15. Where Fish Wear Crowns: September
SeptemberSteven came downstairs with the suitcases and found me in the kitchen
studying a box full of papery bulbs. My mail- order seed garlic had just ar-
rived.
His face fell. “You’re going to plant those now?”
In two hours we were taking off on our first real vacation without kids
since our honeymoon—a trip to Italy we’d dreamed of for nearly a decade.
My new passport had escaped, by one day, the hurricane that destroyed
the New Orleans office of its issue. We had scrupulously organized child
care for Lily, backup child care, backup- backup plus the animal chores
and so forth. We’d put the garden away for the season, cleaned the house,
and finally were really going to do this: the romantic dinners alfresco, the
Tuscan sun. The second- honeymoon bride reeking of garlic...
“Sorry,” I said. I put the bulbs back in the box.
I confess to a ludicrous flair for last- minute projects before big events.
I moved nine cubic yards of topsoil the day before going into labor with
my first child. (She was overdue, so yes, I was trying.) On the evening of
my once- in-a-lifetime dinner at the White House with President and
Mrs. Clinton, my hands were stained slightly purple because I’d been
canning olives the day before. I have hoed, planted, and even butchered
poultry in the hours before stepping onstage for a fund- raising gala. Some
divas get a manicure before a performance; I just try to make sure there’s