Apron Anxiety Read online

  I cherished my girlfriends, who, much like me, were good kids with a splash of the devil inside. Our late-night hangout was the Lil Peach parking lot; Lil Peach being what New Yorkers would call a bodega. There we rolled joints, stole Blow Pops, listened to 10,000 Maniacs, and perfected the art of female bonding. We were obsessed with boys, of course, but no one came before one another. Anzo and my other closest friend, Kates, had colossal appetites. Nothing got them more revved up than a night at Rube’s (Ruby Tuesday). I have never seen such pretty girls who were such glorious pigs. I stuck with the salad bar, simply because I barely knew how to approach things like twice-baked potato skins and blue-cheese buffalo chicken wings.

  When I wasn’t busy with Rube’s or my boobs, I was writing for the Springfield Union-News (now the Springfield Republican). After a few dozen submissions to their youth-oriented section, “Unlisted,” they assigned me a weekly column about honest, if clichéd, high-school issues like the temptation to drink and drive, and getting asked to the prom by the last person you’d want to go with. Unsurprisingly, I found it easy to be so open. In real life or in print, there was nothing I was uncomfortable talking about. All my aunts, uncles, and friends’ parents clipped my articles and pinned them up on their fridges. They all told me that I would be a famous writer. My mom, dad, and sister were my trusted editors. It all felt so good, and confirmed what I had known my whole life: I would go to college in New York City and become a professional journalist.

  Whether I was writing about it or living it, our kitchen table was the headquarters of boy problems and girl talk. It was the estrogen center of Western Massachusetts as far as my clique was concerned. My less-than-prude core posse, Anzo, Kates, Court, and Jean, loved confiding in my open-minded mother—who was half Joan Baez, half Jewish intellectual—over good cries and comfort food. During our hours and hours of deep thoughts and confessions, my good-natured dad kept himself fake-busy in the yard, and my sister would hide in her room because my funny, filthy friends freaked her out. The girls were fixated on a pasta dish my mother made that we called the Pasta. It’s light and clean, with thick spaghetti, fresh tomatoes, a touch of garlic, and a sprinkle of cheese; we would inhale it like wildebeests. At school, the girls pleaded for it through our rampant note-passing, which, among other much more vulgar topics, always included, “Tell Laur to make the Pasta tonight.”

  Our absolute favorite place to hang, however, was Jean’s big, antique house in the center of town. Jean Rogér was the most popular girl at Longmeadow High School. She was the star of the swim team who could out-party anyone, a straight-A student who skipped most of her classes, and a beautiful girl who was way beyond appearances. Every day before the first bell rang, she would perch alone in the cafeteria, with her long legs and short hair, breezily slicing her bagel and buttering it in the same circular motion morning after morning. Jeanie and her bagel were like clockwork. She’d quietly read the paper or pleasantly engage with anyone who excitedly walked her way. Even the teachers were drawn to her dazzling yet totally disarming energy. “Jeanie has it all,” my mother would always say.

  What made Jean even cooler was her mom. Punky Rogér was (and still is) a cig-smoking, golf-playing country clubber with a good marriage and a vibrant social life. Our teenage hearts would sing when she stayed home to hang around with us, in her clunky, rose-gold jewels that dangled over her tanned, slender frame. Around the holidays, Punky always made these round, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls called Buckeyes, and when we weren’t stealing her Barclay 100’s, playing her Jimmy Buffet records, or learning to drive stick on her old BMW, we were pounding dozens of them.

  While Jean’s family and their social circle, which included most of my other friends’ parents, were “old-money chic”—cocktails, nicotine, and khakis—my family was the absolute opposite. My father drinks two beers a year, if that, and my mother never touches the stuff. My friends’ families summered in beach houses in places like Hilton Head and Nantucket; we visited old tombstones in New York City. They skied and sailed; we played Scrabble and saw off-Broadway plays.

  Needless to say, there wasn’t much intermingling between my parents and the Rogérs’ crowd, but there was a mutual fondness. My mother was Annie Hall to their Ann Taylor. She never cared one bit about fitting in. It was almost like she was empowered by being an outsider. The strong women who were my friends’ mothers truly respected that Mom, the only one who had never been to “the club” for gossip, gin ’n’ tonics, or golf lessons, marched to her own beat in such a quietly rebellious way. Of course, they also knew how much she adored their daughters.

  Five years after graduating from high school, with all of us girls scattered around the East Coast and enjoying our twenties, the events of September 11 happened. My mother called just as I saw the first black suit jacket flapping through the sky, not too many blocks down. Trying to process what the hell was going on and praying that everyone I knew who worked in lower Manhattan was okay, I just couldn’t pick up the phone at that moment. It didn’t occur to me to worry about anyone not living in the city. Until Mom called again, and I heard her voice.

  She could barely say the words: “Jeanie was on that plane.”

  She loved that girl.

  Everyone did.

  Following Jean’s death, my friends from Longmeadow, including their siblings and parents, became cemented as the most important people in my life, outside my own family. We pulled together that year and have remained tightly interlocked ever since. There is no friendship like the one born in youth and forged in tragedy.

  I think back to my childhood all the time, and as most people would say, the memories always take me to the kitchen table—telling secrets to my mother, sipping cauliflower soup with my dad and sister, or scarfing down the Pasta with my lifelong best friends. And sometimes, the memories bring me back to a buttered bagel, too.

  The Pasta

  SERVES 6

  When I was growing up, my mother made this meal at least once a week and I never got tired of it. This simple dish is fresh, healthy, and very much her. It is my happy childhood incarnate. We always ate the pasta al dente, but that’s only because we insatiable teenagers were too impatient to wait. Add a salad or crusty bread for a lovely meal.

  4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  1 clove garlic, minced

  4 teaspoons chopped fresh basil

  1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for salting pasta water

  4 medium tomatoes, diced or sliced

  1 pound spaghetti, or bucatini if you’re being fancy

  ½ to 1 cup (or less if you’d like) freshly grated mozzarella or Romano cheese

  ½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

  Place a large pot filled with water over high heat. Bring to a boil.

  Meanwhile, heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until tender. Stir in the basil and salt. Toss in the tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes, or until they soften.

  Throw a generous pinch of salt into the boiling water. Add the pasta, stir, and cook according to the package instructions. Taste a piece of pasta toward the end of the cooking. When it’s done, drain it and return it to the pot. Add the grated mozzarella and the tomato mixture to the pot. Stir gently for about 3 minutes, until the cheese melts.

  Transfer the pasta into bowls. Sprinkle some Parmigiano over each bowl and serve.

  Punky Rogér’s Buckeyes

  MAKES ABOUT 60 BALLS

  There are so many things I remember about Jean Rogér—how she loved to laugh and dance, her aversion to anything catty, and how totally comfortable she was in her own skin. I’ll also always remember the chocolate-dipped peanut butter candies I’d devour at her house, with their supernatural aura of “how the other half lives.” Her incredible mother, Punky, tells me these sweet treats are supposed to resemble the nuts of a buckeye tree, but all I really know is that they taste like the holidays in Longmeadow, and remind me of the friend I’ll never forget.
r />   1½ cups creamy peanut butter

  8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

  ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

  3 cups confectoners’ sugar

  4 cups good-quality semisweet chocolate chips

  2 teaspoons vegetable shortening

  In a large bowl (or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment), combine the peanut butter, butter, and vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar until it is well mixed.

  Prepare a large plate, or a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper. Using your hands, roll the mixture into round balls the size of strawberries and place them on the prepared plate. Stick a toothpick (to be used as a handle) in each of the balls. Place the plate in the freezer and let chill for about 30 minutes, until the balls have set.

  When the balls are firm, melt the chocolate chips and shortening in the top of a double boiler, stirring frequently, until smooth. If you don’t have a double boiler, fill a small saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Reduce it to a simmer and set a heatproof bowl that fits tightly into the top of the pot. Proceed with melting the chocolate and shortening in the bowl as described above.

  Holding a peanut butter ball by the toothpick, dip it in the melted chocolate. Leave a little bit of the peanut butter showing at the top of each ball. Place the finished buckeyes on a cooling rack. (The chocolate may drip, so you might want to protect your counter with paper or foil under the rack for quicker cleanup.) Gently remove the toothpicks and smooth over the holes. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until the balls are set, before serving.

  The buckeyes can be stored in the refrigerator or in a tightly sealed tin on the counter. They make beautiful holiday gifts.

  2.

  Life on Fire

  Growing up, some young girls wish for ponies, Prince Charming, or perfectly symmetrical C-cups. Not me. Growing up, I only wanted New York. To be precise: I wanted Greenwich Village. I wanted the subway. I wanted struggle. I wanted culture. I wanted action. Therefore, the only thing I really cared about in picking a college was that it got me there.

  Mischievous as always, I found a back door into Columbia University through a joint program with the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I ended up with two bachelor of arts degrees, one from Columbia and another from JTS. Applying to the joint program made it a little easier to get accepted into an Ivy League school because they wanted well-qualified Jewish students who were willing to take the double course load.

  Once you got in, it was pretty much all the same. Even the elitists knew that with the killer syllabi, getting by was no picnic, not even a kosher one. Still, my Ivy League friends will now see that I am not exactly one of them. They probably had a hunch. I don’t quote Plato or Sylvia Plath. I sleep through foreign films and primary elections. Howard Stern is my NPR. I am sure that to them I sort of smelled like state school.

  When my parents dropped me off on the Upper West Side campus, they managed to keep it together, relatively speaking. I’m pretty sure I heard my mom repeating to herself, “You give your kids roots to grow and wings to fly … You give your kid roots to grow and wings to fly …,” as she made up my bed with new flannel sheets and filled my fridge with strawberries and grapefruit. As for my own separation anxiety, I had none. Because I’ve always been so close to my family emotionally, it was never hard for me to be away from them. I’ll admit that it was rough seeing my dad a little frazzled though. And I purposely asked Rach to stay home because that was one good-bye I couldn’t bear. Before my parents took off, we played “the trick,” which is a Shelasky tool that makes leaving one another a lot easier. We sing “See ya tomorrow!” with as much joy and enthusiasm as we can find under the big, fat lumps in our throats, walk away without looking back, and then sob in a fetal position for a few horrible moments. After that, we’re usually fine.

  Independence came easy. I was ecstatic about living in New York, but instantly had buyer’s remorse about being trapped in the Jewish dorms and kosher cafeterias (which was part of the deal) and spending half my time studying all the theological rigmarole. I’ve always loved being Jewish—I grew up going to synagogue regularly and had fifteen amazing summers at the hamisha Camp Ramah, several pilgrimages to Israel, plus one awful trip to Auschwitz. I can read and speak Hebrew, I don’t eat pork, and I even lost my virginity on a kibbutz. Yet I’ve never been religious. My closest friends from home weren’t Jewish, nor were the boys I liked. I believe in God, but never wanted, or needed, to flesh him, or her, out. So the whole thing just felt way too restricting. And to me, well, lame.

  On the other hand, down the street at Columbia, where the brainy student body was definitely more eclectic, I dreaded having to reveal my joint-program status to potential new friends, so I kept to myself there as well. I should have been proud to be part of something so rigorous, but I was hung up on being in an academically “inferior” breed. It embarrassed me. If I were more mature, or able to laugh off the insanity of me shuffling back and forth from Sociology of Punk Rock Youth to Yiddish 101, it might have been an okay situation. But I resented everything JTS-affiliated, and felt overwhelmingly “less than” lingering around the Columbia campus.

  I had only one close friend: Annie, a high-spirited sweetheart from Akron, Ohio, who called soda “pop” and sneakers “tennies.” She was also in the joint program, but much more secure with it than I was. She loved socializing around the dorms, but I was totally disinterested in Shabbat dinners, sing-alongs, and any of that Kumbaya shit. So I spent most of my time alone.

  My family visited me every few weeks, lugging pots of frozen chicken soup, totes spilling over with nectarines and peanut butter, and suitcases stuffed with all my favorite junk food. Even while I was in college, Mom took care of my kitchen. Despite the over-the-top food shipments, which I always gladly accepted, my weight dropped to the point where my parents and sister became concerned. They had an underlying fear that I was developing an eating disorder, but I adamantly denied that I was struggling with any deep-rooted body-image issues. The real subtext of my food aversion had to do with tension and nerves. This was the first time in my life I felt unsettled. And it’s how my body would function for years to follow: when I’m unhappy, I have no appetite. The first sign I’m a wreck is when my jeans ride low.

  It was not the time of my life as college is meant to be, but I channeled my mother, who wouldn’t give a summa cum laude about having friends, or the perils of fitting in, and by sophomore year, I joined the one sorority I knew I belonged to: the sorority of New York City. I landed an internship at MTV News and hung out at the headquarters as much as possible, even if it meant bringing cappuccinos to Kurt Loder’s loft and sucking up to the hot anchor of the moment, Alison Stewart, who refused to remember my first name. It was the unfriendliest working environment, but the egos and attitudes made me feel very cool, and I welcomed it all with pleasure.

  I also juggled a hostess job at a gritty Upper West Side nightclub, where I got harassed by the coked-up manager and groped by married patrons. The scene was pretty seedy, but it tickled my attraction to trouble. Riding the subway home at four o’clock in the morning after having to French kiss the boss for a paycheck was demoralizing, dangerous, and so much more exciting than school.

  My only significant boyfriend during this time was a guy named Jesse, a handsome and brooding scholar who went to Columbia (by way of Beverly Hills), and who communicated so esoterically that I never knew what he was saying. So, we let our bodies do the talking. This, along with all my time-consuming jobs, got me to graduation (though I didn’t go). Jesse and I ultimately broke up because he was on a crazy intellectual binge that I couldn’t even pretend to understand, but we remained exceptionally close friends. I didn’t want any attachments then anyway. The moment college was over I would be free to be me. And by this time, “me” meant a bona fide city chick. Hardened, hot, and bothered.

  Unchained from school, my confidence soared as I conquered the city, at least i
n the wide eyes of a twenty-something wannabe writer. I rented a tiny studio off Central Park, quit my MTV and nightclub jobs, and started freelancing for multiple advertising agencies and PR firms. I wrote whatever they needed on topics ranging from gastric bypass surgery to prison reform. And because I wanted an employee discount, I also created a “publicity manager” job for myself at the stunning home furnishings empire ABC Carpet & Home, absorbing everything I could about design and architecture while browsing cassis-scented candles and pineapple-shaped chandeliers. On weekends, I waitressed at the ebullient, uptown café Sarabeth’s. Every hour of my week seemed to be occupied by one job or another, which was totally fine because I didn’t have many friends from college, and my true pals—Anzo, Kates, Court, and Jean—were still living in Massachusetts. So the hustle and bustle became my life.

  On my twenty-first birthday I splurged on a low-cut leopard-print Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress from Saks Fifth Avenue, and my sister threw a party for me, inviting all my acquaintances from my various workplaces to a groovy tiki lounge. I made her invite a bunch of her friends, too, as space-fillers, just in case. That night, about sixty people showed up; I felt like the star of my own movie. “Sorry, Lys, but you really can’t say you have no friends anymore,” toasted Rachel. Then, under a plastic palm tree, over a rum punch, Rachel introduced me to Gary, a great-looking guy with big green eyes and a starter job on Wall Street. He reminded me of my dad—not as playful and funny, but similarly good and honest. He was definitely on the square side, but he became my first serious postcollege boyfriend.