by Laura Dave
Rain shook her head. “I didn’t ask you to.”
Then it got quiet, awkward.
Thomas looked back and forth between us. “I’d leave you guys alone, but you know . . . not gonna get up unnecessarily.”
I looked at my sister. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” I said.
She kept her hand on Thomas, motioned around the small house. Sammy was in the loft above the living room, Thomas was taking up the kitchen, the bedroom was all bed.
“It’s raining really hard out there,” she said. “There’s not many places to go.”
I held up the key to our childhood home. “I have one.”
49
So this is super freaky,” Rain said.
We walked into the foyer, Rain taking in the house. The walls, the art, the enormous portrait of the celebrity and her husband in the dip-down living room.
“We can’t just be here,” she said.
“Humor me,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s a defense for the cops.”
But she kept walking down the hallway and into the kitchen, taking in the enormous stoves, the bay windows leading out to the porch, and the gorgeous views of the beach and the ocean beyond it. The rain was still coming down hard, the wind whipping up, making it all feel slightly magical.
“Please tell me she’s a good chef,” Rain said.
“No idea, but . . .” I reached into the fridge and pulled out a loaf of our favorite bread. “You hungry?”
“Now we are just stealing.”
“She’s got a stocked fridge, and it’s all going to go to waste.”
“That’s what we’ll tell the police.”
“Grilled cheese?”
She considered. “All right,” she said. “But I’m taking the seat with the view.”
Here was how I made the grilled cheese:
First—and the ordering of the ingredients mattered—I took a loaf of country boule bread and sliced two pieces half an inch thick. Not from the ends, but from the middle of the loaf. This was the second-most important part of building a great grilled cheese—the bread itself, and then its ratio to everything else. Once I’d cut the bread, I buttered the inside of each slice and started to add the goodies. I added a generous layer of good quality Swiss cheese, then very thinly sliced cherry tomatoes. Of course, cherry tomatoes were small and difficult to slice thinly—and, it was summer, so I could have used any fresh tomato—but the rest of the year, only a cherry tomato was sweet enough. I put five tomatoes on each side, then another layer of Swiss, even more generous than the first. If Danny was there, I would have added a top layer of avocado, but avocado (a grilled-cheese purist might say) is a controversial ingredient. And not needed. What was needed was that I focused on the most important part: I put the sandwich together and coated the outside of each slice with mayonnaise. No thin layer, a solid coating. The salty goodness of the mayonnaise sealed the sandwich together, and made it grill on the grill pan more smoothly. Five minutes or to your desired level of toastiness. (But the right level of toastiness is five minutes on each side.)
This might sound simple. And that is because it is.
It is also, without a doubt, the most delicious sandwich in the world.
I found the house’s sound system and attached my phone, turning on “Moonlight Mile.” I listened to it all the time now—I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just that I loved the song. It felt like there was something else it was supposed to be telling me.
Rain and I sat next to each other on two stools facing the ocean, facing the rain, the song quietly playing, eating silently.
We each had an entire sandwich, and then we split another.
“That’s pretty much the best sandwich ever,” she said, finally.
“Right?” I said. “And they all say I can’t cook!”
She laughed. “Too bad they won’t let you do a show on just that.”
“They probably would,” I said. “They’d call it Say Cheese. And it would be all things cheese.”
“And toast,” Rain said.
“No. There’s someone else who has that market cornered.”
“The toast market? I was kidding. That’s a thing?”
I nodded. “Amber’s.”
She shook her head. “Exhausting.”
Then she took our plates and walked to the sink, turning on the faucet.
“I’m going to wash these by hand,” she said.
I followed her and reached for the dishtowel. “I’ll dry,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not using the fancy dishwasher?” she said.
I shrugged. “I figure you have your reasons,” I said.
“I’ve read that now you can attach all your appliances to your phone so you know when any of them have been used,” she said. “I don’t want her getting a ping somewhere that people have broken into her house.”
“To clean it?”
“I’m sure weirder things have happened.”
She focused on the dishes, handing over the first plate.
“Danny called looking for you.”
“When?” I said.
“Last night,” she said. “I didn’t talk to him.”
I nodded, taking that in. I had no idea why he would call her as opposed to calling me directly.
“He’s called before.”
I looked up at her.
“He’s called a few times to check in and make sure you were doing okay. But he shouldn’t have,” she said. “Not after what he did.”
“Do you believe him? That he had good intentions?”
“Yes. But that makes me angrier.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause I don’t know whether to be furious at him for what he did or to be upset that I didn’t think of it first.”
I smiled at her and, almost in spite of herself, Rain smiled back.
“Anyway, don’t call him. At least not yet.”
It was the first big-sisterly thing she’d said to me in a long time. And yet, I wanted to call him. I wanted, more than anything, to hear his voice—to hear that he was doing okay. I wanted to hear that he missed me.
She wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I heard you got a job offer.”
I looked up. “Where?”
“When I ran into the bedroom to change, Sammy followed me in and pointed her finger at me and said, ‘Mommy, she got a job offer. Be nice about it. Be nice!’ ”
I laughed. “I appreciate her support.”
“What’s this job?”
“Basically, it would be doing another show. Filmed here. All about starting over, finding my roots.”
“Ah . . . redemption TV.”
I nodded. “Yep. Pretty much.”
She reached into the cabinet, started putting the plates away. “How do you feel about it?”
“Great. And not so great.”
Rain turned and looked at me as if considering whether to say something. “Do you know Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management?”
“Is that a book Sammy wants?”
“No, no. Isabella Beeton. She was like the original Martha Stewart, back in the 1800s. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Cookery and Household Management was the definitive book on cooking and keeping your house together.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you not know that? Next time you take on a role, you should do a little research.”
I smiled.
“I read about her years ago, and of course I thought of you, ’cause, apparently, this Beeton lady didn’t write any of her own recipes either. She literally copied recipes from other people, going as far back as the Restoration. And then she would add the list of ingredients to the front of every recipe. So it would look different from the original. So she could sell it as her own.”
“Seriously?”
Rain nodded. “This is the best part. Even after she died, her husband pretended she was still alive and went on publishing more books. There’s some rea
l fraud!”
I shrugged. “It was easier back then.”
“I just think it’s kind of interesting. She did a bad thing, right? But she also put the ingredients at the beginning. And now that’s how every recipe is written. She did a bad thing and she was the first person to ever do that.”
“So you’re saying that’s what I have to do? Put the ingredients at the beginning.”
“Metaphorically speaking.”
“That’s your pep talk?”
She shrugged. “It’s what I got.”
I wanted to ask how we could know for sure that Mrs. Beeton was the person who came up with the ingredients idea, but I decided I was going to have a little faith that it was true. I was going to have faith in Mrs. Beeton, and—if Rain was bothering to be kind to me, to dredge up this story she’d been saving until I deserved it—maybe a little faith in myself.
My sister walked over to the bay windows, looked outside. “It is really freaky to be back in here.”
I walked over to the windows, too, so we were side by side. “I’ve actually found it kind of comforting.”
“That’s even freakier.”
I looked right at her, Rain’s eyes still straight ahead. “I shouldn’t have said what I did, about you and Dad,” I said.
She flinched. “I’m not like him,” she said.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“If anyone’s like him, it’s me.”
She turned and met my eyes. I nodded, wanting her to know she’d heard me correctly—that I meant it. I did. I knew it was the reason I’d had to leave Montauk. It was the reason I stayed away from my sister; because she knew it too.
I only understood it now—after Sunshine had taken such a terrible pivot, after Danny had outed me—and I was forced to face myself again. I had become my father’s daughter. He’d had his rules. And I created my lies. And they served the same purpose at the end of the day. They let us live in alternative universes where we got to pretend that we were strong. Where we felt good enough.
Rain looked away, not sure what to say. I was sorry, and she knew it. I was trying to do better. If we had a different relationship, she could have taken my hand or touched me. But that wasn’t who we were, not anymore.
She looked at me. “I’d like to go home now,” she said.
I smiled, a little deflated. “Sure.”
“And I would like you to come with me.”
I nodded, my throat catching. She shrugged, playing it off.
“I guess that baby inside of you . . . he gets you some goodwill as far as I’m concerned.”
“You think it’s a he?” I said.
Rain started gathering up her things, doing a final sweep of the kitchen. “I just picked a pronoun.”
50
Putting the ingredients up front. Here’s how I planned to do it.
I called Julie, ready to take her up on her generous offer. There were many reasons to tell her yes after all. A new show would provide financial security, a career, a way to help take care of Sammy, to take care of my own kid, a way out of Montauk. A shot at redemption. No lies this time. And hadn’t a version of this very thing been the goal?
Still, when I heard her voice on the phone, the word yes wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“So, are we going to do something great together?” she said.
“Can I ask you something first? Do you think there’s a way to live in the public eye and be authentic? You work with all sorts of people. How do people do it?”
“Well, you don’t lie about who you are. For starters.”
I laughed. “I know, but even then . . . it seems tricky.”
“Oh, jeez. I guess they don’t take the whole thing so seriously,” she said. “Or maybe they take it very seriously. I don’t know. I think you’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“I’m offering you a second chance. And this time, there will be no pretending to be anything you’re not. It will be the real you.”
That stopped me. Because she couldn’t promise that. That was the tricky part, wasn’t it? That was Ethan’s point. Danny had been able to hack me because I’d lied about who I was. But he was also able to do it because I’d put everything out there. I’d told the story about myself that I thought needed to be told. Until it had taken me so far away from myself that I couldn’t even find it anymore. The truth. My truth. However large or small, however unimportant. However click-worthy.
Maybe that was all we had to hold on to. Our truth. Our thing. The thing that made us who we were. So the entire world wasn’t suddenly for sale.
“Are you still there?” Julie said.
“I am,” I said. “But I’m going to pass.”
“No.” She was firm. “Really?”
I almost didn’t believe it myself. “Apparently.”
“Come on. Why would you do that?”
It was a fair question. “I don’t think it’s right for me.”
“Who knows what’s right for them? Some days I want to move to Mexico, other days I’m scared of Zika. Do you get what I’m saying? I mean, you don’t want to be a waitress forever.”
“I’m on trash.”
“I’m getting a headache.”
“I think I just need a private life right now.”
“Is the husband back?”
“No. I just don’t want to put myself out there. At least until I know again what I’m putting out there.”
“I’m not sure what that means. Though I hope you’ll call me when you come to your senses.”
Maybe I would. But I didn’t think so. “Thank you for thinking it was a good idea.”
“I’m thinking a little less so now,” she said.
51
There is another thing you should know about “Moonlight Mile”—it was what I was trying to remember, what I was trying to hold on to again. The reason why Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics. The reason it spoke so eloquently to Mick Taylor. It was one of the few songs Jagger had written that showed his weariness of living life on the road, the pressure of keeping up appearances.
Jagger had always kept his public persona and his private feelings separate. So it was startling and incredible to hear him open up about his loneliness. To expose himself in that way.
As soon as I got off the phone with Julie, I turned on the song and—now that she didn’t care anymore—I figured out a better answer to why I felt like I had to turn her down. I realized: It couldn’t have happened that way today for Jagger, could it? If Jagger were coming up today, instead of listening to the most honest rock song ever written, we would see on his Facebook feed that life on the road was draining him. We would see on his Twitter, a few hours later, an apology for sounding ungrateful that life on the road was draining him. The world eager to chime right in with their judgments.
Was his apology sincere? Was it sincere enough?
And, really, it wasn’t even about being famous—or famous in your corner of the world, like I’d been, for a moment.
I was still trying to figure out what we all lost in broadcasting our lives for everyone else’s consumption. Before we took the time, you know, to figure out what we wanted our lives to add up to.
Something important, it seemed to me. Something like the chance to write the song.
52
That night, I told Chef I needed to talk with him.
I was still reeling a little from telling Julie no. I was reeling and trying to focus in on working things out with Z.
We were going over the trash, which was composed mainly of the whipped lardo and seaweed butter he served with the bread. It depended on the day of the week whether that rich, gooey lardo and the salty butter were spooned up or left behind. Saturdays, people drowned their fresh farm bread in both types of fat. But Sundays, they seemed to leave the lardo behind. Chef Z wasn’t particularly interested—not in the bread, and not really in what I had to say.
Before I got a word out, he raised h
is hands, stopping me. “I already know what you’re going to say,” he said.
“You do?”
He motioned across the kitchen. “Douglas told me about your little fake TV show,” he said. “When he was trying to get me to replace you with his nephew on trash.”
“He did?”
Chef Z shrugged. “Headline is, I couldn’t care less. Cooking and television are two separate things. And one of them is idiotic.”
“The show was actually just on the internet. Though when it came out that I couldn’t cook, the Food Network did cancel my contract. I was going to host for them.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Think I care.”
He shook his head, not interested in my part of this conversation, only in his.
“There is no way to make coq au vin in under thirty minutes and also to make it well. That’s why you pay me to make it. Because you should not.”
I smiled at him, feeling buoyed. I wanted to talk to Z about letting me work in food prep. I’d proven to have a good palate and I wanted to learn. I knew it was a long shot, but I couldn’t help but think: Maybe this was where this roundabout road had taken me. I’d cook the kinds of food that I had learned to love at the restaurant—fresh, specific, thoughtful. And I wouldn’t do it as a way to get a new show, a new shot at stardom, but as an end to itself. To actually be a great cook.
Putting the ingredients up front. Take two.
Chef Z was spooning the lardo into a plastic container. “Is there a reason you’re staring at me or is this just the naturally awkward way you make people uncomfortable?” he said.
“I’m just happy to hear that you weren’t irked by what happened.” I paused. “I should say, by what I did.”
I was learning to do it. Take responsibility.
“Fine,” he said. Then he motioned toward the lardo. “Moving on.”
“I was hoping to talk with you about pursuing cooking opportunities here at the restaurant,” I said. “Under your tutelage.”
“I don’t like that word,” he said. “Tutelage. Please don’t use it again.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
