Recipe for Disaster (40 page)

I call Jag and tell him that it is okay for him to sleep over at Nageena’s and I’ll explain in the morning. Emily and I wash our faces, and get into our pajamas, and I make popcorn, and we crawl into her pullout bed and watch
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
. When it’s over, she asks me to stay and have a slumber party, and we lie in the dark and talk about Liam, and her ex, and Grant, and boys in general, and she snuggles into my shoulder like an overgrown kitten and the last thing I think before I fall asleep is that whatever else happens, I have a sister.

I
tell Jag everything as soon as he gets home the next morning.

Well, almost everything. I still can’t tell him about the Liam kissing stuff, not until I figure out if I have feelings FOR Liam, or just ABOUT Liam. Not until I figure out if the physical connection is because it is
Liam
, or if it is just because I’ve had the very bad luck to go thirty-five years without ever being with someone who was a good kisser, or maybe the right kisser. He was mad for a moment, saying he didn’t understand why I would just jump in and do it without finishing our discussion first, without making the decision together, but I tell him that Emily overheard me asking Liam if they had been together, and his response, and how hurt and embarrassed she was, and that she was packing up and going to leave us. That’s when he finally smiled and hugged me and said that he understood why I told her.

He’s proud of me for wanting to keep her, for acknowledging that despite being unexpected, she’s been good for us, for the project, for me. And while he’s still nervous, he’s on board. He made a huge stack of pancakes, and when Emily came upstairs he gave her a big hug and the three of us had an easy breakfast, figuring out our strategies. Emily offered to move to one of the rooms upstairs so that he could have the pullout couch again, but he said he thought downstairs should officially be girl quarters. Now that we don’t have to hide the truth from Emily, he’ll spend most nights sleeping at Nageena’s, and will rock the blow-up mattress upstairs on the nights he stays here. So far it has worked pretty well, and contrary to Jag’s concerns that Emily might tell Liam, she has decided that if he wants to think of her as a little sister, she is going to act like one, making fun of everything from his hair to his accent, and being generally bratty. It’s been delightful to watch.

T
oday Jag took Emily to Salvage One to look for some lighting fixtures. We’re in need of wall sconces for the long hallways, a couple of chandeliers, some flush-mount ceiling lights for bedrooms. I’m working on the front room on the second floor, refinishing the French doors that lead out to the balcony. I’m just finishing what I pray is the final coat of stripper when my phone rings.

Oy. “Hi, Grant, how’s it going?” I try to force joviality.

“Okay, busy, stressful.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Yeah. How is everything with you?”

“Great, really, things are coming along over here.”

“I’m glad, Anneke, that sounds good, you sound good. I, um, hate to do this but I sort of need to know where we are with the money. The guy called again and now they’re offering 235, all cash.”

My stomach turns over, pancakes becoming a lead brick. “I can get you the fifty in two weeks.” I sucked it up and asked my financial guy about cashing in some of my retirement savings, and he said he could make it liquid in three business days, but that he strongly advises that this is a one-time deal, and I not think of my accounts with him as a savings account. Every time I dip in there are additional fees and penalties, and ultimately I’d almost be better off putting things on high-interest credit cards. I hired him because he is so conservative. When we first started working together I was a single girl with no plans to either wed or have children. I needed to make sure that my retirement savings would be there for me. I carry the highest amount of both long- and short-term disability coverage; I’ve always planned for future that only relied on me.

“That’s good, really, great, and I appreciate it, but it doesn’t solve the bigger issue. I would still need the rest pretty soon, and if you’re still talking about a sale after the New Year, I won’t be able to float it that long.”

“I’ll figure it out, Grant, please, I just need a little more time. And if you can figure out how to wait till the sale, I’ll beat their offer, you can have 250 total.”

It kills me to be having this conversation. My feelings about Grant are so up and down. I’m still so hurt by his betrayal, and confused by his recent behavior. Cheating on me with a man, shitty, but almost somewhat understandable, questioning his identity, his sexuality, presented with temptation he hadn’t expected, okay. Showing up to stop my wedding? Stupid, but I guess maybe romantic, in a rom-com kind of way. But between catching him sucking face with a random woman in the hallway of a restaurant he wouldn’t usually have been caught dead in, and now suddenly pressing me about money? Deep down I could strangle him.

“You know it isn’t the profit issue, it’s just the circumstances.” I hate him for using that “woe is me” tone. As if it’s just killing him to even ask me for the money. The fact that he is daring to come to me with all of this just underscores that whatever else came of his infidelity, I clearly dodged a bullet relationshipwise.

“Please, just let me figure this out for a few more weeks.”

“Okay.”

I hang up, and head to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. I suddenly have a horrific case of heartburn, probably my conscience heating up. I like being the strong self-sufficient broad. I hate women like my mother, who survive entirely at the mercy of generous men. When Joe died, I discovered that he had paid her alimony for two years, until she remarried. The very thought turned my stomach. After abandoning him, to take money from him? Unconscionable. And yet, standing here right now, there is a part of me that wonders what would happen if I sued Grant for breach of promise and palimony. I know deep down I could never go through with it, but a tiny delicious shiver runs through my body at the image of some oily little process server showing up at one of his fancy investor meetings and handing him papers. Or maybe selling the story of finding him in the shower with Gregg to one of the sleazy tabloids. “Fan Favorite Chef Heats Things Up in the Kitchen . . . AND the Shower!” This makes me giggle.

I go back to the doors, where the paint is bubbling and puckering. So far I’ve removed three layers of various browns, one horridly garish yellow, and a bright Kelly green. This pale blue is hopefully the last of it, and if I get lucky, the wood will be good enough to stain. I use a soft plastic scraper to pull off the paint, carefully revealing the red oak underneath. I wash off the last bits of stripper, and give the doors a light sanding so that they’ll take the stain. One of the first things I came up with when I bought the house was a custom stain blend that matches the color of all of the existing woodwork. That way I can both stain new wood to match and refinish old wood as we go. With the new wood we use on cased openings and places where moldings and things had gone missing, I prep it with an aging solution I make by soaking steel wool in white vinegar, and then use my stain blend once the wood has cured a bit. On these doors, which are original, I just need to stain them and then I’ll seal them with a UV-protective polyurethane coating on the outside. Luckily the porch is north facing, and protected by the massive trees that line the boulevard, so I don’t need to worry about much sun damage.

I put on the first coat of stain and then carry all the stripping gear down to the mudroom to wash it while the stain sinks in. I’ll ultimately do five coats of penetrating stain today, with an hour between coats. It should have been a relaxing day, the time between coats is too short to jump into anything else, so my plan was to just hang out in the room, read Gemma’s journal, maybe do a power nap. But after speaking with Grant I know I won’t be able to focus on her spidery violet handwriting, won’t be able to drift off. Instead I go to my desk to get the legal pad that has all of the numbers for the rest of the job on it, to see if by some miracle I’ll be able to pull this all off, to see if some magic has happened that makes it all possible.

H
edy, Marie, and Walter pick me up at six on the dot. It’s been a good long time since we had a regular girls’ night, and despite Caroline’s attempt to lure us to the burbs with promises of homemade food and Carl’s wine, we’ve decided to go out downtown instead. I’ve been craving Italian, and Marie has never been to Piccolo Sogno, so we overrode Caroline, and we’re making her leave the enclave for a change. Despite the low-grade headache I’m sporting, the result of a day both breathing stain fumes and squinting at numbers, doing endless math, I’m actually looking forward to tonight. After the Halloween meltdown, I feel a little bit like maybe things are getting easier with the girls, and even though there is still so much I can’t tell them, Emily has begun to convince me that when the time comes, they’ll understand, and forgive. I don’t really know that I believe that, but what I do know is that the time to come clean is far away, and if it’s possible I’m going to lose them eventually, I need to stop pushing them away now and instead get as much of them in my life as I can stand.

We order a bottle of prosecco to start, and suddenly appetizers begin to arrive. Tony, the chef, comes out to the table to let us know that he will be taking care of us for the evening. He and Grant are great pals, and he and I always got along well. One of the waiters spotted me when we came in, and let him know I was in the house. He leans over to kiss me on both cheeks, and whispers in my ear.

“I was sorry to hear about you and Grant, but I also hear that congratulations are in order. I’m happy for your happiness.”

“Thanks, Tony. It’s all for the good.” He nods.

“Well, tonight you let me help you celebrate with these beautiful ladies!”

“Absolutely.”

“And you bring your new husband soon? I need to make sure he is good enough for you.” This makes me blush.

“Of course.”

“It’s nice to be with the queen,” Hedy says, raising her glass to me and winking.

“There goes my diet,” says Marie in a tone that says that she is both delighted, and probably not really on a diet to begin with.

“I should have worn an elastic waistband!” Caroline says, taking a sip of her bubbly.

I fill my plate with crunchy calamari, favoring as I always do the tentacles over the rings, a crispy stuffed zucchini blossom oozing cheese, and a large spoonful of panzanella salad. “Dig in, ladies, or it will be gone.”

Caroline delicately takes three rings of calamari, picks the onions out of the panzanella, and cuts a zucchini blossom in half. Hedy rolls her eyes, picks up the half Caroline leaves behind, and pops it in her mouth whole while filling her plate with panzanella and calamari, just as a platter with prosciutto and figs arrives. We feast as course after course descends on us, three kinds of pasta, an impossibly thin and crispy pizza, grilled meats and vegetables.

Marie tells us about the very cool new artist that has joined John’s shop, a young woman who is specializing in classic pinup girls, and custom portraits. Caroline talks about the plans they are making for their time in France, and that she has joined the board for Writers Theatre. Hedy talks about her newest client, a woman who received her Winnetka home and her Gold Coast pied-à-terre in an acrimonious divorce, both properties having been in her ex-husband’s family for generations, decorated by her former mother-in-law. Apparently the husband’s infidelities meant that not only was it important that she gain ownership of his inheritance, but that she completely undo every choice that had been foisted upon her during the course of her twenty-year marriage, so she is doing a complete gut on both spaces and donating all the family heirloom furnishings to local women’s shelters.