The August heat squeezed between my husband and me like the third person on a date. Holding hands and sipping Cokes, we plodded through our annual visit to the state fair. We trudged through the barns and the pens. Climbed on tractors, looked at cows and then sheep. Humidity glued tee shirts to midsections, defeating our efforts to conceal muffin top and paunch. Comfort trumped dignity on state fair days – it laid bare spidery veins, wrinkly knees, and wiggly arms.

Ben held his ice-filled cup against his forehead. “Ready for the goats? They’re next up.”

A bead of sweat traced a path down my nose.

“No. Let’s find some A.C.”

“Right behind you, Puddin’ Cake.” He patted my rear, and I was twenty again, that magical age before gravity got personal.

We slipped into the nearest building with glass double doors, not caring what might lurk inside. Cold air blasted us. We soaked it up for a moment and then drifted toward a nearby crowd.

Ben grabbed my arm. “Watch out.”

I sidestepped a tortoise the size of a footstool. It retreated into its shell, leaving only the point of its snout visible … and leaving me wondering what on earth it was doing there.

We edged closer to the front. A pre-teen boy held court behind a conference-sized table. A terrarium on the table was crawling with tree frogs the color of lime sherbet. The boy reached in and offered the frogs to the crowd, like hors d’oeuvres. He held one in my direction.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe if I do this I won’t scream the next time a toad shows up while I’m weeding.”

“Yeah, he’ll just sit in your hand.” He placed the cute little critter in my palm. The frog, unaware of the rules, crept toward my elbow.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. It’s moving. I feel its claws.”

“Lady, hold your arm level, and he’ll sit still.”

I did. The frog did not. It headed toward my face, onto which, if I didn’t take evasive action, it would spew chartreuse slime that would have to be removed with Ben’s power sander.

My voice climbed an octave – “It’s still going” – for every centimeter the demon scaled. “Get it off!”

Somebody screamed. I couldn’t tell if it was the frog or me. But boy rescued beast just in time to save it from a lethal dousing of Coke.

Onlookers smirked. Ben nudged me toward a neighboring table. Five-gallon jars sat on top of it, with signs attached. Mexican Redkneed Tarantulas. Hissing Cockroaches from—.

“Good Lord!”

At the far end of the table, a man chatted with spectators, while a massive snake—an eight-foot albino boa constrictor, according to a nearby sign—twisted itself around his outstretched arms.

A woman standing next to me pointed to the boa. “Is it poisonous?”

“No, no. Do you want to hold her?”

Do you want her to hold you would have been more accurate.

The woman shook her head and jumped back, stepping on my foot and crashing into three teenaged girls. Laughter rippled through the audience.

I sympathized with that poor lady. One childhood summer, a fifth-grade bully named Frankie had terrorized me with the garter snakes that slithered around our neighborhood. Leaping from behind a lilac bush, Frankie would throw a writhing serpent at me, then laugh and run away. Because snakes were plentiful—and Frankie persistent—I hated that summer.

Since then, fear of snakes launched by fifth-grade boys had matured into mid-life anxieties. I was afraid of turning the wrong way onto a one-way street. I was afraid of absentmindedly walking into the men’s restroom. I was afraid of standing in the express line with too many items in my cart. I longed to be brave, to sweep in on a white stallion and rescue myself. But I was afraid of horses.

The man inside the boa surveyed his audience, and I tried to disappear by studying my shoes. The strategy failed, as it had in eleventh-grade geometry whenever I hadn’t known the answer.

The teacher looked right at me. “How about you? Do you want to hold her?”

“Me?”

Without permission, my head nodded yes. My stomach countered, Are you crazy?

The snake charmer moved in my direction. “Come on around to this side of the table.”

“You gonna do it?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know.”

What? I could not have said that, because I most certainly did know that I would not do it.

But … on the other hand. A coward dies a thousand deaths. I had nothing to fear but fear itself. Today was the first day of the rest of my life, dammit.

My mutinous left foot took a step. Me? Hold a snake, on purpose?

“Maybe,” I said to Ben. The right foot joined the mutineer. “Yeah.”

He pried the Coke from my hand. “Terrific. I’ll hold your cup.”

I walked around the table (giving a wide berth to the hissing roaches) until I was face-to-face with the man and eyeball-to-eyeball with the snake.

“Hold your arms straight out at your sides.”

I stood like a scarecrow.

The man unwound the boa from his chest and arms. With one hand under its head and the other supporting its midsection, he draped the sinewy reptile across my shoulders.

“Be still,” he said.

No problem. The snake felt smooth and cool. Of the two of us, I was the clammy one. It lay across my shoulders, no doubt bored by just another day at work. I was sorry I’d ever gotten out of bed and certainly regretted passing up the goats.

The boa weaved and wound its way along my shaking limbs, reptilian muscles rippling as it explored the wobbly terrain. The coils gripped like steel cables, and my outstretched arms ached with the effort of keeping the weight aloft. I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, and contemplated the void, while the serpentine body wrapped around me. A casual squeeze would have snuffed my tiny flame.

I can’t believe Ben let me do this.

The outside of me froze, while the inside quivered. Heart raced and temples pulsed. My palms were sweating like a cold bottle of beer, and my mouth was as dry as granola without any milk, and the butterflies in my stomach were quaking as they flew.

Then the boa flicked her tongue.

With that flash of movement, the sense of weight on my shoulders receded. Motion took the foreground. Threatening mass morphed into shape-shifting mercury.

An imprisoned breath escaped my lips. I saw Ben giving me a thumbs-up, and then I turned my head slightly to get a better look at the creature I was wearing.

The boa slipped and glided. She undulated around my arms in a liquid dance, controlling me with the grace of a tango partner. A ginger widow’s peak branched into delicate honeycombs that wrapped her creamy skin in a mantle of lace. As she loosened and tightened her embrace, flecks of gold from nose to tail flirted with the dappled sunlight in the room.

Yet, at the same time, her smoldering power emboldened me. It incinerated all pretense of reticence. It destroyed any notion of decorum. Blazed away the remains of afraid. I was Wonder Woman, vanquishing my foes after bouncing their impotent bullets off my bracelets.

Muscle fatigue finally overtook my craving to prolong the moment. Mouthing a silent thank you, I nodded my readiness to be released. With her keeper’s assistance, the boa unwound herself from my shoulders and returned to his. She flicked her tongue three times, and then she settled.

I strutted back around the table, hands on my hips.

Ben punched the air with his fist. “Yes!”

“Wow … that was … well … ” I pursed my lips, searching for the words until the desire to speak slipped away on a sigh. I grinned, danced a little jig, and kissed my sweetheart.

“Honey,” he said, “you just earned yourself a corndog.” He draped his arm around my shoulders, handing me the Coke.

After we stepped outside, I cast a longer shadow in the afternoon sun. My stride lengthened. Under the steamy summer sky, my cool was impermeable.

Frankie never would have touched that boa.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

*****


“Home isn’t a choice, home is a set of circumstances.”
———Hanif Abdurraquib
——--There’s Always This Year

When Missouri was twenty, a state convention voted to remain in the Union, after which the Union allowed Missourians to keep their slaves.
When Pappa Brown—my great great grandfather—was fifteen, he escaped from Missouri enslavement and found his way to Iowa, a land of freedom.
When I was fourteen I escaped from Iowa, that is to say, my family moved to California, the land of free love and free college.
When I was forty, marriage dragged me back to the midwest.
When I was seventy, I had lived three decades in Missouri, the land Pappa Brown escaped from.

I wiped the butter off the laptop and then reveled in the aroma of cinnamon that filled my astonished kitchen.

Hubby burst through the door. “Something smells delicious in here.”

Grinning, I could hardly get the words out. “Baked you a present, honey.”

An apple pie cooled on the counter, in direct rebuttal to the fact I hated cooking and wasn’t even that crazy about eating.

Ben clapped his hand to his chest. “Wowser, sweetheart. It’s beautiful.”

It was.

A golden volcano with juice seeping through its fissures and steam escaping its peak. The dish exceeded my culinary skills. I’d attempted it partly because Ben had mentioned he loved homemade apple pie, but mostly because he didn’t expect it. He had cheered every uninspired meal I’d set in front of him. His patience had engendered both my gratitude and bravery.

“You did this for me?” he asked.

The question hung in the air. I savored it.

There was nothing to savor about the food I’d grown up with. My father caught catfish in the days when sophisticated palates scorned it as a bottom feeder. He hunted squirrel, coon, duck, and beaver, accompanied by hounds that were breadwinners, rather than pets. Mama baked the coon with barbecue sauce––a failed attempt to disguise its bitter taste. Potatoes and carrots swam around it in a puddle of grease.

In the summer, she picked dandelion greens out of our yard and rutabagas that grew back by the alley. As I picked alongside her, Des Moines’ hard-packed clay soil dug into my knees, while mosquitoes tormented a spot above my elbow. I knelt for hours; it seemed a mountain of raw greens cooked down to only a slimy spoonful. Sometimes corn-on-the-cob appeared in our kitchen, sacks full of it. Sweet corn tasted like a reward, but shucking it was punishment, especially for me, squeamish about the worms that lurked beneath the silk.

About once a year, Mama baked fudge. Blocks heavy as bricks sat in the icebox wrapped in waxed paper. She doled out tiny chunks to us kids. It was hard and cold against my front teeth when I bit into a slice. With six in the family, every one nursing a voracious sweet tooth, the fudge disappeared after a day or two. Dad claimed the bulk of it.

When Mama fixed another of Dad’s favored treats, he didn’t have to share. Nobody else liked chitlins––pig intestines, which she washed in the kitchen sink, then boiled all day long. Their stench dug claws into my throat and lungs. The house stunk for weeks.

Toiling over stove and sink, Mama was borne around the kitchen on a tide of hardscrabble routine, which crowded out any notion of teaching her little girl how to cook. I perched on a step stool in the corner, absent any desire to learn. In those days, want––whether the object was Mama’s attention, a new doll, or an extra piece of fudge––got you nowhere.

Dad and Mama divorced the year I turned twelve. He married Kim Carol, who preferred poetry and metaphysics to the culinary arts. Concerned about my lethargy, she took me to a doctor, who diagnosed low blood sugar. The doctor explained my new relationship with food––eat every three hours every day––as though he were prescribing antibiotics. Mother Kim found no joy in cooking and didn’t help search for recipes that would benefit my health. By the time she entered my life, I had already absorbed subliminal messages from Mama that only the wife fixed the family meals. When Mother Kim relegated me to salad making, my kitchen education stagnated at rinsing lettuce and washing dishes.

Meanwhile, she struggled to maintain the Elizabeth Taylor figure of her twenties. Sweets were banned. Tab replaced Kool-Aid. When I was in college, she warned if my thighs developed saddlebags, I’d never get rid of them, and so cajoled me to join her in fad diets. Her mantra: “We’ll lose five pounds this weekend.”

During the years spent with Mama, meal preparation was synonymous with forced labor. Mother Kim did nothing to dissuade me of that view, and in fact, after she came into my life, food became a bitter pill.

I found the apple pie recipe online at a blog called Food Wishes: Video Recipes with Chef John. His initial instruction, “peel and core the apples,” tightened my mouth into a grimace. The words fell through a hole in my chest, a space where other women stored cooking lessons learned from mom.

Surely Chef John would glare out from the computer screen, the way Mother Kim had during my first visit home as a married woman. When I’d hesitated at the stove, her impatience had wilted me: “You can’t even make gravy? How in the world do you feed your husband?”

Here’s how. I laid out The Joy of Cooking, a dictionary, and three tablets on my kitchen table. I flipped the cookbook open to the beef chapter, read through a recipe until an unfamiliar word, like braise, popped up. Looked up braise in the dictionary. If it sounded do-able, I returned to the recipe, copied all the ingredients, including measurements, onto a grocery list––tablet number one. When the recipe required an unusual utensil, like a roasting pan, I listed that on tablet number two (after looking it up in the dictionary). Next, a perusal of the chicken chapter, followed by fish, casseroles, and vegetables. On tablet number three, the days of the week. Beside each day, a menu. At the grocery store, I studied labels to determine which size of block cheese would produce half a cup shredded. Gadgets required a stop at Target on the way home. And what distinguished a spatula from a pancake turner? I repeated the process every week, because my cupboards held none of the essentials. Staples? They fastened papers together.

I pushed play on Chef John’s video. The camera focused on his hands, a knife in one, an apple in the other. He cut off the ends, and then peeled around. “I don’t have any tricks for that. Just use a paring knife. You can use a peeler.” He cut the fruit in quarters and then sliced off the cores. “I’m not a big corer. I don’t have one of those things you push through. Actually I think I do have one, but it’s rusty.”

What did he say? I pushed rewind. “… use a paring knife … ” and then “…one of those things you push through.” Chef John dismissed gadgets as optional. I wanted to kiss him.

I studied the comments below the typed recipe. Question: Won’t the bottom crust be soggy? Chef responded, “I've never really thought about it.” Question: Forgot to dot the apples with butter. Will it be okay? Chef responded, “Should be okay.” Question: What about store-bought crusts? Response, “Just fine.” How do you get the first piece of pie out? “It might fall apart. That’s normal.”

I practically memorized the recipe, comments, and video––determined to root out deception. Desperate to identify any turn of a phrase that, misunderstood, would lead to humiliation. My faith grew. Let Chef John hold my hand; I would end up with pie.

“Bye, honey. See you tonight.” After Ben left the house for the day, I set up my laptop on the kitchen counter. The tinkle of Oscar Peterson’s mellow jazz piano floated from our CD player. Apple peel ribbons dropped into the sink. Knife clacked against cutting board. “Ow.” I knocked my forehead against an open cabinet door, rubbed the sore spot with a sticky hand. That’s okay, keep going. The counter turned white from spilled cornstarch and sugar. I stirred––damn, is it too wet? Rewound the video. “… going to be really juicy,” Chef John said. An errant peel squished underfoot. I poured the goopy mixture into a crust-lined pie plate, popping a slice into my mouth. Crunchy and sweet. For heaven’s sake––delicious. But too many apples, the top crust will never fit. Checked the video again. My concoction matched the freeze frame of Chef John’s unbaked pie. The top crust broke when I eased it on. No problem. Pinch it together. I painted the whole thing with beaten egg, in careless swipes just like Chef. Hot air hit my face when I opened the oven door to slide the pie inside.

I had just Windexed the laptop screen and was blowing sugar from the keyboard when our motorized garage door announced Ben’s arrival.

He burst into the kitchen. “Something smells delicious in here.”

Snapping the computer shut, I pointed to the pie. “Made you a present, honey.”

“Wowser, sweetheart. It’s beautiful. Apple?” His forward momentum halted, but his gaze remained fixed on the treat, as though I might snatch it away if he blinked. “You did this for me?”

The first piece out of the pan fell apart. That was normal.

I presented him a saucer heaped with apples, juice, and crust. After scooping up a forkful he closed his eyes to emphasize the mmmm.

“Yes, for you,” I said. “For both of us.”