by Dana Bate
Blake raises his eyebrows. “Nothing special? I don’t think I’d know how to cook pork belly if you paid me.”
“It’s not hard. You could handle it.”
“No, seriously. I don’t even know what the word braise means.”
“It means cooking something in liquid. Super easy.”
He smiles. “You’re quite the cook, huh?”
I shrug. “I’d pretty much cook constantly if I could.”
“I’m telling you—you should start an ice cream business. Or a pork belly business. Whatever floats your boat.”
I force a smile. “I’d love to. Maybe someday.”
Blake rubs his chin and nods his head, scrunching his lips together as he studies my face. “In that case,” he says, tapping his finger against his bottom lip, “I have a proposition for you.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Okay …”
Blake surveys my apartment, and his eyes land on my Aerobed. “Want to come up to my place to talk about this? Not that there’s anything wrong with your place, but …”
“You have more furniture than an Aerobed and a beanbag chair?”
He grins. “Exactly.”
I follow Blake up to his house and pull up a seat along his breakfast bar. He grabs a bottle of Vouvray from his refrigerator and points it in my direction.
“Wine?”
I stare at the bottle and consider his offer, which seems a little weird and forward but also very appealing after my day from hell.
“Sure,” I say. If I’m not going to drink after a day like today, why drink at all?
Blake grabs two wineglasses and fills them both halfway, pushing one glass across the table toward me. I take a long sip of wine and let the chilled, fruity Vouvray trickle down the back of my throat.
“So,” he says. “My proposition. I’m having a huge Halloween party on the thirty-first. How would you feel about catering it?”
I spit the wine back in my glass. “Sorry?”
“When it comes to food … let’s just say I’m much better at the eating part than the cooking part. But I want this party to be awesome. I could use a helping hand from someone who knows her way around a kitchen.” He sips his wine. “Not that you know your way around my kitchen, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Right. Because why would I know my way around his kitchen? That wouldn’t make any sense at all. The bigger problem, of course, is that I’d planned an entire Halloween menu for The Dupont Circle Supper Club and hoped he’d be out of town that weekend.
I grab my wineglass and take another swig. “Won’t you be in Tampa that weekend?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. I’m taking the weekend off.”
“Any particular reason …?”
He widens his eyes, bewildered by my ignorance. “Uh, because it’s Halloween.”
“I didn’t realize Halloween was a holiday requiring devout observance.”
“It is if you’re me. My costume parties are legendary.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He flashes a geeky smile. “Like, major. Get ready for it.”
Great. I can only imagine the levels of geekdom this party will achieve.
“And anyway,” he says, “it’s the weekend before the ANC election, so I should be in town. The party will build momentum leading into the election.”
“How many people are we talking? For the party, I mean.”
Blake waves his hand back and forth. “About fifty, maybe?”
Fifty? Fifty? I’ve never cooked for fifty before. Holy crap. On the other hand …
“I assume there would be some sort of compensation involved,” I say, fiddling with the stem of my wineglass.
“Oh—sure.” Blake’s smile fades, and he bites his bottom lip. “Although … I need to check on whether or not that’s legal.”
“Why wouldn’t it be legal?”
“Well, usually to operate as a caterer you need to obtain a catering license. But I think there’s an exception if you’re cooking at the home of the person who’s paying you.” He pauses. “Let me check it out. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“You could always pay me under the table. No one would have to know.”
He chuckles. “Ha, right. Nice one, Sugarman. That’ll do wonders for my campaign.”
I laugh nervously as I grab the wine bottle and refill my glass. “It’s just a volunteer position, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re running for mayor.”
“Just because the commission doesn’t have legislative authority doesn’t mean the members don’t have to follow the law. We represent the neighborhood. Plus, if I ever run for higher office, I need a clean record. Hiring an illegal cleaning lady, paying an unlicensed caterer—I don’t need anything like that hanging over my head.”
I gulp down my entire glass of wine. “You want to run for higher office?”
Blake’s cheeks flush, and he waves me off. “That’s a conversation for another time.” He glances down at his watch. “Anyway, I should get to bed soon. Congressman Holmes has back-to-back live shots on MSNBC and CNN tomorrow morning, and then he’s meeting with a reporter from the New York Times, before heading into a markup of the immigration bill.” He smiles. “And that only takes us to ten A.M.”
I let out a drawn-out sigh. “I have a big day ahead of me, too.”
The difference being, my big day will involve me getting fired.
“Remind me what you do again? You’re a think tank person, right?”
I nod. “Institute for Research and Discourse.”
“Wow, don’t sound too excited. You say it like working there is some sort of punishment.”
“Some days I’m not so sure it isn’t.”
He slaps his hands against the counter. “Well then maybe my party can be your launching pad to a new career.”
I let out a huff as I play with the base of my wineglass. “Wouldn’t that be nice …”
“Again with the lack of enthusiasm. From what you said, I thought you’d love to cook for a living.”
“I would. My parents … not so much.”
“What, they aren’t fans of your cooking?”
“They’re not fans of cooking as a career.” I look up at Blake, whose eyebrows are scrunched into a knot on his forehead. I shrug. “Cooking isn’t a serious profession.”
“That’s not true,” he says. “Any profession is serious if the person doing the job takes it seriously. Who cares what they think?”
“They’re my parents. There’s a lot of history there.” I push my glass back and forth across his granite counter, holding it by the base. “What, you don’t care what your parents think?”
“Well, my dad is dead …”
“Oh. I didn’t realize.”
“But, yes, of course I care what my mom thinks, and what my dad thought when he was alive. That doesn’t mean I let them dictate my entire career path. There’s a fine line between respecting your parents and letting them control your life.”
“What about the line between asserting your independence and pissing off your parents for all eternity?”
Blake laughs and looks down at the counter, his hands gripping the edge of the granite countertop. When he looks up, a broad smile still painted across his face, I am struck by the color of his eyes. They are a pure, deep gray—not quite blue, not quite green, with a dark gray rim around the iris.
“Listen, at some point, you’ve got to fish or cut bait, right? That’s what growing up is all about.”
Another nautical reference. At some point I need to address this.
“I guess.” I let out a heavy sigh. “No one told me growing up would be such a huge pain in the ass.”
Blake smirks. “Deciding between a job at a prestigious think tank and a catering career—yeah, life is hard.”
“Oh, shut up, Long John Silver.”
I slap my hand over my mouth and feel the blood rush to my face because, oh my god, I just told my landlord—whose house I am using for an under
ground supper club—to shut up, Long John Silver. What is wrong with me?
“Sorry,” I say, my hand still over my mouth. “I didn’t mean that.”
Blake chuckles, his eyes wide. “Long John Silver? Where’d that come from?”
“I … it’s something my friend and I say sometimes. Never mind.”
“What, is that like cockney rhyming slang or something?” He swings his arms back and forth as if he is marching in place. “‘That bloke’s a Long John Silver.’ ”
I start shaking with laughter at Blake’s absurd English accent and even more absurd pantomime. “I don’t even think that’s how rhyming slang works,” I say. I glance up at the clock on his oven. “Anyway, don’t you need to get to bed?”
He looks at his watch. “Yeah, I think I said that twenty minutes ago. But you somehow managed to derail me with your cute smile and first world problems.” He blushes. “I take that back. Your smile isn’t that cute.”
I purse my lips and arch one eyebrow high while furrowing the other.
“Now that’s a much better look,” he says, grinning.
Blake walks me to the front door, and when I don’t hear the door close behind me by the time I reach the bottom of his steps, I turn around and see him standing in his doorway.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll figure it out. Your career, I mean.”
“I guess.”
He shrugs. “It’ll happen. You’ll do what you have to do to maintain your sanity.”
Somehow those few words make me feel better—not because my future is any clearer or because Blake is suggesting my sanity is still intact (although I do appreciate that), but because for once someone has faith in my ability to chart my own path. What’s surprising is not that I feel better, but that the person who made me feel this way isn’t my best friend or my parents or anyone I’ve known for more than two months. It’s my landlord, a man to whom I’ve been lying for nearly a month and whose political career I could, with just one misstep, easily ruin.
CHAPTER
twenty-four
The next day I arrive at the office a good forty-five minutes before Mark does. This is a strategic move on my part, though the specifics of my strategy elude me. I suppose I want enough time to collect my thoughts and organize my desk before Mark fires me. As if, somehow, that will soften the blow.
I power up my computer, and the first e-mail I see is one from my mother, with the worlds “Visiting DC!” in the subject line. I cannot see how this e-mail will contain anything but bad news:
Any word on canceling your trip to the mountains? Your father and I would LOVE to see you next weekend. If you cannot change your plans, we’ll understand, but please give us some alternate dates. Otherwise it will be Thanksgiving before we see you! Speaking of which, we really need to discuss our Thanksgiving plans. Aunt Elena is still keen on the reenactment idea, but there is no way in hell that’s happening.
Hugs and Kisses,
Mom
p.s. How is the GRE prep going??
I don’t know what deluded me into thinking a lame excuse about a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains would stave off my mother. It’s as if, deep down, she knows I’m lying, and by gently applying pressure through a series of innocent and inquisitive calls and e-mails, she will ultimately break me. That’s how she operates. In high school, when Alex Greenberg threw a wild, unsupervised party and I lied and told her Alex’s parents were there the whole time, she casually kept asking and asking and asking about it. Had Dr. Greenberg’s ankle healed? Did Mrs. Greenberg mention whether or not she’d be attending the parents’ reception next week? How was their trip to Bermuda? Finally, I caved under the stress and started crying and told her everything. As my mother, she knew keeping secrets was my weakness, and she knew just how to play me.
But she won’t play me this time. I’m not going to tell her about The Dupont Circle Supper Club, and I’m not going to cancel. Rachel and I have already booked two seatings for The Dupont Circle Supper Club next weekend, and people continue to flood our in-box with more requests. We’re running what is arguably the most popular hot spot in town, and my parents can’t know anything about that. Another thing they can’t know anything about? The termination of my employment at NIRD, an event that will take place in approximately thirty minutes.
Correction: five minutes. I already hear the wheels of Mark’s briefcase squealing down the corridor. Great.
My hands start shaking. I need more time to … what? Prepare? What could I possibly say to change his mind? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least ten ways I could become a better employee. The question is whether I want to do any of those things. The answer is no.
Instead of stopping at my desk like he normally does, Mark breezes past me toward his office. “Give me five minutes,” he says without looking at me. “Then let’s talk.” He walks through his door and slams a book on his desk.
It appears my hopes for leniency were in vain.
I spend five minutes nervously stacking and restacking the piles of paper on my desk. I shoot a quick e-mail to my parents telling them I cannot get out of my trip next weekend and need to take a closer look at my calendar before I suggest any alternate dates. I swallow three Tums. Then I arise from my chair, smooth my brown woolen skirt, and creep toward Mark’s office. Mark looks up from his copy of the Financial Times as I knock on his door. He folds the paper into a crinkled mass and dumps it on the floor.
“Come in,” he says. “Close the door. Sit down.”
Three explicit commands in a row. This spells trouble. Mark is never this straightforward.
I wade through the mounds of old newspapers on Mark’s floor and sit on the only chair in his office not covered by piles of papers and stacks of economic journals. The chair is awkwardly located directly behind his computer monitor and positioned so that, when seated, I cannot see his face. All I can see is the gray plastic back of his computer screen, with all its vents and screws. I feel like I’m being fired by Darth Vader.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the latest on my CNBC interview,” Mark says from behind his computer screen.
There’s a latest? “No,” I say. “What happened?”
“The whole interview is making the rounds on YouTube.” Beneath the computer screen, I see his hand grab for the ecru handkerchief sticking out of his blazer pocket. “Honestly, Hannah, the whole situation is very embarrassing.”
“I’m—I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. People probably want to gawk at Erica Eckels’s breasts.”
At the word breasts, Mark’s goes silent for an uncomfortable period of time. Part of me wonders if he is embarrassed because he has never actually seen a female breast, but then I remember he wears a wedding ring and has two grown daughters, a fact that astonishes me daily. I can’t keep a boyfriend for much more than a year, and yet someone voluntarily made babies with Mark Henderson. The universe makes no sense at all.
“Yes, well, maybe that is the reason, but nevertheless, I am still quite displeased with how the interview went.”
“I know, and I promise nothing like that will ever happen in the future.”
Mark shifts in his chair. “Then you would agree that your performance lately has been lacking?”
“Yes,” I say, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of Mark. He does the same, but in the opposite direction, so that I am left talking to the back of his chair.
“Then the question is what we should do about this. What is your future at IRD? Do you have a future at IRD?” He pauses. I pick at the little balls of fuzz on my seat cushion and wait for him to continue. I wonder what he is looking at while he speaks to me. I picture him staring at big, fat currency symbols on his computer screen—dollars and pounds and wons and rupees.
“Well?” he says.
“Sorry?” Was there a question in there I was supposed to answer?
“What is your future at IRD?” Mark repeats. “Perhaps I should rephrase the question: do you want a future at
IRD?”
“Um, I guess?”
My answer is neither true nor is it the first thing that comes to my mind. But I’m not quite sure how to tell my boss that, no, I don’t want a future here; I just want an income stream until I come up with a better plan. So, instead, I give the most equivocal answer I can muster. I guess isn’t yes and it isn’t no; it’s, Does it really even matter?
“Okay then,” Mark says. “Since you do want a future here, let’s establish some ground rules. I have always said one must be challenged to be satisfied with one’s work. And, given how talented I know you are, your behavior lately indicates I am not challenging you enough. So I will involve you more in the work I am doing, in particular having you take on more sophisticated research.”
Mark clears his throat. My stomach contracts violently. As it stands, I can barely maintain an interest level in the subjects Mark has assigned me. Increasing the complexity will not help.
“I also believe strongly in incentives,” Mark continues, “and so for my upcoming book, I am putting together an outline and would like you to draft a few chapters on the history of Federal Reserve intervention. And assuming you’ve done an adequate job, I will list you as a coauthor on the book. How does that sound?”
In a word: horrendous. I do not know what changed in the course of our conversation, but I entered this room terrified Mark might fire me, and now I am devastated he hasn’t. The thought of drafting full chapters on the Federal Reserve makes me want to set my hair on fire. I have no idea how this conversation spun so wildly out of control, to a place where getting fired is the preferable option. All I can do is stare at the back of Mark’s monitor, thankful he cannot see the dumbstruck expression planted on my face.
“Hannah?” Mark says from behind his computer screen.
“Sorry, um, it’s just … I’m having trouble seeing you from where I’m sitting,” I say, trying to buy myself time. I have no idea how to respond; I have been preoccupied with not letting the words horrendous and awful and what the hell fly out of my mouth.
I scoot my chair a few feet to the left. Mark’s floor is covered with old newspapers, photocopies of journal articles, and random bits of clothing, and so my chair now tilts backward, the front left leg bolstered by a pair of maroon argyle socks and what may or may not be an old pair of boxers.
