Chapter One: The Anticipating
After hearing the stories and seeing the photos for months, this past weekend I finally made the trip up to small-town Wisconsin to witness the final stages of preparation for the opening of my friend Dee-Dee’s restaurant. She and her three siblings – The Rebel, The Brother, and The Chef – bought a restaurant desperately in need of repair and have spent countless months renovating it for its impending opening later this week.
Her entire family was there this weekend: Nieces One, Two and Three, The Brother-in-Law, The Father, The Mother, and The Dog. Throughout the day, easily another half dozen people showed up to help out, either in the kitchen or around the restaurant. It was a veritable hive of blonde haired blue eyed smiles, like being at IKEA, but without the meatballs.
Chapter Two: The Shop Vacuuming
I discovered that shop vacuuming is almost therapeutic. Sometimes I wish I could shop-vac everything I owned – just suck it all into a giant bag and toss it in the trash bin. The best thing about shop vacuuming is that by the time you realize you’ve sucked up something you weren’t supposed to, it’s really too late. Then you can just tell yourself that if it was on the floor in the first place, you probably didn’t need it. The shop vac makes no apologies, knows no regret.
At least I hope that’s how Dee feels when she realizes I vacuumed up a set of keys, what appeared to be the deed to their building, and possibly her mom’s dog.
Chapter Three: The Breaking and Entering
Dee told me this is a small-town thing – that in small towns, everyone knows everyone and everything is everyone’s business. I think this sounds dreadful, but Dee gravitates to it with a natural ease and charm. I grew up in a small Wisconsin town myself, but I guess there’s a difference between 90,000 people small town and 1,000 people small town.
All day long as we were moving and cleaning and sweeping and arranging, there was a nonstop flow of passersby who were none too shy to peer inside, pound on the windows, and rattle the door knob as they waved wildly to us and pantomimed unlocking the door. Once, The Brother left the front door unlocked for three minutes as he walked back to his car to unload some tools, and instantly two women appeared inside the building, as if through teleportation.
“Is that the original brick?” they asked, pushing past me to the bar.
“Uh… that? No. No, they redid it themselves.”
I tried to body block them as they made their way to the dining room.
“And how about the floors? These look like the original floors.”
”Mmm, I think so.”
I gave Niece One my best wide-eyed “please go get help” look and she ran to find Dee-Dee. Within minutes, Dee had given these ladies the entire rundown of the building, an item-by-item review of the menu, as well as a brief history lesson on illegal gambling in Wisconsin in the late 1800’s.
“Dee is such a people person,” Niece One said.
“I know. What’s that all about?”
Chapter Four: The Photo-Shooting
There should really be a Chapter Three Point Five called the Mad Rush to the Showering, because as soon as I hauled out my camera to start taking photos for their website, Dee’s family all ran upstairs to make themselves beautiful, which isn’t difficult since they all look remarkably like the Sunshine Family.
When I went upstairs to check on everyone, I saw Dee’s older sister, The Rebel, wearing hair curlers the size of juice cans and heating up her eyeliner with a Zippo. She came downstairs looking like supermodel Cheryl Tiegs in her prime.
I was perched precariously on a giant step-ladder, trying desperately to get everyone in the photos. I felt just like Francesco Scavullo, if Francesco Scavullo ever took photos of people making human pyramids. At one point, we did a centerfold-esque shot of The Father, stretched across the community table and surrounded by his family.
“Did you hit 400 yet?” asked The Father.
I had told him that I planned on taking at least 400 photos that day.
“Uh… nope. Not yet. But soon!”
I wasn’t sure if wanted me to take more, or was hoping I had reached my 400 photo quota and would finally stop with the incessant clicking so he could climb down from the table.
I eventually topped off at 700.
Chapter Five: The Toasting
It was hard not to get caught up in the emotion of the day – their months of back-breaking and bank-breaking work had finally come to fruition. Every table set up, the kitchen in order, the bar fully stocked. There was nothing left to do but break out the champagne.
The toasts, the tears, the hugs. That was my favorite part, and perhaps the first time in my life I wished I had blonde hair and blue eyes, mostly so I could squeeze into their celebration unnoticed.
Niece One, whose bartending gig will begin there exactly one day after her last final exam this summer, stepped behind the bar to offer me a drink.
“One Stella, please!”
She looked over at The Rebel and said, “Wait – mom, I haven’t even been trained yet!”
I have asked Niece One to specialize in Old Fashioneds, because something tells me this is an Old Fashioned kind of town. It’s all in the muddling.
Chapter Six: The Tasting
The Chef wanted to plate up some food so I could take more photos, and so that we could all sample the menu, so I stationed myself dangerously close to the deep fryer and started snapping away.
Sadly, Niece Two was made miserably ill by her allergies, and had to retreat to the quiet corners of the bar for most of the night. Niece Three joined us in the kitchen and served as The Chef’s assistant. She is the one I remember as the wild child. She and her sisters grew up on a farm, and I have fond memories of visiting them one day when we climbed giant climbing poles and picked raspberries and opened milkweed pods in the wind and rode horses. It was a perfect day, until I witnessed a baby mole being eaten by their kittens who were named after various members of the Green Bay Packers. I think Reggie White was the one who dealt the fatal blow.
But this weekend, I discovered that this wild child was now 11 and a budding scullery maid. She watched carefully as her aunt, The Chef, flipped pasta in a pan and fried up plate after plate of calamari. As the two lone brunettes in a sea of blondes, these two formed an early and lasting bond. Niece Three took to the dish pit like a kitten to a baby mole, and I couldn’t bring her dirty dishes fast enough.
“It looks like you’re going to follow in your aunt’s footsteps,” I said, handing her the greasy calamari basket.
“I know! I hope so!” she beamed. “I’m going to ask my mom when I can start working here.”
It was at that exact moment that I wished with all my heart that I had an 11-year old protégé. But it’s hard to find 11-year olds who get excited about spreadsheets and SWOT analyses. Someday.
Chapter Seven: The Billiarding
In a small town, you patronize your local establishments. You drink coffee at the corner coffee shop, even if it takes them 18 minutes to make a latté, and even if they think Dee-Dee invented iced coffee. You buy your lumber at the Fleet Farm, where everyone knows you and lets you run a tab. And after a long day of shop vacuuming, you walk down to the local watering hole where you play pool for free and watch young women in prom dresses try to talk each other down from drunken rages, even when it’s not prom.
I played what was without a doubt the best game of pool of my life, but Dee-Dee was the only one who witnessed it. Fortunately for me, Dee has a knack for hyperbolic story-telling.
“Ohmigod! You should have seen how good Jenny was playing! She was doing jump shots and getting three balls in at once and backwards bank shots! It was out of control!”
Her bragging caught the attention of two local men in backwards baseball caps who were hovering near the pool table. The married one came up to me and asked if we wanted to play doubles with them. I glanced over at Dee who was preoccupied with her 20-oz vodka tonic that cost $3. She shrugged her shoulders and continued sipping.
We reluctantly agreed, at which point I played what was without a doubt the worst game of pool of my life. Dee kept taking the blame, saying that she hadn’t gotten any balls in, but was apparently too engrossed in her second 20-oz vodka tonic to notice that I hadn’t hit one in either.
After a stunning loss, we had to slink back to our seats by the prom girls.
Chapter Eight: The Haunting
Dee-Dee and her family are convinced that the apartment above their restaurant is haunted. They own the entire building, and The Chef has been living in the upstairs apartment, which is at least 2,500 square feet of wood paneling and rust-colored shag carpeting. It is apparently haunted by the ghost of a dead baby.
“How do you know it’s a dead baby?” I asked.
“Because we hear her cry at night sometimes,” said The Chef.
“And once, The Brother’s friend was staying here and he said that the door lying in front of the empty room was in a completely different position the next morning.”
“So you’re saying that a dead baby moved a gigantic door? Couldn’t she just crawl right through it?”
Dee ignored me and continued, “And one time, I felt someone pinch my cheeks while I was sleeping right where you are.”
“Dead baby pinched your cheeks?”
“No, I think it was a grandma.”
“Dead baby’s dead grandma?”
“Maybe.”
We were all sprawled out on the various couches spread across the 800 square foot living room with drop ceilings and birch paneling. It was 3:00am and we were tired and perhaps a bit drunk.
I forgot my pajamas, so Dee-Dee dug around in her bag and handed me a striped cotton skirt. She told me it was the fashion in small-town Wisconsin, and had me parade around in cowboy boots before I went to sleep. In a small town, you have to accommodate such requests:
“Look at me! Look at me! My name is Dee-Dee and I drink 20-oz vodka tonics and take 18 minutes to make a latté! I wear prom dresses to the bar! I’m from the country!”
After dodging some pillows, I kicked off the boots, adjusted my pajama skirt, and wrapped myself up in the down comforter. As I turned and squirmed in the pitch black, trying to find a comfortable spot, my hair caught in the zipper of the couch cushion.
“Dee?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“I think the dead baby just pulled my hair.”
Then I broke out into hysterical laughter for a few minutes, took a few deep breaths, and quieted down.
“Dee?”
“What now?”
“Candyman.”
“DON’T EVEN! Jenny, that’s not funny. Do not even say Candyman in this apartment!”
“AAAHH! You said it again! You said it the second time! I’m gonna say it… I’m gonna say it…”
“Jenny, I’m not kidding. If a bunch of bees start flying into my mouth, I will be so pissed.”
“Okay. I won’t say it.”
And then I started whistling the Sammy Davis Jr. version of Candyman.
“STOP IT!”
I laughed myself to sleep, and when I woke up, the pajama skirt was hiked up around my chest like a makeshift tube top. I blamed the baby. That’s the great thing about living in a haunted apartment – you can blame the dead baby ghost for everything.
Chapter Nine: The Reflecting
The next morning, after eating all the best parts of the blueberry muffin and banana bread we bought at the coffee shop, I said my goodbyes and hopped into my car. Quickly scanning some of my photos before driving away, I started to wonder if Dee might decide to move to small town Wisconsin, making it likely that my riotous good times with her would be fewer and further between.
The Rebel assured me that this wouldn’t be a problem, since she is convincing our friend Natasha’s family to buy a condo up there so that we can all spend the summers together. For a brief moment, I imagined what it might be like, living in the haunted apartment, saying hi to everyone I passed on the street, and never locking my car doors. I said I would seriously consider it, assuming my simple demand for my own shop-vac was met. And I would also need an 11-year old protégé – one who would be willing to make pie charts and get an Ogilvie home perm.
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