Recipe for Disaster

by Stacey Ballis

  “ENOUGH.” Hedy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Good lord, Anneke, please save us from nipple talk. How are things going with you?”

  “Well, let’s see. My nipples are a little sore from this new bra I bought last week . . .”

  “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Hedy yells, fingers in her ears. And the four of us collapse in giggles.

  So, what is the plan for the big five-year anniversary?” Hedy asks Caroline when we retire from the dining table for tea in the sunroom.

  Caroline blushes prettily. “France.” She is always a little quiet about the fact that she and Carl are insanely wealthy. Especially since it is mostly his money. She made a very nice living when she was working, the sale of her condo paid for the substantial down payment on their first condo together. But since the IPO they are effectively rolling in dough and she is officially a lady who lunches, albeit with more social conscience than many and less shopping than most. She knows that while none of us are living on the edge of poverty, we are all workingwomen, and there is still a part of her that hates feeling kept.

  “He’s buying you France? In this economy? Is that wise?” Hedy says with her serious voice. She does deadpan better than anyone.

  “I thought five years was wood?” Marie teases.

  “Shut up, you wenches, I want to hear about France.” The one thing Grant and I dream about is someday traveling in Europe together. I’ve never been out of North America, and only got my passport when Grant took me to Toronto for a food and wine festival a year ago.

  “A couple that Carl knows well have a vacation home in Provence, and have offered to let us borrow it.” She’s hedging, and Hedy smells blood.

  “For how long, dearheart?”

  Caroline’s blush moves from pink to fuchsia. “Five weeks. Next summer.”

  “HA!” Hedy says.

  “Oh, honey, how wonderful! A week for every year. What a terrific trip.” Marie claps her hands in genuine delight.

  I shake my head. “Caro, you have to stop being apologetic about your wonderful life and fabulous hubby. We are all just really happy for you.”

  “I know, you are all so amazing, I’m just . . .” She trails off and we know what she is thinking of. She lost some friends when the money went from “comfortable” to “crazypants rich.” Some people behaved badly. Some people had expectations of charitable endowments and names on buildings. Mostly it was little things like their more casual friends never seeming to reach for a wallet at dinner anymore. And it put a serious strain on her relationship with one of her brothers, who seemed to think that it was suddenly her responsibility to bankroll his business and put his kids through college, neither of which she was inclined to do, and the rest of her brothers deciding that the care and feeding of their aging parents should all be on her dime, making all future family gatherings strained and awkward. Money creates opportunities for jealousy that can’t really be touched by anything else, and we know how much it weighs on her that the simple fact of good fortune is also a source of stress and complications in relationships.

  “Fuck the haters if they can’t just be happy for your happy, Caroline. Fuck ’em all.” Hedy, for all her gibing, is always the first and fiercest defender of Caroline.

  Caroline smiles at us, and shakes off her momentary hesitation. “Indeed. Fuck ’em.” She raises her teacup and we all drink to her happy.

  Howsh the house?” Hedy slurs, Walter gliding us down Lake Shore Drive back to the city.

  “Good. Slow, but good.”

  “It’s going to be beautiful when you’re done,” Marie says sleepily. We put away a flock of wine.

  “Whenever THAT ish,” Hedy sneers.

  “Grant thinks I should do it full-time.”

  “Leave MuphMaccy?” Marie asks.

  “That’s what it would mean. I dunno. There’s a lot of moving pieces.”

  “DO IT!” Hedy says. “Get out of that testosterone cesshpool.”

  “I think you should at least think about it,” Marie says. “You’ve never loved it there. And they totally don’t appreesshiate you.”

  “And stupidhead Liam is the hair appallrent. Do you want to end up working for that tool?” Hedy hates Liam. In no small part because he once slept with her hairdresser Jessie, and never called after. And the next time he saw Jessie he didn’t recognize her. Like, complete blank. Not that she had wanted to actually date him, she was rebounding at the time, but it was still a blow to her ego, and since Hedy had introduced them, that was the end of that. Jessie was a prickly sort. Hedy’s hair wasn’t the same for months. You don’t mess with Hedy’s hair.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Damn right you don’t. You know that guy is bad news from the get-go. And he’ll only get worse if he ends up your boss. He might even fire you.” Marie struggles with Liam’s existence. On the one hand, she knows he is a horrible person. On the other hand, he is totally her type, and as much as she finds his personality loathsome, her girl parts don’t care, and she’s admitted to a sex dream or two starring him.

  “I’d quit before I ever would work for him.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather just say a great big Effff Yooou to all of them first, before they passsh you over for promotion and you have to quit like a whiny baby who didn’t get her way?” I hate that even drunk Hedy makes a world of sense. Which doesn’t mean I’m ready to fully admit it.

  “Going out on my own is a huge risk, especially in this uncertain economy. I feel like I should finish this house first, sell it, get some press maybe, make at least a small name for myself before I make the leap.”

  “That’s smart. It makes a lot of sense to really plan it all out, have your ducks in a row.” Marie gets my deep need for organization and planning.

  “I shtill think you should just go for it. Eshpecially if Grant says to do it.”

  “I’m mulling.”

  “Let her mull, Hedy.”

  “Fine. Mull. Whaddoo I know?” Hedy likes for people to just do what she says. As she says often, she isn’t bossy; it’s just that her ideas are better than everyone else’s.

  “Thank you for your permission,” I needle her.

  “You’re welcome,” she says in all seriousness, and Marie and I shake our heads and lean back into the deep cushy seats of the car just as the city skyline appears around the bend.

  5

  Anneke. You’d better get over here.” Clark’s voice sounds serious. He’s finishing up the Park Ridge sunroom, which should have been done two weeks ago, but we’ve had a series of backslides. One of the footings didn’t cure properly, so we had to pull it out and redo it, setting us back a week. Then the custom windows came in as double-hung instead of casement, and had to be reordered. I can’t imagine what could have gone wrong now.

  “On my way. How bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “Who am I pissed at?”

  “Not me, I hope.”

  “Never you, Clark.” Clark is one of my best guys, solid as a rock, gets how I work, and is terrific with the subs and clients alike. I know for a fact he often steps in to troubleshoot things before they get to me, which most likely has saved me from some confrontations that would have bitten me in the butt later.

  I jump on the expressway and push Lola’s old engine a little fast. She grumbles a bit, but then gives in, and slowly the odometer creeps up to crisis speed. I pull in behind Clark’s truck, and take the front steps two at a time, despite the protests of my knees. The door is open.

  “Clark?” I call out.

  “Back here, boss lady,” he yells from the back of the house. I wend my way through the living room and dining room and kitchen, out to the new sunroom addition overlooking the expansive backyard. I feel a cold breeze, and realize that I’m not looking through crystal-clear floor-to-ceiling windows; I’m looking through empty window casings. Half of the large window
s are on the floor of the room, most of them cracked, a couple of them shattered completely.

  “What the FUCK happened in here?”

  “Best as I can tell, the window guys used some kind of cheap expandable spray insulation between the windows and the casings, which didn’t set properly, and didn’t nail in the flashings, and in that wind last night, these all just blew in.” He is standing next to one of the empty window frames, flicking at the insulation that is supposed to expand and fill all of the cracks between window and house, and it appears to be simply falling to dust at his lightest touch.

  “Son of a BITCH.”

  “Yeah.” He looks sheepish. “I’m sorry, Anneke, I should have caught it.”

  “And yet?”

  “Here we are.”

  “Who did the windows? Jerry?”

  “Jerry was over on Fremont with Liam. Murph sent over a couple guys from the Roscoe Village flip.”

  Figures. “Our guys, or the developer’s guys?”

  Clark runs a hand over his buzzed-short graying hair. “Not sure, but I didn’t recognize them.”

  “That fucker,” I mutter under my breath. I try not to denigrate the bosses in front of other employees, but I just know that this is Murph’s cutting corners, and now my anger has nowhere to go. “And when you saw some guys you didn’t know doing the already-late window installation, it what? Occurred to you that you should run out and get your nails done? Had more important things to attend to? What exactly is the point of having you manage a project if you don’t ACTUALLY MANAGE IT? Where WERE you when the windows went in?” I want so much to not be yelling at Clark, but somehow my fuse isn’t long enough to give me any breath to be rational.

  Clark’s eyes narrow and the color goes from light blue to midnight. “You’re right, Anneke, I should have been here. I left the guys doing the windows to go pick up the flooring so that it could settle and acclimate in the space once we were enclosed, hoping to get back a day on the install since we are so behind.”

  Finally I manage to pry off the lid on my sanity. “I’m sorry, Clark, I know this could have happened to anyone, I get it.”

  He nods, and his eyes lighten. “No worries. We’re all up against it on this one.”

  “Can we salvage any of this?” I gesture around the room.

  “I called in a favor with the window people, they are still feeling the pinch having fucked up the order the first time . . . I may have implied that this was also partially their fault since we had our best window guys waiting with nothing to install on the first go-around, and those guys weren’t available when they fixed their first mistake, so they are going to split the cost of the new ones with us, cover freight, and rush it out. We should have them tomorrow.”

  Now my stomach hurts for having snapped at him. He’s a good guy and always has my back, and takes initiative to keep my plate as clear as it can be. “Thanks, Clark, I owe you one. I’m going to call and have a load of plywood sent over so you and I can get this place sealed up for the time being.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Nah. If I let you do that I have to go back to the office.” And I wink at him. He laughs, and I know we are back to normal.

  “Well, if I’m going to let you hide out here, I may need some lunch . . .”

  “I’ll call for the ply, and then order pizza?”

  “Sausage and green peppers and onions.” Now he is grinning.

  “You know that smells like a foot and an armpit. Having sex. In a fast-food garbage can. In the summer.”

  He rubs his belly. “I know YOU think that.”

  “Bastard.”

  He shrugs, and goes to grab a shovel to start cleaning up the broken glass, and I go to make my calls, and to grab my gloves to do my penance.

  You’re not laying this off on ME,” Murph sputters. “You’re the one who hasn’t been able to keep this whole project on track.”

  I’m digging my stubby nails into my palms. I promised myself I was going to at least try not to get myself in trouble at work if I can help it. “I’m not laying it off on you, I’m just saying that I would appreciate it, in future, if you would not send someone else’s team to my site without consulting me.” I counted to a HUNDRED before I came in here, and I’m swallowing every bit of ire. But after helping Clark clean up the mess, getting plywood covering all the open window holes, and letting Clark take the heat with the client, who has a total crush on him and forgives him for everything, my nerves are fairly frayed. Plus I had to eat pizza with ghastly green peppers on it, which is repeating on me in the worst possible way. I’ve eaten an entire roll of Tums this afternoon, and I’m still burping up foul wind in my own face.

  “I’m pretty sure if you had a handle on the work on your site, I wouldn’t have needed to bail you out with labor generously loaned to us by one of our long-standing clients.” He squints at me with his piggy little eyes, daring me to take it further. Despite my deep desire to both punch him in the nose AND call him out for being the oily asspimple I know him to be, I’m finding that the searing internal heat of my heartburn is weirdly helping me keep my external cool.

  “I take the ultimate responsibility for what happens on my projects, without a doubt. I’m just saying that it would be a help to me to keep me in the loop on such things.”

  Murph waves me off. “Duly noted.” And he turns back to his computer so that I know he is finished with this discussion.

  I walked the dog. Left you dinner in the fridge. Try to save these for after. Love you. Grant’s note is on the kitchen counter, anchored under a box that is wafting the smell of vanilla tantalizingly. I pop the top. Cannelés. Those crispy-on-the-outside, custardy-on-the-inside little French marvels, caramelized just shy of burnt, flavored with just the merest whisper of rum, one of my favorite treats. Grant told me he was playing with them for the new restaurant, and if he has brought them for me, it must mean he’s finally gotten them perfect.

  I feel a tug on the hem of my jeans, and glance down to see Schatzi looking annoyed at me, as usual.

  “What on earth do you want, Satan’s Spawn? Grant walked you, and I know he fed you.”

  The dog sashays over to her water bowl, turns, and glares at me again.

  There is a feather floating like a tiny boat on the surface. I lean down and remove it.

  “There.”

  Her eyes narrow at me even more.

  “FINE.” Stupid fucking dog. I pick up the bowl, run the cold water in the sink till it is nice and brisk, and refill the bowl. The dog takes three little licks, shakes her ears, and goes over to her perch on the windowsill to give me the cold shoulder. As if this will offend me.

  I text Grant to thank him for dinner and the treats, and to tell him that I had a supershitty day and it helps to come home to his cooking if I can’t come home to him. He texts me back a simple XO, which means he is up under it in the middle of service.

  I take a long hot bath with a glass of calvados on the rocks, which finally settles my stomach, and then get into some snuggly pajamas that Caroline bought me last year when we did a girls’ weekend and she saw that I was sleeping in a pair of leggings from 1993 and a T-shirt so threadbare it was more like a series of holes held together with a spiderweb of prayers. The containers in the fridge reveal a large tamale filled with spicy pork and cheese, some posole, black beans and rice, perfectly caramelized plantains. Which means it was the line cooks’ turn to make family meal. Those boys, a lovely blend of Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, and Dominicans, can cook you fancy fine-dining French all day, but when you let them just make their food? It is a cornucopia of Latin perfection. They’d kill me for eating it all cold, but I don’t have the energy to bother to microwave it. I devour it all right out of the plastic DELItainers, washing it down with a Lagunitas IPA, on the couch with a marathon of Love It or List It on HGTV. The show is my happy place. Because on my worst
day on the job, at least I’m not dealing with a never-ending parade of people who all want an open-concept main floor, more bedrooms and bathrooms, and a finished basement . . . while sitting on a deathtrap of a house filled with asbestos and mold and scary electrical and structural issues. With a budget of four dollars.

  I eat all four of the cannelés, savoring how Grant managed to get the outside so crunchy, and the middle so creamy. And I fall asleep to the “David found the perfect new house for you” music, knowing that no matter how little was actually fixed in their old home, and how amazing the new house is, they are probably going to “love it.” They almost always love it. What you know has just so much more pull than something new, even if it is tempting and affordable AND in your beloved neighborhood.

  When I wake up, the TV is still on, now showing some horrid infomercial. I squint at my phone. It’s nearly three. I slide off the couch and head to the bedroom, figuring I was so dead when Grant got home that he didn’t want to wake me. Except the bed is still made. Now I’m awake.

  I grab my phone off the counter. No texts, no messages. This isn’t exactly the first time this has happened; the life of a chef begins after service at eleven or twelve. There are drinks, late meals that range from spectacular to spectacularly greasy. Sometimes a chef from out of town stops by unexpectedly to hang, or a celeb shows up for some coddling. I’m not the clingy type, I don’t need someone to account for their every moment and movement. Grant’s hours never really bothered me, and the spontaneity associated with the end of the workday and its appeals are not lost on me. When we were first dating, he would text to see if I wanted to come out and meet him, but I never really fit in well with his foodie crowd, so I stopped coming and he stopped asking. But for some reason the fact that it is so much closer to sunrise than sunset and he hasn’t even bothered to give me a heads-up? Is really pissing me off. I told him I’d had a shitty day. I could have used a friendly ear, some sympathy, maybe even a comfort quickie.