Too Many Cooks

by Dana Bate

  I take another deep breath, picturing Hugh’s gentle hands running up and down my thigh, when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  “Kelly?”

  I open my eyes and find myself standing face-to-face with Jess Walters, her fiery red hair tied in a messy bun on top of her head and her pale freckled arms sticking out of a flowing purple sundress. I haven’t seen her since we met at the Blind Pig three weeks ago.

  “Jess—hi.” I shake myself out of my daydream. “Sorry, I was somewhere else.”

  “Obviously. How are you? I’ve been meaning to e-mail you about getting together, but my job has been nuts lately.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “You’re still working on Natasha Spencer’s cookbook?”

  “Slowly but surely.”

  “Very cool.” Her eyes wander over my shoulder, and she waves to someone behind me. “Listen, I have to run, but I’ve been meaning to ask . . . what’s up with you and Harry?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you were supposed to meet up for a date.”

  “We were, but I’ve been running into deadline issues with the cookbook, so I’ve had to cancel.”

  “Several times, from what I hear.”

  I flush. “It’s been a busy few weeks.”

  “Well, whatever the case, Harry thinks you aren’t interested.”

  “Really? I haven’t been bailing on purpose—honestly. We’ve just had really bad luck.”

  “I’m only the messenger. Maybe you could try calling him again. Unless you really aren’t interested.”

  “I am. I mean, I think I am.” I flash back to the smile on Hugh’s face after he kissed me good-bye this morning.

  “Are you seeing someone else?”

  “No. Not really. . . .”

  She holds up her hands. “Say no more. I get it. I’ll let Harry know you are spoken for.”

  “No, I’m not—”

  “Gemma!” Jess shouts and waves to someone over my shoulder. “Sorry,” she says to me, “I have to run. But let’s grab a drink soon, okay? There’s a fun wine bar near Trafalgar Square I think you’d like. I’ll send you the details.”

  She gives me a quick hug and scampers off. Another escape plan slips through my fingers.

  I buy a loaf of multigrain, some strawberries, and a dozen eggs before heading back to my flat. When I get there, I start catching up with the chores I neglected all weekend due to my stay in Nottingham, and in between loads of laundry, I notice an e-mail in my in-box from my brother.

  Subject: hey

  i have an idea how to get Irene out of the house call

  me when u get this I don’t have ur number.

  I ignore the fact that the e-mail contains neither punctuation nor capital letters and focus instead on the fact that (a) Stevie has e-mailed me, (b) he has done so before noon his time, and (c) he has come up with an idea to evict Irene. Either a ghost has possessed my brother, or miraculous things are happening in my absence.

  I grab my phone and dial his number. When he picks up, I have to pull the phone away from my ear as the thump-thump of Eminem blasts through the receiver.

  “Stevie—Jesus. Turn it down, will you?”

  The music fades. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t realize you could hear that.”

  “You didn’t realize I could hear that? I’m pretty sure people in Belgium heard that. You’re going to blow out your eardrums. How can you concentrate when the music is that loud?”

  “I’m not trying to concentrate.”

  Of course he isn’t. “Right. Anyway. I got your e-mail. What’s the plan? How do we get Irene out of there?”

  “Hang on a sec.” I hear him get up and shut a door. “Okay,” he says, “I’m back. So, here’s what I’m thinking. The other day I was watching TV, and Home Alone came on, and I was like, whoa, I haven’t seen that in a while. So I watched it.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And remember the part where Kevin is watching that black-and-white gangster movie? The one where the guy is like, ‘Keep the change, ya filthy animal.’ ”

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  “So he uses that later when he orders takeout pizza. He just, like, plays the movie, and the pizza delivery guy thinks he’s some gangster, and it’s hilarious.” He laughs to himself.

  “Right . . . but . . . what does that have to do with Irene O’Malley?”

  “Well, I was thinking—I have a few recordings of Mom from, like, home videos and stuff. I could string together a few audio recordings and then call Irene in the middle of the night or something and make her think Mom is calling her from beyond the grave, being like, ‘Stay away from my husband,’ blah blah blah. And Irene will freak the fuck out and leave.”

  A long silence ensues, as Stevie awaits my reply. I’m not exactly sure what to say. Aside from the fact that he is basing his plan around a 1990 John Hughes film that centered on the plight of an eight-year-old boy, the entire scenario seems like an overly elaborate solution to a relatively simple problem, like calling in the fire department to blow out a birthday candle.

  “It’s . . . creative, I’ll give you that,” I say.

  He huffs. “You hate it.”

  “No, no—I just . . . It seems like a lot of work on your part. All the dubbing and editing . . . And what if Dad were to answer the phone and not Irene?”

  He hesitates. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “It might really freak him out. He hasn’t exactly taken Mom’s death easily.”

  “True.” He sighs. “It’s the best I could come up with, okay? Sorry it’s a dumb plan. I don’t know why you expected anything better.”

  “It isn’t dumb,” I say.

  “Yes, it is, and you know it. Everything I do is dumb. I’m Stevie the Dummy. Everyone knows that.”

  “I thought you were Steve now, not Stevie.”

  “Whatever. Same difference.”

  “You’re not dumb,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah? Were you still trying to get your college degree at twenty-five?”

  “There’s a difference between being unmotivated and being dumb.”

  “I’m motivated.”

  “To do what?”

  “I don’t know. Live. Eat. Meet chicks.”

  I close my eyes. “That’s not the kind of motivation I’m talking about.”

  “I know. I’m working on it.”

  “Listen, I’m not ruling out your Home Alone idea, but maybe we should come up with a few others first, and then we can decide which is the best way to go.”

  “Other ideas like what?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s keep thinking and talk next weekend. Okay?”

  “I guess. But I’m not making any promises. This might be the best I can come up with.”

  “And if it is, well, maybe that’s what you do. But I think we should explore all our options before you start creating a poltergeist.”

  “Yeah, okay. I guess that makes sense.”

  “Maybe if you visited Dad, you’d get some ideas.... Have you been since we last spoke?”

  “No.”

  “Steve. Come on. What did we talk about?”

  He groans. “All right, all right—I’ll stop by later this afternoon. I don’t have to be at work until five.” He snickers. “Maybe I can stick a fake mouse in her bed or something. That’ll creep her out.”

  “I’m pretty sure Mom never threw out Oreo’s toys when he died. There’s a toy mouse somewhere in that house.”

  “Wait—so you’d be cool with that?”

  “Let’s just say if a toy mouse ended up in Irene’s bed, I would have no problem with that.”

  “Sweet. Consider it done.”

  We share a mischievous laugh, and once we’ve said good-bye and ended the call, I lean back in my chair and realize the two developments currently dominating my time involve having an affair with a married British politician and devising childish pranks to pull on my dead mother’s nemesis. And to whatever exte
nt my mom would enthusiastically endorse the latter and possibly support the former, I can’t help but think this somehow represents a disintegration of my moral compass, and I’m not sure what, if anything, I can do to restore it.

  CHAPTER 32

  When I show up at Natasha’s house the next morning, I run into Poppy, who arrives at the gate at the same time as me, dressed in a sleeveless azure sundress.

  “Poppy! Long time, no see.”

  She offers a polite but stiff smile and then nods at one of Natasha’s security guards as she punches the access code into the front gate, which opens into the driveway. “It has, indeed, been a while.”

  “Admit it, Poppy: You missed me.” I wait for her to agree. “Well, I’ve missed you,” I say when she doesn’t respond. I’m not sure what I find more shocking: that I say this, or that I also mean it.

  “Have you.” She eyes me warily, her words more like a statement than a question.

  “I have. How have you been?”

  “Busy beyond belief. Between all of these trips to Paris and the early publicity for the cookbook, everything has been complete madness.”

  She heads for the front door, and I follow her hesitantly, knowing I should probably use the servants’ entrance, but figuring if Poppy is using the front door . . . well, maybe I can too, at least for today. I still don’t fully understand Natasha’s underling hierarchy.

  “Did you go with her to Paris Saturday night?”

  “No. As you know, she left me in London, so it was impossible for me to get to Nottingham airport in time, and it was too late to book me on commercial.”

  Her voice is tart. She clearly does not appreciate having been left out of the weekend’s events.

  “At least you had a weekend off, right?”

  She hurries up the front steps. “I suppose.”

  I follow her into the house and make my way toward the stairway leading to the lower floor. “I assume Natasha is back, then?”

  “She is. But she’s with her trainer now, and then she has an appointment with her acupuncturist, after which her publicist must brief her on her upcoming interview with British Vogue. Speaking of which . . .” She pulls her phone from her purse and begins scrolling through her in-box. “The journalist writing the piece wanted a sneak peek of the cookbook manuscript. Natasha, of course, will have the final say over what recipes he sees, but could you pull together what you have so far and give it to her to read?”

  “Oh. Sure. Although, as you know, we’re a little . . . behind.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve been e-mailing her editor.” She continues scrolling through her e-mail.

  “Okay. As long as Natasha is cool with sending the writer something very rough.”

  “Natasha will have the final word on that. But assuming the recipes you send are well-tested, I don’t see a problem.”

  “Great.” I grab hold of the banister. “By the way, is Olga downstairs?”

  She looks up from her phone. “I have no idea. I arrived with you.”

  “Right. Sorry. I guess I’m used to your knowing the ins and outs of everything that goes on in this house.”

  “Well, I do. Normally. All of the major things, anyway.”

  She looks back down at her phone and begins typing rapidly, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, Except the most major thing of all.

  “I not find ‘poblano’ peppers,” Olga says as soon as I walk into the kitchen.

  I drop my bag on one of the kitchen chairs and head for the sink to wash my hands. “That’s okay. I can work on something else this morning. I sometimes forget certain ingredients are easier to find in America.”

  She heads for the door. “Everything else is in refrigerator and cupboard.”

  “Thank you,” I call after her. She nods without turning around. I notice she hasn’t made eye contact with me since we returned from Nottingham.

  Once she is out of sight, I scan the pantry and refrigerator and decide to start on the asparagus frittata, since that’s something fairly quick and easy I can make and cross off my list. I also didn’t eat much breakfast this morning, so I’d kill for some eggs.

  To make the dish a little more interesting, I decide to roast the asparagus, giving it a nice char in the oven while I whisk together the eggs and slice and wash the leeks. As I measure the oil into a frying pan, I glance over my shoulder and see Natasha walk into the kitchen, dressed in black spandex workout clothes and dripping in sweat.

  “Natasha—hi. I didn’t think I’d see you this morning.”

  “You won’t. Pretend I’m not here.”

  “Oh. Okay. Sorry. I won’t say another word.”

  “You’ve already said eight too many.”

  I turn around, my jaw clenched, and toss the leeks into the pan of hot oil, pushing them around with a wooden spoon. Natasha scoots behind me and gets out her juicer, along with a bunch of produce from the fridge, including the knob of ginger I planned to use later when testing a recipe for Asian poached chicken.

  Given her frosty directive, I am hesitant to say anything, but as she dumps the produce on the counter, I decide I need to speak up. “The ginger . . . I actually need that today.”

  “Sorry?”

  “For the chicken. I need ginger for the poaching liquid.”

  She stares at me coolly and then flicks on the juicer, its noisy drone filling the room. “Then tell Olga she needs to buy more.”

  She pushes the entire knob through the juicer, followed by a beet, an apple, and a carrot. She gulps down the glass of burgundy juice, her eyes fixed on mine, as if she is daring me to say something, daring me to cross her. But what would I say? And what would be the point? She knows what she did was rude, and she doesn’t care.

  She finishes the last of the juice and pushes the dirty glass in my direction. “Make sure you put this in the dishwasher.”

  Then she leaves, and I wonder what it says about Hugh that he could fake a marriage to this woman for five minutes, much less five years.

  Later, as I sink my fork into the fluffy frittata, which is studded with leeks, roasted asparagus, and fluffy blobs of ricotta, Poppy storms into the kitchen as she taps on her phone.

  “An update,” she says without looking up or saying hello.

  “On?”

  “The Vogue article. The writer wants to cook a few of the dishes with Natasha, here, in her kitchen.”

  “When?”

  “Her publicist is trying to set a date. The writer would like to come some time in July. Obviously the article will come out much later, closer to launch.”

  “Tomorrow is July first.”

  “Yes, I am aware. I think they’re aiming for later in the month. I’ll coordinate with Natasha, but the two of you will need to decide what dishes they’ll cook together, and you’ll need to run through them with Natasha.”

  “Does she want my help on the actual day?”

  Poppy looks up from her phone. “She hasn’t said. But I doubt she’ll want you here during the interview. Before, yes, but not while the writer is here. It looks bad if she needs someone holding her hand the whole time.”

  “What about you?”

  “Well, of course I’ll be here. She’d be lost without me.”

  Given that Natasha survived both Nottingham and Paris without Poppy, I don’t think that’s entirely true, but I’m learning that Poppy’s self-image and self-worth are defined by her importance to Natasha.

  “Just let me know what Natasha needs,” I say. “I’m happy to help.”

  “Good,” she says. “Oh, and I chatted to Mr. Ballantine earlier today. He wanted me to relay a message.”

  Her words cut through the air, which still smells of caramelized leeks. “Oh?”

  “Yes, something about one of your kitchen utensils. He said, ‘Tell Kelly she left one of her implements behind.’ ”

  “Did I?”

  Instinctively, I reach up for my earlobe to make sure I haven’t lost an earring, even though I know
I put on the pair I’m wearing this morning and, as far as I know, am not missing one.

  “Apparently,” she says.

  “But I don’t remember leaving anything behind.”

  “I suppose that’s why you forgot it.”

  “I guess. . . .”

  “Anyway, he said he has it and will bring it with him when he returns to London.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Later this evening.”

  I run my fingers along the edge of the counter. “Did he want me to meet him?”

  She furrows her brow. “Why would he want you to meet him?”

  “I don’t know. So that he could give it to me in person.”

  “And why would he want to do that?”

  Because this message might be some sort of code? Because he might want to see me again? Because I really want to see him?

  “I don’t know,” I repeat.

  “I imagine he’ll leave it for you on the counter. He’s very busy. And anyway, it’s not as if returning the likes of a spatula requires a formal meeting.”

  “A spatula?”

  She sighs. “Whatever it was. He didn’t say.” She glances down at her phone. “Ah. It looks as if Natasha has appointments for the rest of the day. She won’t be able to sit down with you to discuss the book until tomorrow at eleven.”

  “That should be fine.”

  “As I’m sure you’re learning, with Natasha, ‘should’ is not an option. We’ll see you then.”

  She turns and flounces out of the room, and I’m left wondering what I could have left with Hugh in Nottingham, other than my heart.

  CHAPTER 33

  I stay as late as I can that day, stretching out the recipe testing as long as possible in the hope I might run into Hugh. But when Olga meets me in the kitchen at nearly six and asks if I’m ready to walk to the tube with her, I can’t think up a decent excuse that won’t make her more suspicious of me than she already is. So, grudgingly, I pack up my bag and walk with her toward the tube, my mind awash with questions about Hugh’s cryptic message.