Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

  “I don’t intend to be here long enough for it to matter.”

  “Where do you intend to be?”

  “Anywhere else.”

  He tilted his head, taking me in, his phony smile disappearing, a different look appearing on his face. Like all of a sudden I interested him.

  “To anywhere else,” he said, lifting his glass, tipping it toward mine.

  I heard a glass shatter on the ground and turned in time to see Austin stand up, Carla slamming him in the chest.

  “I’m out of here!” he screamed, throwing the front door open, heading outside. Then Carla started crying hysterically.

  Ryan nodded in their direction. “Lovely couple,” he said.

  “They’re here almost as much as I am.”

  He motioned toward the front door. “I was just eating at the new French-Korean restaurant around the corner. Have you been there?”

  I shook my head.

  “The CEO wanted me to check it out with him.”

  “Before he fired you?”

  “We’re doing this new show, restaurants off the beaten path. Or, I should say, the Food Network is doing a show on off-the-beaten-path restaurants,” he corrected himself. “Though I’m taking it you’re not a regular viewer.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Do you like to cook?”

  “Does grilled cheese count?”

  “But you like to eat?”

  Truthfully, I loved to eat. My favorite activity since moving to New York (and one I couldn’t really afford) was scoping out delicious restaurants and dragging Danny to them on a day off. With our schedules, the scoping had subsided, as had the eating out. But I still kept notes of places I wanted to try, and of the most appealing foods—for whenever we had more time to seek them out.

  But I didn’t have an opportunity to say any of that.

  Ryan looked me up and down, the extra padding in my hips all the answer he seemed to need.

  “Obviously you eat.”

  “Are you getting to a point?”

  “I’m interested in the grilled cheese,” he said. “Your grilled cheese.”

  “Why?”

  “Would like to hear how you make it.”

  He put another twenty down on the counter, motioning for a refill.

  “Humor me.”

  I started to say that I used American cheese and Wonder Bread, to shut him up. Though the combination of the twenty sitting on the bar and how little I wanted to do the requisite comforting of Carla encouraged a truthful answer.

  “I grew up in Montauk, and there is this great bakery a few towns over . . . It opened a couple of years before I left for college, freshest bread you’ve ever tasted . . .”

  “Levain.”

  I was a little impressed. Most people mentioned the Barefoot Contessa, which had since closed. I must have shown it, because Ryan smiled a little wider, proud of himself.

  “I do this for a living,” he said. “Did it for a living. So you use a bread like theirs? What kind of cheese?”

  “Swiss. And I add tomatoes and avocado, and mayonnaise.”

  “Mayonnaise? That sounds kind of disgusting.”

  “Softens the bread in a way butter alone won’t.”

  “Makes it closer to Montauk?” Ryan looked impressed. “Levain has a location on the Upper West Side. They’re pretty famous for their cookies.”

  “They should be famous for the bread.”

  “And you grill your bread and cheese in Red Hook these days.” It wasn’t a question—it was like he was working through something. “That’s exotic.”

  “People may think it’s exotic, but . . .”

  “What people think is all that matters.”

  He nodded as the front door swung open, the drunken Austin returning, Carla jumping into his arms. They started kissing, happily together again, their fight already forgotten.

  “And boyfriend, I take it?”

  “Fiancé.”

  He took a sip of his beer. “Fiancé. And what does fiancé do?”

  “He’s an architect.” I paused. At this point, I still valued the truth. I still always tried to be accurate. “He’s actually studying to be an architect.”

  “And what do you want to do when you grow up?”

  I didn’t want to answer that. Mostly because I didn’t have a great answer. The plan had been for me to go back to school after Danny finished, but I was feeling tired at the notion. Maybe I was just feeling tired.

  “You know, the spitfire questions are starting to make me uncomfortable.”

  “Fair enough, let me ask you just one more.” He motioned toward the stool beside him. “Could you sit for a minute?”

  “Is that the question? ’Cause the answer is no. I have customers.”

  He looked around at the mostly empty bar, Austin and Carla now making out with each other in the corner.

  “Not many,” he said. And he smiled, licked his lips. Mr. Drunk Pinstripe. He thought he was so charming. Looking for something from me that I wasn’t willing to give him.

  “Well, I also have a fiancé,” I said.

  “The famous architect. I got it.” He pointed at his wedding ring. “I just want to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Your optics.”

  “My . . . what?”

  “Red Hook. Young and pretty . . .”

  He tilted his head like he was convincing himself.

  Was this guy kidding me? I pushed my hair behind my ears, defensive. It was the Danny effect. I’d historically never paid too much attention to my looks (maybe it was growing up without a mother), but Danny made me feel like I was stunning: my long blond hair suddenly sexy, my uniform of tank tops and cargo pants, effortlessly stylish in his eyes. Who was this guy to downgrade me?

  “The right amount of pretty,” he said, like the issue was settled. “I can definitely work with this. Girls won’t feel threatened, especially because you’re an outsider. Born and raised in the South. Farm country.”

  “I’m from Montauk.”

  He shook his head. “Nah, makes you sound rich. Can’t start off rich. We’ll pick somewhere in Florida or Texas. We’ll make your dad a tomato farmer.”

  I looked at him, confused.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Sunny,” I said.

  “Short for . . .”

  “Sunshine.”

  He laughed, thrilled. “Seriously? That’s too perfect. I can definitely, definitely work with this. Sunshine Mackenzie. A farmer’s daughter! Keeping it real in the Big Apple.”

  “That’s not my last name.”

  “It’s a star’s name. A food critic eating at the restaurant tonight had that name. She had a way about her. That’s what we’re going with. You’ll be my Justin Bieber. For the cooking world.”

  He was, at this point, talking to himself. I looked at him. “Who?”

  “People love the discovery narrative. That’s how we’ll play it.” He paused. “A chef for the next generation. That’s what they don’t get. That’s what they never fucking got. How to do fucking modern.”

  I pointed toward Carla and Austin, who looked dangerously close to undressing each other. “I’m going to check on those guys.”

  Then I started to walk away.

  He called out after me. “I’ll give you a month’s salary if you’ll have a cup of coffee with me tomorrow.”

  I stopped walking. “Why would you do that?”

  “The job opportunity I’m telling you about.”

  “You just told me you were fired. You don’t have a job to offer.”

  He smiled. “I think I just might.”

  I leaned across the countertop. Did he not understand? “I make a pretty good grilled cheese,” I said. “That’s it.”

  “A certain TV personality who just opened his fifth Tex-Mex restaurant made a SPAM taco when I found him. Nothing to do with anything.”

  I stared at him in disbelief, slightly confused by w
hat he was asking me to do: pretend to be a kind of cooking show host? “Look, I know you’re having a tough night, but . . .”

  “Three months’ salary. Double the number of what they pay you here. Really, how would I know?”

  We had no money, no heat. Danny was taking a second job moonlighting at a botanical garden. We had seen each other for five hours in the last week. “Are you insane?”

  “Bring your fiancé tomorrow,” he said. “Then decide.”

  Ryan reached out his hand to shake on the deal. It wasn’t slimy or cold. It was warm at the very moment that I needed warmth.

  “I’m just saying yes to the coffee.”

  “I got it. No promises.”

  But he kept holding on to my hand, like a promise. And in that moment, I think I decided to do it. Not just the meeting, but the job.

  Of course I never thought it would become what it became. No one did. Except Ryan; I guess Ryan did.

  I sound like I’m making excuses. But why should I make excuses? There was a guy sitting before me telling me that he was giving me a way to stop waitressing, to earn a ton of money, to grow up. And I was going to do what? Pretend to cook a meal?

  Even Danny, my gauge of what was good and bad in the world, just thought the whole thing was kind of funny. He didn’t seem concerned during that first coffee the next day. It wasn’t really a big deal—the first lie. After all, the stakes were low. It was just a recipe. It was just a video. Until the video became a hundred videos. And a produced YouTube show. And a cookbook that hit the best-seller list. And a second cookbook that also did. And an empire.

  And the lie stopped being about what you cooked and how you cooked it. It was about everything in your life. Where you came from. Who you were. Where you were going.

  How do you stop the train then? Even if you wanted to? And I wasn’t saying I wanted to.

  It’s easy to pretend I’d made a deal with the devil. But Ryan genuinely didn’t think we were doing anything wrong. And somewhere inside, I think I knew we were.

  So which one of us was the devil?

  4

  Danny came home at 5 P.M.

  I flinched when I heard the front door open, not anxious to do the rundown of the day—not anxious to see the look Danny got on his face when the conversation turned to my work. I cranked up the record player, hoping Bob Dylan would mitigate an argument. But, surprisingly, Danny walked into the kitchen with a huge smile and a bouquet of Gerber daisies in hand.

  “A little Dylan?” he said. “That’s certainly a nice way to come home.”

  “A bouquet of flowers is even nicer.”

  He pointed at the daisies. “Oh, these? They’re not for you.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  He walked over, kissed me hello. “Something told me that you could use them. Are you hanging in okay?” he asked.

  I waved off his concern. “Great.”

  “Really?”

  He tilted his head, not buying it, wanting to hear the truth in all its dirty matter. I used to love this about him, but recently I found it tiresome. I just wasn’t in the mood for too much honesty. And Danny was the one person who demanded it, who didn’t want me to perform for him—which, often, felt like the hardest performance of all.

  “Meredith’s statement was just picked up by the Huffington Post,” he said, and started to read it aloud.

  I nodded, not interrupting him, even though I wanted to correct him. The statement had posted to Huff Post hours ago.

  Thanks to Meredith, the noise had quieted down. Everyone assumed (why wouldn’t they?) that I had been hacked: my followers sending out much kinder tweets.

  @sunshinecooks Still my favorite chef in the world #sunshineforever

  @sunshinecooks Tomato Pie doesn’t know how to lie #apoetwhodidnt evenknowit

  “So you and Ryan pulled it all the way back?” he said.

  I held the flowers to my nose, breathed them in. “Looks that way.”

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  I heard the slight edge in his tone. Danny’s relationship to this—to all of this—was complicated. He didn’t like that there was a fake story behind A Little Sunshine, that there were lies he had to remember about where I came from, about how the show had started. Somewhere along the line, though, he thought that the lie had become the truth. I let him believe that many of the recipes Meredith had developed over the years were my recipes. I let him believe I was actually doing my job. I let him believe a lot of things.

  Danny reached into the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of wine. “No one seems to be blogging about it anymore,” he said. “And I read that one of the Real Housewives got pregnant by another housewife’s husband. So that certainly is more exciting than who really came up with your sweet potato hash.”

  I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t help but smile at the effort—given how much I knew it must have pained Danny to look up that headline on TMZ. “So . . . how did Central Park West go?” I said.

  Danny uncorked the wine, shrugged nonchalantly. “Pretty good.”

  “What does that mean?” I said.

  He smiled proudly. “I got the job,” he said.

  I threw my arms around him. This wasn’t just another job. It was a game changer for Danny: a five-thousand-square-foot dream apartment overlooking the park. The type of project that not only ended up in Architectural Digest, it ended up on the cover.

  “That’s so great!” I said.

  “There is a small downside. The job starts right away. So . . .” His smile disappeared. “No Italy.”

  Italy. We were supposed to spend July there—a long-overdue vacation as soon as A Little Sunshine wrapped. We’d eat linguine with clam sauce for every meal, great wine. We’d have proper time away together, to enjoy each other again. And to make the baby Danny desperately wanted. Time we apparently needed—the baby not coming on its own, not coming without a conscious attempt to try.

  “So we’ll postpone,” I said.

  “That’s okay?”

  I waved him off, secretly happy to postpone the baby-making a little longer, and very happy it was his work that was causing us to cancel: Danny disappointing me, as opposed to the other way around.

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Ah, Italy’s terrible this time of year anyway.”

  He laughed, his great laugh. It was kind and open, pulling me into the present moment, and toward him.

  He clocked it. “Thank you.”

  “I wish it was just the two of us tonight, though, so we could celebrate properly.”

  He looked at me, probably hearing it in my voice—something close to the truth. “So let’s cancel the party.”

  I laughed. “We can’t.”

  “Sure we can. Fuck the fake surprise party. I’m serious. We’ll kick it old-style. Order in takeout? Dealer’s choice.”

  I smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

  He moved in close, our faces practically touching. “Let me try and tempt you.”

  He looked serious all of a sudden, a little too serious, hoping that I would agree to play hooky: the two of us camped out in front of the television with a little sushi, a terrible movie playing.

  “If you don’t want the party, let’s forget it,” he said.

  I paused. “Well, it’s not about what I want.”

  “Ah.” He pulled back. “So what? Ryan wants to do some damage control?”

  Danny’s expression changed, almost hardened. Danny used to tolerate Ryan, but the toleration had taken a downturn. He could barely stand to be in the same room with him. And he certainly didn’t care what he thought about anything.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “A performance is probably mandated.”

  “A performance is probably mandated . . .” he said.

  And he laughed, clearly irritated by that response.

  I stared at him, annoyed. How had this conversation taken this turn? Was he seriously angry about a party? I almost bro
ught up Italy again. If anyone was choosing their job over marriage in this conversation, shouldn’t Danny be the one on the hook? And why should I apologize for choosing to protect A Little Sunshine? Which pretty much had purchased the apartment we were arguing in.

  Danny rubbed his hands together, seeing the look in my eye. “Forget I asked,” he said. “If you’ve got to do this tonight, we’ll do it. We’ll have our alone celebration tomorrow.”

  I followed his lead, playing nice. “You promise?” I said.

  “Of course.” He corked the bottle, gave me his winning smile, the one he reserved for just me. “Consider this saved for tomorrow,” he said.

  And we walked toward the bedroom to get ready, a small thing to do together, except when it turns out it’s for the last time.

  5

  Locanda Verde had one of the best private rooms in New York—dark and rustic, with a fireplace and long farm tables. It was a great place to park a party of fifty in, especially this fifty, who would already be on their second martinis, grazing on the passed plates of duck confit and cheese, on the small bowls of fruit, quietly whispering about the drama A Little Sunshine faced that day, pretending they had no doubts in my authenticity.

  Danny and I were perched in the hallway outside, listening, Danny’s hand on the doorknob.

  I took a last look at my outfit, straightening my dress. It was a simple print dress over thick tights, my hair swept up off my face. Understated. Presentable. Considering what kind of day I’d had, I decided that was no small miracle.

  “Ready?” Danny said.

  “Is it too late for sushi and Notting Hill?” I asked.

  “ ’Fraid so,” he said, but he hesitated, his hand still on the doorknob.

  On the other side of the door at my intimate surprise party, Sarah Michaels, a society reporter for Vogue, would be mingling with our college friends Derek and Michelle. Kelly Specter would be snapping a few photographs for Food & Wine. Someone from the New York Post would be talking to my cookbook publisher confirming that the Twitter hack was indeed a fluke. The evening was no longer purely celebratory. It was business.

  “Let’s just get this done,” Danny said. “And get back to the wine waiting for us at home.”