Aftertaste (27 page)

Read Aftertaste Online

Authors: Meredith Mileti

BOOK: Aftertaste
4.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Yeah,” I say.
“Listen, if you're sleeping, I can just talk to you in the morning.”
“No, that's okay. What's up?” I ask him, sitting up in bed and adjusting the pillow behind me.
“I need some advice. Some cooking advice, actually.”
“Wow, you eat late.”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Ben laughs. “No, it's actually for a meeting I have tomorrow morning. Do you remember those lofts I'm the plumbing sub on? Well, one of the real estate agents, a guy I know pretty well, has a client who's a gourmet cook and wants some advice on putting in a top-of-the-line kitchen, a professional-grade stove, and something called a pasta spigot, whatever that is. Marble countertops, the whole nine yards. Money apparently is no object.”
“It's a faucet on the wall by the stove. For filling big pasta pots.”
“Huh?”
“A pasta spigot. That's what it is.”
“Oh.” Ben seems to consider this tidbit. Out loud. “Why not just fill them at the sink and carry them over?”
“Well, you could. But the deep pots sometimes don't fit under ordinary faucets. And besides, they're heavy to lift.”
“Jeez. How much pasta is this lady gonna cook? Anyway, it's a plumbing nightmare. The water lines are all the way across the kitchen island! Good thing money's no object.”
Ben, I guess, is a practical sort of guy.
“Hey, it's not your money. You can charge her whatever you want. Think of it that way.”
“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, she isn't even here yet. She's moving here from Texas. Took some executive job at Del Monte. There's only one unit left, at the penthouse level, and she needs to know what kinds of things will fit in the space, what she might have to add, before she makes an offer. I mentioned to Skip, my friend, that you might be able to help lay it out for her because you used to be a professional chef.”
Used to be.
“Sure,” I croak, attempting to clear the lump in my throat. “Spending someone else's money is always fun.”
I agree to join Ben and his friend Skip for their meeting at the loft tomorrow morning at nine. I hang up the phone and lie there in the dark listening to Chloe breathe. Although it's barely April, the attic is close, the air heavy and thick with heat. I'll need to buy a new air conditioner soon. I open all the windows and climb back into bed, trying not to think of what Ben said about my having been a professional chef. What am I now?
 
When I arrive at the lofts the next morning, Chloe in tow, Ben is waiting for me in the lobby with a latte from Bruno's and a bag full of biscotti. He's also brought Chloe's birthday present, a little Fisher Price peg board with a hammer and big chunky nails.
“Hey, thanks for coming on such short notice,” he tells me, handing me the coffee and fishing a biscotti out of the bag for Chloe. “This woman is hot to get this deal done. Another unit sold over the weekend, and this is the only one left. Skip will be here in a couple of minutes, but we can go on up and get started. He faxed me a copy of the wish list,” Ben says, reaching into the front pocket of his work shirt and shaking it out with a flourish.
On the way up, Ben shows me the list: a Gaggenau six-burner gas range, a wall-sized electric convection double oven, a SubZero professional refrigerator and freezer, warming tray, pasta spigot, and a built-in Jura-Capresso espresso machine; in fact she proposes a whole coffee station, including a sink with a built-in water filtration system and a top-drawer fridge for storing coffee, milk, and cream.
Three sinks in three separate areas. Ben will have a field day. The space is bigger than most traditional New York loft spaces. There's a large, partitioned area for a bedroom and another sleeping loft suspended over the living room, which is reached by a narrow, wrought iron staircase. Because it's a corner apartment on the top floor, there are six big, arched windows wrapping around the apartment on two sides. The walls are exposed brick, and the floor a rich, dark stained hardwood. There are some low built-in bookcases running along the back wall under the stairs, and someone has set out a couple of sofas, a comfortable-looking easy chair, and a reading lamp. Standard model apartment furniture. It's a pretty apartment, light and airy, but the best thing about it is the kitchen, which is open to both the living and dining areas. Even without the appliances, the kitchen dominates the space. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, you can see and be seen from just about any place in the whole apartment.
“A second bedroom or a home office,” Ben calls to me from the sleeping loft. “Not bad, if you aren't too tall,” he says, stooping slightly while trying to stand in the middle of the room.
I spread out a blanket from the diaper bag, give Chloe the peg board to play with, and head for the kitchen, where I'm joined by Ben. He pulls out his tape measure and a pad of graph paper, and we get to work. We try the stove where it's already been roughed in, and the dimensions work, give or take an inch, which Ben assures me they can shave off on either end of the cabinetry. But the problem with a stove of this size and power is that you need a significant ventilation system, so I suggest moving it to the opposite wall, an idea Ben likes, as it means the pasta spigot will be closer to the main sink and disposal.
When Skip arrives a while later, Ben and I have a sketch to show him. Skip, who had barely given me a nod when Ben introduced us, looks at the sketch and almost instantly begins shaking his head.
“Nope, this won't work,” Skip says.
“What do you mean, it won't work?” Ben asks.
“Well, for starters, what's this?” he says, pointing to the large rectangular block we've drawn just above the stove.
“That's the ventilation hood for the stove. You need one for a stove this size,” I tell him, trying to sound official. After all, I've been asked here in a somewhat professional capacity.
“Well, that's going to be an issue. She wants the stove on the island. She's planning on installing a wall-sized flat-screen TV over there”—Skip points to the long wall by the foyer—“and she wants to be able to watch it while she's cooking.”
“Well, she could put it on the island, couldn't she, Mira?” Ben asks.
“Well, I—”
“Just nix the hood,” Skip says.
I shake my head. “You need something, and a downdraft won't do it for a stove this size.”
Skip lays the sketch on the plywood countertop and considers it. After a while he takes the top of his pen and begins cleaning out the dirt from under his fingernails. “How much we talking anyway?”
“I've had some experience with professional appliances, so I've taken the liberty of preparing a rough estimate,” I tell Skip, handing him a sheet of paper on which I've tallied the approximate costs. “This, of course, doesn't include installation, or the cost of materials for cabinetry and countertop. I know she wants marble counters, but—”
“This is just for the appliances?” Skip has suspended his excavation efforts and is now distractedly running his fingers through his hair.
“Yup. Ben can give you a rough idea of the installation costs.”
“Shit, I had no idea,” Skip says.
“Well, the good news is,” I tell him, “your client probably does. Presumably, she knows something about the brand names she's suggested. Anybody who knows Gaggenau, knows it's very high-end.”
“Is this $3,600 for a coffeemaker? That can't be right! No coffeemaker should cost that much,” Skip says, pushing Ben's sketch aside and fixing me with a withering stare.
“Look, I didn't pick the machine. She did. That's what they cost. Me, I get by just fine with a little stove-top
macchinetta
at home, but we had a Jura at the restaurant, so I know how much they cost. Most good coffee places have something similar. But you have to want to serve lots of really good coffee to justify one.”
The edges of Skip's lips are white as he whips out his cell phone. “Okay, I'll give her a call.” He doesn't even say thank you.
While Skip is breaking what does, in fact, turn out to be surprising news to his client, and Ben is trying to make an appointment with the general contractor to firm up his estimates, I give the kitchen another once over. If it were mine, I decide, I would do all open shelving, no top cabinetry. Poured and stained concrete for the counters, with a small, marble, inset pastry station. I'd keep my little
macchinetta
and instead use the coffee station space for a second oven with a warming tray underneath.
Chloe had been happily hammering away at her peg board, but now begins to fidget. Ben and Skip are still on the phone, so I walk Chloe around the apartment, checking out the views of the river, until my back begins to hurt. I lead her over to the sofa, a good vantage point from which to observe the kitchen. I decide that I agree with Ms. Moneybags, the stove should be on the island, but I'd angle the island in the opposite direction, toward the river view on the far wall. By going with a slim, streamlined hood, we could avoid unduly obstructing the view.
“Hey, be careful she doesn't get anything on that sofa. It's white, you know,” Skip whispers loudly, putting his hand over the microphone of his hands-free phone. It's a nice sofa. Impractical for kids maybe, but it's slipcovered, and the fabric looks washable. Much nicer than the sofa I have in storage in New York, the red mohair with a loose spring in the middle cushion that Jake and I had found on the street one day and dragged home under cover of darkness.
Skip and his client are haggling over the costs. Apparently, she hadn't done her homework on the appliances and is balking at the cost of the professional-grade kitchen. It turns out that she has a family living in Dallas, a husband and two teenaged children, and is planning on commuting between there and Pittsburgh for the next four years, at least until the last kid is out of high school.
“Hey, you, Mary, is it?” Skip says, snapping his fingers to get my attention. “How much you figure she'd save if she decides to downgrade to electric?”
“Gaggenau, so far as I know, doesn't make an electric version.” They do, but no real cook would want one. Soon we are down to a GE Monogram electric range and a Starbucks Barista–model espresso maker. She steadfastly refuses to yield on the marble countertops, insisting that they will look classy with cherry cabinets. “Very Tuscan,” I can hear her say, with a heavy Texas drawl. I feel like grabbing the phone and telling her that cherry is not Tuscan. Chestnut, pine, or cypress maybe, but definitely not cherry.
You shouldn't buy a loft because the real estate agent is an annoying jerk who doesn't take you seriously. You also shouldn't buy a loft because the woman who's about to make an offer is loudly insisting on putting totally impractical marble countertops in what you are now thinking of as your kitchen.
I write a number on a piece of paper and slide it over to Skip. He pushes it out of the way without even looking at it. I push it back. “Hang on a second,” he tells Ms. Moneybags.
“What's this?”
“I thought you were a real estate agent. It's an offer. To buy this place.”
“An offer from whom?”
“From me.”
I've offered the asking price, which is considerably higher than the offer Ms. Moneybags is proposing. It also represents a significant chunk of my divorce settlement, but for the first time in almost a year I can envision, even if it's only the tiniest glimpse, a life without Jake. I can see myself making a cup of espresso in my little stove-top
macchinetta,
my vintage Italian posters hanging against the old exposed brick, Chloe playing contentedly in the cozy space under the stairs, her toys and books filling the long, low shelves. Intoxicated by the vision, I'm suddenly willing to spend whatever it takes to make it mine.
“I'll call you back,” Skip tells Ms. Moneybags.
chapter 24
By the time the paperwork is done it's almost noon. I'm ravenous, so Ben, Chloe, and I go across the street to Primanti Brothers. We order two Primanti specials, mine with extra coleslaw, Ben's with extra fries and a fried egg on top. When the waitress puts the overflowing red plastic basket in front of me, the sandwich topped with glistening French fries, I dig in with both my hands.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Ben says. “I propose a toast. To a masterful negotiation and a wise investment.”
I respond with a groan. “I don't think the deal I made would qualify as either masterful or as negotiating,” I tell Ben, swallowing painfully. “After all, I paid the asking price. Who does that?”
“No, no, it was masterful.
You
were masterful. And actually, you paid five thousand dollars more than the asking price.” Unfortunately, Ben is correct. After I offered the asking price, Ms. Moneybags quickly countered with an offer a thousand dollars higher.
“You had to once she matched your offer. That jump plus your big down payment is what got Skip on board and killed the prospect of an extended bidding war. And the look on his face.” He laughs and swipes at his beard. “I've known the guy twenty years and I've never seen that look!” he says, a string of cheese hanging from his mouth.
I have to admit I had enjoyed Skip's sudden about-face. He'd gone from being a condescending finger snapper to someone respectful, deferential, and subservient as soon as I whipped out my checkbook. Someone who took me seriously. Since giving up Grappa I've become accustomed to people not taking me seriously, and I relished Skip's rapt attention as he chatted amiably about my new neighborhood, how up and coming it was and how it took a real New Yorker, someone as sophisticated and savvy as myself, to recognize the true value of this investment.
“I, ah,” I start to speak, but no words come out. The bottom line is I have no job and only one slim prospect. I have a child to raise, and I've just bought an impractical penthouse apartment in a city where, until an hour ago, I had no future plans.
Ben puts his sandwich back in the red plastic basket and wipes his mouth. “Come on. It's a good investment. You're a successful businessperson. I'll bet you would have had to pay five times as much for a similar place in Manhattan.”
“Ten times, more like,” I tell him.
“See, you've made a wise business decision. These loft apartments are going to take off, you watch.” Ben shakes a fry at me to emphasize his point. “You're just not thinking down the road. I'll bet you make a bundle.”
“I can't believe that I'm taking long-term investment advice from you.” I look up at the ceiling of the restaurant, open wooden rafters stained to a dark patina from years of grease and smoke. Light a match, and the whole place would probably go up in flames.
Ben looks hurt. “Hey, what's that supposed to mean?”
I gesture to the sandwich, the second half of which is already poised in Ben's hands. “Anybody who eats this stuff is clearly not thinking long-term.”
He smiles at me, the lines around his eyes, which I hadn't noticed before, making tiny craggy creases underneath his lids. He covers his mouth, disguising a delicate belch, and gestures to the waitress for some more water. She pretends not to see him.
“You're one to talk,” he says, his mouth full of sandwich.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you did just buy a three hundred thousand dollar apartment on impulse. Good investment or not, that's not exactly planning ahead.”
I'm not sure if it's the Primanti sandwich or the beginnings of buyer's remorse, but I have a pain in my stomach, a burning sensation that's begun to radiate down my left arm. I take a deep breath, and the pain shifts from my arm to deep in my esophagus. I remember reading somewhere that heart attacks begin like this.
“I've always wanted to live in a loft,” I tell him, my voice sounding hollow and unconvincing. I put a hand to my chest. “Who am I kidding—I don't even have a job! I have no idea what I was thinking.” Ben leans forward and looks concerned. He reaches into the pocket of his work shirt and pulls out a roll of Tums. He unravels the package, hands me two, and takes two for himself.
“Look. You misjudged me,” he says, waving the Tums. “I planned on having lunch at Primanti's today. Who says I don't think ahead?”
 
Between several calls to and from Skip, not to mention my financial advisor, Avi Steiner, in New York, I spend most of the afternoon on the phone, with each call becoming more deeply entrenched in the Pittsburgh real estate market and the inexorable march toward home ownership. I've exhausted my supply of Tums, having consumed the rest of Ben's, plus another entire roll that I bought on the way home from lunch. When the heart palpitations begin, I shut off my phone and lie face down on the bed and try to think quieting thoughts. Can you die from an overdose of Tums?
I'm too nauseous to eat dinner, but I sit with Chloe while she happily devours her chicken and peas. Eventually, I pour a glass of wine, hoping it will calm me enough to listen to the messages that have accumulated while my phone was off. Eight missed calls.
Two each from Avi and Skip, the substance of which is that my money has been transferred and the remaining paperwork completed; one from the contractor supervising the finishes on the building, Ben's boss, who wants to set up a meeting with me to discuss paint, flooring, and fixtures; one from Ben calling to check on me and to tell me to put in a good word for him when I meet with his boss. And one from Ruth.
“Mira, listen. I'm sorry I was so horrible. I know you were trying to help. It's not your fault that Neil likes you. You can hardly blame the guy. You're pretty and funny and a great cook. Besides, I must have been a real ass to think that playing mah-jongg with Leah Hollander was going to get me anywhere. I have a Jewish mother, and I would no more take dating recommendations from her than I would from my cat. Anyway, tomorrow is Gymboree day, and I wanted you to know that I hope you'll come.”
The final message is from Neil, telling me he is looking forward to seeing me at Gymboree tomorrow and wondering if I have plans for Saturday night. The sound of his voice, so earnest and hopeful, fills me with panic, and I delete the message without even listening to the rest of it, then wish I had.
Ruth answers on the first ring. “Mira, thank God! I was beginning to think that I'd totally blown it and that you'd completely given up on me. I'm sorry.”
“Me too. I really wasn't trying to steal Neil.”
“I know, I know. You only left me about eight messages.” Ruth sounds like she's been crying. “I talked to my therapist and realized what an idiot I was being. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Of course, if you can forgive me.”
“Done.” For the first time since Sunday, my stomach has stopped churning. It's nice to have my friend back.
“Hey, guess what?” Ruth says, sounding more cheerful. “I made my mother's brisket recipe—the one with the Coke in it. It wasn't quite as good as I remembered. I was worried that if you stopped being my friend I was going to have to learn to cook! Thank God that's over.” Then she asks, “So what have you been up to?”
“I bought a loft.”
“Wow. Congratulations! You didn't even mention you were looking,” she says.
“I wasn't,” I tell her. Ruth is silent. Stunned no doubt. “Come on,” I tease. “Haven't you ever bought something on impulse?”
“A pair of shoes, yes. Real estate, no.”
“So, did I completely screw up? I still can't believe I—” I exhale sharply; the palpitations have started again.
“No, not necessarily,” Ruth says, quickly. “It's a good time to buy. I'll bet you got a great deal.”
I change the subject.
“About Gymboree tomorrow, I can't make it. I've got an interview at one forty-five with Enid Maxwell, the food editor at the
Post-Gazette
. I've got to spend the morning assembling my dossier.”
“Good for you! What are you going to wear?” Ruth asks.
Wear? I haven't even thought about it. It's been a good ten years since I've interviewed for a job, and never once have I been interviewed in an office setting, so I'm unsure of the protocol.
“A suit's a must, understated makeup, no open-toed shoes. And stockings—it doesn't matter if it's eighty degrees outside. Stockings are standard job interview protocol,” Ruth counsels. I never wear makeup, so understated is, well, an understatement. The only suit I own is the one I wore to my meeting with Ethan Bowman and later, my arraignment, so I consider it bad luck. Ruth offers to lend me one of hers.
“Come on over before the interview. I'll get you dressed. I've got a beige crepe suit that will look great on you. I'll watch Chloe. It's actually easier with two.”
“Great. I'll bring lunch,” I offer.
“Don't bother. We can have brisket sandwiches,” Ruth says.
“My treat. I insist.”
“Chicken,” Ruth mutters.
“Good idea,” I reply.
 
I'm on my way out Ruth's front door the next afternoon, in a pair of her high-heeled pumps that are a half size too big. “Go get 'em!” she calls, tossing a tube of sheer pink lipstick to me. “Just a dab. You look great,” she says, balancing Chloe on her hip. I smile and flash an enthusiastic thumbs-up before picking my way down Ruth's cobblestone walk. I feel shaky on my feet—and it isn't just the big shoes. It's been ages since I've wanted anything this badly and, for a moment, I don't recognize the sensation, the gnawing at your insides, the quavering hunger that comes from sheer want. Or perhaps it's the residual effects of yesterday's indiscriminate expenditure. Tucking Ruth's lipstick into my briefcase, I pull out a fresh roll of Tums and stuff a few in my mouth on the way to the bus.
Enid Maxwell is a small, neat woman with expensively cut and carefully styled short hair, the color of a brightly buffed and polished nickel. When the secretary knocks on the wall of the cubicle, Enid stands, offers me a cool, manicured hand, and instructs me to have a seat. Before sitting down herself, however, she stands on her tiptoes, settles her glasses atop her nose, and surveys her domain. Apparently satisfied by the bustling chaos outside her cubicle, she sits back down, rests her forearms on the desk, and says, “Well, Mira.”
I've brought along a copy of my résumé and several copies of my restaurant review in a thin leather portfolio I've borrowed from my father. I pull out a copy of the review and prepare to slide it across the desk at her, but she shakes her head at me.
“I've got them. Don't bother,” she says.
From a file folder on her desk Enid pulls a copy of my résumé, along with the
Gourmet
review and a couple of other things I'm pretty sure I didn't send her. “Well, well, Mira,” Enid says again, readjusting her glasses. “You are quite a talented chef.
Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Saveur, Food and Wine,
” she says, leafing through the file on her desk. Enid, apparently, has done some research on me. “Grappa has been mentioned in every one of them, mostly quite favorably.” She leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, “By the way, I have it on good authority that Grappa has suffered in your absence. A friend at the
Times,
who I called while assembling my dossier on you, let it slip. You might watch the food section in the next few weeks.” She sits back in her chair, studying me, waiting for a reaction.
Ever since my phone call with Renata and hearing the news that Jake was jumping ship to Il Vinaio, I've dreaded hearing news of Grappa. But there's still a part of me that is secretly thrilled by the knowledge that Grappa has suffered in my absence. I know it's selfish, but I can't help it. Public affirmation that I had mattered to Grappa. I wish I didn't need it, but I do. I want nothing more than to pump Enid for the details, but of course this isn't exactly the time. I swallow hard and do my best to return Enid's speculative gaze with a level one of my own.
Once again she reaches into the manila folder, this time removing a photocopy of a newspaper column. “But even before Grappa, you were noticed. This,” she says, looking over her glasses at me, “you may recall from
New York
magazine, February 1995. ‘Under the direction of talented chef Francis Barberi and creative sous-chef Mirabella Rinaldi, Il Piatto has reopened to rave reviews.' ”
Il Piatto was, in fact, the last job I'd interviewed for. I left there after five years to open Grappa. It was also the first time I'd seen my name in print, and I feel strangely nostalgic and unexpectedly touched that Enid has ferreted out this small, mostly insignificant, accolade. I'm impressed that she has so thoroughly researched my career, but more than a little puzzled.
“In fact, ever since you graduated from the Culinary Institute you've done well for yourself. You apprenticed in Abruzzo and then in Bologna, where undoubtedly, you perfected
la cucina Italiana
. You've amassed an impressive set of credentials thus far in your relatively short career,” she says, rifling through the file once more. I think for a moment that Enid will pull out my third grade report card, but instead, she gathers the papers, puts them back into the folder, and sets them aside.

Other books

Diagnosis Death by Richard L. Mabry
Vegas, Baby by Sandra Edwards
Hardcore Volume 3 by Staci Hart
His Cemetery Doll by Brantwijn Serrah
Ride Free by Evelyn Glass