How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  Suddenly starving, I root around in the fridge to see what I have lying about and find the heel of a meat loaf I made a couple of days ago when Brad mentioned he was craving meat loaf sandwiches. It had suddenly sounded good to me too, so I made a small one for myself. In the breadbox, a couple of slices of the brioche loaf I made last night when I couldn’t sleep; a little smear of spicy Korean gochujang paste on the bread; some thinly sliced cucumber salad, a little wilted in its rice-wine brine but still crunchy; and the meat loaf. I take my sandwich, a canister of potato sticks that I bought in a fit of nostalgia the other day, and a bottle of Coke, and head for the living room. I put the plate on the coffee table and the tub between my feet on the floor, and eat with one hand while I go through the box of memorabilia. Folders of old papers, report cards, envelopes of photos . . . I find what I’m looking for in the very bottom, the yearbook from 1995, our senior year.

  Lions’ Pride.

  I eat and flip through the pages. How young we all were. How dated and embarrassing our hair and clothes. A picture of me with Mrs. O’Connor, me on crutches from right after my surgery, my Olympic dreams dashed. Me and Lynne and Teresa sitting on the hill by the little amphitheater in front of the school, wearing matching Ray-Ban sunglasses. Lynne sported a “Rachel” haircut and a small plaid miniskirt with a cropped sweater, over-the-knee socks, and penny loafers. Teresa wore denim overalls over a thermal long-sleeved shirt, with a boys’ oxford shirt tied around her waist and Doc Martens. Her curls an enormous mass. I was in black leggings with a huge plaid flannel shirt and clunky bright blue wingtips with no laces. We look like extras from the Clueless movie set.

  As I turn the last page, a piece of paper falls out of the back of the book. I pick it up.

  Fabulous at Forty, the header says in my own unmistakable scrawl. I swallow the last bite of my sandwich and take a long draw on the icy Coke.

  Mrs. O’Connor gave us an assignment right before finals senior year. Write a list of the things we wanted to accomplish by the time we were forty. Not a bucket list, not the things we thought we should experience, but more who we wanted to be, what we wanted to achieve. When we finished, she had us pick a partner in class, to trade lists with, and to have the other person annotate the lists with what they saw us achieving. Lucky for us there was an odd number of students in the class, so she let the three of us work on it together.

  “Here are the things that I will accomplish before I am forty,” I wrote. “I will be a well-respected chef, with two restaurants in Chicago, one fancy and one a small, casual, diner-type neighborhood place for comfort food. I will have published at least one cookbook so that people can make my recipes at home for their families. I will make sure that all the recipes really work perfectly like those of my hero, fellow tall cook Julia Child, but maybe without so many steps. I will have a husband (who is at least 6'3") and maybe one kid. I will own a home with a really amazing kitchen, and on my nights off from the restaurants, we will have fabulous dinners with my family and our friends—our house will always be full of happy people eating well and laughing. I will do a lot of charity events, and support causes for underprivileged kids and the hungry.” Wow. Don’t think I’m going to be called Nostradamus anytime soon. The only thing I’ve actually done off this list besides being a chef is owning a home with a pretty amazing kitchen. But the rest? Phooey. On the back, I read Lynne’s and Teresa’s notes.

  Lynne says that I will also have a weekend place in Michigan for escaping, that she will be the PR person for all my restaurants and that my fine dining place will have at least one Michelin star and my casual place will become a chain, that my multiple cookbooks will all be bestsellers, that I will have my own foundation for feeding hungry children, and that I will have won many awards both for my work and my philanthropy. Teresa notes that I will have two or three children with my tall, successful husband, and that once a year she and Lynne and their husbands will join us for an exotic couples’ vacation without any of our kids. And that once a week we will get together for a girls’ brunch or something that fits into my work schedule, and that we will always celebrate our birthdays together.

  So typical. Lynne sees tangible markers of success, made possible by her guidance and input. Teresa is all about family and friendship and personal connection. And I have dreams that seem somewhat achievable, but are missing a bit of the oomph that real dreams should incorporate. Why did I need Lynne to predict wild success and fame, even if she was helping make it happen, and I didn’t imagine it for myself? I wonder if losing the Olympic dream made me a little gun-shy on the whole big-picture thing. Especially since, if I’m honest, despite my drive to get to the Olympics I never really imagined I would win any medals. I never pictured myself on the Wheaties box. I just wanted to be part of the team and have the experience. I tend to dream on the more realistic side of things.

  I pack most everything back into the tub, but leave the yearbook and the list on the table. Who knows, maybe when the girls come over next week it will give us a giggle.

  Simca uses her little step stool to come up beside me on the couch, curls her body next to mine, and rests her regal head on my knee. I scratch between her ears.

  “Get ready, old girl, you are going to meet my oldest friends next week.” And in a weird way, I think, so am I.

  Four

  I tear in through my front door like a bat out of hell. I’m late and more than a bit frantic. Ian’s coaching went totally sideways today, Geneva had some sort of four-year-old meltdown the likes of which I’ve never before been privy to, and by the time everyone figured out how to calm her down, Ian’s beautiful chocolate soufflé had collapsed into a sticky, sweet, rubbery Yorkshire pudding and his caramel had burnt to an acrid layer of superglue in the bottom of the skillet and set off the smoke alarm. Then Ian cried, which he almost never does unless he is in pain, and then Geneva cried again because she made Ian cry, and Darcy stomped around full of preteenage indignation about how the littles just have to come up with some tears to get all the attention.

  Shelby and I did not have enough arms or soothing words to appease them all, and right in the middle Brad came in and, without really jumping in to help, asked if Shelby had picked up ink for the printer, and the two of them got all snippy with each other, which made me very uncomfortable. By the time we got everyone mostly returned to emotional equilibrium, and Brad and Shelby disappeared into his office to talk, I didn’t have the heart to let poor Ian clean up the epic mess alone, so I was over an hour late getting out of there.

  By the time I got to Whole Foods it was jammed with the after-work crowd, and the ten-items-or-less line was occupied by a woman of supreme entitlement insisting that the ten items meant ten different types of things, so that her overflowing cart was fine, because multiples shouldn’t count.

  I’m sweaty, my pulse is racing, Simca is in need of a pee, I’m in desperate need of a shower, and Lynne and Teresa will be here in less than an hour for our reunion girls’ night. I drop the bag of groceries on the counter, turn the oven on to 350 degrees, toss Simca out into the backyard with a promise for a real walk before bed, and take the stairs two at a time to the bedroom, stripping off my clothes as I go. I take the world’s fastest shower, throw my dripping hair into a bun, pull on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and run back downstairs.

  At least I know better than to plan an after-work dinner that requires last-minute preps. I did almost everything for tonight yesterday, including setting the table, so now that I’m clean, I can take a deep breath. I take the roasting pan of braised chicken thighs with shallots and tomatoes and mushrooms in a white wine Dijon sauce out of the fridge and pop it in the oven to reheat. I dump the celery root potato puree out of its tub and into my slow cooker to gently warm, then grab the asparagus that I steamed yesterday and set it on the counter to take the chill off. I pull the butter lettuce I bought at Whole Foods out and separate the leaves into a bowl, filling it with cold
water as I go, and when they are clean, I pop them into my salad spinner and whizz the crap out of them. They go into the big wooden salad bowl I got in Morocco. When dinnertime comes I’ll chop the asparagus and add it to the salad along with some tiny baby marinated artichokes, no bigger than olives, and toss with a peppery vinaigrette. The sourdough baguette I picked up goes on the table intact; I love to just let guests tear pieces off at the table. The three cheeses I snagged at the cheese counter get set to the side so that they will be appropriately room temp by the time I serve them after dinner. I might not be French, but all those years there have stuck, and I simply cannot have dinner without some cheese after.

  In a way, I’m kind of grateful for the urgency. I don’t have to think too much about tonight and the girls, and wonder how things will go. Beyond the quick bullet points of our current status—happily married with kids, happily divorced without, contentedly single and not looking—we didn’t do a lot of real sharing last week. I’m not really sure of either of them. I woke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night wondering if the person I have become is remotely as interesting as the teenager I was. When they knew me, I had athletic drive and passion. Even after the injury, I was focused on my recovery and on figuring out what to do with myself, determined not to be one of those sad-sack former high school star athletes who spends all her time bemoaning what might have been and resting on laurels. I finished strong, got into Northwestern, got accepted at the toughest culinary program in the world, and headed off to a glamorous life abroad.

  But they don’t know about Bernard, or how I let myself sink into believing that I wasn’t destined for a relationship after him, or how I fell into my current career and have been treading water ever since. They don’t know how hard it was to help take care of Dad as he fought and lost his battle. How awful to see what it did to my mom. They don’t know that outside of Mom and Aunt Claire and my employers, I pretty much have only one real friend, and my social life consists primarily of hanging out at home with my dog. My job is reasonably active, but I haven’t done anything remotely athletic since the day my physical therapist pronounced me healed.

  Lynne and Teresa are living their dreams. Lynne, as far as I can tell, is insanely successful, and Teresa is raising her family, and I’m . . . what? Cooking. Not famously, not publicly, not in a way that will win any awards. Just cooking. Professionally, personally, this is what I’ve got. I don’t ever really think about it, but tonight, with the two of them rematerializing before me imminently, my life suddenly seems so minute and unimpressive.

  I shake my head, push the thoughts out, and focus on setting out the predinner nibbles I picked up when I went to get the lettuce and cheese. Olive-oil-roasted Marcona almonds, crunchy fried Peruvian corn kernels, some fat olives. Teresa said she wanted to bring something for dessert, and Lynne said she would bring wine, so we should be in good shape. I’ve got a few bottles of sparkling water in the fridge, as well as some carafes of filtered still water. I let Simca in and get her dinner organized.

  “I know, Sim, I’m sorry. Mama’s a bit up under it tonight,” I say as she gives me her patented world-weary look. I sneak a spoonful of peanut butter into her kibble, an extra treat for putting up with me. I could swear she winks at me before tucking in. She has finished her dinner and is delicately cleaning her paws when the bell rings.

  “Okay. Ready or not, here we go,” I say to her and head to answer the door.

  • • •

  Wait, wait . . .” Teresa says, ripping off another piece of baguette and dunking it directly into the puddle of sauce at the bottom of the chicken pan. “He had a wife?”

  Apparently, two bottles of wine in, dishing about Bernard seemed like the thing to do. It started easy enough; we decimated a bottle of champagne with the nibbles and fell back into the where-is-so-and-so and did-you-hear-about-what’s-her-face. This was followed by a really spectacular bottle of Côtes du Rhône with the chicken, plenty of praise for my cooking, and sharing about jobs and children and family stuff.

  With the warm food and wine filling us up, Lynne started questioning me about my love life. At first I waved it off, like I do with everyone. “If he is out there, I’ll be delighted to meet him, but I have a wonderful full life without him, and if he never shows, I’m okay with that too.” A very empowered speech, I’ve always thought. A good sound bite, even if a part of me I don’t really like to acknowledge thinks it may be false bravado. But Lynne narrowed her eyes at me, and Teresa sucked her teeth in that classic Italian Mama way.

  “Bullshit, baby girl, I call Bull. Shit,” Lynne said, dividing the last of the bottle between us.

  Teresa raised that animated eyebrow, and it all just spilled out.

  How I got the job at Bernard’s restaurant. The easy camaraderie between us. The night he stopped by after closing while I was working on some new items for the menu and made me a perfect, fluffy fresh-herb omelet swimming in butter and poured me Armagnac older than me and made passionate love to me, telling me I was a goddess and that I tasted like the finest wine and that our sex smelled like truffles. We ate an entire bowl of chocolate mousse naked on the kitchen floor. That we kept the affair a secret for months, as his ex-wife, Claudine, was still part owner of the restaurant. Despite the fact that their breakup was due to compulsive adultery on both their parts—for him an endless assortment of women of all ages, shapes, and sizes; for her, a string of much younger men—from the moment he moved out of their cottage and into a small town house near the restaurant, her jealousy had amped up, and it was easier for him to just keep his relationships a bit on the quiet side. She was volatile and violent, with a midday cocktail habit that didn’t look good on her. Once we went public, she became a constant thorn in my side, showing up at the restaurant with her girlfriends to poke fun and be snarky and complain and send every dish back twice.

  I told them how I had never been in love like that. The longer Bernard and I were together, the more beautiful and sexy and special I felt, and the more I imagined a lifetime with him. I told them about the week my period was late, and how he kissed my belly and called it Bouboune, a nonsense endearment, and said that we would have the most beautiful girl. And how he cried in my arms when I eventually got my period, like a dream had died for him.

  “Ex-wife,” I say, taking another sip of wine. “Sort of. But not from how she behaved. She was a jealous nightmare.”

  “Well, just because she let him go doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard to have his new girlfriend right in front of her,” Lynne said, picking some asparagus out of the salad bowl with her tapered fingers.

  “I wasn’t flaunting anything, just living my life,” I say, scooping up some of the velvety celery root puree on my last crust of bread. “Small town, impossible to disappear.”

  “Well, I think it sounds awfully French,” Teresa says reverently, which makes us laugh.

  “Oh, it was French, all right. Passionate, fabulous, perfect. Right up until my dad got sick. And then it was all, mon amour, it’s been nice, don’t let the door hit you . . .”

  “He did not,” Teresa says, her mouth hanging open.

  “He most certainly did. Said that he was sorry for my dad, but if I left without a return ticket, I wouldn’t have anything to return to.”

  “Ouch,” Lynne says.

  I shrug. “What could I do? I couldn’t just come for some sad good-bye visit, and I couldn’t in good conscience just leave him there without a sous chef for an indeterminate period of time. I had to give him leave to replace me professionally, and unfortunately, he was not the kind of guy who could be expected to not replace me personally as well. Then, of course, it turns out that the whole thing was a lie. He and the ex had never officially filed the paperwork—some sort of tax issue; just told everyone they were divorced. And they never stopped sleeping together, not even when he was with me. Then, within months of when I left, he knocked up my replacement.”

>   “What a jerk,” Teresa says.

  “What an asshole,” Lynne says.

  “Whatever,” I say. “Who needs a French man when there is French cheese? Half as stinky and twice as smart.” I bring over the cheese platter, moving the chicken out of the way. I’m already regretting telling them about Bernard. He is something I don’t like to think about, let alone talk about. When I heard from my friend Jean-Marie the truth about his nondivorce and infidelities, it tainted every good thing he’d ever made me feel about myself. She said everyone presumed I knew, since it was, after all, Bernard. Lawrence is the only other person who knows the whole story, and his reaction was that Bernard made me completely distrust not men, but relationships and my own judgment. He had his own Bernard in his past, and said we were peas in a pod. That I should do as he has always done, take companionship and sex when it presents itself, save love and long-term relationships for friends, family, and dogs. Easier that way, and not without its benefits. Except that Lawrence gets laid fairly regularly, and I do not.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Lynne says, raising her glass.

  “Me too.” Teresa winks.

  We demolish the cheese, and huge slices of Teresa’s cornmeal pound cake, perfumed with vanilla, crunchy on the outside, and meltingly tender on the inside, and repair to the living room with little glasses of Madeira. We look through the yearbook, laughing till tears are rolling down our cheeks at some of the less flattering pictures of our classmates, remembering the good times and us. Then Lynne picks up the Fabulous at Forty paper off the table.