The Cookbook Club

by Beth Harbison

  The day wore on predictably. Around ten that evening, an older group came in, talking about the dinner they’d just enjoyed at Clyde’s. She welcomed this type, they usually tipped well. One of them asked what was on tap, which meant, unlike the frat boys, it wasn’t going to be cheap beer all around.

  She handed him the preprinted list of what was on tap that week.

  “Any recommendations?” he asked. He looked like central casting’s version of “midwestern man playing Santa in holiday parade,” with pink cheeks, a bulbous nose, a snow-white beard, and short cropped hair. Once upon a time she would have been sure she’d seen him before, but she had been in the business long enough now to know that she’d seen everyone before. They weren’t the exact same people, of course, but they were all representative of types. Utterly predictable. She could do a personality profile of just about any stranger she met and be right 95 percent of the time.

  “What do you normally like?”

  He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Coors Light.”

  She smiled. “Well, we have that.”

  “No, I’m in the big city, I want something a little more interesting than that.” He looked over the menu.

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “How about this Allagash White? Is that good?”

  “That’s a Belgian wheat beer. Mild. Nice flavor, a hint of warm spice. I like it. But it’s more for Blue Moon drinkers. How do you feel—”

  “Hate Blue Moon.”

  “Oh, well, see, there you go. You’ll like the Victory Prima Pils. It’s a pilsner like Coors Light, only it’s . . . you know. Good.” She winked. She’d done it long enough to know who she could mess with.

  He raised his eyebrows and cracked up. “Sold!”

  She smiled. “You got it.” She turned to go get it, but his objection stopped her.

  “Wait, sweetheart, you’re not gonna card me?” He looked, bright eyed, at his table mates to join in the joke. “What, do I look old or something?”

  She’d dealt with this before. “No, you look honest.”

  The guy to his left—this time central casting’s Joseph (as in Jesus, Mary, and)—slapped his back and crowed at her response. “You thought you had her! She got you good, buddy.”

  They ended up being a nice group, quiet and generous, tipping an extra twenty in cash when they left, which she appreciated greatly and mentally tabulated toward her electric bill. Boy, times had changed. Not so long ago, she’d been breathing easy for the first time in years, so glad she wasn’t ever going to have to count pennies again. Now she was right back where she started. Maybe even worse because of the debt she’d incurred while she was flying so high.

  Around 11:30 P.M. a few younger guys came in, reeking of alcohol and privilege. She guessed they were students at Georgetown or American University, and it didn’t take five minutes for them to confirm. Georgetown. Prelaw. It was stated in a way that was drenched in arrogance, but they didn’t know who they were talking to. She’d known a thousand guys just like them and at the end of the day she knew most of them wouldn’t even pass the bar on the first or second try.

  In fact, she’d bet a fair percentage would even be too hungover to pass at least one of their finals.

  And, of them, probably one would eventually make it to a seat on the Supreme Court.

  “I wanna start a tab,” a short, dark-haired guy said to her, handing over his license and American Express Platinum card. He knew the routine and he was confident in it. He knew his card wasn’t going to be refused. “For me and my friends.”

  My friends and me, she thought with an inner smirk. Money could buy an education but it couldn’t make it stick. “What can I get you?” she asked, dropping his license into the box. Burch Allan Lowe Jr. She could almost picture Burch Allan Lowe Sr., drinking forty-year-old Macallan straight, rather than the kitschy PBR his son and his friends ordered and would undoubtedly overindulge in.

  They also ordered food, though, which upped their tab and served to soak up a bit of the alcohol they were consuming. She was glad of both of those things, which made her wonder how many years she had actually aged in the three years since she’d last tended bar here.

  During the few brief moments she had quiet, Trista worked on the infused liquors she loved experimenting with. It wasn’t enough to just pull ordinary taps and serve boxed wine and Bubba burgers. She needed to do unique things, she needed to do it better. Lavender-Thyme Gin. Adobo Chile Honey Tequila. Espresso Vodka with Vanilla Bean.

  Shortly before midnight, Brice asked to close out. At the exact same time, the frat boys also decided to leave. She wasn’t so glad to see Brice go, but she was about done with the douchebags, and welcomed the relative quiet to finish her night in peace and get some things done to make the next shift easier.

  “I’m really glad you came in,” she said to Brice, handing him his charge slip as well as his license. “You were a real calm in the storm.”

  He put the license into his wallet and said, “That’s good to hear, since my fiancée and I are on our way to visit her family in Tulsa tomorrow and they are most definitely the storm.” He laughed. “Every meeting feels like a test.”

  Trista was surprised by a vague sense of disappointment at the news he was engaged, but why? She definitely wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. It was probably just what she’d said—he was a calm in the storm and her life was a storm.

  She wanted calm.

  * * *

  It was about an hour later, when the crowd had dwindled to a few stragglers, last call was out, and she was cleaning up for the night, that Brice came back in.

  “Hey there,” he said, looking around with something that looked like concern. “I’m back.”

  Her heart did a tiny trip. “Hey there.”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  Was this the “meet cute” everyone talked about in romantic comedies? Was he back because he had felt a spark and couldn’t get her out of his mind? She couldn’t say she’d felt the same, exactly, but she was also open to all possibilities. “Another Blood Orange?” she asked.

  “Ah, no. My license.”

  She didn’t understand. “I’m sorry?”

  He put a license down on the counter. “You gave me the wrong one back.”

  “I don’t understand.” She looked at it. Lowe. It said Lowe, not Kysela. And she only remembered Kysela because she wondered what nationality that was. Lowe, though—that one she remembered. She looked in the box, hoping against hope that his ID would be there, but it wasn’t. And she wasn’t surprised. They’d left at the same time, and she remembered handing them back their cards.

  No. She couldn’t have.

  “Uh, yeah, yep, sure, just hold on one . . . just hold on one sec . . .”

  Under the register. In every other alphabetical section. On the ground. She tried, though her heart was in her throat, not to reveal that she was frantically looking. He was on his phone, so she had a moment.

  Eventually, it became clear that the truth was as bad as she’d immediately feared. She’d given his ID away to a drunk prelaw dumbass who hadn’t noticed the ID was wrong, and even though she’d thought the worst of him all night, somehow she came out the real moron.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “So sorry. I must have”—it embarrassed her to even admit such incompetence out loud—“switched your cards when you left.” She frantically searched her mind for what to do. Maybe she could call Burch Lowe. She took out her phone to google him, even though he was a student and she was more likely to get his family in—she looked at the license—Alexandria.

  “Can you check under the counter again?” Brice asked. “I don’t mean to be a pain, but I’m leaving town tomorrow and I really need my ID for the airport.”

  Oh shit. That’s right, he said he was going to Tulsa. On a plane. Tomorrow. And she’d . . . lost his ID. She checked the box again, lifting all the tabs and shaking them in case, somehow, his was still not only there but also stuck
to the card.

  Of course it wasn’t. She knew it wouldn’t be. It was uncharacteristic for her to make even one mistake, much less such a huge one.

  Trista fought her frustration and shame. This was no time to make it all about her, but she recognized that this was a huge problem and she couldn’t fix it. Anything she did now was just a puppet show, not a solution.

  She went ahead and rang the number that had come up on the Google search for the Lowes. It was late, but this felt like an emergency. Surely Burch Jr. wanted his license back too.

  The number was disconnected.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she told Brice. “I”—she shook her head—“I really screwed up. Obviously, I’ll pay whatever it costs for a replacement and to get it expedited. Anything. And the guy I switched it with goes to school here, so I can call the administrative offices first thing in the morning and try to get a message to him.”

  Brice, who had been so kind all night, was true to that form now. “Mistakes happen,” he said, and he smiled, although she could see the stress creases in his forehead and around his eyes.

  “Do you have a passport?” she tried.

  He shook his head. “I’m sure I can go to the MVA tomorrow and get it replaced. My flight isn’t until the evening.”

  “If I could go do that for you, I would, I swear it.”

  He smiled, still tense. “I appreciate that. If you could just keep an eye out for it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “You can contact me here at any hour if you find it.”

  She took the card. “I’ll keep looking and I’ll find a way to get ahold of the other guy, seriously. With any luck he’ll notice he has the wrong license and come back any second.”

  Brice chuckled. “I don’t think that guy would notice a bus in front of him, the way he was drinking. I heard them talking about going to the next place in a planned pub crawl.”

  Brice was good-natured enough to cringe at the idea. She cringed back weakly.

  Of course, they’d gone to a place that would card him. Great. Though when he’d left he was getting damn close to unservable, so the odds of anyone getting so far as to card him seemed unlikely under any circumstances. But then at least the bouncer would probably call him out for the incorrect ID.

  This was a nightmare.

  He turned to leave. In half an hour it would be closing time and she should leave too, but she couldn’t see doing that, just in case Burch Lowe came back.

  “Please let me know what the cost is,” she said to him as he turned to leave. “And if there’s anything in the world I can do to help make this right. Drive you to the MVA? Wait in line for you? Anything, I’m just—”

  “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sure it will be fine. Mistakes happen.”

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing. Just let me know if that guy by any chance reappears before tomorrow afternoon.”

  She doubted that Lowe would even be up before tomorrow afternoon, given the rate at which he’d been drinking and apparently planned to continue drinking. But she nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks.” He raised a hand. “I appreciate it.”

  It was only when she was doing the receipts fifteen minutes later that she realized before any of this had happened, he’d left her a fifty-dollar tip. It made her want to vomit.

  Chapter Five

  Margo

  The week began with news from Margo’s lawyer that Calvin had offered his one and only settlement: she could keep the house she was currently living in, provided she refinanced and put the debt into her name and took on all the associated costs; a medium-size chunk of cash (could have been better but could have been worse); and a dilapidated farm he’d inherited from his grandparents, located in Lovettsville, Virginia, just across the Potomac, in Loudoun County. It was paid for, unlike the house, but it was also almost uninhabitable, with broken windows and a fair amount of wildlife living inside.

  The farm itself had so much potential. The truth was, she’d always loved it, even while Calvin had hated it. Greatly ambitious, she’d gone there one spring to plant vegetables and herbs, intending to use the forty-five-minute drive as a quiet meditation a couple of times a week and to bring the food home for healthful meals.

  And that had worked great for a couple of weeks, and she even got to see her seeds germinate and start to grow. But then she and Calvin had taken a trip for a couple of weeks and by the time they got back it was already hellishly hot and muggy. Every day she promised herself she’d go when it cooled down. It had never cooled down.

  Weeks had passed before she eventually made it back, and the lettuces she’d planted were too rubbery and the zucchini had grown to the approximate size of a pony. Huge zucchini, it turned out, were tough and flavorless.

  So she’d given up on the gardening idea for the time being, thinking a better project might be to fix up the house and make it into a Joanna Gaines extravaganza, but she’d never quite gotten to that either.

  Now it was hers.

  And on top of that, the lawyer—being thorough, as one would be for his hourly rate—had done some research and discovered that there had been a number of break-ins, mostly teenagers partying, that had been reported to Calvin but hadn’t yet been addressed in any meaningful way. In other words, no alarm system, no police patrol, nothing. Plus the place needed some serious cleaning up. Still, the electric seemed to work and the well water ran. It could have been worse.

  “I suggest you get a caretaker,” the lawyer told her. “Better still, a renter who can do contract work for a reduced rent. Kill two birds with one stone. You have about a year’s worth of savings to cover these bills before you start to sink.”

  “What about alimony?” she asked. “He left, isn’t there some sort of law about leaving me high and dry?”

  “You signed a prenup when he was in law school. You’re lucky he’s giving you anything at all, though I suspect he knew he’d have a fight he didn’t want to pay for, and that these properties are bound to be money pits.”

  Margo’s heart sank. She remembered that prenup now. He’d been learning contract law and she signed it as a show of faith in his ability as he struggled through school.

  When a law professor checks your work, there’s little room for error.

  “You can turn these lemons into lemonade,” the lawyer went on. “With some careful planning.”

  Margo wasn’t so sure about that and she hurried to get him off the phone so as not to have to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for a meaningless pep talk.

  For a while after they hung up, she sat there, still, feeling sorry for herself. She allowed that for a limited amount of time each day, usually about five minutes. She couldn’t afford to indulge in it, but ignoring the difficulty of what she was going through was impossible.

  So here she was, faced with a problem she had to solve. A house she couldn’t afford and likely couldn’t sell for a profit in this market, thanks to its distance from the nearest highway and all the new developments going up; and a house that was paid for but virtually uninhabitable, as well as being a good half hour of winding two-lane roads from the closest highway, then another hour to get to town.

  At least for a now-single woman like herself. Hell, she got nervous being on the property alone at twilight; she couldn’t see sleeping in there alone before it was cleaned up and alarmed.

  So, like the man had said, her best bet was to put a caretaker in there for a reduced rent in exchange for some work. It solved two problems: generating an income and increasing the value of the farm.

  She thought about it for a few minutes, then picked up her phone and scrolled through to find some of the pictures she’d taken back in her brief back-to-nature phase. There were some great pictures, the red barn with a slant of amber sunlight bisecting it, the house shrouded in a morning mist that actually made it look habitable. She posted about six, and then typed:

  Local friends: reliable caretaker needed fo
r 20-acre farm, house, and outbuildings. If you know anyone, please DM me. Reduced rent, depending on how much work he or she is willing to do around the place.

  Then she hoped for the best, until the phone rang and she was startled out of her reverie. Had someone seen it and was already ready to volunteer?

  No. It was Aja, whom she’d met at the cookbook club a few weeks ago. She was calling to find out if Margo had a good strawberry pie recipe she could text her. Aja was having a “hankering,” as she said, and thought of Margo first, since they’d talked about her extensive cookbook collection at the meeting.

  “I’m sure I do,” Margo said, already percolating with the idea. That was a classic southern recipe, not quite shortcake but not quite preserves. It would be in one of those cookbooks. “I’ll look and shoot you a picture of whatever I find. Unless . . . do you want to come over and make it here?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble,” Aja said, though she sounded relieved. “I’m sure I can figure it out with a recipe. I mean, it’s basically just math, right?”

  “Sure, but I honestly don’t mind. I could use the distraction anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  After several minutes of going back and forth reassuring her that Margo meant it, Aja finally agreed, gratefully, and Margo texted her the address with a promise to give her a list of ingredients. Then she went looking for the best recipe she could find.

  She couldn’t remember which of her hundreds of cookbooks the recipe was in, but it didn’t take her long to narrow the search down to the southern section. That’s how Margo was, she organized her cookbooks by region first, and cooking type second. Course was third, such as dessert or appetizers. There was also a small section of celebrity cookbooks, but she didn’t go much for those, although she had all of Dinah Shore’s, a little-known one by the old actor Morey Amsterdam, and both of Chrissy Teigen’s.