by Dana Bate
Then Meg moved into my neighborhood, and finally I had someone who not only seemed normal, but who also felt like the sister I never had. We loved the same books and movies—Beezus and Ramona, The Baby-Sitters Club, Beauty and the Beast, Beethoven. We preferred tea parties to T-ball, vanilla to chocolate, and we didn’t mind swimming against the current if we didn’t feel like going with the crowd. Not all of our interests intersected, but that only made our friendship stronger. I’d introduce her to a new food or recipe I’d discovered, and she’d update me on the latest Hollywood teen gossip. I was never nearly as interested as she was in Jonathan Taylor Thomas or the latest issue of Tiger Beat, and I watched with some bemusement as she founded the Ypsilanti chapter of The Leonardo DiCaprio Fan Club when we were thirteen. But her infectious enthusiasm only made her dearer to me than she already was. Even when she went to Eastern and I went to U of M, we’d talk on the phone multiple times a week, and more often than not, she’d brief me on the current celebrity headlines. Our calls became less frequent once I moved to Chicago and we both became busy with adult life, but I can always count on her to tell it to me straight—whether she’s talking about my personal life or the lives of the rich and famous.
“Oh my God, this is so cool,” she says, still on her star-induced high. “When are you guys going to talk? Are you going to speak to Natasha directly?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t replied yet.”
“You haven’t replied? What are you waiting for?”
“Meg, I opened this e-mail approximately thirty seconds before you called.”
“Okay, okay! Then reply right now, while I’m on the phone. That way I can feel connected to Hollywood fame by association.”
I click Reply and begin to type a response.
“What are you saying?” Meg asks.
“So far I’ve written, ‘Happy to talk.’ ”
“That’s it?”
“Geez Louise—give me a sec. What day is it? Tuesday?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. ‘Happy to talk. I’m around the rest of this week, pretty much any time. Let me know what works best for you. My cell number is below. Best, Kelly.’”
“Did you use any exclamation points?”
“No.”
“Good. You don’t want to seem overly eager, but at the same time you want to seem interested. Interested, yet professional.”
“Considering this pertains to my professional life and not yours, I think you need to take a few deep breaths.”
“Easy to say from your fancy perch on Lake Shore Drive. Some of us are still living in Michigan, twenty minutes from the house where we grew up.”
“You produce a radio show in one of the coolest college towns in America. Cry me a freaking river.”
Meg huffs. “Anyway, the point is, you are going to work for one of the most famous movie stars on the planet, and this is amazing.”
“First of all, I’m not even 100 percent sure Natasha Spencer is the employer Poppy is talking about. And second of all, I have neither been offered nor have I accepted a job of any kind.”
“But you will, right? You have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Working with celebrities can be a nightmare. I’ve heard horror stories—you have no idea.”
“So you’ll have to deal with some Hollywood nonsense—so what? You can put it in your tell-all someday.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For all we know, this could have nothing to do with Natasha Spencer.”
“I know,” Meg says. Then she lets out another enthusiastic yelp. “But I really hope it does.”
I lean back in my chair and glance at my response to Poppy’s e-mail one last time before I hit Send. “I know you do,” I say, even though, for reasons I don’t want to admit to myself, what I really want to say is, I really hope so, too.
CHAPTER 3
The next morning, I awake to the sound of my cell phone humming and buzzing on the nightstand next to me. I rub the sleep from my eyes and grab the phone, whose display bears a long series of numbers beginning with “44020 . . .”
“Hello?” I say, my voice scratchy with sleep.
“Hello,” replies a young woman’s voice. “Is that Kelly?”
“It is.”
“This is Poppy Tricklebank. Have I . . . caught you at a bad time?” Her voice resonates with a plummy English accent.
I sit up in bed, stretching out my shoulders. “No, this is fine. How can I help?”
“I have Natasha Spencer on the line. She’d like to discuss collaborating with you on a project.”
My heart nearly stops. “Now?”
“Is that a problem? You said in your e-mail you were free any time.”
“I know, but I thought . . .” I thought you’d give me a little notice. I thought I’d have time to prepare. I thought I’d be talking to YOU.
I run my hand across my forehead. “Now is fine,” I say.
“Excellent. I’ll put her through.”
I hold my breath as the line goes silent, in disbelief that I am about to speak to one of the most beautiful and famous actresses in the world. Being a cookbook ghostwriter, I often work with renowned cooks and chefs, translating their celebrated dishes into recipes an average home cook can understand and follow. I like to think of myself as one of those translators at the United Nations, only instead of working for heads of state speaking Russian and Farsi, I work for chefs who use jargon like “robot poix” (pulse vegetables in a food processor) and “5 min—salamander” (broil for five minutes). But even the biggest celebrity chefs are celebrities only to a specific subset of the population. Movie stars cross borders, both cultural and physical. Over the course of her career so far, Natasha Spencer has starred in action flicks and serious dramas, high-brow art films and low-brow comedies. A lot of people know who Jamie Oliver is. Everyone knows who Natasha Spencer is.
“Hello, is this Kelly?” says a velvety voice at the other end.
“It is,” I say, my palms sweating. That’s Natasha Spencer’s voice. No doubt about it.
“Hi, Kelly, this is Natasha,” she says. “I’m so glad Poppy tracked you down. I’ve heard great things about your work.”
I try not to sound surprised. “You have?”
“You worked on François’s book, yes?” Her American accent bears a faux English lilt.
“I did.”
“François is a dear friend. He recommended you highly.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
She takes a sip of something. “Yes, well, anyway, before we talk about my project, why don’t you tell me a little more about your background. Are you professionally trained?”
“Not exactly. I never went to culinary school, if that’s what you mean. But working closely with so many chefs, I’ve had a lot of on-the-job training.”
“Ah,” she says. “Hmm.”
I bristle, feeling the need to defend my reputation. “For what it’s worth, I actually think my lack of professional training has been an asset.”
“And how is that?”
“I write recipes for home cooks, who don’t have professional training either. So if a chef gives me a recipe, and I screw it up, chances are a home cook will screw it up, too. I streamline the process to make sure a dodo like me could follow it.”
“Ah. I see. How did you get into this line of work?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“Is it interesting?”
“Sorry?”
“The story. Is it interesting? If it’s interesting, I’d love to hear it.”
I hesitate. “I mean . . . I’m sure some people find it interesting.”
An uncomfortable silence hangs between us. “Well?” she finally says. “What’s the story, then?”
I gnaw at my thumbnail, wondering how to condense a long story involving Sam, an art history degree, a cake book, and a mom who loved fake cheese into a story that might interest one of Hollywood’s most famous stars. I’m p
retty sure this is impossible.
Nevertheless, I give Natasha an abbreviated version of my bizarre career track. As I talk, the panic I felt as I approached college graduation returns, pulsing through my veins as if I’m twenty-two again. By that point, all of my other friends had jobs or acceptances to law or medical school, but I had nothing—not even a request for an interview. Why had I majored in art history? Why hadn’t I done something practical like economics or accounting? The choice was so unlike me. Every decision I’d made before that one had been cautious and pragmatic—holding down multiple jobs, living with my parents for longer than necessary, learning Spanish. But when I attended my first art history lecture with Professor Lawrence Davis, an authority on modern art, I found myself hanging on his every word. I’d always loved learning for learning’s sake, but he took that passion to a new level. Who knew learning could be so fun? That not everything in life had to feel like a chore? Growing up, my favorite books and TV shows depicted college as a liberating rite of passage, four years of exploration and freedom and fun. Now I was experiencing that high for myself, and no one could stop me.
The problem, I discovered, was that my decision to throw caution to the wind might have served me better if I’d majored in accounting and just taken up a crazy hobby. The job market for art history majors was bleak, and I cursed myself for following my heart and not my head. I was moments away from applying for a job as an insurance sales representative, when, to my infinite relief, Professor Davis emailed me, saying he had a job lead. His friend’s daughter was a pastry chef in Chicago, and she needed help writing a cookbook about how to bake cakes that looked like famous pieces of modern art: a Mondrian-inspired Battenberg, a Rothko wedding cake. Since he knew I loved to cook—I was regularly bringing homemade treats to our afternoon seminars—and was writing my thesis on Roy Lichtenstein, he passed my name along, and a week later, I had a job offer. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Professor Davis hadn’t sent that email—if I’d be in Michigan, selling insurance, or if would have found my way to this job eventually, through many years of trial and error.
I give Natasha an edited version of this story, skipping the parts about the insurance job and my self-doubt, as well as the unfortunate incident in the Chicago bakery involving Andy Warhol and an oven fire.
“So . . . that’s pretty much it,” I say once I’ve finished my spiel.
Silence.
“That wasn’t very interesting,” Natasha says eventually.
As expected: professional suicide.
“But anyway,” she continues, “I like what I’ve seen of your work, and François tells me you are professional and . . . shall we say . . . discreet?”
“Yes,” I say, wondering if she knows about his sous chef’s drug habit. “Absolutely.”
“Good. That’s really important to me. For obvious reasons.”
Obvious because she is who she is, but also because, aside from being a famous movie star who is married to a British MP, Natasha was once involved with another famous star named Matthew Rush, and the tabloids ran their relationship into the ground. “Mattasha,” as they were known, became such fixtures in gossip columns and magazines that they were stalked constantly by the paparazzi, appearing every day on Perez Hilton and People.com. Even someone like me, who doesn’t follow celebrity news, knew the ins and outs of their courtship, mostly thanks to Meg, who would regale me weekly with their ongoing saga. When Natasha’s maid eventually sold a story to Star about how Matthew was carrying on an affair with Natasha’s trainer, they broke up, and Natasha fired half her staff and went into hiding for six months. I can see why she would be careful about hiring new people.
“So let me tell you a bit about my project,” she says, after taking another sip of her drink. “I have a contract with a major publisher to write a cookbook. My editor said she could find me a ghostwriter, but I haven’t been impressed with any of the names she has given me. Some serious attitudes. You know what they say—too many cooks . . .”
“Spoil the broth,” I say.
“What?”
“Too many cooks spoil the broth. That’s the expression.”
Silence.
“Anyway,” she continues, “the point is, none of these other writers share my vision. I don’t want this to be any cookbook. I want it to be a landmark cookbook. A cookbook that will sit on people’s bookshelves, sandwiched between Martha Stewart and Julia Child. Can you help me write that kind of book?”
I hesitate. “Sure.”
“Great. Because that’s the book I want to write.”
“Okay . . . So what’s the hook? What’s the story tying everything together?”
“Exactly,” Natasha says.
Apparently she doesn’t realize those were actual questions. “I’d . . . need to know those things before we start testing recipes,” I say, “especially given that we’d be working on a lot of this long distance.”
“Long distance?”
“Well . . . yeah. You’re in London, and I’m in Chicago.”
“Oh, no. No, no—if we were to work together, you would obviously live here.”
My eyes widen. “In London?”
“Of course. Where else would you live?”
“Chicago.”
“No, that won’t work at all. You have to be here. How else would you be able to write as me?”
She makes a valid point. Normally, when I ghostwrite for a chef, I spend hours with that person in and out of the kitchen, so that I can capture in writing how he or she speaks, cooks, and thinks. When the cook lives in Chicago—as most of my clients do—that isn’t a problem. When I’ve ghostwritten for a personality who lives elsewhere—Nashville, say, or St. Louis—I’ll often chat with that person on the phone extensively or even visit to ensure I get the voice just right. But moving? To another country? That has never happened before. I’ve never left the country, period.
“I see what you’re saying, but . . . London isn’t exactly next door. How long do we have to write the book?”
“We’d have about five months until our deadline. But then I’d want you to stick around for another five or six months to help me prepare for the launch—media appearances, guest columns, things like that.”
“You’d want me to move to London for almost a year?”
“At least. Would that be a problem?”
My eyes land on a framed photo of Sam and me, which a friend took on a boating trip on Lake Michigan last summer. “It might be a little . . . complicated, that’s all. And financially, I’m not sure I can manage an apartment in London.”
“Oh, well, obviously you would be well compensated. Do you have representation?”
“No. Not at the moment.” In truth, I’ve never had an agent, but for most of my gigs so far, that hasn’t been a problem. With someone like Natasha . . . well, part of me wishes I had one.
“Ah,” Natasha says. “Interesting. Well, my business manager deals with all of the finances, but given the advance from my publisher, you’d be paid somewhere around $200,000. And we would take care of your accommodation as part of the package.”
I choke on the air. “I’m sorry . . . did you say $200,000?”
“We can’t go any higher, I’m afraid. Is that a problem?”
A problem? For my first job, working on the modern-art cake book, I made twelve dollars an hour, after a probationary period of three weeks, when my hourly wage was ten. As my experience and reputation have grown, I’ve drastically increased my take-home pay, but even working for François—my best-paying project so far—I only made $70,000, and that was for twelve months of work. My last project before that paid $100 per recipe.
“No, that isn’t a problem at all,” I say. “That would be just fine.”
“Good.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly into the receiver. “Okay, I’ve decided. I like you, Kelly. I like your vibe. And given what François has told me, I can see us working very well together. I’d like to offer you th
e position.”
The phone slips out of my hand onto the bed, and I scramble to pick it up. “Oh. Wow. Thank you. I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“The word ‘yes’ comes to mind.”
“It’s just . . . I need to talk to my boyfriend before I commit to anything.”
“Ah. I see.” She pauses. “If there’s one bit of advice I can give you, from one woman to another, it’s to never let a man stand in the way of your career. It’ll only come back to haunt you later.”
“The London thing makes the job a little complicated. That’s all.”
“You can make it work. Trust me. The distance is just a small hitch.”
But as my eyes wander back to the photo of Sam and me—his arm around my waist, my head on his shoulder, his smile bigger than Lake Michigan—I know this so-called hitch is anything but small.
CHAPTER 4
I can’t move to London. Can I? My entire life is in Chicago. Or I guess Chicago and Michigan. But I’ve spent my whole life in the Midwest. I belong here. This is where I fit in.
Then I think back to my mom’s letter. She wanted me to get out of the Midwest, to see the world, to make something of myself. This would be the perfect opportunity to do all of those things. If I produce the sort of cookbook Natasha wants—a landmark cookbook that will be used by home cooks all over the world—it could make my career. In a few years, I could be the go-to ghostwriter for chefs and celebrities alike. I could finally afford a new set of knives. Hell, maybe I could even write my own cookbook, like I’ve always wanted to. This could be my springboard.
That is, if it weren’t for Sam. There is no way he’ll want me to take this job. He still has to finish up his fellowship this year, and then he has another year after that for his subspecialty in heart transplants. He certainly can’t fly to London all the time to visit me, and even with a nice salary, I can’t afford to visit him often either. Taking this job would mean putting our relationship on ice for at least a year, possibly closer to two.
But maybe that’s exactly what I need. A break. A break from Sam, a break from Chicago, a break from the comfortable and the familiar. Maybe it’s time for me to do something crazy, like my mom said. Maybe writing that list of dying wishes was the sanest thing she ever did.
