Queen of the Fabulous

Captured by the weekly bridge league, Mrs. Partridge was not unaccustomed to disappointment, but this did not explain why, when she wasn’t playing bridge or forming ground chuck into a meatloaf, that she worried about rejections in the post. You see Mrs. Partridge, while being the quintessential homemaker and wife, was also a poet. Day after day she crafted brief lines of verse on whatever was handy, the power-bill envelope, a cafe napkin, the latest deposit slip for her husband’s bi-weekly check.

She sent them out, to the addresses on the wafer-thin paper at the back of the magazines, and hoped for the best. She had been told once, at a gathering at the library, that a magazine rejection accompanied with a personal note was something to save. So she did. One after another in a small manila folder in the oak cabinet beside Mr. Partridge’s roll top desk. The file perfectly bulged with slips of almost-appreciation alongside the not-quite-right-for-our-magazine poems that no one would ever read.

Years went by as Mrs. Partridge scribed poetry and sautéed chicken and met Mr. Partridge at the door, all the while knowing that her cannon of work filled a fold of their lives, filed between the bill for the furnace, the Studebaker repair and the other things that would soon be forgotten.

One day, after receiving three tidy envelopes in the very same post, all addressed in her own delicate hand, she realized with some clarity that as fabulous as the handwritten “No” might be, it was still far inferior to a “Yes.” And so right there in the entry hall, the front door not quite shut, Mrs. Partridge decided that being queen of the fabulous no was not a designation she wished to hold. So she slipped the last letters, unopened, into the waiting file and poured a glass of chardonnay.

After that she wrote less and less and played bridge more and more; at least the disappointment there came in numbers. Eventually, the words of her poetry were forgotten, finally suppressed by a recipe for lasagna written down one Thursday evening at her bridge club by one of the partners’ wives.

The following Thursday she stood in Mr. Partridge’s door and watched the drawer of the filing cabinet until a new idea came to her. It came slowly, perfectly; like a certain note in the cadence of a poem it came to her. She practically floated to the filing cabinet and removed a handful of rejections from the folder. She sauntered into the kitchen with the slips in her hand. Then she soaked them like lasagna noodles. After that she sautéed the sausage, added the tomato paste, the herbs, a bit of wine. Then in the pan she layered sauce, pasta, cheese and the fabulous no’s. Layer upon layer until the dish was like a song.

Mrs. Partridge took her lasagna to bridge that night. It was well received. In fact, upon request she took it again. Before long she became known for the particular flavor of her lasagna. Her dish was desired and discussed about town for its unique quality. Fabulous it was called. Fabulous.