Next Door Daddy

by Amy Brent

  “Whoa. That’s tough.”

  But was it? Was it really that hard when she felt nothing? Her mother, whisked from her by an accidental overdose of pain medications (so ruled the medical examiner, on account of the pain she must have been in—Nicole had kept the note to herself), had gone so quickly that the grief of her loss still hadn’t caught up to her yet. In the meantime, the funeral happened—Nicole was sure she was the one to make the arrangements and pick out the flowers and send out the funeral notices, but she didn’t feel as if she were the one controlling it all—and she went back on the line and that was that. She noticed people giving her space, and she knew that that was what she was supposed to take, even if that wasn’t what she needed. Even Mark was a bit less smug on the rare occasions that they ran into each other in the parking lot. He even said, “Sorry.”

  But what did she need? She didn’t know. She went to work, came home, made Hamburger Helper or baloney on white bread, slept, and went to work. One day followed the other, but she barely noticed, until she was out of bread. Once she showed up at work and Drew, surprised, told her to go home. “It’s your day off,” he told her.

  She checked her calendar and realized that it was, in fact, her day off. It’d been a long time since she’d looked at her phone, she realized. The first few days after her mother’s death, she’d gotten so many condolences that she shut off her phone and refused to touch her computer. After those first few days it’d simply never occurred to her to turn it back on. She’d missed 164 calls.

  Nicole turned around and went home. Leslie had come by in her absence and left another casserole dish on the front step, with a little hand-drawn card. She picked it up and scraped the contents into the trash, washed out the baking dish, and added it to the pile of Pyrex growing on her counter. In the days since the funeral she’d eaten little more than cereal and apples—it wasn’t a matter of skill, it was the fact that she couldn’t care enough to do it. She’d lost her last moments with her mother, because she wanted to make money—because she wanted to be happy.

  The oppressive silence in the house was a balm to her soul. She thought, not for the first time, about drinking the entire contents of the liquor closet, but the fact that it required getting a glass and then finding the bottle seemed to be too much work. She couldn’t manage it, slipping into a restless sleep on the sofa instead.

  She awoke to the sound of someone knocking at the door. What? It’d been three weeks since her mother died and ten days since the funeral—the well-wishers had long since stopped coming. She considered staying on the couch until her shift tomorrow, but then the banging became more insistent, and then she remembered that her car was out front. She couldn’t deny that she wasn’t home.

  Nicole sighed but she dragged herself off the sofa and over to the door. It was probably Leslie, come to collect her baking dishes. She flung open the door, saying, “They’re on the counter, go help yourself.”

  “What’s on the counter?”

  It was Mr. Good. For a moment Nicole was shocked out of her stupor. He handed her a box of chocolates. “I was told you were going through a hard time,” he said. “I would have brought flowers but I think it’s a little late for that.”

  “Thank you,” she said, hollowly. He was looking at her expectantly, and she realized that he still expected her to follow the script of politeness. Really? But then she found that her manners were coming back to her. Invite him in, make tea. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I don’t mean to impose, but I’m very busy and I wanted to define our business relationship.”

  He sat down on her chair, uninvited—Nicole bristled but decided that there were worse things he could do. Besides, he’d paid her double the amount they’d agreed upon last time. She needed the money, there were no two ways about that. There were other bills to pay, even if she hadn’t quite gotten around to doing them just yet.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  “Only if you make it the English way,” he said. “I can’t stand the way Americans make tea.”

  “You mean in a Styrofoam cup?” she asked. He looked horrified. “I’m kidding,” she said, “but you do know that most English people drink their tea out of Styrofoam cups, right?”

  He frowned. “I’ll have to go back to London and see if that’s true,” he said.

  She poured boiling water into the kettle and cups, to heat them up first. Then she set another pot to the boil—this would be what the tea actually steeped in. “It’s so nice to finally know someone who can cook,” he said. “I’d like to ask you to come and work for me as my private chef.”

  She blinked, surprised. A private chef? “There are some friends of mine who would also enjoy your culinary services,” he added. “Between the four of us you could make a pretty penny. More than Mark Tremain pays you, at any rate.”

  “I was working for you when my mother died,” she said, hoarsely. “I don’t think I could—”

  His face softened and he said, “I had no idea.”

  “I didn’t, either.”

  The accusation stood between them, unspoken—that somehow he’d caused the state of her life now: if she’d only been at home instead of chasing dollars, if she’d only had fewer things to do, if only…then her mother would still be alive. She expected him to be flippant, cold. Based on what she knew about him, Mr. Good was hardly an example of compassion. But to her surprise, he got up and went over to her, and after a moment, he hugged her, holding her close.

  It felt good. Something about the way he held her, the quiet desperation of his hold, suggested that he’d once lost someone, too. He wasn’t just holding her to show sympathy—she’d gotten a lot of sympathetic hugs over the past three weeks, and they all felt fake and forced. When he broke away she felt stronger, better—and was it just the light, or were his eyes watery? He blinked them away before she could be sure.

  “How did you find me?” she asked. It seemed a safer topic than to ask him who he’d lost.

  He shrugged. “Logic dictates that you were reasonably local—and as you attended Billingsgate that increased the odds of you living in Starwood significantly. Starwood is far enough from New York to make pursuing a culinary career there difficult, if not impossible for someone with familial obligations. After that it was merely a matter of ascertaining which restaurant you worked for and paying the managing chef a few dollars to give me your address.”

  “That’s stalking,” she said, teasing now.

  He shrugged. “You’re free to call the police if you wish,” he said. “I mean you no harm—but you have no idea how hard it is to find good food out here. I truly wanted to see if you were interested in doing private work for me, primarily, and a few of my friends.”

  The kettle began to shriek, pulling her out of the lull that his voice had put her in. He’s asking me to work for him. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?

  I can’t. Not yet.

  “I understand that this may not be an opportune moment,” he added. “A death in the family is never easy.”

  “Okay, stop,” she cried. “What’s up with you?” she demanded. “You ask me to your house to cook for you, barely say three sentences to me, put me though a PTSD throwback, give me a thousand dollars, and then fall off the face of the earth for three weeks—”

  “I did try to contact you through Tastemaker,” he said. “You weren’t answering.”

  Oh yeah…she shut her mouth, feeling her stomach curdle at how wrong she’d been. What would he think of her now?

  “You’re creeping me out,” she said, finally.

  To her surprise he lowered his eyes and took a deep breath. When he spoke again his voice was soft, apologetic, even though his words were still oddly stilted and formal: “I’m sorry. I sometimes forget that I’m not negotiating contracts with other ruthless bastards. You have to realize—the business I’m in is ‘kill or be killed’ all the way to the top, so please, feel free to remind me that I’m being a jerk.”<
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  ‘The business I’m in’—the phrase reminded her of where she’d seen his face before. Suddenly the name came to her: “Zachary Spencer,” she gasped. Her eyes went round, and she felt her heart fluttering: he was the CEO of MasterClass Enterprises, whose nickname in the Forbes business journal was “Iceman” because he was reputed to freeze the balls off of his competitors and rivals with a stare. She’d seen his picture a few times in the New York Eats magazines that were strewn throughout Billingsgate’s campus, standing next to the chefs he’d helped fund and build into stardom.

  That man was sitting in her living room, asking her if she wanted to come work for him as a private chef? He was smiling now, his lips quirking into a resigned smile. “Well, don’t go telling everybody,” he said, with a wry smile on his face. “There’s a reason I drive a Civic.”

  “But—but you could hire any of the dozens of cooks—”

  “That I helped get started? Sure. They make good food—great food, even. But I want more than good food. I want you,” he said. “I want someone who gets me, you understand?”

  She found herself nodding stupidly, not entirely sure she understood. He continued, “I saw you working the last time: the heart, the skill, the passion—that’s what expect from any place that I eat at. But the way you seasoned that broth, the artistry with which you arranged the ratatouille—the fact that you understood how I wanted everything without me having to lay it out for you—that’s something that not everybody gets, not even Frank Seville. You understand what I want—and I’m willing to pay for that.” And then, unexpectedly—yet-not-unexpectedly, he kissed her, his lips pressing against hers in a way that shot a bolt of passion straight into the core of her being, kickstarting something deep inside. It was just a little spark of feeling, but after the numbness of the past three weeks a little seemed like the world, and she found herself returning the kiss—she didn’t realize that her body had missed the heat of passion and drive so much—she didn’t realize how much she missed feeling that burning need to create something until she felt his hands on her breasts and realized that she was the one who’d made him feel that way—she was the one who’d incited him to this—and she could be the one to make him do things. All she had to do—

  He hoisted her up onto the counter, and all she could think was, Inside me, now. She slid her jeans over her hips and he did the same with his trousers, and their bodies came together with a single desperate purpose—her thighs were slick and hot and he sprang out of his pants like a jack-in-the-box and no words were needed to convey their mutual need for each other. The ache of him being inside her opened a new layer of longing in her—a need as basic as breathing, a need she could only fulfill if he were deeper, if he thrust harder, if he—

  There.

  The world fell away—gone was the fact that they were having sex in her kitchen, gone was the fact that he was a billionaire with a small-town girl who had nothing but big dreams. For the first time in a long time, she felt alive, as if the universe were bleeding into her, infusing her with life, and all of the messy, torrid emotions that came with it.

  His body twitched. She could feel the cum running out of her, the coolness of the trail down her legs jarring her back into the world as he groaned and leaned into her. His legs buckled, and she eased him to the floor. The pettiness of the world came back to her—what to do about him, should she make him soup, would he mind sleeping on her couch, she hadn’t changed the sheets of her mother’s bed for three weeks (she’d changed them after they took the body away, but not since—nobody was sleeping there)—but for once it stopped being so irritating and just…was. Suddenly the idea of getting glasses and emptying out her liquor cabinet seemed entirely possible—and she recognized it for the bad idea it was.

  She moved him to the couch. He stirred sleepily. “What was that?” he asked, as she poured out the tea.

  “Hell if I know,” she said.

  He looked at her with a faintly puzzled and bemused expression. “I need you,” he said, hoarsely.

  Nicole nodded. “When do you want me to start?”

  New York City was a two-hour drive, which was bad enough, but the cost of parking in addition to the gas made driving there prohibitively expensive. But she was going to spend a weekend in Zachary Spencer’s penthouse, cooking dinner for him, meals for the next two weeks again, and a party he was giving, so taking three hours by bus wasn’t such an ordeal when viewed in that context. “I’ll take a hotel if you want,” he’d said, “but there are two bedrooms, and the door locks work.”

  “I’ll trust you,” she’d said. She was eager to pretend that she was living in a penthouse for a little while, anyway—being able to live the fantasy of having a kitchen outfitted to the nines and anything she wanted, regardless of whether it was in season or on sale, was something that she couldn’t pass up again.

  They hadn’t spoken of what transpired between them at all for the entire week—if someone were to hack their emails they’d never guess that they’d even had sex at all. He’d disappeared back to his house (a “summer cottage”, he called it—if a grand house like that was a cottage she wondered what a mansion was to him) and when he was online it was only to ask her if she needed any help getting to New York of advising her where to buy things that she might need. And yet, for some reason, the cool, strictly-professional tone of their communications seemed only more proof to her that whatever was between them was real.

  But was it, though? Now, as she watched the small towns become suburbs and the suburbs blend into the Bronx, she felt something stirring in her blood—excitement, or something damn close. Her feelings weren’t dead, after all—Zach had managed to awaken her emotions that had been lying dormant for such a long time, but so far she’d only felt pleasure, joy, satisfaction, anger. It was strange, experiencing the totality of each emotion as if for the first time—there were nuances to the anger she felt when Reginald cocked up the service again that were subtly different from the rage she felt whenever she saw Mark in the parking lot, for example. Subtleties that she’d normally blanket over became starkly clear, now—and she could feel her new insights itching to make it onto the menu plans for the next few days. She still had no idea what she wanted to make for him—he’d given her a credit and carte blanche over everything—and she spent the ride on the bus writing out recipe ideas, keeping track of flavors and textures. The art of balancing a menu was a fine one—by the time the bus dropped her off in Penn Central she still had no idea what she was going to make for anything, but she did have the idea of the emotions she wanted to evoke. It was just a question of how she would do it.

  Zachary Spencer’s penthouse was the top two floors of one of the brownstones with a view of Central Park, and as she set down her bag and took stock of everything that was in the kitchen, she realized just how much she’d needed this job: her mind had been working full-tilt to finish the menus that she was creating for him, and as she took the reusable bags and the shopping trolley (she felt vaguely ridiculous, but her shopping list was long, and it was better to have too much storage capacity and not use it than to need it and not have enough) down the elevator it seemed as if a fog had lifted from her mind, and she was suddenly able to enjoy the anticipation of the challenge, and feel that ache that she’d yet to acknowledge.

  The grief hit her in the elevator, then: all the tears that she hadn’t cried, all the sadness she hadn’t felt, welling up inside her and coming out, coloring her emotions a strange shade of blue that she didn’t know she was capable of. How could the sun go on shining? How could she keep going in the face of the totality of her loss? Strangely enough, she found herself wishing that he could be here for her, now. The memory of his arms around her was the only thing that kept her together long enough to make it to one of the overstuffed chairs in the lobby of the building, and sit, and cry.

  She had to sit for a while in the lobby, and let the grief wash over her—it was cathartic, in a way, finally being able to feel everything t
hat she knew she should have felt. It was there, it was gone, and the traces it left in her heart felt like little vacant holes, but instead of feeling empty, she found herself looking forward to filling them—with the passion, the artistry, the love, that drove her cooking. Her mother had died; it was time to move forward.

  Suddenly the menu she’d been planning, as elaborate as it was, seemed trite, boring. She looked through her notes—what had she been thinking, watercress sandwiches and shrimp quiches? Everybody did that. If she wanted to impress him and his rich hoity-toity clients (she was under the impression that this party was not for friends) then she’d have to pull out all of her tricks. Blini with caviar was impressive but expected. She had to be both impressive and unexpected—to leave a taste in the people’s mouths that left them hungry for more.

  By the time she looked up again it was late in the afternoon. So much for shopping, she thought. But she could at least get the ingredients she needed to cook him dinner. He called his tastes “simple”, which didn’t necessarily mean that the dishes were simple. She understood that he liked a strong “middle” in his flavors—if flavors were like music, Zach liked it when the base was subtle and the finish mild, with the starring notes the ones in the middle.

  She was making the sauce for the tuna ceviche when he came in. “Is it ready?” he asked, sitting down at the dining table. There was a spectacular view of Central Park and the bedrock that jutted out from the hills, and as he poured out the wine that she’d set out for hi

  “Almost,” she said, giving the vinaigrette a final whisk and then drizzling it over the delicate slices of fish, topping it off with a cloud of sprouted alfafa that had been dusted with an ever-so-slight-touch of chili pepper. “There we go.”

  She wiped the plate clean of fingerprints and brought it to him. He sighed, “Exceptional,” and picked up his fork. Suddenly he frowned. “Why don’t you join me?” he asked.