Georgia’s Kitchen

by Jenny Nelson

  “Here?” Georgia asked. “As in this house?”

  “No, not this house. But in Millbrook in some house nearby.”

  “Reminds me of how we met, Hal,” said Dorothy. She was feeling no pain on a record one and a half glasses of wine, plus the Bloody Mary. “The acid part.”

  Georgia chuckled. “I wonder how many other offspring of lawyers and physics professors can say they were conceived at a Dead show while their parents were tripping their faces off?”

  “At least you got a beautiful name out of it, honey.” Her father pressed his palm into his slacks, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle. He’d never been all that comfortable with the conception chapter of the Gray family bio.

  Dorothy and Hal had met in a parking lot on a steamy summer night in Atlanta while waiting to see the Grateful Dead and drinking lukewarm beer that had been—unbeknownst to them—dosed with acid. They passed a dreamy night together dancing, laughing, and staring in wide-eyed wonder at breathing walls and shifting floors, and ended up sleeping in the two-person tent Hal had erected in the parking lot earlier in the day. Nine months later Baby Girl Gray was born.

  “Give us some credit,” Dorothy said. “It was the seventies after all—everyone was getting blotto on blotter.”

  “I’m sure they were,” Georgia said, laughing, “but still.”

  Her parents had a subscription to the Boston Symphony, were regulars at Tanglewood, and traveled to New York three times a year for opera. Despite having heard the story so many times she could recite it by heart—down to her mother’s buffalo-sandal-bedecked feet—Georgia couldn’t picture even a young Dorothy and Hal at a Dead show. Tripping at a Dead show was inconceivable.

  “I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when I told her I was pregnant and getting married. You’d have thought I was joining a polygamist cult.” Dorothy plucked a cigarette from a crumpled pack of American Spirits that had mysteriously materialized from her purse. “She didn’t speak to me for two weeks.”

  Georgia was so transfixed by the cigarette in her mother’s hand that she barely registered her words. “You smoke, Mom?”

  “Only when I’m drinking,” she said, ashing in her wineglass.

  Georgia looked at Hal, who shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

  “Remember when I told my mother I wasn’t going back to law school, Hal? That I was going to stay home with the baby, maybe open an art gallery?” Dorothy dragged on her cigarette. “That didn’t sit well. She said she hadn’t worked her fingers to the bone in that bakery so I could throw my life away. She said I owed it to her and I owed it to my late father’s memory to graduate and practice law. ‘I’m terribly disappointed in you, Dorothy.’ I can still hear her in my head.”

  Georgia frowned. This picture of Grammy didn’t jibe with Georgia’s image of her loving, accepting, always-there-for-her grandmother.

  “Is that how you felt when I decided to become a chef?” she asked.

  “We’re not disappointed in you, honey,” Hal said quickly.

  Dorothy squinted her eye against a stream of smoke slowly curling upward. “Maybe a little bit, Georgia. Yes, I suppose something like that.”

  She’d always known her parents, Dorothy in particular, weren’t thrilled with her choice of career, but neither had ever come out and said it. In a way it was a relief to finally have it out in the open, but it was also maddening.

  “I’m the head chef at a well-known New York City restaurant—it’s not like I’m running the cafeteria at Rikers Island. What’s wrong with being a chef? I’m not fighting pollution, keeping the rivers clean like you do, Mom? Or maybe you’d prefer if I were an entertainment lawyer like Glenn, getting my sketchy clients off on concealed-weapon charges?”

  “Of course not, Georgia. You’re not cut out for law. But it’s not too late to change course. You can still do something with regular hours, something a little more family friendly, a little more… intellectual. You’ve always been a smart girl, Georgia. We never had to worry about your grades.”

  “You never worried about me at all, Mom. You left that to Grammy.”

  “I didn’t have the chance to,” Dorothy said. “Grammy hired someone to run her business the day you were born so that she could raise you and I could be an attorney, just like my dad, just like she’d planned.”

  “Lunch should be served soon,” Hal said, standing up. “Why don’t we all go inside and have something to eat.”

  “Just so you know,” Georgia said, “cooking is intellectual. It’s not all slicing, dicing, and deep-frying. If you’d ever let me prepare a meal for you, you’d see that.”

  “Let you? I don’t recall a recent invitation.” Dorothy stubbed out her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe and laid it on the floor.

  “I’ve given up! You guys make so many excuses about why you can’t come for dinner—even when you’re already in the city for opera or whatever—I finally stopped asking.”

  “The next time we’re in,” Hal said, “we would love to come for dinner. I know I would and so would your mother. Right, Dorothy?” He stared pointedly at her.

  She nodded.

  Paul popped his head out onto the patio, his face brightening when he saw them. “There you Grays are. Lunch is served in the dining room.”

  “We were just coming in,” said Hal.

  Dorothy picked up her cigarette, wrapped the butt in a tissue, and slipped it into her purse so she could dispose of it later. “Perfect timing,” she said, rising from the couch and walking to the door. “I’m starving.”

  Sally charged down the street, pulling Georgia behind her, sloshing through puddles, bypassing all her favorite trees until she caught up with the object of her affection: a Wheaten terrier whose twentysomething owner looked styled for a Vogue fashion shoot no matter the time of day. Georgia glanced down at her own black windbreaker, faded jeans, and Merrell mocs; a killer outfit it wasn’t, but it was Monday morning and the rest of the world was safely working. The two dogs chased each other in circles, rolled on the sidewalk, and got in a few good sniffs before their owners pulled them apart and continued on their ways.

  Yesterday’s visit with her parents had left Georgia woozy, and she headed to the bakery for a sweet treat, Grammy’s prescription for just about everything. Not only had Dorothy finally admitted that Georgia’s job wasn’t quite white-collar enough for her taste (the white chef’s coat apparently didn’t count), but she’d blamed Grammy for making her choose career over motherhood. As if anybody could make her mother do anything she didn’t want to.

  The rain stopped and it settled into one of those gray mornings that seem to occur every couple days during early spring. Georgia leashed Sally to a ginkgo tree outside Pain Quotidien and headed into the bakery, placing her order for a sugar waffle with a side of praline spread and a large café au lait. A teenage boy with nose-skimming bangs stopped to pet Sally, and Georgia watched through the window as her dog’s tail swished from side to side, ready to run out if the boy went anywhere near her collar. A friend at the dog run knew someone whose field spaniel had been dognapped while she waited on line for an iced mochachino, and the story had freaked Georgia out. The boy moved on, and Sally sat back on her haunches. The woman on line behind her cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me. Are you Georgia Gray, the chef at Marco?” Her ash-blond hair was swept into a chignon, and her skin was smooth and a little pink, as if she’d just had a chemical peel. She wore black trousers, those Belgian shoes with the tiny bows, and she carried a pebbled-leather satchel. A lady who lunched, a well-kept sixty-five, sixty-eight tops.

  Georgia smiled. “Yes, I am. Have we met?”

  “No, we haven’t. But I believe I saw you yesterday at Paul Gray’s farm in Millbrook.”

  “Oh, right, Paul is my uncle.”

  “I was hoping to meet you, but you disappeared suddenly.”

  “I hadn’t seen my parents in a while,” Georgia said. “We had a lot to talk about.”

  �
�I saw your picture in that Big Apple Business magazine. ‘35 under 35,’ I think the article was called. That’s how I recognized you.”

  The editor of BAB was a friend of Clem’s who’d been looking for a young chef to spice up an article about bland business types. That Georgia was a woman—and attractive—had ensured not only a nice blurb and pull quote, but a flattering photo as well.

  “Have you had a chance to come into the restaurant?” Georgia asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I had the distinct pleasure of dining at your establishment once, just a few weeks ago.” The woman spoke in an expensive voice, sounding like a cross between Lauren Bacall and Madonna, after she’d decided to become British.

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed your meal.”

  “It was lovely. The scallops were fantastic, the tuna divine, but the venison was a tad too salty for my tastes.” The woman whispered this last bit under a cupped hand, then laughed. Georgia liked her immediately.

  “I hope you’ll come in again. We always appreciate discriminating palates.” Georgia bent her head toward the woman. “And I promise to go easy on the salt this time.”

  A pair of doctors in matching green hospital scrubs and black clogs descended the stairs and joined the line. One of them checked her beeper, said something to her friend, and charged back up the stairs.

  “Wonderful. As a matter of fact”—the woman pulled a Louis Vuitton day planner from her bag and flipped through its pages—“I’d love to come in tomorrow night at eight.” She looked at Georgia and waited, clearly a woman accustomed to getting what she wanted.

  “I’ll take care of it. And for whom shall I make the reservation?”

  “Henderson. Barbara Henderson. Dinner for four. Here’s my card.” She handed Georgia an eggshell-colored calling card engraved with her name and phone numbers. Georgia noted the card’s heft and subtle sheen, trademarks of Dempsey & Carroll stationery, before sliding it into her back pocket. Glenn’s mom had wanted the posh stationer to do their wedding invites, but the cost made Georgia’s eyes bug out of her head. There was no way she would have paid that much for paper.

  “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Henderson.” Georgia scooped up the little brown bag waiting on the counter and turned toward the door. “Thanks,” she said to the heavily pierced barista. The girl looked at her blankly, and Georgia wondered which had hurt more: the silver hoop in her nose or the pair through her eyebrow.

  “Please. Mrs. Henderson is my mother-in-law. Call me Huggy. Everyone does.”

  “Well then, see you tomorrow, Huggy.”

  Georgia untied Sally, then called the restaurant on her cell and left a message for the reservationist. Marco got annoyed with last-minute reservations from the staff, but after the Mercedes Sante review she didn’t think he’d care. VIP, she said on the message. Table nine if it’s available, and at least table sixteen. She had a feeling Huggy was worth it.

  The next afternoon Georgia flew into the restaurant, her navy trench flapping behind her as she blasted by the busboys setting up for dinner. Despite her most timely intentions, she was late. It had been nearly impossible to rouse herself out of bed, and she wondered if the little pink pill she’d swallowed was somehow to blame.

  On top of that, she had had to wait forever for the F train. When it finally came, it looked as if it’d been stuffed by the white-gloved people packers who work the Tokyo subway during rush hour. The thought of squeezing into some sweaty straphanger’s armpit was as appetizing as a mug of hot-dog water, so she waited for the next one.

  Bernard stopped talking when she arrived, pushing back his shirtsleeve and peering at the Roman numerals on his wristwatch. His sandy hair was parted on the side with just enough product to hold it in place without making it too shiny or crunchy. He always looked perfectly put together, his face freshly shaved, Windsor knot expertly tied, and today was no exception.

  “Seventeen minutes late, Georgia. May I remind you that we expect you, as we do everyone, to arrive on time. Not”—he stared down his long nose at her—“seventeen minutes late.”

  She smiled coolly and took the seat next to Ricky, annoyed that the review wasn’t acting as the get-out-of-jail-free card she thought it would. Good thing her staff liked her, otherwise after that rebuke they’d pounce on her like stockbrokers on steak.

  “Bad timing, Chef,” Ricky whispered.

  Georgia swung her bag from her shoulder and hung it over the back of a chair. “What?” she mouthed.

  He shook his head. “Later.”

  “As I was saying,” Bernard continued. “Basic crowd: a few front-row fashion-show fixtures whose outfits cost more than our weekly salaries combined, Greenwich soccer moms toting fat husbands with even fatter wallets, uptown slums downtown, and a handful of overstuffed gourmands who fancy themselves foodies.” He wrinkled his nose. “God, I hate that word.” He flipped through the reservation list on his clipboard. “We do have one legitimate VIP: megamillionaire Huggy Henderson, philanthropist extraordinaire. Once again, the review will be out tomorrow.” He tucked the red clipboard under his arm. “God help us all.”

  “What happened to ‘keep the champagne flowing, we’ve just hit the restaurant-review jackpot’?” Georgia asked. “Bernard?”

  He whizzed by without answering, either ignoring or not hearing her. While the meeting devolved into an eating and gossip fest, Georgia followed him to the front of the restaurant, catching up with him at the hostess stand.

  “Bernard,” she said loudly. “What is going on?”

  When he turned to her, the smile on his face was so meager, so pitiful, so the opposite of what a smile should be, that she knew the news was going to be very, very bad.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Georgia.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “It looks like the three-fork isn’t happening.”

  Her stomach dropped. “What happened? What did Marco do?”

  “Exactly what you think.”

  “Bernard, please tell me.”

  “Okay,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Saturday night, the night you were off, there was a very pretty, very young girl sitting at the bar. As is his wont, Marco was only too happy to flirt with her and ply her with free booze. Once he’d gotten her sufficiently sauced, he did what any self-respecting scumbag would do. He took her home. The next night, when she was seated on the very same stool, he was a little less happy. I think his words were something along the lines of ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’” Bernard paused. “Anyway, the girl stayed, drank a couple drinks, full fare this time, and broke down when Marco left with a different drunk girl on his arm. One of the waitresses spent half an hour consoling her in the bathroom, and we finally got her in a cab home. I’m sure you already know the punch line, but just in case: she was Mercedes’s daughter. Mercedes’s only daughter.”

  Georgia closed her eyes. “What’s the damage, Bernard? Did we lose a fork?”

  “If only. Looks like we’re down to one.”

  “One fork? From three to one? You can’t cut a review by two forks because of the restaurant’s scumbag owner!”

  “I’m afraid you can. Especially when said scumbag groped and pawed your nubile daughter, all nineteen years and ninety-nine pounds of her, and then cast her out like yesterday’s coffee grounds. I’m afraid you can.”

  “I can’t believe this. I cannot fucking believe this.” Georgia needed the review. Especially with everything else going on, she needed the review.

  Bernard cleared his throat. “Speak of the scumbag devil.”

  Marco stood in the doorway, white motorcycle helmet in hand, black wraparound sunglasses shading his eyes. With his cosmetically enhanced grin and tight T-shirt, he looked like the grown-up member of a long-defunct boy band.

  She turned around and walked back to the locker room, passing Ricky, who held up a piece of wan broccoli to his mouth before inspecting it and returning it to his plate. The one thing helping her keep her shit together a
mid all the crap with Glenn, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, had just gone Alaskan-oil-spill black. A one-fork review was a career breaker. A fire-the-chef, scrap-the-name, change-the-decor, if-you-even-stay-open kind of review. She was screwed. And all because of Marco and his fucking libido.

  Dressed and ready for dinner prep, Georgia went outside to nurse her nerves before service. Ricky stood smoking with the garde-manger, who spoke little English and cleared his phlegmy throat frequently as if to make up for it. Ricky blew a smoke ring Georgia’s way and joined her on the step.

  “You okay?”

  “Jesus, Ricky, this is going to be really bad.”

  “Remember what you said that night. It’s not our funeral, it’s Marco’s. You said it, Chef.”

  “The thing is, Ricky, I was lying when I said that. It’s not Marco’s funeral, it’s not your funeral, it’s my funeral. One hundred percent.” She looked down at the butts littering the ground. “Can I have a cigarette?”

  “You don’t smoke, Georgia. You know, it may not be as bad as we all think. Maybe she’ll surprise us and give us two forks. That’s more than respectable.” He stomped out his cigarette. “Come on. Let’s grab some joe.”

  The Juilliard-trained-cellist-cum-waitress who had been Mercedes’s server made them two cappuccinos. “Georgia, don’t sweat the review. Everyone knows what happened. No one will blame you. Here,” she said, handing over the coffees. “Extra foam.”

  “Thanks,” Georgia said, amazed at how quickly bad news spread. She slugged down her cappuccino, her inner strength dissipating faster than her career prospects.

  Ricky motioned toward the doorway, where Marco stood, legs wide, hands behind his back. At least he’d lost the shades.

  “Guys.” Marco strutted toward the group, his hands palming the air, his eyes resting on the waitress’s well-endowed chest.

  Scumbag, Georgia thought for the millionth time that day. And he wasn’t even good in bed.