I? Am flipping the script. Erasing yesterday like it didn’t happen. It was a blip, an anomaly. And now it’s back to normal.
I snap on the dogs’ leashes, grab some blue bags for my pocket just in case, and head out. The boulevard is lovely, covered in a light dusting of snow, the sun bright and the air brisk but not brutal. We walk up, both dogs taking opportunities to roll in the snow, and play with the other dogs we pass on the way. When we get close to the Library, I start to get a little clenchy, like maybe one of my attacks is coming on, but I breathe deeply and the feeling passes. I know I’m just nervous to have Chewie at the store. I really can’t handle another disaster so soon.
“Hello, Liebchen. And who is this handsome boy?” Lois comes to greet us. She hands a small treat to Volnay right off, but makes Chewbacca sit and make eye contact before he gets his. It is the perfect thing to do, immediately putting him in training mode and establishing Lois as an authority figure. He takes his treat, follows Volnay to the corner where her bed is, and flops down on the floor next to her as if he is the calmest most well behaved of all dogs.
And my shoulder blades release, and I can breathe.
“He’s very sweet for a terrorist,” Eloise says, sitting on the floor with Chewie sprawled half in her lap, receiving some excellent head scratching.
“Chewbacca Bin Laden is his AKC name,” I say, laughing. “Talk about your dirty bomb!”
“I would have thrown up. Did you want to throw up? I would have literally THROWN UP,” Andrea says, putting on her coat. She is leaving early to go get ready; Law isn’t picking her up to go to their New Year’s party till five, but apparently she has scheduled a half day of beauty prep at the salon. “Happy New Year, everyone.”
“Have fun,” Eloise says, releasing Chewie and levitating her lanky frame off the floor in one effortless motion, and going to give Andrea a kiss.
“Say hi to Law for me,” I say.
“Will do, and don’t you have to get going yourself soon?”
“Yeah, probably should head back.” I check my watch. It’s after eleven. Brian’s flight should just be taking off. “Everyone have a very lovely New Year’s, and I will see you all in a couple of days.” There are kisses all around, more dog treats, and a bag to take home. And all the way back down the boulevard, a prancing proud pup and his adoptive little mama, and their very relieved owner.
* * *
The first text comes at 11:30, just as I’m getting home.
Light snow. Flt delayed. Leaving in an hour. B
The second at 12:10, after I finish my shower and personal prep, I’m shaved and lotioned and perfumed, my hair is shiny and silky and smells of almonds and vanilla. I’m in one of Aimee’s lounging pajama sets, with the robe, puttering happily, and doing the mise for dinner.
Snow heavier, delayed again. Leaving at 2. Still back for dinner, but maybe not for cooking lesson. B
Well, that isn’t the worst thing. I make the creamed spinach, as close as I can get to the memories I have of eating it at Lawry’s Steak House with my parents when I was a little girl. My secret is mascarpone, which I stir in just at the end, to up the creamy factor and give it a little bit of tang. I put it in the fridge, since it will reheat beautifully alongside the roast. I pop the potatoes in a 400 degree oven, right on the rack so that the skins will get nice and crispy, and head upstairs to throw on some clothes so that I can take the dogs for another walk to hopefully wear them out a bit. I really want them mellow for tonight, especially Chewbacca. I can’t deal with another lecture from Brian.
The third text hits at 2:15, just as I’m snapping on leashes.
On the plane!
The fourth at 2:30, just as we’re hitting our stride, finding the perfect pace that gets Chewie working, but isn’t too fast for poor V.
Temp dropped, deicing planes. Supposed to take off at 3.
The fifth at 3:07, as I’m handing out treats and getting out of my coat.
Canceled. Will call you in 15.
And just like that, my lovely quiet New Year’s at home with Brian and all this good food and good wine goes right down the fucking toilet.
“I’m so sorry.” Brian calls just as I’m taking the potatoes out of the oven.
“You can’t control the weather.”
“No, but I could have been smarter and come back yesterday to be safe.”
“It’s okay. You know I’m not a big one for New Year’s anyway.”
“How do you feel about a New Year’s Day dinner instead?”
“That would be fine by me.”
“I’m rebooked on the morning flight, so barring more weather, I’ll be back tomorrow and we can have our date tomorrow night.”
“Sounds great. So what are you and the guys going to do tonight?”
“Huge party at the airport hotel bar.”
“Ugh. At least I get to be home.”
“Well you should go out or something. You said you had other offers, call someone and go play. No use staying home.”
“Maybe. I’m actually sort of tired, so I might take a little nap and see how I feel.”
“Okay. Well whatever you do, have a good time, and think of me at midnight.”
The nice thing about this menu is that it will keep fine for tomorrow. I decide to finish the potatoes, cutting the tops off and scooping out the fluffy interiors, leaving a quarter-inch-thick shell. I mix the scoopings with butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese and chives, add a splash of milk to keep it smooth, and restuff the potato shells, sprinkling a mixture of shredded cheddar and fried shallots on top, and pop them in the fridge. All I will have to do tomorrow is cook the beef, reheat the spinach, and bake the potatoes. I head upstairs to lie down, suddenly feeling dead tired, and probably still recovering from the emotional debacle of yesterday, and I let both dogs join me for naptime on the bed, a very special treat for Chewie, who continues his good boy routine, making me wonder if we might not be turning a corner of some kind.
The phone wakes me just after eight.
“Jenny! Happy New Year!”
“Hi, Wayne. Happy New Year.”
“You sound weird, I didn’t interrupt anything did I? Hi Brian! Sorry!”
“He’s not here, you didn’t interrupt anything. He got stuck in Aspen, flight canceled.”
“Well then get over here!” I can hear him calling out. “Elliot, Brian’s flight got canceled, Jenny is just home alone!” Crap. Then I hear rustling noises on the phone.
“Hey, Jenna.”
“Hi, Elliot. Happy New Year.”
“And to you.”
“Sounds like you’re having fun over there.”
“That we are; I hear your plans changed.”
“Nothing like weather to get in the way.”
“Well, we’d love to have you here if you’re up for it. Pretty low key, Wayne is here and Georgie, Ronald and Carolyn, and another couple that I don’t think you’ve met.”
“You’re in full swing over there, sounds like, I think it would . . .”
“Nonsense. I’m doing grazing buffet, no sit-down dinner. We’re all just milling around and nibbling at will, and drinking champagne. It’s easy and casual, and we’d love to see you.”
I pause. In the background I hear a happy noise. And after a four-hour nap, now I’m awake. Everyone else who invited me is well into dinner by now. As if to offer a vote, my stomach growls so loudly that Chewie jumps up and starts running around the bed looking for an intruder.
“I can hear you not saying no, so I’m taking that as a yes. And before you say one more word, I’m sending a car for you.”
“Elliot, that’s very unnecessary, I can get a cab.”
“On New Year’s Eve? I think not. Look for a black town car in twenty minutes.”
And I can’t think of a single reason to say no.
“Make it thirty, I have to get dressed.”
“We’re not fancy, so don’t pull out the ball gown.”
“I was thinking the L
eia gold slave bikini. Too much?”
“You wear that, you’d better bring a justice of the peace, because I’ll marry you on the spot.”
“Better not, then. My lawyer is stuck in Aspen, and I’m a strict pre-nup kind of girl.”
“Safer that way. I’d go with jeans, then.”
“Okay. And Elliot?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”
God help me. I’m off to Geek Central New Year’s.
* * *
One of my favorite stories about Aimee, is from the summer we spent touring Europe after college graduation.” I’m having, despite myself, a very good time. Elliot lives in a very cool restored Victorian in Old Irving Park, and blissfully the décor is like his office at the store and not full of collectibles and movie posters. He has a great buffet set up with my favorite kind of nibbly foods, cheeses and sweet-and-sour meatballs, a glazed ham with little biscuits to make sandwiches, some sort of savory spinach bread pudding, mini quiches, pigs in blankets. The people are all very nice, very welcoming, and not one of them has head tilted at me. It’s actually pretty normal, despite the fact that Georgie keeps coming up to me and giving me odd bits of information about himself. Tonight I have learned that his work as a computer networker is going really well, and that he was just hired to work on a big movie that is filming locally. That he is allergic to shellfish. And peanuts. And dust. And sunscreen. And apparently, you know, everything.
But this small group, even the one couple I’ve never met before, they don’t look at me like I am supposed to collapse or burst into tears at any moment. Instead, they’ve asked Wayne and me to tell good Aimee stories, and now that I’ve started I kind of can’t stop.
“I was getting ready to start culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and Aimee was coming back to Chicago to go to business school at Northwestern. We had saved up to spend three glorious months just playing and being young and free. We were in the south of Italy, and Aimee decided we should pop over to Monaco for dinner. There was a restaurant she had heard of, and as we all know, Aimee always knew where the best and newest places were. We took the train into Monte Carlo, and found a small restaurant on a tiny side street just off the center of town. It was nondescript on the outside, but spectacularly elegant inside.
“We didn’t have a reservation, but with her broken French, and fabulous smile, Aimee had the maître d’ eating out of her hand and we were shown to a quiet table for two. Before we were able to open our menus, they were whisked away, and we were told that the chef wanted to cook for us, and that the meal would be on the house. We giggled, and I told Aimee that she was the only person I knew who could have pulled that off, and hoped she hadn’t promised anything unladylike. The meal was epic. Twelve, maybe thirteen courses, each more delicious and intricate than the last. Wines specially matched for every course, and the most attentive service. With every dish we sent effusive compliments back to the kitchen along with clean plates, and I surreptitiously kept notes of every dish and every wine in my little notebook in my lap, wanting to replicate flavors and remember every detail.”
Elliot refills my glass with Pierre Gimmonet champagne, a pretty sophisticated choice, and very delicious.
“Thanks, El. Anyway, we were lingering over post-dinner drinks when the chef came out to greet us. He seemed perplexed when he saw us, but recovered quickly, and sat down to join our table for a brief chat. The mystery was quickly resolved. Aimee, in her indomitable way, had tried to tell the maître d’ that we were traveling from the states and that she had heard about the restaurant being recommended by M. F. K. Fisher and Alice Waters. Turns out the young man misunderstood and thought that we were M. F. K. Fisher and Alice Waters, hence the amazing comped meal.” Everyone breaks up; the story was legend in our inner circle, but the people here are hearing it for the first time. And Wayne is nodding and beaming at me while I tell it.
“We laughed with the chef about the mix-up, and offered to pay. He smiled and said it was his pleasure, we had been wonderful guests to cook for, and he hoped we would return someday. So, flash forward. My first week at culinary school, they were honoring some alumni, and we were all invited to attend the ceremony. Imagine my delight and surprise when I saw our chef from Monte Carlo among the honorees! I went up to greet him after the ceremony, and he kissed me three times, then put his arm around me and in rapid-fire French, explained our connection to the other chefs, who laughed heartily at the mix-up. Later, in talking to one of my instructors, I found out that the gentleman I thought of as ‘Chef Louis’ was in fact Louis Rebluchette, and that the restaurant was his three-Michelin-star Louis, and the meal Aimee and I had so enjoyed would have cost us nearly two thousand dollars if we had been paying customers! After culinary school, I was able to do a six-month series of stages in all of his restaurants, a gig that no recent graduate had ever been blessed with, all because of Aimee’s audaciousness.”
“That is amazing. And so like her,” Carolyn says. “She once got us house seats to the opera by pretending to be one of their board members!”
“She sounds pretty awesome,” says Beth, a very nice woman who apparently runs a successful accounting firm during the day, and is a Steampunk goddess by night.
“I was pretty awesome.”
“She was exceptionally awesome,” Wayne says.
“Thank you, my love.”
“Hey everyone, make sure your glasses are full, we are one minute away!” Elliot says. I look at my watch, and can’t believe it’s already almost midnight.
We gather around the television, glasses in hand, watching Ryan Seacrest, and missing Dick Clark.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
The couples kiss.
Wayne and Georgie indulge in a solid back-slapping man hug.
And Elliot? Pulls me close and plants a kiss right on my lips. His lips are soft, but the kiss is firm, and while no one would ever claim that it was anything other than New Year’s friendly, it makes my girl parts go all tingly.
“Happy New Year, Jenna. Here is to a year that is full of all the happy that last year missed.” He squeezes my shoulder, and then heads for the kitchen.
Before I can even process what just happened, I am grabbed in a classic Wayne bear hug. “Happy New Year, Jenny! Here’s to us. Surviving last year, and surviving next year.” His eyes are sparkly with tears.
“Happy New Year, Wayne. I’ll drink to that.” I raise my glass to him.
“To Aimee,” he says.
“To Aimee.” I clink his glass with mine.
“To me!”
“Milk and cookies, anyone?” Elliot reappears from the kitchen with a large platter of chocolate chip cookies, and a little wire holder containing a dozen little milk bottles with striped paper straws, that turn out to contain vanilla malted milk shakes.
“Elliot, these are amazing,” I say, slurping the bottom of my bottle.
“No one ever thinks about malt in vanilla, but I like it better than chocolate.”
“Look at you, sneaky foodie.”
“No so sneaky,” he says, winking. “C’mere.” He takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen. Through the door is a kitchen that appears to be practically as well kitted out as my own. A wall of spices that might actually beat mine. High-quality equipment as far as the eye can see and all of it clearly well loved and well used.
“Elliot! I had no idea!”
“Shhh. Most of my circle thinks that any self-respecting geek needs to live on pizza and cereal. If they find out I cook, I’ll totally lose street cred.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“We should cook sometime.”
“You got it. Maybe next time Noah is down you and I can knock out some roasted chickens!”
He smiles, a little wanly. “You bet. That will be fun.”
“I should go, have to get the dogs out. Thank
s so much for a lovely evening, Elliot, really.”
“Anytime. I’ll go call the car for you.”
I head out of the lovely kitchen and make my good-byes to the rest of the group. Georgie, the third musketeer, kisses me wetly under my ear and whispers that he will call me later. I’m not really sure what that is about.
Elliot walks me out and opens the car door for me. “Good night, Jenna.”
“Good night, Elliot, thank you for saving my New Year’s.”
“The pleasure was entirely mine.” And then he kisses me again, the same tender kiss as before, and my physical reaction is the same, which I attribute to being full of champagne.
I get into the car, and he closes the door.
“Back to Maplewood, miss?” the driver says, and I realize it is the same guy as earlier.
“Yes, please.”
And I’m almost home before I realize that I’ve completely broken my promise to Brian; not only didn’t I think about him at midnight, I haven’t thought about him at all, all night.
18
Turns out all the strange attention from Georgie wasn’t actually out of nowhere. He called me the week after New Year’s, as he said he would. And asked me out. I politely declined. Then I called Wayne.
Out to Lunch Page 18
