Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  How odd, Jenn thought as she pushed open the kitchen door, that all the people she liked and loved best were here in the place she liked least.

  She found her father sitting at the table with the newspaper spread out before him, a cup of coffee steaming by his hand. Next to him sat a stocky, suntanned woman with perpetually chapped lips and curly dark hair shot with gray. Her hands—Heidi had always had strong, elegant hands—were clasped together on the table, her stocking feet hooked around the legs of her chair like she was afraid if she didn’t anchor herself in place she might bolt.

  “Heidi!” Jenn greeted her. “How you doing, doll?”

  “Okay, mostly,” Heidi replied, pushing back in her chair but keeping her feet locked. “I got your message. Sorry ‘bout takin’ so long getting over here. I was throwing up something awful last night.”

  Heidi sick? That had to be a first. In all the years Jenn had known her, Heidi had only been ill a handful of times, and when she had been, she hadn’t broadcast it. People up here considered sickness a gross form of self-indulgence unless …

  “Yup,” Heidi said, meeting Jenn’s widening gaze, “I’m preggers.”

  “Huh?”

  “I got artificially inseminated,” she explained in typical prosaic Heidi fashion.

  The only times Jenn had ever seen Heidi excited about anything was when she’d come in second in the Iditarod and when she’d told Jenn she’d fallen in love with a “goddess from Alaska,” a gifted artist and potter named Mercedes. She didn’t look all that excited now. But she did look all glowy, now that Jenn examined her more closely, a hard feat to achieve on forty-year-old skin that had weathered months of arctic wind and sun.

  “Heidi,” she said, at a loss for words, “that’s wonderful. When are you due?”

  “Same time as all the other bitches whelp, April.” Heidi grinned. She would never be a gorgeous woman. She looked butch and today, beautiful.

  Jenn swallowed. Heidi was going to have a baby. Pregnant. At forty years of age.

  Jenn had given up the thought of having children. No, that wasn’t true. She’d never been at a place in her life that she felt she could have children, and lately, the sight of infants and little kids had only brought with it the melancholy of lost opportunities, of potential expired. But maybe the opportunity was still viable, maybe not as promising as an opportunity, but maybe still a chance.

  After all, Heidi, who’d never been interested in any infant creature that didn’t walk on all four legs, was going to have a baby. Where had Jenn been while all these changes were going on with Heidi? And had any sort of similar transformation ever happened to her? Did new set designs count?

  Kind of, she told herself, a little unnerved by the timbre of her thoughts. Of course they did.

  Her dad got up. “This is getting a little too odd for me. I always like to think of Heidi as the son I never had. Now she’s pregnant.”

  “Don’t worry, Cash,” Heidi said, with deadpan seriousness. “I’m not going to start wearing pearls and calling Mercedes ‘Ward.’ I’m just incubating because Mercedes couldn’t.”

  “The world is a strange and beautiful place.” Jenn’s father got up and smiled. “You girls chat. I’ll go get Bruno.”

  Jenn took the seat her dad vacated, reaching across the table and securing Heidi’s hand. Heidi blushed fiercely, looking embarrassed and touched. “So when did you decide all this?”

  “Well, I’m not getting any younger, and Mercedes and I figured if we’ve been together this long, the odds are pretty good we’ll last through toilet training.”

  “Heidi, you incurable romantic, you.”

  “You should hear my poetry,” she said.

  Jenn let her hand go, sinking back into her seat. “So where are you going to move?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Heidi, in the midst of dumping a tablespoon of sugar into her coffee, looked up, surprised. “We’re not moving. Why would we move?”

  “Come on, Heidi. Won’t it be hard? Not only on you, but on your kid? A gay couple raising a kid in a small town? I mean, Fawn Creek isn’t exactly a bastion of liberal acceptance.”

  Heidi finished sugaring her coffee and added a quarter cup of heavy cream. Her gaze was pensive as she stared into the cup and stirred, but a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “All true. But this is our small town, Jenn. It’s our home.”

  “You’re not concerned?” Jenn asked quietly.

  “I’d be stupid not to be,” she said. “Yeah, sure, this town has its share of assholes. What town doesn’t? But here I have the advantage of knowing the assholes’ names. And there are good people, too. You know?”

  “Yeah,” Jenn said, unable to keep the doubt from her voice.

  “Jenn,” Heidi said soberly. “Honey, you bolted as soon as you got rid of that Miss Fawn Creek crown. You grabbed your diploma and ran. I didn’t. I stayed.”

  “I know.”

  “I could have left.”

  Jenn nodded. Heidi was a prime example of fear tying a smart, gifted woman to a terrible situation.

  Heidi, studying her closely, frowned. She made a sound of exasperation. “I could have left but I didn’t. As hard as it is for you to believe, I stayed because I wanted to stay, not because I didn’t think I could make it somewhere else.” She must have read some of the doubt Jenn tried to mask.

  Heidi laid down her spoon. “Jenny, babe, anyone else and I wouldn’t bother saying all this because frankly your attitude is a little insulting. But … damn, Jenn, you’re my best friend, so listen up. I have raced my dogs all over the world and I have lived for months at a time in all sorts of places. I’m not here because of some ‘better the devil you know’ crap. I’m here because this is my home.”

  “Gosh,” Jenn said uncomfortably, trying to lighten the mood. “If I were you, I would have chosen a better home.”

  “It’s not a matter of choosing as much as accepting,” Heidi said, leaning forward, holding Jenn’s gaze with hers. “In all the years I’ve known you, the only place you are relaxed, the only place you’re not worried about making an impression, the only place you wear comfortable clothes and no makeup, the only place you swear is here. Why?”

  “Because no one cares.”

  “No,” Heidi said. “Because they know you. The real you.”

  Jenn looked away, unconvinced. She wasn’t even sure who the “real” her was. How could anyone else? But she wouldn’t hurt Heidi for the world by disagreeing.

  For a few seconds, Heidi looked as if she was going to say more, but she finally relaxed back in her chair, her smile resigned. “So, Debbie Stugaard is throwing a baby shower for me.”

  At the look on Jenn’s face, Heidi burst out laughing. “And you’re going to be invited and you’re sure goin’ t’come. Aren’t you?”

  “Ah …”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  “Now don’t laugh, but I’m thinking of wearing a dress,” Heidi continued, serenely, “because it’d make Marcia happy and Mercedes bet me a one-hour back massage that I wouldn’t have the guts. So I’m thinking one of those stretchy deals like Heidi Klum wore when she was pregnant.”

  Heidi Olmsted, not only a mother-to-be, and her pregnancy being celebrated by the wife of one of the county’s most conservative junior congressmen, but planning on wearing a spandex maternity dress, to boot. Jenn’s dad was right; the world was a strange and wonderful place.

  A little, unexpected rush of envy rippled through her. “What do you know from Heidi Klum?”

  “Mercedes watches Project Runway,” Heidi said, a little sheepishly. “We all make concessions for love, Jenn.”

  Yeah? a little voice inside snickered. Not Jenn Hallesby. She’d never made any concessions during her brief marriage. God, she’d been young.

  “And how are you doing, my friend?” Heidi asked quizzically. Her head tipped to the side. Her gaze was alert, probing.

  “Great!” Jenn enthused.
“Good Neighbors held seventy-three percent of the viewership last year and the market expanded by twelve percent. We scored a Nielsen rating of four point two for the Thanksgiving special.”

  Heidi’s eyes glazed over. “Cool.” She wiggled herself straight, leaning over the table and pinning Jenn with her gaze. “But I was talking about you, personally. Not your show. Tell me about this Jaax guy. Mercedes says he was on the vanguard of redefining representational sculpture.”

  Jenn smiled. She couldn’t help it. Whenever Heidi segued seamlessly from her Minnesota dog-musher lexicon to Mercedes’s artistic one, it provoked a smile from her.

  “Yeah,” Jenn said wryly, “he’s even more famous than I’d realized. Do you know how many people have recognized him since he got here? Even the kids.”

  “Oh, that’s because the Fawn Creek Crier ran a front-page piece on him last week, and Keith Blum, the art teacher at the high school, made all his classes write a paper on him.”

  Steve would be disappointed that his fame wasn’t as universal as he’d assumed. “Let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we?”

  Heidi shrugged. “Sure. He sounds like a decent guy. Cash seems to like him and your dad doesn’t like most people. So tell me about him.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I just met him—” She stopped abruptly and blinked. Yesterday? Could that be right? She’d only met Steve yesterday? How could that be?

  “You met him …?” Heidi prompted.

  “Ah …” She touched her forehead, distracted. “Yesterday. But I … I met him when he did my sculpture. So …” So could that account for this feeling of knowing him so much better, so much more deeply than a mere twenty-four hours could ever account for?

  Heidi leaned over the table and snapped her fingers a few inches from Jenn’s face. “Wake up there, princess. What’s gotten into you anyway?”

  Jenn was saved from having to answer by the sound of nails clattering on the floor followed by the arrival of Bruno, Jenn’s dad, and trailing in last, yawning hugely, Steve. His gaze went straight to her and his grin was spontaneous. Her pulse fluttered in response. All the estrogen in the air must be affecting her.

  If he kept smiling at her like that, all open pleasure, she was going to blu—Hell! She was blushing. Now she felt ridiculous and Heidi and her dad were staring at her like she’d just sprouted a second head.

  “Hi,” Steve said and then realized they had guests. He looked down at Heidi, who tipped her chair on its back two legs to get a better look at him. “You’re Heidi, right? Hi, Heidi. I would like to buy your dog.”

  Heidi’s startled glance found Jenn. Jenn shrugged.

  “I think Bruno would like me to buy him from you, too,” Steve continued seriously.

  “He could be right,” Jenn said, pointing at Bruno.

  Like some orphan kid who sees his chance at living in a mansion, Bruno had latched on to Steve with limpetlike tenacity. He sat down on Steve’s right foot, looking alertly and attentively up at him.

  “Ingrate,” Heidi muttered. Bruno didn’t spare her a glance.

  “I’m Steve Jaax, by the way.” Steve reached across the table and shook Heidi’s hand, smiling winningly.

  “Oh, I know!” Heidi said. “Been reading about you in the Crier. My girlfriend is an artist, you know. Say, I was wondering if—”

  “Do not ask him for his autograph,” Jenn warned her. “As you value my friendship, do not ask him for his autograph.”

  “Wasn’t gonna,” Heidi said, trying to look truthful. “What do you want with Bruno, Mr. Jaax?”

  “Call me Steve. And I’ll be happy to autograph something for your girlfriend. Jenny has a little trouble dealing with my celebrity.” He glanced fondly in Jenn’s direction. Jenn smiled back.

  Jenny? Heidi mouthed mutely.

  Steve turned back to Heidi. “And in answer to your question, I want to be Bruno’s companion and I want him to be mine.”

  Companion. The word hit Jenn with unexpected force. It was that damn old Marc Cohen song—that was why. The word “companion” just reeked of pledges and commitments and linking arms and skipping down life’s rose-strewn path into the Great Unknown. It didn’t help that Heidi had Mercedes, her dad had her mom, and now Steve was going to have Bruno.

  Well, at least she had a TV show. Crap.

  Steve was gazing down into Bruno’s upturned furry face, studying it seriously. “I think he likes me, too. And as I understand it, you’ve recently retired him from whatever line of work it was he was doing, so he’s at liberty to take on a new gig. I would like that to be as my dog.”

  “You can’t have a dog, Steve,” Jenn said. He couldn’t have a dog. He had no more business having a dog than she did, and she loved dogs. He hadn’t even known he liked dogs until yesterday! “Where would you keep him? What would you do with him when you were, say, opening a show in Prague?”

  “He would come with,” Steve replied reasonably. “I’d have a stipulation that any shows I did out of the country, Bruno would have to be able to come with me. I’d make it work. If you want something, you make it work.”

  She didn’t have an answer to that.

  “Well …” Heidi said, looking at Cash.

  “He’s an okay guy.” Jenn’s dad didn’t dole out much higher praise than that.

  “Please,” Steve said. “I’ll send references. I’ll sign whatever waiver you’d like saying you can reclaim him if you even suspect for a second that he’s not being treated like a doggie prince.” He paused to cast a loving look down at his new best bud. The adoring gaze was returned. “Say, do you think he could learn to answer to the name Prince?”

  “No!” Heidi and Jenn and Cash said in unison.

  “Okay,” Steve said, disappointed but resigned. “Please?”

  “Well, maybe. Probably. But only if you promise not to rename him.”

  “Deal.” Steve scratched Bruno’s head again.

  Jenn watched with the return of the odd feeling that she suspected was jealousy. It was jealousy. She was jealous of Bruno. No, no, no. She held imaginary fingers into her ears, mentally stoppering them.

  She was in Fawn Creek. Things always seemed a little skewed here. She was probably just nervous about the immense leap forward her career was about to take and feeling a little anxious. She’d always had a clear idea of where she was going; that didn’t mean her life lacked … richness. And just because she’d made out with Steve didn’t mean she was going to start having epiphanies about Her Life. She knew all about Her Life. She knew what drove her (the loss of her childhood home), she knew what she wanted (security), and she knew how she was going to get it (by working her ass off for AMS). Other … things could wait.

  There, having sorted things out in her head, she felt much better.

  “Why does Jenn look like that?” Heidi asked Steve, who, looking profoundly pleased with himself, had taken a seat on one side of Heidi while Jenn’s father took the seat on her other side. “All dour?”

  “She’s probably got a hangover, is all,” Steve explained kindly. “A little sustenance and she’ll be right as—” He started and glanced furtively around.

  “Don’t worry, Steve. Nina sleeps in. She’s a night owl,” Cash told him and prepared to rise. “Now who wants toast?”

  “I need more than toast,” Jenn announced, pushing herself up from the table. Cooking had always been her refuge. “I need food.”

  The three at the table exchanged furtive and triumphant glances as she opened the refrigerator, where she found eggs, cream, and all sorts of disastrously unhealthy food. She wondered if her mother surreptitiously stocked up on “bad food” whenever Jenn came to town in order to provide Cash with a little culinary time-off for good behavior. Because over the years it had become a pattern for her to rise early and make her father breakfast—even if “breakfast” sometimes took on the flavor of dinner or, more often than that, dessert.

  As she started some oatmeal, her dad, knowing she’d be cooking for
at least another half an hour, folded his newspaper under his arm, muttered something about “consulting the porcelain oracle,” and disappeared.

  “—half a bottle of aquavit,” Jenn heard Steve ratting her out as she dug out the bowls and whisks she’d need. No matter. She had no secrets from Heidi. She began dicing a hard green apple she’d found in the bottom of the fruit bin.

  “You’d think she’d know better,” Heidi replied. “No wonder you look all pruned up, Jenn. You remember last time you got drunk on aquavit? You wouldn’t like that happenin’ again, now, would ya? Not with the AMS people showing up this morning.”

  “They’re here?” Jenn looked up from the egg whites she’d been beating. They were a day earlier than she’d expected. And not particularly welcome. She wasn’t sure she was ready to saddle up as Jenn Lind just yet.

  “What did she do last time she was drink on aquavit?” Steve asked, unfazed by news of the media’s arrival.

  “Nothing,” Jenn answered before Heidi could.

  “Oh, come on,” Steve cajoled. “Tell me.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Jenn said, folding her egg whites into the oatmeal. “I was in high school and I was way drunk and I embarrassed poor Heidi, for which I am still sorry.”

  “I’ve managed to live through the ignominy,” Heidi said dryly.

  “What did you do?” Steve asked. “Out her?”

  Heidi gave him a look. “I think by my senior year most folks had a pretty good idea I wasn’t interested in guys.” She looked at Jenn and shook her head. “Nah. Jenn had another agenda, getting kicked off her Miss Fawn Creek throne. The only reason she got so drunk is that she was trying to build up her courage.”

  Heidi laughed and Jenn felt her mouth quirk in response. When she thought about it now, twenty-two years later, it was hard to imagine anyone not laughing at how dramatic and single-minded she’d been. In retrospect, she wondered how many of the town council had gone home and wet themselves laughing at her grim-faced determination to hurl herself beyond the pale.