I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti Read online

  String Bean and Potato Salad for Gringos

  1 pound string beans (or long beans or green beans or whatever you call them)

  1 pound baby red potatoes

  1 clove garlic, minced

  2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  Freshly ground pepper

  Put two big pots of water on the stove and bring them to a boil. Meanwhile, pull the ends off the string beans and halve the potatoes. When the water is boiling, add the vegetables each to its own pot. The beans will take about 6 minutes, the potatoes will take 12 to 15. Test them both to see if they are done to your liking. The string beans should be soft but still have a little snap to them. When this is determined, remove the beans with a slotted spoon or drain them in a colander, then run a little cold water over them to stop the cooking—or better yet, dump them in a large bowl filled with water and ice and drain them again. This will stop them from cooking and give them a bright color. You can allow the vegetables to cool or season them now, combining both with garlic, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

  Mitch’s sister Penelope was going through some marital tensions with her husband, Michael, when we were all down there. Mitch and I didn’t need to know what the problem was; as soon as we noticed him wearing a T-shirt that advocated “juggling for peace,” we had all the explanation we needed, as well as a source of laughter for years to come. Someone that earnest would never survive with a Smith. Earnest, too, was the family in its endeavors to make peace between this couple, so much so that they were willing to take a real risk and let us go out to a restaurant for dinner to celebrate Michael’s birthday. As long as we kept away from lettuce and ice cubes, Mrs. Smith surmised that we would be all right. We weren’t. In the middle of the night, Mitch and I were struck by the expected unpleasantness. He succumbed first: I woke up in the middle of the night to find him gone. He wasn’t in the bed, he wasn’t in our bathroom.

  “Using the bathroom down here would be too much sharing,” Mitch explained when he returned. “I thought introducing you to my parents and my dog were enough for this trip.” Not long after Mitch, I was stricken. I was in so much pain that I fainted on the bathroom floor. Mitch had to bust in and rescue me. Talk about sharing! And yet as embarrassing as this all sounds, it wasn’t. Our illness was bonding, and I was moved by Mitch’s care and heroism. (Not to mention the blatant contrast it revealed between him and Ethan: If I had ever passed out on a bathroom floor under my last boyfriend’s watch, he would have just left me to die while he lay in bed with his eye pillow over his face.) My illness humanized me for Mitch. Finally, I wasn’t “perfect,” he said.

  Mitch and I were on separate flights back to New York on New Year’s Eve. When we parted at the airport in Mexico, Mitch said, “I’ll call you when I get home.” So 2002 dawned with me wishing good health and fortune to the taxi driver who was taking me home from Newark. I checked my messages all night. Mitch never called.

  Silly me to think that trip would mark the end of Mitch’s unpredictable behavior. Figuring that if an AeroMéxico plane went down somewhere over the Carolinas I probably would have heard about it, I held out until about two o’clock on New Year’s Day before I called him to call him on not calling. He didn’t take it well, and we didn’t speak again for a couple of days, during which Mitch forwarded me some e-mails from his mother exclaiming how much the family liked me. I liked them, too. I could see myself fitting in as a Smith and had spent my plane ride happily doing so. That was before he didn’t call.

  Mitch thought it was awfully literal of me to get all bent out of shape over him not calling when he got home just because he’d said, “I’ll call you when I get home.” We went to his favorite Chinatown restaurant, Sweet-n-Tart, to discuss it. I loved that place, with its noodle soups and scallion pancakes and checks that never came to more than $14. I went there even without Mitch. Their menu included a list of sweet teas that were supposed to contain healing properties. Each flavor was paired with the ailment it was meant to soothe. Unfortunately, there was none claiming to alleviate the confusion of being with a guy you are deeply drawn to, who goes out of his way to exasperate.

  We made it through winter relatively smoothly. We went to movies, and Mitch even paid sometimes. “I like paying for you,” he said in a voice tinged with amazement. On a cold and rainy Sunday, we went to the half-price matinee of The Royal Tenenbaums. I snuck in a thermos of coffee brewed just the way Mitch liked it. The movie dazzled, with Luke Wilson, an astonishing sound track, and the mink coat Fendi designed especially for Gwyneth Paltrow’s role. It was a paean to hipsterism even I could love. When we got back to my apartment, we snuggled on the sofa and Mitch kissed my face one hundred times, counting every one.

  I was by now solidly opposed to eating Valentine’s Day dinner in a restaurant, and good thing, too. I couldn’t fathom sitting with Mitch, enjoying the candlelight prix fixe à deux. Still, having spent my share of V-Days alone or out for dinner with my widowed mother, I always insist on celebrating the holiday whenever there’s a man in my picture, however tenuous. But what to serve Mitch? Champagne was out. He wouldn’t give a damn for oysters or caviar. No, simple meat and potatoes was the way to go for him. When I announced that I would be making pot roast, he questioned my wisdom. But I didn’t let it deter me; I couldn’t make heads or tails of Mitch’s mind when it came to us, but I could ascertain the needs of his palate, and pot roast with gravy was what it craved. I was right. Mitch said it was the best thing he had ever eaten in his life. He got a lot of things right that evening. He showed up at the door dressed in a coat and tie (from the thrift store, of course) and carrying a bouquet (of carnations, but still).

  “This is the first time I ever bought flowers for a girl,” he said.

  The chocolate layer cake I made for dessert was to be a soft rose color, but the tiniest drop of food coloring immediately turned the confection the hottest pink. It was awfully girly, but Mitch didn’t mind girly; the cover of his first novel was hot pink. Nor did he comment on the fact that it was overfrosted and lopsided. He finished every morsel. It warmed my baker’s heart.

  Mitch’s Mother Is a Yankee Pot Roast

  1 (3- to 4-pound) chuck or rump roast

  Salt and pepper

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  2 carrots

  2 celery stalks

  1 medium onion

  1 clove garlic

  1 cup dry red wine

  1 cup beef broth

  1 tablespoon tomato paste

  1 bay leaf

  A few sprigs of thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme

  ½ pound egg noodles

  1 tablespoon butter

  1 tablespoon chopped parsley

  Season the meat with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown meat on all sides, letting it develop a good crust, about 5 minutes per side.

  While meat is browning, finely chop the carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. If you have a food processor, cut the vegetables into small pieces, throw them in, and give them a good whirl.

  When the meat is browned, remove it from the Dutch oven, then add the chopped vegetables and a little more oil if needed. Cook the vegetables with a little salt until they are soft and browned a bit, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the wine and broth, scraping up the brown bits that have accumulated around the pot. Return the meat to the pot and bring it all to a simmer. Add the tomato paste, bay leaf, and thyme, lower heat, and cover pot. Cook for 3 hours, turning the roast every 30 minutes or so for even cooking.

  When time is up, remove the roast to a cutting board and tent it with foil. Strain the juices from the pot and reduce them in a small saucepan (you may add some butter if you like). Cook the egg noodles according to directions on the package. Drain them, add butter, slice the meat, and serve over the noodles covered with sauce and sprinkled with chopped parsley.

  Serv
es 2, with enough for sandwiches the next day.

  Hot Pink Cake

  (Adapted from the Hershey’s cocoa can)

  For the cake

  2 cups sugar

  1¾ cups all-purpose flour

  ¾ cups cocoa powder (the better the quality, the better the cake; I am devoted to Valrhona, but Hershey’s is fine)

  1½ teaspoons baking soda

  1½ teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 eggs, left out of the fridge for about 30 minutes

  1 stick butter, melted and cooled slightly

  1 cup whole milk

  2 teaspoons vanilla

  1 cup boiling water

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter and flour two 8-inch baking pans and line with parchment paper.

  In a large mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Add eggs, butter, milk, and vanilla and beat at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until all ingredients are combined and the cocoa bits are smoothed out. Stir in the boiling water. Pour batter into pans and bake at 350 degrees until a cake tester comes out with moist crumbs, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pans, then transfer to cooling racks. Wait until the cakes have cooled completely before frosting.

  For the frosting

  1 stick very soft butter

  1 pound confectioners’ sugar

  3 to 4 tablespoons milk

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  A little too much red food dye

  Mix all ingredients with an electric mixer at low speed until creamy. Add more milk if necessary. The trick is for the icing to be not too thin and not too goopy.

  Something always goes wrong for me aesthetically when I make this cake, but it’s always delicious.

  Yield: enough for one 8-inch cake or 24 cupcakes.

  Our first real breakup happened after Mitch and I spent a day with his friend Francine, a hipster from Portland who was well over the age and weight requirements for the job. Francine had come to New York to nurse her mother, who was recovering from an operation. Mitch and I took the train up to New Rochelle to see her.

  “Mom, Mitch is here!” Francine yelled to her mother in her sickroom upstairs when we arrived. “Say hello to Mom,” she commanded Mitch.

  “Hello, Mrs. Simon,” Mitch shouted dutifully.

  We spent the day touring Westchester thrift shops, beginning with the Entenmann’s bakery store, where we picked up three boxes of chocolate-covered doughnuts for a dollar each. Francine found a fantastic blue silk dress for me at the enormous Salvation Army in Portchester. Then we went back to Francine’s mother’s house, where we drank coffee and ate doughnuts. “Say good-bye to Mom,” Francine directed Mitch before she drove us back to the station.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Simon,” said Mitch as we walked out the screen door.

  Mitch seemed unusually quiet on the train ride home, but I figured Francine had just talked him out. From Grand Central Station we walked to the 42nd Street subway, the same station where Mitch and I parted after our first date. We found ourselves at the iron fence where we’d kissed for the first time eight months earlier. We re-created the moment, then kissed some more on the subway platform. When we got to my apartment, Mitch slumped onto the couch, tears in his eyes. “You don’t like my friends.”

  “I was nice to Francine!” I said. “Didn’t I make a big fuss over the dress she found for me?” I did—it was a fantastic dress and it fit me perfectly; I wore it until it shredded.

  Mitch left the next morning; the box of doughnuts he left behind was the one sweet thing in a harsh week. I ate one every morning. My mother always used to keep those doughnuts around the house for my family when we were little, but a box never lasted more than a day, so I never knew that Entenmann’s chocolate-covered doughnuts ripen. They got more and more delicious with every passing day.

  After a couple of days, I got the usual post-AA-meeting call from Mitch, but this time he didn’t ask to come over; he wanted to meet me for coffee.

  I knew this was the end.

  I checked out my face in the mirror before I left my apartment, wondering how I was supposed to look for such an occasion. Does your makeup have to be perfect when you’re about to be dumped? On my way to Halcyon, a coffee bar/record store/vintage furniture store (the most Williamsburg-esque place in my neighborhood), I felt like dead man walking.

  Mitch was there first with his coffee. I got one for myself and then sat down. We made a little small talk, and then Mitch launched into what I knew was coming. “I think we should break up,” he said, but he was crying while he said it. Then he launched into happy memories: “I think of us going to a movie with a thermos of coffee in a tote bag,” he said as he wept.

  “But why are you breaking up with me if it’s making you cry?” I said. “Obviously, there’s some depth of feeling there. I think you need to come to terms with your need for me.”

  “I know I have needs [sic] for you,” he whined, “and I’ve been trying, but I just can’t do it.”

  I alternated between comforting him and trying to convince him that he could do it. I even brought up my dream of our little house in Williamsburg. “You could use your money for the down payment, and I could pay the mortgage with my salary.” Is there anyone in the world besides me who would introduce a phantasmagoric real estate arrangement into a breakup conversation?

  There were no more doughnuts and no more Mitch. Those first few nights, I would get into my bed and scream into my pillow in agony. In the daytime, I would wonder where he was. On Sunday afternoon, I knew he’d be at a bar in Red Hook where he was scheduled to read. I wasn’t allowed to go there. His places weren’t my places anymore.

  But a party for our friend Henry was just as much my place as his. It hurt so much to see Mitch there that I ended up bolting early to take solace in my sofa and a pack of American Spirit Lights (even though I hadn’t smoked for about two years) with Ginia, who came with me to the party. My despair was premature. The next day, Mitch wrote to me, and we saw each other a few days later. We were going to be friends. We went out and shared a tray of fruit and cheese, and being friends was fun; we were getting along.

  “Isn’t it much easier to be friends with me?” Mitch said when I left him at the subway.

  Yes, it was. My despair over our breakup had been replaced with a quiet contentment over our newfound status. Then one night Mitch came over to watch TV after one such date, and the next thing you knew he was trying to kiss me. “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  It was impossible for us to be friends. Friends with benefits, on the other hand, continued for another year. I took him to a dinner where his hero, John Updike, spoke; he took me to Mexico again. But whenever I felt some glimmer of hope that maybe things could work out between us, Mitch would shoot me down. One day I got an e-mail that went something like this:

  Hey G,

  I know we hung out and had sex or whatever, but I don’t feel like having a girlfriend right now.

  M.

  I wrote:

  I do not wish to speak to you ever again.

  I pretty much kept my promise. Okay, maybe we slept together once a year or two later. And we are occasionally in touch now. In the time that we weren’t speaking, Mitch, who didn’t want a girlfriend or whatever, got married. He also got a lot of books published and another movie deal. He didn’t grow up, but that might be a good career move for him.

  Marcus

  Caldwell Ate

  and Ran

  I’m going to marry that woman” was all I needed to hear. I had seen him stretching and preening before our softball game, but really, you couldn’t miss Marcus, his white hair sticking straight up, his Wayfarer eyeglass frames, his Kermit-the-Frog green sneakers. He was a man well into middle age, with an arty style that made him someone I might consider, though actually I wasn’t considering him until I got wind of the fact that he wanted to marry me.

  It was the first time in history tha
t Harper’s Magazine won a softball game against our perceived literary rival, The New Yorker, and our scrappy team (dressed in our own T-shirts and hats, as opposed to our opponents decked out in logo’d garb supplied by their corporate owner) was in a great mood. As public relations director, I took the opportunity to boost internal morale and show the competition what terrific sports we were, by offering to buy both winners and losers drinks on my expense account at Tap a Keg, a bar not far from Central Park. Marcus was sitting catty-corner from me at the bar, talking to Elizabeth, one of our editors. I was across from them, eating popcorn and talking to the summer interns. Marcus kept looking over at me, smiling, waving, and mouthing, “Thank you,” while toasting me with his beer. When I got up to mingle, Elizabeth told me that he was asking about me. “Who is that woman? I’m going to marry her,” he reportedly kept saying over and over.

  I went outside where the smokers, Marcus among them, convened. I bummed a cigarette from him and introduced myself. Marcus was a cartoonist; I asked him to describe some of his cartoons for me. He talked me through one involving a couple in bed and a bicycle helmet. I didn’t get the joke. “That’s often the case,” he said with winning self-deprecation. I was on my way out, so we didn’t talk long; he gave me his card with his signature emblazoned upon it along with the usual pertinent details, and I gave him mine. I went back inside to say good night to my colleagues, and as I was leaving, Marcus, who was sitting on a bench with some others in front of the bar, shouted, “Good night, Giulia!” His voice had a Charles Nelson Reilly ring to it, full of character, with a slightly gay undertone.