“No one knows who Mr. Dunbar was, but we are absolutely sure he was a Newberrian. The dish is native to this town. You’ll never find another single soul eating this anywhere. And it’s delicious. Though there are two or three versions, I’m letting you eat mine. I make it the classical way. No frills or fuss.”
I knew so little about food and the way it was prepared that all I remember about her Dunbar macaroni was that she watched me closely as I ate her concoction of cheese and macaroni and onions. It was my first South Carolina funeral, and everything about that day remains bright, vivid, and profoundly sad.
Though I had never felt sadder, I had never eaten better in my whole life. There was something scandalous to me about combining mourning Randy with the exquisite pleasures of the Newberry table.
I did not eat Dunbar macaroni again for 30 years. I was in the middle of finishing the novel Beach Music when I got a call from my old English teacher, Gene Norris, late at night. He could hardly speak as he told me that his cousin, Liz, the one who had infatuated me as a boy, had died in her sleep at the age of 49. Liz had followed her plan with immaculate precision and married that Clemson fraternity man, who then set about becoming a doctor. They had lived out their lives as important citizens of Newberry, raised two children, attended the Lutheran church, and had some fine years before it began to go wrong with them. Their divorce was almost final when she was found dead in her bed.
Sadness had attached itself to her final years, and Gene would periodically ask me to call Liz to cheer her up when things were really bad. I tried to get her to come to a screening of The Prince of Tides in New York City with Gene, but her lawyer said it could be used against her in court. I sent her the bottle of Champagne that Barbra Streisand had had delivered to my hotel room after that screening. Liz called me to tell me she and several of her girlfriends had made an elaborate ceremony out of drinking it. When I gathered with her family after her burial, I saw the note I had written when I sent her the Champagne. It was hanging by a magnet on her refrigerator door.
I was reading my note to Liz when one of her friends tapped me lightly on the shoulder and said, handing me a plate, “You’ve got to eat this. It’s a Newberry County specialty. We call it Dunbar macaroni.”
I had never seen Liz Norris after that day of Randy’s funeral. We had, of course, spoken on the phone, but our paths never crossed again. As I ate Dunbar macaroni for the second time in my life, I said a prayer for Liz and thought how strange it was that her high-school Harry had finally caught up with her when it was far too late for either one of us.
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