“Be careful—these people have their own agendas. At the end of the day, they’re looking out for themselves.”
But Lizzie was so swept up in the excitement that she figured April was just jealous. April’s name appeared once or twice in the Times article, but Lizzie was clearly portrayed as the star, and in subsequent profiles in other media outlets April rarely got a mention. Lizzie did talk about April in interviews, but as the media circus took on a life of its own people seemed less interested in Lizzie’s off-camera partner in crime and more interested in leveraging Lizzie’s on-camera personality. Lizzie felt a bit guilty—the idea for a show had, admittedly, been April’s, and April was the one who’d always dreamed of a career in television—but the onslaught of attention came fast and furious and swallowed Lizzie up before she realized what was happening.
By the time Lizzie met with the Food Network during the second semester senior year, no one asked about April anymore and Lizzie had stopped trying to include her in interviews and meetings. At first, Lizzie figured April didn’t mind. Or at least she convinced herself that was the case. The truth was, they had come to a point in their friendship where they hadn’t really spoken in months. April was so busy interviewing for jobs—with NBC and MTV and CNN but also less competitive PR firms and ad agencies—that she wasn’t home most of the time, and Lizzie was constantly taking the train into New York for meetings. Lizzie told herself they were as close as they’d ever been, even if deep down she knew that wasn’t true.
When the Food Network finally offered her a show, she rushed into April’s room as soon as she got off the phone with her agent.
“It’s happening!” she cried. “Thirteen episodes. Saturday mornings at nine thirty. We start taping next month!”
April slipped her laptop into her bag and slung the bag over her shoulder. “Good luck,” she said in a steely voice. She brushed past Lizzie and left their off-campus house without saying another word.
Looking back on it, Lizzie didn’t know why she was at all surprised by April’s reaction. What did she expect? That April would jump up and down in excitement? “Yippee! I’m so thrilled that you ditched me and will now be making lots of money off my idea!” Thinking about it now made Lizzie cringe. But at the time, she was genuinely hurt and had only just begun to realize that their friendship would probably never be the same again.
That was the last conversation she had with April before leaving Penn. Within a few weeks, Lizzie had packed up her belongings in their house on Spruce Street and moved to New York to begin work on the pilot episode. The two of them never had a knock-down, drag-out fight, but every time Lizzie reached out she was met with radio silence. Lizzie had dropped all of her classes that semester and thus wasn’t eligible to graduate in May with the rest of her class (a fact she’d kept from her producers), but she expected at least a few invitations to the various graduation parties on campus. And a few did come. But when she saw photos on Facebook of April’s own party, from which Lizzie had been conspicuously absent and excluded, she knew April’s snub had not been an accident.
After that, Lizzie stopped trying to get in touch with April and the two of them never spoke again—until they ran into each other at the Silvesters’ Memorial Day barbecue. Lizzie wanted to believe that enough time had passed to heal any wounds she’d inflicted on their friendship. After all, it had been nearly a decade. So much had changed. But if April’s demeanor at the barbecue was any indication, Lizzie knew that was wishful thinking. There was still hurt and resentment on both sides, and if they had any hope of starting fresh it would take more than a little conversation at a Fourth of July party.
Nevertheless, once Kathryn had finalized the menu and guest list for the party Lizzie shot off a text to April:
Really looking forward to seeing you on the 4th. It’s been too long.
All of that was true. Lizzie was looking forward to seeing April, and too much time had passed since they’d had a meaningful conversation. But a bland, semi-conciliatory text was also a lot easier than what Lizzie really wanted to say and somehow couldn’t, which was: “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER 17
July 4 arrived, and the Silvesters’ house was a hub of activity. Deliverymen shuttled decorations into the house—balloons, streamers, table arrangements, pool décor—all tastefully but unquestionably patriotic. Kathryn was running around like a Tasmanian devil, ensuring every centerpiece and tiki torch was in its right place.
“Oh, this looks fabulous—fabulous!” she crowed as she centered a glittery arrangement of hydrangeas, roses, stars, and ribbons. “Ken has outdone himself yet again.”
Lizzie didn’t know who Ken was, but Kathryn spoke as if she should, so Lizzie smiled and nodded because whoever he was, he’d gone all-out with the décor. There were hundreds of toothpicks festooned with American flags, star-spangled linen napkins, and red, white, and blue guest towels in the bathrooms along with French-milled star-shaped soaps. Even the enormous inflatable swan in their pool was adorned with a sparkly red, white, and blue crown, which looked as if it had been made specifically for that purpose. Lizzie wondered where Ken had found it. Did they make accessories for pool accessories? These were the sorts of questions Lizzie had found herself asking ever since she moved in with the Silvesters for the summer. Some days, she almost didn’t recognize herself.
Lizzie spent the morning prepping ingredients in the butler’s pantry. Unlike the dinner party two weeks prior, tonight Lizzie’s cooking would not be the entertainment. The Silvesters had hired other people to fill that role for the evening: a pyrotechnic crew to set off fireworks, a juggling mixologist to whip up signature cocktails, and, from what Lizzie overheard a few days earlier, a mime. Lizzie had never understood the appeal of mimes. Even as a little girl, she’d wonder, Why are you pretending to be stuck in a box? It didn’t make any sense. Not to mention all that makeup. The white faces, the blackened eyes—it was kind of terrifying. She supposed the only appeal was that they didn’t speak. After dealing with Kathryn for more than a month, Lizzie did not take this attribute for granted.
The morning wore on, and Lizzie worried she was getting behind. She had made the potato salad and special burger sauce and had shaped the veggie and turkey burgers, but she still needed to prepare all of the hot dog toppings and finish the side dishes, many of which couldn’t be dressed and garnished until the last minute. None of the dishes on the menu were overly elaborate, but the quantities were dizzying. The Silvesters were expecting about fifty-five guests, so Lizzie found herself quintupling many of her tried-and-true recipes, and those were the ones that already made large quantities. Others she found herself scaling up by a factor of ten. At one point, as she heaved twenty pounds of potatoes onto the counter, she felt as if she were cooking for an army.
The other problem was that, unlike the Memorial Day barbecue, this time Kathryn wanted to make sure Lizzie accommodated her guests’ many dietary restrictions. Apparently, although Lizzie’s menu had been popular, there had been a few complaints from those on special diets. Some were Paleo like Kathryn or vegan like Zoe, but then there were the ones with nut allergies and soy allergies and the ones who were gluten-free. A few were on a macrobiotic diet and another was pre-diabetic. One of the more perplexing cases was a friend who was “experimenting” with kosher.
“He isn’t Jewish,” Kathryn explained. “But he appreciates the kosher ethos. I think he’s been studying the kabbalah.”
Lizzie didn’t have a problem with any of these diets in theory, but combining them all in practice meant she had to make lots of extra dishes to make sure everyone had something to eat. When had something as traditionally low-key as a summer barbecue gotten so complicated? She half-jokingly worried someone would request the beef for the burgers come from cows who’d been sung lullabies and fed bottled water.
As she set about slicing tomatoes for the burgers and hot dogs, Kathryn blew into the kitchen, her hands in the air.
“Of course he would pul
l this a few hours before the party,” she said. “Typical!”
“Who?”
She grimaced. “Nate. Apparently he had a last-minute change of plans and will be visiting for the Fourth.”
“Oh.” Lizzie wasn’t really sure what to say. “Well, there’s plenty of food. I made extra of everything. What’s one more, right?”
“Normally I’d agree, but Nate is . . . I mean, never mind that I see Jim’s ex every time I look at Nate’s face. Those eyes.” She shivered. “But I’m just not in the mood for another fight! The two of them, every time, like clockwork. It all starts off fine, and then—bam!—fireworks. And not nearly as nice as the ones I’ve paid a fortune to see tonight.”
“Is there . . . a specific issue? Or they just don’t get along?”
Lizzie knew her question might be too personal, but given Kathryn’s penchant for dishing dirt, she figured it might be within bounds.
“They get along fine, most of the time. If it weren’t for Nate’s ridiculous career choices, there probably wouldn’t even be an issue. But he’s so headstrong.” She huffed. “I wonder where he gets that from.”
Lizzie couldn’t tell whether Kathryn was implying the answer was Jim or his ex-wife.
“What does he do for a living?”
Kathryn rolled her eyes. “God knows. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times.”
Lizzie arranged the tomato slices on a platter. “How long is he staying?”
“Until tomorrow. At least it’s a quick trip this time. Although he’ll be back in a week for his vacation. I seriously do not understand the point of visiting now for, what? Twenty-four hours? What’s the point? I’d understand if he’d switched up his vacation days and were staying through the week, but no. This is a surprise visit, just for the heck of it. It doesn’t make any sense at all, unless the entire point of his visit is to torture us, in which case, bravo! Mission accomplished.”
Lizzie was trying to give Kathryn’s stepson the benefit of the doubt, but she was beginning to dread his visit as well. Kathryn hadn’t given Zoe nearly this much of a negative preamble, and Zoe seemed pretty terrible.
“Does he have any dietary restrictions?” Lizzie braced herself but figured it was worth asking—if not for today’s party, then for his visit in seven days.
“Pizza,” Kathryn said.
“He doesn’t like pizza?”
What kind of person didn’t like pizza? It was probably the world’s most-liked food, followed closely by chocolate.
“No, he loves pizza. He could eat it for every meal. Sorry, I should have clarified. That isn’t a restriction. It’s a necessity. He’ll request it for at least one meal while he’s here, if not several—mostly to annoy me and Zoe because we can’t eat it.” She paused, and Lizzie braced herself for what she knew would follow. “Unless it’s Paleo.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, don’t trouble yourself with whipping up a pizza for this party. I assume there isn’t time. And even if there were, he can’t spring a visit on us like this and then expect the royal treatment. He will survive without his quattro formaggi.”
Lizzie had so many questions, the first being, Does he only eat pizza? And the second being, Does it have to be plain cheese? Because now the pendulum had swung the other direction and she worried she’d be cooking for a guy who only ate pizza, and plain pizza at that. She’d cooked for such people before, but they were also usually fans of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Before Lizzie could ask any more about Nate’s dietary idiosyncrasies, Renata appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me—Mrs. Silvester? The ice sculpture has arrived, but you might want to come see. The eagle . . . something doesn’t seem quite right.”
“Oh, dear. Lizzie, I’m sorry, but we will have to continue this conversation another time. Just . . . whatever. Nate will eat what you serve. And for breakfast tomorrow . . . well, he can eat leftover hot dogs for all I care.” She headed for the door. “Now, Renata, what seems to be the problem with the—oh! Oh, my! Are you . . . Is that . . . What is in his mouth?”
She rushed out of the room, and Lizzie couldn’t decide whether this would be the worst Fourth of July party she’d ever encountered or the absolute best.
* * *
The ice sculpture was, indeed, not quite right. From what Lizzie could piece together from the snippets of conversation she overheard, Ken had requested a bald eagle perched atop a cliff. The artist had delivered that representation but had also included a snake in the eagle’s mouth, thinking it added to the bird’s majesty. However, when the delivery crew arrived to pick up the sculpture they, being of Mexican descent, informed the artist that an eagle with a snake in its mouth was Mexico’s coat of arms. Upon hearing this, the artist panicked and attempted to whittle down the snake to what he hoped resembled a ribbon, but the tail fell off in the process and the delivery crew grew sick of waiting and whisked the sculpture away, and so what was left in the eagle’s mouth resembled a limp phallus.
“Is there any way to remove it?” Kathryn shrieked into the phone. She had called Ken, who was off-site at another event. “Well, could you call him? What do you mean he’s not picking up? How many times have you tried?”
She paced up and back in front of the sculpture. Lizzie couldn’t see how anyone could fix it without lopping off the eagle’s face or beak in the process. As inappropriate as an eagle with a cock in his mouth might be, she didn’t think a decapitated eagle would be much better.
“Well, I’m not paying for this, Ken. I’m not. You saw the photo. It’s obscene! What am I supposed to tell my guests? I’m not letting the delivery crew leave until someone fixes this. Well, they can take it away, then. No. No. No—I don’t care how fabulous and sought-after he is. He could be fucking Brancusi, and it wouldn’t change the fact that there is an eagle in my living room with a PENIS in his mouth! Do you hear me? Do you?”
Whatever goodwill Ken had built up with the swan tiara and patriotic toothpicks had vanished in the face of an X-rated ice sculpture. Lizzie thought the entire situation was hilarious and, if it were her party, she would leave the sculpture front and center. If nothing else, it made for a unique conversation starter. Kathryn, however, did not share this view.
“Renata!” she cried once she’d hung up on Ken. “Renata, tell these men to load the sculpture back onto the truck. I’d rather have no sculpture than . . . that.” She turned her head away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at it.
Renata spoke to the deliverymen in rapid-fire Spanish, and as Lizzie peered through the door in the butler’s pantry she saw lots of gesturing and shrugging.
“They say they aren’t authorized to remove it,” Renata said.
“What?” Lizzie thought Kathryn’s head might actually spin off her body. “I’m authorizing them. Me.”
“They say the problem is at the other end. They cannot return it to the designer because they cannot get ahold of him.”
“Then tell them to take it somewhere else. They can throw it in the ocean for all I care! Just get it out of here.”
More high-speed Spanish. More hand waving and shrugging.
“I’m sorry, it seems—”
“Is it a matter of money? Because obviously that isn’t a problem. Jim!” she called out. “Where’s Jim? We’ll cut them a check. How much? Would two hundred do it?”
Lizzie suspected it wasn’t so much a matter of money and more a matter of hauling an enormous, heavy sculpture back onto a truck, with nowhere to take it. But as Kathryn tossed out higher and higher figures, Lizzie realized Kathryn would get her way. Frankly, for five hundred dollars Lizzie would happily come up with a plan to dispose of the sculpture, though hers would likely involve a hairdryer and a lot of towels.
“Oh, thank God,” Kathryn sighed, collapsing onto one of the barstools as the deliverymen surrounded the statue and prepared to transport it back onto the truck. Lizzie had come into the kitchen to start arranging the finger foods. “Lizzie, I’m telling you rig
ht now—if you’re coming out here to talk about a problem, I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it. I’ve already had more bad news today than I can take.”
“I’m just plating the crudités and chips.”
“Fabulous. Music to my ears. There’s only so much drama one woman can take.”
“What’s the problem now?”
Lizzie turned to see a man in khaki cargo shorts and a white T-shirt standing at the top of the stairway. He wore a faded Washington Nationals baseball cap, which covered a mop of wavy brown hair, and he held a beat-up gray backpack over one of his shoulders.
“Nate. You’re here.” Kathryn couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic if she tried.
“I made great time. I’m kind of still in shock—that’s never happened before, especially on the Fourth.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything. . . .” She looked him up and down. “Though I guess not when it comes to improving your wardrobe.”
“Aw, come on Kathryn. You like that I’m a little rough around the edges. It’s part of my charm.”
“So you say.” She let out a deep sigh. “Listen, I can’t really talk right now. Things have not been going as planned this morning.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t get too excited. I’m not in a place to talk about any of it right now.”
“You? Not talk about something? Wow, this really must be serious.”
“Nate, please. I am not in the mood.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. I’ll go unpack my things.” He caught Lizzie’s eye. “I’m Nate, by the way. You must be the new chef?”
“Lizzie. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. Maybe later you can fill me in—since Kathryn is feeling uncharacteristically taciturn today.”
“Nate, I’m giving you ten seconds to get out of here before I officially lose it.”
“Okay, sorry—I’m outta here.” He gave Kathryn a salute. Before he turned to go downstairs, his eyes landed on the deliverymen, who’d taken hold of the platform holding the ice sculpture and were getting ready to lift it.
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