The Sourdough Wars

ridiculous.” Rob was laughing so hard he had to put his head down on the bar.
    “What if anyone heard us?” I wasn’t laughing as hard as he was. I had a reputation as a liberal lawyer to uphold. But it would have served me right if anyone had overheard me—I’d have been paid back for calling my own mother a bigot. Rob couldn’t pull himself together. “I can’t stand it—”
    “Rob, you know what? I don’t care what kind of breed you are. But you know what I can’t stand about you? It’s all the different colors you are. You yellow journalist! You black-and-white-and-red-all-over newshawk! You purple-prosesmith!”
    He stopped laughing. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
    “Yes. And I feel a lot better now.”
    “You don’t respect my work.”
    “It’s not that. I do respect your work. You just get too carried away, that’s all.”
    “I refer you, Miss Schwartz, to Tocqueville.”
    “Huh?”
    “‘In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.’ ”
    “
Necessary
?”
    Rob nodded solemnly. “Absolutely necessary.”
    I made up my mind. I guess I already had. “Oh well, if it’s
necessary
.”
    “That’s the spirit. Just think of me as an inevitable evil.”
    “How about those inestimable benefits?”
    “Let’s bag lunch and go to the Grand Central Baths. It’ll be a great opportunity.”
    “For what?”
    “To see me turn red all over.”
    And so it was. The Grand Central Baths is one of those pure-scrubbed, Japanese-style, hygienically perfect California establishments where you can not only sweat in a sauna but also soak in a hot tub, rinse in a shower, and recover on a bed in your own little hospital-clean chamber for an hour. If you wish, you can also cause loud music to play in your chamber to cover the noise of whatever else you want to do in there. We did it all, Rob and me. He’s beautiful when he’s red.
    We were in the last stage of the adventure—recovery—when Rob said, “You take it back.”
    “Take what back?”
    “My prose is not purple.”
    “You take it back about me being a JAP.”
    “I will not. You’re demonstrably Jewish American, and you’re the princess of my heart.”
    How was I supposed to stay mad? I thought of a way: “Okay, then. Say I’m not prissy.”
    “What color’s my prose?”
    “A leathery brown, I think. Sinewy. Tough. Lean and taut, like you.”
    “That’s more like it. All right. You only get prissy when I act like a yellow journalist. And I’m sure I deserve it.”
    I sat up so fast I got dizzy. “Is that an apology?”
    He touched my right breast, ever so lightly. “Rebecca, listen. I was on adrenaline last night. When I woke up this morning and realized you really could have been hurt, I reformed. I’m a changed man, honest.”
    “You didn’t seem to be an hour ago.”
    Now he touched my bruised cheek. “Well, it wasn’t exactly the
minute
I woke up. It was while we were in the sauna. Your make-up dribbled off.”
    “You actually sound sincere.”
    “I am, believe me. You know that other time you got hurt? Last year, when that creep hit you—I wanted to kill him. When you got hit, it was like me getting hit. And then this time—when I saw your bruise, it was like I’d hit you myself. And you know how that made me feel?”
    I shook my head.
    “Kind of yellow and purple. I’m hungry.”
    That was about as sweet as he ever got, but it was good enough for me—I didn’t want to get diabetes or tooth decay. Civic Center Plaza was just a few blocks away, so we decided to have a picnic there, wet hair and all.
    It was a gorgeous day for February. Probably there’d be more rain before winter was officially over, so we had to enjoy the good weather while we had it. That was my reasoning.
    We were happily sipping white wine and munching on sourdough and salami when we got to talking about Sally. I told Rob all about how Chris thought she was a poor, downtrodden little wife-child and how Bob Tosi said she was a conniving liar and how I wasn’t sure at all. I just felt sorry for her. “But she can sure bake,” I said. “Have you ever had her bread?”
    He shook his head.
    I indicated the loaf we’d nearly demolished. “It’s lots better than this.”
    “You know what would solve the whole problem? If Conglomerate would just buy Sally’s starter, they’d have the best loaf going and they could make