by Kim Barnouin
She took the notebook and pen. “Hmm . . . I could try to get an agent now that I’m actually working. Eat Me is pretty popular.” She scribbled. “And I could ask my friend who’s a production editor to make a fifteen-minute compilation of my best clips, my funniest cohost moments.”
“Perfect.”
Her eyes lit up. “And I could take an acting class. It’s been a couple of years since I even bothered.” She popped an edamame in her mouth. “You can skip this little exercise since you already have everything you really want. Bitch.” She shot me a smile.
“You mean like my fiancé’s mother asking if we could ‘spray something to ward off bugs’ at the farm? And my new unfireable kitchen trainee who dropped a block of tofu on the floor the other night and also annoyingly saved me from making a big mistake with my mushroom stew? And then there’s my fiancé, who’s been kind of . . . something.”
“Kind of what?”
Kind of un-Zach-like. Last night, I’d stayed over, and instead of hanging out in bed and watching old Seinfeld episodes, Zach had disappeared into his home office for over two hours. I’d found him hunched over his laptop, his expression grim.
“Zach?” I’d called from the doorway. But only Charlie glanced up at me from his little dog bed beside Zach’s desk. “Zach.”
Finally he’d heard me. “I just need about a half hour to go over a few reports. Boring numbers. Go ahead up.” His attention was back on the laptop.
He’d finally come upstairs to bed two hours later, kissed me on the cheek, and turned over.
How were you supposed to get your fiancé to open up to you when he wouldn’t?
Figure out how you’ll deal with what you don’t love. (Don’t put this off by waiting to cross the bridge when you come to it.)
“Distant,” I told Sara, thinking about how exactly I was going to deal with it. “Not around. Even last night, when you and Joe were over, he just wasn’t himself—and he hasn’t been for more than a week. I can’t put my finger on it. He keeps telling me everything is fine, but I know him. He’s backed off. It’s subtle, but I’ve definitely noticed it.”
“He’s probably just insanely busy, Clem.”
“That’s what he says.”
This morning, right before Sara and I had taken off for Palm Springs, I’d texted him a quick Leaving for the desert. Love you.
It had taken him hours to text back a blah Ditto.
An hour later, after I’d checked in with Alanna about how things were going at the restaurant, Sara and I, in bikinis, sunglasses, and slathered in sunblock, were lying on chaise lounges by the pool under the hot, sunny sky. As Sara polished her toenails a sparkly blue, I was half reading and half trying to think about wild mushrooms. Trying to think because I kept thinking about Zach instead.
Cremini, shiitake, black trumpets, golden chanterelle. Yes, think mushrooms, Clementine. Think work, the restaurant, specials, recipes. Perhaps a mushroom sauce over pappardelle, one of my favorite pastas. I could do a night of pasta specials, offer little plates of five different pastas.
Sara whipped off her sunglasses. “Holy crap, that guy looks exactly like Gil Gilmore.”
I put down the hardcover of Essentials of Restaurant Success and followed her stare to a good-looking guy in his midtwenties climbing out of the pool, dripping wet. A few other women were ogling him too.
“Oh, wait,” she said as he and his P90X abs passed us. “False alarm. This guy’s eyes are brown. Gil Gilmore had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, like electric blue.”
“Who’s Gil Gilmore?”
Sara put her sunglasses back on and lay back down. “I told you about him. The guy I was in love with during college. He lived in my dorm all four years and I tried to be hilarious and make him fall in love with me, but he always looked at me like I was on drugs. I wonder what he’s doing from nine to five now. Probably some master of the universe like Zach.”
“Google him. Maybe he’s a used-car salesman with a beer gut and a comb-over.”
“No way. He’ll be hotter than ever.” She sat back up and slid her glasses on top of her head. “Sometimes, when Joe’s being a real jerk, I do find myself wondering what became of Gil, if I should track him down just to get him out of my system. See him so I can finally forget about him. You know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean. As does Aunt Jocelyn.” But as I’d told Zach, when I’d run into my ex-boyfriend of two years, out walking his yellow Lab and looking gorgeous as always, instead of the dagger-in-the-gut feeling I used to get when I saw Ben Frasier, who’d dumped me out of nowhere for a wannabe-model barista, I’d felt zippo.
At least I could check that one off Jocelyn’s list.
“What if seeing him again doesn’t get him out of my system, though?” Sara asked, taking a sip of her bottled water. “What if I see him and fall for him all over again?”
“Maybe that’s why Jocelyn put it on her list.” I pulled the list from my bag. “ ‘Close all doors to the past by revisiting—mentally or for real—any former beaus you’ve never been able to forget. Say good-bye once and for all.’ ”
“Wouldn’t I be opening a door?”
“Everything is information.”
She whipped out her phone. “Googling.” She clicked the little keyboard. “Holy butterballs. Gil Gilmore is a car salesman! Brentwood BMW. He lives so close to us!”
Maybe she’d take one look at Gil Gilmore and realize an unrequited college crush had been stronger than her feelings were for Joe. Or maybe she’d feel nothing and wonder why she’d been so in love. Either way, Jocelyn was a smart cookie. Sometimes you had to know if you could say good-bye. And if you couldn’t . . . “Let’s go test-drive something on our way back.”
Sara grinned.
In a showroom of many slick-looking salesmen, I picked out Gil Gilmore in two seconds because of the eyes. Sara wasn’t kidding about the electric blue. He had almost-black hair, so the eyes stood out.
“Swoon,” she whispered. “He looks exactly the same but older.”
While I feigned interest in a brand-new, metallic-red Z4 convertible roadster, Sara sidled up to Gil, who was finishing up with a couple. Before she could launch into her “You look so familiar” spiel, he stared at her and called out, “Omigod, it’s Sara!”
Her face lit up with surprise. “You remember me?”
“Who wouldn’t?” He reached out to shake her hand. “Wow, you are so awesome! Guys, look, it’s Sara from Eat Me. We love that show. Man, the way you took down Joe the other night when he was killing that guy on the Italian-sandwich throwdown—epic.” Three slick-looking sales dudes came over to shake her hand, and one asked her to sign the back of his business card.
“I try,” she said, clearly enjoying the attention. “But, you know, you look familiar to me. Hey, wait a minute.” Pause. Deep thinking. “Wait a minute. Did you go to Cal State? Baxter Hall dorm?”
“Yeah! You too?”
“Sara Macintosh. I had the sickest crush on you.”
He seemed to be trying to remember. “Wait a minute. Were you that girl who used to walk up to me all the time and tell me a joke?”
“Yes!”
“Yup, now I remember. You know what’s funny? I had a crush on you back then but I was kind of intimidated by you.”
“By me?”
“I never got any of your jokes. I thought you were too smart for me.”
“I do have a brilliant sense of humor.”
“Too funny. I was kind of shy back then. I remember really liking how brazen you were.”
She grinned. “I’m even worse now.”
He smiled back. “Well, if I wasn’t happily married with a two-year-old, I’d ask you out for old times’ sake.”
“I’m engaged, Don Juan,” she said, holding up her left hand. “So even if you did, I’d have to say no.”
“Well, it’s good to see you again, Sara. My wife will be so impressed that I not only saw her favorite celebrity but tha
t I actually know you. Did you want to test-drive that roadster?” he asked me.
Sara made a show of looking at her watch. “I wish we could, but we just stopped in to look. We’re kind of in a rush.”
She took one last look at Gil Gilmore and then we left the dealership.
Back in my car Sara said, “How insane is that? All those years, all this time, I thought he thought I was a big fat loser. And he liked me back. Not that I give two figs now, but it’s just freaky how you can be so deluded.” She stuck her feet up on the dashboard. “Huh. Makes me think.”
So she had been able to say good-bye. Did that mean she did love Joe? Or that time had taken care of an old crush? “About what?”
“About what else I’m letting get away. Like my supposed career. I’m getting recognized for being a snarky cohost on a cooking show, but that’s not acting. I fell into it by just being myself. That’s the opposite of acting.”
“Still pretty cool, though.”
“Yeah, it is. But it’s not what I want. I want to be an actress—it’s all I’ve ever wanted. I want a regular role on TV on a sitcom. I want to make people laugh.”
“So let’s head home. Look at the list of stuff you wrote up about what you need to do to get what you want and make it happen. Would you actually quit Eat Me?”
“If it interfered with going on auditions, yeah.”
“How do you think Joe would take it?”
“I don’t know. He can be really supportive. But sometimes he’s like a caveman.”
“Zach too. He always thinks he’s right.”
I thought about how he’d spent an hour trying to get me to agree to raise the price of my soups, which were seven bucks for a good-size bowl. Zach charged thirteen at his steak house and thought I should do the same. But if some fool wanted to pay $37 for a piece of bloody meat, of course they’d fork over thirteen bucks for bland French onion with croutons and a slab of thick cheese. Overcharging for lentils and herbs wasn’t going to bring back customers. Good soup at a reasonable price was.
He was that adamant about soup? I’d have to make my business plan beyond solid to turn his “not a good idea” into a “do it, Clem.”
“Did you hear from him today?”
Stab to the heart. Stab stab. “Just a text. He’s thinking of me. He misses me.” I shrugged.
“Well, it’s not like he didn’t say those things.”
Why didn’t that make me feel better?
16
When I arrived at the restaurant on Wednesday, the kitchen was spotless, and Alanna had left the books in perfect order on my desk. But when she came in at three, she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.
“Hey,” she said with a sigh as she put on her chef’s jacket.
This couldn’t be good. Had the boyfriend made good on his ultimatum? “You okay?”
Before she could answer, Keira arrived, as animated as Alanna was lifeless.
“Guess what?” Keira said. “I’m pulling a Clementine! I’m going to be a contestant on Eat Me!”
I almost choked on my chai. “How’d that happen?”
“I called the producer, told him I worked for the vegan chef who took down Joe ‘Steak’ Johansson and that she taught me everything I knew. And that I could whip his ass too.”
This was a new, tough-talking Keira. Still, no way would she survive five minutes onstage with Joe. At her core, Keira was a princess. A nice princess, but royal to the core.
Keira glanced at the listing of specials I’d put up on the bulletin board and began setting out mixing bowls and utensils at my and Alanna’s stations. “The producer loved the idea of a ‘rematch” of sorts with your protégé. Someone chickened out for next week and I got her slot. We’re taping next Thursday. Any pointers? Your friend Sara, the cohost, will help me out, right?”
“That’s her job. But, Keira, why do you even want to be on Eat Me?” I almost added, It’s not like you need the money. Her wealthy parents lavished her with everything she needed and wanted, including calling in favors from soon-to-be daughters-in-law.
She carried a basket of tomatoes to my station, then went back to the produce bins for the eggplant. “I need to pay for culinary school myself,” she said. “I want to become a chef. Being here these past weeks has me convinced this is what I’m meant to do with my life. I know I have a ton to learn and I’m starting at scratch. But I’ve never felt more . . . me than I have in this kitchen.”
Not a peep out of Gunnar, which was saying something. She’d been proving herself lately. Listening. Working hard. Going above and beyond. And when I got home last night, she’d already e-mailed me twice about videos on braising tofu and sauté temperatures.
“That’s awesome, Keira,” I said. “And I know the feeling. But won’t your parents spring for school?”
“My mother said yesterday that my father has already paid for a very expensive private-college education and that they’d both like me to go into philanthropy and sit on boards like Avery. But Avery loves that stuff. I don’t. I want to cook.”
“So just talk to them,” Alanna said.
Keira dropped her head back and let out a hard sigh. “My father said, ‘Our family cook is a servant. That’s what you want to do with your life, be a lowly servant, cooking for other people?’ Do you believe him? I talked until I was purple in the face and he still told me I was ‘talking nonsense.’ Then he said he’d consider paying for law school if I could get a decent score on the LSATs. I never even mentioned law school!”
No wonder Dominique was so pushy and controlling. Her husband was a thousand times worse. She probably had to dig her claws in about the simplest things just to get through breakfast. “Why can’t they just let you be what you want?” I asked. “What is with all this pushing other people around? I don’t get it.”
“It’s always been that way,” Keira said. “My dad’s ears are closed, and my stepmother—well, you know Dominique, Clem. She won’t help me get through to my dad.”
“Well, then I think it’s great that you’re going to try to win the money to go to cooking school,” I said. “But to beat Joe, you have to (a) know what you’re doing, and (b) not get flustered. If you can do those two things, you have a good shot of winning over the audience and getting the taste testers to vote for you.”
“Will you help me practice?”
“We’ll all help you,” Gunnar said, surprising me. “What are you thinking of challenging him with?”
Keira picked up a tomato, tossed it up, and caught it. “The producer said it has to be vegan, since that will get the audience riled up. I was thinking lasagna.”
“No one can touch Clementine’s Mediterranean lasagna,” Alanna said. “Make that and you’ll beat Joe.”
“Thing is,” Keira said, looking at me, “I want it to be my lasagna. It has to be mine. Just so I can prove to myself that I can do it. Maybe I can take your recipe, Clem, and make it my own?”
“Definitely. And you can come in early every day and work on it here, if you want. Just clean up.”
“I’ll have my daughter this weekend, but I’ll come in Monday and show you how to prep the vegetables,” Gunnar said.
Monday was everyone’s day off. Pretty decent of Gunnar Fitch.
“Me too,” Alanna said.
“Ditto,” one McMann twin said, and then the other.
Oh, hell. “I’ll see you Monday at noonish.”
Keira beamed. “You guys are the best. First you all hated me and now you love me.”
“Well, I don’t know about love,” Gunnar said, throwing a slice of pepper at her with a smile.
I had to admit I unexpectedly liked Keira. She’d grown on me. And she’d need more help than she realized. Lasagna was complicated and she was a newbie. “Okay, tell you what. I need to work on my lasagna for the New York Times reporter. People are always amazed when lasagna is so delicious and it turns out to be meat and cheese free. We’ll work on ours side by side.”
“
Clementine, you absolutely rock,” Keira said. “So, Gunnar, what do you and your daughter do on your weekends? You probably spend a lot of time in the kitchen, teaching her to cook.”
“Yeah, right. The girl eats nothing but hamburgers. I can barely get her to eat a vegetable. I’ve tried all your recipes, Clem, but she makes a face and spits out whatever she tries. Sorry.”
“Hey, that’s okay. My brother, Kale, hated veggies as a kid and now he lives on them.”
“I’m supposed to teach her how to bake a cake this weekend so she can enter some contest at her school carnival,” Gunnar said, frowning. “It’s the one thing I suck at. She’s already pissed at me for five different reasons, and now she’ll end up making a lopsided cake that tastes like a tire.”
“I can bake,” Alanna said, glancing at Gunnar. “I learned from the best,” she added, upping her elbow at me. “I’ll help you guys.”
His expression changed from defeated hangdog to hopeful.
“You can use the kitchen here,” I said. “Just be out by noon.”
“Violet would be really using a restaurant kitchen,” Gunnar said, giving Alanna one of his rare smiles. “Thanks.”
“Hey, can I come for the lesson?” Keira said. “I’m an okay baker, but I made a tart the other day and it caved in.”
“The more the whateverier,” Gunnar said, flicking a black bean at Keira.
“Oh, hell, I’ll come too,” I said. “Alanna can teach and then you guys can help me bake five pies for Saturday night’s Pietopia.”
Pietopia nights brought in crazy business. Three weeks ago, half the bank employees down the street came in just for the pie, then ended up ordering from the main menu. Ka-ching. New customers. Because of pie. My dad could offer Pietopia every night at the Outpost.
Alanna added chickpeas to the food processor for falafel. “I’m suddenly jealous of everyone who knows what they want. Clem’s got this place and she’s getting married. Keira’s going to be on Eat Me so she can go to cooking school on her own dime. Gunnar’s got his knives and vegetables and daughter. And I’ve got a boyfriend who said tonight is the deadline. Either I tell him I want to marry him or he’s leaving.”
