Too Many Cooks

by Dana Bate

  (3) If anyone asks about the rest of my Tupperware collection, it is not up for grabs. It’s for you, your dad, and Stevie. (You’re welcome.)

  (4) As for your dad, don’t let him get too kooky. He never liked to feel a lot of feelings, so he’s probably acting all sorts of strange, and that’s okay, but don’t let him get too weird. I’d say a good gauge would be: if he’s shouting at the newscasters on TV, that’s fine, but if he starts talking to the bushes, you might want to encourage him to get a dog.

  (5) Look after your brother. I don’t mean move back to Ypsilanti (please, don’t do that, I’ll explain why below), but check in on him once in a while and make sure he isn’t doing something stupid, like growing pot or dating that floozy, Catherine Gornicki. I know you’ve always looked out for him, but now that I’m not around, it’s extra important that you’re there for one another.

  (6) That brings me to you. I know, I know, I can see you rolling your eyes: “Here goes Mom with her kooky ideas!” But a person only gets one chance to make a dying wish, so listen up! Here’s what I want: I want you to walk away from the beaten path and, for once in your life, do something unpredictable and a little crazy. Not crazy by Kelly standards. Crazy by my standards, which, as you know, are pretty darn crazy. You’ve spent your whole life following the rules, and it’s time for you to make a change. I’ve always seen you as my star, the Madigan who would go on an adventure—a real, honest-to-goodness adventure—maybe in Hollywood or New York or someplace really exotic like Switzerland. I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished so far, but you haven’t managed to leave the Midwest, and I feel like you were destined for so much more. You’re probably thinking, “What does Mom know? She’s never lived anywhere but Ypsilanti!” And that’s true. But that’s also why I know what I’m talking about. I’d hate for you to turn 40 and never have lived anywhere outside the Midwest. If you decide to come back here someday after all that travel, so much the better, but as Dr. Phil would say: “Make an informed decision.”

  (7) Finally, a word about this Sam guy. Really, Kelly? I get that he’s a doctor and looks like a Ken doll and is steady and reliable, etc., but I have to be honest with you: he is a little boring. Is this what you want for yourself? A fifty-year snoozefest with some fuddy-duddy who eats the same bowl of cereal for breakfast every single morning? Zzzzz . . . oh, sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about it. I’m not saying you have to marry Crocodile Dundee, but I think your life will be a lot more exciting and interesting if you find someone a little more spontaneous.

  So there you have it. My wish list. I’m sure there are plenty of other things I’ll think of before my time comes, but knowing me, I’ll forget to add them. I wasn’t always the most reliable mom along the way, and I know that, but I loved you and your brother more than anything in this world, even if I made a hash of showing it at times. You, especially, have made me so proud, even if I still don’t fully understand what you do for a living. Whatever it is, you can be sure I’m bragging about it in heaven.

  Love you so very much.

  xoxo

  Mom

  p.s. You don’t have to do everything on this list, but if you don’t, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your days. (Kidding. Or am I?)

  “You ready?”

  I jump as I look up and see Sam standing in the doorway. “Sorry,” I say, clutching my chest. “You scared me.”

  His eyes land on the letter in my hand. “What’s that?”

  I glance down at the piece of paper, the words inside still spinning in my head. I consider telling him about my mom’s laundry list of dying wishes, about Irene O’Malley and the Tupperware and my mom’s desire for me to see the world. About the shock I feel that she actually wrote a letter. That she was worried about my brother and my dad. That she had the gall to call Sam boring. But instead I fold the letter into a small square, hold it tightly in my hand, and rise from the bed.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Just my mother, torturing me from beyond the grave.”

  Because, as both of us know, there is nothing shocking about that.

  CHAPTER 2

  I should probably clarify something: Sam is boring.

  He is. But that’s part of what I fell in love with—his boringness. After twenty-two years of dealing with an eccentric and unreliable mother and an inept and crotchety father, I felt blessed to have found someone so normal. Someone who didn’t break into “Dancing Queen” randomly and without warning. Someone who actually kept stamps and lightbulbs in the house. Someone who showed up.

  We met during my senior year at the University of Michigan, while I was working an afternoon shift at Zingerman’s, a gourmet deli in Ann Arbor. I was running the sandwich counter that day, and he came in wearing a big U of M sweatshirt and blue scrubs, his honey-blond hair sticking up in every direction. He sauntered over to the counter and ordered the Zingerman’s Reuben—a sandwich consisting of house-made corned beef, nutty Swiss cheese, pungent sauerkraut, and Russian dressing, all piled together on fluffy slices of house-made rye and grilled—except he asked me to hold the sauerkraut.

  “Then you don’t want a Reuben,” I said.

  He furrowed his brow. “Yes, I do.”

  “If you don’t have sauerkraut, then it isn’t a Reuben. It’s a perfectly fine sandwich, but it isn’t a Reuben.”

  “Okay, then I want a grilled corned beef sandwich with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on rye.”

  “Do you have something against sauerkraut?”

  “And what if I do?”

  “Have you tried our sauerkraut?”

  He blushed. “No.”

  “Then how do you know you don’t like it?”

  “Because I’ve never liked sauerkraut. Our cafeteria used to serve it with hot dogs on Wednesdays when I was a kid, and it smelled terrible.”

  “Did you ever try it?”

  He blushed again. “No.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to make you a Zingerman’s Reuben—with sauerkraut—and you’re going to try it, and if you don’t like it, the sandwich is on me. Sound like a plan?”

  He smirked, his eyes sparkling. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Long story short: He liked the sandwich.

  But more than the sandwich, he liked me. And I liked him. He had a gentle touch and an easy smile, and he was studying to become a doctor. Some of my friends heard the word “doctor” and saw dollar signs, but that wasn’t the main attraction for me. What I saw was someone with discipline, diligence, and drive, three attributes neither of my parents had ever had. Anyone who could study hard enough to get into medical school and then survive four years of exams and overnight shifts—not to mention cut open a living person and sew her back up—was probably someone who wouldn’t flake out and leave me standing on the side of the road.

  And I was right. Sam is as steady as a metronome. He pays his bills on time. He never runs out of toilet paper. He does his own laundry and stacks his T-shirts with the folded side facing out. I never have to worry that I’ll come home like I did in the fifth grade and find a lake-size puddle in the middle of the living room because there was a thunderstorm and he left all of the windows open. He is dependable. Consistent. Predictable.

  That also means he has never booked a last-minute trip to Barbados or played hooky from work so that we could catch a movie or have a picnic in the park. We’ve never dropped everything because we were suddenly craving tacos from a Mexican joint on Chicago’s South Side or bought a new TV on a whim. We never have sex on a Tuesday. Everything in our lives is planned and steady and.. . well, after six years, a little boring. Boring, just like my mother said, which is why her words gnaw at me the entire three-and-a-half-hour drive back to Chicago, stirring up doubts I’ve tried to silence.

  I shake off those doubts as I park the car beneath our apartment building, a twenty-six-story tower of glass and steel perched on Chicago’s famed Lake Shore Drive. The building was designed by Mies van
der Rohe, which had appealed to my inner art history nerd when Sam showed me the apartment two summers ago. We’d been living in Chicago since he started his residency at Northwestern four years earlier, but now that he was doing his fellowship there as well, he wanted something closer to the hospital. I couldn’t believe I was seeing the work of one of the architects I’d studied in college and, improbably, might also call that building my home. The lease was only for two years, but Sam said that was fine because in two years we might be ready to buy a place of our own. The idea scared me a little, but I told myself I had more than 730 days to get comfortable with it. Well, here we are, two years later, and I still haven’t set up a time to meet with a realtor. Buying seems so . . . permanent. Technically we have until July to find a place, but given that it’s already mid-April, I’m not sure how much longer I can stall.

  I take the elevator to the eighth floor, and when the elevator doors open, I toddle with my suitcase toward our apartment at the end of the hallway and let myself inside, knowing Sam will still be at work until at least eight tonight.

  As soon as I open the door, I take a whiff: Pine-Sol. Sam must have cleaned the apartment last night before going to bed. Because he knew I would be emotionally drained when I got home and wouldn’t want to do it myself. Because he thinks of things like that. Because he’s perfect.

  I dump my suitcase in our bedroom and make my way to the kitchen, a small galley lined with gray-and-white granite countertops, espresso-colored cabinets, and stainless-steel appliances. As much as I was attracted to a building designed by a famous architect, the kitchen is what sold me on the apartment. It isn’t big—with only one bedroom and a small living room, neither is the apartment—but all of the appliances are new, meaning I can test recipes at home and not worry my efforts will be foiled by a forty-year-old oven.

  As I open the refrigerator to deposit some containers of macaroni tuna salad, my cell phone rings. It’s Sam.

  “Welcome back,” he says. “How was the drive?”

  “Not bad. How was your flight last night?”

  “Mercifully brief. Which is less than I can say for this day.”

  “Bad?”

  “Bad. Don’t expect me home before nine.”

  “Ugh, I’m sorry. Will you have a chance to eat? I could bring you something.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine. Thanks, though. Speaking of food, I left some for you in the fridge—for dinner or a snack or whatever.”

  My eyes land on the middle shelf, where he has left a container of chicken noodle soup, an apple, and two chocolate cupcakes. “Aw, thank you,” I say, wedging the macaroni tuna salad between the soup and the cupcakes. “That was sweet of you.”

  “My pleasure. After everything you’ve gone through the past week, I figured you might not feel like cooking.”

  I twitch. Cooking is exactly what I feel like doing, what I always feel like doing when I’m overrun with emotions I don’t know how to process. I’m not sure Sam fully understands that or if he ever will. In his efforts to be supportive and helpful, he often overlooks my need to “do” and instead does for me. Part of that is probably my own fault. After taking care of everyone else for so many years, I liked having someone take care of me. But some days I feel as if I’ve created a monster—though if I ever said that to Meg, she’d probably punch me in the face.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I brought back some leftover macaroni tuna salad, so you’re welcome to have some when you get home, if you have any interest. Which, I realize, you very well may not.”

  “Are you kidding? That stuff was delicious. Consider me a convert. Did you bring some leftover spaghetti salad as well?”

  “Sorry, no. Everything went the day of the funeral, except a little ham salad. The macaroni tuna came from an old neighbor who dropped it off this morning.”

  “Ah, well. Another time, then.” He clears his throat. “So, I e-mailed a realtor today about potentially seeing some properties. I’m on call this weekend, but she said she could take us to see a few places next Saturday.”

  My chest tightens. “Oh. Wow. So soon?”

  “Soon? Our lease runs out June 30. It’s the middle of April.”

  “I know, I just . . . After everything that’s happened with my mom, it feels sort of sudden.”

  “We’ve been talking about this for almost two years.”

  I gulp. “I know.”

  “Do you not want to live with me or something?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—of course I want to live with you. I’m living with you now.”

  “I mean live with me . . . permanently. As in, forever.”

  The word lands with a thud, sitting in the empty space between his phone and my ear like a steaming hot turd. Forever. Forever? As in... “this is a proposal” forever? No. No, proposals involve rings and romance and face-to-face interaction. Proposals don’t happen over the phone, at least not proposals from guys like Sam. He is a planner. He is not the kind of guy who, while watching TV in his pajama pants, would say, “Hey, could you pass the remote, and by the way I think we should get married.” Everything involves planning. Everything is a production. When I mentioned wanting a new couch, we had a “house meeting” to discuss whether that fit into the budget.

  So, no. This can’t be a proposal. And even if it is, I refuse to accept it.

  “Fine, we can meet with a realtor Saturday,” I say. “Set it up.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I just hope he can’t hear the hesitation in my voice.

  I should want to marry Sam. And part of me does. But another part of me thinks back to the letter my mom wrote and the way she articulated the fears and doubts that have been nagging at me for the past year or so, and that part wonders if marrying him would be a huge mistake. And then I hate myself for being so selfish and stupid and proceed to eat the two chocolate cupcakes Sam left in the refrigerator.

  After licking the buttercream from my fingers and scraping every last chocolaty crumb from the cupcake liner, I flip open my laptop and check my e-mail, something I haven’t done in a record-breaking twenty-four hours. I scan and delete the usual junk—flash sales on at least a dozen Web sites, news alerts from CNN, recipe digests from Serious Eats and Food52—until my eyes land on an e-mail from someone named Poppy Tricklebank with the subject “Setting up a call.” I open the e-mail, which is a mere two sentences long:

  Dear Ms. Madigan,

  My employer is interested in collaborating with

  you. When are you available to speak?

  All best,

  Poppy xx

  I scroll down to see if the e-mail bears a signature or any indication of whom her employer might be, but I find nothing. I pull up Google and run a search for “Poppy Tricklebank.” I find a profile for a twenty-six-year-old woman living in London, who works as a personal assistant. But a personal assistant to whom? I scroll through a few more entries, and then I come across an article mentioning Poppy’s name: “. . . TMZ reached out to Poppy Tricklebank, Natasha Spencer’s assistant. . . .”

  I freeze. Natasha Spencer? THE Natasha Spencer? The raven-haired American actress who won an Oscar three years ago and now lives in London with her husband, a well-known British politician? Why would that Natasha Spencer want to work with me?

  Before I can contemplate what this means and what I should write to Poppy, my phone buzzes on the table next to me. Meg’s name appears on the screen.

  “Hey,” she says when I pick up. “Made it back in one piece?”

  “Yep. . . .” I say, my attention still focused on my computer.

  “Are you okay? I know the past week has been really hard on you.”

  “Sorry—yeah. I’m okay. Or, you know, trying to be. I just got a weird e-mail, that’s all.”

  “From whom?”

  “Someone named Poppy Tricklebank.”

  Meg snickers. “Poppy what? Who is she?”

  “I’m not sure. I think . . . I think she might be Natasha Spencer’s
personal assistant.”

  “Natasha Spencer? As in the actress?”

  “I think so.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a sec. Why is Natasha Spencer’s assistant e-mailing you?”

  “She says her employer is interested in collaborating with me.”

  “Natasha wants to write a cookbook?”

  “I guess. Poppy didn’t elaborate in the e-mail. She wants to set up a call.”

  Meg squeals excitedly into the phone. I should have known not to tell Meg about anything possibly involving movie stars or pop culture unless it was a sure thing. She works in public radio, covering the wonkiest news imaginable, but in her free time, she reads celebrity Web sites obsessively and never lets a week pass without buying Us Weekly or People, usually both. The prospect of my working for a Hollywood superstar is like catnip.

  When it comes to celebrities, Meg has always been this way, from our earliest days at Carpenter Elementary, where we met in the third grade. Our school district was sort of an Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti hybrid, a no man’s land called Pittsfield Township that straddled the two cities. For families like mine, the draw was decent Ann Arbor schools without having to paying Ann Arbor property taxes. It was a great deal for my parents, and in terms of getting a moderate education, it was for me, too. But socially, I never felt I fit in. Since my mailing address was Ypsilanti, my classmates who lived in wealthier sections of Ann Arbor thought I was some poor hick (or at least their moms did, which made playdates a little awkward). But then the people I knew in Ypsilanti who lived a few blocks away thought I was too fancy for them because I went to school in Ann Arbor.

  Obviously there were other kids in my exact situation, but the problem was . . . I didn’t like any of them. Jennifer Slattery lived three doors down, but was still occasionally peeing her pants in the third grade, and Melanie Doyle liked to play games that involved trying to throw her cat out of various windows in her house. They weren’t my people.