She recommends a light-bodied white wine, unless, of course, her motivation
for serving you soup is that your digestive system is irritable or you are recovering from a cold or the flu. Then alcohol is taboo because it compromises the immune system, lowering one’s defenses rather much as it does in all other situations in life. Assuming wine is not unwise, her choices are Chablis or Pinot Grigio. If you are in the mood for a slightly fuller bodied wine, a dry Chardonnay such as Cakebread or Sonoma-Cutrer is a fine idea.
Chapter 4
Meanwhile, Scarpetta had meals of her own to prepare at her mother’s Miami home. The weather there was considerably different from Richmond’s on this second day of the New Year The sun was warm enough to sit outside, and after falling asleep several times in a lawn chair near the dead key lime tree in the backyard, Scarpetta was infected by the guilt she always felt when dealing with her mother The grass was so thick it almost did not give beneath Scarpetta’s weight when she walked across it, heading inside.
“Mother?” she called out.
There was no answer, and Sinbad, who was both sinful and bad, tangled himself in Scarpetta’s feet. The cat was a cross-eyed hybrid Siamese and knew Scarpetta did not like him and never had. Thus, Sinbad was overly attentive.
“Please move.
Scarpetta nudged the cat out of the way. He was purring loudly.
“Mother?” she called out again. “Sinbad, now I mean it, goddamn it!”
The kitchen counter was spotless, the sink empty of dishes, because of Scarpetta’s guilt. She opened the refrigerator as the toilet flushed down the hail.
“Mother? What do you want for dinner tonight? Sinbad, I’m warning you!”
“Don’t yell at the cat!” yelled Mrs. Scarpetta, who was very old and languishing in bad health, as she had been for years.
“I’m going to the store, I guess,” Scarpetta said to the empty hallway as water ran in the bathroom sink and a cabinet door slammed shut.
“Get toilet paper,” Mrs. Scarpetta yelled again.
“What about Dorothy?”
“What about her?”
“Is she going to eat with us?” Scarpetta hoped the answer was no.
The loud talk went on as her mother carried the conversation into her bedroom and Sinbad butted Scarpetta’s leg.
“I think she has a date,” Mrs. Scarpetta replied, adding one more detail. “I told her to bring him by.”
Sinbad bit Scarpetta’s left ankle. She did not kick him hard, but made her point. Scarpetta drove her mother’s Toyota to the local Winn-Dixie, and at times like these she knew how easily she could pick up smoking again. In fact, she experienced unbearable lust as she passed racks of Marlboros, Salems, Dunhills. She would cook a bad mood meal.
SCARPETTA’S BAD MOOD SHOPPING
This always involves pasta, because a requirement on such occasions is to prepare a dish that consumes Scarpetta’s energy, emotions, and attention. She moved with purpose through the dairy section and bought a carton of large eggs, opening the top to make certain none were broken. One was, and she excavated until she had better luck, carefully setting the eggs inside her cart. She searched for a wedge of Parmesan cheese.
She added a two-pound bag of all-purpose flour to her groceries, and next spent studious minutes in the produce section. Around her, people were speaking Spanish and Portuguese. Many were buying plantains, pineapples, papayas, hines, leeks, green chiles, and pimentos. Scarpetta was interested in garlic, broccoli, shallots, asparagus, carrots, basil, and zucchini. She could have added heavy cream to this dish, and meat, such as chicken or prosciutto, but a rich, high calorie supper would only have further darkened the gathering storm clouds inside her. Although she was not inclined to please her mother at this moment, she remembered the toilet paper. Last, she bought a sixpack of Buckler non-alcoholic beer, knowing full well that Scotch, Irish whiskey, or wne would make her depressed or curt.
Most of the drive home was spent on West Flagler Street behind a red Plymouth Horizon with a license plate dangling by a twisted coat hanger. A side window was broken out and covered with a square of cardboard; the car was obviously stolen, as were so many in Miami. Scarpetta would have gotten far away from it had traffic permitted. A Mercedes with purple-tinted glass almost rear-ended her at the next traffic light, and a Porsche gunned past a Jeep, both drivers making obscene gestures at each other and screaming in foreign languages. The sun was directly in Scarpetta’s eyes.