“Get your coat, lady, we’re meeting the girls at Sumi Robata.” I must have blanched or looked panicked, because she quickly adds, “My treat. Just signed a massive new client. We’re celebrating.”
Sumi is one of our favorite restaurants, a traditional Japanese robata grill place with just insanely delicious food. All small plates, which we love. We just sit and keep ordering until we want to burst. The food is clean and simple but gorgeous. And worth every penny. When one has pennies to spare. But there is a difference between a good value and not expensive. As Grant used to say, the French Laundry is a good value, but you might have to hock a lung to afford it. I never used to think twice about Sumi, where by the time you order a zillion dishes and a few beers to wash it down you might be out a hundred dollars or more per person. But that is more than my current weekly food budget these days.
I grab my coat, and we head out.
“So, what is it?”
“What is what?”
“Whatever you’ve got happening in your life that has given you this deer-in-headlights look and made you try to blow us off. You’re really bad at that, by the way, you know that right?”
“I know. I’m just tired.”
“Bullshit.”
“And stressed.”
“Better.”
“And apparently I have a sister.”
“Come again?”
“Just before you came. Some little picketytwick of a girl showed up at my doorstep looking for a family reunion. Some discarded stepdaughter Anneliese left behind a decade ago who wants to bond with me.”
Hedy is silent and contemplative. “Well, if she’s a step, she can’t be looking for a kidney or bone marrow or anything.”
“She can be looking for whatever she wants, she won’t find it here.”
“How’d she even track you down?”
“I’m listed.”
Hedy shakes her head and clucks. “Have I taught you nothing, dearheart?” She reaches over and pats my hand. “Unlist yourself tomorrow. Who knows what other victims of your mother are out in the world who might find you?” She is smirking as if she has said something clever.
Her condescension is really annoying. I love Hedy, but her tone is always authoritative, and at the moment, it grates on me.
Walter drops us off at the corner of Wells and Huron and we head inside, greeted warmly by Gene, the chef, as we pass by the open kitchen and toward the table in the back where Caroline and Marie are waving at us.
We order a round of a Japanese chocolate stout, a perfect beer for the food, and the first set of dishes.
“Little Anneke has a long-lost sister,” Hedy says, after we clink our beer glasses.
I shoot her a look. I’d told her about Emily in something of self-defense, but I didn’t really want to talk about it. She shrugs.
“What is she talking about?” Marie asks.
I take a deep draught of my beer, and tell them about Emily and our little encounter.
“So she just wants to get to know you?” Caroline asks.
“I guess.”
“But you don’t want to?” Marie pipes in.
“Why would I want to?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Marie asks gently. “I mean, you said you hoped when your mom married Joe they would have a baby. That you could have a little sister or brother.”
“I was thirteen. I also wanted to marry Adam Ant, and grow up to be an archeologist so I could meet Indiana Jones.”
“Okay, but what is so awful about her?” Caroline asks. She gets that blood family can be complicated, so I know she’ll understand.
“She’s maybe twenty-one. She’s perky and pretty and full of life. Frankly she’s like a fucking Labrador puppy. She did everything but lick my face and pee on the floor. She may say she wants a sister, but seriously, this has got to be about Anneliese. She said my mom was a good mom to her, and I bet she was. This girl freakishly LOOKS like my mother, all blond and blue-eyed and willowy. She’s gorgeous. I’m sure my mother petted her and doted on her and dressed her up like a little doll. Whatever. I don’t have time or inclination to babysit some innocent who thinks that if she befriends me she’ll get her perfect mommy back.”
None of them say anything.
“What?” Great. Judgment time.
The waiter comes by and places a hot stone in the middle of the table, and a plate of thinly sliced marinated New York strip, and Hedy immediately lays two slices of beef on the rock, where they sizzle and release a heady aroma.
“It just seems to me that maybe it might be worth just meeting with her once and getting a better sense of her before you dismiss the idea outright,” Caroline says.
“I’m sure she was just full of nervous energy; maybe if you see her again she’ll be calmer, and better able to articulate why exactly she is seeking you out,” Marie adds.
“You can always decide not to see her again if she turns out to be a basket case.” Hedy pulls the two pieces of meat off, placing one on my plate and one on hers, and two more pieces on the rock.
I stab the meat with my chopsticks and bring it up to my chin, promptly dropping it into my lap. Hedy chuckles under her breath as I fetch the morsel from my pants and pop it in my mouth with my fingers. A little linty but still delicious.
“Why bother?” I say around the mouthful of tender beef. “What do I need it for? I mean, maybe if we were the same age or something, or if she were moving here permanently and wanted a connection in the city, MAYBE. But this is a Millennial on a gap year. She’s maybe here for a couple of weeks. She’s moving to Boston to be a family therapist! To solve the problems of the world’s sorority girls!”
“Maybe she is. Or maybe she isn’t. What does it hurt to find out?” Marie pulls her own piece of beef off the stone and places it delicately into her mouth.
“Exactly. Give her a couple of hours and see what she’s really about.” Caroline pulls the last piece of beef off the rock just as the waiter arrives with a plate of pot stickers connected with a lacy web of crunchy yumminess.
“Because what else have I got to do?”
Hedy narrows her eyes at me. “Because what have you got to LOSE.”
“My time. My energy. It isn’t at quite the premium pricing it once was, but it isn’t without value. I have enough going on right now, placating some bored little rich girl isn’t top on my list.” I know I’m being petulant, but for some reason I just can’t help it.
“You’ll do what feels best in the moment. And it all just happened, so maybe we should just talk about something else and let you process.” Marie, who knows me better than anyone, can tell when I’ve hit my limit, and as annoyed as I am at her siding with Caroline and Hedy, I am still grateful for the save.
“How are things going at the house?” Caroline asks, acquiescing to the shift in topic.
“Good. I’ve got some help for the moment, so that is making things go much easier.”
“You finally convinced someone to come work with you? Magic!” Hedy says.
“Yeah, no kidding. Anyway, he’s very cool, actually has a degree in industrial engineering, hard worker, really nice guy. And willing to work for what I can afford, which is even more amazing.”
“So what’s wrong with him? Ex-con? Substance abuse? On the lam?” Marie jokes.
“He’s not a citizen. Visa expiring.”
“I suppose that’s better than no visa at all,” Caroline says. When she and Carl moved to the burbs, she thought she would have to get a new cleaning lady, and hated to lose Blanca. But Blanca was afraid to ride the Metra that far; there had been rumors of immigration doing roundups at some of the suburban train stations. So Caroline decided there must be a reason to have her newfound financial wherewithal and immediately bought Blanca a Prius and hired an immigration attorney. Blanca now has social security, an IRA, an
d a green card, and Caroline’s house is spotless.
“True. And he is just a laborer, so I’ll keep him as long as I can, and deal with the rest as it comes.”
“Very Zen of you,” Hedy says.
“Namaste, bitches.” I raise my beer to the girls, delighted that for now at least, everything can just have a semblance of our regular banter.
“So guess what famous musician slash actor John just did a tattoo for? One hint . . . he’s in my five!” Marie says excitedly.
And thankfully the focus turns away from me and onto Marie’s crush’s new ink, and Hedy’s new big client, and Caroline’s new recipe for lamb stew, and plate after plate of yummy nibbles, and for an hour or so, I can almost feel normal.
11
I wake up feeling extra achy and uncomfortable and discover that my air mattress has deflated in the night, leaving me in a pile of linens and crumpled rubber on the hard floor. I fill it back up, but can hear a small hissing noise that indicates I have a leak somewhere. But after fifteen minutes examining it, duct tape at the ready, I can’t find it, and give up. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bought the off-brand one that was on clearance. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a new one.
When Schatzi and I get back from her morning walk, a bitter wind having kept it very perfunctory, I find a deliveryman on the stoop.
“Anne, um, Anne . . .” he struggles, looking at the slip in his hand.
Sigh. “Anneke. That’s me.” Family tradition, every firstborn daughter given an unpronounceable gift. When I was six, I begged Grand-mère to just call me Anne, and it was made very clear to me to never make that particular request again. But by the time I got to high school, I kind of liked it. And when I met Marie at camp, one of the first things she told me was how much she loved my name. “It’s exotic and mysterious and romantic,” she sighed. She said my name like it was a little poem or prayer or a delicious sweet. She made me love it, and I’ve never tried to be anything or anyone else since.
He looks relieved. “Sign here.” He points. I sign. He hands over a large box, covered in brown paper.
Inside, I put the box on my table, and rip open the paper. It is a lovely plant display, the kind I like best, full of greenery and succulents and mosses, and interesting shapes, planted in a deep pottery saucer. I’ve never been one for girly bouquet flowers, foofy colors and dead in three days in a vase swamp of stinky slime, but an arrangement like this, one that can survive if you water and feed it, with cool plants that I love, this is right in my sweet spot.
I pull out the card.
Thinking of you. Call if you need anything. Grant
It’s the first time he’s tried to contact me in a couple of weeks, and I wonder why now, and why with such a grand gesture.
I don’t have to wonder long.
“How are you doing?” Hedy asks when I answer my phone.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Well, fine, but you know, I know today must be hard. How about I come take you to brunch?” She sounds very concerned.
“Nah, I’ve got stuff here, I’ll just grab something and get to work. Jag can’t come today, he has some sort of meeting, but I have plenty to do.”
“Well, that’s good, keep yourself busy today. What about tonight? I’ll pick something up and bring it? We can stay in and eat too much and drink a really good bottle of wine?”
“Sure, sounds like fun.” It actually sounds tedious, but I haven’t seen her since Sumi almost two weeks ago, and even though we’ve spoken a couple of times, it’s been a little stilted. When I got back from the salvage project last Thursday, there was a note from Emily that she was sorry she missed me, and that she would stop back by another time. She actually signed her name with the tail of the Y ending in a little heart. It had a small lavender card attached with her cell phone and email and Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and Instagram information all printed in a sassy navy blue font, with a spray of cherry blossoms on the back. I sort of hope I’m dead before this generation is fully in charge of the world.
“Good. That’s a plan. I’ll see you around seven. Leave it all to me. And, Anneke?” She pauses. “Happy Valentine’s Day, honey.” And then she hangs up.
Crap.
I’d completely forgotten. Frankly I’ve barely left the house except to walk Schatzi since we had dinner. I’ve needed very few supplies, the work has been all consuming, and the weather has been horrific. One thing about the insulation of staying hunkered down, you avoid the onslaught of marketing for whatever holiday is coming up. My heart sinks. I may be a tough broad, I may not be a princessey kind of girl, I may occasionally even be something of a tomboy. But I love Valentine’s Day. Or I did.
I always had pretty good Valentine’s luck. Usually I had some sort of boyfriend or at least a guy I was seeing casually, and even if they weren’t my soul mates, they were sweet boys who gave me chocolates and teddy bears and roses and cards and made me feel good. After Grant and I got together, he would always have me dress up and come sit at a little table in the kitchen at his restaurant, and somehow manage to make me feel cosseted and special and cared for, even while he was expediting a hundred covers of romantic fare for strangers. He would send me one-bite courses of whimsical yummy, and tiny wine pairings, and slip me love notes, and when the evening was over, we’d go home and have some sort of decadent dessert creation and there would be gifts and funny cards, and a bubble bath with champagne for two, and tender and satisfying lovemaking.
You can see how I might not suspect he was secretly pining for Channing Tatum. We didn’t have a lot of sex, but we didn’t have NO sex, and the sex we had was pretty good, as far as I was concerned. He was very interested in my pleasure, often more interested than in his own, and he was spectacular at oral sex. Apparently this is not uncommon among chefs, which makes a lot of sense when one thinks about it. So even though we had slowed down the intimate end of our relationship exponentially, it certainly wasn’t some big red flag. I’ve never been the “have to have it right now” kind of girl anyway. I like sex fine, but if I’m to be honest, I didn’t really miss it horribly on the occasions I was between partners, and have never had any that made me insane or obsessive the way people talk about. I certainly haven’t missed it at all in the last few weeks.
But romance? Romance I miss. Little gestures, words of endearment, touches. I can do without passion, but I’ve gotten used to affection, to feeling cared for and loved. And before I know it, I’m crying again. Which really pisses me off, because romance or no romance, I’m not a wallower. All this crying bullshit is annoying the bejesus out of me. I’m an up-by-my-bootstraps, dust-myself-off, get-back-to-business broad. I wipe my cheeks, and add it to the ever-expanding list of shit I’m angry with Grant for, and head for the kitchen.
I’m starving, and I need comfort, and when I see the leftover boiled potatoes in the fridge from last night, I know just what to make. The only thing Grand-mère ever made me that felt the littlest bit like love. Grand-mère didn’t really cook much. She was fastidious about her appearance, was a perfect trim size 6 from the time she was twenty till she died. She assembled salads, we always had lots of vegetables in the house “for snacking,” fresh fruit. Tubs of cottage cheese. Melba toast. She would poach chicken breasts or fish. Small omelettes. I never really minded. Mealtimes were an exercise in frustration, trying to have perfect manners, to gently pat the corners of my mouth with the linen napkins, to use my knife and fork in the perfect Continental way, the fork in my left hand, and knife in my right. The stilted conversation. Meals couldn’t be over soon enough, so I could get out of the stiff “good clothes” and back into jeans or sweats, to retreat to my room for homework or music or phone calls with friends. I always had a reasonably generous allowance, god forbid our public face showed anything less than being comfortably well-off, and there were plenty of convenience stores and fast-food joints close to home and school. G
rand-mère never minded when friends’ mothers wanted me to stay for dinner. Lord knows I was always able to amply fill my endless hunger, and by proxy, my equally ample pants.
But every once in a great while, the pull of her heritage would hit her, and Grand-mère would cook something real. I could never figure out what it was that triggered her, but I would come home from school to a glorious aroma. An Apfelstrudel, with paper-thin pastry wrapped around chunks of apples and nuts and raisins. The thick smoked pork chops called Kasseler ribs, braised in apple cider and served with caraway-laced sauerkraut. A rich baked dish with sausages, duck, and white beans. And hoppel poppel. A traditional German recipe handed down from her mother. I haven’t even thought of it in years. But when my mom left, it was the only thing I could think to do for Joe, who was confused and heartbroken, and it was my best way to try to get something in him that didn’t come in a cardboard container. I never got to learn at her knee the way many granddaughters learn to cook; she never shared the few recipes that were part of my ancestry. But hoppel poppel is fly by the seat of your pants, it doesn’t need a recipe; it’s a mess, just like me. It’s just what the soul needs.
I grab an onion, and chop half of it. I cut up the cold cooked potatoes into chunks. I pull one of my giant hot dogs out, and cut it into thick coins. Grand-mère used ham, but Joe loved it with hot dogs, and I do too. Plus I don’t have ham. I whisk six eggs in a bowl, and put some butter on to melt. The onions and potatoes go in, and while they are cooking, I grate a pile of Swiss cheese, nicking my knuckle, but catching myself before I bleed into my breakfast. By the time I get a Band-Aid on it, the onions have begun to burn a little, but I don’t care. I dump in the hot dogs and hear them sizzle, turning down the heat so that I don’t continue to char the onions. When the hot dogs are spitting and getting a little browned, I add the eggs and stir up the whole mess like a scramble. When the eggs are pretty much set, I sprinkle the cheese over the top and take it off the heat, letting the cheese melt while I pop three slices of bread in the toaster. When the toast is done, I butter it, and eat the whole mess at the counter, using the crispy buttered toast to scoop chunks of egg, potato, and hot dog into my mouth, strings of cheese hanging down my chin. Even with the burnt onions, and having overcooked the eggs to rubbery bits, it is exactly what I need.
Recipe for Disaster Page 13