The make-out girl giggled. I did not look up. I tried, I really tried to concentrate on the amenities at the Enchantment Spa of Sedona, Arizona. I tried not to feel uptight about the fact that they were making slurping sounds with their kisses and I was mildly aroused even though I was mildly disgusted, and I just wanted to mind my own business and read about the benefits of hot stone massages.
The make-out girl purred with delight. It was clear they weren’t even going to eat their cake. I put down Travel & Leisure. Took a last sip of coffee. Said a silent good-bye. And left them forever. Sorry. But this relationship was not working out.
chapter six
b acon. I followed the smell into the kitchen, where Coco was microwaving some slices out of a box. She was in boxers and a T-shirt, back from the gym. “Hi, honey! You want some? I really shouldn’t be eating. Jack is in town, and we’re going out to dinner, but I started to think about bacon and just couldn’t get it out of my head . . .”
Jack.
I’ve been avoiding the subject of Jack. He was her “boyfriend.” Sixty-five years old. Too old for my forty-three-year-old mom, as far as I was concerned. A retired button manufacturer originally from Long Island, Jack was silver-haired, tall and lean, but with a belly that hung over his belt. He had very tanned skin with that cooked-red-meat look that people who spend too much time in the sun get. His main home was in Palm Beach, where he lived with his wife, but he kept a place on Central Park South too. Sixteenth floor, views of the park, in a white brick postwar building right down the street from the Plaza Hotel. This was just eleven blocks away from us—but a completely different income bracket. For the past year, he’d been in the process of divorcing his wife. Coco didn’t care. She had no interest in marrying him, not even for his money. She liked her independence too much. In the meanwhile, they seemed to have a good time together. So I tried not to disapprove of the relationship. At least, out loud in front of him.
“Those Atkins people,” she said, putting the box back in the fridge, “they better know what they’re talking about.”
“You don’t need to lose weight.”
“I don’t need to lose weight because I’m dieting. If I wasn’t dieting, I’d be overweight, and then I’d need to lose weight.”
“Whatever.”
The microwave beeped. “You sure you don’t want some? You know you can’t resist that smell . . .”
“No, thanks.” My mother will microwave for me, but she doesn’t cook. When Coco makes a hamburger, she knows it’s done when the smoke detector goes off.
I settled in at our tiny kitchen table and looked at the blue and white HOT BAGEL sign mounted in the space right between our two front windows. It messed up our view of the street, but at least we were rewarded with the heavenly smell of baking bagels wafting up, though Coco claimed she’d been smelling it so long she couldn’t smell it anymore.
“So, Ian flaked out on me again.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
I pried the heel of a sneaker off using my big toe. “We were supposed to meet for coffee, but he calls and cancels. . . .”
She pulled out a giant thing of Diet Coke from the fridge. “Don’t you think it’s about time you expand your horizons?”
I got a glass of milk from the fridge and two Fig Newtons. “I know you’re sick of hearing me complain about him . . .”
“That’s got nothing to do with it.” She pulled up a chair, sat right in front of me, and looked into my face. “I want you to be happy!” It always got to me when she gave me full-force attention like that. “You’ve been with him what, two years? Why do you have to be so serious? You’re young. You should be out there meeting other guys. Getting experience. Having fun. Getting laid. Why do you have to be so monogamous?”
She said it like I had a disease. Well. She was right about one thing. That bacon did smell good. I tore off a piece. That hickory smoke flavor—it really brought out the carnivore in me. Fat. Gristle. Blood. Lust. Rage. Murder. “I’m sure you’re right. Ian cares more about you than he does about me.”
“If you really think that’s true, then dump him. Ian’s not the only sperm in the jism.”
“But then I’ll have absolutely no social life. Seems like all my old friends either moved away or we’re not talking, and I can’t meet anyone new.”
“Any cute guys at school?”
I thought of Tom Carpenter. “Maybe.”
The warm spray of the shower felt good. School was not only nerve-racking, it was physically demanding, and I was beat. Instead of expending the effort to towel myself off, I got right into bed. I liked to dry off between the soft sheets. And I took a little nap. They say naps are one of the best ways to relieve stress and stay healthy. So even though part of me felt guilty about getting into bed so early in the evening, another part of me felt like if I didn’t, I would crack up.
After dozing a bit, I considered getting my vibrator out. Yes, I wasn’t completely monogamous, even if my other boyfriend needed batteries to get going—at least he was always there for me and didn’t care what I looked like. It was hidden in the bottom drawer of my bureau. I hadn’t used it since moving in. Coco was in the bathroom on the other side of my wall. The shower went on. Maybe a little Hello time with Kitty would make me feel better . . .
The doorbell rang.
“Ginger?” she yelled through the wall.
“Yes!”
“Jack is here! Can you let him in?”
I sighed. Good-bye Kitty.
I slipped on my favorite pair of drawstring jersey pants with little poodles on them, a tank top, and a sweatshirt.
“Hey!” he said as he stepped in the door, “long time no see!” Jack’s thick Long Island voice was so loud it was as if he was shouting to me from across the street.
“Mom’s in the shower. She’ll be right out.”
I turned, trying to make a quick escape back to my room, but wasn’t nimble enough.
“So how are you?” He went directly to the refrigerator for a can of beer. “Come talk to me!” He took the beer into the living room, plopped down on the couch, and seemed to expect me to join him. Jack wore blue jeans, and his long legs sprawled out in front of him. I hate older men in blue jeans. Not that his body was that bad, not that I wanted to think about what his body was like.
“I’m good.” There was an easy chair angled next to the couch to make a cozy conversational corner, and lots of room next to him.
“Come!” he said. “Sit!”
I stood back near the doorway and stared across the room at three prints on the wall that Coco had gotten at the Museum of Sex downtown. “That’s okay,” I said. The pictures were very cheesecake-y, from the 1940s, and each one featured a woman with a pair of underwear that had just fallen down to her ankles. Each woman’s moment of exposure took place in a different setting. One had just gotten on a bus. One was on the street holding groceries. And one was bowling. Each one looked back at the viewer with surprise.
“So!” he said. “The prodigal daughter! Back home with Mom!”
“Back home with Mom.”
“So talk to me! Sit down! How ya doin’?”
“Good.” I remained standing near the doorway.
“So what are ya doin’ with yourself?”
“I’m going to a cooking school.” I knew he knew, but if he was gonna ask, I’d pretend like he was as dumb as he looked.
“What for?”
“To learn more skills. So I can get a better job.”
“What, you wanna be, who was the famous chef, what’s his name . . . with an E? The one who’s got that show on TV?”
“Emeril?”
“Yeah. That’s the guy. You want to be like Emeril?”
“No.”
“That guy makes a lot of money.”
“I know.”
“You should be so lucky.”
I inched my way back so I was actually under the arch of the doorway.
Jack had made a lot of mone
y in his button business, and he was proud of the fact. He couldn’t imagine having any other goal in life. He took a swig of beer. “He’s not just a cook. He’s a personality. An entrepreneur! He does everything, that guy! You see him everywhere.”
“Uh-huh.” If you spend your entire day watching television.
“So what makes you think you could do what he does?”
“I don’t want to do what he does.”
“I thought you said you’re taking a class on how to be a chef!”
“Well,” I said, making it into the hall, “if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“You ask me,” he said before I managed to turn, “you should get a job. You shouldn’t be living with your mother at your age! My kids? They’ve all got families! Good jobs!”
This little attack was so typical of him. I wanted so badly to ask him how his wife was doing. “Good to see you, Jack.”
“My son? He just bought a house in Boca.”
“Great.”
He picked up the remote. “So let’s see what’s on the idiot box.”
I escaped.
Back in the safety of my room, I lay back down on my bed and listened to Coco’s shower. She had the radio going and was singing to that old U2 song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” My mind turned to Jean Paul’s attack. You do not have what it takes. Maybe Jack was right. I was wasting my father’s money, and really should quit school. Surely they’d refund the money, or at least part of it, especially if Jean Paul told them I didn’t belong there.
But the thing was, I did have what it took. Didn’t I? And why didn’t he ever yell at Len, who’d been an ad executive for years and, as far as I perceived, spent most of his time at school sharpening his Wusthof knives? Was it because I was a woman? He didn’t pick on Tara. Or Priscilla. Or even Miriam, the sixty-five-year-old grandmother who took a half hour to julienne one carrot.
Maybe he just didn’t like me.
After I heard the shower go off, I went back to Coco’s bedroom thinking I’d complain to her about how annoying Jack was, not that I believed she’d be sympathetic. I sat on her bed and looked at the elaborate display of boas and fans on the walls. The boas, black and lavender, were draped horizontally on little hooks, so they dipped around the room like swags of icing around the perimeter of a birthday cake. The fans made a pyramid over her bed.
“You have plans for tonight?” she asked as she stepped into a short black skirt with slits on the side.
“Yeah. To chill out.”
She pulled a matching black top over her head. No bra was involved in this outfit. The top had a slit down the front that went past the southern end of her boobs and a slit coming up that went past her belly button. I could never pull off an outfit like that.
“We’ll probably go to his place later.” She stuck a gold hoop earring the size of an onion ring through her ear.
“Okay. Have fun. And never leave me alone in a room with him again.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Should I talk to him about it?”
“There’s nothing he can do. It’s his personality. Just let me continue to avoid him as much as possible.”
“You should know . . .” She put the other earring in. “His divorce came through.”
“What?”
“He’s making noises about us, now.”
“He asked you to marry him?” There was nothing I wanted less than to have Jack as a stepfather.
“Not yet, but I can see it coming.” She noticed the look of panic on my face and laughed. “Don’t worry. I have no interest in changing his bedpans.”
“Thank god.”
“But we should figure out a way for you two to get along.”
“We do get along,” I said. “Badly.”
chapter seven
“ s o why do you think he’s wasting his time on us?” I asked Ralph. We were in the demo kitchen waiting for Robert Kingsley to honor us with his presence. It was a small, sterile, windowless room with three rows of chairs on three levels of ledges so everyone could have a good view of the countertop up front, which was equipped with a stove and a sink and a large butcher-block surface on one side and a marble surface on the other. Ralph and I were in the back row in the corner. Tom Carpenter was front row center. Tara was in the second row, directly behind Tom.
“Must’ve made some sort of error in judgment,” Ralph said under his breath. “Maybe he was soused when he agreed, and then he couldn’t get out of it.”
The man certainly did not need to teach. He was famous. In demand. Had his own show on the Food Network. Speaking engagements all over the world. A deal with Perdue. His cookbook memoir was a best seller. He owned Zin, which was considered THE best restaurant in Sonoma, California. He was not your typical celebrity chef.
In general, there are three basic types. There’s the educated, bourgeois ones. They never actually cooked in restaurants. They have a beautiful, fully equipped kitchen in their home, and they know how to talk on camera while neatly combining premeasured ingredients.
Then you’ve got your clog-wearing Europeans, who trained in hotel and restaurant schools under medieval conditions and want to spread their suffering throughout the world. If we wanted to worship them, we were free to do so.
Then you have your Vin Diesel “I’m a macho line cook” kind of guys. Until you’ve pulled all-nighters with a broken limb, burned every square inch of your body, dripped your own blood on someone’s sirloin, and gotten through a dinner service for five hundred while stoned, you’re a sissy who hasn’t earned the right to stand in your shit-kickers behind a Wolf stove.
Robert Kingsley went to Stanford, where he got a degree in philosophy. His first job? Chez Panisse. He worked up to sous chef before taking off to travel, cooking in hotels and restaurants all around the world. Then he opened Zin. He was a genius at using fresh regional ingredients with an international flavor and was also one of the world’s experts on wine.
So why was he bothering with us? He certainly didn’t need the money. Whatever the reason, I’d lucked out. I didn’t have to hide the fact that I’d been to college, or feel I had to “make up” for the fact that I was female. He’d worked for Alice Waters, after all, and his sous chef at Zin used to be Charlotte Wilcox, who was now a celebrity in her own right. Kingsley was definitely woman-friendly.
“One thing’s for sure,” I said. “I’m glad to get out of Jean Paul’s kitchen for awhile.” I could only hope that Jean Paul hadn’t briefed Kingsley on the students and polluted his mind against me.
Everyone sat erect when he walked into the room. One more way he was unlike most celebrity chefs—he looked like a movie star.
The man was thirty-four years old. Healthy, California tan. Thick brown wavy hair combed straight back. Handsome, clean-shaved face. No chef’s whites for him. He wore a dark tweed suit and a white shirt. Black leather dress shoes. “So I was just at the airport,” he said immediately. His voice was silky and rich. “What do you think I saw?”
Everyone was quiet. I just stared.
“I was sitting at a table in the restaurant, if you can call it that, waiting to board my plane.”
I waited for Tara to open her mouth but even she stayed quiet.
“I was starving. What were my choices? Dried-up pizza. Burgers in foil sitting under a heat lamp. Fruit salad in plastic cups. And what else?”
Ralph raised his hand and then said, “Hot dogs?”
Ralph was flirting. But Kingsley was not gay. His book had detailed two affairs. One was with the daughter of a French vintner. He wrote all about learning the “pleasures of wine” with her while picnicking on Stinson Beach and hiking on Mount Tamalpais. And he’d almost married Carole Binchy when he did segments on her morning show in London.
“There was a sign,” he continued, “that said ‘Gourmet Sandwiches.’ ”
The class was silent.
“Gourmet sandwiches!” He laughed a bit mania
cally. “Do you know what was in them?”
“Sun-dried tomatoes?” someone said.
“Black Forest ham?”
“Bologna!” he yelled with indignation. “Egg salad, tuna, ham, processed American cheese, soggy iceberg lettuce, mustard, mayo—now I ask you. Is that gourmet?”
That was a safe enough question. The class answered more or less in unison. “No!”
“But the sign said ‘gourmet.’ ”
“It’s false advertising,” Tara said.
“Was it?” he asked. He looked around the room. No one spoke. I slowly raised my hand. He nodded at me.
For the first time ever my class in linguistic anthropology was going to come in handy. “It is gourmet.”
“Go on,” he said. The way he lifted his chin and his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth all at the same time let me know. This man accepted me.
“ ‘Gourmet’ used to mean the food was of the highest quality in the French tradition,” I said, “but now it’s been appropriated by business people. They want to use what it used to mean to sell products. . . .”
He pointed at me. “Exactly. And what does that tell you about the restaurant business?”
No one answered.
“It means nothing lasts. What was considered stylish last year is boring now. Asian Fusion? Nobody cares anymore. Fresh, local ingredients? Ten years ago the concept was revolutionary. Now it’s expected, for god’s sake. Then we saw a shift to the exotic, the foreign. Today? It’s all available overnight on the Internet! It’s all been done! Everyone keeps wondering what the next wave is going to be. Some people think there’s nothing new left to do. No new way of eating to be discovered. No new combinations to be tried. Do you think that’s true?”
No one dared answer.
“Of course it’s not true! But you are the ones who will have to come up with the new ideas. And in order to do that, you’ve got to travel the world. Work in different restaurants. Become intimate with every nationality of food. That’s the only way to become a brilliant chef. Not from sitting in a classroom.”
The Art of Undressing Page 5