by Mae Wood
“Again. That is one hundred percent intentional. And yes, I’ll get you, but you’ll be getting plenty of me in return. What are you doing?”
“Waiting for a car,” I answered, sidestepping the Uber discussion.
“A car?”
“Yeah, I’m going near Columbus Circle. From my place, that’s a haul.”
“Where’s your place?”
“Brooklyn.”
“The home of bars and babies?”
“Not that part of Brooklyn. Fort Greene isn’t yummy mummies and thousand dollar strollers.”
“Yet, I’d bet. I’d bet there’s a yet at the end of that sentence.”
“And I’m hoping you’re right. Thinking about selling my place.”
“Huh. Hey, I hate to do this, but Fischer’s alone at the bar right now and she’s getting in the weeds. Everything good?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “See you tomorrow. I’ll text.”
With a “cool,” he ended the call and I shoved my phone in my tiny clutch, wrapped my camel coat more tightly around my waist and looked for the car.
Dinner was spectacular. The foraged chanterelles pickled with champagne vinegar and tarragon that graced the edge of my plate were the star.
Rather than being a star, the company was a fucking black hole where all fun and joy was sucked away. Lancaster was seated beside me with Pamela and Susan across the white linen draped table. Lancaster and Pamela kept trying to one-up the other by spouting obscure wine knowledge and important connections.
No, in fact, I don’t care that you’ve spent time with Jean-Luc Renaud in Languedoc debating grape spirits.
Susan lent her overly critical opinion and quick frown to every dish. She fancied herself a food blogger, but a little searching when I got home revealed an embarrassing disaster of a WordPress page complete with poorly lit photos of half-eaten dishes and plenty of emoticons.
And when the bill came, Lancaster not so subtly nodded to the server that it should be placed by my elbow. Either his expense account at the Times had been cut off or he didn’t want to submit what I knew was a four figure tab.
I don’t get angry often. Life is too short to let that kind of poison into your soul. But in that moment, when the precise shade of amber to be ascribed to the tawny port was up for debate—Rich amber? Honeyed amber? Caramel amber?—that I decided I was done with New York.
Absolutely. Done with New York. I was done with the foodie world that reduced everything to words in an effort to synthesize life. Joyless and too clinical.
Life isn’t meant to be rendered into long strings of syllables found only in thesauruses. Life is something to revel in. To live in. To savor. Not to collect, to inventory, to trot out later to impress someone else who isn’t even listening, but is only wanting to share his own pinned and dried butterfly.
Sorry, Marnie, not going to blog for BA, I thought, as I slapped down my credit card with enough force that Sour Susan turned her head at the sound. Civil, courteous, I counseled myself. Just get out.
Standing outside of the restaurant door, I said good-bye to Pamela and Susan and was not surprised, but less than pleased when Lancaster tucked me under his arm.
Nope. Nope. Nope. I shrugged away.
“Let’s go grab drinks. There’s a new speakeasy near Central Park West. You’d never know it’s there.”
“Ah, it’s late and I’m flying out tomorrow.”
“It’s like eleven. I think Middle America has ruined you,” he said, trying once again to pull me to him.
“Trust me, it hasn’t.” I pushed out from under his arm and stepped out of his reach.
“Ah, so you’re still seeing that guy in Memphis?”
“Yes,” I replied, my voice definite and rising above the traffic.
“Okay, then. I hope he enjoys it. I’ll see you when you get back.”
Enjoys it? Enjoys what? And my temper that I’d worked so hard to contain exploded. He hadn’t just found my last nerve so much as pinched it.
“Enjoys it? What’s it, Lancaster?”
“Well, I doubt that he’s going to get to Éric Chavot openings without you,” he offered drolly.
I bit my tongue, inflicting pain upon myself rather than do further damage to a relationship I knew I needed to maintain.
“Well, I hope you have a good time at the speakeasy. See you around.” I turned on my heels and stomped down the street and with the wind whipping around me, looked for a free cab.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Bert
After my fourth time circling the terminal, I spotted Drennan with her long honey hair piled into a messy bun and a bright red roller bag at her feet.
I popped the trunk and placed her bag in the back while she got settled into the passenger’s seat.
“All set?”
“Yeah. So you pissed about Bon Appétit?”
“Definitely not. You got a clean change of clothes with you?”
“Everything in the bag needs washing, but you’ve got a laundry room.”
“Great. My place.”
“Chauffeur and gigolo?”
“I believe the proper term is boyfriend?” I heard the word fall from my mouth before I fully processed it.
“Ah, so there’s a word for this. Thank you. Boyfriend,” she said, drawing out the syllables with a teasing smile on her face that lit up her eyes. “I think I like that.”
I reached across the console and firmly grasped her thigh above her knee. “I really like that,” I said. The air in the car shifted and grew gentle. I was sweet on her, as my mom would say.
As much as I knew that this, that Memphis, that me and her, was an escape from her real life, I couldn’t help but be happy that she’d chosen to spend this layover with me.
“So, let me tell you about Bon Appétit,” and with that, the atmosphere shifted again. I felt her excitement as she told me about lunch with her former co-workers, the great Pho, the offer to guest write for the magazine’s blog, and the potential feature on Memphis.
She didn’t mention for a second the true purpose of her quick trip up to New York or the meeting with her family’s lawyer.
But I knew it had happened because Trip told me that the lawyer had called to tell him that the FBI might be interviewing him about it.
I’d told Trip to back off when he told me that he and Marisa had just ordered another case from the wine shop in hopes of getting more fakes. They could Scooby Doo in their own lives, but needed to stay out of Drennan’s business.
The news about the potential Bon Appétit feature had my feet floating off the ground as well. Publicity like that from a well-respected national magazine could mean more tables filled and an increased awareness of my pride and joy.
“Did you disclose that you’re plugging your boyfriend’s restaurant?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should?” I asked.
“I’m not writing the article. I’m just going to give a list of suggested places to go and people to speak with and help make introductions for whoever the story gets assigned to. I know Pig and Barley will be featured because it’s great, but it’s not my story. I only opened the door. You’ve still got to walk through it.”
I squeezed her thigh in response. “Thank you.”
“Thank me later.”
“See, there you go with the innuendo. It is intentional. And you know it. And I will.”
She laughed. A bubbly, joyous laugh. “Yes, that time it was on purpose.”
“We have twenty minutes until we get to my house. You need to talk to me about Éric Chavot and dinner last night. Because when we walk through that front door, we’re done talking.”
Drennan was easy. She didn’t ask anything of me that I hadn’t already offered. And perhaps that is why I liked her so much. Until now with Grady about ready to stretch his wings, my entire adult life was not completely mine. My time and energy belonged to Grady, Amy, my family, my friends, and what were probably reasona
ble requests from the women I’d dated since the divorce—come to a party with me, let’s have brunch, let’s go see some chick flick, why didn’t you call—each felt like yet another millstone around my neck. For the first time in my life I didn’t have to do anything. I got to choose what I did and how I spent my time, and choosing Drennan was easy.
Hell, it was like choosing to take my next breath. It would have been a choice not to want to see her, not to want to spend time with her, and the resentment I’d developed toward other women I’d seen wasn’t there.
As fall truly set in, resentment emerged, but in a different way. I resented the fact that my friend was moving back home soon. I didn’t need Drennan. She didn’t need me. But I was kidding myself if I thought I wasn’t going to miss her. Her laugh with a smile so wide you could see her molars. Her soft skin that smelled like frangipane and clementine. Her brief visit to New York had taught me that much. She made me happy and I would miss her.
And I tried to savor every adventure we had, cataloging them like some lovesick teen girl—making pesto in my kitchen while debating the merits of Chinese versus Italian pine nuts or whether to skip the pine nuts entirely and go with walnuts; teaching her knife skills while we carved pumpkins and then roasted the seeds, flavoring them with cumin and popular Turkish spices; suffering through Trip’s family’s fundraising gala by teaching her pig Latin; the way she snuggled up to me in her deep sleep—like I was her teddy bear that she needed to hold close. I was sucking the marrow from the bones of a relationship we had built.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Drennan
Straight from the shower, I towel dried my hair and pulled it into a messy bun, twisting a bright pink band around it. Rain pelted the bathroom window, the sky dark with clouds. Cold November Rain played in my brain. With the weather, it was going to be a bun day for me regardless of whether I had packed a hairdryer for my sleepover at Bert’s. I slipped into some jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt featuring Isaac Hayes’s ostentatious Cadillac from Stax Museum that we’d visited as part of his Memphis musical education project.
“Hey,” I called down his home’s single hallway, as I set off to find a cup of coffee in the kitchen. “So what about that Blue Plate place?”
“Their biscuits are terrible.”
Oh fuck. That’s not Bert. That’s Grady. Fuckity fuck fuck. No way through but out.
Now at the end of the hallway, I stepped into the living room. Grady was sprawled on the brown leather sofa, tapping away at the screen of his phone.
“They aren’t that bad,” I offered, ignoring the elephant in the room.
“No, really, they are bad. Dad’s are insane. He’s making some now.” A quick glance confirmed that he wasn’t looking up from his phone to look at me. I started examining my toes. Apparently the rules of this game are to avoid eye contact.
“I haven’t had those.”
“You should. He’s a pastry chef, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Where is he?” I kept looking at the chipped purple paint on my toenails, contrasted against the nearly white carpet. Then, to the ceiling, noticing that Bert really needed to dust the ceiling fan. My eyes anywhere but at the teenager on the sofa.
“In the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” I cleared my throat and walked across the room to the kitchen. At least I have clothes on. “Hey, so, your son is here.”
“Yeah. He is,” Bert replied, turning away from the sink and drying his hands on a red and white striped dish towel. Two steps each and we met in the middle of the kitchen.
“Sorry about this,” he said, his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know. Apparently his soccer practice this morning got rained out and he decided to see if I’d make him breakfast.”
“Think about coming to tell me? What if I’d walked out naked?” Bert’s eyebrows rose in an expression of shock. “Yeah, that hadn’t occurred to you, had it?” I hissed.
“I told him that we went exercising this morning and then you came over here to get cleaned up before we went out for breakfast.”
“He’s not dumb, Bert!” I spat, reminding myself to keep my voice down. “It’s pouring outside. The Y has showers. Even if he were in kindergarten, he’d be able to figure out that’s not right.”
“Here’s your coffee,” he said, overly loudly. “You want some milk, cream, sugar?”
I snatched the blue mug from his hand. “Pretending that you don’t know I drink coffee black isn’t going to convince him that we weren’t just,” I dropped my voice again, “having sex.”
“And I’m making biscuits. I’ve got a few jars of preserves in the pantry from this summer.”
“Wait,” I said, clutching the warm mug in both hands. “You make jam?”
“Technically, I make preserves. Twenty minutes or so on the biscuits. I pulled out three for you, but whatever you don’t eat, Grady will.”
“Pulled them out of your ass? You were out of the bathroom like five minutes before I was.”
“Out of the freezer. Grady loves my angel biscuits so I keep some in the freezer.”
“Okay, one. ‘Loves my angel biscuits’ may be the most ridiculous Southern thing ever. And I’ve been to the restaurant that sells twenty varieties of chicken salad. And the place that only sells Bundt cakes. Whatever the hell angel biscuits are beats them both. Hands down. Two, you’ve got the Naked Chef thing going on. Hard core. How do you not have your own TV show. Or at least groupies? Three—”
“Dad, how much longer until breakfast?”
“Twenty minutes. Two eggs, yes?” he called into the living room.
“Yes, sir,” came the reply
“Three?” Bert asked, refilling his coffee mug, and trying to hide his amusement at my rant behind a sip of coffee.
“Whatever three was has now been completely eclipsed by the fact that your son just called you ‘sir.’”
“It’s my mom’s doing.”
“I can’t believe you have him do that.”
“Just wait until he calls you ma’am.”
“No!” I was slightly horrified by the prospect of being called ma’am by a teenager. “I’m not old enough to be a ma’am.”
“Stop. Just stop with the age thing.”
“Sorry. I forgot. So, anyway, what are you doing about this,” I said, flailing my free hand in the direction of the living room.
“I’m making breakfast. That’s what I’m doing. Be cool, Drennan. Now, I know how you like your coffee, but how do you like your eggs?”
I stewed for a moment, before deciding to accept the awkwardness that was sure to come. “Over hard.”
“Eggs, Miss von Eck. Eggs. You’ll get over hard later.”
“Fine. I like them sunny side up with the yolks runny.”
“Up for an adventure?”
“When have I not been?”
“So I do this scrambled egg with a touch of crème fraiche at the end then some fresh herbs on top.”
“You keep talking like that and I’m never leaving.”
Bert smiled at me, shook his head, and turned to his fridge, pulling out a plastic sleeve of multicolored farm-fresh eggs. “Want to be my sous-chef?” He retrieved a metal bowl from under the counter. “Get cracking. A half dozen.”
“Yes, chef,” came my saucy reply. I reached over and grabbed an egg, whacked it on the bowl’s lip with one hand, dropped the contents into the bowl and tossed the shell into the sink with a clink.
“Seriously, where did you come from?”
“The better question is where I’m coming next.”
“Really, you know I love this, but Grady is in the next room. Dial it back before this,” he gestured to his groin, “gets even more uncomfortable. Capisce?”
“A half dozen?”
“Please.”
Soon I heard the not-so-gentle patter of not-so-little feet, if he was anything like his dad, on the tile behind me.
“Dad, do you have any juice in the freezer? I dr
ank everything that was in the fridge.”
“I don’t think so, but you can look.”
“You don’t cold press juice?” I teased Bert. “What kind of foodie are you?”
Grady was the one who laughed, but according to the terms of our unspoken agreement, I kept focused on the eggs. “Oh, he used to. When I was little I liked orange juice. But then I had it at a friend’s house and it was disgusting. Turns out I’d been drinking some sort of citrus blend he’d come up with and called ‘orange juice’ so I’d drink it.”
“Pineapple, orange, and grapefruit. I haven’t made that in a long time.”
“You should,” Grady replied. I tossed the last shell into the sink, hearing the satisfying thump of hitting the disposal dead center. “Nice shot. You play basketball?”
With that, terms of our agreement were being rewritten. I turned as he slid into a seat at the kitchen table and watched him sweep his bangs off of his forehead. His hair wasn’t the deep brown of his dad’s, but lighter, longer, and sun streaked from his hours outdoors. “No, but played a lot of horse with my dad when I was little.”
“Cool. So you’re dating my dad?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a seat across from him and counseling myself to be cool like Bert had asked me to be.
“Cool.”
I tried not to smile at his verbal tick. “You’re in high school?” I asked, going for the obvious.
“Yeah, my senior year.”
“Where are you off to for college?”
“Not sure yet.”
“He got into Vandy already,” Bert said.
“That’s a great school,” I said, not even trying to hide how impressed I was. “I went to a state school near my home. UC Davis is a good school, but not impressive like Vanderbilt.”
“Well, both my parents went there, so I think I got the alumni kid and family donor preference.”
“Really?” asked Bert. He looked completely surprised and puzzled. “It’s not like we’ve got some big relationship with Vanderbilt. I mean, I give a few hundred every year, but it’s not like I gave a building or anything.”