Too Many Cooks

by Dana Bate

  If I have any hope of finishing this project ahead of schedule, the only ghost I should be thinking about is my ghostwriting for Natasha, so the next day I show up at her house, armed for a second go at the Brussels sprout hash and paella. The Brussels sprouts I made yesterday were a bit too spicy and still need an extra something to make the flavor pop—maybe a little honey or bit of garlic, if not both. I also want to improve the seafood paella and add a little more smokiness to the finished product.

  I work at a dizzying pace, slicing, searing, and sautéing as fast as I can so that I can leave early, call Stevie, and come up with a plan to evict Irene O’Malley. I e-mailed my brother last night, asking how he was doing and telling him I wanted to talk, but in classic Stevie fashion, he did not reply. If he knew about Irene, he’d probably be even less thrilled with the current state of affairs than I am, but saying so would require typing out an e-mail, something he can’t be bothered to do, unless the reply is something simple like “OK” or “No.” The only way I can brainstorm eviction strategies with him is to ambush him with an unexpected call.

  The Brussels sprouts come out perfectly—a little sweet, a little spicy, with a slight tang from some apple cider vinegar—and the paella is nearly there, though I’ll need to try one more tweak tomorrow. I box up the leftovers, stick them in the refrigerator, and wipe down the counter. Once I’ve grabbed my bag and taken my share of the leftovers, I head out with Olga and make my way toward the Belsize Park tube station. Olga stops halfway up the road, beneath a bus stop.

  “I take bus today,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”

  I say good-bye to Olga and continue toward the tube station, cutting through the neighborhood onto Glenloch Road, passing all of the ruddy brick row houses with bright white trim. Small hedges line the sidewalks, some painstakingly trimmed with sharp edges and others wild and bushy and overgrown. I love the way all of the front doors are a little different—some fiery red, some cobalt blue, others stained wood with Tiffany glass. As I reach the point where the road merges with another, I hear someone call my name.

  “Kelly?”

  I look around, trying to locate the source of the voice, when I see Hugh walking toward me, crossing from the other side of the street.

  “I thought it was you,” he says, smiling as he approaches, his briefcase clasped in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, a baguette poking out of the top. “On your way home?”

  “Yep. Olga is at the bus stop on Belsize Park, so if you need anything, you might be able to catch her.”

  “I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

  I peer over his shoulder. “Where are you coming from, anyway? I thought Sunil drove you to work.”

  “He does, most of the time, but today he has a family matter to deal with, so I got on the tube.”

  “Slumming it like the rest of us, huh?”

  He laughs. “I often take the tube. I’m not the prima donna you seem to think I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re a prima donna. Honest.”

  “Just a bit of a prat.”

  “I don’t think you’re one of those either. Although I’m not really sure what that word means.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t be the one to inform you,” he says.

  “Perhaps not.” A beat passes. “Anyway, I should go—I have to get home so I can call my brother.”

  “You’re very in touch with your family, aren’t you?”

  “A bit. Not as much as I should be.”

  “You seem pretty in touch to me. Last night it was your father, tonight it’s your brother. I expect tomorrow it will be your mother.”

  “My mom is dead.”

  “Oh.” He flushes. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. There’s no reason you would have known.”

  “Yes, but still. It wasn’t very politic.”

  “Can a politician be impolitic?”

  He grins. “Is there a politician who isn’t?”

  “Touché. But really, don’t sweat it. It’s been more than two months now.”

  “That recent? Now I really feel terrible.”

  “Don’t—seriously.”

  “Well, I do.” He glances down at his paper bag. “I popped into Pomona on the way home and picked up a few nibbles—a baguette, some cheese, wine. Why don’t you come back to the house and have a quick bite to eat? It’s the least I can do to make it up to you.”

  “You don’t have to make up anything. I’m fine.”

  “Then let me do it to make myself feel better. Because regardless of what you say, I feel rotten.”

  I look at the clock on my phone.

  “Ah,” he says, “you have a call with your brother. Right. Sorry.”

  “We didn’t officially set one up,” I say, ruining my one easy excuse for declining his invitation. “It was going to be more of an ambush.”

  “That sounds sinister.”

  I slip the phone back into my bag. “It’s a long story. My family is crazy.”

  “Whose isn’t? May I remind you about my father’s call a few weeks ago?”

  I laugh. “Like I could forget.”

  He tightens his grip around the paper bag. “So will you join me? I promise I won’t keep you—just a glass of wine, a few bits of cheese.”

  I fix my eyes on his, and though a voice in my head tells me to say no, to run, to get as far away from him as I can, I can barely hear it above the sound of my heart beating wildly.

  “Okay,” I finally say, my eyes still fixed on his. “Why not?”

  My stomach flutters as the words come out of my mouth because I know, fully and clearly, the answer to that question.

  CHAPTER 22

  “If you can’t go to Paris, then Paris will come to you.”

  Hugh unwraps a large hunk of Brie and places it onto a plate next to a slice of Bucheron.

  “Merci,” I say, resting my bag on the counter.

  He grabs two wineglasses and ushers me to the table, where he places the cheese next to the baguette and a bottle of red. He pulls out a corkscrew and opens the wine, which he pours generously.

  “Bon appétit,” he says, handing me a glass. He clinks his against mine and takes a sip. “Please, sit. Enjoy.”

  I slide into one of the chairs and reach for the baguette. “Do you have a knife?”

  He swallows his wine and waves me off. “Let’s just do like the French do and tear into it. We’re going to finish it anyway.”

  “A whole baguette?”

  “Easily. I realize you’ve probably been feasting on la bonne cuisine all day, but I’ve eaten nothing but a jacket potato, and I’m famished.”

  I tear off a piece of bread and hand the baguette to him as he settles into his seat. “Nice wine, by the way. What is it?”

  He picks up the bottle and scrunches up his face as he examines the label, holding it progressively farther away. “A Shiraz, I believe.”

  “Eyesight going already?”

  “Yes, apparently forty is when everything goes downhill—eyesight gets worse, joints start aching, bits start falling off.”

  “Bits fall off? What bits?”

  “Nothing important. Just hair, really.”

  “Okay. Good. You had me worried. I thought like maybe you started losing toes or something.”

  He laughs. “No, nothing like that. At least not yet. Perhaps that’s what happens when you’re fifty—I still have a decade to work it out.”

  I spread a bit of buttery Brie on my bread. “When did you turn forty?”

  “April. Though in my mind I’m still thirty-five.” He pauses. “I’m being charitable. In my mind I’m probably still fifteen.”

  “You and every other man I’ve ever met.”

  He winces as he stuffs a piece of bread into his mouth. “Oooh, she went there. . . .”

  “Actually, I take that back. My ex-boyfriend was the opposite. He was probably thinking like a forty-year-old when he was fifteen.”

  “Sounds like
a fun chap.”

  “He was fun in his own way. He was a good guy.”

  He takes another sip of wine. “So what happened to the two of you, then? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I got the job offer from Natasha and moved here.”

  “And?”

  “And . . . that was it.”

  “But it’s not as if you’re staying here forever.” He holds up his hands defensively. “Not that I’d mind if you did, of course.”

  “It wasn’t just the move. I think I outgrew the relationship.”

  It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud, but as soon as I do, they sound both right and strange—right because that’s exactly how I feel, but strange because it makes our relationship sound like a pair of shoes that doesn’t fit anymore. It’s also the first time I’ve admitted to myself that there is no going back to Sam, not only because I fell out of love with him, but also because I’m no longer the person he fell in love with either.

  “Sorry—that must sound odd,” I say.

  “Not at all. I know exactly what you mean. Believe me.”

  I finish my wine, and Hugh refills my glass as I reach in for some of the goat cheese. “What about you and Natasha? How did you meet?”

  “A long story for another time,” he says.

  I want to ask about their marriage—about the separate bedrooms and the fact that they never seem to spend any time together—but I know it’s none of my business, and his tone tells me it isn’t up for discussion anyway. So instead, I change the topic.

  “Yesterday you mentioned your dad built bikes for a living . . . ?”

  He licks a blob of cheese from his thumb. “I suppose technically he didn’t build them. He worked for Sturmey-Archer, a manufacturing company. They primarily made bicycle gear hubs.”

  “Made?”

  “The firm was sold to some Taiwanese outfit in 2000. My dad bounced around a few other jobs after that, then retired four years ago.”

  “And has since taken to calling you with his constipation woes.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What was it like growing up? I’m guessing you didn’t live like this.” I gesture around his kitchen.

  “Definitely not. We were never exactly poor, but money was always tight. Our entire house was smaller than the ground floor here.”

  “Mine, too. By a lot.”

  “What did your parents do?”

  “My dad works for the Postal Service.”

  “Really? My uncle worked for the Royal Mail for years. He retired a few years ago.”

  “My dad is a long way from retirement, if I had to guess.”

  “Money?”

  “That, and I have no idea what he’d do with himself if he didn’t have to go to work every day.”

  “I’ll tell you what he’d do: He’d call you asking about prune juice and strong coffee.”

  I laugh. “Exactly.”

  “And your mum? Did she work?”

  I finish my second glass of wine, my head a bit woozy. “Kind of. She mainly held down part-time gigs—cashier at one of the local grocery stores, sales clerk at Kmart, that kind of thing. I think she had trouble holding down anything more permanent. She wasn’t the most reliable person.”

  “No?”

  I consider my response, wondering how much I can or should tell him about my mom, but the wine has loosened my inhibitions, so I decide there’s no harm in telling him the truth.

  “She drank too much,” I say. “Not like an alcoholic or anything, although . . . I don’t know. Maybe she was. We never really talked about that kind of thing. It’s not like she was hitting the sauce at ten in the morning. That much I know. And she never drove us to school drunk or picked us up drunk. Frankly, if she’d been drinking, she just wouldn’t show up. But by four or five o’clock, she always had her glass of blackberry brandy nearby—either that or a Rum Runner.” I meet Hugh’s eyes. “Sorry—too much information. You probably think my family is nuts.”

  “Like I said before, whose isn’t?”

  “Yeah, but mine is sort of on a different level.”

  “Not really. Not from mine, anyway. My dad, as you know, is loveable but mad, and my mum . . .” He trails off. “Well, she sounds a bit like your mum.”

  “She drinks blackberry brandy at four in the afternoon?”

  He forces a smile. “She tends to prefer sloe gin. Or she used to. But yes.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”

  “No need to apologize. She’s been on and off the wagon for years. Currently she is on it, but who knows how long that will last.”

  “Did you . . . I mean, was it an issue when you were growing up?”

  “A bit. But like you said, we never really talked about that sort of thing—I mean, God, on top of everything else, we’re British. The ‘stiff upper lip’ isn’t fiction. Anyway, she was never an embarrassment; she always managed to keep it together, but I lived my entire adolescence fearing she was just one drink away from crossing the line. And I’ve spent my adult life worrying about her constantly—whether she’ll slip up, whether she’ll be okay if, God forbid, something happens to my dad. I can never rest easy. I feel like I’m always on guard.”

  “I wish I’d been more like that. Maybe if I had, my mom would still be around.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. It isn’t your fault. At some point people need to take responsibility for their own actions. At least that’s what my therapist told me.”

  “You’re in therapy?” I say before I can stop myself.

  “Was. Briefly. When my mum’s drinking got really bad, and I developed a bit of insomnia over it. I’m very good at solving problems—it’s part of the reason I became a politician—and I think it bothered me that I couldn’t solve hers, the woman who’d raised me and whom I loved dearly. I think I also blamed myself a bit. Was I too naughty as a child? Was my brother? Should I have done more? It’s taken time for me to grasp that it’s no one’s fault.”

  “Did she ever work?”

  “Nope. Spent all her time raising me and my brother—hence the guilt on my part. Even if she’d wanted to, my dad felt pretty strongly about providing for the family.”

  “My dad was like that, too, although for all his talk, he never tried all that hard to make something of himself. It’s almost as if he’d rather complain about his situation than do something about it.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to disappoint all of you by trying and failing. Maybe he didn’t want to disappoint himself.” Hugh swirls his wine. “Sometimes success requires a leap of faith, and not everyone has the courage to take it.”

  “You obviously did. How did you end up here?”

  “In Belsize Park?”

  “Not just that. Shadow education minister. A rising star in your party. Potential future prime minister.”

  “I worked hard at school. Got a cricket scholarship to Cambridge. Worked even harder. Got a PhD. And . . . well, here we are.”

  “But how could you see all of that from your small house in Nottingham when you were a little boy?”

  He shrugs. “Dunno. I was always a bit of a dreamer, I suppose.”

  “But even those dreams . . . I mean, I went to a great college, but it was twenty minutes from my hometown. The American equivalents of Cambridge—Harvard, Yale—weren’t even on my radar.”

  “Surely you’d heard of them.”

  “Of course. But applying to those schools would have been like saying, ‘I want to go to the moon’ or ‘I want to become a famous actress.’ Those things happen, just not to people like me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am who I am. I’m from where I’m from.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything. You can be whatever you want to be. There’s no reason you can’t become the next Nigella.”

  The wine rushes to my head. “There are plenty of reasons.”

  “Like?”

  “Like . . . I don’t look like Nigel
la, for starters. And I don’t have her connections. Her parents were famous and wealthy. My parents didn’t even go to college.”

  “So? Neither of my parents went to college either. That didn’t stop me.”

  “Yeah, but you’re . . . you. I’m a nobody.”

  “What are you talking about? You aren’t a nobody. You’re well-spoken and clever; you can make some of the best home-cooked food I’ve eaten in my life; you’re confident and funny; you’re bloody beautiful. . . .”

  He stops, his cheeks blossoming with pink. The word rings in my ears as my heart pounds. Beautiful. He thinks I’m beautiful?

  “Sorry—I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable,” he says.

  I wave him off, trying to disguise the fact that my hand is trembling. “You haven’t at all.”

  I reach across the table and rip off another piece of baguette, but as I pull, my hand snaps back and knocks my wineglass onto the floor. It shatters into dozens of tiny shards, sending burgundy-colored wine sailing across the white tiles.

  “Oh—I’m so sorry.”

  I leap up from my seat and rush toward the sink, feeling a bit off-kilter from all of the wine. I grab a roll of paper towels and bring it back to the table. Crouching beside my chair, I sop up the spilled wine, brushing the bits of glass into another paper towel.

  “Be careful,” he says, squatting next to me. “You’ll cut yourself. Here, let me.”

  “I’m fine. Really. I just need to—shit!”

  Sure enough, I’ve pierced my index finger on a small piece of glass next to one of the chairs. Blood gushes onto the floor.

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  I jump up and head for the sink again, running my finger under the cold water. Hugh chases after me, the roll of paper towels in his hand.

  “Here—use this.” He wraps a clean paper towel around my finger and presses hard as he lifts my hand over my head. “Hold it like this for a few minutes until it starts to clot, and then I’ll get you a plaster.”

  “A what?”