How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  “Ian will get three Michelin stars before he has any hair in his pants . . .”

  “Geneva!” Shelby says, trying not to laugh. “That is not appropriate.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Robbie said it the other night. I don’t know why Ian is going to get hair in his pants, but it sounds gross.” Geneva rolls her eyes at Shelby and dances off.

  “Robert Farber.”

  “Not my fault. She’s always eavesdropping. I did not say it in front of her on purpose. She’s only gonna get worse, mark my words . . .”

  “That is not the point, young man.” Shelby is barely containing her smile.

  Robbie shrugs. “I’m going to do homework. What’s for dinner?”

  “Thursday night is pasta night,” I say. “I left you guys a lasagna Bolognese, garlic knots, and roasted broccolini. Ian is going to make the Caesar salad table side.” Thursday is the day I come in only to train Ian, so on Wednesdays I always leave something for an easy pasta night. Either a baked dish, or a sauce and parboiled pasta for easy finishing, some prepped salad stuff, and a simple dessert.

  “Awesome. Does the lasagna have the chunks of sausage in it?”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Robert Adam Farber, would I leave you a lasagna without chunks of sausage in it?” I say with fake insult in my voice.

  “No, El, you totally have my back on all things meat. What’s for dessert?”

  “Lemon olive oil cake with homemade vanilla bean gelato.”

  “Epic. Thanks, El, see you tomorrow. Good job, broseph.” And he grabs his backpack and heads up the back stairs to his bedroom.

  “Eloise, you’ve had a long afternoon, I’m sure, and Ian has the kitchen in hand. Why don’t you take off?” Shelby says. “Tell me you have fun plans tonight—let me live vicariously . . .”

  “Oh, I have a big night planned. First I’m going to stop by my mom’s and have a quick cocktail hour with her and Aunt Claire, and then I have Marcy stopping by for a bit, and finally some quality time later with Netflix and a cuddly corgi.”

  Shelby sighs. “Simca might be the cutest dog on the planet, but she is no substitute for a person . . .” Shelby would love for me to be dating. Any time she meets a single man over six feet tall she tries to fix me up.

  “Don’t ever tell Simca she’s not a person—she’ll never forgive you!” I say in mock horror.

  Shelby doesn’t seem to get that, for me, alone does not mean lonely, and I’m really genuinely looking forward to the evening ahead. “But since all is good here, I do think I will head out, try and get my visit in before Mom and Claire are schickered.” My mom and Aunt Claire have been best friends since kindergarten, so Claire never got the least bit prickly when Mom started dating Claire’s older brother Louis when they were in high school. Or when she married him six years later.

  Claire’s husband, Buddy, died in a horrible car accident several years ago, followed by my dad barely a year later from a fast-moving, devastating pancreatic cancer. So Claire sold her house in the burbs and bought the house next to the house I grew up in, and they settled into their combined widowhood together. They pulled down the fence between their respective backyards to have one large backyard where they can garden and putter and entertain together. They are both a bit hippy dippy, occasional pot smokers thanks to Claire’s convenient glaucoma diagnosis and Illinois’ burgeoning medical marijuana industry, and they both love comfort food (and junk food, when they have the munchies). I’ve occasionally wondered whether there might not be something of an untapped lesbian thing happening there, but one night when they were stoned I got up the courage to ask them, and the two of them laughed so hard that Claire literally peed her pants a little bit.

  “Sweetie, trust me, if your mom and I were thusways inclined, I’d just have moved in with her, and not gone through the hassle of buying that silly, expensive money pit of an old house next door with all the maintenance problems,” she said. Claire’s turn-of-the-century brick house is in need of constant repairs and upkeep, as all old houses are.

  “All right, all right.” Shelby throws her hands up in mock surrender. “Have a good night, Eloise. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m stopping for supplies on my way in. Any special requests for the weekend?”

  “You know us, we love everything you do. But make sure we are good on kid snacks. I think both Robbie and Darcy have friends sleeping over this weekend. Lean heavy on salty stuff and not too much sugar—we want them to sleep eventually . . .”

  “Will do. See you tomorrow. Great job today, Ian, you’re really rocking it out. Next week we’ll do a baking challenge.”

  “Thanks, Chef!” Ian always calls me Chef on the days we train, practicing for when he will hopefully need to respond to the judges respectfully. The rest of the week I’m just Eloise.

  I grab my jacket off my hook in the mudroom and sling my bag over my shoulder. I peek back and see Ian scraping down the wood cutting board, to prep it for a beeswax and mineral oil treatment. Geneva is pulling Shelby down the hallway toward some adventure in the front room, yammering about something animatedly. As much as I love my little house and my little dog and my little life, for some reason I’m always the teensiest bit reluctant to leave the warm and loving chaos here.

  I head out into the gangway and up the side of the long house toward the front. Just as I get to the sidewalk, I see Darcy coming up the street.

  “Hey, Eloise! How did Ian do today?” she asks, breathless after jogging the last half block to come see me.

  “He did great, Darce, just great. There might still be one small bit of his masterpiece left in there if you hurry. How was your lesson?”

  “It was cool. I finally hit a C above the scale!” she says, waving her trumpet case at me.

  “Wow, you’ve been working at that for a while. Good for you!”

  “Yeah,” she says, brushing the fine hair that has escaped from her ponytail off her forehead, revealing her gray eyes with their long dark lashes. She’s at that gangly stage between kid and teenager, all long legs and knobby knees. “I just really went for it and it was there, right up there!”

  “So cool. When is the first band concert?” I try to come to the occasional after-school event for the kids, a recital, a game, a decent role in a play . . . not enough to be the creepy wannabe extra mom or anything, just about once a year per kid, enough so they know I care.

  “Oh, Eloise, don’t come to the first one, come to the one at the end of the year. By then my teacher thinks I might get a solo!”

  “You let me know. I’ll come when you want me there.”

  “Cool. And, Eloise?”

  “Yes?”

  “My friend Brooke is coming to sleep over this weekend.”

  “Is she the peanut allergy or the vegan?”

  “She’s gluten free.” Darcy rolls her eyes. “I know, gross. But she’s the real kind, the get-sick celery-something kind, not the fake ‘I think gluten makes me fat’ diet kind.”

  “Celiac.”

  “Yeah, that. Can you . . . ?”

  “I’ll prep everything separately and label it for you guys, and pick up some packaged stuff as well just in case.”

  “You’re the best. See you tomorrow!” And she jumps up the front steps two at a time, her long legs accentuated by the hot pink leggings she is wearing under her black plaid skirt, with her new floral Doc Martens boots. For all the trumpeting and concert band, she wants to present herself as a rocker chick, and having seen her perform with her School of Rock band over the summer, my money’s on rock and roll. I gave her the new Sleater-Kinney album for her last birthday, and now whenever I’m working, she steals my phone to scroll through my iTunes to see what other secret musical treasures I have. She hasn’t found the Ani DiFranco yet, but it’s coming.

  I unlock my Acura MDX and slide in. The Farbers gave it to me a couple of
years ago when my old Honda Accord finally gave up the ghost. Brad said it was important for me to have a vehicle for getting to and from work and schlepping all the groceries. I tried to tell them that they already overpaid me, and that I was fully capable of buying my own car, but Shelby shut me down. “This is Brad you’re talking about. If you tell him you can’t accept the Acura, tomorrow he’ll buy you a Bentley just to spite you.”

  “Brad, I cannot possibly accept the Acura . . .” I said jokingly, and Shelby swatted me on the arm, and then hugged me.

  “Eloise, you’re family. Besides, when Robbie gets his license he’ll need a car, so then we can trade you up and give him this one with some mileage on it, and it will be big enough for him to take over the morning drop-off for his siblings.”

  I tried to say that in that case, she should take the new Acura and give me her old car, but she said with all the kids she hauled around, the endless snack crumbs and Gatorade spills and occasional unexpected vomiting, she had no intention of having a new car until Geneva left for college. I never could argue with Shelby and Brad, especially over their generosity with me. They have taken me with them on vacations and gifted me fully paid-for vacations for me to take on my own. They pay full benefits, with killer private health insurance, and insist on getting billed for all uncovered out-of-pocket. My salary is double what a live-in full-time private chef would usually command, and I work only three and a half days a week. My last Hanukkah bonus paid for me to fully remodel my master bathroom. And last year, they brought in a kitchen designer and let me work with her to do a full remodel of the kitchen, no budget, top-of-the-line everything, and I was like a kid in a candy store. A German candy store. Every Gaggenau appliance imaginable, Poggenpohl cabinetry, twin Miele dishwashers with the really cool flatware rack on top . . . those Germans are amazing with precision appliances.

  Aunt Claire once asked if my work was satisfying. After all, I only have the Farbers and one other client, Lawrence Costas, the famous interior designer, now retired, for whom I cook one day a week and one dinner party every few weeks. Lawrence predates the Farbers—he was my first private client, and so he is grandfathered in for life.

  “Why wouldn’t it be? I have clients that feel like family, I make far more money than I’ve got a right to, considering the workload, and I have amazing benefits. What could be bad?”

  “I suppose I meant if you are satisfied creatively.”

  I’d never really thought about that. The Farbers give me free rein, but they have a repertoire of my dishes that they love and want to have regularly in the rotation, and everything has to be kid friendly; even if we are talking about kids with precocious tastes, they are still kids. Lawrence is easy: breakfasts, lunches, and healthy snacks for his days; he eats most dinners out with friends, or stays home with red wine and popcorn, swearing that Olivia Pope stole the idea from him. And I’m also in charge of home-cooked meals for Philippe and Liagre, his corgis, who like ground chicken and rice with carrots, and home-baked peanut butter dog biscuits. Simca was a gift from him, four years ago. She was a post-Christmas rescue puppy, one of those gifts that a family was unprepared for, who got left at a local shelter where Lawrence volunteers. He couldn’t resist her, but knew that Philippe and Liagre barely tolerate each other, and he couldn’t imagine bringing a female of any species into their manly abode. Luckiest thing that ever happened to me, frankly. She’s the best pup ever. I named her Simca because it was Julia Child’s nickname for her coauthor Simone Beck. She is, as the other Eloise, my own namesake, would say, my mostly companion. Lawrence’s dinner parties are fun to do—he always has a cool group of interesting people, occasionally famous ones—but he is pretty old-school, so there isn’t a ton of creativity in those menus, lots of chateaubriand and poached salmon with the usual canapés and accompaniments.

  The most creative I get is alone at home, in my kitchen, developing new recipes. I’ve got dozens in my computer that are what I would consider finished, probably a couple hundred more in my notebooks in various stages of planning and testing. No one knows about them. They are just for me. Although I don’t know what I’ll ever do with them. I know I don’t want the stress of a restaurant or catering business, and I wouldn’t ever leave the Farbers or Lawrence. Adding another client would be technically doable, but since I don’t need the income, I don’t see a point in looking for one. I told Claire I was content.

  “Content ain’t the same as happy, muffin. I’m just saying.”

  Which may be true. But it isn’t the same as unhappy either.

  Two

  Claire’s in the sunroom. I’ll be down in a minute!” my mom calls down the stairs when I let myself in.

  I hang my coat up on the coat tree in the foyer and drop my bag. The house has barely changed my entire life, with Mission-style furniture, tribal rugs, and eclectic art on view everywhere. I head through the kitchen, the site of my first culinary triumphs and disasters, with the old cabinets that slam and drawers that stick. The terra-cotta tile floor is hopelessly stained from years of spilled oil and wine; the butcher-block countertops are pocked with burn marks and water rings and nicks and scratches. Through the backside of the kitchen is the small den that used to be my dad’s hangout, with French doors out to the back deck. Last year, when the old deck turned out to be rotted beyond repair, my mother replaced it with an enclosed three-season room and turned Dad’s den into a small studio for her watercolors. The French doors are open, and I walk through to the cozy sunroom, where Aunt Claire is sipping her signature margarita.

  “Beanpole! Come kiss me. The heart would rise but the knees have other ideas.” She puts down her drink and opens her arms to me. I lean over and kiss her soft cheek, her ash blond curls piled in their usual messy bun atop her head tickling me. Claire is still a beautiful woman, with fair skin, blue eyes, and a wide, generous smile. She has sort of a Carly Simon thing going on, and she is aging just as beautifully. She gestures to the table where there is a pitcher of drinks and nods for me to grab one for myself. I’m just taking a cold, refreshing sip of her famous concoction when my mom flies into the room. Her small, trim figure is clad in cotton pedal pushers and an old long-sleeved thermal Blackhawks shirt that belonged to my dad, her trademark white Keds on her feet, and her graying auburn hair twisted up into a hair towel, a few damp, curled tendrils peeking out.

  “Hello, dumpling, how are you?” she says, her voice full of kind concern, reaching up for a hug. My mom was probably five foot five at her tallest, but I’m pretty sure she has begun the inevitable shrinking process, so at my five-eleven-and-a-half she is about eye level with my chest.

  “I’m good,” I say. “Drink?”

  “Absolutely.” She plops next to Claire on the deep love seat, leaving me the cushy club chair facing them. I hand her a glass, top off the one Claire is waving at me, and sink down myself, grabbing a pretzel stick out of the bowl on the coffee table.

  “So, did you hear the news?” my mom asks with her brows furrowed in a way that lets me know the news isn’t good. These days, between Mom and Claire and their group of contemporaries, I now refer to catching up with them as the “death and dying update.”

  “Probably not. I was training Ian all afternoon, and wasn’t listening to the radio on the way over. What happened?”

  “Oh, honey. Mrs. O’Connor passed away.”

  The piece of pretzel turns to lead on my tongue, and I take a deep swig of margarita to dislodge it.

  “Sorry, kiddo, I know she meant a lot to you,” Claire says sympathetically.

  “I saved you the obit.” My mom reaches into her pocket and hands me a slip of newspaper.

  The photo shows the elegant woman I remember; the only difference is that her locs are longer and grayer. But the slim neck, the regal bearing, the beautiful smile, all still there. I read the brief paragraph.

  Helene O’Connor, née Weber, passed away peacefully in her sleep after a
long and heroic battle with breast cancer. She was 73 years old. A retired English teacher who spent the bulk of her career at Lincoln Park High School, she also volunteered for literacy programs with the Chicago Juvenile Detention system and was a board member at Rivendell Theatre Company. She is survived by her husband, Glenn O’Connor, two brothers, Morris and Joseph, and a sister, Athena. Viewing will take place Wednesday and Thursday, September 21 and 22, from 2:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Leak and Sons Funeral Home, 7838 South Cottage Grove. Funeral services and internment will be private, for the immediate family only. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be sent to Sisters Network (sistersnetworkinc.org), Rivendell Theatre (rivendelltheatre.org), or Trinity United Church of Christ Social Justice Team (trinitychicago.org).

  My heart hurts. Mom reaches over and squeezes my hand, and Aunt Claire refills my glass. There is tightness in my throat, but no tears are coming. I’m sad, but mostly ashamed. It’s been over three years since the last time I saw her.

  “She was so lovely when your dad passed,” my mom says, not letting go of my hand. “What a classy lady.”

  And she was. Coming to the shiva all three nights, each night bearing a different delicious offering: baked macaroni and cheese and a pot of slow-simmered greens, a huge casserole of chicken and rice, a massive three-layer chocolate cake. Soul food, to be sure.

  She came to the funeral with her husband, a sweet man straight out of central casting for South Side Irish Chicago. She towered over him by at least three inches, and he was as barrel-chested and thick as she was lithe. His hair was a salt-and-pepper Brillo pad and his eyes a piercing blue, and he stayed at her side with the bearing of a man who was born a farmer and chosen consort to a queen. He looked at her with powerful love and a clear sense of his own good fortune.

  She held me in a tight embrace, stroking my hair as I wept for at least five minutes, never letting go, never stopping the humming murmur in my ear telling me that my dad was out of pain and in his glory surrounded by the ancestors and friends who had been waiting to receive him. I have never been a religious person—my faith is in science and butter and people who have earned my trust—but Mrs. O’Connor was a woman of deep conviction and when she said it, I suddenly had a wave of profound peace wash over me and I knew that my dad was okay, and that we would be okay too.