The Girl Who Can Cook_A Novel of Revenge and Ramen Noodles

by Mike Wehner

  With and Without You

  PAGE 117

  Falling in love is such an appropriate phrase. It starts with a like and after a while that gains some momentum and you begin to stumble. The faster you go the more scared you get and before you know it, whack! Your face smashes into the ground and you’re dizzy and tingly and in love. It’s actually cornier than every rom-com makes it out to be. It’s sillier. At least that’s how it was for me.

  John was my first real love and even though it was brief and tragic it’s all the evidence I need to know that it’s a reason for being, the reason. There’s no terror love can’t quell. Love of a man, a parent, a sibling, love of life itself—these are better reasons to persevere than any I’ve found. We’re designed to give and receive love, it’s what brings us together to make more people and continue the wonderful human experiment. I remember the exact moment I fell in love with John, when I saw stars and felt like I’d hit my head.

  We’d only been dating a few weeks when he asked me to go to a wedding with him. This was a big step. It wasn’t a fun wedding where you get together with all your friends. It was a family wedding where there’d be parents and siblings and a crotchety grandmother who’d want me to put on more clothes no matter how conservative my outfit.

  It was early fall, a seaside wedding on the Atlantic coast. John’s first cousin was marrying his high school sweetheart. His cousin was the pride of the family for being a Major League hopeful. I found that funny, even in a family where most everyone was financially successful they all loved the guy who made a few hundred bucks a week playing baseball the most because he was doing something they could tell people about. Nobody brags that their brother is really big into material science and is making progress towards inventing plastic that doesn’t add itself to the big choking continent of swirling refuse in the Pacific.

  It was the first weekend I’d taken off work in over a year. I remember packing during the day on Friday and feeling guilty I wasn’t going to be there for service at the busiest time of the week. My suitcase was filled with every dress I owned. I didn’t know these people, didn’t know what the vibe was going to be so I prepared for every possible contingency.

  John got to my place after lunch and it was a beautiful two hour drive to Virginia Beach. Sometimes the best part of a trip is being stuffed into a car with someone, there aren’t any distractions. No phones or laptops, only the buzz of the tires on the highway and music if you can agree on it. John talked the whole time and it was wonderful. He told me about every family member I was going to meet, what schools they went to, which one of their children disappointed them the most. It’s especially nice to hear about someone’s family when you’re going to put a face to a name in a matter of hours. John didn’t seem nervous to introduce me to his family. “They’ll like you,” he said, “what you do is interesting and you’re good at it.”

  “They don’t know that,” I told him.

  “Oh yes they do, you seem like you can do anything. That’s how they’ll know you’re good.”

  That comment really stuck with me, on the one hand it was shitty. But I know the feeling of seeing a sidewalk artist who is homeless and immediately assuming the art is bad because they don’t look like they are capable of something great. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a gut reaction, something I can’t control and I think many people can empathize with. If I was some random girl who cooked for a living to get by then that wouldn’t be anything special, nothing to commend. But if you love a career and are passionate about it—that is something you can talk about.

  John’s parents were in the lobby bar when we got to the hotel, they were so sweet.

  “You must be the beautiful chef we’ve heard so much about,” his mom Victoria said to me, ignoring her son. She smelled like rosemary and lavender when she darted in for an unsuspecting hug.

  I thought the atmosphere would be stuffy the way John was so proper and judgmental, but everyone in the family was warm and loving. It was a mixed bag of people like any other wedding, all walks of life. There was even that random cousin in jean shorts at the reception who never ventured more than a few steps from the bar. The hotel was on the beach. Late Saturday night John took my hand after we said goodnight to the older folks heading up to bed and led me down the long, reedy path to the sand. We kicked our fancy shoes under a bench and took a starlight stroll.

  “My shoes aren’t broken in very well, my feet ache,” John said to me. He hopped when a cool wave washed up over his toes.

  “You should have taken them off like the girls.” The bride and groom were on their game and had a bucket of cheap flip-flops next to the dance floor so that as soon as everyone was drunk the high heels got traded for something less stylish but more comfortable.

  “A man should never wear flip-flops unless he’s on a boat. Even then it’s iffy.” He kicked water at me. “Besides, you don’t know where they’ve been. Get your feet in the water, the salt might kill whatever got on your feet.”

  The yellow moon was almost full and low on the horizon. The water looked like it was topped with a thin sheet of glowing glass.

  “Truth or dare?” I said being silly.

  “Oh I’m not playing any games with you, remember what happened when we tried to play spades with Tim and Margot?”

  “They were giving each other signs! You didn’t see it, I did!”

  We giggled as the lights from the hotel became a tiny candle in the distance.

  “Truth or dare?” John asked me.

  “Dare,” I said.

  “I dare you to jump in.”

  My dress was down before he finished his sentence and I bound into the water in my underwear, knees high to keep from falling. It was chilly and the adrenaline rush erased the wine from the reception. John laughed as the water got taller and I tripped headlong into the shimmering black pool.

  He shook his head at me and put his jacket around my shivering body. John hesitated for a second before letting it touch my skin, I could hear him calculate in his mind whether or not the salt would do anything to his sport coat.

  “Truth or dare?” I said. We turned back towards the hotel and my sequined dress was over John’s far shoulder.

  “Truth.”

  “Why are you so pretentious? I expected this to be so stuffy the way you are.”

  He let out a huff and gave me a wry grin. “Is that how you see me?”

  “Absolutely, you asked if there was a tray of crudités at the happy hour.

  “Words have specific meanings, someone needs to respect that.

  “You smell your wine way longer than you should before you drink it, how about that?” I said. He laughed.

  “I always thought of myself as particular, let me think about it.”

  We jerked our feet through the sand making sure we didn’t get back to the hotel too quickly.

  “My family didn’t always have money, you know. I’m the oldest, the first born by five years. Mom and Dad earned every penny they have, they lived the real American dream where you build a business and a life together and are successful. The two of them spent years fabricating signs for businesses with their own hands in our garage. He welded and installed, she painted and handled the paperwork. That was before all the secretaries and assistants and franchises. It was just them and had they not been a perfect match it wouldn’t have been possible.”

  “I’ll bet they weren’t around a lot.”

  “They were never far away, all that time I was sleeping they were building a future for me in the garage.

  “One Christmas, I was probably five, we had a tree and there were a few presents for me but I was a greedy little child who wanted to snoop. One night I got curious and surreptitiously made my way downstairs after my parents went to bed and peeked into the overflowing stockings on the mantle,” he paused.

  “And?”

  “They were full of potatoes. By the time Christmas came mine had a few bits of candy and maybe some socks, but I’ll
never forget that feeling. Knowing that Mom wanted to give me the illusion of bounty to try and make Christmas special. They told me that they would open their gifts later but I knew all they had were vegetables.”

  John opened up his wallet and picked a white folded sheet from behind a credit card. He opened it and it was a picture of a russet potato.

  “This is why I want all the best things in life. I don’t want them handed to me, I want them because I am going to go out and get them. I expect so much from the people around me because of this potato. Because every day I strive for real bounty and not some illusion. I don’t ever want to have to pretend.”

  Right then, right there, I fell in love.

  Twenty-five

  Charlie didn’t tell me he’d given up the battle with his hairline, I didn’t recognize his bald head when it popped out of the cab in front of my house. His tan was uneven, the top of his skull much darker than his face. Charlie was stocky and powerful like the bears he chased around the woods.

  “Nice digs, I thought it was expensive here,” Charlie said after a joyous hug. He slung a yellow backpack over his shoulder.

  “Don’t get too excited, I rent the basement.”

  We walked through the back garden.

  “I smell weed,” Charlie said.

  Charlie was always trying to get people high, he wanted to be liked. It’s what made him beta-friend material.

  “That’s Annie, it’s her house.”

  Annie spent half her time gardening and the other half getting wasted, sometimes she even did them together. She had a foam stool for protecting her knees while digging and I’d found her passed out in the yard a few times resting her head on it as a pillow.

  “Can we get some from her, we’ve gotta get turnt tonight.”

  “What the fuck is turnt?”

  “That’s what the kids say now.”

  “How the hell do you know that, did a beaver tell you?”

  “Dude, I sit around on my phone all day, the park has better WiFi than most coffee shops. The woods are super dense, the forest floor is all thick and squishy. People lose the trail all the time and have to call for help.”

  Charlie threw his bag on the couch. “So what do you have planned for this weekend?”

  “Tonight we’re going out with a few friends. It’s a nice place, hope you brought something to wear.”

  “Can I wear jeans?”

  “Of course, not sure one of my shirts will fit you though.”

  “Whiskey and steaks I hope.”

  “I’m sure they’ll have steak, it might be a bunch of courses though. I’ve never been there.”

  “Then why the balls are we going?”

  “It’s not like you need a jacket and tie. This guy who works there did something very bad, and we’re going to punish him.”

  “Fuck yeah, what’s the plan?”

  Charlie’s face lit up and he rubbed his hands together. I rummaged through the fridge thinking about how to approach this tactfully.

  “Step one,” I said and threw him a beer, “we get turnt.”

  ◆◆◆

  Mike’s tour bus pulled in front of the house at seven, it was a decent hike to Red Apple but we had a mobile bar to keep us occupied. A young Hispanic girl in a baseball cap was driving. She cheered along with the guys as Charlie and I stepped in. The first step to making a night great is exclaiming how great it will be. Tonight the canned cheering had an electric undertone, we weren’t hoping to find trouble—I was on a mission to create it.

  Mike brought a Navy friend named Justin, a career guy who had pleats in his jeans and lived down in San Diego.

  “Did you tell them about the one in Denver?” Justin said.

  Mike wore tight, fashionable clothes with patterns I’d never dare. He wasn’t showing off for girls. Once you pass the minimum physical threshold for women it doesn’t matter how sleek your body gets. Women can tell if they want to sleep with you through a winter coat and snow pants. Those veins on his arms and softball shoulders were a message to men—I am better than you.

  “I don’t talk about that shit,” Mike said.

  “Come on man, I always loved your work stories,” Justin said and then looked at Charlie and me, “you won’t regret this.”

  “I’ll give you some fucking work stories,” Charlie said.

  “No way they’re this good.”

  “Fine. So I worked as a mortician in the Navy,” he began, “there’s not a lot of us.”

  “How did you get into that?” Charlie asked, confused.

  Mike was embarrassed about what he did, his voice got soft so we huddled up like we were sitting around a camp fire. Charlie and I were already drunk and trying to hide it with quiet voices.

  “I went to mortuary school because my family owns funeral homes. One day a body gets reeled in and it’s so fat they have to use two rolling tables to get the poor bastard inside. I was praying we don’t have a viewing for this guy because my partner was this tiny Korean and it was hard enough for us to move regular bodies around.”

  “I thought the military had fitness tests,” I said.

  “The Navy is responsible for contractors and foreign nationals, all different kinds of people and not just sailors.”

  We took turns pulling from a nasty bottle of cinnamon flavored whiskey.

  “Thankfully it wasn’t a burial, it was a cremation. Earlier that week we had a new crematory installed, a high power unit to cut down on burn time. There are rules about how burned a body has to be, legally, so the more power the better.

  “The install guys tested it but I hadn’t used it. It took six people to get this lumpy bastard in the kiln. He was thickest in the center so we slid his feet in first then kneaded and punched down his gut with all twelve hands to get him through the doorway. As a joke someone said we should have trussed him up like a pig.

  “Once we shoved him in I turned on the heat. A few minutes later all these alarms and buzzers were going off and we weren’t totally familiar with this new equipment so my partner and I had no idea what it meant other than it can’t be good. It was hundreds of degrees too hot and molten fat was leaking out of the cracks of the door. I cut off the power but the heat kept rising.”

  I couldn’t believe this is what Mike did for a living. We were dumbfounded but hanging on his every word.

  “There was nobody on the base to help,” Mike continued, “I couldn’t open the door to spread out the heat because the boiling fat was eating through the floor and it would be like cutting a bigger hole in the top of a volcano. I was afraid we were going to get trapped behind a flame wall. The brick in the oven could have cracked and burned the whole goddamn building down. I ran and called the manufacturer.

  “A guy named Cookie answered with a thick southern drawl. Drips of fat are sizzling on the tile in one ear and Cookie was in the other calmly telling me when the body started to burn all that melting fat and cellulite created a bubbling pool of grease. It didn’t matter that the oven was off, there was a mountain of fuel inside.

  “He said to call the fire department just in case it all went up and to get some twine next time and truss that body up like a Sunday roast to cook it nice and even like.” Mike paused for a second. “So what do you do Charlie?”

  Charlie was usually the guy with interesting work stories. He had a lot of stupid ones too, about nature’s power or beauty or whatever new age philosophical shit he was into. In between the redundancies and proselytizing there were moments of insight.

  “I’m a warden at a state park in Oregon,” Charlie said.

  “That’s really cool,” Justin said.

  “My main job is to keep people from getting eaten by black bears.”

  “Anyone ever die on your watch?”

  “No, a few people have been attacked and a bunch deserved to die but were lucky that the bears they wanted pictures of weren’t hungry.”

  Mike went into the back and pulled out a plastic container full of gummy candy
that smelled like Annie’s couch. I took it from his hands and held it up like a proud best man at the end of his speech.

  “Haven’t had a night out with the guys in a long time, to friendships old and new.”

  “Turnt,” Charlie said and snatched the candy.

  We bobbled up the highway exchanging stories and hoping the pot gummies would hit us soon. I revised tales about me and Charlie from college that left out our other friends. I did it to make Charlie feel good and hopefully prevent some drunken breakdown with John this and John that. Also, I had to keep the conversation away from the present. Mike knew too much and Charlie knew too little.

  “Charlie, shit man how many did you eat?” Mike asked.

  “A dozen or so,” he said, “they’re only ten milligrams each, right?”

  Mike laughed in his face. “Maybe that pussy shit you get up north, those are fifties brother.”

  “Dude, dude,” Charlie begged, “that’s so much, am I gonna be alright?”

  “Boys, we came to start some shit and now we have a wrecking ball,” Mike said as the bus stopped.

  “Dude. Guys. Should I throw up?”

  “We get tested so I don’t know anything about edibles, did he eat a lot?” Justin asked.

  “Guys, seriously, am I gonna die?”

  Mike and I glanced at each other. I didn’t have a plan and for the first time in my life I was alright with it.

  Twenty-six

  Red Apple was in an old barn with copper slapped on the roof to make it look cultured. The four of us walked a romantically lit cobblestone path to the front and were seated immediately.

  “Why are we fucking with this chef guy?” Charlie said. His head was starting to bobble, consciousness wandering off.

  I cut Mike off when he tried to answer Charlie’s question. “Mike and I met because we know both know the same girls, sisters.”