Misery Loves Cabernet

by Kim Gruenenfelder

Learn to cook.

  The following morning, I awake to the smell of bacon.

  Really . . . is there any better smell in the world?

  I head downstairs to find my new roommate slaving over my hot stove. He’s got three jets working: sausage sizzles in one pan, while hash browns cook in another. And in the final pan, Liam fries up some eggs. Off to the side, bacon and some sort of sausage rest on paper towels, getting degreased.

  “Good morning!” he says brightly. “Hope you don’t mind. I’ve been rifling through your kitchen. Coffee’s in your coffee thermos.”

  “I have a coffee thermos?” I ask.

  “Yeeeessss . . . ,” Liam says, smiling as he drags out the word. He grabs a medium-sized silver jug, pours me a wonderfully smelling brew, quickly hands it to me, then goes back to the eggs. “I found it stored in your oven. Along with your frying pans.”

  I look at the thermos. “So that’s what this is. I always thought it was for making monstrously big Jell-O shots.”

  Liam chuckles at my joke. “I’m making us Irish fry-ups. You’re not one of those women who needs a sliced tomato on her plate, are you?”

  “I never need vegetables on my plate,” I answer.

  “Excellent. The newspapers are already on the table. Have a seat, breakfast will be ready in a moment.”

  I take a sip of coffee as I walk into my dining room. On the table is a New York Times, a Los Angeles Times, and a Wall Street Journal, all folded neatly, ready to be opened.

  If it weren’t for Andy’s information last night, I think I’d be tempted to take an arm and push everything off the table, then when Liam walked in, throw him down on the table, and take advantage of his virtue.

  But now that I have Andy’s information, I know that Liam’s “perfect guy” act is just an act, designed to get women into bed before they realize he’s not perfect, he won’t call them later, and that he will be the catalyst for a month of ice cream and self-pity binges.

  Actually, Andy didn’t tell me that—I’m just assuming.

  Liam walks in, carrying two plates, each with a pile of bacon, two types of sausage, runny fried eggs, greasy hash browns, and some starchy-looking concoction that appears to be fried in grease.

  “I know how much you like bacon,” Liam says, putting the plate with the big pile of bacon in front of me. “So I made extra.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Things that seem too good to be true usually are. This is especially true with men.

  I look at the greasy mess on my plate. “It smells heavenly,” I lie. I point to the starchy bready-looking thing. “What is that?”

  “Irish soda bread, cooked in sausage drippings.”

  What is this? Some kind of test to see what I’ll put in my mouth? “Uh-huh,” I say. “And this?” I ask, pointing to . . . um . . . well, some kind of fried meat?

  “Black pudding,” he answers.

  “Oh,” I say, feeling that one is safe to have a bite of.

  I put a forkful in my mouth. Oh, yuck. I think I’m going to throw up. With my mouth still full, I ask, “What exactly is black pudding?”

  “It’s a traditional Irish sausage. I think Americans call it blood sausage.”

  “Feckity, feck, feck, feck,” I blurt out, running to the kitchen to spit it out in the garbage.

  Liam yells from the other room, “You didn’t even give it a chance.”

  “I won’t give anal sex a chance either, but I’m comfortable with that, too!” I yell back. I return to the table to stare at the runny eggs. They look like they have the consistency of snot. “Aren’t you supposed to cook the eggs a little more?”

  Liam smiles as he dips his greasy soda bread into his runny egg yolk. “Nah. Puts some hair on your chest.”

  “I don’t want hair on my chest,” I say, trying not to look too disgusted as I pick around the food with my fork.

  “At least give them a try. I added the Fleur de Sel from your spice cabinet.”

  “Fleur de Sel? That’s salt, right?” I say, furrowing my brow, and feeling like a seven year old just three Brussels sprouts away from dessert.

  “Just try it,” Liam implores.

  I take a small bite of runny egg, and chew it quickly. Then I wash down my small piece of food with about a half gallon of coffee. “It’s great,” I lie, taking a piece of bacon, relieved to find one thing on this entire plate I can stomach.

  Liam laughs. “The hash browns are cooked in bacon fat. You might want to try them.”

  I look at the potatoes and debate. “I’d ask why on earth would someone want to cook hash browns in bacon fat. But I must admit, it sounds kind of inspired.” I break off a piece of potato with my fork and tentatively put it in my month.

  Not bad. I take a bigger bite.

  Liam smiles at me, then slices off a piece of sausage and pops it into his mouth. “So, did you hear where we found the perfect location for the final few weeks of filming?” he asks with a full mouth.

  “No,” I say, continuing to pick at my food. “Where?”

  “Lake Arrowhead.”

  Lake Arrowhead is a picturesque little community located in the San Bernardino mountains, about two hours outside of the city. It is positively magical at Christmastime: the whole town decorates, and there’s usually snow. There’s hot chocolate available almost everywhere, at least three stores that sell Christmas ornaments, and even a candy shop. Not a bad place to work at Christmas.

  “I need to scout a few of the locations today and tomorrow,” Liam says, taking another bite of runny egg. “Need to make sure we can get all the permits we need, reserve the necessary hotel rooms, things like that. Why don’t you come with me? Think of it as the first few days of learning to be a producer.”

  “Hah!” I blurt out, smirking.

  Liam looks startled by my response.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just Drew would never let me leave his side while he’s shooting. What if his cup ran out of coffee, or his toilet melted in his dressing room?”

  As if on cue, my phone rings. As I walk over to pick it up, Liam says to me, “Well, if you could swing it, I’ve reserved two rooms at the Lake Arrowhead Resort, and I’d be happy to buy you a fabulous dinner at BIN189.”

  I see from the caller ID, it’s Drew. I pick up. “Good morning,” I say cheerfully.

  “See if the suites are really only twelve hundred square feet,” Drew says without preamble.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, I know it’s a low-budget movie, but doesn’t that strike you as a bit tiny for a presidential suite?” Drew asks.

  “Drew, that’s the same size as my whole house.”

  “Which is why I keep telling you that you don’t have to keep slumming it. You can move in with me. Anyway, go up there with Liam, see if you can get me anything bigger than the presidential suite, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say carefully, painfully aware that Liam is watching me.

  “Why?” Drew asks. “Afraid the romantic ambience of the place is going to inspire you to do the horizontal hokey pokey?”

  “No,” I say, trying to sound disgusted. “It’s just . . .” I struggle to find a reason to stay in the city that will insult neither the man on the phone nor the man in my dining room. “What are you going to do for coffee while I’m gone?”

  “Whitney already said she can send a PA out for my Starbucks.”

  “What if you get lost in a small town outside of the city, and you’re not sure of the name, but it sounds like a kind of lunch meat?”

  Drew considers that possibility for a moment. “Then I’ll call your cell up in Lake Arrowhead.”

  “What if you get the uncontrollable urge to rescue a rabbit from a nest of vipers? And there’s no one to talk you out of it? Or no one to call the proper doctor to get you the proper antivenom?”

  There’s silence on Drew’s end.

  “It’s no wonder you’re not in a long-term r
elationship,” Drew finally says snippily. “You have a very nasty habit of rehashing a man’s past mistakes. That’s my yoga instructor. Gotta go! Namaste.”

  And he hangs up on me.

  Two hours of brutal traffic later, Liam and I are in his Z3, driving east on the 210 Freeway, toward the San Bernardino mountains, and up to Lake Arrowhead.

  We haven’t talked much. Part of the reason is because Liam has been on his headset most of the morning talking to various people from the movie. But part of it is because I don’t feel like talking.

  I’m feeling a bit betrayed, which I know makes no sense because Liam hasn’t actually done anything to me. But still—it sure seemed like he was flirting with me. You don’t make a girl breakfast, even a disgusting frat-boy breakfast, without knowing she’s going to develop a crush on you. Or bring her a bottle of wine twice in two days. Or walk around in your purple paisley silk boxer shorts looking ridiculously fuc . . .

  Oh, I’m so mad at myself right now. Why am I so tempted by yet another guy I know is bad for me? I don’t need to be another notch on someone’s belt, and frankly I’m offended that he has chosen to see me that way.

  Well, if he’s chosen to see me that way.

  But, come on, do you take a woman to a hotel out of the city for a night if you don’t see her that way?

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Liam says, rescuing me from my thoughts.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “Want to talk about it?” he inquires.

  I shake my head “no.”

  As traffic finally clears up, Liam drives us onto the 15 Freeway North. As we drive on the overpass, I stare out over three thousand unit tract houses that all look exactly the same, dotting a landscape of desert. As I stare at the pile of tumbleweeds that have blown into the tract’s outer wall, I wonder why I’m out here at all. What exactly am I hoping for? That he will forgo his harem, and decide that I’m his one and only?

  Hah!

  “Isn’t the American West fascinating?” Liam says with wonder as he pulls his car into the fast lane of the 15. “Shades of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Wyatt Earp . . .”

  I try not to look too horrified and confused as I look at the houses around us. “It’s nothing but ugly houses in shades of chewing-gum beige and baby-poop brown.”

  Liam tries another approach. “But look at all the wide open space—”

  “Yeah, right. People who live out here have all of seventeen inches of space between their McMansion and the McMansion next door.”

  Liam eyes me, then jokes, “Someone’s cranky.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Then I go for broke. “So, what’s up with this dating thing?” I ask in an accusatory fashion. “How many women are you dating?”

  I can’t read Liam’s face: Is he startled by my question? Confused? He takes a moment to respond, and his answer completely emulates that of a presidential candidate. “I don’t know. A few?”

  “Well, you brought a bombshell to the Halloween party,” I point out, doing my best to sound like a lawyer showing the jury Exhibit A. “You had a date last night. I know you were a Lothario in college. I’m just wondering what the deal is. Are you juggling three women? Four? Do you have a girl on the side who thinks she’s your girlfriend that you don’t want anyone to know about? What’s up?”

  Liam seems stunned by my lengthy accusation, but not insulted. “I can see my reputation from business school precedes me,” he jokes.

  I shrug. “Andy was a little concerned that I was rooming with you. She was afraid I might wind up having a crush on you.”

  “And I can certainly see why that would keep her up nights,” he says with a slight amount of sarcasm creeping into his voice. “Is that why you’ve been acting strangely all morning?”

  “I haven’t been acting strangely,” I snap. “I’m just curious. Men who look like you are either taken, gay, or both. They’re not just wandering the streets, ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice.”

  Liam turns to me, smirking. “How do I look?”

  I cross my arms and turn away from him. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “You just said, that men who look like me—”

  “Just answer the question,” I interrupt.

  “Okay,” Liam says, shrugging, and clearly irked with me. “I was dating a woman off and on for several years. She was on the road so much of the year that we might as well have been in a long-distance relationship, which was dreadful. She broke up with me several months ago to take a job in Connecticut. I’ve been on a few dates since then, but my experience with women is that if you ask them out once, they want to see where it’s going, and I’m not ready to see where anything is going yet. Which I always tell women on the first date. Which usually means there is no second date. But I don’t want a rerun of my first year of business school, when the love of my life broke up with me, and I responded by seducing anything that would move.” He turns to me. “Is that an acceptable response?”

  My voice softens. “Yeah,” I say, turning to look at the road in front of us.

  We’re both silent for a minute or two. All I can think is dammit, he doesn’t want a relationship. There’s no point in liking him now, because he’s just admitted it will lead to my assured heartbreak. Which really sucks, because I’m really beginning to like the guy.

  And not the perfect guy, either. I mean, the guy who walks around in boxer shorts, speaks in a sexy accent, and brings me wine and cheese—I’m loving him. But in the past few days I’ve really gotten to know Liam, and he’s really funny and really fun to listen to. And, most of the time, incredibly easy to be with. It’s been so long since I’ve been around someone who was incredibly easy to be with. I forgot there were relationships out there that weren’t hard.

  That said, if we do anything romantic, the relationship would get really hard really quickly.

  Like I said, dammit.

  Then my brain suddenly switches gears. I start thinking about how nice it has been to have Liam around. And, once again, how effortless. I always have room in my life for another low-maintenance friendship. What girl doesn’t? And, if the sexual chemistry is taken out of the mix, I still get a pretty great friend.

  Overall, not a bad deal for me.

  “Thank you for answering me,” I finally say. “I’m sorry I was being so cranky.”

  “I’m sorry your sister still remembers things people did almost ten years ago. Not that I don’t take full responsibility. I was an asshole.”

  I try to come up with something supportive to say, but I’m at a loss. Liam interrupts my thoughts. “Oh my God. Look at all the snow up there.”

  I look up at the mountains ahead of us. It would appear from the clouds surrounding the peaks and the white stuff under those clouds, that the town is in the middle of the season’s first snowstorm. “Uh-oh,” I say. “You brought snow chains, right?”

  Liam gives me a weird look. “I think so.”

  Forty minutes later, we are heading up the mountain, and waiting in line to cross a roadblock set up by the California Highway Patrol. An officer walks up to Liam’s window as Liam rolls it down. “Good afternoon, sir,” the officer says to us.

  “Good afternoon, officer,” Liam responds ever so politely. “Are we allowed to continue on?”

  “You can,” the officer assures him. “But the storm’s been kind of rough, so we’re requiring snow chains. Are they in your trunk?”

  “I’m not sure,” Liam says. “If I opened my trunk, would you mind showing me what they look like?”

  I turn to Liam. “Oh my God. You don’t know what snow chains are, do you?”

  “Can’t say as I do,” Liam says. “But I bought the car with a complete maintenance kit in the trunk. Every wrench, tire iron, liquid rubber, and spare known to man. I’m sure they’re back there somewhere.”

  Before I can tell him that if he doesn’t know what snow chains are, he doesn’t have them
, Liam jumps out of his car, and he and the CHP officer head back to the trunk. I wait as they discuss the fact that Liam doesn’t have snow chains.

  A minute later, he returns to the driver’s side and gets back in. “They’re turning me around. I need to go get snow chains, and come back.”

  “Actually,” I say, trying not to sound too cocky, “you need to buy them, put them on your car, and then come back.”

  Liam nods slightly. “Fair enough. Do you know what snow chains look like?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you show me how I can put them on my car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then . . .” Liam says cheerfully. “An extra perk to bringing you along.”

  Liam turns his car around, and we head to a road stand where a local entrepreneur is selling snow chains for about five times what you’d pay for them at Pep Boys.

  We pull over.

  “These are actual chains,” Liam says, seemingly flabbergasted as we look at the selection of sizes a few moments later.

  “Of course they’re actual chains,” I say as I peruse the assortment of different size chains. “What did you think they were?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I figured it was like the term bear claw. It’s a donut, not the actual hand of a bear.”

  I laugh. “No, they’re chains. And you’re holding the biggest ones.”

  Liam looks down at the web of thick chains he holds. “Well, I figure nothing but the best. We want to be safe.”

  “Those are chains designed for an eighteen-wheeler. You drive a sportscar.” I pick up four smaller chains. “You need these.”

  I hand Liam the four smaller chains, he pays for them, and we walk over to his car. As I place the first two chains down in front of Liam’s two front tires, I explain the process to my little Irishman. “Most people in Southern California never have to deal with snow. So we never put snow tires on our cars. However, we do occasionally use chains.” Liam looks down at the chains, then back up to me. He seems fascinated, so I continue. “Now, what I’m going to do is slowly roll my tires over the chains. Then, once the tires are completely in the middle of the weave of the chains, I’m going to pull each chain up over the tire, thereby causing each tire to be completely covered in a chain, which will keep the tires from sliding on the snowy and icy roads. Then we’re going to do the same thing on the rear tires. Okay?”