Allie Hirsch

Valley Catering

Darryl had wanted to call it “Food for Dead People,” but Tina rejected this name on the

basis that one, it was seriously unappetizing, and two, it wasn’t true. “The food isn’t for the dead

people,” she’d said. “Dead people can’t eat. They’re dead. ”

“Maybe it’s not for the dead people, but it’s because of the dead people. You know,” and

here, Darryl had put his feet up on Tina’s mother’s coffee table, “if the people weren’t dead, their

living friends wouldn’t need to hire a caterer.” Tina felt a twitch of annoyance behind her eyes.

My mother will kill you for having your feet up on that table, she almost said, until she

remembered that her mother had advanced dementia and couldn’t even remember what a coffee

table was. This fact made her strangely relieved. Her mother broke her heart by becoming a little

bit less of her mother every day, but at least there was no more yelling.

“All right, all right. No dead people. At least not in the name.” Darryl slid from the

couch onto the floor. “We need something neutral, but meaningful…bland, but memorable.”

“People don’t want something flashy when they’re bereaved,” Tina said. “They want

something simple and solemn.” They went back and forth for a while, until the sun had dipped

low in the Florida sky and they had decided on Valley Catering, after “that prayer they read at

wakes,” said Darryl. “You know, ‘As I walk through the valley of death –‘“

Tina cut in.“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no

evil, for you are with me.’ Psalm 23. I read it at my grandfather’s funeral. You know, ’the Lord is

my shepherd—“

“’I shall not want,’” said Darryl. It was the right name.

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 Tina had met Darryl at the grocery store, in Aisle 16 – International Foods. He had

looked lost and sad, and she had been feeling lost and sad for a while by then, and so she struck

up a conversation about the reliability of the ingredient listing on the back of a shrink-wrapped

chorizo, and he replied with a story about finding a chicken gizzard in his paella while

honeymooning in Barcelona. They continued, back and forth, all around the store, from the

cheese counter (he liked jarlsberg, she liked pecorino romano) to the produce section (she

condemned iceberg lettuce, he lauded praises upon the bok choy), and it was easy, it was easier

than any conversation either of them had ever had. So this is how you meet people, Tina thought.

She hadn’t had a real conversation in months, since she’d moved to Palm Springs from her ex-

fiancee’s hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. And about food! Tina had concluded long

ago, before she’d had to drop out of culinary school, that anyone who loved food like she did

(which was truly and deeply, with her whole heart) was a person worth staying around. She

blushed to see the hunk of pecorino romano in his red mesh basket, and his brown eyes watched

her white hand test the firmness of the bok choy before putting it in her own basket.

After they had made their purchases, they sat in the Starbucks next door but drank no

coffee. Darryl learned that Tina had come down to Florida to take care of her mother, that she

had been a sous chef at an Italian place in Charleston even though she hadn’t had enough money

to stay in school, that her five-year relationship with a wedding photographer had come to an end

just a month after she’d flown south. She learned that he had recently moved from Chappaqua,

where he’d worked as a lawyer, doing mostly wills and estates, and that he had been married but

now he was alone. He’d come down here for a life change, for the warm weather and the scores

of geezers who needed help in cutting Junior out of the will.

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 They were both silent for a while, and then Darryl said slowly, “We should start a

restaurant.” Tina pointed out that she’d been living on unemployment and her mother’s social

security checks. Darryl assured her that he had the money. “We could cook,” he said. “Imagine

being surrounded by food all day, by sauces in shiny copper pans.” The next day, he showed up

with a paper that said that he’d bought a restaurant, an empty space with a kitchen in a strip mall

a few miles away. He had brought the paper to her mother’s apartment and she had answered the

door in her most disgusting pajamas. “You don’t even know if I can cook,” she said. “I dropped

out of culinary school.”

“Get in the car,” he said, motioning to his silver Range Rover. “Let’s go see our

restaurant.”

Darryl, as it turned out, couldn’t really cook. He knew how to do simple things with

expensive ingredients, but everyone can sauté chanterelle mushrooms in truffle oil if they have

the money. Tina could make butter and sugar sing. She could make beefsteak tomatoes taste

delicate, intricate like the patterns in the lace her mother used to crochet. She would bite into a

ripe pear, close her eyes, and instantly imagine it – as a sorbet with figs, sliced between ribbons

of prociutto and dabs of gruyere, shaved as thin as paper and floating in a syrup with raspberries

and spun sugar—even if her kitchen was empty, even if she just had that one pear. She could do

marvelous things with things in cans and freezer bags, with Cool Whip and Wonderbread, Cheez

Whiz and Oscar Mayer. The tastes were in her, they had always been.

More than anything, Tina knew how food could make a person feel. She never

underestimated it. She knew that coconut would always remind her of her father’s birthdays at

the old house in Culpeper, that the bitter taste of tarragon would bring to mind the face of an aunt

who had died in a car crash, who always put that spice in her soups. She also knew that some

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food experiences are universal: that peppermint extract is bottled delight, that dusky dark

chocolate is sex, that butter and cream are home.

Darryl filled the new silver kitchen with food – sacks of flour, packets of spices and vials

of extracts in the cupboards, plump eggplants and oranges and steaks wrapped in wax paper in

the icebox – and Tina began to cook. Although Darryl did not cook well, he had one valuable

gift: he knew when something was perfect. Tina would give Darryl teaspoon after teaspoon of

sauces and soups, waiting for his reaction. When she got something right, his face would light up

and he would close his eyes in a way that made him seem as if he were remembering his own

birth.

Of course, there was no market for the kind of restaurant they had imagined in Palm

Springs. Most of the people who lived there were senior citizens who either lined up for the early

bird special at Denny’s or got their meals fed to them by nurses at the assisted living, and the

others couldn’t afford to go out to eat at all. When, after two months of planning menus and

refinishing the seating area, no one came, Darryl began to get nervous, he confessed to Tina.

“I’ve never really created anything before, and now my first creation is about to die. I don’t

know how to fix this.” He had started biting his nails, and the thumbprints of skin beneath his

eyes were bluish-grey. There were two weeks where they closed the restaurant and didn’t speak

to one another.

After Tina had begun to consider a future for herself that didn’t include copper pans of

sauces, Darryl was at the door of her mother’s apartment with a chorizo in one hand and a bottle

of wine in the other. Tina had been making lunch for her mother, and the apartment was clouded

with the smell of briny cabbage, stuffed with rice and lamb and stewed with tomatoes. She

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introduced her mother to Darryl. Her mother was wearing a light blue bathrobe patterned with

ducks. Her hair had gone gray because she had forgot how to dye it. “Mom, this is Darryl. He’s

the nice man I was going to have the restaurant with.” Tina’s mother looked through Darryl and

smacked her lips twice. Then she opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but

nothing came out besides air. Tina returned to the stove.

Darryl followed her and put an arm around her waist. “What are you making?” he asked

into her ear.

“This is stuffed cabbage. I’m making my mother’s recipes, one after the other. I want her

to feel like I did when she made them for me, when I was growing up.” Tina wiped her hands on

the towel she had draped over one shoulder.

“And how is that?” asked Darryl.

Tina thought for a moment. “Safe, I guess. Protected. I’m also hoping that something will

catch, a smell, a taste, that reminds her of who she is.”

Darryl looked down at the old woman, and then back up at Tina. “Do you want me to

go?” he asked. “I can come back later if you want. I just wanted you to know that I’m still here.”

Tina felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “I know that. You should stay for lunch, there’s

more than enough food. And I have…an idea,” she said, the words spilling out of her mouth too

quickly.

“Well, then.” Darryl grinned and sat down next to her mother at the small table. “A

woman with an idea. I’ve missed your cooking more than I can humanly express.”

Seeing her mother and Darryl sitting together, Tina imagined the conversation they would

be having if her mother had been herself. She would probably start by asking Darryl what his

parents did, and then criticizing their professions (“A doctor? Doctor shmoctor. All they want to

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do is take your money.”) She would then ask Darryl where he had gone to school, and tell a long

winded anecdote about someone she’d known whose cousin’s daughter had gone to that

particular school. After this reminiscence, Tina realized two things. Firstly, she had hated when

her mother had done this to men she’d dated in the past, including her ex-fiancee. And secondly,

she didn’t even know what Darryl’s parents did or where he’d gone to school. Plus, she thought

embarrassedly, she and Darryl weren’t even dating. They were business partners.

After she’d put their dishes in the sink and her mother in front of a game show, Tina

pulled Darryl into her mother’s bedroom to talk. It smelled like urine and talcum powder. She sat

him down on her mother’s bed and told him her idea. After, he opened his mouth to say

something but she interrupted.

“I know that it’s not very glamorous, or, um…whimsical, or romantic,” she said in a

burst. “But I think it’s needed. Here.”

“But a catering company for funerals? Isn’t that a little bit grim?” asked Darryl. “You’ll

have to be around sad people all the time, old people. You’re young. You should be around

something better.”

“All I see is sad old people, Darryl. I live in Florida. I live with my mother, who doesn’t

remember who I am. You are the only person I know who still has all their teeth, who smiles.”

Darryl turned away. Tina hesitantly put her hands on his shoulders. “What if my food makes

them remember why they’re alive?” she said in the tiniest of voices.

Darryl wrapped his arms around her and held her for a while. She couldn’t remember the

last time when someone had completely wrapped her up like this, like a swaddled baby. His

white shirt was scratchy, and he smelled like Lemon Pine Sol. “We can try it,” he said after a

while. “I think I like when you care about something, when you want to save the world.”

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 This is how Tina did it. First she sold everything that they’d bought for the restaurant –

the little wooden tables, the cushioned chairs, the green glass lamps – and rented out the seating

space to a telemarketing company with cubicles in tow. She used the credit card that Darryl had

given her to buy a big white van, and he stenciled it with “Valley Catering” in maroon letters.

Next, she took out a big ad right next to the obituaries, which Darryl had designed on his laptop,

and re-recorded her mother’s answering machine to a somber Valley Catering message. The day

of the ad, she got her first phone call. She was to cater the caller’s grandmother’s funeral, which

was the following Tuesday at the Church of the Pentecost, across town. At the end of the phone

call, she said, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” and the young woman hung up. Tina hung up the

phone carefully, as if it were made of glass.

Tina worried about what she was going to make. Funeral catering was always a rush job,

and the bereaved rarely had a specific menu in mind. She worried until she saw the obituary in

the paper the next morning. She recognized the name instantly: Silvia Greenspoon. She read that

Silvia loved to knit, especially for her grandchildren. Darryl, who had taken to eating breakfast at

her mother’s apartment, had said, “So what?” through his mouthful of French toast.

“That’s all I need to know,” said Tina. Later, in the silver kitchen, she closed her eyes and

imagined the creamiest risotto, its pearly, round grains of rice like woolen sweater stitches,

simmering in a carrot-y sweet chicken broth. She pictured soft, green hills of broccoli, crispy

rounds of bread jeweled with bits of salami and chives. She stirred a golden butternut squash

soup and poured in a thin stream of cream. She cooked in the afternoons, while Darryl watched

reruns of Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud with her mother. The day before the funeral, she

and Darryl went to Target and bought matching black button up shirts and slacks, and at the last

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moment, she saw a rack of pale silk t-shirts to go underneath their black uniforms. “Creamed

spinach for you,” she said, handing him a pale green one, “and creamed corn for me,” she said,

taking a smaller yellow one.

“Who are we,” asked Darryl, “the comfort food police?”

The next day, they packed up the food in giant tubs and carried them out to the big white

van. The drive to the church was silent. Tina could tell that Darryl was nervous. She certainly

was. When they got there, they could still hear singing in the chapel, and they set up the food in a

back room, in the chafing dishes that had been set out by the church. They set out the glasses and

bowls and plates, trying to be as quiet as possible. As the people trickled in from the service,

Tina and Darryl took their places against the wall. She wanted to say something to him, but his

eyes stared ahead, blank. Tina watched the people touch each other on the shoulder, talking in

pairs and in groups, clumping together like stray bits of cotton. It seemed like they liked her

food. They were playing with it, dipping the bread in the soup, swirling the risotto together with

the broccoli. At the end, the woman she’d talked to on the phone came up to her. She couldn’t

have been more than twenty-two or three. “Thank you,” she said, and squeezed Tina’s hand

tightly. For a moment, Tina couldn’t breathe.

In the van ride back to her mother’s apartment, Darryl wouldn’t stop talking. “Tina, I

think you’re right about this food and feelings stuff. Like…you comforted them. You saw what

those people needed and gave it to them.” Tina was distracted and made a wrong turn on the

highway, swore, and pulled over. The sky had opened up and quivering drops of water ran down

the windshield. Tina put the car in park, laid her head down on the steering wheel, and began to

sob. Darryl didn’t say anything, but put a warm hand on the knob between neck and spine, his

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fingers stroking the tiny hairs that grew there. She finished, wiped her nose on the sleeve of her

new black shirt, and drove away. She dropped Darryl off at his Range Rover, which was parked

at the end of her street. Then she went home and laid fully clothed in her bed until it was time to

put her mother to bed. Every muscle in her body was tense, every atom of her being was excited.

Part of her wanted to move forward at a terrifying pace, but the other part just wanted to lie

herself down on a warm bed of basmati rice and go to sleep.

Tina woke up and felt braver and stronger than she had in a while. She called Darryl first

thing in the morning and told him to come to her mother’s apartment. He showed up within

fifteen minutes, expecting breakfast but instead of eggs and hashbrowns spread out on the table

there were obituaries, cut out of the past week’s papers. “This is practice,” Tina said. “I’m going

to come up with a menu for each of their funerals. And you’re going to make sure I get them

right.”

While Darryl cracked eggs into the cut-out centers of whole wheat bread, Tina read out

the obituaries. “Herbert Cooley, Jr., an entrepreneur originally from Tulsa, AZ, expired last night

due to heart failure in his home. He is survived by his wife Enid, his son Howard, and his

grandchildren Howie Jr. and Lucy.” At the table, Tina pursed her lips. “There’s a picture here,

too. That helps more than anything.”

Darryl tipped the eggs onto green plates. “Well?” he asked.

“Hot turkey sandwiches, with gravy, served on sourdough. No, rye. Beet salad with

mandarin oranges in it. Chocolate peanut butter cake for dessert. And…appetizers. Some of those

mushroom puffs.”

“What about spanokopita?” asked Darryl.

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 “Yeah, some of those too,” replied Tina vaguely. She was already onto the next obit.

“Josephine Merloch, mother of three, grandmother of seven, died from kidney disease. She

collected china dolls from all over the world. Her collection’s going to the local museum,”

remarked Tina. Before Darryl could say anything, she proclaimed, “Crepes bar – light and fluffy

with fruit fillings. Strawberry, apple, blueberry. Maybe chocolate for the kids. And…I don’t

know. Something savory.”

“Mini quiches,” said Darryl, his mouth full of food.

“With onions and olives,” Tina said, standing up to get juice. Darryl stood up too, and

placed his hands on her hips. They stood inside the refrigerator, the door with its condiments and

drinks banging into their sides.

“And capers,” he said softly, and before she could say, no, that would overpower

everything, his mouth was on her mouth, and there were bigger things happening than capers

under those white fridge lights.

After they’d been having sex for more than a week, Darryl said that he felt like he had to

tell her the truth. A little woozy and more than a little naked, Tina wished that he would wait at

least until the afterglow had faded. She hadn’t had sex in nearly a year. But Darryl insisted. It

wasn’t fair to her, he said. Tina wrapped herself in a sheet and went to check on her mother, who

was napping, and Darryl got dressed completely, buttoning every button on his pressed plaid

shirt. When she came back in the room, she sat down on the bed and he began to speak. He

talked about how he had come to Florida from New York months ago for a business trip, leaving

his barely pregnant wife behind. The marriage had turned rocky, he said. They couldn’t be in a

room together without fighting.

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 Darryl had been happy to leave New York, but he had always intended on coming back.

Then he had met Tina (and here, his eyes got wide and his face brighter) and she had swept him

up in her life and her food, and he had been unable to return to Chappaqua. He’d created a life

here, first with the unborn restaurant and now with Valley Catering, and he felt as if he couldn’t

tear himself away.

He told her that he wanted her to keep everything, so she could continue the business, and

if she needed more money, he said, it was hers. But he had to go back. His wife was due soon,

and he hadn’t talked to her since he’d left. She’d called him on his cell phone a few times, but he

couldn’t bear to answer or listen to the messages she left him.

“This time with you has been like something out of a happy person’s life. But it can’t last.

I have to go back. I have to go see my wife, my child.”

After all of this, he could barely look at Tina. He kept his eyes down, as if unwilling to

see, in her, the hurt he’d invariably caused to this woman he’d just made love to, vulnerable in

her flushed, sheet-wrapped almost-nudity. But when he looked up at her, there was none there.

“One night after the restaurant fell through, you left your cell phone in the kitchen,” Tina

began. “I answered it. It was your wife. She told me everything that you just told me.” Darryl

looked at her, mouth agape. She continued. “She called again a week later, this time on the

apartment phone.” Tina looked Darryl square in the eyes. “Darryl, your wife had a miscarriage.

She fell down the stairs at your house. She tripped over the cat. She had to take herself to the

hospital.”

Darryl looked as if his face had imploded. His mouth opened and closed, like a fish trying

to breath dry air. “But…why…why didn’t you say anything?”

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 “I thought that you would know. I thought you would be able to sense it – your wife

heartbroken, your child…gone.” Darryl could not speak.

“I wanted to see how long it would take you,” she said. Tina was not weak in her cotton

sheet. She was strong, stronger than capers. She could never let anything overpower her.

“How long it would take me to do what?” asked Darryl angrily. He was grabbing his coat

off the couch, jamming his shoes on his feet. She smiled in slow motion, got up and grabbed a

picnic basket from the fridge. Inside was mango-chicken salad, a thin baguette with jarlsberg

baked into the crust, cucumber soup in a tupperware, lemon squares wrapped in wax paper, and

just one spanokopita triangle.

“To leave,” said Tina. And without looking back, he did.

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