Comfort Food

by Kate Jacobs

  “What’s going on, old friend?” Gus said softly. “If Alan wants me off the air, he could just fire me. Adios. A professional divorce.”

  “Gus, believe me when I tell you I’m confused myself,” Porter said, leaningforward. “If you go, I’ll go with you. But we’re not out yet.”

  “That was just so out of control,” Gus said, covering her face with her hands. “What if I’d had a meltdown? On-air hysterics?”

  “He gambled you wouldn’t walk off the air.”

  “No, I’d never do something like that.” She couldn’t shake the looming worry that welled up inside her, at once familiar and yet still surprising. “It all just makes me wonder who to trust.”

  Too often, she realized with frustration, you never know what someone is going to do until they do it. At fifty, she was still learning.

  “Actually, as much as I hate to say so, it was damn fun television,” said Porter. “Your energy was great.”

  Gus leaned her head back into the chair, closed her eyes. “God only gives us what we can handle, right?”

  “Exactly,” said Porter.

  Her brown eyes flashed open. “That’s what someone said to me at Christopher’s funeral,” she said crisply. " ’God only gives us what we can handle.’ It’s a shitty line that people tell you so you don’t fall apart and make things messy. For them.”

  Porter shook his head. “You’re a tough cookie, good on your feet. Some people fall apart in a crisis.”

  She regarded him curiously.

  “Oh, Porter, not you.” Gus sighed. “I never thought you’d try to pass off a lame pep talk as compassion.”

  She got out of the chair.

  “Don’t think that because I’ve weathered many storms it’s easy for me to sail on through,” she said. “We all have our breaking point.”

  “No one is going to break you, Gus,” said Porter. “I’ll make sure there are no more surprise stunts. But at the end of the day, we all have to answer to Alan.

  “It’s a tough game in TV these days,” he continued. “We’ve got to play it smart. I’ve got Ellie to think about.”

  Gus understood. Family first. For all their tough talk, neither of them wanted to be out of a job. Hadn’t she always done everything she could to keep Sabrina and Aimee’s world together?

  “We’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Of course.” She nodded, her natural reaction to put someone at ease, before she was barely aware of it. But inside she was frightened.

  “You know we can take care of the dishes, right?” Porter asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Of course,” she said, motioning in the direction of the kitchen. “But they don’t.”

  The messy spatulas, forks, spoons, and knives were piled by the sink; the pots had yet to be collected together. Aimee stood at the center island, lookingwoefully at the congealing octopus salad, holding her shortish brown hair in her hands.

  Oliver came up behind her. “Hey, that’s how I went bald,” he said, pokingher hands quickly.

  “Do we save the leftovers or what?”

  “You could give it to the cats,” said Oliver, winking.

  “They’re vegan,” replied Aimee. But she smiled back. “At the very least we can finish off this sangria.”

  Oliver poured out four glassfuls from a pitcher, taking care to place pieces of sliced orange and lemon in each one.

  “All right, let’s get going,” Troy said, rubbing his hands together. “I want to clean this up and get back into the city.” He leaned over to Sabrina. “We can ride the train together.”

  “Umm, no, we can’t,” she said testily. “It’s ridiculous the way you’re followingme around.” She accepted a glass from Oliver.

  “I’m not following you—we’re on a TV show together.”

  “Get real, Troy! If my mother wasn’t such a busybody, we wouldn’t be seeing each other anymore,” Sabrina said, her blue eyes flashing with anger. She whipped off the rubber gloves she’d been wearing to conceal her diamond.“And by the way, I’m engaged.”

  Aimee looked at Oliver and rolled her eyes, then mouthed, “And by the way . . . ” The two shared a bit of mirthless laughter, feeling awkward and sorry for Troy.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “I was quite clear, Troy. I’m getting married.”

  Troy stared hard at the slender, pretty, black-haired girl standing in front of him.

  “We’ve barely broken up,” he said. “I know math isn’t your thing but this seems to add up to ‘too quick’ and ‘damn stupid,’ if you ask me.”

  Aimee reached out to bring her arms between the two of them and made the time-out signal with her hands.

  “Innocent bystanders here,” she said. “Can’t the two of you go off and talk somewhere else? There’s only about a zillion rooms at Mom’s.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with Troy.” Sabrina folded her arms and waited.

  “Oh, wait a second,” Aimee said, looking at her palm and pretending to contact an imaginary report. “Yes, you are. Because you’ve just been evicted from the kitchen. And not to go all bad mommy on the two of you, but if you can’t be in the same room, then just be merciful and go somewhere else. Together, separately, I don’t care.”

  “You’re very rude, you know that?” said Troy.

  “Just direct,” replied Aimee. “There’s a difference. And I have dishes to do.”

  Sabrina marched out of the room toward the hall, with Troy on her heels. “Don’t think we’re not going to talk about this,” he said.

  Aimee turned on her mother’s under-counter CD player for a little music, hoping to drown out the sound of Troy and Sabrina’s raised voices.

  “Ah, ambience,” said Oliver. “Just what I like when I scour pots.”

  “Oliver, what’s your deal?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I Googled you,” Aimee said, opening drawers to find some rubber gloves. “And I asked a couple guys from school about you. Apparently you’re a bit of a legend downtown. A money man.”

  Oliver scrubbed at a bit of grit stuck on a lid. He waved off Aimee’s offer of gloves.

  “We all have talents,” he said. “Mine is cooking great food. But I’m also lucky. I made a nice chunk of change for a lot of people, including several who needed more money like they needed another hole in the head.”

  “I thought men like you believed there could never be enough moola.”

  “Men like I used to be, maybe,” he said. “But don’t tell me you’re one of those rich kids who pretends to hate wealth? That doesn’t become you.”

  “Oh, I don’t hate money,” said Aimee. “I’d just like to see more of it spread around the world.”

  “What’s your specialty?”

  “The economics of agricultural development.”

  “How’d you come up with that?”

  “My parents both spent time in Africa working with local sugar farmers when they were in the Peace Corps,” she said. “I used to love to watch old slides from when they were in Burkina Faso.”

  “I didn’t know that about Gus.”

  “Yuppers, back in the day she was practically a revolutionary. Off to bring peace and salvation to all the world.”

  “And now she teaches couch potatoes to fold napkins and to survive Carmen Vega’s octopus salad,” said Oliver. “You disapprove.”

  Grabbing a blue-and-white-striped dish towel, Aimee took the pot from Oliver. She surveyed the kitchen: it was coming along. Every so often, the sound of Sabrina’s voice floated into the room, high-pitched and even a little squeaky. Quietly she dried a dish.

  “Nope,” she said after a time. “My mom likes what she does. And there’s no shame in a job well done. My father used to say that.” She paused. “He would tell knock-knock jokes at dinner.”

  “Gus doesn’t seem like a jokester,” ventured Oliver.

  Aimee opened her mouth, prepared to stand up for her mom. It was her instinctual reactio
n.

  “She’s very elegant,” he continued. “She has a certain presence.”

  Aimee relaxed her defenses.

  “Yeah, that’s my mom. It’s like she has this aura around her.”

  “Or armor.”

  “She wasn’t always like that. She was huggier back in the day.”

  “Huggy? Gus?” Oliver’s tone was light.

  “The house was messy when we were kids,” said Aimee. She felt an unusual exhilaration as she spoke, as though revealing a secret. “Mom was a terrible housekeeper.”

  “But now it’s so neat here.” Oliver continued to wash. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving this place less than spic and span.”

  “She has a cleaning person, of course, but she’s neater now. Very organized.” Aimee nodded. “I like that about her—the lack of tidiness used to drive me bonkers. Dad, too.”

  There was something tremendously pleasant, she realized, about being able to talk so easily about her father. She rarely did that with her sister or her mother. Sometimes, with one or two of her close friends, Aimee shared her haphazard collection of memories from the time before Christopher died, when it wasn’t so crucial that she be good and helpful and quiet. It hadn’t been a seamless transition, but now she could almost suffocate on her own reliability. Most often, though, she just kept her thoughts to herself. She kept a lot of things to herself. It was easier for everyone.

  Yet somehow she enjoyed chatting with Oliver. She told him about the little bungalow they’d all lived in before Gus had purchased the manor house, how she and Sabrina put tape down the middle of the floor in their shared bedroom. How they worked after school in The Luncheonette, and how, after all these years, she was still sharing an apartment with Sabrina.

  “She couldn’t make her own rent, there’s no way,” said Aimee. “I’ve been on my own since college but I suspect Mom continues to pay Sabrina’s credit cards.”

  Oliver laughed. “I pay my parents’ credit cards,” he said.

  “It’s not the same and you know it.”

  “So you wish your mom would give you money?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I want.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  Aimee could see her reflection in the window, standing next to Oliver; it was dark outside and her face was reflected in the glass.

  “You’re sneaky,” she said. “I’m usually not much of a talker.”

  “Listening is something I’m working on.”

  “Like therapy?”

  “Like personal goals I set for myself,” said Oliver. “Spiritual nutrition.”

  “That’s big,” said Aimee. “Or crazy.”

  “Being malnourished isn’t always about a lack of food,” he said.

  Aimee blushed, feeling a sudden sense of unease about sharing so much.

  “So you just walked away from it all?” she said, turning the conversation back to Oliver.

  “I didn’t walk away from it,” he said. “I walked away with it. More money than any man reasonably needs. I just left the stress and the more-is-more mentality behind.”

  “You don’t need to work on this show, then.”

  "Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I need to work on this show more than anything.”

  14

  For the second time that evening, the library was occupied, its heavy wood doors closed. This time, however, Sabrina had positioned herself in the cushioned chair behind the large cherry desk. Her hope had been to seem intimidating, or at the very least self-assured, though instead she appeared to be even more of a little girl playing big.

  Troy took up a place across from her, occasionally pacing but more often yelling.

  “My mother is sleeping upstairs,” said Sabrina. “Can’t you pipe down? You’re coming onto this TV show when you should be out of my life!”

  “Being on Eat Drink and Be isn’t about you,” shouted Troy. “No, wait. I’m not going to pretend here. Yes, I like to see you, Sabrina. But I need to boost my company’s revenues—a lot—and I’m just trying to promote my business.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve worked out a deal with Porter to start wearing T-shirts promoting FarmFresh,” he explained. “My new wardrobe starts in the next show. Deal with it.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “Shouldn’t you be paying for that?”

  “Gus is an investor, remember?” He spoke sharply. The company was doing mostly all right, but an influx of cash would ease his mind. Going out on his own had created more pressure than anticipated: turns out that livinga dream can create as many new problems as it solves old ones.

  “Of course,” said Sabrina. She affected exasperation, even trying to fake a bored yawn. Inside, however, her heart was racing. It was exciting to see him so riled up: the anger had brought a flush to his cheeks and reminded her of what he was like when they’d slept together.

  And Troy was definitely good in bed.

  Strong and intense and seemingly indefatigable, he approached the study of her body as seriously as he took running his business. Troy was a man driven by passions. All her other boyfriends, even Billy, hadn’t actually demanded much from her. In bed or out of it.

  “What do you want?” That’s what Troy had asked her once, late at night, an invitation to play. She’d been asked that question before, a soft murmur in between kisses, but it never actually required an answer. “What do you want?” he’d asked, and then waited for her to articulate her desires. “Talk to me,” he’d whispered. It was horrifying, frightening. It was one of the reasons she’d had to leave him.

  Now, Sabrina stared at the finger pointing at her. The same finger that had caressed her only months ago. Funny how things changed.

  “How long have you been seeing this guy?”

  “A while,” said Sabrina. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Troy waved both hands at her in disgust.

  “I didn’t mean.” He wondered if stupider words had ever been spoken. What did she mean, then? That if there had been more time, she’d have sent a handwritten note on personal stationery to break the news, gently and euphemistically? That he could have folded up the letter and put it in a drawer, sad but with a veneer of happiness at Sabrina’s good fortune? Ha! No, there was no question that Sabrina wouldn’t have said a word: he would have found out she was getting married by reading an announcement in the New York Times. Before Sabrina, he’d never even known about the wedding announcements, never even read the Style section. But she had read them carefully and often aloud, sharing the details of the marrying couple, their colleges and parents’ occupations, perhaps the funny story of how they met. At one time, he’d found her obsession with weddings to be cute. Part of her Sabrina charm. Like her smiliness and willingness to laugh.

  He knew he’d gotten in deep when he found himself muttering while in the shower or using the weight machine at the gym, composing an imaginaryannouncement to run the day of their wedding. He had planned to write it out and give it to her when he proposed. As if on autopilot, he went over the words in his mind right now:

  Sabrina Simpson, an up-and-coming interior designer and the youngest daughter of CookingChannel host Gus Simpson and the late Christopher Simpson,was wed today to Troy Park. Mr. Park, who graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon, is a daring entrepreneur and the CEO of FarmFresh,the first national supplier of fresh fruits to vending machines in schools, hospitals, and airports. His parents, Jin and Soo Park, both born in Korea, are the hardworking owners of a fruit orchard in Hood River, Oregon. Mr. Park also has one sister, Alice.

  The couple met when Miss Simpson was hired to decorate the midtown office of FarmFresh.

  “I had vision,” says Mr. Park. “But she had the style.”

  “Troy?”

  “Do you know what I’d like?” he asked, outraged by her behavior, annoyed at having been jostled out of his thoughts. “An explanation.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to explain
, as concisely as possible since I have an important meeting tomorrow, just what the hell happened.” He came around the desk and leaned back against it, his head arched in such a way that she could see the muscles in his neck. Troy had liked having his neck kissed, she recalled.

  She’d liked kissing his neck.

  “I had to move on,” Sabrina said.

  “What did I do?” Troy was pained.

  Sabrina had made up a reason when she broke up with her first boyfriend:she told him his feet smelled. Later, she felt guilty about fibbing and vowed to use easy lines with other guys: It’s not you, it’s me. I wish things were different. It’s hard to explain.

  Problem was, all the lines were the truth.

  Troy was unique among all the men she’d dated. He tried having smoothies for breakfast, just because he liked eating what she was eating. He suggested they have sleepovers without sex and stay up all night watchingcomedies and eating popcorn. (Though of course they always ended up having sex anyway.) He began reading Dear Abby when she told him she’d bookmarked the advice column on her computer.

  “I just want to know what you’re thinking,” he’d said. “Isn’t it okay for a guy to want to learn what interests his girl?”

  She’d tried to fight against the dread she felt, to overcome the familiar sense of being chased down and cornered.

  She knew exactly the moment when she realized she had to leave Troy, though. A Saturday afternoon, sitting on the sofa in the apartment she shared with Aimee, pretending she couldn’t hear her sister applauding in her bedroom as she watched a week’s worth of game shows. She kept her sister’s secrets just as Aimee kept hers.

  Sabrina and Troy had been flopped on the couch, her legs in his lap, exhausted from an afternoon’s bike ride in the park. Just hanging out. That’s when he’d suggested it. The counselor. The therapist. They could go alone and together, he said. Joint and solo.

  “Let’s really do some soul-searching,” he said, and Sabrina had laughed, assuming he was kidding.

  “I thought psychoanalysis was only for true New Yorkers,” she teased. “You’re just a Korean boy from Oregon.”

  He looked at her intently, took both her hands, and spoke to her with more kindness than anyone before or since: