Burning the Strawberry

You have to understand that Mitchell’s mom was very precise. If you bought her a present, you needed to be sure that the tape you used to wrap the gift wasn’t simply your average Scotch Tape, or (god forbid) some generic clear packing tape you had left over from mailing a box of homemade cookies to your nana. You needed to use the actual made-for-present-wrapping "magic" tape. And believe me, you’d better have bought her the proper present. For every occasion. Birthday, obviously. Mother’s Day, natch. But also her anniversary, and her half-birthday, and whenever you came to visit. Hostess gifts were a big part of her life.

She kept score.

In order to make the biscuits fluffy, use the highest quality flour.

Mitchell’s mom lived in a shoes-off house. White carpet. White sofa. White on white on white. You minced when you came to her house. You tiptoed. 

My beau had warned me ahead of time. He’d said, “My mom is a little … extra, but she’ll love you.”

She did not love me.

She didn’t even like me.

Choose firm berries. Cut the tops off the strawberries. Then ever so carefully slice the berries into quarters.

She was one of those mothers for whom nobody will ever be good enough for their son. But also I was especially not good enough. She liked blondes, I’d heard, but did not like bottle blondes, brassy blondes, stand-on-a-street-corner blondes, which is what she called me behind my back. I overheard her one day sniping on the phone to her sister Sheila. “I don’t know what he sees in that street-corner blonde.”

“Street-corner blonde” became my avatar name on all my socials. It’s what my bff started calling me. I’d never thought of myself as a hussy before. Now I did.

For six months, I lived with the way she wrinkled her nose at me when I brought a hostess gift that wasn’t up to her standards. If I brought jam, she would have preferred jelly. If I brought jasmine, she really liked roses better. If I brought homemade crumb cake, it was rustic, but she said the word like someone else might say inedible. Rrrustic. So that her front teeth jutted a little bit. And her upper lip curled into a sneer. It made her look like a rodent.

I wouldn’t have cared, except Mitchell did.

The peaches have to be fresh and bursting, but with no visible bruises.

I’ve got thick skin. If I don’t care what my own family thinks of my aesthetic decisions, I sure as heck didn’t care what my boyfriend’s mom thought. But I did my best for Mitchell, because I kind of liked him. We’d met in one of those wild, wacky ways. Meet cute? Yeah, we did. I’d bought a bag of sweet potatoes at the local organic market, and they’d gotten away from me in the parking lot, and he’d yelled, “Incoming tubers!” and grabbed up as many as he could.

He had green eyes and freckles, and he didn’t mind my crazy apartment with all the spider plants, and he seemed to get on with my trilogy of cats (the three mouseketeers) just fine. The only problem we ever had was about his mom.

Whip the cream ahead of time and let sit.

I tamed my wild curls. I toned down my aggressive t-shirts. I took out the “f” “u” earrings. I tried to play nice.

Mitchell’s mother made desserts as a hobby, a pastime. They defined her. Her favorite was one called Strawberry Bridges, which was basically a peach cobbler of sorts with fresh strawberries criss-crossing the top. She had inherited the recipe, and it was kept in a special drawer, along with her mother’s engagement ring that I overheard her saying to Sheila I was never going to wear, as long as she was alive.

Nor would I have. Just because there’s a diamond doesn’t make it classy. I’d wear a cigar band for the right guy.

I tried to talk to Mitchell about the way his mama treated me, but he brushed off my concerns. He said I was overreacting. He said it was only every Sunday night for dinner, and special occasions, and make-believe special occasions. He said if I truly loved him, I’d love her. That she was an acquired taste, like the Strawberry Bridges, which had some strange unidentifiable spice that made your mouth pucker. Was in cumin?

Who puts cumin on peaches?

I would shave my pits before we went to her house. I would buff my Docs. But no matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough.

She looked at my handmade purse and said she might have an old leather one of hers she could give me, that I shouldn’t go out like a ragamuffin. Big smile then, to show she cared.

When I came wearing my best dress, she offered a cardigan for a coverup, absolutely wincing as she said the words.

I tried my best with the hostess gifts. I even brought her fresh strawberries for one of her bridges. I had bought them at a farm stand. They were immediately deemed too small. She said she liked the bigger ones. I made whipped cream. Too fluffy, she said. She liked hers denser.

Bake in a pre-heated over at 350 for 40 minutes, and not a minute less nor a minute more.

Then on one of the made-up holidays when I brought peonies instead of pansies and my perfume was deemed pedestrian and windows were opened to air me out, I had just about had enough.

I was coming out of her powder room, after ever so carefully tapping the tips of my fingers dry on her prissy tiny little towels, and I heard Mitchell saying to her, “After dessert. I promise.”

And I realized in that way one does that he was going to break up with me.

She patted him on the shoulder and said she knew the perfect girl for him. A real blonde. Someone with a pedigree. As if her heart was set on him dating a poodle.

I know I didn’t even have to pretend to be quiet. But in stockinged feet, I slid into the kitchen where I very carefully turned the oven to 500, and I took my homemade crocheted handbag with the fringe, tied up my Docs, and left through the back door as the first whiff of hot strawberries filled the air.