Women keep the World Together

This morning, at 6am, my phone started ringing.

I tried to ignore it but it was insistent. I finally got up and looked to see it was my friend, Monique, calling.

I picked up and said, "Are you crazy? I am not getting up this early to talk to you unless you have discovered some growth of an unspecified nature or have just been visited by Martians...otherwise, forget it!"

She laughed her perfectly dismissible French laugh and said, "Today, I made a bastilla!"

I sat up and tried to clear my head. This was a big announcement.

A bastilla is a pastry found in North Africa, mainly Morocco, that might be the most delicious thing ever invented. It is layer upon layer of soft phylo dough with a center of either ground meat or fowl, scented by amazing spices and normally covered in powdered sugar or honey. I know this sounds disgusting but, trust me, it is not. It might be the closest thing to heaven that I have ever eaten on earth. I am not a big fan of the "savory and sweet" fare but this dish is one that most of my friends, including my friend who is a Michelin-star chef, will wait for hours in lines at Moroccan restaurants to try. Monique, a Parisian soon-to-be ex-wife of a soon-to-be ex-diplomat, is a baker...although not formally. She stays up all night and makes baguettes and sweets for a small distributor in Kampala, but not formally. Formally, she is an economist.

I met Monique through another friend, Jane, and we instantly got along because Monique stays up all night baking and I sometimes stay up all night writing. We both pour our souls out at least twice a month; her in her darkened Kampala kitchen and me in my home over my keyboard. Monique's in the middle of a messy divorce and I am still smarting from an ugly breakup so it just seems natural for us to talk at 2AM when everyone else is sound asleep. I sometimes call her at 3AM and say, "Hey, can you just take a look at a few lines for me? I am not sure if they make sense. Can you just have a look?"

She always agrees. And so I normally also pick up the phone at 2AM when she is rolling out dough or waiting for a souffle to rise. We are also normally on the same schedule, meaning that we are both up all night on given weekends. She drinks champagne from her husband's wine cellar of the oldest vintage while she bakes. I drink red wine of the newest South African vintage and listen to Coldplay, Elton John, and the Dave Matthews Band while I write. She's getting her husband back for his betrayal, I am normally just weeping because I don't have an inch of revenge left in me anymore these days.

But, whatever, it works for us.

She is one of the few friends that I have that keeps my schedule. I grew up loving and appreciating good cooking and she grew up loving and appreciating good writing so we can just automatically connect...even in the middle of the night.

The announcement of the successful execution of the bastilla was huge. I was exhausted, having spent four days in Northern Uganda and moving the final things into my new home. She had just gotten the most recent divorce papers from a husband, that she has two children with, who had failed to show up another night...out with his lover and not even trying to cover it up anymore.

"I am sorry to wake you but I had to tell you...it's not the egg wash! You should never use the egg wash...it is only water that is needed!" she said.

Then:

"Who did you talk to last night? It was him, wasn't it? I KNEW it! Dammit!" she said.

Women are simply amazing.

I have always sort of known that, having been raised by a strongly intuitive mother, grandmother, and best friend. But sometimes I forget this and get caught, as I did with Monique, into thinking I am invisible.

"Come over now! You have to taste this bastilla and I have just opened a new bottle of 1964 champagne. Get on a motorcycle taxi and come over now!" she barked.

I was working on about two hours of sleep and probably still a little buzzed from the glass of Cabernet I had at 3AM.

But I did it. I pulled myself together and got on the back of the lone motorcycle prowling the streets at 6:30AM and made my way over to Monique's house.

I literally fell into her kitchen, tripped by her dog, a big hulking German Shepard that would sooner have sex with you than kill you.

"Monique! Get Dick (named after Dick Cheney in some bizarre French version of humor that she finds hysterical) off of me! I am not in the mood to be mounted at this hour!!" I yelled.

She came rushing in, covered in flour and notably tipsy.

She shouted something at Dick in French of which I only caught, "Stop! We love Obama now!"

She sized me up and said, "Why are you talking to him again?"

Quickly followed by: "Here, try this champagne. I know you are a pagan and don't like champagne too much but just have this glass and then I can open a bottle of 1976 Bordeaux for you next...but just try this one first!"

I sighed and tried to rationalize.

"Monique, I have to move some more today. I can't start drinking at 7:30Am. I will be drunk all day and nothing will get done."

Dick was humping my leg with eagerness at this point.

"Who cares?" she asked. "Take a day off. No one is going to punish you, you are an adult. And I just made the most amazing bastilla that we must try. But not until you have some champagne or wine...you must remember that God gave us the ability to eat, drink, write, bake and fuck because he wanted us to be happy."

Then she screamed at Dick the Dog, "Get off of her, you are making her nervous!!"

Dick retreated into a corner but I swear he winked at me first.

I took the glass of champagne, had one sip, and handed it back to her.

"This tastes like some old French man's balls!" I said.

"Well, that might explain a lot of things about me, I guess," she said as she had her house cleaner fetch a bottle of Bordeaux from the wine cellar.

One hour later, no bastilla in sight, I was getting drunk.

"So tell me why you talked to him again? I thought it was finished?" she asked.

"I don't know, I still love him and I don't like messy endings. I don't want it to be bad between us. He is not a bad person and I am not a bad person. It just didn't happen at the right time," I said.

She smiled and said, "Americans, always so idealistic! Here, have some more wine!"

My head was beginning to pound but I drank it anyway.

Dick skulked back into the room and put his head in my lap.

"Look, Dick loves you!" Monique said.

"Monique, I am a wreck right now. I feel like my life is falling apart and I can't do one thing right. I think my boss is upset with me, I just found out the my secretary tried embezzling money from our company before I caught her, I spoke to my ex last night and it was fine until he called me back and then it descended into the same fight, and, and...well, I am drunk at your house at 10:30 on a Friday morning and I don't think that is really OK either..." I finished.

She sat down on the Ottoman foot rest in front of me and held my hands.

"Patricia, sometimes things fall apart as a way of coming back together again, do you understand? Americans are so uptight about having everything 'right' but there really is no need to think that way. I don't know why my husband is leaving me but, right now, I don't really care either. We had a good time and we have two beautiful children. You and S had a good time and maybe there is unfinished business but, for now, RIGHT NOW, it is not up to you. So finish your wine, keep telling me your stories about the judiciary in Uganda, and lighten up a bit. This is not going to kill you."

I felt like I was going to cry because her words hit such a soft spot with me. She was right.

I finished my glass and let Dick crawl up onto my lap. He weighs half of what I do but he seemed comforting. He settled into my lap immediately and licked my chin.

Monique said, "OK, good...now that you are drunk and happy...now is the time for the bastilla!"

She came back from the kitchen a few minutes later with a covered plate.

She uncovered it and showed me the most perfect bastilla I had ever seen. In perfect Moroccan style, we dug in, with our hands.

It was likely the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my life. Monique had nailed it. This was perfect.

I was so happy that I grabbed her hands and kissed her sugar-covered fingers.

"How did you do this?!" I asked.

She turned her head for a few seconds and said,

"I just said, last night, that I needed to create the perfect thing. I love to cook and I have tried to make this so many times and I have never gotten it right. Now, I got it right...do you understand?" she said.

Yes, completely.

We ate the entire bastilla and drank an entire bottle of wine. We passed out at noon on her plush rug in her plush living room with Dick sleeping between us.

I awoke at 3PM and got back on a motorcycle and came home. I took a shower and then went straight to bed.

Monique called an hour ago to announce that she thought she had a good grip on a new pastry recipe.

I said I was writing the story about last night and this morning.

One day, we will both sleep. But not tonight, not tomorrow, and probably not for awhile to come.

But women really do keep the world together.

Cheers, Monique.

And, thank you.