Linda Lee - The Glass Kitchen: A Novel of Sisters

Ariel’s head spun with a plethora of numbers and an alphabet soup of letters. She concentrated with every ounce of her ability as they came into each station. Prince. Eighth Street. Fourteenth Street. Stop after stop, the train getting more and more crowded, making it harder and harder to see station signs. Finally Ariel caught a glimpse of a sign when they pulled into the Thirty-fourth Street station. She squirmed out, relieved, only to find that she didn’t have a clue what to do next.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the B train.”

She made it to a B just as it arrived in the station. On board, her heart pounded at stop after stop until she recognized Seventy-second Street.

When she came up onto street level across from Central Park, she was only a block from home. Ariel had never been so glad to see the horse-drawn carriages and masses of people taking photos of the building where some singer named John Lennon had been shot. And when she blew into her house, falling back against the closed door with a gasp, she nearly broke down in tears.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Her head jerked up. Miranda stood at the top of the stairs, scowling.

Ariel blinked furiously. She had no idea what to say. She had been fixated on the maze of subway tunnels and platforms, and hadn’t yet thought about the information she had found: Their mom and dad’s wedding was on June 27, 1998.

Miranda was born on November 19, 1998. Five months after their parents were married.

AT FIVE, Portia bolted upstairs to make dinner. From the sunroom, she was surprised when she heard Gabriel’s and Anthony’s heated voices. She hadn’t seen or talked to Gabriel since he’d slipped out of her bedroom that morning. She felt her body in a way that she hadn’t in years, if ever. He had allowed her no modesty. He had taken what he wanted. But, if she was completely fair, he had given as well. Her body shuddered and sighed at the thought. “Bad, bad, bad,” she muttered to herself.

There was no denying that the whole fried chicken–meal thing had thrown her.

The other issue that threw her was that Robert had called three times during the day, but without leaving much by way of messages. Then her lawyer had called, saying that her ex was contesting the small amount he was supposed to pay her.

Her stomach twisted at the thought. She had to breathe through her nose to try to stay calm, releasing her breath slowly into the quiet kitchen. She didn’t have the money to fight him. Very soon, even with the money she was making from working for Gabriel, she wasn’t going to be able to survive in New York.

For the first time she was having to admit to herself that she might have to sell the garden apartment. No question the clock was ticking on her dream of building a new life in the city.

She left lasagna and garlic bread warming in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator and tiptoed out of the house. Once she was outside, the beads of panic didn’t lessen. Nothing was going as planned in New York. She felt as if she was trying to start over, transform her life, remake herself in quicksand. The harder she tried to get free, the deeper she sank. Trying to cook without embracing the knowing wasn’t working; it popped up constantly without warning. Trying not to fall for Gabriel? Also not working. Creating a viable way to support herself and help her sisters? Going the way of women wearing hats.

With no answer in sight, she began to walk. Traffic was heavy on Central Park West before she crossed into the park, veering onto the bridle path. Trees overarched like a canopy of green, runners passing her, generally in pairs, followed by two mounted policemen on giant horses. Portia walked fast, trying to outpace her thoughts. But even when she came to the Reservoir, she couldn’t slow her brain.

She headed out of the park, then turned south. She walked forever, hooking over to Broadway and the crush of tiny shops.

It was right outside of the Sabon bath shop that it hit her, the scent of luscious soaps drifting out into the street. Inside, the space was filled with soap and lotions, bath washes and candles. Her senses were filled, surrounded. Teased.

In an instant, after hours of walking and trying to stay out of her brain, a glimmer of an answer came to her like disparate ingredients coming together to make an unexpectedly perfect whole.

She couldn’t get home fast enough. Banging into the apartment, Portia went straight to the cabinet where she had stored the Glass Kitchen cookbooks. She pulled out volumes one and two, skimming through the first. Then she took up the second book, leaving the third volume where it was stored. Holding the second in her arms, close to her chest, she drew a deep breath.

The answer was here, she realized, in this cookbook. She just had to find it.

She cracked open the old spine and started flipping through the pages, taking notes. Once she had five pages of hurried scribbles, she condensed things down into one single shopping list. Then she began to turn the vision into reality, and a week later, a week of barely managing to avoid Gabriel with an odd assortment of excuses and meal preparation at even odder times, Portia was ready. She had finally put into place exactly what she needed to prove that a Glass Kitchen would work in New York City.

“WHAT IS GOING ON here?”

Gabriel stood in the doorway of her apartment, dark tension carved into his features, and for a heartbeat Portia forgot all about what she was doing. She just stared at the man.

He wore a simple black T-shirt that showed off his chest and arms, his dark hair raked back. He looked rugged and sexy, and memories of his hands and mouth on her body made every inch of her thrum to life.

Bad, bad, bad, she reminded herself.

His dark gaze narrowed.

“We’ve created a version of The Glass Kitchen,” she hurriedly explained, giving him a sunny smile.

Olivia and Cordelia came out of the kitchen to stand behind her. Cordelia glanced from Portia to Gabriel, then back. “Portia, didn’t you clear this with him?”

Cordelia still wasn’t herself, her husband’s problem growing deeper. Portia and Olivia did everything they could to keep her mind occupied, and Portia still hadn’t had the heart to question Cordelia about implying to people that somehow Gabriel was involved with The Glass Kitchen.

“Actually, it’s more a venture where I’m cooking the food of The Glass Kitchen, and people can come to try it.”

After reading the second Glass Kitchen cookbook, she had taken its advice to heart. Losing herself in the words, she had put them into action.

For a meal to work truly, it must be an experience. From the moment a guest arrives in The Glass Kitchen to the moment they set their napkin down, they must be enchanted. More importantly, the giver of food must believe that they have the power to enchant. No person, whether she is a scientist or a cook, can find success if she doesn’t first believe that she holds power in her hands—not to use over people, but to use for the good of another. Food, especially, is about giving. A cook must find a way to make the recipient a believer, for what is a person who sits down to a beautiful meal but someone who wants to believe?

As she read the words, Portia had finally set aside her own misgivings and opened herself up to what might come. It had been then that solutions appeared. Her sisters had shown up without her having to ask, the three of them working day after day in a way that gave each hope that a Glass Kitchen really could happen. For a week they had pulled down Aunt Evie’s dark draperies, replacing them with a cheerful gingham Cordelia found in the huge sale bins in the Garment District. Olivia filled the space with flowers. The sisters had bought white paper bags and pink baker boxes, then sat around the kitchen island drinking wine, laughing, and hand-decorating them.

Once the apartment was ready, Portia had begun to plan out what foods they would showcase in this little glimpse into a Glass Kitchen world. Her sisters couldn’t help her with this part. Portia had let go, and dishes had come to her, all of which she wrote down and prepared to make. Then, at eight that morning, she got to work. Olivia and Cordelia served as sous-chefs; they started by making a decadent beef bourguignon. Olivia and Cordelia washed and chopped as Portia browned layer after layer of beef, bacon, carrots, and onion, folding in the beef stock and wine, then putting it in to slow bake as they dove into the remaining dishes. They opened all the windows and ran four swiveling fans Portia had bought and found that pushed the scent of the baking and cooking out onto the sidewalk. Then they had put up a fairly discreet sign in the window, hand-painted by Olivia: THE GLASS KITCHEN.

Portia had gotten the idea while walking down Broadway and passing the French soap store. Scents had spilled into the street from the shop—lavender and primrose, musk and sandalwood—luring passersby inside. Portia had realized that the best way to get investors interested was to show them a version of The Glass Kitchen. The food. The aromas. She had realized, standing there on Broadway, that she needed to create a mini version of her grandmother’s restaurant to lure people in. This way, they’d have no monthly rent as they would if they tried to lease out space somewhere else. No extra utility bills. It was perfect. Standing there now with her sisters flanking her, she explained as much to Gabriel. “Ta-da!” she finished. “What do you think?”