by Dana Bate
My menu, however, will pilfer the specialties of other carnivals and state fairs, giving a nod to everything from giant turkey legs to corn dogs on a stick. Rachel managed to find some vintage carnival signs to hang on the walls and will decorate the tables with white-and-red checkerboard tablecloths, antique milk bottles filled with colorful pinwheels, and mock carnival tickets. If all goes according to plan, this could be our best supper club yet.
And, really, it has to be. As it stands, The Dupont Circle Supper Club is my only source of income—my only means of paying my bills and preventing my parents from discovering I am a huge disappointment. If I want our guests to sweeten the sixty-dollar fee with a nice tip, this dinner has to be perfect. I need this money. I need to buy myself time. At this point, my only backup plan is an acceptance letter and financial aid package from L’Academie de Cuisine, and I haven’t heard a peep from them yet. Not a promising sign.
Rachel and I inspect the oven and refrigerator, and then I walk the perimeter of the room, peering out the windows and across the city. “I like it,” I say.
Rachel beams. “It’s great, right?”
“I think it’ll be perfect.”
We check out the dishwasher, which is considerably smaller than Blake’s, meaning we’ll be on the hook for a lot more hand washing. But if washing a few more plates by hand means I will save myself Blake’s ire, that’s fine by me.
Rachel twirls Hugo’s keys around her finger. “So we’ll hit the farmers’ market Thursday, yeah?”
“Yep. And I’ll do the bulk of the prep work at my place Friday night, so that we’ll have more time to set up Saturday. You’ll take care of tables and chairs?”
“Already on it. Thompson at NIRD is hooking me up.”
“The kitchen director?”
She nods. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle the logistics.”
She wraps her arm around my shoulder and walks me through the front door, locking it behind her as we head for the elevator. We wait in the cool, stark hallway for the elevator to arrive, and when it does, we step inside as Rachel sighs.
“Back to reality,” she says.
These days, I’m not even sure what that means.
The Thursday before the supper club, Rachel sneaks out of work early and meets me at the Penn Quarter farmers’ market to pick up the turkey legs, Brussels sprouts, pears, and potatoes. I sneak out of nowhere because I live alone and am unemployed.
“Well, well, well,” Shauna says as Rachel and I approach her stand. “If it isn’t Washington’s favorite carnivore.”
“I’m not sure that’s a title I even want,” I say, eyeing the rows of pork and lamb.
“You put in an order for three dozen turkey legs this week. That’s your title, whether you like it or not.”
Shauna yells for Sam to grab our turkey legs off the truck, and while we wait, she eyes me and Rachel suspiciously. “What kind of operation are you two running?”
I feign ignorance. “What do you mean?”
Her lips curl into a smirk. “Every week or two, you put in an order big enough to feed a football team. No, two football teams. What gives?”
I shrug. “We have a lot of friends.”
She scrunches up her forehead. “No one has that many friends.”
“We do,” Rachel says.
Shauna rolls her eyes, a disbelieving smirk still plastered on her face. “Uh-huh. It wouldn’t be for a certain ‘supper club,’ would it?”
I allow the faintest hint of a smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rachel and I pay Shauna, who once again gives us a steep employee discount, and we stroll over to the vegetable stand to pick up the Brussels sprouts and potatoes.
“Remind me,” Rachel says as I pick through the crate of potatoes, “what are you doing with the Brussels sprouts?”
I reach into my purse and hand her a crumpled-up copy of the menu. “Here.”
She skims the menu:
Slushy spiked lemonade/beer
Boiled peanuts/homemade pickles/kettle corn
Mini corn dogs with chili ketchup, curried mustard, and cheese sauce
Turkey leg confit
Deep-fried Brussels sprouts
Poker-chip potatoes
Ginger-pear sno-cones and cotton candy
Pumpkin funnel cake
“What the hell are poker-chip potatoes?”
“I’m going to slice the potatoes paper thin—like poker chips or carnival tokens—and line them up in a baking dish, accordion-style, with thyme, shallots, and garlic, and bake them until they’re crispy around the edges but tender in the middle.”
“Seriously, why aren’t you cooking for a living?”
“Uh, at this point, I think I am.”
Rachel considers this. “I guess that’s true.”
She helps me lift my bags of potatoes onto the scale and reaches into her purse for her wallet. “By the way,” she says, “I’m going to pick up a small U-Haul van Saturday morning to lug all the tables over to Hugo’s loft. We can call Hugo on the way so that he can meet us there and let us in.”
“You don’t have a key anymore?”
“Jackson had to give it back to Hugo. He and some artist friends paint there Tuesday through Friday.”
“Nice life.”
She shrugs. “Trust fund baby.”
We divide the potatoes and Brussels sprouts between our two bags and saunter up Eighth Street toward the red line Metro stop, the cool November air nipping at my ears.
“You think we’ll be okay on Saturday, right? At the loft?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. New space, bigger guest list, more advanced prep work, higher expectations.”
Rachel scrunches up her lips and rumples her brow in deep thought, assuring me, in that very Rachel way, that she is giving my question adequate consideration. Then she relaxes her face into a confident smile. “Nah,” she says, shaking her head as we turn onto F Street. “We’ll be fine. Trust me.”
CHAPTER
thirty-nine
We are not fine.
The morning of the supper club, Rachel comes over to my apartment to help me wrap up the thirty-six legs of turkey confit, the vats of trimmed Brussels sprouts, and the dozens of other ingredients we need to transport to Hugo’s loft. As I bind my prep pans in swathes of plastic wrap, Rachel picks up her phone and calls Hugo to see when he can meet us. And that’s when all hell breaks loose.
“WHAT????” Rachel shouts into the phone. “Are you joking?”
I freeze, my hand clasped around a jar of homemade pickles. “What’s going on?”
She waves at me to be quiet. “But we told you we wanted it for this Saturday,” she says. She listens as Hugo responds on the other end. “Well that isn’t my fault, now is it?”
“Rach, what is going on? What is he saying?”
She hushes me a second time. “Well what the hell are we supposed to do now, Hugo? Tell me that.” She pauses. “Uh-huh. Right. Well that’s just awesome. Awesome.”
I rush over to Rachel and grab the phone from her hands. “Hugo? This is Hannah Sugarman. The … head chef. What’s the problem?”
“Hannah, dude, listen, I am so sorry, but I totally mixed up the dates. I thought you guys wanted to use my place next weekend.”
“No. This weekend. Not next weekend.”
“Right,” he says through a lazy laugh. “I get that now.”
“Are you laughing?” I say, my rage building. “This isn’t funny. We need that loft tonight.”
“Right, totally. But see, I already promised another group they could have it tonight—they booked it like two months ago.”
“And how is that my problem?”
“Hey, listen, I totally get it. I screwed up. But, like, this other group—they’re good people, and they reserved the space months ago.”
I clench my jaw. “So what do you propose we do?”
He pauses. “I
mean, space is just a construct, right? Like, if you’re subverting the food establishment, space and time don’t matter. All they do is inhibit us.”
What. The. Fuck.
Rachel pulls on the sleeve of my shirt. “What is he saying?”
I cover the phone with my hand. “He’s telling me space is a construct. That’s what he’s saying.” I redirect my voice back into the phone. “Hey, Hugo? Forget it. We’ll figure out something else.”
“Right on,” he says. “Good luck with that.”
I hang up Rachel’s phone and, using all the strength I can muster, throw it onto my air mattress as I shout obscenities that would make Rahm Emanuel blush. What are we going to do? Not only have I spent precious money on enough food for thirty-six people, and not only are thirty-six people expecting me to feed them tonight, but I’ve also prepared—salted, seasoned, and cooked—thirty-six servings of turkey leg confit. What the hell am I going to do with thirty-six servings of turkey leg confit?
I turn to Rachel, trying to control my panic, which has reached a 10.6 panic on the “Holy Crap” Richter scale.
“Okay, what’s our next option?”
“What about your place?” she suggests.
“Take a look around, Rach.” I wave my hands across my apartment. “Does it look like we can fit thirty-six people in here? It’s tight with just you and me. No way. Not going to work. How about your place?”
“No way. Lizzie is hosting some sort of law school study session tonight.”
“Can’t she have it somewhere else?”
“Have you met Lizzie? She makes Millie look like a stoner. Lizzie won’t even let Jackson use our shower because she’s afraid he’ll contaminate it. Besides, my oven broke last week, and we’re still waiting for the electrician to come out and fix it. My place isn’t an option.”
I rub my temples and let out a long, deep groan. “Throw me a freaking bone, Rachel. What are we going to do?”
She pauses. “What about Blake’s place?”
“I told you, he’s in town this weekend. And I can’t keep using his place—it’s too risky.”
“But you said you’re hitting the PAUSE button after this dinner, right? So it would just be this one last time. Never to be repeated.”
“That may be, but I told you—he’s in DC this weekend. Not Tampa.”
“But isn’t he going to a gala or something tonight?”
“Yeah. From six until midnight.” I catch myself. I get where Rachel’s heading. “You don’t think …”
“How long do our dinners usually last?”
“About four hours,” I say.
“But we could probably pull it off in less than three, right?”
“I mean … probably.” Rachel raises an eyebrow. “Okay, yes,” I say. “We could do it in less than three.”
“It isn’t ideal, but …” Rachel trails off. “You said you need the cash, right?”
“After the amount of money I’ve already spent on this dinner? Definitely. Even more than before.”
Rachel and I lock eyes, and, whether it’s due to a profound lack of imagination or an overwhelming sense of defeat, we come to an unspoken agreement: we are holding the dinner in Blake’s house tonight, for one last time.
I bite my lip as I tap my foot nervously against the floor. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to e-mail everyone and tell them the dinner has been moved to seven instead of eight. Send them the new address. I’ll do as much of the prep work in my kitchen as I can. As soon as Blake leaves for the gala, we can run up to his house, set up, cook the dinner, and get everyone seated, fed, and out of there by ten. That’ll give us an hour to clean up and an hour to spare, in case Blake comes home early.”
“You think he’d come home early?”
“No—his boss is getting some award. And given Blake’s thumping schedule, he never gets back before midnight on the weekends he’s in town.”
Rachel goes silent, then nods her head in agreement. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s do this.”
I watch as Rachel scurries out my front door and realize in the history of terrible ideas, this ranks right up there with Olestra and the Pontiac Aztek. And the worst part is, we’re doing it anyway.
The minute Blake hops into a cab and peels away toward Eighteenth Street, I grab Rachel by the arm and push her up my stairway.
“Go, go, go!”
We run up the stairs, hustle into Blake’s house, and throw our ingredients onto the counter. I immediately dump about two quarts of oil into each of two pots, one for the deep-fried Brussels sprouts and corn dogs and the other for the funnel cake. Rachel runs back and forth between the kitchen and dining room like a madwoman, throwing the tablecloths down, tossing the milk bottles on the tables, and scattering the ticket stubs all over the place in a hurried frenzy. I grab the pan of confit turkey legs, which I prepared last night, and shove them in the oven. All I need to do is reheat them in the oven and crisp up the skin, and they’ll be ready to go.
“Pinwheels!” Rachel shouts from the dining room. I grab the bag and throw it to her, and she catches it in the doorway and races back to finish setting up the table.
Before I start on the potatoes, I shovel the boiled peanuts, kettle corn, and homemade pickles into serving dishes and rush them into the living room, setting them in the area beyond the folding tables Rachel picked up from NIRD and is speedily setting up. I run back into the kitchen, the sweat pouring down my back, and grab a mandoline and start slicing the potatoes into thin, token-size rounds, working at the speed of light.
“Careful!” Rachel snaps as she scurries into the kitchen to grab her chalkboard. “Watch your fingers. The last thing we need is for you to end up in the ER.”
“How much longer until you can help me with the slushy lemonade?”
“Two minutes,” she says, panting. “I just need to finish hanging the signs.”
I quickly arrange the sliced potatoes in the baking dish, aligning them upright in concentric circles, and tuck the shallot wedges among the potatoes. I season everything with salt and pepper and shove the dish into the bottom oven.
“Potatoes are in!” I shout to Rachel. “Ditto the turkey.”
Rachel runs into the kitchen. “The living and dining rooms are set up. I’ve arranged everything so that breakdown will go super fast.”
“Great. Could you deal with the drinks?”
Rachel wraps her arms around a dozen bottles of lager and porter and runs them into the living room while I whisk together the corn dog batter and unwrap the mini hot dogs onto a plate. I turn on the heat beneath the pot of oil, slowly bringing the oil to 350 degrees for my deep-frying extravaganza.
Rachel rushes back into the kitchen and grabs the ice, lemon juice, and Absolut Citron and dumps them, with the rosemary syrup and the rest of the spiked slushy ingredients, into the blender. She whirs everything together, tastes and seasons the drink, and then gives everything another whir.
“Look at you,” I say. “You look like a real cook these days.”
She grins as she pours the mixture into individual glasses. “I learn from the best.”
Two months ago, Rachel was exploding glass dishes in my kitchen and balking at anything more complicated than box mix brownies. Now she’s whipping up cocktails and helping me deep fry. Granted, it’s not as if the woman is throwing together Napoleons and croquembouches in her spare time, but at least she is no longer scared of boiling water.
I glance down at my watch. Twenty minutes to showtime.
“How’s the turkey coming?” Rachel asks.
I flick on the oven light. “Good. Right on schedule.”
We scurry around the kitchen, lining up plates, arranging the serving pieces, and scrubbing dirty knives and cutting boards. In separate bowls, I whisk together the dry and wet ingredients for the funnel cakes, and I set the bowls away from the stove, next to the sink. We mince, chop, and slice our way through the next fifteen minutes until, suddenly, it�
�s seven o’clock and the doorbell rings.
Rachel brushes her hair off her face with the back of her hand and tosses her dish towel on the counter. “I’ll get it.”
She scampers down the front hallway and unlocks the front door, and muffled sounds of confusion and surprise and awkwardness begin emanating from the foyer. The thud of footsteps clomping down the hallway echoes throughout the house, and when I look up from trimming the Brussels sprouts, what I see before me causes my heart to race and my stomach to churn and my head to nearly explode.
“Look who it is,” Rachel says, flashing a tense and panicky smile.
Standing on either side of Rachel are the last two people I want to see right now aside from Blake Fischer himself—the only two people who could make this night more nerve-wracking than it already is. But they’re here, and they’re staying, and so there’s nothing I can do but force a smile and try not to cry and put on my most professional face as I say hello to Adam and Millie.
CHAPTER
forty
“Hannah?” Millie’s eyes pop open when she spots me standing behind the stove. “Oh my God, you’re joking.”
Adam looks startled. “Hannah—hi. Wow. I … didn’t realize you ran this place.”
A zillion questions swirl through my brain, the most recurrent being (a) what the hell is Adam doing at a supper club, (b) why the hell didn’t Rachel notice their names on the guest list, and (c) holy crap, are Adam and Millie actually dating for real?
Millie eyes the Viking range and granite countertops and narrows her eyes. “This is your house?”
