The Cookbook Club

by Beth Harbison

  She splayed her arms. “It would seem that way.”

  “Well, how the hell can this be?”

  “I am wondering the very same thing. Brice said his brother was coming in.”

  Louis nodded. “Yup, yup.” He didn’t offer further explanation or show any awareness that the silence was hanging like a broken branch above them.

  “How are you his brother? His name is Kysela and you—you don’t even have a brother.” She’d known him all the way through high school. He had no siblings. Just a single mother who worked in the attendance office. Mrs. Williams.

  “Technically he’s my stepbrother, but he’s been just like a brother to me ever since our parents got married. Well, not all our parents, my father died when I was a baby and his parents were divorced, so the way it worked was his dad married my mom and that made us stepbrothers. But we’re really more like brothers. So we’re not actually—”

  “I got it,” she said, holding up a hand. What the hell was she going to do? “He, ah”—she took a steadying breath—“he said you are interested in being a line cook? That you have experience from working at the Tastee Diner?”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I worked over at the ol’ diner for three years. Three. Years.”

  He’d aced every test, graduated with a 4.2, so it wasn’t stupidity that made him weird. She’d never known quite what it was. His mother was a regular, sweet woman who’d wink and give you a hall pass as long as you didn’t try to bullshit her about why you were late.

  Maybe it was actually his intelligence that hamstrung him. He was too smart to have a normal conversation. Or even a normal cadence.

  “Okay, as a line cook?”

  “That’s right.”

  The conversation went on like that until she finally got a solid grasp on his work experience and, surprisingly, level of confidence in the kitchen. On paper, he was a good candidate for the job, particularly since he didn’t mind working for just over minimum wage, which was all she could afford at the moment.

  But could she really work with weird Louis Williams every day? All this time had passed since she’d last seen him, but her irritation felt as fresh as it had when she was seventeen. And it had always made her feel bad, because he was a nice guy, he had good intentions, he was just . . . if you let him start talking, it was hard to get him to stop. It had taken three years to scrape him off, and that was only because she’d gone off to college.

  “. . . and so that’s the test that really did it,” Louis was saying. “If you put the blueberries onto the raw side of the cooking pancake, then you don’t get that messy blue swirl.” He looked so pleased with himself, she couldn’t bear to tell him that she’d heard the same thing on America’s Test Kitchen years ago. “Now, they weren’t happy that I’d made five batches of unusable pancakes to figure it out, but they sure were happy with the results.”

  Trista nodded. She was going to have to hire him. She already knew it. Perhaps Louis Williams was her lot in life, the lost puppy who always glommed onto her. He annoyed the hell out of her, but she didn’t want anyone else kicking him.

  “I appreciate your diligence,” she said to him. “Not everyone would try to make a better pancake.”

  “I know!”

  “I can’t say I’d be wild about wasting all that food here, though. If I give you the job, I’m going to need you to economize with ingredients, okay? We’re not exactly turning product over like a Chipotle.

  He nodded. “Gotcha. Be stingy.”

  “Well, no, not stingy, just not wasteful.”

  “Not wasteful. Got it.” He was smiling as he looked at her. “My gosh, can you believe it is us, back together again? I always wondered what had happened to you. I heard you were a lawyer.”

  “Long story.”

  “Lucky for me. I couldn’t work in a law office, but I sure can work in a kitchen.” He looked at her hopefully.

  Everything in her wanted to say no. But she couldn’t.

  “Okay, Louis. We’ll give this a try. A try.”

  “Yes! I knew you’d say yes! Brice was worried I’d blow it, but that was when we didn’t know it was you. All he said was that it was this hot woman I had to make sure not to offend.”

  Hot? A tickle ran down her spine. Not that it would go anywhere, Brice was engaged. But. It was flattering still. “All right,” she said. “Make sure you don’t. Offend me, I mean.” She smiled. “We’ll see how it goes. But this is a fast-paced kitchen during rush. If you can’t keep up, I can’t keep you.”

  “Okay, boss!” He saluted her.

  “When can you start?”

  He looked around. “Now?”

  She gestured. “Okay, kitchen’s that way.”

  Chapter Nine

  Margo

  She hadn’t really expected any great caretaker leads from her contacts on social media because they weren’t the sort of people who knew the sort of people who wanted a reduced rent in exchange for working on a house and grounds. Still, it was disappointing after almost four weeks when no one had so much as a distant lead, because the next step seemed to be Craigslist. And Craigslist could be a terrifying place. There were too many stories of people looking for a coffeemaker who ended up dead.

  It was several days later, as she was searing some chicken while sifting through her cookbooks, looking for a suggestion for the next cookbook club selection (they were all three supposed to be noodling on it, but she was the only one who was a complete cookbook whore), that she heard from Max Roginski.

  As a matter of fact, she was on the meatball soup page of a Dinah Shore cookbook when the phone rang. She remembered because that had been one of the most appealing dishes from the book and she’d made it, following the directions to the letter, despite the rice in the meatballs it called for, which seemed like an odd addition, but it worked, and she was thinking about making it again.

  So while the recipe held no current surprises for her, the phone call did.

  “It’s Max Roginski,” the male voice said, sounding confident but not necessarily familiar. Then again, why would it? She hadn’t talked to Max Roginski in, what, eight years? Maybe more. “Remember me?”

  She’d met him in a drama class she took in college and they’d become friends and actually hung out quite a lot before he moved to New York and got famous.

  “Of course! Are you joking?” Who could forget him? Who could have a chance? He was everywhere! Even if she’d never known him, she would know who he was. “I saw you on Saturday Night Live not that long ago!”

  He groaned. “Not my best work. I can usually remember my lines, but when Hillary Clinton walked on, I went blank.”

  “That was hilarious! You didn’t know she was coming?”

  “They thought it would be funny not to warn me.”

  “Oh my God, that makes it even better.” She laughed and then there was an awkward moment of silence where she wondered if he was still there.

  “It was funny afterward.” He paused. “Kind of.”

  Now Margo went blank. It had been so long since they’d talked. He was a star. She was caught between wanting to catch up with her old friend, and the fact that all she knew of him lately was his stardom. But she didn’t want to embarrass herself by fangirling him. So instead she embarrassed herself by asking, “So what have you been up to?”

  “It’s gonna sound crazy but I assure you I’m serious.” He cleared his throat. “I saw your pictures on Instagram.”

  She frantically searched her brain, trying to remember what pictures she’d posted that might be of interest to him. Nothing came to mind. She rarely posted. “Which pictures?” The heady smell of chicken rose up from the pan and she turned the heat down.

  “Of the farm.”

  “Ooooh, yes, of course. It’s in need of some TLC.” Understatement. “I swear I’m not the slob those pictures make me appear to be.”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t thinking that at all. As a matter of fact, I
thought it was perfect. I wondered if I could go see it in person.”

  “Oh. Really? Are you looking for a movie set or something?” If he was doing a horror film, the place could be perfect.

  “Not exactly.” She could hear him adjust his grip on the phone. “Okay, look, I realize I might not have the qualifications you’re looking for, and maybe you’ve already found someone, but I want to apply for the caretaker position.”

  “Acting thing didn’t work out, huh?” She laughed.

  But he didn’t. “It’s not what I expected.”

  Rather than sit in awkward silence waiting for the punch line, or making another lame one of her own, she asked, “What do you mean? I don’t—What do you mean?” She was nervous. What weird reality had she slipped into?

  Was she finally losing her mind, or was this conversation for real?

  He laughed. “Look, I know it sounds weird, and I know we haven’t seen each other for ages. I’m not looking for favors. I’m willing to pay you the full rent and work on the place, it’s just that I pretty desperately need to get away and have some privacy.”

  “Running from the law. Been there, I get it.” God, she couldn’t stop herself. It was one stupid, awkward thing after another.

  “That would be easier. Actually, I just need a break. Quiet and privacy. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt . . .” He paused for a long time, and she suddenly felt like she was intruding on a private moment. “Like myself.”

  Finally the punch lines left her. She could relate. She sat down. “I think I know what you mean.”

  “Did you know that the very act of speaking, especially the first thirty seconds, raises your blood pressure?”

  It had in this conversation. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “It’s one of a bunch of alarming things I’ve learned about why life is so stressful. I think some peace and quiet would be a real lifesaver.”

  “Wouldn’t a fancy spa or something be better for that?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t make me start spewing statistics about time in nature at you.”

  She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Point taken.”

  “Besides, no one would ever look for me at a dilapidated farm in Virginia.”

  “Dilapidated!”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, I—”

  “Kidding,” she said. “‘Dilapidated’ is a kind word for it. But I can pretty much guarantee you that no one would ever look for you there.”

  He expelled a breath, as if he’d been holding it for a long time. “It’s hard to express how great that would be.”

  “You know, it’s funny,” she said, thinking of the countless references to his show being sold out for all time. “The rest of the world would think you’re in the catbird seat, like you can have anything you want. But you can’t have anonymity, can you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Obviously I’d love to have you come, but I just want to make sure you understand, the place is a wreck.” She wished now that she’d posted more honest pictures of the place. “This is the kind of offer that would appeal to someone who has, like, literally no other options. As you know, living is expensive around here, so I was hoping to exchange a low rent for some work fixing the place up. That’s not really your situation.”

  “No other options? Check. I can do that. I can definitely do that.”

  She poured herself a glass of water. “Remember the end of Gray Gardens? You’d be an Edie. Raccoons, coming and going through a hole in the wall. Possibly climbing on you in your sleep.”

  He hesitated again, then, “I love animals.”

  She smiled. “Do you like snakes? Because the basement is full of them, and I don’t know how adept they are at stairs, so I can’t swear they wouldn’t join you and the raccoons in bed.”

  “Sounds like built-in security,” he said. “Pest control for mice.” He sighed. “And, if all else fails, company.”

  She laughed. “Okay, and you’re going to need that security, because teenagers have been going and hanging out to party there.”

  “Who doesn’t love shit weed and Natty Boh?”

  “The feral cats that are wandering all over. They’re not sweet and cuddly. They hiss if you so much as look at them.” She’d made the mistake of thinking one was cute once.

  “Excellent. I’ve been looking for an excuse to get a dog.”

  She thought of her old golden retriever, Dizzy, sleeping through doorbells, thunderstorms, just about everything you could think of. She’d be useless with the cats. “Probably better to get a person to help you with all the labor that needs to be done inside. Old furniture thrown out, carpets to roll and chuck out. Spackling, painting, lather, rinse, repeat.”

  “Sounds like exercise to me.” He was smiling, she could tell from his voice. “It’s very important, with my career, to stay in shape, you know.”

  She didn’t want him to feel like it was a mistake, but it could sure be nice to have him around. “Max, if you do this, I can almost guarantee you’re going to be disappointed by the place.” She sighed. “I really get the privacy thing, and you’d have it in spades there, but just bear in mind that my husband gave me this with the divorce as sort of a freebie. So he wouldn’t have to mess with it himself.”

  “Nice.”

  “He’s a peach.” Then, because she’d done nothing but diss the place, she added, “The driveway is probably a good half mile or so long. Tree lined. Private.”

  “It sounds perfect,” he said, and sounded like he meant it. “Because it sounds real. It wouldn’t be hard to find a private place that was already the stuff of HGTV. But I’ve been in situations like that before and word got out pretty quickly that I was there. I don’t mean to sound self-congratulatory, it’s just how it is right now.” A moment of silence. “Come on, Margo. Am I too late? I know it’s been a few weeks. Do you already have people lined up for the place?”

  “No! Not at all.” If this worked out, he’d be a godsend. “In fact, so far there have been no takers at all.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  She took another sip. “Right? None of my eight Instagram followers are homeless, as it turns out. In fact, I was just starting to panic over what to do next, since I’d rather eat bees than get involved with Craigslist.”

  “Sounds like you have just the place to do that. So do we have a deal?”

  She smiled. “Obviously there’s no way I’m going to say no to this, but I just need to be really sure you understand—”

  “Hey, Margo. Seriously. I’ve got it. So how’s tomorrow? Does tomorrow work?”

  “Wow, you are desperate. But yes! Absolutely, yes. I’d be glad to have you!”

  “Thank you. I appreciate this a lot.”

  This was surreal. “I’ll text you the address and meet you there around”—she considered the drive from New York—“two? Would that work?”

  His relief was audible. “Perfect.”

  * * *

  When Margo arrived at the farm at one-thirty, he was already there. At least a gleaming black BMW Roadster was there. Max was nowhere to be seen. The sound of sparrows and mourning doves in the trees was louder here than at the house in Potomac. There were bullfrogs in the creek at the edge of the property. All in all, it was pretty loud, but a different kind of loud than he’d be used to in the city.

  She took the house keys out—they were on a pink John Deere key chain she’d once thought was adorable for a farmhouse—and went to the side door closest to the driveway. There was no garage, which suddenly seemed like a liability in the face of that sports car, but there were plenty of outbuildings that could be converted if he wanted. She wasn’t even sure what all of the buildings were for, to be honest. She’d been told the one closest to the house was a “pony barn,” but she’d never heard of such a thing. It was the perfect size for a couple of cars, though.

  It was hard to quell her nerves as she unlocked the door, knowing that he might show up at any
second. It was weird how daunting someone else’s fame could be. She never used to be this self-conscious around him.

  She opened the creaky door and went into the kitchen. It smelled musty, and the first thing she noticed was a gross, dark gray network of cobwebs on the walls, but the surfaces were otherwise smooth. Ready for a coat of paint. It had been a while since she’d been here, and now she saw her bad PR might have been a little more extreme than was warranted.

  Yes, it was very dusty. Every surface, including the windows, had that gray-brown tinge. The linoleum floor was not only disgustingly dingy, and covered in mouse droppings, but it was also peeling up in so many places that it would be a tripping hazard to cook in here, even if you could get the stove clean enough to keep an appetite.

  But the huge butcher block island was something she somehow hadn’t taken much note of before. With a little sanding and some oil, it would be a beautiful centerpiece in the kitchen. She could picture it now, with a fresh loaf of bread on it, straight from the oven, ready to slice and butter. She took her phone out and opened the camera, taken by the idea of documenting it as a project. In fact, she could Instagram the whole house renovation. Maybe that would satisfy her need for creativity.

  If she put in knotty pine floors, it would be even more beautiful. Knock out the far wall into that small, pointless room to the left and—

  “Hello?”

  She was startled by his voice, and even more startled when she turned to see The Max Roginski standing in the slant of light coming through the door. “Wow, you look great!” She couldn’t help it, he did. Even more polished in person than in pictures, if possible. Some of the awkwardness of his late teens and early twenties had softened into handsomeness.

  His eyes lit as they focused on her. “You too.” He came over and hugged her, enveloping her in his warmth and in a light scent she hadn’t realized she remembered. “As always,” he added.