I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti Read online

  I’d since come up with a way to deal with this affliction when it hit me. I ask questions, making myself seem more like an FBI interrogator than a potential girlfriend. As we dined on mediocre cod mare chiaro and bland chicken rollatini, I found my tongue and interviewed Ethan about his family. He regaled me with stories about his three sisters and their families. He seemed fond of his nieces and nephews and slightly in awe of the hassle his siblings had taken on in the raising of children. “She and her husband toss them back and forth like footballs,” he said, describing his youngest, who was in a bit over her head, having given birth to two screamers back-to-back. Ethan’s parents had a long, happy marriage. They met at Cornell, where they both studied with Nabokov. His mother was a painter, and the two of them ran an art gallery together. The family home in Detroit contained a teeny tiny Henry Moore sculpture that they kept under glass, Ethan told me. He went to Cornell, too. I liked how Ethan seemed so obviously connected to his family; the affection he conveyed for his siblings reminded me of my own, a complicated kind of devotion. After a few glasses of the Chianti del Cuore, or whatever it was we were drinking, I was able to loosen the tight grip I was keeping on my silverware and napkin and give him the rundown on my family. My oldest sister, Nancy, a psychology professor living in Orange County, is divorced and has one daughter I don’t see as often as I’d like. The next is Carla, a yoga instructor and voice teacher; she is married to Ken, and they have a son named Max. Neither of my brothers was married at the time; Nick was living in Japan (he brought his wife, Yuki, home from there), and Matthew was a reporter for a newspaper in Connecticut (where he later met his wife, Elizabeth). Ethan listened intently enough, and when the check came, I let him pick it up, even though he hesitated. The restaurant gifted me with a ceramic heart-shaped box wrapped in red cellophane, which made Ethan crack a smile and further exacerbated my discomfiture, though I held on to that piece of kitsch for years and years.

  Ethan tried to end the date when our walk home took him to his block. I was not ready to release him.

  “You can’t go home now, it’s only eleven o’clock. Come over for a bourbon and soda,” I implored.

  Ethan refused at first but eventually agreed after I insisted.

  Back at my apartment, I mixed our drinks. Ethan had never had bourbon with soda and lime (my drink of choice at the moment) and complimented the concoction. I figured that might keep him in my audience a while longer. To further that goal, I ricocheted back and forth from the sofa to the CD player, trying to impress him with the greatest hits from my collection while wondering if my butt looked big in my gray-and-brown plaid Chaiken pants as I stood in front of my stereo changing disks. I hadn’t dressed up too much for the date, wanting to seem casual, but there was nothing casual about my intentions. I wanted confirmation that Ethan liked me. I wanted to kiss Ethan. I was getting nowhere. Ethan remained burrowed in his corner of the sofa.

  “What does it take to seduce you?” I finally blurted out, foggy with alcohol and anxiety.

  Ethan’s face erupted into a nervous smile that would become all too familiar. “I think we should just be friends.”

  What does it take to seduce you?

  How was I all of a sudden channeling Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington? I never even watched that show. The words haunted me as I slept, lightly, that night. I awoke hung over and full of dread.

  “It was all going fine until I threw myself at him!” I exclaimed to Ginia, and later to Anne on the phone. (I couldn’t admit what I had actually said.) The next evening I was sitting with Jen, recalling the horror for the umpteenth time, when the phone rang. It was Ethan.

  “I had fun on our date,” he said. “We should do it again.”

  What?!

  Between that call and the next from Ethan, I got involved with a sexy fuck-up who graduated from Columbia University but whose present occupation was drawing pictures of fish for a company that made T-shirts sold at resort areas like Paradise Island or Antigua. I never cooked for him; we mostly hung around his East Village apartment and sang songs while he accompanied on guitar. The Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers” was the one he kept returning to. “Send me dead flowers to my wedding,” it goes, “and I won’t forget to put roses on your grave.” Eric didn’t hide the fact that he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend Evgenia. No doubt he was thinking about her when he sang that song, but I sang along anyway. On less rueful nights, we lay in bed singing every television commercial jingle we could remember. Eric was a bit of a sad sack, but he was soulful and bore the sharp edge of a depressed, underachieving Ivy League graduate. I tried to lure him to Brooklyn with the promise of a home-cooked meal—God knows he needed one—but he canceled at the last minute, griping about a cold-sore outbreak.

  Ethan got in touch again, and we made a plan to watch the Oscars at my place. Though I was caught up with Eric and his dead flowers, I still thought enough of Ethan to offer to make dinner. I consulted with Anne on what to make, and she suggested something healthy, indicating that Ethan liked his food clean. I came up with this pasta mixed with cancer-fighting vegetables and antioxidant fruit and nuts: penne, with a sauce of broccoli, sautéed in garlic, sprinkled with plump raisins and toasted walnuts.

  Healthy Penne

  1 pound broccoli (or 1 nice bunch)

  2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little more for finishing

  1 clove garlic, chopped

  Pinch hot red pepper flakes

  ½ cup raisins

  Salt

  ½ cup chopped walnuts

  ½ pound penne

  Freshly grated parmigiano cheese

  Wash the broccoli and cut into florets; discard the stalks. In a skillet large enough to hold the pasta and broccoli, heat the olive oil over medium heat, then add garlic and red pepper. When the garlic is golden, add the broccoli, raisins, and a big pinch of salt. Sauté for 15 to 20 minutes, adding a little water if the mixture gets too dry. Meanwhile, toast the walnuts in a small skillet for 5 to 6 minutes over medium heat, giving the skillet a shake every so often. Watch them or they will burn! Once they are toasted, remove from heat and set aside.

  Cook the pasta according to the directions here. Drain and add the penne to the skillet with the broccoli, then add a splash of olive oil and the toasted walnuts.

  Serve in warm bowls. Pass the parmigiano at the table. (If you are lactose intolerant—Ethan was, but somehow cheese didn’t bother him—you may substitute ¼ cup toasted bread crumbs for the cheese and it is equally scrumptious.) Feel more or less virtuous that you had vegetables with your carbs.

  Serves 2, with leftovers.

  Titanic won nearly every award, but, unlike Kate Winslet, I did not get a kiss at the end of the evening. All Ethan asked for was a doggie bag.

  I do not consider myself a woman who gets the things she desperately wants, and God may have good reasons for this. Nor am I foolish enough to pursue what is undoubtedly impossible. But Ethan gave just enough to keep my hopes up. Calls and e-mails arrived with regularity. Returning from Saturday brunch with my girlfriends, I’d be shocked to find a phone message from him asking what I was up to. Electronically we’d bat notes back and forth, debating the relative merits of John Lennon’s versus Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles solo work. I loved Wings, Ethan preferred Lennon, but he did like McCartney’s pre-Wings stuff, so he made me a tape of Paul’s first two solo albums and wrote each song’s title on the sleeve, a romantic gesture if ever there was one. Meanwhile, Eric dumped me, declaring definitively that he was still in love with Evgenia. I bought my first pair of Gucci shoes and promptly stopped wondering why Eric couldn’t love me and started wondering if charging $457 to my credit card was really such a good idea.

  Ethan wouldn’t go away. When summer came, he managed to appear at our Shelter Island house every weekend, even though he hadn’t bought a share. When I analyzed this habit, I was forced to admit there could have been other reasons besides me that he might do this. It’s an island, and an incredibly rela
xing one at that. You have to take a ferry to get there, and the voyage gives you the sense of leaving everything behind. Our house, a converted eighteenth-century rectory, was as magical as the island. It had a pool in front and a trellis of wisteria in back, beneath which we ate lunch al fresco. The house was owned by a family of artists whose paintings covered the walls. The furniture was cozy and the kitchen well equipped. The dining room table accommodated as many as twelve. Usually we were eight staying in the house, and we often invited over other friends from the island or the Hamptons for carefully planned and beautifully executed dinners.

  We would arrive on Fridays and barely leave the compound except to grocery shop; we got the tastiest tomatoes, eggplants, squash, and basil from a stand attended by no one, where the prices were written on a chalkboard and you slipped money through a slot in a red padlocked box. We bought our fish from the Commander, a retired navy man whose shop, in the basement of his house, sold fish fresh and fried, though mostly the Commander just seemed to be getting baked. The house was full of excellent cooks, chief among them Anne, who would hang back and take a managerial role most of the time, then wow us with some imaginative treat like lavender ice cream. Another new friend, Astrid, would whip up Spanish tortillas, cold borscht, or wonderfully marinated flank steak. Her boyfriend, Robert, an academic from Poland, was the naked mascot of the summerhouse; he liked to delve into everyone’s personal lives and gave good advice administered poolside as he sunbathed in the nude. Belinda and Jeremy, a journalist and architect from Australia, were not cooks, though the one confection they contributed—barbecued bananas sliced down the middle with chocolate melted inside—was one of the most memorable desserts in a summer chock-full of them. Most nights we got so carried away with talking and drinking wine that we didn’t get dinner on the table before ten o’clock.

  The first thing I ever made for Ethan on Shelter Island was a Sicilian recipe that originated with my grandmother: halibut baked with a sweet-and-sour sauce of red wine vinegar, yellow onions, raisins, and mint. I was overcome by Ethan’s admiration for this dish, which I interpreted as thinly veiled praise of me. He was still raving about it by the pool the next day.

  Unforgettable Halibut

  ¼ cup olive oil

  6 yellow onions, sliced ¼ inch thick

  2 teaspoons salt, plus extra salt to taste

  ¼ cup red wine vinegar

  2 tablespoons honey

  ¼ cup currants

  1 cup fresh mint, chopped

  3 pounds halibut, or 6 (8-ounce) portions of any firm white fish—cod, sea bass, snapper, or flounder will work well, too

  Olive oil for brushing

  Freshly ground pepper

  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

  Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until they are soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Add the vinegar and honey and cook for 5 minutes. Then add the currants and ½ cup of the chopped mint, cook for a few more minutes, and taste for salt (add more if necessary).

  Brush the halibut and baking dish with olive oil, sprinkle fish with 1 teaspoon salt, and cover with the onions. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes depending on thickness of the fish.

  Remove to serving plate and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and remaining mint.

  Serves 6.

  I didn’t have to urge Ethan to come out to the house with me early on Friday afternoons, he always suggested it. I was able to get a jump on dinner thanks to publishing’s traditional summer hours. Ethan, being a writer, was free to accompany me, and accompany me he did. He’d join me on my shopping rounds, hang out in the kitchen while I prepped and cooked, then sit with me on the couch and drink wine while we waited for the others to arrive. Conversation never lacked for a moment, whether I was trying to convince him to like me (which I couldn’t help doing after a glass or two of wine) or my favorite band, Pulp. The latter he could not abide, and as for the former, well, he never managed to come up with a convincing argument for either side of the issue.

  Ethan had warmed up to me enough that a hand or other limb of his would find its way to some unthreatening part of my body whenever we were sitting together. Once, not entirely as the result of my own movements, I found myself so close to him that a kiss was practically unavoidable. Ethan didn’t fight me off, nor did he respond with much passion. Then the phone rang and it was time to collect our friends at the ferry. Alone in the house again the following Friday, I tried to pick up where we’d left off while waiting for a pot of water to boil for linguine that I would dress with a sauce of shrimps, scallops, and white wine. That old smile of Ethan’s returned as he reiterated his friendly intentions toward me. I was saved from whatever hopeless explanation he was about to offer by the eruption of bubbles bursting through the lid of the stockpot.

  “As much as I care about you, what concerns me most is getting dinner ready,” I warbled as I fled to the kitchen, taking on a cloak of false cheerfulness as I attended to:

  Linguine with Friendly Little Fish

  (Adapted from Jennifer Romanello)

  2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for taste

  1 clove garlic, minced

  Pinch hot red pepper flakes

  ½ pound shrimp (buy them already cleaned, if available, and remove tails)

  ½ pound scallops, sea or bay (if sea, cut into quarters)

  ½ cup dry white wine

  1 pound linguine

  ½ cup chopped parsley

  This is a quick and easy sauce that can be made while the pasta is cooking; you don’t want to cook the fish too long or it will dry out.

  In a medium sauté pan, heat the olive oil and then add the garlic and red pepper. Sauté for 2 to 3 minutes until golden, then add the fish and white wine. Cook until shrimp are pink and scallops are solid white.

  Meanwhile, cook linguine according to the directions here. Drain well and add to the fish, stirring gently. Add a splash of olive oil and the chopped parsley, then divide into warmed bowls. You do not serve fish pasta with cheese. (My mother does, but it’s a bad habit.)

  Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a first.

  Minor disappointments and crushing blows abounded, yet Ethan and I did grow close that summer. In addition to eating, we were both into biking, for which the conditions on Shelter Island are ideal. Together we explored every corner of that island, riding for hours while gabbing about our eternally amusing housemates and their precarious relationships. Midway through the summer, Robert dropped Astrid for a younger woman he met in Poland. She looked like a model, but she had all the energy of a dying swan. He was back with Astrid by summer’s end; no amount of beauty and youth could compare with that woman’s cooking. And what was up with Stacey’s boyfriend, Hank? He’d arrive at the house with a rolling suitcase full of work and yet was involved in no projects as far as we knew. Stacey’s father had similar questions about his authenticity and had gotten a private investigator on the case, Ethan told me. Ethan was concerned for his friend, but he wanted to like Hank. I did, too, especially since Hank’s desire to get Ethan and me together rivaled my own. He acted as our couples counselor, trying harder than I ever did to extract information from Ethan about his reluctance to get involved. He’d grill him at dinner, over drinks on the porch, during swims in the lake, on jogs, and on walks. I seconded his every inquiry.

  “What will we do when summer’s over?” Ethan asked when we dismounted at Shell Beach, a jetty that sticks out half a mile into the bay, where we always took a break from our weekly ride. I didn’t know why he was so concerned, since we were just friends and all, but I wanted to help.

  “I’ll invite you to dinner parties,” I replied, hoping I could win him in the cooler months with my talent as a hostess. On the way back we’d pass Crescent Beach, which faces west, just as the sun was setting. Our housemates wondered what we were up to on those long rides. I wondered why the long rides were all we were up to.

&nbs
p; When the fall came we went on double dates with Stacey and Hank, though only one of the couples was dating. One evening over margaritas in TriBeCa, Hank got to grilling Ethan about us and wouldn’t let up. I sat there thoroughly amused. Ethan, usually so reticent, wasn’t uncomfortable; in fact, he seemed to be enjoying the attention as much as I was. Hank convinced him to go home with me that night. When we arrived at my apartment, we found my brother Nick there; he was in town with no place to stay, so he had let himself in for the night. It was impossible to explain what Ethan and I were in the middle of, though it was far more innocent than whatever my older brother must have conjured. No, we weren’t there for a night of wild passion, we were enrolled in a remedial dating course, and we were going to give simple kissing a go.

  “We can go to my place,” Ethan said, but I wanted to be on my turf, so I quickly dispatched Nick to his friend Al’s apartment in Sheepshead Bay.

  When we were alone, Ethan made the truly grand admission that he had discussed me with his therapist, but he didn’t tell me what he said. Evidently, Ethan was struggling with his feelings for me; I just couldn’t understand why it was such a struggle. We did kiss, though, with Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale playing in the background. “There’re brighter days ahead,” went the first song.We kissed through the entire album, and when it was done Ethan went home.