Recipe for Disaster (12 page)

“And you’d really want to work with me for a pittance?”

“I’d look at it as a paid apprenticeship. If I want to really get into this business as a career, I have to get practical hands-on experience. And you certainly look like you could use an extra pair of hands. I’m very good with electrical work, obviously, and plumbing, and of course structural stuff. I’ve never done detail finish work, but I’m good at simple carpentry, and I’m a quick study. Perhaps a trial period? A week or so to see if it is a good fit?”

I look at his open face, his furrowed brow. I think about the daunting nature of this house and everything that has to be done. I think about Joe, patiently teaching me every aspect of bringing a house to life. He’d like this intelligent, soft-spoken man. Besides, his visa will expire soon, it’s not like I’m committing too much, timewise. Maybe a few weeks of some competent help could get me over a hump here, give me more time to come up with a plan, find someone else. And my gut says he is trustworthy. Of course my gut also told me that I should marry Grant, and that I should eat that massive cheesesteak and onion rings for lunch yesterday, so it isn’t exactly foolproof, but it’s all I have. If nothing else it will get Caroline and Hedy off my back; they’ve been scared that I’ll hire some serial rapist axe murderer who will keep me prisoner here. Caroline and Hedy watch a lot of
Law & Order: SVU
and
Criminal Minds
and such. They think there is a serial rapist axe murderer around every corner.

“A week it is. If it works, we’ll figure out something.”

He smiles. “Wonderful. I shall not let you down, Miss Anneke.”

“Just Anneke is fine, Jag.” I go to the fridge and take out the remains of last night’s dinner . . . Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with tuna and frozen peas mixed in. I grab a fork and eat it cold out of the container. This used to be one of my favorites, salty orange pasta, sweet little pops of peas, little meaty chunks of tuna. But three years with Grant has clearly had an effect on my palate. The noodles are gummy, not al dente, and the tuna is overly fishy. Grant got me turned on to good Spanish tuna packed in olive oil; this cheap Costco stuff in the water tastes vaguely like cat food. But I can’t think about that right now; it’s fuel and it’s in the budget.

We pass a lovely half an hour eating and resting, and getting to know each other a little bit, and then head back downstairs to keep working. By the end of the day I already know that I don’t need a week, I really want Jag to keep working with me. He’s smart and funny, but also a strong worker. Good company, but not overly chatty or inquisitive. I fall easily into teacher mode, channeling the way Joe would casually chat about what he was doing and why while he worked. Jag asks good questions, but not so many of them that it slows us down, and by the end of the day we’ve accomplished more together than I was able to do on my own in the past four days combined.

“Thank you, it was a great day,” I say, handing him a wad of bills for his work. He receives it, doesn’t count it, and puts it right in his pocket. Very classy.

“I had a very good time, and look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.”

I’m shocked. “You know tomorrow is Saturday.”

“Are you planning on working tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yes,” I admit. I caved in and said yes to dinner plans with the girls, despite the fact that I really don’t want to see them, but want to get a good workday in before.

“Then I will be here. Shall we say eight?”

“Sounds great. Thanks for all your work today.”

He bows to me very formally, and then leaves.

I head upstairs to my bathroom, where the sad little trickle of water the shower provides does little to alleviate the stress in my shoulders. But it is enough to get me clean, which is more important, since after a full day I am covered in a gritty layer of dirt and smell more than a little bit ripe.

I get dressed, and head downstairs to figure out what to do for dinner. Lunch was deeply unsatisfying, and I’m already getting pretty sick of my rotation of processed-food salt-bombs. Dinnertime is always when I’m most angry with Grant. I haven’t figured out if I’m more pissed off that he ruined my taste buds with all his deliciousness and fabulous ingredients, or that his wandering wiener means that he won’t ever cook for me again. All I know is that until I met him, I ate the same stuff I’m eating now without a problem, and now that he’s gone, none of it tastes right or makes me happy.

I spot Gemma’s journal on the counter and flip it open. It lands on a page, and I look at the entry.

“When nothing else seems to suffice to tempt her to eat, I know that it is time to make rice soubise.”

Hmm. I wonder who isn’t eating? I keep going.

“She’s a picky little thing, especially when she’s pouting and feeling sorry for herself, and often says she hates everything I have available to her in the kitchen.”

Certainly sounds like a girl after my own heart.

“But the moment the onions begin to melt into the butter, it softens her heart and she changes her mind.”

I wonder. I have butter. I have onions. I have rice. I look down the page to the recipe. It looks simple enough, a sort of casserole of onions and rice with cream and cheese. How hard could that be? I even have a brick of cheese that will probably work. The only thing I don’t have is cream, but there is a convenience store that Schatzi and I pass on our walks; they would have some. Suddenly I’m feeling motivated. I get up and pull on my boots and coat, and call for Schatzi, who is carefully grooming herself in the corner. I pull her leash off the door handle and attach it. In fifteen minutes we are back home with a pint of heavy cream.

I look over the recipe again. It sounds very simple. You boil some rice in water like pasta, I can do that. You cook some onions in butter, stir in the rice, pop it in the oven. Add some cream and grated cheese and mix it up. And voila! A real dinner.

I pull out a couple of the pots Caroline gave me, and begin to get everything laid out. Grant always yammered on about mise en place, that habit of getting all your stuff together before you start cooking so you can be organized. It seems to make sense, and appeals to the part of me that likes to make lists and check things off of them.

I manage to chop a pile of onions without cutting myself, but with a lot of tears. At one point I walk over to the huge freezer and stick my head in it for some relief, while Schatzi looks at me like I’m an idiot. Which isn’t unusual. Or even, come to think of it, wrong. But I get them sliced and chopped, albeit unevenly, and put them in the large pot with some butter. I get some water boiling in the other pot and put in some rice. I cook it for a few minutes, drain it, and add it to the onions, stirring them all together. Then I put the lid on the pot and put it in the oven, and set my phone with an alarm for thirty-five minutes. The kitchen smells amazing. Nothing quite like onions cooked in butter to make the heart happy. While it cooks, I grab a beer, and grate some Swiss cheese into a pile. When my phone buzzes, I pull the pot out of the oven and put it back on the stovetop, stirring in the cream and cheese, and sprinkling in some salt and pepper.

I grab a bowl and fill it with the richly scented mixture. I stand right there at the counter, and gingerly take a spoonful. It’s amazing. Rich and creamy and oniony. The rice is nicely cooked, not mushy. And even though some of my badly cut onions make for some awkward eating moments, as the strings slide out of the spoon and attach themselves to my chin, the flavor is spectacular. Simple and comforting, and utterly delicious. The bitter beer cuts through it and is the perfect thing. I finish the bowl and dish up another. I’m halfway through dialing Grant’s number to tell him of my kitchen triumph when I remember where I am and why I’m even experimenting with cooking at all, and hang up.

“I’d give you some, you horrible dog, except onions would make you sick, and while I love the idea of your discomfort, I wouldn’t want to have to clean up after you,” I say cheerfully to Schatzi, who has wandered over to see what smells so good.

I eat half the pot, and put the rest in the fridge for lunch tomorrow, feeling absolutely swelled up with pride.

“Thanks, Gemma, I really needed that,” I say to the book, glancing down at the bottom of the recipe.

“
You’re welcome
,” it says, startling me again with how much it seems to feel like Gemma is speaking to me directly. “
I said to my poor girl, knowing that she doesn’t mean to be difficult. She gave me a big hug and then ran back upstairs to join her family for dessert. I worry about her sometimes, but I think I believe in my heart she will be okay
.”

“I hope so, Gemma, I really hope so.”

T
he buzzer rings just as I’m slipping my shoes on. I check my watch, it’s only six thirty and Hedy isn’t supposed to pick me up till seven, but maybe she’s early. Being up on the third floor with no intercom system is a huge pain in the ass. I have to run from the back bedroom down the long hallway to the front bedroom and wrench open the window to yell down like a fishwife to see who is at the door.

I make the trek, open the window, and get slammed in the face with a flurry of snow for my trouble. I lean over and see the top of a head covered in a hot pink hat with a pompom on top.

“Hello?” I shout down against the wind, using my hand to push the snow off of the windowsill in hopes that it will stop blowing in at me.

A face turns up to look at me; she looks like some little girl. It can’t possibly be Girl Scout Cookie season yet, but if this industrious kid is getting a jump on things, I’m going to order a dozen boxes to support her. Plus I could use a thin mint or forty.

“Hi, are you Anneke?” the girl yells up at me.

This stops me cold. Who the hell is this kid, and who sent her? “Stay there.”

I grab my purse and head downstairs, wondering exactly what’s going on. I take a deep breath and open the door. In person, the little girl turns out to be not so little. She’s probably at least in high school, and has a good four inches on me. I look up at her peaches-and-cream complexion, pinkened in the cold, wide blue eyes fringed with barely there blond lashes, golden bangs held down over her forehead by the ridiculous pink hat, which up close turns out to have pale pink polka dots in addition to the fuzzy pompom on top. She is grinning at me like a crazy person, making twin dimples in her cheeks. She is staggeringly beautiful, in that natural and unfussy way that is impossible to achieve for mere mortals. I can’t see a lick of makeup on her, and yet she is flawless.

“Anneke? I’m Emily!” she says, smiling wider, if such a thing is possible, with so much excitement in her voice that I’m afraid she might pass out. She sees the blank look on my face. “Emily Walsh!”

“Okay. Do I know you?”

“I’m Emily WALSH,” she enunciates.

Now I think she might be lightly damaged in some way.

“That’s lovely, I’m sure. What can I do for you?”

She shivers fetchingly, Cupid’s bow lips starting to turn the littlest bit purple in the cold. “Can I come in?”

I consider for a moment. She’s tall, but the skinny jeans show that there’s nothing to her; she might have four inches on me, but I have at least sixty pounds on her. I can take her. And I’m pretty sure her lurid orange puffer coat doesn’t conceal any deadly weapons. “Sure.” I step aside and let her come in.

She follows me through the vestibule and into the front parlor. Schatzi comes clicking down the stairs to see what is going on.

“Oh, hel-LO, you pretty thing! Who is a cute doggie? Who?” Emily kneels down.

“She doesn’t really like people,” I warn, just as Schatzi walks right up to this colt of a girl and LEAPS INTO HER ARMS, snuggling under her chin, biting her ponytail. Perfect.

“Oh, you like me, don’t you, you precious darling.” Emily cuddles the dog and stands up in one fluid motion. “What’s her name?”

“Schatzi,” I say, stunned.

“Schatzi, you are a pretty girl, yes you are.” Emily is clearly light on the whole brain-cell thing, since apparently her purpose in coming here is eluding her now that she has met the damn dog.

“So, Emily Walsh, why are you here?”

She puts the dog down. “Well, I graduated a semester early, and figured I would take some time off before I start grad school in the fall, so I thought I’d do kind of a cross-country adventure, and I’ve never been to Chicago, and even though everyone thought I was insane to come here in the winter, one of the girls from my sorority lives here now and said I could come stay at her place, and I thought it would be good for you and me to spend some time together and hang out for a while, and Chicago is so awesome, even in the winter, and it gave me a chance to buy some cool winter duds for the first time, my dad called it an epic shopportunity, and I’ll need all this stuff anyway when I get to Boston in the fall.” This comes out in one breathy expanse of a sentence, eyebrows raised at me in all sorts of expectation of my delight.

“I see. Well, that is a tremendous amount of information.”

She looks at me and then smiles even wider, her dimples threatening to become black holes of happy. And she throws her arms around me, hugging me so tight I can barely breathe. “I’m SO HAPPY TO FINALLY MEET YOU!”

My instinct kicks in and both of my hands reach up and break her embrace, pushing her forcefully away from me.

“EMILY. WHO. THE. FUCK. ARE. YOU?”

Her face falls for a second, and then the smile returns. “Emily WALSH, silly. I’m your sister!”

“The fuck you are.”

“No, I am, I’m Emily Walsh!”

“You seem very clear on that. But I have no idea who you are, Emily Walsh, and I sure as hell don’t have a sister.”

“Well, stepsister, technically, Andrew Walsh is my dad.” She laughs as if I have said the silliest possible thing.

“Who is that?”

Now she looks confused. “You’re Anneke Stroudt.”

Good lord, this kid is down a quart in the brain-cell department. “Yes. And before you say it again, you are Emily Walsh, daughter of Andrew. But that doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Your mom is Anneliese. She was married to my dad.”

Oh. God. “Oh. Well. Yes, she is, but we aren’t really in touch. Sorry. Never heard of you or your dad.”

She looks confused. “She never mentioned us?”

“Not ever.”

Now she looks crestfallen. “Oh. GOD! You must think I’m an insane person!”

“Pretty much.”

She shakes her head. And reaches her hand out. “Hi. I’m Emily. I’m your former stepsister. And not insane, but very embarrassed.”

I look at her hand, but somehow I can’t bring myself to shake it.

“Well, Emily, this has been deeply weird, but I have someone picking me up for dinner in about ten minutes, so whatever it is you want, I need you to spit it out, if you can manage that.”

“Oh, yeah, right, well, um, since you don’t know who I am it is going to be weirder, but your mom was married to my dad for like five years when I was little after my mom died, and she was just amazing and such a good mom to me, and my dad loved her so much and then one day she was just gone and it totally broke my dad, but I just have always missed her and I was always so sad you never came to Florida to visit us, because my real mom always promised me a sister someday but when she thought she was pregnant it turned out to be the cancer, and anyway, I just thought since I have this free time I could come and meet you, because family is really important to me, I’m going to be a family therapist someday, and it’s never too late to have a sister!”

I hold my hand up. “I’m going to stop you right there, and not just because you are sucking all of the available oxygen out of the room. I’m sorry my mom did a runner on you and your dad, it’s just what she does, not your fault. I’m sure there are enough former stepkids floating around to start a Facebook group or something. But I have neither time nor inclination to help any of the broken birds she’s left in her wake figure their shit out. If you have stuff you want to deal with, I get that, but it doesn’t include me. Anneliese is in Scottsdale. Maybe you have a sorority sister there who can put you up if you want to go deal with her.”

She tilts her head at me and furrows her brow, her cornflower blue eyes filled with empathy. “She really hurt you too, huh?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” I check my watch. “Time to go, Emily Walsh, I’ve got plans. Sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“I’m sorry, I know this is a lot, it isn’t at all how I expected this to go. You need time to get your head around it, I mean, you didn’t even know I existed and here I am and I’m just saying Emily Walsh at you over and over like some freak show! You go have a great time tonight, and I’ll come back, maybe like, Thursday? Give you a couple of days to just process, and maybe conceptualize me or whatever. Do you like coffee? We could go for coffee. Maybe we can take Schatzi for a walk and we can just talk, okay? So like, maybe three-ish on Thursday? Bye, Schatzi! See you Thursday.” She starts to come at me for another hug but steps back. I’m stuck like lead to where I am standing.

“Um, no, really, I, um . . .” I cannot formulate words.

“Okay, then, no hugging yet, I get it, it’s cool.” She reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll see you Thursday.” And she leans down and pets Schatzi. “See you Thursday, sweetheart.” And then she pulls on a pair of knitted mittens that honest to god have little mice eating cheese embroidered on them, and fairly skips out the front door and is gone.

I take a deep breath and reach for my phone.

“I’m almost there,” Hedy says when she answers.

“I’m thinking I might not be up for it tonight.” Snippets of things that Emily said in her barrage of information are subtly registering in my addled brain one by one. “
She was such a good mom to me. I’m your sister! We were so sad you never came to visit.
”
Each one a delayed punch in the gut.

“Nonsense. You have to eat. And you have to get out of that house sometimes. Be there in five.” And then she hangs up on me.

I’ve never been good at getting out of things. I’m a bad liar, my tongue gets tied up, and whatever fib I’ve practiced invariably is the wrong one. I once told Caroline I was coming down with a cold in order to avoid a ladies’ luncheon with some guest speaker I didn’t care about, and she showed up that afternoon with soup. At the Palmer Square house, where she figured I was when I wasn’t AT HOME IN BED. She said she didn’t care and that I hadn’t missed anything, the speaker was boring, but I know she was hurt that I both blew her off and lied to her.

Hedy says you always have to pull the diarrhea card. “Something I ate” is something we all relate to, and no one wants to be near it. Which is great, except you can’t use that with Hedy because she knows you’re faking. Marie, ever the Pollyanna, says that you should just suck it up and go to things because invariably you’ll have a great time in spite of yourself. Which I’m sure Marie does. I only even said yes to tonight because I’ve been really blowing them all off, and I knew if I didn’t agree to this one, they’d just plan some sort of tedious intervention or something.

“
I’m your sister! I’ll come back Thursday!
” Good grief. That overgrown cheerleader can come back Thursday all she wants. I won’t be here. I got a call from one of the stonemasons I used to work with on MacMurphy projects who is doing a job in the Gold Coast, and it has some amazing marble that they want ripped out, and he knew I’d want the salvage. I have to pay him and his guys, which wasn’t exactly in the budget, but the stone is spectacular and if we can remove it without damaging it, it will make for some wonderful details around this place.

The buzzer makes me jump, it is shrill and insanely loud, and I make a mental note to find a new one sooner rather than later.

Hedy whisks herself into the house in a swirl of snow. She’s wearing the most spectacular floor-length black leather coat, fitted at the top with a set of diagonal buttons that almost look military, and then swooping to her ankles. I love that coat. It’s lined in mink. It’s the tiniest bit like
The Matrix
meets Chanel. But I can’t pull off a look like that; I’m too squat, it would make me look like a leather club chair. She kisses me on the cheek.

“Get your coat, lady, we’re meeting the girls at Sumi Robata.” I must have blanched or looked panicked, because she quickly adds, “My treat. Just signed a massive new client. We’re celebrating.”

Sumi is one of our favorite restaurants, a traditional Japanese robata grill place with just insanely delicious food. All small plates, which we love. We just sit and keep ordering until we want to burst. The food is clean and simple but gorgeous. And worth every penny. When one has pennies to spare. But there is a difference between a good value and not expensive. As Grant used to say, the French Laundry is a good value, but you might have to hock a lung to afford it. I never used to think twice about Sumi, where by the time you order a zillion dishes and a few beers to wash it down you might be out a hundred dollars or more per person. But that is more than my current weekly food budget these days.

I grab my coat, and we head out.

“So, what is it?”

“What is what?”

“Whatever you’ve got happening in your life that has given you this deer-in-headlights look and made you try to blow us off. You’re really bad at that, by the way, you know that right?”

“I know. I’m just tired.”

“Bullshit.”

“And stressed.”

“Better.”

“And apparently I have a sister.”

“Come again?”

“Just before you came. Some little picketytwick of a girl showed up at my doorstep looking for a family reunion. Some discarded stepdaughter Anneliese left behind a decade ago who wants to bond with me.”

Hedy is silent and contemplative. “Well, if she’s a step, she can’t be looking for a kidney or bone marrow or anything.”