Too Many Cooks

by Dana Bate

  I place a small saucepan on Natasha’s La Cornue stove and melt half a cup of butter before mixing in two different kinds of sugar.

  “Your kitchen is amazing,” I say. “It’s nicer than most of the professional kitchens I’ve worked in.”

  “Natasha barely uses it,” Hugh says as he transfers a filet of salmon to a plate. He looks up and catches my stare. “Sorry—that wasn’t very nice. She does use the kitchen. Just not with a frequency that necessitates such high-end equipment.”

  “Lucky for me, then.”

  He grins as he drizzles a bit of mustard-dill sauce over his salmon. “You’re right. It’s lovely. I shouldn’t complain. At times it just seems a bit . . . wasteful? But she’s worked hard for her money, so I suppose she can spend it however she likes.”

  I note the way he refers to it as her money. Do they have separate bank accounts, too? Do they have separate everything?

  Hugh grabs a fork from the utensil drawer, rolls his sleeves up around his elbows, and digs into the salmon, standing as he shovels a forkful into his mouth.

  “Mmm,” he says, grabbing for a napkin. He wipes the corners of his mouth. “Lovely.”

  I mix the wet and dry cookie ingredients together and stir in the chopped-up bits of chocolate. “The recipe still needs some work.”

  He grabs my note off the counter. “As you say here . . .”

  “Next week I’ll try adding some extra vegetables to the poaching stock. I might play with the temperature a bit, too.”

  He takes another bite and rubs his chin. “No, you know what this really needs?” He swallows and shakes a finger at me. “Some pumpkin seeds. And possibly some Greek yogurt.”

  I hold back a smile. “Well played.”

  “I thought so.”

  Our eyes catch for a brief moment, but I tear mine away as I put the bowl of cookie dough in the freezer. Are we flirting? No. We can’t be. He’s married, and I’m . . . well, me. But I have to admit: This feels an awful lot like flirting. Which, obviously, is completely inappropriate.

  I begin cleaning off the counter, dusting off the specks of flour and scrubbing away the globs of melted butter and sugar.

  “I’m sorry,” he says as I toss the torn chocolate wrapper in the trash, “but did you just put the bowl of cookie dough into the freezer?”

  I wipe my hands on the kitchen towel. “That’s one of my tricks. You chill it for a bit before baking. That way the cookies don’t spread out too much.”

  “You are a font of useful information,” he says.

  “That depends on how you define useful.”

  “Well, I suppose if Her Majesty demands a batch of chocolate chip cookies that don’t spread too much, you are the woman to call.”

  “I guess I am.” I lay two cookie sheets on the counter. “But if she needs any tips on how to set an alarm clock so that she doesn’t oversleep and leave her keys and umbrella at home, she should probably ask someone else.”

  He lets out a belly laugh as he swallows the last bite of salmon. “Thankfully Her Majesty has people to worry about such trivial matters for her.”

  He rinses his plate in the sink and sticks it in the dishwasher.

  “How long does the dough need to chill?”

  “About thirty minutes.”

  He groans and looks at the clock. He starts. “Shit—I’m supposed to do an interview with Radio 4 in five minutes. I completely lost track of time.”

  “Sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have kept you.”

  He shakes his head and looks at me with kind eyes. “Don’t apologize. I lost track of time because I was enjoying myself.”

  My heart thumps, and I look away, busying myself with finding a cookie scoop. “You’d better do the interview. Someone needs to tell the masses why this education bill is a joke.”

  I search through one of Natasha’s drawers and, after several moments have passed without Hugh’s saying anything, I look up and find him staring at me.

  “What?” I say, my cheeks red. The flirty feeling returns. Go away! I tell it. Go away!

  He opens his mouth to say something, but catches himself. He smiles. “Nothing,” he says. “You’re right. I’d better go.”

  He starts to walk out of the room, but pauses when he gets to the doorway. “Oh, but don’t think I’ve forgotten about those cookies. When I’ve finished . . .” He points to his stomach. “I expect cookie nirvana.”

  He winks and turns to leave. When he’s vanished, I realize my hands are shaking.

  CHAPTER 14

  This is ridiculous. Hugh is an MP. He is married. And not to just anyone—to one of the sexiest, most beautiful women in the world. The only reason I should be nervous around him is because he is famous and important and could probably have me expelled from the country. I have no business shaking with excitement when he so much as smiles at me. But all of a sudden I feel like a giddy schoolgirl. It’s pathetic.

  While Hugh does the Radio 4 interview, I bake off four sheets of cookies, transfer them to a cooling rack, and leave them in the kitchen with a note:

  Help yourself. Thanks again for bailing me out.

  There. Not a whiff of flirtation. Straight and to the point. Appropriate.

  I creep upstairs, and as I tiptoe down the hall, I overhear bits of Hugh’s radio conversation as I pass his study.

  “. . . but that isn’t what it would do, now is it? No, it would further penalize those without the means to find a smaller class size elsewhere. . . .”

  I slink into the guest room, lock the door behind me, and make my way toward the en suite bathroom, which gleams with white Carrara marble and shiny chrome fixtures. I gargle with a bit of mouthwash and splash some water on my face, but as I head back to the bedroom, I realize I have nothing to sleep in. My clothes are still damp, and as much as Natasha wouldn’t like me sleeping in her guest bed, she’d be even less thrilled about my sleeping in it in damp clothes. And she’d really hate it if I slept in her bed naked. As, quite frankly, would I.

  I rummage through the dresser drawers, but they’re empty, so I sneak back into the hall, hoping I can find something in another room, even if it’s just one of Olga’s housecoats.

  As I creep down the hallway, Hugh emerges from his study and stops me in my tracks. “Can I help you?”

  I whirl around, my cheeks balls of fire. “My clothes . . . I just . . .” I grasp for a coherent explanation. “I don’t have anything to sleep in.”

  Never mind that I told him an hour ago my clothes weren’t a problem at all. He must think I’m insane.

  “I’m sure I’ve got a T-shirt you can borrow,” he says. “Wait there.”

  He disappears into a room at the end of the hall and reemerges clutching an oversize blue T-shirt with a logo for Cambridge University.

  “This should do.” He tosses it in my direction, and, in a rare display of coordination, I catch it. “Won’t you join me downstairs for a few cookies?”

  My heart races, but though every ounce of me wants to say yes, I can’t. “Thanks, but no,” I say. “I’m beat. I think I’ll call it a night.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well . . . good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  I head back to the guest room, and when I grab the door handle, I look over my shoulder. Hugh is still standing at the end of the hall, and he doesn’t move until I’ve shut the door behind me.

  I need a friend. Obviously I need a friend. That’s what all of this is about. If I had a friend, I could have called her instead of Hugh, and I wouldn’t have put myself in a situation where I was sleeping in his T-shirt in his guest bedroom. But that’s exactly where I am, and it’s awkward and terrible, and I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.

  The next morning, I wake up at seven, slip back into my clothes, and tiptoe along the hallway and down the stairs, preparing to sneak out of the house before Hugh awakens. Tom won’t be in his office until nine, but the coffee shops by my building will be open, and I can wait there unti
l he arrives. It’s better than staying here. At this point, anything is better than that.

  When I reach the front door, I rest my hand on the knob and am about to unlock the deadbolt, when I hear footsteps behind me.

  “Don’t,” Hugh says. I spin around and find him standing at the base of the stairs, dressed in worn khakis and a rumpled blue button-down. He nods toward the knob. “You’ll set off the alarm.”

  I loosen my grip. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  He glances at his watch. “Sneaking out before breakfast?”

  “I need to meet the building manager first thing. He’s the only one with an extra key.”

  “Let me at least make you a cup of coffee.”

  I stare at him, my palms sweating. Well . . . maybe I could stay . . . ? It’s just coffee. What’s the harm in an innocent—

  No. This is absurd. No, no, no.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I wish I could, but I can’t. Not this morning.”

  “Perhaps another time, then.”

  He walks over to a keypad by the front door and deactivates the alarm system. I unlock the deadbolt and open the front door.

  “Thank you so much for your help last night,” I say. “I really, really appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure. Truly.”

  “If it weren’t for you, I probably would have slept on my lobby floor.”

  “Or found a dodgy bloke to pick your lock.”

  “See? You saved me on multiple fronts.”

  “Consider it my repayment for all the lovely food.”

  “I’m not sure that’s an even trade, but . . . I’ll take it. Anyway, thanks again. Have a nice weekend.”

  “You too.”

  I start down the front steps and make for the front gate.

  “And thank you for the cookies,” he calls after me. “They were amazing.”

  I start to reply, but by the time I turn around, he has already gone back inside and shut the door, and I half wonder if he called after me at all, or if my imagination got the better of me.

  As soon as Tom lets me back into my flat, I power on my laptop and scour every social media platform for someone—anyone—I might know in London. Considering my background, I know the odds aren’t in my favor, but even if it were a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend . . . at least it would be someone.

  After several minutes of sleuthing, I come across a fellow U of M art history major named Jess Walters, who graduated a year after I did and now works as a research associate at the Tate Modern. I vaguely remember Jess, even though we were in different years and were among some twenty-eight thousand undergraduates on campus. Whereas each graduating class produced more than four hundred economics majors and nearly the same number of psychology majors, there were usually only about seventy in art history, so we all sort of knew each other, even across years.

  I fire off an e-mail to Jess, trying not to seem as desperate for friendship as I feel. My abiding memory of Jess is her pin-straight, fiery red hair and explosion of freckles, but according to her profile, she has worked at the Tate Modern for three years, so she seems to be doing pretty well for herself.

  Once I’ve replied to an earlier e-mail from Meg, I cobble together a breakfast out of leftovers and odds and ends from my refrigerator: poached egg on garlicky wilted greens, all piled on top of a toasted slice of three-day-old sourdough. As I poke the yolk with my fork, a thick yellow sluice trickles onto the plate, and I use another piece of toast to sop up the pool of gluey yolk as I rerun last night’s events in my mind: the smile on Hugh’s face, the smoothness of his voice, the softness of his Cambridge T-shirt.

  No. Stop. Stop. There’s no point in rehashing any of that. No point. It’s over, and it will obviously never happen again, and the sooner I stop thinking about it, the better off I’ll be.

  I gobble down the last bit of breakfast and rinse my plate in the sink. When I get back to my computer, I see Jess has already replied.

  Hi Kelly,

  Of course I remember you! I’m surprised you remember me. Anyway, very cool that you’re in London for a while. I’d love to grab a drink some time. Actually, next week we’re launching the new Lichtenstein exhibit and are having a cocktail thing on Tuesday evening. You’re welcome to come. Any interest?

  Jess

  I write back immediately.

  Yes! I’d love to come. I actually did my thesis on Lichtenstein. Just tell me where to be and when, and I’ll be there.

  I click Send and lean back in my chair, and when Jess writes again moments later with all of the details, I let out a huge sigh of relief because I’ve found someone to save me from myself.

  CHAPTER 15

  I have a friend. Finally. An actual friend. Or at least someone around my age with whom I have a few things in common. This is what I need. After losing my mom, and then Sam, I’ve been . . . well, lonely. Two of the most important people in my life vanished in a matter of weeks, and then I moved to a country where I don’t know a soul, and even though I think I made the right decision, the transition has been more difficult than I expected. But now I’ll know someone in London besides Hugh, Natasha, Poppy, and Olga, and I won’t feel so isolated. Or I’ll feel less isolated, which is a step in the right direction.

  I work through the weekend and into Tuesday, perfecting the poached salmon and carrot salad and moving on to the mysterious “kale burger” on Natasha’s list of recipes from her LA period. She once described it as “toothsome” and “gluten-free,” so my first attempt involves brown rice, kale, and crushed lentils. It is not good.

  As Tuesday evening approaches, I slip out of Natasha’s house early so that I can shower and change before heading to the Tate Modern to meet Jess. To my relief, I haven’t run into Hugh yet this week. He is so consumed with the education bill that he’s barely been home. Olga has given me a few strange looks, but I think that has more to do with her general demeanor and less to do with the fact that Hugh and I had a sleepover last weekend.

  When I reach my building, I hurry through the lobby toward my apartment, but I slow my step as Tom calls to me from his office.

  “Remembered your key this time, eh?”

  I stop and smile politely, raising my keys and jingling them lightly. “Yep. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Lucky it wasn’t Saturday—then you’d really have been buggered.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies. . . .”

  “It’s all relative, right, my dear?”

  I offer another polite smile and head toward my flat, when Tom stops me.

  “There’s a letter for you, by the way. Left it on the table in the hall.”

  “A letter? For me?”

  “You are Kelly Madigan, yes?”

  “I just . . . I didn’t expect to get any mail. No one really has my address.”

  “Well, somebody does. It’s on the table.”

  I hurry to the table, my heart thumping. It couldn’t be from Hugh . . . right? No. He wouldn’t dare. Would he?

  I sort through a stack of magazines and envelopes, my hands trembling ever so slightly. I shouldn’t get myself all worked up. This is stupid. It’s probably nothing.

  But what if it isn’t?

  I continue searching through the stack of mail, until I come across a white envelope addressed to me, with American stamps. I glance at the return address in the upper left corner.

  Oh. It’s from my dad.

  I let out a sigh as I grab the note and let myself into my apartment. Why do I feel disappointed? I should be glad my dad is writing me. This letter is a sign he is still alive and working at the post office. That’s a good thing. I should be happy. And I am. But I’m a little bummed, too.

  I shake off my disappointment and tear open the letter, which is written in my dad’s serial-killer handwriting on plain white paper.

  Kelly,

  Greetings from the Mother Land. (That’s America, in case you didn’t realize.) How is England? Does everyone talk funny over there? An
d before you say, oh, there Dad goes again, let me just say I’m kidding. I know it’s just talking, like how in China they don’t call it Chinese food, they just call it food. In which case, I wonder if people make fun of you for talking funny? Ha!

  Your friend Meg stopped by last week. I don’t know why. She said she had a question about postage rates, but my guess is she was checking up on me. Any dummy knows you could go to the post office to ask about postage. She didn’t need to make a special trip to see me.

  Anyway, she said you’re having a nice time in England, so that’s good. Your mother always wanted to go, but we never got around to it, so maybe throw a penny into the river for her or something. I always joked that she only wanted to go so she could meet a prince, but she said I was the only prince she needed, which is pretty funny considering. Anyhow, I know she’d be real happy about your trip, so enjoy it.

  Okay, that’s all I have to say for now. Drop a line and let me know how you’re doing. I know you like to e-mail, but hey, I’m a postman!

  Love,

  Dad

  I stare at the letter for a few moments and then, as I lay it on the coffee table, my heart breaks a little because I notice the paragraph where he mentions my mom is smudged by tears.

  Dennis Madigan and Cynthia Murphy met more than forty years ago at Ypsi High, back when the football team was called the “Braves” before changing their name to the more politically correct

  “Grizzlies.” My mom was the captain of the cheerleaders, a marvel considering in her older years she viewed exercise as the devil’s work. But she looked mighty cute in a short skirt and tight sweater and loved to dance, so by all accounts, she led the squad with verve and flair.