by Tatjana Soli
His shins itched to the point of him scratching himself raw; his doctor had diagnosed stress-related eczema. He had developed a tic under one eye that at random moments made him appear to be winking. Earlier that day in Malibu, it had happened in front of a toned young woman in spandex who, thinking he was being lewd, gave him the finger. Now he swallowed half a bottle of probiotics, washing it down with copious amounts of Pepto-Bismol in an attempt to curb the chronic indigestion, PUD (peptic ulcer disease), and irritable bowel syndrome that had started during the last few months and threatened to ruin the upcoming evening.
The enormous strain of trying to make the opening a success and at the same time cover for Javi’s threatened implosion was wearing him down. On top of that, he felt guilt over Ann’s working so hard and in good faith handing over all her money to him for the restaurant, some of which he had to hand over to Javi to keep various collection agencies off his back so he would concentrate on designing the menu. Now Richard had to tactfully broach the matter of new car payments that were out of the question.
The itching grown unbearable, his medicated cream at home, in despair Richard headed back to the kitchen for olive oil to slather on his raw skin. When in doubt, olive oil. Javi was on his cell phone, and when he saw Richard, he scowled and went outside for privacy. Often Richard wished he could invite Javi to live with them; just do away with the pretense that the man was a fully functioning adult and treat him like the willful, tantrum-prone five-year-old Freudian id he was.
* * *
As Richard finished up Ann’s cake (Javi having mercifully taken over the “rabbit issue,” creating a fricassee with cilantro and onions as an appetizer for that night), he had a stroke of inspiration and whipped up a bowl of crème Chantilly. He had not had time to buy a present, but what kind of present would it be anyway, with them both knowing it was Ann’s money that bought it? He went into his chaotic office, shoved whole stacks of paperwork out of sight, and spread a long tablecloth for ten on the sagging sofa, the ends puddling nicely. Standing back to assess the makeshift effect, he raided the supply cabinet for votives and set them on every surface: the room itself turned birthday cake. He placed a butane Iwatani brûlée torch at the ready to light them for Ann’s arrival.
* * *
Ann let herself in through the front entrance of the restaurant. The beauty of the dining room consoled her, despite the fact she was tired and had a stomachache from all the Mars bars. It was her baby, designed from scratch from notes she had taken from their favorite places over the years. Instead of the modern, antiseptic dining spaces then in vogue, theirs would have a rococo feel. The room had deep-red velvet walls with chocolate-brown wood accents and was hung with ornamental mirrors in heavy gilded frames. On the center of each virginal white linen tablecloth stood a small crystal vase, which would be filled with choice blooms spotlit from a halogen light in the ceiling. The tables would not have candles, which were an inefficient use of limited table space, but hundreds of votives would be lit on shelves projecting from the walls. Ann wanted each customer to feel like a prized truffle nestled inside a Valentine box of sweets.
That was the future. Right now she wanted nothing more than to go home, put on a bathrobe, and hole up in bed with a thick novel, but there stood Richard, inexplicably winking at her. He took her hand and led her to his office, the fiery room fragrant with melted wax and burned sugar. A rubber bowl of whipped cream stood on his desk.
“Strip,” he said softly, “my sexy thirty-eight-year-old goddess.”
She giggled.
“Where’s Javi?”
“I sent him for ice. An hour-long ice trip to be exact.”
The lit candles heated the room more quickly than Richard would have thought possible. Stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, he suddenly realized that the room was a classic firetrap. As he led Ann to the sofa, he tried to recall exactly where the new box of fire extinguishers had been stored.
Meticulously Richard basted her arm in a coat of whipped cream that he then licked off. “No fair!” Ann laughed, and he fed her dollops off his fingertips. He couldn’t help himself—as much as he loved Ann, the whipped cream was making his throat so acidic he felt close to throwing up. He moved to another position, licked spoonfuls off her inner thighs, but the angle made his neck crick. He drove himself on, denying the pain, moaning to release some of the agony, which Ann mistook for passion, prompting her to grab his head and cant his neck at a forty-five-degree angle of torture as she kissed him. He buried his head in her cleavage to hide the tremoring like a Mexican jumping bean beneath his eye.
They made love. It was nice. Friendly. Comfort sex. She had the sense that Richard was clenched inside; his mind seemed far away. Because he had seemed to enjoy it so much, she grabbed his head again and gave him another hard, bad-girl kiss. Afterward Ann felt a purring contentment as she got dressed, as well as a stickiness under her clothes that she couldn’t wait to go home and wash off. She was still wearing her good suit from the office—she had come straight there from another ten-hour day—but it seemed petty to complain when Richard was trying so hard. He was under such strain, she was surprised he even remembered her birthday. A dry cleaning bill and a potentially ruined wool skirt. Life could be worse than being desired by your husband under a mountain of whipped cream.
* * *
They sat in the restaurant’s new kitchen with its gleaming stainless steel appliances, its spotless linoleum floor—within weeks the kitchen would never again be as quiet and pristine. Richard and Javi had cooked up a special five-course dinner and dragged a small table in from the dining room, complete with tablecloth and tapered candles.
Richard had pulled out a 1974 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut Rosé champagne, known for its silky bite and salmon color. They toasted.
“Did you braise the sirloin tips?” Javi asked.
“No, I thought the main dish and roasted broccolini would be enough.”
Javi winked at Ann. “Carrots scream, too.”
They polished off Javi’s rabbit appetizer, then a Roquefort-and-sautéed-apple quesadilla, an organic baby greens salad with hearts of palm, and then a mango ice as palate cleanser. Javier, the mad-genius chef, had created a new dish in honor of Ann’s birthday: soba noodles with pink Florida prawns, braised bok choy, miniature scallops in soy sauce, rice wine, and serrano chilies. Richard’s broccolini was brought to the table as an afterthought.
Javier’s reputation for achieving culinary ecstasy had the tables booked up for two months solid from opening night. Every restaurant critic from Santa Barbara to San Diego planned to make the pilgrimage to their obscure location on the wobbly border of Santa Monica and Venice, braving chronic lack of parking and the abuse and urinary insults of homeless people, the indigent, and the belligerent who haunted the canyons of urban blight west of the 405. There were rumors of national foodies from Esquire, Travel & Leisure, etc., booking under aliases.
Javier’s fiery temper, moderately good Latin looks, vulgar mouth, and lewd behavior toward anything female created an outsize personality that fit perfectly in a profession where chefs were under the onus of not only cooking delicious meals but also having that magic celebrity “it” factor promising that just around the corner the Big Break would happen, which would render same-week reservations a thing of the past.
The fire from the serranos was delightfully unexpected, but after the initial surprise one realized the taste was not quite right.
Richard’s aversion to cooking meat was becoming a problem. It had started when he was a teenager, but then abated at CIA, Culinary Institute of America, where he had to learn how to french-cut a rack of lamb, divide a pork loin into chops, carve steaks, and grind meat and sausage. The constant pressure to perform prevented him from dwelling on the meats’ previous incarnations—that is, until the master charcuterie/butchering course a year after he met Ann. It was an honor to be invited, and he was flown coach to France and put up at a youth hostel in the Marais, with
a bathroom down the hall that had never seen a scrub brush. They couldn’t afford the airfare for Ann to join him, and besides, she had just started at the law firm. Still, it was Paris. He was young and in love with food.
The pig slaughter set him back years.
Everyone knew it. The French were cruel eaters: foie gras, veal, live-boiled lobsters. Their philosophy affected all dishes, and all of it bothered Richard. Even tomatoes were blanched, peeled, cored, seeded, and whatever remained was then pureed and strained until all tomato essence had been deracinated. If there was a God, how could people peel asparagus? He considered switching to the pastry track, but the truth was that for all his modesty, his “Aw, shucks”-ness, his love of the anonymity and camaraderie of the kitchen, he wanted Emeril Lagasse superstardom. There had never been a celebrity vegan chef in the history of the world for a reason. One didn’t open a restaurant on the strength of puff pastry and ganache. In the testosterone-filled world of chefdom, pastry was for pussies. So he cooked meat and suffered in silence.
When Javi left the table and disappeared after the main course, Richard grabbed Ann’s hand and pressed it against his chest. “This is the happiest time in my life. Or it will be soon when we open. And it would mean nothing if you weren’t by my side.”
Ann wiped at her eyes. The serranos were killing her.
“You’ve sacrificed a lot. It hasn’t been easy. Pretty soon it will be your turn.”
“Her turn for what?” Javi yelled, out of sight, deep in the bowels of the walk-in refrigerator. “You two will finally have babies and make me an uncle?”
“My turn to go to art school,” she answered. “A solo gallery show. Then children.” Because even after the financial sacrifice of law school, the ungodly hours that hopefully soon would come to fruition in an offer of full partnership, Ann already had the sinking knowledge that this was not the life she wanted to be pursuing for the next thirty years. She was ready to spit the bit of family tradition.
Richard scowled at Javi’s eavesdropping. He shrugged and gave Ann that goofy, lopsided grin that still had the power to charm her—he was her big, helpless, fuzzy puppy. “With the help of a little whipped cream?” Richard whispered.
* * *
The whipped cream foreplay had started during their days of courtship while he was still at culinary school. He was in downtown St. Helena during a sudden thunderstorm when he ducked under the overhang of a building to get out of the rain. Cowering in the corner was a thin young woman with the most intense green eyes he had ever seen. Inexplicably, she was wearing a pink satin dress and matching shoes that were drenched. She looked like a fairy gone bad. He said hi, and she bit her lip. He saw she was shaking.
“Can I help?”
“I’m scared of thunder.”
Amazing. This Richard could do. He took off his jacket and wrapped her up, put his arm around her for warmth, then led her down the street to the best bakery in town where he fed her floury, raisin-studded sweet rolls and coffee while telling her cooking stories until the rain stopped. She was not a defrocked fairy, he found, but was in town for a wedding that she had now missed. Hours passed, and next thing they knew the sun was out.
“Can I cook you dinner?” he asked.
Back at his apartment, as he unpacked groceries, she opened his refrigerator to confront four shelves piled with cartons of whipping cream. He was on dessert rotation, and overachiever that he was, he practiced at home.
“But what do you do with bowl after bowl of whipped cream?” she asked.
She dipped her index finger deep in the bowl and swirled it. Then she raised her creamy finger to her lips and licked it clean. Slowly. She dipped and swirled again, dabbed it on Richard’s lips until he caught on and began to lick her finger. The girl was afraid of thunderstorms but not calories. After that night, they flew up and down the state to see each other whenever a night opened up. By the time his dessert rotation was finished, they had both gained ten pounds, Ann’s skin was milky soft, and they were in love.
* * *
Now she leaned over to return Richard’s kiss as Javi began singing. They stopped before their lips touched, turning toward the gaping refrigerator door where he stood holding Richard’s cake of green-tea ganache between layers of rosewater-scented sponge cake, which blazed with candles as the room plunged into darkness. Richard joined in singing “Happy Birthday” and then “Feliz Cumpleaños.”
The bonfire of flames in the sudden darkness blinded Ann. She felt grateful even though all this fuss embarrassed her. She took a huge breath, closed her eyes, and dreamed that soon her life as a painter would start, or her life as a mother, or as co-owner of a successful restaurant, even if she kept her law day job, which was really a day-and-night-and-weekends job. At least she had delivered Richard safely to a success that he so wanted. Ann felt that happiness rubbed off, like newsprint but in a good way. Once the restaurant took off, she hoped to finally quit the firm and work the front of the restaurant. At home she would convert the extra bedroom into a studio looking out over the canyon. Real life would finally begin. She wouldn’t allow for the thought that perhaps she didn’t have the talent, because why would someone have a desire for something that she wasn’t good at?
Every firm Christmas party, Flask Sr. put his canvases up for the charity auction, and under his vengeful eye the rest of them were forced to bid. By playing it safe, had she already proved that she wasn’t the real thing? But one had to eat, right? After all, wasn’t that what all the last years of denial had been about? To achieve Richard’s dream first, and then parlay his success into her own? Was that too crass? She couldn’t imagine van Gogh or even Pollock thinking like this, but being an artist in the twenty-first century was financially becoming more and more a hobby, like poetry or scrapbooking. She closed her eyes and blew the candles out in a single hopeful puff, and they were plunged back into total darkness.
The truth was, she would settle for being the first face people saw when they came to the restaurant. She loved the idea of making people happy, even if it was as temporary a fix as a good meal.
“You can turn the lights back on,” Richard said.
“I didn’t turn the lights off,” Javi said. “You did.”
“Shit, a fuse,” Richard said.
“Don’t spoil the mood,” Ann begged.
More candles were lit, a slightly lesser bottle, a 1998 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses Brut, was opened, and Ann made a prophetic toast: “May this restaurant’s success be everything you two deserve.”
“May it make us famous,” Javi added.
Richard and Javi made a sloppy vow that they would remain lifelong friends. Running a restaurant wouldn’t sunder that, as it had the relationships of so many of their peers from CIA.
“Besides,” said Richard, stifling a belch, “I don’t need to be the star.”
A moment of uncomfortable silence opened into which Ann rushed to exclaim about the deliciousness of the cake because the truth that all three of them acknowledged, separately and in various combination, was that Richard wouldn’t be a star even locked in a room by himself. Among his quiet charms, charisma was not one of them. He had no choice but to hitch his wagon on the psychopathic joyride that was Javi to even have a chance of creating culinary buzz. A restaurant was about more than just food, sacrilegious as that sounded. It was about branding, cloning copies across the gastronomic map in San Francisco, Honolulu, Las Vegas, New York, Miami, with the goal of later branching out into cookbooks, signature tableware, maybe even a show on the Food Network, etc.
They talked and drank another hour. Ann would later look back and consider that night the death knell of her innocence.
“I love you guys,” Javi said, the alcohol turning him maudlin.
“Time to get home.” Ann yawned. “I’m exhausted and have to be up early for a briefing.”
“The little lawyer,” Javi said, hugging her so hard that her shirt stuck to her sticky back. “You smell like dulce de leche.”<
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“Let me fix that fuse first.” Richard jumped at the chance to go outdoors in privacy and release some of the noxious gases building up inside him. The chilies were burning his esophagus, and there was a scary liquid rumbling in his stomach. He got a flashlight and went out to the alley.
Alone, Javi stared at Ann in the candlelight, his eyes made dreamy by too much alcohol.
“Stop it,” she said.
“I’m remembering you also tasted like dulce de leche.”
Richard came back in. “That’s funny—nothing flipped.” In the dim candlelight, he couldn’t detect Ann’s flushed face.
“Probably something electrical. I’ll call someone in the morning,” Javi said. “You two go on home.”
“Are you sure?” Ann asked.
“Go be lovebirds.”
* * *
But the next morning when Richard (recovering from last night’s dinner with a panade of aspirin and antacids) got to the restaurant, Javi was still sitting at the table in the middle of the kitchen, drinking out of a bottle of their best tequila. A large ceramic cutting knife lay on the table in front of him, although so far he had only used it on limes. Clearly he had not been home yet.
“Did they fix it?”
“Seems I forgot to pay the bill. I put it on my credit card this morning.”
“You could have written a company check.”
Javi’s handsome face darkened. Now it was Richard’s turn to look at his partner more closely. He did not like what he saw. Purplish circles under his eyes, the eyes themselves bloodshot, not to mention his breath, which was both sour and alcoholic and vaguely canine. Richard worried about lighting a match too near him.
“Have you slept?”
In answer, Javi, ham actor, pushed a pile of bills across the table.
“Tell me it isn’t as bad as it looks. Do that. Tell me,” Richard said.
“It’s fucking Armageddon!”
It was an acknowledged fact that if you knew Javi, you knew he was a spendthrift. Richard’s mistake was in not learning the true scope of his debt before going into a partnership, which was in every bad way akin to a marriage without even the conjugal perks. As he flipped through the bills, his temples began to pound, his skin was drenched in a malarial ooze, and then Javi made it worse.
