Eat Cake: A Novel Read Free Page A

objected to cornbread. I left the chicken for a minute and got out the flour. There were raisins and walnuts. I held two cold eggs in one hand and felt the knot between my shoulders start to unravel the tiniest bit around the edges.

    An hour later Oprah had said her piece and my mother came into the kitchen and sniffed the air. “That’s a cake.” She pushed the oven light on and peered inside.
    “Carrot bread.” I pulled the pot holders out of their drawer.
    “There is no such thing. Really, I’m going to be the size of a house if you keep baking this much.”
    “I’ve always baked this much and you’ve never been heavy a day in your life.”
    “That isn’t true,” my mother said, pouring herself a vodka and orange juice. “I looked like a snowman when I was pregnant with you.”
    “That was a long time ago. Nobody remembers it.”
    “I remember it,” she said darkly.
    I picked up the phone in the kitchen and called Camille’s room. She had her own line with call waiting. No matter how remote Camille could be in person, she always answered the phone, which is why I strictly forbid her to have caller ID.
    “Dinner,” I said.
    “Is Daddy home?” She wanted to know so that she wouldn’t get stuck waiting in the kitchen. That was my other rule after no caller ID: We all ate dinner together.
    I was about to answer truthfully when I heard the back door open. “Yes,” I said, and she hung up.
    The rain had not abated. Sam came in with sleek tributaries pouring off his suit jacket. He looked nearly drowned. He leaned toward me and I thought he was going to whisper something in my ear, but instead he pulled me to him and held me tightly in the great, wet walls of his arms. I hadn’t been dry so long myself but I felt oddly dazzled by the spontaneity of his gesture. The water off his coat soaked through my blouse, and once he had kissed me and pulled away, I looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water on my chest.
    “I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I’ve ruined you.”
    “I dry very quickly.”
    “Hollis!” Sam said to my mother. “You have a drink. Be a pal and fix me one of those.” It was my father who had started the tradition of calling my mother Hollis, her last name, rather than Marie, her first name. She said it was the only thing from their relationship that had stuck, other than me.
    “It isn’t orange juice,” she said with some embarrassment.
    “I didn’t think it was orange juice. Did you think I thought you were drinking orange juice every night?”
    “I did,” my mother said. She looked a little confused and I wanted to tell Sam not to tease her.
    He shook his head. “I know what you’re drinking and I want to join you.”
    “On a Tuesday?” she said.
    “This Tuesday.” My soaking-wet, handsome husband seemed to be a bundle of life this evening. “Ruth, are you having a drink?”
    “I wasn’t planning on it.”
    “But you would,” he said. “Things happen you don’t plan on.” Sam’s blue eyes looked all the brighter for the rainwater still clinging to his lashes.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Never better,” he said, but his voice didn’t convince me. “Hollis, we want two of whatever you’re having.”
    So my mother returned to the cabinet where the vodka was kept and assumed the role of bartender. She went back to the dishwasher to retrieve the shot glass. My mother believed that mixing a drink without a shot glass was tantamount to putting the bottle to your lips and tipping your head back.
    Camille shuffled into the kitchen and for a second I thought I saw Sam’s great good mood crumple a little at the edges. He seemed so moved to see her there that if it weren’t for all the rain he was wearing, I would have thought he was tearing up. I held out a dish towel but he ignored it. He went to Camille and folded her in his arms.
    “Daddy!” she cried, and wrenched away from him with some effort. “Are you
insane
? Look what you’ve
done
to me.” Camille