by Kim Barnouin
The angel hopped shoulders and punched the mini-devil out cold. It’s about balance, Clem, she said, dusting off her hands and playing her tiny harp. It’s always about balance.
Balance. I took a deep Pilates breath and headed back to my station, thinking about Alexander as I drizzled Vermont maple syrup on the warm, little sopaipillas. He’d put his all in; I’d put in mine. Whoever won would win fair.
So let’s go do it.
I brought out the two desserts myself and four forks, plus complimentary samples of my favorite frozen smoothies.
The reporter bit into a sopaipilla and sighed. “Oh, God, this is intensely good. I can’t imagine anything being better than how these taste right now. But we’ll have to see what Fresh has in store for me tomorrow night.”
I wanted to win this competition. I wanted Alexander to win too.
But no matter what happened, we’d still be friends. We’d been through some bad BS before and could withstand being pitted against each other, only one of us getting our restaurant in the Times.
As Jocelyn said, as I said last night, that was life. Up and down. Down and up. And not walking away when the going got crappy.
Now that I had Zach’s go-for-it on the Outpost, it was even more fun to drive up to my parents’ place. Would I have gone ahead with my plans for the second restaurant even if he’d still said it was a bad idea? Yeah. But having his green light made it all the more exciting. I got an early start, hitting the road before seven, and made the turn onto the long dirt driveway with its low, brown wooden fence by ten.
I had a good, long talk with my dad about Harry; my sister had recommended a good attorney, and his parents had sold their getaway condo in San Francisco to pay the sick retainer. I could see the stress of talking about Harry was getting to my dad. Like father, like daughter, he led the way into the kitchen and started cooking: banana-walnut pancakes with maple syrup and soy bacon. While we ate, I went over the business plan for the Outpost, and when I asked him to spend the next couple of weeks sketching out a menu of appetizers and main courses and desserts, his eyes lit up.
I spent the next few hours in a pair of old jeans and borrowed wellies, helping my mom clean out the harvesting wagons and getting her truck loaded up with this week’s offerings for the farmers’ market in town.
Finally, it was just me and the barn. But as I stood in there, instead of remembering how Harry had looked up in the loft, I found myself concentrating on shabby-chic-style tables with vases of yellow and white roses, a zinc juice bar, the sisal rugs, and my father living his dream in the kitchen. I knew right then I’d pull this off. If I could focus on the wall colors and the rug and the type of flatware that would complement the barn setting instead of getting a stomachache over Harry and our last conversation, I could handle anything. Running two restaurants. Getting married. Hanging with Sara. And whatever came next.
It was the Skinny Bitch way.
26
When I got home that night, the first thing I did was text Alexander: Knock ’em dead, chef (not literally).
Then I called Dominique. At the sound of my voice, there was dead silence.
“I’m coming over,” I said.
“I might not be home.”
“Well, then I’ll write what I have to say on your front door. In my dark red lipstain.”
“You would, wouldn’t you,” she said.
“Shit yeah.”
I could see the eye roll from here. “I’ll be here for another half hour, so you’d better hurry if you want to catch me.”
God, she was transparent. She wanted to talk this out as much as I did. Somehow, along the way, I’d gotten to know Dominique Jeffries Huffington.
“If you’re here to grovel to get me back as your wedding planner, you’ll have to do better than this,” she said, her expression flat. “Tea?” She gestured at the pot on the ornate tray on the coffee table. Gold bangles clanged on her tanned, toned arm. “The tea is herbal since I know you don’t do caffeine. And the croissants are dairy-free, by the way.”
She was trying, at least.
“The wedding’s been postponed.”
The look of alarm on her face surprised me. “Postponed? Why? Is it my fault?”
“Why do you think so?” I knew full well why. I wanted to see if she did. If she had a clue.
“Well, I did raise a bit of a fuss. Perhaps it caused problems between you and Zach.”
“I will have that tea,” I said, reaching for half of an almond croissant. “Do you want that to be the case?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you raise such a fuss? Why do something that would potentially come between us?”
She stared at me for a moment, then stirred fake sugar into her tea and took a sip. “Well, I was mad as hell, for one.”
“You worked so hard to repair your relationship with Zach, though.”
“I’m who I am.”
“Same here.”
“I’m sorry I caused problems with you and Zach. That wasn’t my intention at all. I like you, Clementine. To be honest, I Iike you so much that it made me even more furious that you meddled in Keira’s life.”
“But that’s the thing. I didn’t meddle at all. She got on Eat Me on her own. She made that happen. She decided she wanted to be a chef and apply to cooking schools on her own. And lest you forget, you were the one who asked me to hire her.”
“To make her see how awful working a restaurant is. I thought Zach’s steak house would knock some sense into her, but one walk through your kitchen and she thought it was all puppies and rainbows because of the vegan influence. I was sure she’d be disabused of that in a day.”
“But instead, she found her passion.”
Dominique turned away with her teacup, pretending to have great interest in a depressing oil painting of someone’s great-grandfather.
“What the hell is so awful about being a chef?”
“My father was a chef,” she finally said, getting up and moving over to the window. “He lived and breathed his job and he brought it home with him. Do you know that he made us—my sister and I—respond with ‘Yes, chef’ and ‘No, chef’? He was a tyrant, I think I mentioned that. The thought of Keira entering that world . . .”
Ah. “I’m sorry your father was a tyrant. I’ve worked for some tyrants and know exactly what you’re talking about. But not all restaurant kitchens are run by pricks.”
“Even walking into a restaurant kitchen makes me shudder. It’s not even something I want to get over. I just don’t want to do it.”
“I can understand that.” I envisioned a six-, eight-, twelve-year-old Dominique hoping for a crumb of good attention and being dismissed or hit with a wooden spoon. “But it’s not fair to Keira, is it?”
She was silent for a moment. “I never talk about this. Except occasionally to my husband. He takes my side, of course.”
“I’m on your side, Dominique. But I’m on Keira’s side too. She deserves to follow her bliss. Even if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I think you should go now.”
But there was no anger in her dark blue eyes. She was thinking. A good thing.
Around midnight, my phone pinged. Alexander? Finally reporting in on how the visit from the Times reporter had gone?
Nope. Not Alexander.
Keira.
It’s a miracle. Dominique apologized. Said she’d turned into a tyrant. I’m applying to culinary schools with her blessing! She’s going to talk to my dad too. Yay!
I texted back a yay.
For the first time in the history of Clementine’s No Crap Café, I was a customer, sitting in the dining room with Zach and Dominique. I had a great team in the kitchen. I had balance. I had a much-needed night off.
Dominique took a bite of her butternut-squash ravioli. “This pasta is so toothsome,” Dominique said without a shred of irony. “Excellent. Even if you didn’t make it this time. Since you’re sitting right here.”
“I trained my staff well,” I said, shooting her a smile. “Oh, and, Dominique, I was wondering. I’ve got a ton on my plate with this place and working on the plans to open the Outpost in my parents’ barn. Would you like to handle the wedding plans again?”
She tried hard to hide her smile. “Well, I’ll have to think about it. You were a bit of a tough customer, you know.”
Ha.
“Okay, I’ve thought about it. I accept. There goes a pair of my Louboutins sinking in dirt and smelling like rabbit shit.”
I had a feeling Dominique and I would get along just fine.
From: Martina Jones
[email protected]
To: Clementine Cooper; Alexander Orr
Hey, Clementine and Alexander,
I couldn’t decide between Clementine’s No Crap Café’s exceptional pumpkin ravioli, and blackened Cajun seitan stir-fry, and sopaipillas, and Fresh’s melt-in-your-mouth spanakoptia and vegetable moussaka, so I decided to include both restaurants in my travel piece on the best vegans across America. Congrats! And thanks for dinner.
—Martina
Congratulations, chef, I e-mailed to Alexander. Shit, yeah!
A week later, I had another Saturday night off, for a wedding. Guess whose? Sara and Joe’s.
The ceremony was at Joe’s house, and the reception in the backyard.
They turned their master bedroom into a bridal suite, and when I helped Sara on with her dream gown, which our friend Ty and I had chipped in to buy as a wedding gift, she looked so beautiful I almost cried. Until I sat down on the water bed—that’s right, water bed—and the moment was ruined. I did her makeup and arranged her hair around her veil, long and wild and curly.
In a half hour, Sara Macintosh would walk down the white-rose-petal-strewn aisle to Joe “Steak” Johansson, who cleaned up danged well, I had to admit. Sara’s parents had come around a bit, since Joe promised to revert from now on to the altar boy he’d once been in front of them. They in turn vowed not to watch the show.
As I put the veil on and fluffed it around Sara, she said, “You know what I was thinking about last night? That Joe and I didn’t get around to number nine on Jocelyn’s list. The adventure together.”
“You totally did. Same with me and Zach. Your relationship, the engagement. Today. The honeymoon. Your entire future. There’s your adventure. Together.”
“I love you, Clementine Cooper.”
“I love you too.”
“How do I look?” She spun around for me.
“Absolutely beautiful.”
“Turns out that crazy guy I’m marrying likes me skinny and fat. I’m back down the fourteen pounds I gained, and he tells me I look smokin’ hot both ways.”
“So go marry him.”
And she did. An hour later, as I watched her dance with her husband at the reception, she looked so, so happy. Not only had she just married the guy she loved, but she’d gotten her first role on a sitcom and would be quitting Eat Me next week. Joe was planning a special send-off, and then the next week she’d start shooting her new role as the funny best friend and next-door neighbor on a new half-hour sitcom starring someone famous. She’d done it.
Shit, yeah, Sara!
As maid of honor, I’d had to walk down the aisle with Joe’s best friend, a guy more vulgar than Joe, which was saying something. But soon, I’d be walking down the aisle to Zach. And I was ready.
EPILOGUE
The weather gods cooperated for my wedding. Sunny, breezy, seventy-one perfect Southern California degrees. The barn, where Clementine’s No Crap Outpost would open in three months with my father at the helm, had been decorated with at least a hundred paper lanterns. I had to admit, my wedding planner had done a hell of a job. The farm looked like a farm. Even old my parents’ dogs were running around, just as they should have been.
My matron of honor, my sister, Elizabeth, bridesmaid Sara, and bridesguy Ty, who’d flown back from Paris for my wedding, were making a fuss over me in my old bedroom, making moony “awww” faces at my reflection in the mirror. I fluffed my veil, which had been my mother’s, and made sure Jocelyn’s good-luck diamond earrings were in tight, then took a last look at myself in my dress, which I’d finally found after months of saying no to everything Dominique forced me to look at in her own fashion shows and bridal salons and wedding magazines.
I’d found it in her own closet, which was a spare bedroom in her house. She’d sent me in there to pick out “my favorite of her gowns” for her to wear for the engagement party she threw me and Zach last summer. In the back, in a see-through garment bag, was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen. For her first wedding, Dominique had fallen madly in love with a gorgeous 1920s, flapper-style gown from a vintage shop, something Katharine Hepburn would have worn, with clean lines and a lace overlay. Dominique’s mother-in-law had told her it wasn’t Jeffries material and foisted a “suitable” $10,000 monstrosity with such heaving beading that Dominique had almost fainted during the reception. She’d never had the chance to wear the 1920s gown and had forgotten all about it—a dress that had symbolized who she’d once been, who she felt she wasn’t anymore.
“This is my wedding dress,” I’d told her. You should have seen her trying to hold back tears. Priceless.
“And you’re still that woman who loved this gown,” I’d added when I’d tried it on. It had barely needed altering.
Dominique Jeffries Huffington, even less a crier than I was, burst into tears and hugged me.
As I stepped out of the house, holding on to my father’s arm on one side and my mother’s on the other, I glanced out at the meadow, where a stage was set up, covered by a filmy, white canopy that swayed a bit in the breeze. Rows and rows of white chairs, linked by ivy, were arranged behind it, and they were filled with friends and family and business acquaintances, even some of my own.
Alanna and Gunnar, newly engaged, were in one of the middle rows, Gunnar’s daughter, Violet, sitting between them. Keira, a California Institute of Culinary Arts graduate, was heading to Le Cordon Blue in Paris in the fall. The trusty McMann twins, Evan and Everett, long promoted to sauté and grill, each brought a date, one of whom was my new trainee, a serious twenty-one-year-old named Juliet. Alexander and his own carnivore, with whom he’d gotten quite serious, waved at me, and I shot him a smile. In the first row with her husband, a handkerchief at the ready, was my wonderful Jocelyn.
Not that I needed to say so, but there’d be no bouquet tossing at this shindig.
As I walked down the aisle to Zach, my once-zipped-up heart about to burst with total happiness, I saw Dominique and Cornelius embrace, stunning everyone. With the first of their children to marry, it was time to let bygones be crappy bygones. Shit, yeah, it was.
And then there I was, walking up the two steps to Zach, with an expression on his face I’d never before seen. A combination of pure love, joy, hope, happiness, wonder. Charlie was sitting by the side of the stage, wearing a little black bow tie around his neck.
This Skinny Bitch was getting hitched.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people to thank who helped in the making of this book. For those I didn’t name who had a hand in it, thank you! First and foremost, a huge thank you to Melissa Senate, you are so talented and easygoing. I’m so grateful to have worked with you. Laura Dail, thank you for all you do for me. A big thanks to everyone at Simon and Schuster for making this book possible, especially Karen Kosztolnyik, Louise Burke, Jen Bergstrom, Alexandra Lewis, Liz Psaltis, Ellen Chan, Kristin Dwyer, Stephanie DeLuca, Natalie Ebel, Sarah Lieberman, and Diana Peng. I am beyond grateful to be working with such an amazing team.
Thank you, as always, to my family for their love and support. And thank you to my friends who are always there for me. And thank you Jack for being such a great kid.
KIM BARNOUIN is the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Skinny Bitch diet and cookbook series and the author of Skinny Bitch in Love, the series’ first
novel. She lives in California with her family.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Kim Barnouin
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