Schatzi and I take our morning walk; it’s a beautiful end-of-May day, with sweet breezes made sweeter by the sudden appearance of white apple blossoms and the first early lilacs of the season, and you can feel the magic that will be June teasing you. At least Caroline is excited that the farmers’ markets have started, and will be coming down on Sunday to take me to the Logan Square market for lunch, which is the only bit of respite I’ll have for the whole weekend. She is a little snobby about the Evanston market, it being probably the best one in the area and walking distance from her house, but she acknowledges that Logan Square does a great job, and I haven’t seen her or the girls much at all since the wedding.
It feels so good to be out and moving that our walk goes a little long; by the time we get home I’m ravenous. Last night I read about a dish Gemma made for the staff for breakfast, which sounded really good despite its horrible name. Toad-in-the-hole. Seriously, British people, who names your foods? Spotted dick? Bubble and squeak? Bangers and mash? It’s off-putting. But the recipe itself, sort of a baked pancake with sausages embedded in it, sounded really good. I have a package of sausages in the fridge, and the rest is just pantry ingredients and eggs, and the most complicated part is searing the sausages. I’ve got the pan in the oven and Schatzi settled down to a bowl of kibble, when I hear the front door open.
“Something smells good,” Liam says, dropping his leather tool bag on the floor, and walking over to the coffeepot to pour himself a mug. He grabs the half-and-half out of the fridge and lightens his coffee to nearly white, and then adds a hefty four teaspoons from the sugar bowl.
“You do realize that your coffee is more like hot melted coffee ice cream, right?”
“I do. And it’s delicious. And you’re just jealous that I can drink this all day and never add an inch to my girlish figure,” he says while slapping his flat abs proudly, winking at me.
“Girlish would be the operative term, considering the coffee.”
“I’m secure enough in my masculinity to take my coffee yummy.”
The alarm on my phone goes off, and I pull the casserole out of the oven. It is puffed and golden and the sausages are spitting and the whole thing smells delicious.
“Perfect! I haven’t had breakfast yet.” Liam goes over to the cabinet and gets two plates, grabbing a pair of forks out of the jar on the counter. I hate his presumption, not to mention the easy way he operates in my kitchen, so at home, but it’s going to be a long weekend and I promised myself I would be Zen-like in my demeanor.
I dish us both up a large square that contains two sausages each. Liam goes to the pantry and gets the maple syrup, which he pours with a heavy hand over his plate. He offers it to me, and I decline. The dish is pretty good. Sort of like a Yorkshire pudding with meat in it. The sausages are a little bit spicy, and the pancake part might be the tiniest bit overcooked, it is just shy of rubbery, but overall a good breakfast. Liam wolfs it down, and quickly dishes himself up a second generous portion.
“Where did you learn to make toad-in-the-hole, lass?”
“You know this stuff?”
“It’s the food of my childhood. And not half bad at that. But I don’t know many people here who know how to make it. Makes me crave a bit of brown sauce.”
“I found it in an old cookbook, seemed interesting.”
“Well done.” He stuffs another huge bite in his maw. “So, I think we do the tiling today, grout tomorrow, finish work Monday?”
“That’s what I was thinking as well.” I’m feeling strangely awkward around him, and I realize that while I’ve known Liam for the better part of a decade, I don’t really know him. I’ve never really spent any significant time with him, and the time we have spent together has been full of barbs and insults and thinly veiled distaste for each other’s company. He joined MacMurphy just three months after me, and from the day he arrived he teased me mercilessly. I was also the only female he has apparently never hit on. Not that I wanted his attention, but at a certain point when you’ve seen the man flirt with every pair of boobs from seventeen to seventy that crosses his path, it does make you feel like a troll.
That, added to the fact that he quickly started edging me out of the best jobs and the coolest clients, would have been bad enough. But he also had that immediate boys’-club in with Mac and Murph, going to all the sporting events, golf outings, and out to the bars after work. Murph’s boat in the summer and up to Mac’s weekend place at the Dunes, the kind of quality social time that helps your career, the kind of invitations that never came my way. Every chance he got he rubbed it in, throwing it in my face. It’s true that recent events have been surprising, his kindness, his openness. But just because a dog doesn’t bite you every time you pet it doesn’t mean it isn’t still a biter. I like having Jag for a buffer, and I’m starting to wish I had decided to just go away with him, despite the awkwardness it would have created to have to share a room and a bed, to play at being in love twenty-four hours a day.
Here’s what I do know. It’s going to be a very long weekend.
These. Are. AMAZING,” Caroline says around a mouthful of apple cider zeppole. We’re at the Logan Square Farmers Market, and have eaten our way around the square. We started with a couple of meat tacos from Cherubs, simply seasoned small cubes of beef on soft steamed corn tortillas, with a garnish of onion, cilantro and lime. A perfect amuse-bouche. Then we shared an insane grilled cheese sandwich, buttery and crispy and filled with gooey, perfectly melted Wisconsin Butterkäse cheese. A pork empanada from Pecking Order, with their homemade banana ketchup. A porchetta sandwich from Publican Quality Meats. Schatzi got her little bits and pieces, plus a huge organic dog biscuit from a local bakery. She’s thankfully interacted quite beautifully with three French bulldogs, two Boston terriers, a corgi and six children in the “shorter than my waist” age range. We are in hipsterville, so there are nothing but small dogs and sassy toddlers about.
As I always do, we finish with a bag of the fried-to-order zeppole, odd little fritterlike doughnuts with apple cider in the batter, tossed with cinnamon sugar, while I try almost successfully to ignore that this was one of Grant and my summer Sunday traditions. I may have let that man make me leave my home and quit my job and put me into a death spiral of shit, but I refuse to let him keep me from sugar-encrusted hot fried dough.
“I’m so full,” I say, reaching for another little bit of crispy delicious.
“I could burst, but I can’t stop eating them,” Caroline says. We take our iced teas, acquired at New Wave Coffee, and our bags of produce, and find spots at one of the picnic tables to sit and digest a bit. Schatzi seems perfectly happy to curl up under the table, giving her a bit of a break from the sensory overload of other dogs and children and crowds. Caroline has three fabric tote bags bursting with treasures.
Late May is a riot of tiny things. Fiddlehead fern tips, tiny shoots and microgreens, baby lettuces. Pencil-thin asparagus. Ramps are everywhere, those wild leeks that everyone goes nuts for, and Caroline must have bought six bunches. She has a pickling project she’s very excited about. Teeny tiny baby beets in three colors, marble-sized turnips, spring onions. Poor Carl is in for a week of twee baby vegetables. She found some racks of spring lamb, fresh goat cheese, several kinds of sausages. Fresh fava beans, so tender they won’t need peeling, peppery arugula for salads. Some wild-looking shoots that turned out to be garlic scapes, which made Caroline all excited to make homemade ravioli, which apparently she is going to stuff with a mixture of favas, the goat cheese, and these garlic thingies, in a butter sauce with the morels she just spent a fortune on.
I’ve been somewhat more judicious, sticking with carrots and bags of baby spinach, spring onions. Some rhubarb, since Gemma has a recipe for rhubarb jelly that sounds weirdly interesting. A bunch of radishes, since Jag mentioned an affinity for them served with cold butter and salt. I even bought a lump of fresh butter for him.
Caroline takes a deep draught of her tea, sensibly dosed with lemon and a single Splenda packet. “So, on a scale from one to ten. How is it?”
I sip my own tea, less sensibly doctored with a healthy squeeze of simple syrup. “The house? Coming along. We’ve probably made up nearly a week of the time we lost, and so far, no new disasters.”
“I don’t worry about your work much, lovey. I’m talking about your marriage, and the new partner.”
“You’re sweet to worry. I’m doing pretty well. Jag is easy to live with, and we are enjoying the whole newlywed thing. He’s really saved me.”
“You’re ridiculous, you’re not the ‘damsel in distress seeking prince on a white horse’ type.”
“I know that,” I say, trying to look dreamy and in love. “But it’s nice to have someone WANT to save you. To have someone to lean on, and get through it all with.”
“It was just so fast, and you were so sad and angry . . . We all just want you to be happy, and it makes us nervous. We worry for you.” Clearly she and the girls have still been chatting about me, which makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I know I shouldn’t have expected them not to have opinions, but I really had hoped that getting married would at least mitigate their need to weigh in overmuch.
“Well stop. I never had a mother before, I’m certainly not looking for one now,” I say, perhaps a little more harshly than I intend. I immediately regret it, Caroline’s face stays impassive, but her eyes show that I’ve hurt her feelings. “I’m sorry, Caroline, I didn’t mean . . .”
“No.” She stops me. “You’re absolutely right, I have no right, not my place.”
“It isn’t that I’m ungrateful for your care and concern, I just, I’m in a place of trying to keep an even keel, and I can’t think about anything that isn’t related to getting through my days, to getting the house done, to moving me bit by tiny bit toward something that looks like a future. Jag is the only part of all of this that is in the least bit enjoyable, and he is my safe place and my sanity. Does that make sense?”
She smiles, a little wanly, but still warm. “It does. Of course it does. And I’m glad for you both, truly. Subject closed.”
“Thank you.”
“And your Irishman?”
“I’m glad for the break today, frankly. He’s been fine, mostly. He’s still himself, so the banter is more than a little annoying. There are a lot of references to the late nights and stupid clubs, he doesn’t say outright that he’s in a different bed every night, but the implication is there. He seems to be spending a lot of time at places that cater to overgrown frat boys, not that it should surprise me. But then on the flip side, he’ll go off on these rants about the clients at MacMurphy and the goings-on over there, in a way that seems like he is sort of trying to make me feel good for leaving.”
“That is nice of him.”
“It is. I’m a little leery of his motives and sincerity.”
“Maybe he’s trying to make an effort because of being business partners?”
“True, and I hope that’s it. And he and Jag are getting along brilliantly, so that is good. I’m sure I’m just oversensitive; it’s been a long couple of days of close quarters without Jag around for a buffer.”
“Why didn’t you go with him? His friends are so lovely, and it would have been a nice break.”
“Just couldn’t do it. Emily is out of town, and I couldn’t take the dog, Chuck is allergic. And with Liam having the long weekend off and wanting to put in so many hours? I hate to say it, but we really do need his help, and I couldn’t afford to turn down such a productive weekend. And I’m a big believer that even after you get married you should still maintain your independent friendships.”
Caroline laughs. “Aren’t you just the expert!”
“Yes I am! I’ve been married almost two months, you know.” I check my watch; we’ve been gone over an hour and a half. “I should get back to it, before Liam installs a stripper pole in the master bedroom.” We toss our empty iced-tea cups in the bin behind the table, and relinquish our places to a grateful couple wrangling two small children and a large mutt. I walk Caroline to her car, thanking her for lunch, and then Schatzi and I head back to the house.
“We’re back!” I yell when I get to the kitchen, unhooking Schatzi’s leash and beginning to put my small bag of treasures away.
“And how was the market?” Liam comes into the kitchen, gives Schatzi a rub.
“Good. Here . . .” I toss him a porchetta sandwich, still warm.
“Ooo, yummies. Very kind of you.” He unwraps the sandwich and begins to wolf it down.
“You’re welcome.”
He’s finished with his lunch in no longer than it takes me to get all the stuff put away and get my hands washed, and we immediately head back upstairs to the bathroom to keep working. We started the grouting this morning, and got the shower mostly finished before I had to leave. In my absence, Liam has finished the grouting in the shower and installed the built-in bench as well. Now we have to tackle the bathroom floor, which is a vast expanse that seems even bigger now that we have to deal with it. The good part about big tiles is that large spaces get filled quicker. The bad part is that you have to be absolutely meticulous when you lay them, because even the tiniest spacing differential becomes glaring. And grouting, while you would think it would be easier, since there are fewer grout lines, is still a bitch, trying to keep the face of the tiles as clean as possible. Armed with the grout and buckets of water and huge sponges, we strap on our kneepads and start at opposite corners.
“You know, I would have worked on this if you had wanted to go with your husband for a weekend.”
“Thank you, Liam, that’s kind, but between the work, and the dog, just not good timing.”
“For newlyweds, you guys seem to spend a lot of time apart.” He says this like it’s a casual observation, but my stomach knots immediately. These close quarters are dangerous; it’s really important that Liam not question my marriage.
“Well, you wouldn’t know this with your bimbo-of-the-week club, but in actual mature adult relationships, you don’t need to be attached at the hip twenty-four hours a day.”
“No need to get defensive, little Annamuk, just hope all is rosy here in the land of wedded bliss. After all, we have to finish this house together; that’s going to be uncomfortable if the two of you are on the rocks.”
“Ha!” I say, probably a little loudly. “We couldn’t be LESS on the rocks. I feel bad for you, Liam, you clearly have never met anyone who touched your heart in any kind of profound way. Jag came into my life when I was at my lowest, and looked at me like I was a queen. He didn’t think I was an idiot for quitting a stable job to focus on my dreams, and he didn’t care that I was living in this place to make that happen. He is the smartest, handsomest, kindest, most amazing man I’ve ever known, and I thank my lucky stars every day that we found each other. I hope that someday you understand love like this, Liam, I really do.” This pours out of me in a manic gush, my voice pitching higher and higher, the words moving faster and faster. I want to stop but I can’t. “Jag has given up everything for me. He gave up school so we can work on this house; he’s committed to staying in the US to live, leaving his family four thousand miles away. He is a prince among men.”
“Easy there, kiddo, you don’t have to hard-sell me, I like the guy. I just was saying it seems that he spends a lot of nights out with his friends without you, and it is a little weird to me that this is your first holiday weekend since you got married, and you’re here and he’s off for a play weekend with pals.”
“Lucky for me, you don’t have to understand it.” Now I’m getting snippy, and I hate the tone in my voice. And he’s totally right; I’m overdefending. When I told Jag to go for his weekend away, all I was thinking was that he could probably use a break from me, and the house, and some quality relaxing
time with his friends. It never occurred to me that it might look like some sort of red flag to the outside world, and now I’m worried that Jag’s friends may be giving him a hard time as well.
“True enough. At any rate, I wasn’t trying to start anything, I was just saying, for future reference, if you ever want to take a weekend off with your insanely amazing prince of a husband”—his emphasis oozes insincerity—“I’d be happy to work here in your absence. I’d even watch the pooch. She loves me.” Ugh. Even when he’s making a very generous and kind offer, it comes off sleazy.
“Well, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t help but worry that you’d host some sort of weekend orgy in my house.”
“We can’t all meet our dream person in the parking lot of Home Depot, dear Anneke.”
“And you’re unlikely to meet her while doing shots at Rockit Bar, just so you know.”
“Probably true.” He stands up. “Looking good in here, what do you think?” I stand up and survey the room, immediately grateful for the change of subject. There is something about getting grout in that just gives you that sense of what it is going to be, weirdly even more than getting the tiles down.
“I think it looks fantastic.” It really does. Liam pulled in a favor and got all the stone and marble tiles from a contact at a huge discount, saving me from using the less posh porcelain I had been contemplating.
“Okay then, let’s knock this out!” He gets back down on his knees, and I can’t help but notice the strong lines of his back and shoulders, the round tush. Why on earth does that personality have to live in such an attractive package? I wish he were a troll. Or a nice guy. It would make things so much easier.
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