All Stirred Up

by Brianne Moore

  Chris says nothing. Just watches the dog stop and scratch itself behind the ear and thinks of a long-ago day when he came home late and found Susan sitting on his sagging sofa. Pale, sad, packed bag at her feet.

  “Ye’ve had bad luck,” Beth sighs, as if she’s reading his mind. “We both have. I’ve found my peace, and you need to find your’n.”

  “I have found mine. I’ve got a restaurant to run now. I have two dozen employees relying on me not to mess it all up. If that’s not enough to keep me on the straight and narrow, I don’t know what will.”

  “Restaurants are what caused the problem in the first place,” Beth points out. “And bein’ back here can’t be helpin’—ya must be black ’n’ blue with all the memories flyin’ yer way. Ya need real creatures lovin’ and relyin’ on ya, and ye relyin’ on them. It’s why”—she gestures to the bulldog, who is now chewing on her right back foot—“I brought you this.”

  “What?” Horrified, Chris turns to his sister. “Beth! I can’t have a dog! Do you have any idea what sort of hours I’m working now?”

  “And she’ll keep you from driving yourself back into the ground, Christopher. Dinnae fuss—it’ll be good fer ye to have summat to come home to every day. If ye’ve got a creature relyin’ on ye, you’re more likely to stay straight. Besides,” she adds, with a wry smile, “the girls’ll like it.”

  “I can’t keep the dog,” he tells her.

  “If ya don’t take her, she’s goin’ to the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home,” Beth flings back. “She doesnae get on with the others. So take yer pick.” She glares at him for a moment, then sighs. “Chris, you need a bitch in yer life who won’t leave you.”

  Chris rolls his eyes and lets his head drop onto the back of the sofa. After staring at the ceiling for a moment or two, he asks, “What’s her name?”

  “Dug.”

  He brings his head back up. “You named the dog ‘Dog’?”

  Beth shrugs. “Yer job now to name her proper. I cannae be bovvered with silly names for ’em—you know that.” She pats her brother on the knee and stands. “Call this Lauren, if she’s so nice. Maybe she’ll come up with a name fer the creature.” She kisses her brother on the cheek, then walks into the guest room and closes the door.

  Chris looks at the dog, who has finished feasting on her foot and now comes to sit at his feet, looking up at him as if she expects him to do something. She’s leggier than most classic English bulldogs, mostly a dark fawn color, but with a large white patch over one eye. She has those droopy bulldog eyes that can look, by turns, sad and judgmental. But now she stands and cocks her head and wags her tail, and Chris finds himself smiling, begrudgingly, and patting the sofa cushion Beth just vacated.

  “All right, up you come.” The dog hops up, and Chris begins scratching her behind one ear.

  “You going to put up with me?” he asks. She grunts and leans into his hand. “Right”—he picks up his phone—“where should we take Lauren?”

  * * *

  She’s supposed to be sitting in on meetings between Gloria and the other chefs. She’s supposed to be making sure Julia does not choose the most expensive light fixtures. She’s supposed to be going over lists of purveyors, but no; instead, Susan is spending her afternoon in Inverleith Park, entertaining two-thirds of her nephew contingent.

  Andrew has a follow-up appointment at Sick Kids, and the babysitter cancelled, so Meg phoned in a bit of a panic.

  “I can’t take all of them! They’ll run riot! And the in-laws are at their constituency again. William’s in a meeting he can’t get out of, and Lauren has a date or something. So I’m all alone.”

  “Meg, I can’t,” Susan told her, just as she walked into the kitchen at Elliot’s. “Gloria and I are meeting with the chefs—”

  At that, Gloria looked up, shrugged, and said, “Go ahead, I can handle the meetings. What is it—a couple of hours? You and I can deal with the suppliers then.”

  “Susan, please!” Meg wailed. “I need you!”

  And so, here she is, watching Ali kick a football around while she pushes Ayden in a swing.

  “Look at me! Look at me!” Ali crows, tripping over the ball as he chases it, landing flat on his face. Susan braces herself for wails and tears, but Ali just pops back up and goes back to kicking the ball around.

  At least it’s a nice day to be out, and Susan begrudgingly admits she’s glad not to be stuck in a basement kitchen. A few clouds scuttle across the sky, but otherwise it’s sunny and mild. The park is full of people taking advantage of the weather (any time the mercury creeps above single digits and the sun comes out it’s officially “taps aff” weather in Scotland. There isn’t a sidewalk or green space in the city that isn’t full of people quaffing fruity cocktails or neon orange Irn-Bru, trying to soak up a year’s worth of vitamin D in a single afternoon).

  The playground, of course, is packed with kids clambering over slides and climbing frames designed to look like a shipwreck. Parents chat while sipping lattes bought from the blinding aluminum coffee truck parked nearby. Beyond the playground fence, dog owners fling balls and Frisbees for their pets; joggers trot along the paths; and lemon-yellow, open-topped tourist buses make their leisurely way up the road to stop just outside the Botanics. On the opposite side of the park, the grand, chateau-like spires of Fettes School slice across the bright blue sky.

  Ayden begins to fuss, reaching toward his brother, so Susan stops the swing, lifts him out, and decides it’s snack time.

  “Ali! Let’s get a snack!” she hollers.

  Ali obligingly begins dribbling the ball toward the truck, and Susan follows behind, jiggling Ayden up and down to make him smile and laugh.

  “Right, what’ll it be?” she asks Ali as they step into the shade of the truck.

  “Organic,” Ali answers, standing on tiptoes to try and see the cakes on offer. “Mum says.”

  “Oh, it’s all organic,” Susan tells him, catching the eye of the barista, who grins and winks. “How about a flapjack?” They have oats in them: practically health food.

  “Okay,” Ali agrees.

  She pays for their treats and they head for a nearby bench.

  As she sets Ayden down, Ali looks up at her and says, “Kneel down, Auntie Suze, kneel down!”

  “Okay.” She sets her coffee on the bench and kneels in the grass. Ali backs up a few paces, grins, and runs at her full-force, knocking her flat on her back.

  “Rugby tackle!” he gleefully announces, putting his face right in hers and cackling.

  “Oof!” Susan catches her breath and laughs. “You got me! You got me! You got me!” She lifts him up in the air with each chant. He screams in delight, and Ayden claps his hands and laughs.

  Susan rolls back up onto her knees, blinks, and sees Chris, accompanied by a golden bulldog, standing on the nearby path, watching them.

  The sight of him is even more of a sudden smack than Ali’s recent assault.

  “Hi,” she manages to say.

  Screaming, “Rugby tackle!” Ali hurls himself at his aunt, laying her out once more. The fall (she tells herself) is what’s knocked the wind out of her, and this time she just lies there for a second, staring up at the toddler’s smiling face and the blue sky above, wondering (yet again) if she’s just seen Chris or imagined it.

  But then Alisdair is being gently lifted off her, and Chris’s voice is saying, “Easy, wee man—you’ll hurt your mum!”

  Chris sets Ali back on his feet before turning to Susan, still on the ground, and offering her a hand to help her up.

  “Thanks,” she mumbles, flustered. She overlooks his hand and rises under her own steam.

  “She’s not my mum,” Ali informs Chris, reaching into the paper bag beside Susan’s coffee and retrieving the flapjack.

  “Is she not?” Chris asks.

  “They’re my nephews,” Susan explains. “I’m just babysitting.”

  “Ahh.” They blink at each other. Then he says, “I thought you didn’
t like kids.”

  “Why would you think that?” she asks, confused. He’s never even seen her with children. It was barely even a subject of conversation for them; they were both far too young to be thinking of that sort of thing. He’d mentioned, once or twice, wanting them, but Susan had brushed it off because the way things were for her at that time, the thought of being completely responsible for another human being was overwhelming. She’d hardly been able to look after herself.

  * * *

  Chris flounders a bit, realizing he’s wandered into strange territory, but unsure how to get back out of it. He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.”

  He thinks of the one time he brought the subject up. It was an offhand comment—they were talking about traveling and all the places they wanted to visit, and he said something about having to visit some of them “before we have kids, of course.” It had just popped out. But the look of absolute terror that came over her face when he said it … that was the end of that conversation.

  Ali has polished off the flapjack, and now he and Ayden are inspecting the dog. Chris hunkers down, smiles, and the tone of his voice lightens.

  “You like dogs, do you?” he asks. “Do you have dogs at home?” Ali says no, but his grandparents have some. “I know. I met them,” Chris tells them. “Nice dogs, those.”

  No need to tell the kids how annoyed he and Calum were with those dogs, the night they catered the party. They were nice creatures but seemed to have a knack for always anticipating where you were going to turn or step next, and planting themselves right in your path. The two chefs spent most of the evening tripping over and cursing at the poor things, until finally the lady of the house came in, laughing, and said, “Oh, they’re not in your way, are they? Naughty babies! Out you go!” as she shooed the dogs into the garden.

  “We want a dog, but Mum says no,” Ali announces. “They shed and track mud, and we track enough mud in for five dogs.” He seems proud of that.

  “I’ll bet you do,” Chris agrees heartily. “You play football, little man?” He nods toward the abandoned ball.

  “Yeah. Dad says he’ll take me and Andrew to see the Hibs play.”

  “Ah, a Hibernian fan! Man after my own heart!” Chris claps a hand dramatically over his chest. Ali giggles.

  Susan smiles and says, “I didn’t know you were such a fan of the little ’uns.”

  Chris squints up at her and shrugs. “Sure. Who doesn’t like kids?”

  “Plenty of people.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess if you lack some sort of nurturing instinct …”

  She responds sharply, “Or you just don’t like kids. Some people don’t like dogs or roses—not liking something doesn’t make you a freak.”

  Ali looks up. “Do you like us, Aunt Susan?” he asks.

  “Of course I do, sweetie,” she replies warmly, bending down to hug him. He wriggles away and goes back to his football. Susan sighs.

  Chris straightens. “Sorry,” he says.

  This isn’t how he imagined it would be, their first meeting. He’d planned all those things to say—nasty, hurtful things—but the second he saw her today, they all vanished. His mind went blank, and all he could do was stare at her like some creep. And some of the rancor he felt disappeared, too, at the sight of her on the ground, laughing, playing, tangled up in toddler limbs. It reminded him of the last time they were happy together—really, truly happy. Regent’s Park, a day like today. Before her mother got sick. He with a beer and she drinking Pimm’s, which stained her upper lip red. He’d rubbed it off gently with his thumb, kissed her, and tasted it …

  He clears his throat and looks away, fiddling with the dog’s leash.

  Susan seems to feel the awkwardness too. She glances around and settles on the dog. “What’s her name?” she asks, bending to scratch behind the dog’s ear.

  “Dug,” Chris replies, cringing inwardly with embarrassment.

  Susan responds with a raised-eyebrow look. “Doug? For a girl?”

  “Not ‘Doug.’ ‘Dug,’ as in … uh, ‘Dog.’” Oh God, he sounds like an idiot. He should’ve renamed the poor dog by now, but when the hell does he have time to come up with a dog’s name? He doesn’t even have time to put pictures on his walls! “She came with that name,” he adds, as if that excuses it.

  “Ah. Well, she’s lovely.” Susan straightens. “The color of a ginger biscuit.” She laughs, a little nervously, the way he remembers her doing whenever she felt embarrassed. “Congratulations on your opening,” she says. “I hear it went really well.”

  The press was salivating over the place. The opening went brilliantly—better than anyone expected (breakout dish of the night: the mussels. “I never ever would have thought of doing that with a Shetland mussel,” one reviewer swooned. “This is a whole different way of looking at classic dishes.”) Even Beth was extraordinarily complimentary (“No bad, no bad,” she nodded, examining a half-eaten pheasant pastry. “Ya know what? I’d eat this again. Wouldn’t even share it with the dugs.”) They’ve been going full tilt in the three weeks since the launch. This is the first chance he’s actually had to get away, and it only happened because Calum essentially banished him from the restaurant for the afternoon. (“Just go out and get some fresh air, will you? You look wan, mate.”)

  “Thanks,” he says to Susan. After another painful silence, he adds, “I’m sorry about Regent Street. And … all of it.”

  “Yeah,” Susan sighs. “We got … really unlucky.”

  He can’t help but smirk, even as he shakes his head. “You got screwed by your head chef, mostly. He always was a dick.”

  “Yeah,” Susan agrees. “He really was, wasn’t he?”

  The pair of them share a chuckle despite themselves. Then Chris asks, “I hear you’re redoing the Royal Mile restaurant. How’s it going?”

  “Oh, it’s going,” Susan sighs. “These things always end up being bigger jobs than you expect, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re hoping to reopen in about three weeks.”

  “Good.”

  They stare at each other for several long moments.

  “What brings you to this part of town?” she finally asks.

  “I’m meeting someone for a drink at the Raeburn,” he answers, gesturing in the direction of the restaurant, which lies on the other side of the park’s duck pond.

  “Oh well, don’t let us keep you,” Susan says, looking relieved to have an excuse to end this uncomfortable encounter. “I should probably get the boys home soon anyway. Their mother’ll probably kill me for letting them have refined sugar, so I may as well face the music. Good seeing you!”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You too.”

  She flickers a smile, then runs after Ali, growling, “Fee-fi-fo-fum! I’m coming to get you!”

  Chris watches them for a little while, then turns to the dog, saying, “Come on, Ginger,” and is on his way.

  * * *

  Susan resists—strongly resists—the urge to turn back around and see if he’s watching her go. Of course he isn’t. Why would he? She’s nothing to him. Clearly.

  She concentrates instead on buckling Ayden into his pram. He wriggles and shouts in protest. “Ali! Time to go!” she calls after nephew number two, who’s once again running after his ball.

  “Just a minute!” he calls, as her phone chirps at her.

  “Oh my God, Susan, you won’t believe this amazing thing that happened over here,” Julia cackles as soon as Susan answers. “It’s hilarious—you have to hear it. Oh, and also? There’s dry rot in the walls, and the pastry chef just walked out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Curse of Crème Brûlée

  How is this happening? How? How?!

  Susan stares, horrified into speechlessness, at Julia’s phone while her sister laughs and says, “Just wait—the best bit’s coming up now.”

  This is not how today was supposed to go. She had a plan: up early, good breakfast, and off
to the restaurant to get work done. The plan did not include babysitting or an excruciating surprise face-to-face with her ex, and it sure as hell didn’t include having the pastry chef walk out. And yet, here she is, getting the story from Julia, of all people.

  Julia pelted toward her almost as soon as Susan came through the front door of the restaurant. “There you are! You missed it! It was amazing! But here—I got most of it.” She skirted some workmen looking gravely at a bit of the wall, pulled out her phone, and pressed the “Play” button on the screen. A second later, a recording of Gloria’s voice spilled out.

  “Crème brûlée? Crème brûlée? I asked for innovation, and that’s what you came back with?” Gloria shrieks.

  “It’s cranachan inspired!” the pastry chef counters in a wounded tone. “With Madagascar vanilla, and a raspberry sorbet.”

  A sigh, from Gloria. Then: “I don’t think ‘innovation’ means what you think it means. It doesn’t matter how nice the vanilla is; it’s still vanilla. The flavor that actually defines boring.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong, crème brûlée is delicious, and it’s a classic for a reason, and twenty or so years ago, you could really impress someone by putting it on a restaurant menu, because they had no clue how to do it themselves at home. But now! Now we have cable TV with whole channels devoted to showing you how to up your home baking game. Now, we have the internet full of videos where Nigella and Delia will lovingly show you exactly how to make the perfect crème brûlée every time. And you can finish it off with the nifty little torch you picked up at Sainsburys for five pounds because it was just too cute and isn’t it fun to have this wee little torch in your kitchen?

  “People brûlée everything now! They brûlée their porridge, for god’s sake! So when they come to a restaurant like this one, they expect a little more—you get me? They definitely expect slightly more than what they sling out for breakfast on a Thursday morning. They want to be surprised. They want to be intrigued. They want to wonder how the hell we did that. They are not going to think any of those things if we plunk a vanilla crème brûlée down in front of them. They’re going to wonder why the hell they just got charged twelve quid for that. It won’t matter if those raspberries were foraged by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall himself, they’re still going to leave here brassed off, because they’ll know that that dessert was a massive middle finger to them.