Read Online The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman - Free Book Online
Authors: Elinor Lipman
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the crook of her elbow à la Little Red Riding Hood. A recent foray into the state forest (off Routes 7 and 125) turned up a 20-lb. Hen-of-the-Woods in perfect prime condition on the stump of an ancient oak. (It is pale gray with a ruffled, feathered appearance, and is considered a delicacy in Italy, where it’s known as ‘Griffo,’ and in France, where it is called, not surprisingly, ‘Poulet de Bois.’) We also came upon several gorgeous fruitings of red caps, which we promptly sautéed in butter and ate on toast for lunch. (Remember, never pick every mushroom in an area.) Let me know if you liked the column, or the ‘boss editor’ may yank it! Karl B.”
Within a week, I sent a note to Mr. Berry, reporting that I had enjoyed “Mushroom Musings” and hoped to see more FUNgus columns in the newsletter. He didn’t write me separately, but quoted my pun with attribution in the next issue (“Mushroomsbelong to a group of organisms called ‘fungi,’ ” he explained), and credited me with an interest in horticulture beyond my years.
In order to make that false statement true, I took two books out of the library with chapters on mushrooms. Neither triggered any sincere interest in the subject, but they dovetailed nicely with a science assignment—any topic in the physical world, three to four typewritten pages. I wrote on
Amanita
, the most famous poisonous mushrooms, and made a cover out of construction paper, showing a carefully rendered human skeleton (5 points extra credit I wasn’t even fishing for) eating a chalky white specimen. I found an
Amanita
in the woods off Jolson, or at least something that matched the illustration in the book, and brought it in for the oral presentation, peat clinging to its poison cup. The girls wouldn’t touch it; the boys passed it around and faked bites to its cap. Everyone loved the description of death by toxic mushroom—the illness, the apparent recovery, then the violent relapse and ultimate organ failure. Mr. Noonan gave me an A+. My foray into mycology was my excuse for writing a second letter to my summer ally: “My science paper this marking period was on North American
Amanita
. I found out they’re everywhere, like loaded guns lying in the woods. Hope you don’t sauté any of
them
in butter for lunch!”
Immediately, Mr. Berry sent me a book from his own library on toxigenic fungi, with a note on Lake Devine white stationery, with its unchanged green pointillist etching, saying that he was glad I was aware of the dangers; here were some other killers for me to study; no hurry; keep the book until I came up for my next visit.
The night his letter arrived, my parents asked at dinner—a dinner at which I had picked the canned gray button mushrooms out of my mother’s pot roast—what it was that was making me and Mr. Berry such fast friends.
“Mushrooms,” I said.
“You hate mushrooms,” my sister noted.
I explained that this was the science of fungi, not the
eating
of mushrooms. Mr. Berry and I shared a passion for mycology.
“Since when?” said Pammy.
“She did a paper on it,” said my father.
I said, “Mr. Berry writes a mushroom column.”
My mother postulated that I was quite taken with the hotel owner, her voice and eyebrows signaling to Pammy that little Natalie had her first crush.
I said, “Mr. Berry was very nice to me.”
“They usually are,” my mother said, “to your face.”
My father rebuked her. “You don’t send someone a book and say, ‘Bring it with you when you come back’ if you’re just being polite.” It was meant to shush her and elicit some backpedaling where she’d admit that Natalie was right about Mr. Berry: He was a fine man and the world was, after all, a benevolent and open-minded place.
“
Are
you going back?” Pammy asked, as if parents didn’t exist, as if I were in charge of my own vacations.
I said yes, someday.
“I think you’re nuts,” she mumbled.
My father stabbed the unwanted
Within a week, I sent a note to Mr. Berry, reporting that I had enjoyed “Mushroom Musings” and hoped to see more FUNgus columns in the newsletter. He didn’t write me separately, but quoted my pun with attribution in the next issue (“Mushroomsbelong to a group of organisms called ‘fungi,’ ” he explained), and credited me with an interest in horticulture beyond my years.
In order to make that false statement true, I took two books out of the library with chapters on mushrooms. Neither triggered any sincere interest in the subject, but they dovetailed nicely with a science assignment—any topic in the physical world, three to four typewritten pages. I wrote on
Amanita
, the most famous poisonous mushrooms, and made a cover out of construction paper, showing a carefully rendered human skeleton (5 points extra credit I wasn’t even fishing for) eating a chalky white specimen. I found an
Amanita
in the woods off Jolson, or at least something that matched the illustration in the book, and brought it in for the oral presentation, peat clinging to its poison cup. The girls wouldn’t touch it; the boys passed it around and faked bites to its cap. Everyone loved the description of death by toxic mushroom—the illness, the apparent recovery, then the violent relapse and ultimate organ failure. Mr. Noonan gave me an A+. My foray into mycology was my excuse for writing a second letter to my summer ally: “My science paper this marking period was on North American
Amanita
. I found out they’re everywhere, like loaded guns lying in the woods. Hope you don’t sauté any of
them
in butter for lunch!”
Immediately, Mr. Berry sent me a book from his own library on toxigenic fungi, with a note on Lake Devine white stationery, with its unchanged green pointillist etching, saying that he was glad I was aware of the dangers; here were some other killers for me to study; no hurry; keep the book until I came up for my next visit.
The night his letter arrived, my parents asked at dinner—a dinner at which I had picked the canned gray button mushrooms out of my mother’s pot roast—what it was that was making me and Mr. Berry such fast friends.
“Mushrooms,” I said.
“You hate mushrooms,” my sister noted.
I explained that this was the science of fungi, not the
eating
of mushrooms. Mr. Berry and I shared a passion for mycology.
“Since when?” said Pammy.
“She did a paper on it,” said my father.
I said, “Mr. Berry writes a mushroom column.”
My mother postulated that I was quite taken with the hotel owner, her voice and eyebrows signaling to Pammy that little Natalie had her first crush.
I said, “Mr. Berry was very nice to me.”
“They usually are,” my mother said, “to your face.”
My father rebuked her. “You don’t send someone a book and say, ‘Bring it with you when you come back’ if you’re just being polite.” It was meant to shush her and elicit some backpedaling where she’d admit that Natalie was right about Mr. Berry: He was a fine man and the world was, after all, a benevolent and open-minded place.
“
Are
you going back?” Pammy asked, as if parents didn’t exist, as if I were in charge of my own vacations.
I said yes, someday.
“I think you’re nuts,” she mumbled.
My father stabbed the unwanted
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