Kitchens of the Great Midwest

by J. Ryan Stradal

  That explained the beef part of the smell. “No worries,” Octavia said.

  “I’ll get her up to speed,” Elodie said, and looked at Octavia. “How are you?”

  “Good. How are things at the nonprofit?”

  “Chugging along. They promoted Sammy to take your job.”

  “Ha. He can’t even write a cover letter.”

  “He’s learning.” Elodie shrugged. “Anyway, Eva and I are going to start doing epicurean dinners around town and we just wanted to tell you that we could use your help.”

  “What do you mean, epicurean dinners around town?”

  “Eva said it was kind of your idea. Just sort of throw dinner parties at random places and charge people a flat rate of, like, a hundred dollars, for a really fancy meal, and make it kind of exclusive.”

  “Why not just open a restaurant?”

  “Your idea’s way better. We don’t have to rent property and pass safety codes and get a liquor license and that kind of stuff. We don’t have to be open on a Tuesday when there’s like only two people eating. We can just move in somewhere for one night and move out. Are you interested in helping us cook and make the menu?”

  “I don’t know, I already have a job.” After being unemployed for two months, it almost felt ostentatious to say that.

  “Well, this would just be like once or twice a month. We already have, like, thirty people coming to the first one this Friday. That’s at least three thousand bucks that we’d split three ways.”

  “After expenses.”

  “I suppose, yeah, but that wouldn’t be a lot. And I’m paying for the wine out of my share.”

  “I don’t know, it sounds like a lot of work.” This was sounding to Octavia like a lot of labor and expense, and without Mitch Diego’s name attached, and Robbe’s money and connections, could they be sure that even thirty people would show up? They were talented chicks, sure, but it takes so much more than that; from where they were starting, in a small bedroom in a crappy apartment, sitting on low-thread-count sheets, it looked like they were going to take a bath on this one, and Octavia didn’t need any more shame in her life at that point.

  The volume on Cater-Mania with Miles Binder got substantially louder from down the hall. Eva appeared in the doorway. “Hey, can you guys please keep it down? My dad says your conversation is bothering him.”

  Elodie looked behind herself at Eva. “Was the door closed?”

  “Yeah, but he said he could hear you through the door. I just don’t think he’s used to people being over.”

  Octavia nodded. “You don’t say.”

  “Anyway, you guys want any beef stew? It’s almost ready.”

  Octavia got up from the bed. “I should get going.”

  Eva watched Octavia as she passed through her bedroom doorway. “Did Elodie tell you about our dinner party on Friday?”

  “I’m going to have to pass, guys. I just got too much going on.”

  Eva looked sincerely disappointed. “You’re seriously one of the best chefs I know. Seriously.”

  “That’s nice of you to say,” Octavia said.

  “And we don’t want you as an employee or something, we want you as an actual partner.”

  “I know, and I’m flattered. But thank you.”

  Eva and Elodie gave each other a What do we do now? look that Octavia saw; it was actually kind of touching that these two kids thought so much of her. At least, they did once.

  “You should at least come by and eat for free and let us know what you think,” Eva offered when Octavia was on her way out the door.

  Octavia and Adam totally forgot about it by the time Friday rolled around, and neither of them even heard about how it went, so Octavia assumed it had gone poorly and those girls wouldn’t ask anything of her again.

  • • •

  The last time that Octavia saw Eva was four years later, in the produce section of the Seward Co-Op. Octavia was there because it was her lunch break and it was cheap and she’d taken to buying things in bulk for the family she now had with Adam, which included a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

  “Octavia?” she heard a woman’s voice say.

  Eva Thorvald no longer resembled the awkward ingénue she’d first met in Robbe Kramer’s kitchen; she’d evolved in every possible way. She was now a grand, luminous twenty-four-year-old with tree-limb arms, Angelina Jolie lips, scarred chef hands, cinder-block feet, generous breasts, and the kind of ass that rap songs are written about—she hadn’t grown into being a woman, she had become a woman with an exclamation mark, the sort of hardy feminine brute of the Pleistocene from which all women, great and frail, are descended.

  Octavia was relieved to see that this forceful, glowing Eva was dressed the same as ever—although in a clean, nicer version of her stock outfit—but with what looked like an expensive hairstyle, tasteful makeup, and brand-new New Balance shoes.

  “How are you?” Eva asked. Octavia found herself taking a step backwards when Eva spoke. “I’ve seen your blog, it looks like you’re doing well.”

  Octavia’s blog, where she exhaustively documented her children’s lives every day, had been named one of the Top Ten Mom Blogs in the Twin Cities by the Minneapolis paper, and had garnered her a bit of attention. She was occasionally stopped by a stranger who knew her from the blog, but she never would’ve guessed that someone like Eva Thorvald had read it; in fact she’d pretty much forgotten about Eva Thorvald altogether. “Thank you. I just hope other new mothers get something out of it. We’re all in it together, you know. How are you doing?”

  “Same old, same old. Just buying some emergency ginger, you know.”

  “How are you doing, are you working in a restaurant?”

  “No, no,” Eva said. “Still doing the dinner party that we started back in October of ’09. It’s been very labor-intensive.”

  “Is Elodie still with you?”

  “Nope, no, Elodie moved on, she and her partner opened a wine bar in Uptown. It’s doing good. It’s right next door to where Bar Garroxta used to be.”

  “Oh yeah,” Octavia said, like she’d heard of this. She hadn’t been able to afford a nice meal out regularly in over four years, and was out of the loop. “What’s it called?”

  “You’ll like this. She named it ‘Dietsch,’ in honor of our old friend Lacey. Once a year she holds a fund-raiser barrel tasting for Emma Dietsch’s college fund. You should swing by, Elodie would love to see you.”

  “And the dinner party’s going well? You still getting around thirty people?”

  “No, no, it sounds crazy, but we’re actually averaging a hundred and fifty, but we’re trying to scale it back to around twenty and have the events be more unusual.”

  “How much are you charging per dinner, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Right now, about five hundred bucks.”

  “A hundred and fifty people paying five hundred bucks each? How often?”

  “About once a month. None in December, twice each in August and September. But now we’re starting a new reservations system, expanding the staff, and hosting dinners in way more exotic locations. It’s going to increase our overhead like crazy. You don’t even want to know. We’re going to have to raise our price a whole lot immediately, which I didn’t want to do. It’s a giant risk. But it might be really amazing if it works. So we’re in a major state of flux right now.”

  Octavia had no idea how to respond. She didn’t know anyone with these kinds of problems. “Cool,” was all she said.

  “Speaking of, I gotta bounce. I have a meeting with a loan officer at three.”

  “All right, good luck with that,” Octavia said. “But hey, you ever hear from Robbe Kramer?”

  Eva froze as if a stranger’s toddler had just grabbed her leg. “I did, about a year ago, I did.”

  “I saw h
is house got foreclosed. I also heard that he’s living in Thailand with a twenty-two-year-old.”

  “Yeah, I heard that. They were here visiting and they tried to get into one of my dinners for free.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t let him in.”

  “You didn’t beat him up? Slash his tires?”

  “No, he has what he deserves already,” Eva said. “Good to see you. Don’t be a stranger.”

  • • •

  In the parking lot afterward, Octavia saw Eva walk to a shiny Honda Odyssey minivan and waited for her to drive off so she wouldn’t see Octavia get into her beat-up old Pontiac Aztek that she’d bought used from Craigslist.

  She sat in the car and took out her cell phone and did the math. Five hundred bucks times a hundred and fifty people was $75,000. That times thirteen was $975,000. That divided by three was $325,000. She could be making $325,000 a year right now instead of the $29,000 she was making as a discard counselor. More than ten times as much, if she’d remained sitting on that crappy bed in that shitty apartment four years ago.

  And also, what was Eva doing driving a minivan if she was pulling in mid-six figures? It blew Octavia’s mind. It was like Eva was afraid to be rich, or didn’t know how to be.

  • • •

  In the days since, in her head, Octavia would often spend the $325,000 she could’ve had. She’d spend it while standing in line at the post office, at a checkout at Wal-Mart, while making French toast for her husband and eldest daughter, while riding in Mitch’s ten-year-old Mercedes with the dented fender, while lying in the snow outside his place, watching her phone, waiting for him to text.

  Her phone buzzed. NOT TODAY, the words said.

  Not today? That old washout didn’t get to tell her not today. After putting a popular restaurant out of business, Mitch Diego was lucky he had a mistress at all, let alone one as beautiful and interesting as Octavia Kincade.

  She snapped to her feet and stomped out of the snowbank to his front door, her clothes dripping wet snow onto his welcome mat. She could see a light on upstairs; he was certainly home. The door was locked, so she pounded on it. He didn’t answer, so she pounded on it again. With both fists she pounded on it.

  Her phone buzzed. LEAVE OR I CALL THE COPS, it read.

  LIKE YOU WOULD DARE, she texted back, and pounded with her open palm this time.

  She took a break and texted him, IF YOU DON’T OPEN YOUR DOOR, IT’S OVER and watched the door. Nothing happened. She pounded on it again. She pounded and shouted. She took another short break and then pounded again.

  She didn’t hear the car park in the street, the sound of a driver’s side door slamming shut, or the footsteps of the man who walked up behind her. “Ma’am,” he said. She didn’t turn around. “Ma’am,” he said again.

  VENISON

  It used to be, if Jordy Snelling could change one thing about his life, it would be that rifle season went a week longer and didn’t overlap with bow season. Now here it was, two days from the opener, and he hadn’t even cleaned his goddamn Mauser yet.

  His brother Adam had come by early to visit their mom, and he brought his new lady friend Eva with him. For some stupid reason they didn’t wake him up when they got there, and now here he was getting up and they were about to leave. Also, his right hand was swollen up like a turkey drumstick and the knuckles were scraped raw. It had hurt from the moment he woke up, but his nose and face felt fine. Did he get in a fight? Maybe he won.

  • • •

  “Hey,” Eva said, smiling, when Jordy walked into the living room. Eva was real tall, seemed pretty nice, and supposedly had a job as some kinda fancy chef or something. This was only the second time he’d ever even seen her, but he was already 100 percent sure that she was way, way better than Adam’s snotty ex-wife Octavia, who nobody ever liked anyway. “What happened to your hand?” she asked.

  Jordy laughed. “Hell if I know,” he said, crossing the room to check on his mom, who was sleeping, fully reclined in her easy chair. Since she became so bony and pale, he could never look at her body for very long. “How’s she doing?” he whispered to Eva.

  “Good,” Eva whispered back. “She was up earlier.”

  “We were waiting for you to get up so we could go,” Adam said. His brother looked tired, but he always looked tired, because he worked at a damn bakery for some reason. “Eva’s got her cousins coming into town tomorrow and she’s gotta get her place ready.”

  It was 11:00 a.m., and the hospice nurse, Mandy, should’ve come by now anyway. He didn’t like to be alone with his mom for too long, especially when she needed her meds. What if he fucked something up? Her breathing was heavy again. She slept all the time now, and she didn’t get out of her recliner too much.

  On their way out, Adam hugged him, and Eva hugged him, kind of firmly for someone he didn’t know too well, and they told Jordy that he’d be fine and to call them if he needed anything. Between them, and the neighbors, and his aunt Melanie up in Inver Grove, someone was usually around, at least.

  After they left, he checked on his mom again—still sleeping—and went out to the second-floor apartment’s balcony, the only place where he was allowed to smoke. Outside, they were cutting the forest across the street to make room for new condominiums. Trying to get it done before it started snowing. It meant that all of the deer in those woods were going to be flushed out into streets and backyards just in time for mating season.

  What people don’t understand about deer is that they’re vermin. They’re giant, furry cockroaches. They invade a space, reproduce like hell, and eat everything in sight. A few adult deer can eat an entire garden in a couple of hours. And not just the vegetables, but the stalks, the leaves, the roots, everything. Leave you with nothing.

  And worse. Four years ago, Jordy lost his high school buddy Matt Dubcek to a fucking deer. Dubby had just gotten his motorcycle license like the week before. He was out on his 350cc Honda—not a big engine, but more than enough bike for a newbie. Not a lot up front, though; no fender, no windscreen, no front fairing. It was night and some buck walked out on the highway right in front of him. He didn’t even have a chance.

  Jordy tried to imagine that he’d have reacted differently, that his reflexes were good enough that he’d have jumped off to the side or even laid the bike down. Anything better than hitting the flank at sixty miles per hour. When they found Dubby, he was basically beheaded.

  He had just gotten married to this chick Lisa who’d done a tour in Afghanistan. Last he heard, she was up in Lakeville, pregnant with some other dude’s kid, and working at the new Cracker Barrel they got up there.

  • • •

  The intercom bleated; someone was in the lobby. He crushed his cigarette into an empty Keystone Light can on the deck. The nurse. He tapped the intercom to buzz her into the building, then stopped and looked at his reflection in the hall mirror. There was no helping what he saw in the time he had.

  The apartment door opened; it was Dan Jorgenson. “Hey man,” Dan said, his hand rooting around in his greasy tan Carhartt jacket. “You forgot your phone charger in my car.” Dan handed it to Jordy. It was sticky from God knows what. “Thought you might want it,” he said.

  “Hey, thanks. I had no fuckin’ idea I even lost it.”

  “Dude, you were beyond fucked up last night. You fuckin’ punched a hole in the wall of Scotty’s dad’s garage.”

  “That explains it,” Jordy said, holding his swelled hand up to Dan’s face.

  “Looks better today than it did last night,” Dan said. “Hey, can I come in for a beer? Or is your mom sleeping?”

  “Yeah, but the nurse’ll be here any sec,” Jordy said, turning from the doorway.

  “Cool.” Dan smiled, taking off his Carhartt stocking cap and his black steel-toed boots on the mat by the coat rack. He followed Jordy down the hallway in his chun
ky gray socks, and turned left at the dinette, while Jordy walked into the living room.

  Jordy patted his mom on the shoulder. She was up, and had turned on the TV. A Storage Wars: Texas rerun was on, and a tiny brown-haired woman and a big guy in a cowboy hat were arguing over other people’s stuff. Jordy didn’t know what would happen to all his mom’s stuff, but he sure as hell didn’t want strangers touching any of it.

  “Was that the nurse?” his mom asked.

  “No, just Dan.”

  Jordy’s mom turned and looked over her shoulder, seeing Dan just as he cracked open a Coors Light. She waved at him and said, “Hi, Dan.” He raised the can and smiled.

  “It’s already eleven twenty,” Jordy’s mom said. “I hope that’s not your first beer.”

  “Sorry to say it is, Linda. A little hair of the dog.”

  “You look after this one,” she told Dan, pointing at her son.

  “I sure try to.”

  Jordy was embarrassed. “Come on,” he said, leading Dan toward his bedroom.

  • • •

  Dan sat in the chair at Jordy’s desk, next to his Acer laptop, which was softly playing a Tool song through the attached external speakers, while Jordy sat on his mattress on the floor and drank from a bottle of Early Times.

  “It smells like dirty laundry in here,” Dan said.

  “That’s because I got a fuckin’ ton of dirty laundry,” Jordy said. “So what happened? Did I get in a fight with someone?”

  “No, but you were getting real chippy. That’s why Scotty locked you in the garage.”

  “I don’t remember none of that.”

  “Yeah, and like at three in the morning, we were like, oh shit, what about Jordy, because by then you were locked in there for, like, three hours. And you were passed out on the floor of the garage next to the snowblower. And there was a big fuckin’ hole in the side of the garage. Like in the drywall.”

  “What was I supposedly getting chippy about?”

  “I don’t even know. I was downstairs playing pool. Scotty said you just went off. I don’t think you hit anybody or anything. But Micayla got me and was, like, Scotty wants your help with Jordy, and you were pounding the walls and shit, and Scotty was afraid you’d break something, so we locked you in the garage.”