Shared Experiences

Page heard the noises coming from the kitchen, but she didn’t consider them particularly important. The only sounds that mattered to her were those that came from her tablet or from her baby brother. At seven-years-old, she could unconsciously prioritize one sense over others. Doubt and paranoia had not yet replaced wonder and imagination.

Clank. Ping.

Tia, the nanny, heard it as well. But for her, the noises were too intentional to ignore. She was middle-aged and had long outgrown wonder and sadly her imagination had been replaced by paranoia. She blamed her parents for filling her with superstitions and regret. It is what happened to young Mexican girls whose breasts developed before they had outgrown their clumsy feet.

Page was sitting at her father’s desk in the study. The French doors were open and she was practicing her role as heir to the wealth that surrounded her. The baby was asleep upstairs, a monitor listening in to his every sound. Tia was stretched out on the sofa in the front room, rubbing her fingers across the silk fabric and counting the folds in the linen curtains. It was her first break of the day and she had slipped off her leather shoes.

The sounds were not sounds that she had heard before. Not in all the years she had worked in the house. They were metallic and dull and came from an empty kitchen.  

Finally, letting out a sigh of regret, Tia rose to investigate. She shuffled past the cherry wood table in the dining room and the matching China cabinet with beveled glass doors and hand-carved filigree, still trying to squeeze her swollen feet into her shoes. She pressed the palm of her hand against the enameled kitchen door and pushed it open a crack. At the stove was a woman. She was as aged and worn as the robe she wore.   

Tia thought for a moment that the woman might be her grandmother. It was a reasonable assumption. Her grandmother had been the matron of the family and had spent most of her days at the stove. But it was equally fantastic, she realized. Her grandmother would never have cooked in a robe. What’s more, she had been dead for many years.   

Page came up beneath Tia and leaned in under her elbow to get a peek.

“Who’s that?” Page croaked.

“Sssh!” whispered Tia. “¿Quién sabe?”

“Why is she here?

“¿Quién sabe? I don’t know”

“Aren’t you supposed to do something?”

“We need cuidado.”

“Why?” After years of living with Tia, Page understood more Spanish than she let on.

“We need to be careful. If she is sleeping, we cannot wake her.”

“She’s cooking grilled cheese,” Page said, with certainty.

There was indeed the sweet smell of sizzling butter in the air.

The old woman turned as if she were waiting for Tia and Page. “It’s ready. Cooked just the way you like it.”

Page could see, even at distance, that the bread was brown, but still moist, the cheese melted and oozing from between the slices of bread. Where it had dripped down and puddled on the frying pan it had transformed into a dark, crispy Brulé. That was the best part. The secret ingredient. She would struggle to explain to others later in her life how much she loved grilled cheese. They would say it was boring, proletarian. But she, who had been raised by a Mexican nanny and spent holidays on the Costa del Sol or the Black Sea and now held positions of responsibility and influence, knew differently. She knew that when it was cooked right, it had the flavor and texture that the great chefs longed to impart to their own works.

“Come, sit. It’s best right now,” the old woman said.

The smell of the sandwich was enough to overcome Page’s doubt. But Tia had further was to go. She had to overlook the fact that her grandmother never cooked grilled cheese. It was not Mexican. Maybe a quesadilla with melted cheese between two tortillas. For that she would have boiled a whole chicken in water seasoned with onions, tomatillos, salt and pepper. Then separated the meat from the breastbone with a fork, laid it out on the tortillas before finally adding the grated cheese. She would never have used sliced white bread.

Tia heard the baby mew and whimper through the monitor in the living room. She was afraid to leave Page with the old woman, but if she didn’t get to the baby before he was fully awake, he would begin to cry. Page had already pushed past her and taken a seat at the kitchen table. The old woman lifted the sandwich on a spatula and dropped it down on a plate in front of Page. Tia raced upstairs to get the baby. When she returned, Page had nearly finished the sandwich and the old woman was busy cooking a second.

“Was it good?” the old woman asked Page.

“Yes. Thank you.” She had been trained to be polite to strangers. Page looked at Tia as if to ask her what she should do now. Tia shrugged her shoulders, still trying to see her grandmother in the old woman.

“Abuelita,” Tia said, with some reticence in her voice. “Why are you wearing a robe?”

“It’s my evening gown,” the old woman replied. “Emilio loves when I wear it. He’s taking me to Sweet’s Ballroom to dance tonight. After I feed you. His friends will be jealous. They’ll ask to dance with me, but Emilio will send them away. He just wants to show people how much I love him. Xavier Cugat. The royalty. Count and Duke. They all play at Sweet’s. It’s where we met. The first time I wore this gown.”

She had finished the second grilled cheese sandwich and put it on a plate for Tia.

“Who is she?” Page asked Tia.

“Ask her,” Tia replied, nodding towards the old woman.

Page shook her head. She was afraid to break the spell. It was powerful enough to allow each of them to suspend reason and to enjoy the moment and a perfectly cooked grilled cheese sandwich.

Tia went to change the baby’s diaper and dress him. She picked out a blue onesie with snap buttons and white butterflies circling his plump belly. When she returned to the kitchen the old woman was telling Page how to she will prune the roses at the end of the growing season, after the first chill.

The four of them spent the afternoon together. Page wondered when things would return to normal, but she was grateful for the attention she received from the old woman. Tia was now comfortable calling her abuela and even experienced a sense of pride when she told the old woman that the beautiful Victorian house on this narrow tree-lined street near Merritt Lake was hers. She had the old woman hold the baby while she vacuumed the hallway rug and collected the mail. He fell fast asleep in her arms. But, then, he had taken a whole bottle of formula.

Just before Page’s parents came home from work and before anyone made the mistake of questioning their own motivations, a police officer came to the door. He was searching for a woman who had walked away from her caregivers a few blocks away. Tia pretended to not understand his English, but she knew he was talking about her abuela. Page hid behind the couch, afraid she might tell a lie. But the old woman came to the door herself and told the officer that her husband would not want her to dance with him and he needed to leave. But he didn’t. Instead, he broke the spell that had held them all together and as he walked her down the wooden steps of the great house to the police car all that was left of it was the sweet smell of melted butter.