How do you, a married woman, justify looking up an old flame?
Well, it’s never justifiable. But specifically, how does Judith Toomey Whitman, the protagonist of Tom McNeal’s novel, To Be Sung Underwater, justify it?
Does the fact that her husband constantly works late do it? And that his comely secretary always appears in these “work late” scenes?
To Be Sung jumps back and forth between Judith’s current life and The Summer of Willy Blunt. Current life includes her job as a movie editor; her husband, Malcolm, who does nothing objectionable except that bit about working late; and her teenaged daughter, Camilla, who resents her mother’s own long hours, not to mention the Bible-loving nanny, the “unwanted chaperone, the paid informant,” her mother hired to look after her.
Judith’s past includes bouncing between her separated parents, eventually deciding that she preferes living with Dad in rural Nebraska.
Which is where Judith meets Willy Blunt.
“It seems the romantic phase of your life has stolen up on us, Judith,” says her father when Willy calls for a dinner date. “I pray to God you’ve assembled the tools with which to defend yourself.”
Her moments with Willy offer a magic that can’t be found elsewhere. “Gradually a space of water toward the middle of the lake took on a kind of preternatural illumination. Willy noticed it, too, and as they moved silently toward it, Judith felt as if they’d found a secret passage into an exquisite painting. When they slipped into the sunlight, Willy switched the motor off, and for a moment it seemed as if the entire world had stopped turning.”
Oh, but things are never that perfect, are they?
Of course, if you’re really going to pursue that old flame, you’re gonna need to lie. “She had written a few talking points on a card . . . She covered the phone and to no one at all said loudly, ‘Okay! Okay!’ then, back into the phone: I’ve got to go, but don’t worry about me. Calling from here is an unbelievable nightmare so I probably won’t call again.”
And then, there’s the matter of time and age. The Willy of yesterday was buff and confident. Today’s Willy is . . .
Well, read McNeal’s book and find out for yourself.
But I will say this: When I faced my thirty-year high school reunion, I was dying with curiosity. What did everybody look like now? I started watching people at my local grocery store, my local Kohl’s. My stars! Is that bald, ponytailed hippy on a motorcycle my age? That grandmother carrying an extra 80 lbs.?
Now, I’m creeping up on my fortieth. I should just shield my eyes.
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Here’s a better way to re-kindle the past:
When my daughter finished her mission in Belgium, we dropped a whole bunch of money and flew over there to retrieve her.
She showed us around, introduced us to people, and led us to one of her favorite lunch places. This is where we tried Belgium’s version of the Doner Kebab.
You can find Doner Kebabs at any Turkish or Middle Eastern diner. But they aren’t like Belgium’s Doner Kebabs. Oh, no, they get it all wrong, ha!
Anyway, the memory of that lunch wafts through my head like memories of Willy Blunt through Judith’s, and I’ve been dying to recreate it. The hard part is the sauce. My daughter said she’d never seen anything like it and didn’t know what to call it.
But we recently cracked that mystery.
Behold!: (This is a still from video. Catch the rest here.)
DONER KEBABS
10 Tortillas, burrito size
Breast meat from 1 Rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 recipe Andalouse sauce (it’s a lot like fry sauce)
1 large order French fries
Tomatoes, lettuce
For each serving, lay 2 oz of chicken down the center of a tortilla. Spread with 1 oz. Andalouse sauce. Add about 2 oz. of french fries. Garnish with lettuce and tomato, if you like. Then roll up and eat.
The Andalouse recipe includes instructions for making fries, or “frites,” but I couldn’t be bothered real potatoes and messy oil. Obviously, I didn’t want to cook my own chicken either. I just wanted to know, in a hurry, if it tasted like what we ate in Belgium.
It did!!!
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