fan dancer and lived with her in a hotel in Washington DC, until he married a Philadelphia society bimbo who turned him into a pretzel until she divorced him. Then he married a much younger woman and the marriage endured and she, like his mother, went virtually everywhere with him and took care of him in a role that seemed equal part wife and mother. Very strange. Maybe not to women, but it felt sort of sick and wrong by today's standards. I put the book down after an hour and still had three inches of cigar left. I laid it to rest and knew I'd pick it up later.

Pretty full day and it was 12:00 and I was exhausted. I turned off the light and slept and slept.

My head hurt terribly and throbbed, on then off. It was the phone, two inches from my forehead.

"What? Talk."

Elisabet, "My cousin Nels is a crabber, they just got back from Alaska, they have Artic Char on ice."

"Wild?"

"Yah, the big ones, forty, fifty pounders. He says they're really good."

"Get two of them. Did they save any eggs?"

"I knew you'd ask? Yah, there's a bunch, I got ten pounds, in salt. It's set up, but not in the can, yet."

"All the better, I'll say something about cultivating local producers."

"Cultivating? Is that what you call it? You've been cultivating me?"

I blushed as she was flirting with me and I was glad she could not see me. "Noooo, not really. But I could work on it."

"See that you do," and she was gone.

Where did that come from? Maybe there was a newspaper item in the Weekly, that pointed out that I was available since Betty was marrying a mannequin. Elisabet was an early thirties, never married single mother, who'd spent a half dozen years with a painter, who got a grant and went to New York three years ago and had not returned.

He was the father of her daughter. There was no animosity, he sent money and called once in a while. She said she had never wanted to marry him, but had wanted him since the seventh grade. Her words were that it was fulfilling, but like dinner, you have got to stop eating at some point. While it made sense to me at some level, I understood the words, I did not at all comprehend if there was love it could end without bloodshed, figuratively, and there be amiability afterward.

I tried to imagine my way through that, when she told me about it and my first reaction was that she was making it up to tell people, but after being around her as we worked, her actions seemed to marry up with what she said. She was content.

I asked her if she had a social life with a young daughter and she said, "Well she's thirteen and when I go to Seattle she stays with my mom or at my sisters, and I go and tear it up with my friends.

"Tear it up?

"I like to dance and I love beer and I go with a five or six of my girlfriends that I grew up with. We go to Reno once a year too.

"Reno?"

"It's a blast, we play a bit, go to shows, get drunk. You should come, you'd love it."

That was last fall and I thought she was teasing me as an old fart, but I didn't know anything, any more.

I called Elisabet back and asked if she could call Gus and both of them come over and we set the menu and figure out the prep stuff and sort of story board the segments that they'd shoot, what I'd do in three minute segments, whether they stopped the filming or not, how much prep that I'd do and what I'd talk about.

She did and they came up about 4:30. She had a laptop and built the storyboards in PowerPoint. This way we could show the director what we'd try to do. What we came up with was to do two appetizers, salt cured Char, like lox on dark brown bread, brod in Norwegian, smeared with creamed cheese mixed with roasted garlic and lemon rind, which we would contrast with a hot, hard smoked Char over apple wood and alder, mixed with chipotle, blackberry and crème fraiche and fresh cooked corn chips. Two entrees, the big fish will allow for steaks that are three inches thick or more and scream for broiling at super-hot heat, six to seven hundred degrees.

"What type of broilers, do they got? Do sounded like "ooooo", as if a clarinet was playing a note in my head. It was like I was sixteen all over again.

"Well, it's the set that the Frugal Gourmet used. I think there's some blast ones, I'll check," I said.

"No, let me call Sara," she said taking charge and she walked to the deck, dialing her cell.

"Dude, what is that all about, when did you guys hook up?" Gus feeling the vibe.

"I have no idea and I'm not going to mess this up now and I'll talk to her on Tuesday after we're wrapped. I have more going on in my life right now than in twenty-five years and I have sought none of it out. It's just happening to me."

"Give me some of it, she is all woman."

"It is not mine to give and your wife would slice your balls into carpaccio."

"Don't say that, or it will come true! We're done right?"

I nodded and he grabbed his little bound note book and bounded up the staircase and out the front door. His Vespa sputtered to life and I heard it fart down the driveway.

I watched Elisabet talk and meander about the deck. She snapped her phone shut and came inside.

"Where did he go?"

"He said we were done and he left. Which we basically are, for what he's doing."

"Let's look at what you should wear," walking over and pulling down the ladder to my loft.

"Come on, now, let's not waste time," my soul having already fused with her and I followed her as if she was a human magnet.

Up we went and she went to my closet like a guided missile. She pulled out two oxford shirts, white and sky blue. "Have you still some sweaters?

"In the drawer, there," I pointed over in the closet.

She pulled out a blue crew neck and a black vee-necked sweater. "Do you have some tan cotton or khaki pants?"

"Hanging up to the right of the shirts."

Both pairs out and on the bed, "OK, try on the blue shirt, black sweater and either of the pants."

She was staring at me and I felt paralyzed, unable to speak.

"Oh for God's sake," she bristled, "I will turn around."

Sixteen again and I quickly hurried to comply. "Okay Lis."

"Well, you've lost a bit of weight."

She came over and walked behind me and pulled my shirt tight against my front from mid-back and down by my waist. Then she let them go and grabbed my pants pockets and pulled those tight. She smelled of some exotic smell, nutmeg, but floral. She grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around and looked me up and down from a little more than a foot away then backed away. With no awareness of when or how I was hard as steel. I felt as if I should paw the ground like a bull, I could smell her and her eyes and eyelashes were so close, her nose nestled next to mine and her tongue darted out and we were kissing our tongues dancing as our ancestors had. Then she pulled back, her hands on my chest and arms, touching and patting.

"Well we can pin the shirt and sweater, but the pants are too big, I will pick up some tomorrow." Then she walked over and pulled at my sweater and shirt collar and then the waist of my pants. I felt my nostrils flare and she chuckled and her leg came in contact with me. With ME, and she chuckled again and stepped back.

"You've either been drinking a lot of lemonade or Eleni's been all over you." She was as tall as me and she was staring into my eyes and I felt myself blushing furiously.

"Well if that damn Betty hadn't tried to destroy you, you would never have done that. Listen you are far smarter than to do this and there are far better people for you."

She closed the distance and got very close to me and then slowly took my lower lip in her mouth and softly bit it and then kissed me again. She let go of me and walked over to my ladder and went down stairs. I heard her gather her things and go up the stairs and she called goodbye and I answered back.

My reaction to her was shocking and painful. I could not comprehend any of this. She felt fused with me. We felt right. I instantly comprehended her remark about Eleni, that Eleni was playing with me and Lis and were right for each other, but that I better stop fucking around with her.

I took the clothes off and laid them across the bottom of the bed and went into the bathroom and ran a shower and went in. After three minutes of hot, I turned it off to cold and withstood that front and back for a minute. I was in pain and gradually it went away and I turned the hot back on.

It was only 8:30. I opened the skylight and lay down on the bed and tried not to think and instead thought of going fishing with my dad some forty years earlier and quickly fell asleep and dreamt of him. He was a big man, over six foot two and two hundred seventy pounds. He'd played football and water-polo for the university of Washington, before World War II, then he'd flown four engine bombers, B-24s, on missions against the Nazis, until they shot his plane out of the sky. He parachuted and survived, but not without breaking his back. He walked across the Balkan republics in search of British lines with Serbian partisans with a broken back.

But in this dream he was fly fishing in a stream, little more than a creek and he was catching fish after fish, small trout, with his back to me. I knew this was a dream and yet I knew it was true as I had watched him do this as a young boy. Clad in khaki pants, rolled to his knees, a bleached denim jacket cut like a blazer with pockets full of pipes, tobacco, cigars and kitchen matches and pocketknives. He had a wicker creel tied to his leg in the water full of trout. Everything about his movements was smooth and unhurried as he caught fish after fish. The rising sun was in his face and reflecting off the water. I did not trust my voice to talk to him and thought that the moment, his joy and mine now was total. He and my mom and I were having breakfast, trout fried in corn flour in bacon grease, fried eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. She said, "You will be overwhelmed by the one, when she cuts you from the herd and she winked at me," we had talked about finding the one after the Sea Biscuit dialogue. Lis was the one.

It was Sunday morning and I felt more relaxed and rested than I did not know when. I went and showered again and dressed, khakis and a cotton oxford shirt and some comfortable shoes and drove to Church. I'd not been to liturgy in a while and my talk with Father Fyodor was not a confession per se, but I hoped it would suffice.

I arrived and parked and went in. I bought some candles and placed some before some icons reverencing each and offering a prayer for my children and my sanity and one for a new president. Shoot for the moon I thought, two out of three would be good. I did not understand my mirth, but it was bubbling around my head.

I turned to find a spot to stand, there being no pews at Russian Orthodox parishes. Immediately, staring at me, glaring at me was Betty, with her balding man next to her. I held her glance for a second and walked to the opposite side of the sanctuary and faced forward. A door opened in the Iconostasis and out walked my son Tom, robed as an acolyte. He walked purposefully towards me and stopped in front of me and asked me if I was going to take communion.

I nodded and he said, "Follow me."

I walked up to the front of the alter, outside the Iconostasis and out walked Fr. Fyodor, not fully vested, but with a purple stole and without ado placed the stole over my head and said, "You wish to confess my son?

"Yes Father," and I proceeded to confess and when finished received absolution. Basic stuff, adultery, fornication, hatred, self-destructive behavior, near suicide, lusted after anything within five feet of me, despair, envy, your basic food groups. I felt cleansed yet worn and dirty and weak and embarrassed.

The liturgy was performed with its incredible music and much crossing and bowing. It was remarkable how well I felt afterward. Rejuvenated, yet stripped bare, something I'd done as long as I could remember. The remembrance of times with my parents.

I made my way out of the church and was immediately greeted by several men and several couples that I'd not talked with in many years, since the end of my marriage. I noticed Betty and the bald one walk by without looking at them and after ten minutes of talk and my refusal to go to coffee hour, I started to leave when Jack and Tom were in front of me and giving me hugs.

Both remarked it was great to see me and I began to well up and hugged them again. I asked if we might go to a movie or fishing even in one of the upcoming weekends. They were both excited about that and then I was in the Trooper and motoring back to home. My cell phone rang. It was Betty.

"I don't know what you were thinking. I have never been so mortified in my life. Please promise me you won't do that again!"

"Well, Fr. Fyodor told me to come. I did. I feel better than I have in years. Nothing to do with you, actually, one way or another. Take it up with Father, if you have a problem."

I disconnected.

I changed my plans and shot to downtown Poulsbo and Sluy's Norwegian bakery. A large French roast cup of coffee and two apple fritters and next door for the Seattle Sunday papers and the NY Times. Headed home. Made it there, too.

Spread out everything on the kitchen table and opened the doors to the deck to let the fresh air in and read the comics and ate the fritters and drank the coffee. Made some more coffee and peeled an orange and brought over some roasted Spanish peanuts, with some more coffee and ate, drank and read. Nearly a perfect moment, beyond reading about the administration's efforts to start World War III, and the Mariners continuing to lose.

It was comfortably warm outside. I had a pair of shorts hanging near the door in case I wanted to go down to the bay and get some oysters or fish. I threw them on and gathered a pillow and went out on the deck and stretched out. It was seventy five degrees or so and I fell fast asleep.

I was dreaming of Elisabet, it was erotic and I could smell her, the citrus or lemon smell was real and then I was awake and she was there on me touching, holding, pulling and kissing and physical and strong and over and over again and she was moaning and clawing, biting. I felt as if I was a horse being ridden by an equestrian after years of walking around the corral with a tot aboard.

It must have been close to six, because the sun had just gone down, when it was over with her final crescendo. It was not fair to compare to any previous experience because things just seemed to fit better and be in the right pace, but that had way more to do with her than me, although I was there till the finish. She just knew these trails better than I.

She quickly got up and gathered her things and went inside and up to my shower, without saying anything.

I put my shorts back on and went and got a large bottle of water and drank deeply.

The shower stopped.

"I need towels!

"Bottom drawer of the built-in.

Down the stairs she came. She stopped and put on her heels.

"I feel like some pasta honey, I have some fresh crab in a cooler, what should we do?"

"I have some elbow macaroni, white cheddar, Havarti and aged Romano. How about Mac 'n Cheese with crab. I have some sour dough ready to bake too, sliced tomatoes."

"Lis?"

She was a foot away from me. "I love you."

She put her hand on my chest and we were kissing, slow and she was all woman, soft, yet strong, compelling, she smelled like soap."

She pulled back and was looking at me, her eyes darting, looking at me.

I said, "My mom and dad were in a dream I had last night, She said, 'You will be overwhelmed by the one, when she cuts you from the herd.' That's exactly what you've done. I am overwhelmed by you and can't imagine ever being without you and your daughter. I would love to be your husband. But if you do not want to, I'm perfectly happy to be with you."

She said, "If you're asking, the answer is yes. I've known we belonged together for some time now. I think her biological father will never return, so if you want to adopt her, she likes you a lot, by the way it could be a package deal. Then we were hugging.

She said, "I told Coral I was going after you last week. She said to get you away from Eleni."

End Who Writes Cookbooks?