Recipe for Disaster (10 page)

“COLLEGE! Culinary school! You were in your twenties, you said, a couple of random drunken fumblings, you said, TEQUILA-FUELED BI-CURIOUS in my youth, you said. Not schtupping the hot young male help while your fiancée is at work. That you never said; I would have remembered.”

“That’s fair, I deserve that. Seriously, Anneke, it was only the second time anything happened with Gregg. And I know that is two times too many, and I should have been honest with you the minute I felt like I was going to act on my feelings, but I didn’t. I’m a shit. I feel awful. But I know that I love you and I still want to be with you, so I want to know if you would go to couples’ counseling with me. If we can see if this is salvageable. I promise, I can be strong, I can be strong enough not to sleep with other people.”

“Not people, Grant, MEN.” I don’t know why this distinction matters, except that he is clearly more ashamed by its reality, and I want to hurt him as much as possible right now.

“Right, men. If you won’t sleep with other men, neither will I, I swear.”

“You know that is really just egregiously stupid, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I just . . .” He throws his hands up and starts crying again. And this makes me even angrier. We were always the best of friends, since the moment we met, so easy together. I still love him. I actually hate to see him so broken. And I hate that I even let myself feel any of this. I hate that he took these years from me, took Joe’s house from me, leaving me with no safe place to land now that it has turned to shit. I should have KNOWN that happy ever after is a joke and a lie. If being Anneliese Stroudt’s daughter should have taught me anything, it is that you have to rely on yourself, because expecting someone else to provide you a life is a losing battle. I should have known when Joe never ever so much as went on another date for the rest of his life that if you let someone in that deep, they can break you.

“Grant, go fuck yourself. Or Gregg. Or half of Boystown for all I care. But keep your tears and sorries and sadness to yourself. I can’t be a comfort to you while you try to figure out who you are and what you want. I just know that what you want clearly isn’t really me, and obviously never was. I feel like you stole nearly five years from me, from my life, on purpose. I have to decide how to live with that.”

“Where are you moving to?”

“The Palmer house.”

“That’s ridiculous; it isn’t half finished.”

“And it won’t get finished unless I’m there twenty-four-seven.”

“What about work?”

“I quit.” His face falls. “That’s why I came home early that day.”

“Really?”

“Really. Not just quit, but with a grand explosion of fuck you to everyone. Not salvageable.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, you said it. So I really don’t have a choice, I have to go to Palmer, finish it, and sell it, and figure out what I’m going to do.”

“I’m just so, so awfully sorry, Anneke; I’m the worst person in the world.”

“Yep. Maybe you and Kim Jong-un can start a club.”

He smiles a wan smile, his eyes all puffy, his forehead accordioned with pain and regret.

“I can’t believe you quit.”

“Someone told me to.”

“I’m such a total shit.”

“Yep.”

“Will you at least let me support you while you finish the house? You wouldn’t have left your job if I hadn’t told you to, I committed to fund the renovation when you bought the property; please let me fulfill those promises to you.”

“No. It’s very nice of you, but I can’t. I have to figure this out on my own. And frankly, I can’t be indebted to you. It’ll fuck up dealing with my feelings about you if I also have to be weirdly grateful. I know how much you’ve spent so far. When I sell it, I’ll pay you back for that, with whatever percentage of the profit makes sense based on how much you invested.” I hold my hand up so that he can’t protest. “That is all.”

He looks at me, at my clear determination, and nods. “I don’t want profit; you did all the work. If you feel like you need to, I’ll accept the return of my investment, but I don’t want more than that, okay?”

“Fine.” I’d love to just insist on giving him his share of the profits, but to be honest, I’m going to have to clear enough on this project to both find a new place to live and launch a new business. I may be proud, but I’m also practical.

“If you get into a jam, I’m happy to invest more, if you need it; am I allowed to offer that?”

“Yes. You are allowed to offer.”

“But a cold day in hell?”

“Something like that.”

I walk over to the door and get Schatzi’s leash. I whistle for the dog, who comes out of the bedroom where she was napping, and allows me to attach it to her collar. I take the keys out of my pocket and place them on the table next to the door.

“Bye, girl,” Grant says, kneeling to snuggle the dog. “If you ever need a dogsitter . . .”

“Thanks. Gotta go.” I stand unmoving and receive the hug Grant gives me, unable to lift my arms to hug him back, realizing that it is the second time today I’ve had a weird and unwelcome good-bye hug foisted upon my person. When he finally pulls away, I think for a moment and then reach up my hands to take out my engagement earrings.

“Please, god, no, Anneke. Don’t. They’re yours, they were a gift; it’ll break my heart if you give them back. If you can’t bear to wear them, sell them, use them to help fund the house, whatever you need.”

I nod. And Schatzi and I walk out the door.

T
he inflatable bed blows itself up to a satisfyingly plump rubbery height. Hopefully the acrid chemical smell will dissipate soon. I open the package of new sheets, along with a comforter and a couple of pillows, and make the bed. I’ve staked out the least destroyed of the third-floor bedrooms, the one that still has a closet in it, next to the only fully working bathroom in the house, and set my stuff up in there. There are gaping holes in the plaster walls, and the window whistles a bit in the wind—I’ll have to caulk it tonight before I go to bed or it’ll drive me mental. The library table desk Joe and I built is in the corner; the rest of what little furniture I have is all in the garage so that it doesn’t get damaged.

When I moved in with Grant I got rid of all of my household stuff: towels, linens, kitchen supplies, my bed. I kept my personal stuff like books and CDs, the few good pieces of furniture that Joe had either built or invested in, mostly tables and cabinets, a couple of chests of drawers, but I didn’t have that much stuff. Certainly no basics. Caroline went into her sickeningly perfectly organized basement and gave me some hand-me-down kitchen stuff left over from her single days. Some dishes, flatware, a few pots and pans and random utensils, mismatched glasses. The bed and bath things I got at Target, all of it on clearance and none of it matching or my taste. But my life is purely about functionality right now. Nice sheets are just not a priority.

I head down the back stairs to the kitchen, where Marie and Hedy have stocked the fridge with some staples for me, a few canned goods and boxes in the pantry. I dump some kibble in Schatzi’s bowl, and she reluctantly goes to eat it. When I lean down to pat her back, the way Grand-mère always did when she fed her, she literally shrugs me off. Great. I have no job, no home, no fiancé, and my pet hates me. I’m a country song waiting to happen. I grab a box of Lucky Charms and the gallon of milk, and head to my folding table. I eat three large bowls while looking over my massive to-do list, and don’t realize until I taste salt that finally, I’m crying.

I
pull the plastic protective coating off of the gorgeous eight-burner BlueStar range. After two weeks of pizza, subs, buckets of fried chicken, cheap Chinese, and take-out Thai, I have to face facts. Even mediocre fast food is expensive if you eat it twice a day. I’m going to have to start cooking at home. Lucky for me, the stuff I know how to make is fairly inexpensive. I went to Costco and bought a case of chicken-flavored ramen, a case of classic Kraft blue boxes, a case of canned tuna. A large bag of long-grain rice, since Caroline gifted me a rice cooker last week when she bought a new, bigger one. I’m tempted to believe she bought the new one for the express purpose of giving me the old one, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The poor of every Latin country subsist on rice and beans, and if they can do it, I can do it. I bought large bags of black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, black-eyed peas. Variety is the spice of life, don’t you know. I’ve never made a bean, but how hard could it be? I assume it’s like pasta; you just throw them in boiling water till they get soft.

Since the building has a canning room/root cellar under the stone steps, I figured I’d go all Little House and stock it with hardy stuff that will last till spring. A large bag of onions, one of potatoes, one of apples, and one of carrots. I was tempted to buy cabbages, which I know store well, but realized despite my German heritage, I wouldn’t begin to know what to do with them. A case of mixed flavors of canned soups. A big package of gargantuan foot-long hot dogs, which do a good job of adding protein to ramen or mac ’n’ cheese. A box of frozen pizzas. Six boxes of spaghetti and six jars of marinara.

I have a huge pantry and a massive seventy-two-inch-wide Marvel fridge/freezer, so I might as well make use of them while I’m here. I’d originally hoped to leave them all pristine, but since this is likely to be my home for the next year or so, I have to give up that fantasy. Costco makes a pretty good rotisserie chicken for $4.99, which should go four meals if rounded out with starches; I picked one up today that should get me through at least two or three days. I’m feeling self-sufficient, almost competent. I also admit to some bags of frozen fries and chicken tenders, and a massive package of Oreos. Apparently they are as addictive as cocaine, and I can’t afford cocaine, so it’s going to have to be an Oreo buzz for me. I also grabbed a case of beer and an industrial-sized bottle of Maker’s Mark.

I rip a leg off the chicken to snack on while I finish putting away my haul. It’s salty and greasy, a little dry, but good enough. Goes down easy. I fling the bone into the garbage can, wipe my hand on my pants, and hunker down to figure out my next move. I know deep down I’ve been putting it off a little bit, futzing around on organization and little tweaking projects and lots of note-taking. But it’s clear that I have to pick my next project and commit to it. The basement is the logical place. Right now the ancient boiler is hissing and clanking away and keeping the place alternately hot as a sauna and cold as an icebox the way these old steam radiator systems do. I know that I have to upgrade the building to a forced-air system, I’ve already laid out the plans for new ductwork, but ultimately I have to get the basement in order first. I can’t install new furnaces until the demo is done down there, no point in hooking up a new system and then trying to protect it from insidious plaster dust. That means a total gut job on the basement, followed by pouring the new pad for the mechanicals room, and then running all the ducting to get the system up and running. It’s conservatively about a two-month job, depending on what I find during demo.

And yet? There is the tiniest inkling of excitement at the prospect of getting into it. It’s the first really major undertaking I’ve considered since finishing the kitchen, and knowing that I can devote myself to it full-time, while scary, is also the only thing in the last month that is cutting through my general numbness. I’ve been floating in what feels like a sea of Jell-O. I answer every third call from the girls, just so that they don’t show up here for an intervention. I ignore the emails from Grant, who sends brief missives “just to see if you’re okay and if you need anything,” which alternately make me hate him or myself.

At least Schatzi continues to treat me like my existence is an offense to her delicate sensibilities; it’s something of a relief to have one entity in my life that hasn’t altered the way they look at me. At the end of the day, while there are other tasks I could start, I’m finally beginning to feel like I need to hit something hard with something heavy. Grant’s betrayal, the upending of my life, I’ve taken it in stride. The way I was raised? Anything that smells the least bit like security also always felt undeserved and impermanent. I’m less sad or sorry for myself than I am feeling enormously stupid for having allowed myself to trust that I could have a normal happy home. There is a weird, unfortunate relief to have had the rug pulled out from under me, to having the truth revealed. Now I can go back to what I know. Self-sufficiency, independence, work.

I grab my sledgehammer, crowbar, and dust mask and head down the back stairs to the basement. This space originally had the servants’ quarters in the front half, and the main kitchen in the back. The kitchen was long ago converted to a laundry room and storage, back when they switched the boiler from coal to gas. There’s still some evidence of what was there: a small manhole cover in the floor for the old grease trap, the door in the back wall where the milk and ice deliveries used to come in. Since this area is where the new mechanicals are going to go, it makes the most sense to start here. I pull on my mask and grab my hammer, go for the back corner, tapping fairly gently around on the drywall, looking for evidence of electrical wires, plumbing runs, anything that would be dangerous. I know all the HGTV shows love to show homeowners just whaling away at walls, but demo is as much surgery as bludgeoning; you have to know exactly what you are dealing with before you abandon yourself to the destruction impulse.

As I pull the drywall off, I find old plaster beneath, with a layer of plywood. I use the crowbar to wrench the plywood off, old rusted nails giving way with a loud screeching noise, revealing a door. I wondered if the old larder might still be here, and my pulse races; I feel like I’m about to uncover a grand mystery, or secret treasure. I’ll probably be all Geraldo, and there won’t be anything behind but a brick wall, but still, it’s exciting. I turn the handle, which sticks at first, and then gives. The door has swollen in its jamb, and while I know the latch isn’t catching, the door doesn’t want to budge.

A smart contractor would remove the whole thing. A smart contractor would use a drill and saber saw to cut a small hole in the door to get a peek at what lay behind. But today? I’m not a smart contractor. I’m a girl who wants very much to see if Narnia lies behind this door. So I put my shoulder into it and bust through. Something large and very heavy lands on my head, and the last thing I remember is the copper taste of blood where I have bitten the inside of my lip, and then all is rushing darkness.

I
don’t know how long I was out, probably only a half a minute or less. I do know that when I come to, my head is throbbing, my lip is blowing up, and my shoulder is aching from where I hit the door with it. The whole doorjamb, door still shut tight within it, is pushed into a small room, the rusted nails that held it in place no match for my Teutonic attentions. And next to me on the floor is a large leather-bound book, a good three inches thick. This must have been what hit me in the head. I turn my head and spit, a thick gob of bloody saliva. My tongue ascertains that I haven’t broken through anything, or lost any teeth, just bit down really hard on the inside of my lip, and while eating will be annoying for a week or so, I don’t need stitches. Should actually be helpful in the whole keeping-food-costs-down thing. I have a goose egg making itself known on the crown of my head, but no tenderness anywhere else, so I didn’t hit my head on the floor when I went down. I’m not nauseated, dizzy, or in any other way feeling odd, so the likelihood of a concussion is minimal. I’ll keep an eye on myself tonight, looking for unusual tiredness or other symptoms, but I think I’m probably okay. And kicking myself for not having my hardhat on while doing demo, such a rookie mistake.

Joe would be horribly disappointed in me. I wipe the tears from my hot cheeks, not from the pain, but from frustration and embarrassment. From being so reckless and stupid. I put my head on my knees and give in to the cry, all the while hoping that it’s just my situation and not some weird sign of brain damage. Once I remind myself that I’m not the crying girl and I don’t have time for brain damage, the tears stop, almost as quickly as they began.

Slowly I get up off the floor, careful not to go too fast, checking myself for wooziness. Once I stand up, I walk over to the fallen doorjamb. I lean over carefully and look inside. As I suspected, it’s the old larder. There are hooks on one wall and a couple on the ceiling where meat and game birds would have hung. A low chest that I presume to be an icebox, some simple cabinets, what looks to be either a pie safe or a space to store butter and cheeses or cured meats. The room is small, maybe six feet by eight feet. But it would have been essential to the functioning of the primary kitchen down here. There is also a small door at counter height that I think might be a dumbwaiter, which will be a huge coup if it still has the mechanism in it. Suddenly my little aches and pains assert themselves, and I realize I should go upstairs and get some painkillers in me to keep ahead of it. As I turn to go, the toe of my boot catches the leather book again. I reach down and pick it up; it’s unmarked. But the leather is shockingly supple under my hand, and I tuck it under my arm and head upstairs.

I take three Tylenol with a large glass of water, and then grab a small bottle of Coke from the fridge. Joe always kept the eight-ounce glass bottles around; they were a reward for him after a long day of work, icy cold and always tasting so much better than the stuff in the can. Plus the sugar and caffeine will actually help the medicine work faster. I pop it open, and take it to the table, sitting down to examine my attacker. The leather is a worn deep brown, like the sort of leather you would imagine an old fighter pilot jacket would be made of. It’s thick, with heavy board covers, and bound with a single, wide leather strap that slides into a loop on the front. It smells of old leather and old paper and a little bit like mildew. I slip the strap out of the loop, and gingerly open the front cover. In elegant rolling script of faded violet ink on the page opposite the marbleized frontispiece, it says:

Gemma Ditmore-Smythe
Journal and Notebook

I feel like I remember this name from one of the newspaper articles about the Rabin family. I drop the book and reach for my folder of research. Flipping through the photocopied pages, I find the piece I’m looking for. A
Chicago Examiner
article with a large picture from September 9, 1907, shows a long, elegant banquet table, full of elaborate trays, roasted meats and game, towering jellies and platters of pastries. At the far end, a short roly-poly woman with a broad smile and in full uniform, with a white bonnet, and white apron over a black dress. The caption says, “
The Rabins’ cook Gemma surveys the groaning board before the guests arrive
.” I look closely at the woman. She appears to be maybe forty, which means she was probably only thirty at the time, solidly built like me, but even in an over-one-hundred-year-old photo, and a copy at that, I can sense something of a twinkle in her eye. She’s looking at the buffet with pride; she has the air of someone who loves what she does. I put it aside, and turn back to the book. Flipping the pages with one thumb, I can see that it is full of notes and entries, lists, and recipes.

“Well, well, Gemma. Very nice to meet you,” I say to the book. My thumb catches and the book falls open to a page near the end.

“
It was very nice to meet you as well
.” The first line jumps out at me, and I drop the page as if it has bitten me. Maybe I have a concussion after all? I lean forward and look back at the page, continuing to read. “
I said to the gentleman, and handed him a small basket of scones for his journey. It was very pleasant to have someone of his stature take the time to come see me in my little hovel and express such a delight with the fare during his visit
.”