Comfort Food (16 page)

“It’s her life, Mom. You don’t have to run it. Why do you have to just, just... ” Aimee mimed wringing someone’s neck with her hands.

“I’m just trying to help. Aimee, your sister runs through fiancés like a thirsty man drinks water.”

“So let her figure it out.”

“I can’t think of anything worse,” said Gus. “Do you know what my fear is? That Sabrina is going to call me from the road, having left behind a husbandand a couple of babies, because she’s gone off to find herself.”

“That’s not going to happen, Mom. It’s not like she married any of these guys.”

“One day she’s going to drop the ‘cold feet’ act and then what?”

“Then I get my own apartment.”

“You’re just being ridiculous. We’ve got to band together and take this seriously.”

“She’s only twenty-five years old!” said Aimee. “She’s got several more fiancés to dump before she really gets serious.”

“You know what she’s like. Sabrina has always needed someone, and I think Troy is it. You’re different. You can stand on your own. Like me.”

Aimee rolled her eyes. “The toughest girl in the world,” she said. “Look, I didn’t come up here to talk about my sister or hide out in the pantry. I thought I was at least going to get some soup.”

“This is important, Aimee—I need your help.”

“What do you want me to do, Mom?” Aimee watched Gus closely.

“Sabrina won’t answer my messages.”

“Ah, I thought you’d been in touch with me a tad more than usual,” Aimee said under her breath. Gus gave no sign of hearing her words.

“Wasn’t Troy kind?” she asked.

“Yeah, but he isn’t some sort of savior. Nobody’s perfect.”

“Exactly,” said Gus. “He’s real. And I believe Troy truly cares about her.”

"Maybe, but you just like him better than those other stuffed shirts she’s brought home.”

“Neither of you girls have any idea what it’s like when things go sour. You’ve never had to pay for your mistakes.”

“So let us do something wrong,” said Aimee. “You get so intense when we don’t do what
you
want us to do.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to struggle.” Gus was getting angry: her cheeks were turning red. “I have done everything for the two of you.”

“Maybe don’t do so much, then,” Aimee said quietly. “We may not have had your struggle, but we’ve had our own.”

“Hey, Simpsons,” Oliver said, poking his head into the pantry. “Soup’s on.”

“It can’t be done already?”

“It’s coming together, but I was getting lonely out there. Come out and assist.”

Gus glanced at him sharply.

“Er, I mean come out and let me assist you,” said Oliver, grinning.

Gus began to move in the direction of the stove.

“Oliver?” Aimee asked, pulling lightly on his sleeve. “You heard us arguing,didn’t you?”

“A culinary producer never tells,” he said. “Besides, Carmen just called my cell and she’s not going to make it up here today. I figure your mother has used up her last bit of patience—and I was hoping to save some for our next live show.”

too many cooks

12

Eight days later, the team was fully assembled in Gus’s kitchen: Oliver in a purple cook’s jacket, Carmen in a cranberry-colored wrap dress, Sabrina in a sage green skirt-and-sweater combo, Aimee in a crisp white blouse and charcoal slacks, Troy in a dark blue shirt and a very large button that said “Sabrina used to be my girlfriend” in red letters. Not bad, thought Porter, for a team who resisted direction on what to wear.

The group sat among the cameras—much to the annoyance of the camera crew—as they waited for Gus, who was upstairs with Hannah, ostensibly gettingready. Porter was going over his schedule for the upcoming hour, not in the least worried that Gus hadn’t come down. She’d never let him down in all their years of working together, and he doubted she was about to start now.

One floor above the kitchen, perched on the cushioned window seat in her master bedroom, Gus waited with Hannah. Gus was careful not to crush her emerald green silk shirt and wide-legged dark pants, or ruffle her hair, expertly blown out in her signature swingy bob. Hannah, wearing a gray velour tracksuit, had flopped on the bed. She didn’t want to join the others.

“You’d be better at hiding if you didn’t dress like an athlete,” Gus pointed out. “Try wearing a skirt or something.”

“Perhaps a short white skirt, right?” Hannah said, before grabbing a pillow and making to smother herself. “I’d be better if I didn’t go on television at all.”

“I know you love halibut.” Gus was using her soothing tone. “Hannah, it’s going to be easy today: halibut in zucchini jackets, a green bean and potato casserole, and a white sangria.”

Gus loved to talk about food. Late at night, if she couldn’t sleep, she would read cookbooks out loud to herself until she relaxed.

“Sangria? Isn’t that Spanish?” Hannah’s voice was muffled from underneaththe pillow. “Like Carmen?”

“Contrary to reports, I actually love Spanish food,” said Gus. “I just have issues with Carmen in particular. But that doesn’t mean I can’t compromise now and then. We’re using anchovies imported from Santoña and spicy paprika today.”

“Anchovies? I hate anchovies.”

“People always say that.” Gus stepped over to remove the pillow from Hannah’s face. “But then they don’t even know that’s what they’re tasting. It’s all about trying before deciding against something.”

“Are we still talking about food?”

“If you don’t want to be on the show, it’s okay by me,” said Gus. “But I’d prefer to have you there.”

“I don’t know what to do, that’s the problem,” Hannah said. “You cannot imagine how much I want to go home and put on my pajamas. But I hate to give in to it.”

Gus wore a strange expression on her face.

“What?”

“It’s just that . . . nothing,” said Gus.

“I hate to quit things,” continued Hannah. “Do you know what my father always said? ‘Once a quitter, always a quitter.’”

“Hannah, you stay home all day long. All night long. All the time. And your father? Don’t get me started.”

Hannah leaned up on one elbow. “Oh, hiding is not the same as quitting,” she explained. “I thought you understood that.”

“Well, it’s an unusual style of living!”

“Popular with cloistered nuns, hermits, and disgraced sports stars everywhere.”

“You can’t let the past dictate your future.”

“It’s called self-preservation.” Hannah’s face was serious. “Do you think someone will recognize me?”

Gus considered fibbing, but only briefly.

“Yes,” she said. “I knew who you were the day I met you,” she continued. “You haven’t changed all that much in fifteen years, you know. Your head took up whole billboards in Times Square once upon a time.”

“The soup!” cried Hannah. “High-energy vegetable soup. Those ads bought the carriage house.”

“Did you ever eat that stuff? I’ve always wondered.”

“All the time. I thought it would have been unethical to promote somethingwithout trying it.” She felt the usual twist in her stomach whenever the topic of her disgrace came up.

“Oh, Hannah,” said Gus. “That makes everything else that happened even more ridiculous.”

“I know,” she said. “But I did it for my dad, I guess.”

“It’s funny, what we do for our parents.”

“Or what our parents ask us to do for them,” said Hannah. She had rolled over on the bed and grabbed a pillow, pressing it into her abdomen. Sometimes,when the bad feelings came, she tried to squish them down. Occasionallyit worked.

“I’m frightened.”

“Of course you are.”

“I don’t want to ruin your show, Gus,” she said. “What would happen when someone calls the CookingChannel and says, ‘Is that her?’ ”

“Then we tell them that you’re my very best friend and a wonderful person,” insisted Gus. “We all make mistakes.”

“You don’t.”

“Oh, Hannah. You, of all people, know how often I do. I just emphasize the things I do well.”

Gus regarded the thin woman in the gray tracksuit sitting on her bed, her forehead wrinkled and beaded in a light sweat.

“Oh, move on over,” she said, scooting onto the bed and lying next to Hannah, not caring if her bob got flattened.

“Thanks for not hugging me,” Hannah said, a bit sniffly. “I hate being hugged.”

“Don’t worry about the show,” said Gus. “I’ll put on a Teflon vest so I won’t feel Carmen trying to stick her knives into my back.”

“Kevlar, not Teflon. For bullets. I know, I had to wear one for a while.”

“Some fans take tennis very seriously.”

“Yeah.” Hannah’s eyes were watering. She felt like such a freak sometimes,paralyzed by her fear of others’ judgments. “People are reluctant to forgive when you shatter their illusions,” she said. “I know you know, Gus, having so much expected of you. The truth is that it sucks.”

“Professional success doesn’t always make life easier,” admitted Gus. “It can bring unexpected complications.”

“It’s the personal stuff that matters,” said Hannah. “But that seems too easy to be true.”

Gus well knew that the doubts and insecurities lingered, no matter how many shows she hosted or how many cookbooks she wrote. And no amount of zeros in her bank account could bring Christopher back.

“I’m going to sneak in a squeeze anyway,” she said, leaning in briefly to hug Hannah. “That one was for me, not you.”

“They’ll be going crazy downstairs, wondering why you’re up here,” Hannahsaid, blowing her nose. “Porter will be looking at his watch and tapping his clipboard.”

“I’ll be there. I’m always there.”

“A persona can be a powerful trap. It can take you over.”

“I know who I am.”

“It’s not about knowing. It’s about remembering to be.”

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Gus.

Hannah pulled the elastic off her ponytail, then gathered up her red hair and replaced the tie. She always played with her hair when she was nervous, a leftover habit from when she was younger.

“You are truly and absolutely my only friend, Gus Simpson,” she said. “The rest of the world has abandoned me but not forgiven.”

“The only person who has to forgive you is you,” said Gus.

“And maybe the German girl who fell down the stairs at Wimbledon!”

“Right. I forgot that bit of nasty business.”

“My whole life is a disaster.” Hannah took a deep breath, then another. “I’d go on that show of yours if you needed me to. But you don’t. I really sufferedwith anxiety after that basketball episode. Please don’t ask me.”

“I’d never make anyone do anything,” said Gus. “Sabrina and Aimee are proof of that.”

Gus lay on her bed next to Hannah, her mind drifting back to the past week. To the meetings with Porter, Carmen, and Oliver to finalize the menu for the show that was going to begin in a half hour. To Sabrina’s late-night phone call demanding that she ask Troy to leave the program. She wasn’t asking,Gus had noticed, that she not appear herself. No, indeed. And she thought of Aimee, as well; their one conversation since the disastrous afternoon in the studio had been terse and perfunctory. In short order, it seemed, her carefully constructed world was unraveling, in fits and starts, thanks to the new show.

Not every decision, Gus knew, turns out to be the right one. It had merely seemed fun to have the basketball menu, to have everyone come and meet the stars. And now, thanks to bad weather, the sudden appearance of Carmen,and a split-second choice, she had managed to rope all her loved ones into a world that was not of their making. Not everyone actually wanted to be on television; they only thought they did.

The easiest thing, really, would have been to cut them all some slack. A lot of slack. To tell Hannah that she didn’t need to come downstairs, to ask Troy to leave the show so Sabrina felt more comfortable. But that wasn’t what they needed, Gus believed. It was time to shake her little darlings out of their comfort zone.

“Come downstairs, at least to watch,” she told Hannah, who followed meekly along. Just as she was about to enter the kitchen, Oliver came up to her quickly in the hall.

“Gus, I need a minute,” he said, a sense of urgency in his voice.

“Gus!” Porter yelled from the next room. “Get over here.”

She put up a finger to Oliver. “Hold that thought,” she told him. “We’d better get in front of the camera. You can tell me in the break.”

Porter was motioning oddly at her, his right hand holding his cell phone near his face and his left plugging his ear to shut out the background noise. He must have noticed her hair was a little scrunched, she thought. She gave it a quick shake and shrugged. It was best to be upbeat.

“Don’t worry about it,” she half-shouted. “We’re all good, Porter.”

“Places, everyone!” called out a member of Porter’s camera crew. “We’re live in one minute.”

She floated into position behind the center island, noting that everyone had been assembled into stations as planned: it was much more organized than last time. Troy was at the sink, washing beans; Sabrina was set up nearby on a corner of the granite counter, a bowl of new potatoes waiting to be diced, a rubber glove covering her left hand (and, more important, her ring). Gus raised an eyebrow when she caught her younger daughter’s eye, then glanced briefly at Aimee to see her slowly and methodically slicing up lemons and oranges for the sangria.

Hannah, feeling guilty for wanting to back out, sat glumly off-camera, wanting to leave but too loyal to Gus to abandon her without moral support. She waved. Carmen, apparently assuming the gesture was intended for her, waved back.

Oliver, looking stressed, took up a place at the Aga stove. He’d been working frantically setting up the kitchen, putting together a
mise en place
of salt, pepper, spices, and olive oil, then arranging the produce, the knives, the bowls. It was his job to make sure the kitchen had every item necessary to create the day’s menu.