Lizzie smiled and played along, but the more Kathryn talked, the more dreadful this dinner sounded, and if she weren’t contractually obliged to be a part of it she would happily take a pass.
* * *
With only a few hours until Sam Offerman’s arrival, Lizzie plopped down on her bed, scanning a few different apps on her phone for inspiration. She often took to social media when she wanted to spark an idea or two, if not for an actual recipe, then for a beautifully composed photo that would get her culinary synapses firing. These days, there was no shortage of people posting photos of their meals, whether it was a dish they’d made themselves or one they’d eaten at a restaurant.
As Lizzie flicked through various #beetsalads and #tacos on Instagram, she was reminded of how much the culinary landscape had changed since she’d started her public-access TV show in college. Back then, food blogs were growing in popularity but hadn’t quite reached the omnipresence of a few years later, when it seemed anyone with an Internet connection and moderate interest in cooking had started an online food diary. Now having a food blog seemed almost passé, and it certainly wasn’t enough to land you a book deal, unless you also had a huge following on Instagram and Pinterest and Snapchat and whatever other social media app was the Hot New Thing.
Lizzie was a part of that world, but she also wasn’t. She’d signed up for all of those services as they became popular, but in many cases the timing coincided with her post-TV life. Who cared about following a has-been? There were hundreds of other people who’d already filled the void she’d left behind, for whom technology wasn’t an afterthought but rather the lifeblood of their careers. It all made Lizzie feel so old and out of touch, even though she was only thirty.
She was scrolling through images of #beetsalads for something enticing when she stopped abruptly at an appealing photo. It had all the elements from the salad she’d made the other night, which Kathryn said she wanted her to repeat: beets, avocados, scallions. But as she looked at the photo more closely, her interest morphed into confusion. The salad didn’t look a little like hers; it looked exactly like hers, right down to the platter on which it was served.
When Lizzie clicked on the photo to enlarge it, she discovered it was posted by someone with the username “@thecleanlife” with the caption “Can’t get enough of this amazing #beetsalad. Recipe coming soon to the blog!” The caption was followed by a string of emojis and about ten different hashtags, ranging from #cleaneating and #plantbased to #eeeeeats. The closer Lizzie looked, the more certain she was that it was, indeed, her beet salad. The table surface, the cutlery, the place mats . . . everything looked just like the Silvesters’. Was this Zoe’s Instagram? Was The Clean Life the name of her blog?
Lizzie opened @thecleanlife’s profile and felt her stomach somersault. The beet salad wasn’t the only photo that looked familiar. Wasn’t that the roasted vegetable platter she’d made the other night? And didn’t that look just like her green vegetable sauté? All of the recognizable dishes were accompanied by reassurances that the recipe would be “coming soon” to the blog, as well as the Clean Life app, which had just launched. Lizzie scrolled back to the top and saw that The Clean Life had more than 150,000 followers. She didn’t consider herself a social media guru, but she knew that was a lot of followers—not Kim Kardashian levels of fame but enough to entice companies to send whoever ran The Clean Life free samples and pay for sponsored posts. Was Zoe making money off of Lizzie’s food?
The profile didn’t give the author’s name. All it said was “Whole Foods. Whole Spirit. Whole Life,” with a link to the accompanying Web site. Lizzie clicked on it. When the site loaded, Lizzie found herself looking at a stylish, crisp site, with bright images of beautifully photographed food. The latest post was titled “What Work Looked Like This Week” and featured all the familiar photographs Lizzie had seen on Instagram, along with a few others that Lizzie didn’t recognize. In succinct prose, the post talked about the author’s need to hit the reset button after splurging on her trip to Europe:
I managed to eat my body weight in socca while I was in Nice. If you’ve never had socca, it’s a crepe made with chickpea flour, and it is AMAZING. And vegan! And totally good for you! But when you eat it six times a day . . . well, yeah. Time to detox.
Europe. Nice. The beet salad. The roasted vegetable platter. This had to be Zoe’s site. It was all too coincidental.
Lizzie clicked on the “About” tab. There she found a long, detailed story about the site’s mission and origins:
The Clean Life isn’t just a blog. It’s a lifestyle. A creed. An approach to cooking and nutrition built on the knowledge that foods can not only nourish but also heal.
I should know. Six years ago, I received a phone call that forever changed my life. My best friend, Marie, called to tell me she’d been diagnosed with cancer. Not only that—the cancer had spread to her spleen, liver, and blood. The doctors gave her two to three years to live.
My heart stopped beating. I couldn’t breathe. How could this be? She was only 18. She was an athlete. She had just been accepted to the college of her dreams.
I refused to accept her diagnosis. I refused to listen to the doctors who told her there was nothing to do but manage the disease until it eventually took her from this world. I refused to let her go.
I started reading as much as possible about cancer cures and alternative medicine, and that’s when I learned about the amazing healing powers of food and diet. Although the doctors claimed Marie’s cancer was terminal—and couldn’t pin down an exact cause other than bad luck in the genetics department—I discovered that her disease was caused by the buildup of toxins in her system, which led to a pancreatic enzyme deficiency. If those toxins were flushed out with a clean diet and clean lifestyle, she had a very good chance at survival.
With my help, Marie adopted a clean diet of healing foods—entirely gluten-free and dairy-free, with no processed sugar or soy. She drank raw juices, took natural supplements, and went for coffee enemas. I joined her on this journey, and let me tell you, it was a tough transition. But I knew I had to do it. Her life depended on it.
Almost immediately, Marie’s health began to improve. She looked better, but more important, she felt better. And so did I. I realized I’d been walking through a fog for years, but by removing the toxins from my system I could see the world clearly again. A veil had been lifted. I couldn’t believe how amazing I felt. That ache in my left knee? Gone. My monthly migraine? Vanished.
Against all odds, Marie beat her cancer diagnosis. That’s right: The doctors told her she wouldn’t live more than three years, and six years later she is not only alive but cancer-free.
We now live thousands of miles apart, but we have stuck with our clean diet and haven’t looked back. Some people have called us wellness gurus. I like to call us wellness warriors.
If you, like me and Marie, are frustrated with conventional medicine and its advocates (most of whom, by the way, are funded by the pharmaceutical industry) I invite you to join us on this journey.
Food is medicine.
Food heals.
It saved Marie’s life and, in a different way, it saved mine. It could save yours, too.
Peace and love
Z
“Z.” Zoe. It had to be.
Lizzie read the story once more before laying her phone on her bed. She suddenly cared less about Zoe claiming the beet salad as her own and more about the emotional story behind the site’s genesis. So that’s why Zoe was so fanatical about what she ate. It was all starting to make a lot more sense.
Lizzie put herself in Zoe’s shoes and tried to imagine what it would have been like if, at the peak of their friendship, April had announced she’d been diagnosed with cancer. Lizzie would have lost it. And, like Zoe, she probably would have looked for any way to keep her best friend alive. Lizzie wasn’t sure about the coffee enemas (Did they shoot a Venti Americano up there? It sounded terrible.), but grief and fear often led you to
do crazy things. Who was Lizzie to judge?
If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t entirely convinced the so-called clean diet cured Zoe’s friend. It could have been a coincidence. Correlation, causation, blah blah blah. Then again, as someone who’d had a show promoting healthy campus cuisine, Lizzie knew firsthand the benefits of eating well. She wasn’t fanatical about it and she was always skeptical of trendy diets like Kathryn’s, but Lizzie’s entire claim to fame was that cooking and eating healthy food instead of eating processed crap meant you’d look, feel, and study better. Was it such a stretch to think that, if you ate so that your body was performing at its peak, you could help yourself heal? Maybe not.
She picked up her phone again and stared at the photo of Marie that “Z” had posted next to the story. The photo was tightly cropped, but the girl looked to be about fifteen or sixteen and was standing in front of a fat tree trunk. Lizzie tried to enlarge the picture but started as someone tapped at her door.
“Knock, knock?” It was Renata.
“Come in,” Lizzie said, putting down her phone.
Renata cracked the door and poked her head inside. “Mrs. Silvester wanted to know if you need help with the shopping for tonight.”
Tonight. Sam Offerman’s visit. Lizzie had gotten so sidetracked with “Z’s” Web site that she’d forgotten why and how she’d ended up there in the first place.
“I don’t think so. I’m still making my shopping list.”
“Let me know if you need anything. I will handle the wine and liquor. Mr. Offerman . . . let’s just say he enjoys more than a glass or two. . . .”
“I know the type.” Lizzie glanced at her phone, whose screen had gone black. “Did you . . . I mean . . . you said you’ve known the Silvesters for ten years, right?”
“Yes.”
“So Zoe would have been, what, thirteen when you first met her?”
“I think so.” Renata looked at the ceiling as she counted silently. “Yes, that sounds right. Why?”
“I was just wondering.... Did she ever talk about her friend—”
“Renata?”
Kathryn’s voice sounded down the hallway, cutting off Lizzie. Renata held up a finger and peered over her shoulder. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Kathryn said, her voice coming closer. “We have an issue with Sam’s room. Whoever last stayed there left a hideous stain on the pillow. I have no idea what it is, but you can see it through the pillowcase. Could you get him a new one? He’ll be here in a few hours.”
“Certainly.”
Kathryn poked her head in Lizzie’s room. “All okay here?”
“Yep. Just making my shopping list.”
“Fantastic. Sorry to pull Renata away. I hope you weren’t in the middle of something?”
“No, not really,” Lizzie said.
“Not really . . . oh, dear. Sounds to me like maybe you were. Well, Renata should be finished helping me in a few minutes, and then you two can continue discussing whatever you were discussing.”
“It wasn’t anything important,” Lizzie said. “Honestly.”
“Important or not important—I’m still interrupting. Which is so like me, I know, and it’s for a good reason—you should see that pillow—but I still feel bad. So hold that thought, and you can bring it up again later.”
“Will do,” Lizzie said, even though she had no intention of doing so.
CHAPTER 14
A storm front moved in just before dinner, dashing the plans for an outdoor Mexican fiesta. Lizzie wasn’t sure who was more disappointed: her or Kathryn. As hostess, Kathryn was hoping for tiki torches and lively salsa music by the pool, and while all of that sounded nice to Lizzie, she was most looking forward to some peace and quiet inside while she cooked. But to make up for the change in ambiance, Kathryn decided to turn dinner into a performance, where Lizzie was the star.
“We’ll set up the bar over there, and then everyone can watch you cook over here! Obviously you can do the messy work in the pantry, but I know Sam would love to watch you put the finishing touches on everything. It’s a shame the grill isn’t closer, but . . . No, that’s fine—you’ll grill back there, and then you can assemble everything here. You don’t mind, do you? What am I saying—of course you don’t! You used to be on TV. What’s a little dinner for seven when you used to cook in front of millions?”
Lizzie was tempted to clarify that her show wasn’t live and that really she was only cooking in front of a cameraman and a producer. Also, she was pretty sure her viewership was never in the millions or anywhere close. But despite Kathryn’s misplaced enthusiasm, Lizzie didn’t want to rain on Kathryn’s already-rained-out parade. Lizzie wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being put on display in front of Jim and Kathryn’s friends, but she knew it came with the territory.
“Sam is changing in his room, but once he comes down—andale! Barb, Wendy, and Diana will be here any minute. Well, Barb will. The other two are always late. But I’ve never known them to miss a free margarita, so they will be here soon. And Zoe . . . well, I think you know by now that Zoe shows up when she shows up. But she’ll be here. She promised.”
Kathryn scurried off and left Lizzie to set up her prep station. Lizzie scanned her checklist and put an asterisk next to tasks that were performance worthy. Skewering raw shrimp: no. Making fresh guacamole: yes.
Lizzie headed back to the butler’s pantry, removed the marinating shrimp from the refrigerator, and began threading them on long metal skewers. The menu would be simple and fresh, with plenty of options for everyone to accommodate a panoply of dietary restrictions: grilled shrimp tacos, shredded pork tacos, and a bunch of fun sides such as grilled Mexican street corn and arroz verde.
Once she had finished with all of the dirty work in the back, she donned a pair of potholders and carried the hulking Le Creuset filled with braised pork into the main kitchen. The aroma was intoxicating. How would I have described this on Healthy U? Lizzie wondered. Her producers were obsessed with telling the audience how things smelled.
“Bring them into the kitchen with you,” they’d say. “People can see what you’re making, but they can’t smell it. Make them feel as if they’re right next to you. Heighten the experience—make your cooking come alive!”
Lizzie understood and agreed, but she also found herself commenting on ingredients that weren’t exactly known for their pleasant aroma or, in some cases, that barely had a scent at all.
“M-m-m-m, sour cream . . . so tangy.”
“These cucumbers smell so . . . fresh.”
“And then you add the dried cranberries, which smell really. . . . cranberry-ish.”
To this day, she was still embarrassed about that last one. Cranberry-ish? That’s the best she could do? She’d tried to think of something better, but dried cranberries were sort of sweet and sort of tart and didn’t really have a smell. Yummy? She hated that word and had already used it to describe six different ingredients in that episode. So “cranberry-ish” it was.
She placed the pot of pork on the stove and took a big whiff as she lifted the lid. Smoky, she thought. Spicy. Rich. Porky. Porky? Whatever. It was better than “cranberry-ish.” Anyway, she wasn’t on TV anymore, a fact numerous people had reiterated during her time in Avalon. She didn’t need to think in adjectives anymore. She could just cook.
As she laid out the ingredients for the guacamole, she heard a loud thump, thump, thump as someone came down the stairs. A rotund man in khaki shorts and a pink polo shirt appeared in the living room, his belly hanging over his leather belt. Speaking of porky, Lizzie thought, then immediately felt guilty. She never liked to comment on people’s weight. If she were going to comment on anything, it should be his hair. She wasn’t sure what color to call it. Apricot? Peach? For some reason, the only descriptors she could come up with were stone fruits. It was also styled in a way that Lizzie found very distressing. His part began an inch or so above his ear, and the long, brittle pieces tha
t he’d dragged across the top of his head seemed to be held in place with hairspray. Why? Why had he done this to himself? Lizzie didn’t understand. Could he not see how terrible he looked?
He trundled over to the kitchen island and smacked his belly with his hands. “So what’s on the menu, sweetheart?”
“Tacos,” Lizzie said, trying to ignore the condescension in his voice. “Mexican.”
“Muy bueno,” he said. He craned his neck across the counter. “Got any tequila back there?”
“Ah, Sam, you’re down!” Kathryn hurried from across the room. “Renata will fix you up with something to drink. Renata?”
As if by magic, Renata appeared next to Lizzie with a tray of drinks.
“What do we have here?” Sam asked.
“Classic margaritas on the rocks.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said. He lifted a glass off the tray and raised it at Renata. “Thanks, doll.”
Sweetheart, doll—Lizzie knew Sam Offerman’s type, and she didn’t like it one bit. She’d encountered plenty of men like him in New York: entitled, loud, chauvinistic. She’d always assumed those men were compensating for some sort of deep insecurity or feelings of inadequacy, but after a while she realized some of them were just narcissists. She wondered where Sam fell along that divide.
“Hello-o-o-o-o-o!” Barb appeared in the living room, announcing her arrival with the usual fanfare, waving her hands above her head as her gold bangles clattered against one another. She wore a strapless black jumpsuit that looked fabulous on her, even if Lizzie thought the style might be a touch young. Barb was in great shape, though as far as Lizzie could tell, staying in shape was pretty much all Barb did. Everything about her was well maintained, aside from her skin, which had gone from a golden tan at the Memorial Day barbecue to what was now a leathery brown. It reminded Lizzie of Sam’s skin, which was also leathery, but more orange than brown. Maybe Barb and Sam really were meant for each other.
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