Cook the Books

by Jessica

  “Chloe? Are you okay?” Ade asked, concerned.

  I shrugged. “I guess so.” I quickly filled her in on what I’d seen and overheard.

  Ade’s jaw dropped open. “Josh and Georgie?”

  “It seems so,” I said morosely.

  “And Digger and Georgie.”

  “It seems so, too.”

  “God, what a whore.”

  “That’s about what Ellie said.”

  “Good for her. She should be pissed!”

  “Maybe she was too pissed. Maybe Ellie offed her boyfriend for cheating on her with her best friend. Or maybe Georgie killed Digger to get Snacker the job. She got close to Digger so she could talk him out of the job or have access to his house and burn it down.”

  “Good God. What the hell is going on with everybody? It seems like everyone is going crazy.”

  “I know,” I said, now halfheartedly eating my dessert. “At the rate things are going, I could be next.”

  SEVENTEEN

  SATURDAY morning found me nursing a restaurant-opening hangover, not from alcohol, but from emotional overload. To avoid dealing with anything that had happened the previous night, I pumped myself full of coffee and got deliberately lost in the cookbook. It was much easier to focus on page-number styles, recipe formats, and chapter titles than on Josh’s fling with Georgie. I plowed through my notes, wrote speedily, and by mid-afternoon had e-mailed Kyle an outline of the book, a draft of the chapter about appetizers, and a handful of recipes. I recorded the number of hours I’d worked and submitted those, too.

  I took a long steaming-hot bath and distractedly pumiced my feet so overzealously that I doubted whether I’d be able to walk comfortably for a week; I had removed most of the skin from the soles and heels. I was a wrinkled prune when I finally I got out, wrapped myself in a thick robe, and put on heavy socks. Kyle called as I was running a comb through my knotted hair.

  “I just read through everything you sent, Chloe, and it’s fabulous. Really good work,” he complimented me.

  “Thank you,” I said, pleased that he could see how hard I had worked.

  “Did you have a good time last night?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “Restaurant openings are always so intense. You can feel the energy in the air.”

  “I thought that the food was fantastic and the company even better.”

  “You and Adrianna get along well, huh?”

  “She’s obviously a good friend. I can see why you two are so close. It was helpful to talk to her about my father. She really seemed to get how demanding he is.”

  So much for the thousands of dollars being spent on my social work degree! Maybe I just needed to have a baby, and then I’d magically become a better listener. But truthfully, I was glad that Kyle appreciated Adrianna. Typically, women envied her looks and didn’t see beyond her beauty, and men were so dazzled by her appearance that they couldn’t see her as a friend.

  “Anyway,” Kyle continued, “my father is here again, and he’d like to go over what there is of the book so far, mostly so that he can write his introduction. You know, ‘I’m Hank Boucher, famous chef, everyone loves me, blah, blah, blah.’ I’ll give him what I have so far. That should be enough to get him going.”

  While I understood that the effort I was putting into the cookbook was simply considered “work for hire,” it was increasingly clear to me that I was the only one actually writing anything! Yes, work for hire meant that I was paid for my time and owned no legal rights to the book. Still, if the Boucher boys wanted to be fair, they might consider giving me coauthor status. Kyle, however, probably had no power to make decisions about the book; I’d have to go straight to the top.

  “Kyle, I have a thought,” I said casually. “Why don’t you bring your father by for dinner tomorrow evening? I can make some of the dishes from the book. I’d love to spend some time with him. Maybe it would help to give me a better feel for the book as a whole.”

  “Chloe, I really don’t want to subject you to an entire evening with my father. Besides, you don’t want to cook for the man. Trust me.”

  The more I thought about the possibility of being a coauthor, the more determined I was to lure Chef Boucher to my condo. “We’ll compromise. How about just appetizers and drinks? I’ll have everything ready when you get here. It’ll just be a quick pop-in visit.”

  Kyle paused. “Okay. If you insist.”

  “Besides, he should taste what’s going to be in the book, don’t you think?”

  “You’re probably right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s picky. He’ll tear apart anything he doesn’t love, so I hope you’re thick-skinned.”

  “I’ll wear a suit of armor,” I said. “Don’t worry about anything.”

  I hung up and began making a shopping list. I was happy to keep busy, and busy I’d be: preparing appetizers for Hank Boucher would be a challenge, but if I wanted a shot at co-authorship, I’d better not screw up.

  When the list was done, I called Adrianna in the hope of finding yet another way to occupy myself, but she didn’t pick up, and I figured she might be squeezing in a nap. I hopped online and tried to waste some time. Perez Hilton’s gossip blog featured shots of Daniel Craig emerging from the ocean, Miley Cyrus giving her usual stupid peace sign, and Brad Pitt surrounded by his eight million children. I clicked on my bookmarks and went to the Desperate Chefs’ Wives blog. I loved the site, which I’d visited regularly until Josh had ditched me for the Hawaii sun. The young woman who ran the blog was married to a chef and posted all sorts of funny stories about life with him. She wrote about watching Top Chef with her husband, she complained about how crummy his schedule was, she posted restaurant reviews, and she dropped lots of general tidbits about life with a chef. I especially enjoyed the blogs that she titled Chef Mumbles, which were about her husband’s habit of talking in his sleep. Even when he was zonked out, his mind stayed on his work: “It’s for the tasting menu. For Neil Patrick Harris,” he’d say in his sleep, and “I need dill and salsify.” He liked to engage his sleeping wife in conversation, too. “Is your station ready?” he once asked, to which his awakened wife begrudgingly replied that, yes, it was. “No. It’s not,” the chef responded before retreating back into silent sleep. In addition to mumbling, her husband sometimes hopped out of bed in the middle of the night, put on his chef pants, got back under the covers, and slept for another three hours.

  I missed all of it. Josh, too, used to talk in his sleep, rattling off lists of ingredients or details about scheduling. I knew that I should stop reading the blog, but I couldn’t help myself. The familiarity somehow made me feel close to Josh.

  I checked another blog that I was nuts about, Chef’s Widow, where the CW (as she refers to herself and to other women involved with rarely seen chefs) chronicles life with her chef and their two children. She’d posted great videos of her kids and pictures of her few- and-far-between dates with her husband, and she wrote honest, raw, sometimes painful accounts of her life. Her whole world felt so recognizable, so much like mine—minus the cute kids—that I momentarily cheered up. Then I checked my cell phone, saw three missed calls from Josh, refused to listen to the messages, and deleted all three. Crap.

  I slept miserably that night and must have done some mumbling of my own. I had powerful, horrible dreams about Josh, Digger, and Snacker, the kinds of blurry dreams that you can’t remember in detail but that sure as hell leave you with an awful, gut-wrenching feeling when you wake up. I hauled myself out of bed and tried to shower off the bad night’s sleep, but it took a few cups of coffee to shake off the residue of my nightmares. I always hated Sunday anyway, because it meant school and work were imminent. Still, I had to rouse myself: Hank and Kyle were coming for appetizers and drinks at five o’clock. Because I had a lot to do, I went out and did the food shopping early. I’d need plenty of time to prep the food and clean the house, which was even more of a mess than it had been on Friday when I’d left for the opening of the Penthouse.
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  I was tackling a few seafood appetizers tonight: seared scallops served on polenta cakes with red pepper and chive jam, and also baked oysters with heavy cream, turmeric, fennel, and Asian pear. But the one I was most eager to eat myself was the shrimp and Brie wrapped in puff pastry and served with apricot chutney. Any excuse to eat melted Brie, and I was all over it! I’d bought a very expensive bottle of dry Riesling and an equally pricey bottle of Viognier that had a subtle floral note. I put on the stereo and listened to music while I pureed red peppers. I added sugar to the peppers and cooked the mixture down to a thick consistency before I added chives. I whisked the polenta in a pot and then spread it out on a sheet pan to let it set before I cut out circles to panfry. I chopped the fresh apricots and cooked them with water, honey, vinegar, and onions until I had a chunky sweet-and-sour chutney. I then cut the store-bought phyllo dough and made little purses that I filled with shrimp and Brie and then brushed with an egg wash. At best, I’d have Hank Boucher’s attention for a very short time, so I wanted to have as much prep as possible completed before he arrived; otherwise, I’d waste my opportunity by disappearing into the kitchen.

  Since I was trying to impress upon Hank that I was worthy of being a coauthor, I intended to look professional. Consequently, I put on a pair of straight-leg dress pants and a pale green linen shirt. My condo was white-glove clean, and candles burned in the living room. Wineglasses and the two bottles of wine were ready on the coffee table, and I’d set out small hand-painted ceramic plates as well as forks and carefully ironed cloth napkins. Whew! I was as prepared for the celebrity chef’s visit as I could be.

  To my surprise, Kyle and Hank arrived precisely at five o’clock; I’d expected Kyle’s busy father to cause some sort of delay. When I opened my door, one look at Kyle’s face told me how stressed he was about this evening. I smiled reassuringly at Kyle as I said hello

  “Hi, Chloe.” Kyle’s voice shook.

  “Good evening, Chloe. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” said Hank with no hint of sincerity. “We can’t stay too long. We have dinner reservations later this evening.”

  “Of course. I understand. Please come in and sit down.” I pointed to the couch as I took their coats.

  Hank dumped himself onto the couch and sighed. “I hear you’re attempting to cook something for us? Something from the book?”

  Attempting? What a jerk. “Yes. Appetizers. I just need a few minutes to finish them off. Can I pour you a glass of wine?”

  Hank inspected the two bottles and raised his eyebrows, as if he were as amazed by my choices as he was pleased with them. “This one.” He tapped the Riesling, sat back against the cushion, and checked his watch.

  “Kyle?” I asked as I poured Hank’s wine. He nodded, and since he looked in need of alcohol, I filled his glass high. “Give me ten minutes, and the appetizers will be ready.”

  I walked quickly to the kitchen and was glad that I’d had the foresight to preheat the oven and to set out all the pans that I’d need. I stuck the sheet of phyllo purses and the tray of oysters into the oven. While they cooked, I quickly seared the scallops and the polenta cakes in a pan and hastily plated everything on serving trays. Well, I told myself, my presentation wasn’t as stupendous as a professional chef’s, but it wasn’t awful, either. I carried two of the trays to the living room. “Kyle, would you mind getting the other tray and the two small bowls with sauces?”

  “Of course.” Kyle practically jumped out of his seat at the opportunity to escape his father. I wondered why he was so fearful of his father. Granted, Hank struck me as a pig, but I had the sense something else was going on, something new, maybe, or an exacerbation of something old, but I didn’t know what it was.

  Kyle seemed to take forever in the kitchen. Although in most circumstances I’m more than capable of small talk, I felt intimidated, and Hank said nothing at all; the two of us waited in silence for Kyle to return. When he finally did, I glared at him in annoyance.

  “All right, let’s see what you have here, Chloe.” Hank peered skeptically at my appetizers.

  I succinctly described each dish and then poured myself a hefty glass of wine; if the food didn’t go over well, I could always get drunk and wash away the memory.

  Hank helped himself to an oyster. When I’d put a few appetizers on my own plate, I watched nervously as he lifted the shell and slid the oyster into his mouth. Now I knew how those poor Iron Chefs felt waiting for the judges’ decisions!

  “Outstanding,” Hank proclaimed. “The turmeric and cream are spot on with the fennel and pear.” He nodded thoughtfully. “And perfectly cooked. Nothing worse than an overcooked oyster, for God’s sake.”

  As Kyle beamed at me, the muscles in his face relaxed a bit. “How about this scallop, Dad? Want to try that next?” Kyle took a gulp of wine and then sampled the scallop.

  “What did you say this was, Chloe? Red pepper jam? It’s very nice.”

  I froze mid-bite and silently willed Kyle to shut up. Didn’t he understand that as the presumed writer of the cookbook, he should know exactly what the dishes were and precisely what ingredients they contained? How could he fail to realize that, in asking me questions, he was giving himself away?

  “Wow! And that little doughy thing looks nice,” he continued. “Cheese and shrimp, right?”

  When Hank caught my eye, I knew that the inevitable would happen, and I quickly looked away. Oblivious, Kyle rambled on about how delightful the appetizers were and how sure he was that his father’s book would be a best seller.

  I drank more wine. “Yes, I think the book will do very well,” I agreed, trying to keep the conversation moving while depriving Hank of the opportunity to speak. “We still have some blanks to fill in, but I know that you have a number of chef and restaurant leads, right, Kyle?”

  “Oh, yes. Dad, I haven’t had a chance to tell you about some of the most recent contacts I’ve made, have I?”

  Hank was finishing a scallop. He set his fork and napkin down. “No, Kyle, you haven’t. But there is something else that concerns me more.” He looked pointedly at his son. I winced. We hadn’t fooled Hank. “You don’t recognize these appetizers, do you? They aren’t the least bit familiar to you.”

  Kyle coughed and set his plate down. “What? Um . . . what do you . . . ?” he stammered.

  Hank stood up, marched across the living room, and came to a halt, his back toward Kyle. “I should have known. You stupid, incompetent, lazy ass!” The chef spun around. His face was red and his eyes full of anger. “These are from the cookbook, moron!” he shouted. “The book that you are supposedly writing! Remember that one?”

  I hung my head in embarrassment for Kyle, who obviously hadn’t even glanced at the recipes or the chapter that I’d sent him. I couldn’t look at either of the men.

  “No, Dad, that’s not true,” Kyle started. “I just forgot. I didn’t recognize them at first. I mean, there are so many dishes in the cookbook and—”

  “Shut up! Shut your mouth!” Hank barked. “I should have known. Really. I shouldn’t have expected you to do a goddamn thing! Chloe here did all of the work while you did shit. She is the writer, not you. I might as well just rip your name off of this project and hand the whole book over to someone who is actually willing to lift a finger and do something with her life!”

  Okay, yes, I’d wanted to worm my way into becoming an official coauthor, but my plan had spun out of control. Kyle had no excuse for having failed even to read what he was supposed to have written, but he certainly didn’t deserve this humiliating excoriation.

  “No, Mr. Boucher, really!” I protested, willing to forgo my shot at being a coauthor. “I’m just a research assistant. Kyle has collected so much information, including most of the recipes, and he’s made a lot of chef contacts. I’ve just put everything together.”

  Hank glared at me. “Nice try, but I’m not buying it. God, Kyle, after all the opportunities I’ve given you? You’ve had your miserable life handed to
you on a platter, and yet you somehow manage to screw up even the most menial job! Do you think I got where I am today by acting like a tool? Do you think that beautiful women will get within ten feet of a cheat like you? God, no wonder you’ve never been married,” Hank screamed, laughing viciously. “I try and I try and I just get nowhere with you. I’m disgusted!”

  As the chef continued his onslaught, I tried to block out the barrage of insults. The painful scene pointedly reminded me of my client Danny and his abusive, controlling, condescending father. I thought about my classmate’s comment that Danny’s father had spent so many years foretelling his son’s failure that his predictions had become self-fulfilling prophecies. In Hank Boucher’s eyes, Kyle had failed over and over. I suspected that he’d left me stuck with most of the cookbook work not because he was lazy, but because he assumed that nothing he produced would satisfy his demanding father.

  “And if you think for one minute that I’m buying this crap about your intense involvement in this book, then you better think again. Idiot!”

  “Dad, I’m sorry,” Kyle pleaded pathetically. “Let’s just leave.” He started to look at me and then quickly turned away.

  “Yes, of course we’re leaving, dumbass!” Hank shook his head at his son and then walked slowly over to me. Suddenly his voice was soft and calm. “Chloe Carter, you have done remarkable work. You should be proud of yourself. The chapter I read was outstanding. Crisp, clear, engaging. The recipes were formatted precisely, and the directions were easy to follow. Good work.” He stuck his hand out, and I had no choice but to shake it. The monster! I was too flabbergasted and too sorry for Kyle even to mutter perfunctory thanks.

  I silently retrieved Kyle’s and Hank’s coats, and then opened the door. Hank held his head high as he walked out and continued to lavish unwanted praise on me. “Fabulous, my dear. Nicely done! I’ll be in touch.”

  I touched Kyle’s arm as he left. He turned his head slightly my way. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’ll be fine. This will blow over, and we’ll keep working on the cookbook. You’ll see,” I tried to reassure him.