Skinny Bitch in Love (5 page)

And now, he was someone else’s fiancé.

“Oh, not that much pressure forming the balls,” I said when I realized he was compressing the chickpea mixture in his palms. “Gently, like this,” I added, showing him how to use a lighter touch.

I wondered if he’d make some sort of sex joke, some reference to how I used to like the rough way he touched me in bed. If he’d grab me up against the zillion-dollar stainless steel refrigerator and go at me.

Of course, he didn’t. He just gave me that sweet smile and asked if he was doing it right now, and he was.

We fried, we plated, we ate. Ben declared the falafel the best he’d ever had. As he licked tahini sauce off his lips, he
occasionally brought up something from our past as though it was just a fond memory that didn’t matter a whit anymore, because, of course, to him, it didn’t.

“Uh, Clem, did we forget to put something in the hummus? It’s kind of . . . boring,” Ben said, handing me the fork.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I could make orgasmic hummus in my sleep. Did I screw it up?

“Oh, no, her hummus isn’t great?” Laurel said, coming into the kitchen with two boutique bags in each hand. Of course, she had to come in at that exact moment. Not when Ben had been “Oh my God”ing over the tahini-drizzled falafel. “Baby, I thought you said she was an amazing cook.” She eyed the two-thousand-plus check stuck to the fridge with a little barbell magnet, narrowed her eyes at me, then dipped a spoon into the hummus. “Huh. Yeah. Bland.” She glared at me, then cut a tiny piece of falafel. “Oh my God,
this
is incredible.”

Saved by a teaspoon of cumin.

“I forgot to add the garlic to the hummus when she told me,” Ben said. And it was true; he wasn’t covering for me. “Don’t worry—my money was very well spent.”

As I started cleaning up, Laurel told me not to bother, that their housekeeper came every afternoon to do a basic tidy-up. She handed me my check. Instead of feeling like the teacher, the businesswoman, the brilliant chef who’d just earned two thousand four hundred dollars, I felt like a loser.

I had barely left the kitchen with my pull cart before Laurel launched herself into Ben’s arms for another sex kiss.

“Thanks again, Clem,” Ben said as he and Laurel headed
out the opposite end of the kitchen through the French doors toward the grand staircase, probably to rip off each other’s clothes.

“Just close the door on your way out,” he added.

I wanted to spread that dull hummus all over their bed and let them roll around in
that
. But you bet your ass I closed that door—permanently—and walked out with my big fat check, all I really needed.

“That’s insane, Clem,” Sara said as she stripped down to her bra and underwear to step on the scale in our bathroom. “I ran into Dickhead Pete, but that’s nothing compared to that. Seriously, that is messed up.”

“Let’s not mention either of their names in our little sanctuary again,” I said. “They don’t exist.” I blinked my eyes like a genie. “Poof. Gone.”

She blinked and added a genie arm cross for good measure. “Now let’s hope I made even a little bit of my ass disappear, too.”

“Don’t worry about the stupid scale,” I reminded her. “Being a Skinny Bitch is about feeling good, not what some digital numbers say.” She stepped on the scale and I crossed my fingers for her. If she hadn’t lost any weight, she might get discouraged. That date from hell usually would have sent her into a sugar binge, but she’d been working really hard on the eating plan, not a Dorito in sight. Going from eating whatever
you wanted to being a Skinny Bitch wasn’t easy—I knew that firsthand. But Sara was really into it and sticking to it. I wanted the scale to show a loss to give her that extra
hell, yeah
.

Three and a half pounds.

“Sara! That’s awesome!”

Her face lit up and she put her tank top and yoga pants back on. “I can’t believe I’m losing weight while I’m stuffing my face. That breakfast sandwich you made me this morning? I can’t believe that’s on the plan. Scrambled ‘egg’ tofu, soy bacon, vegan cheese.”

“Breakfast of champions.”

“Fettucini alfredo last night that almost tasted like the four-thousand-fat-gram version I ate last week. And I even get my dessert. I can do this, Clem. I thought I’d have to starve to get skinny.”

“Nope. And wait till you taste the almost-cheesecake I’m making you today. One small slice a day.”

We headed into the kitchen for Sara’s lesson on how to make very low-fat, low glycemic-index sort-of cheesecake. I got out the flour and the Stevia. “Hey, maybe we should film this for my website.”

“Good idea,” she said and set up her phone to videotape it, but we moved around so much that all we got was some decent footage of a big silver mixing bowl. And the finished product, which was pronounced “fucking amazing” by Sara.

“Clem, you should be teaching everyone how to cook.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, actually, ever since I got back from Ben’s. Some people might just want me as a personal
chef—making the meals and delivering them in reheatable cookware. But others might just want cooking lessons.”

“I totally want both.”

“I’d do it, but where? I can’t afford to rent a kitchen somewhere, and it’s not like I can teach in this tiny kitchen with the electric stove and half-dead refrigerator. I can’t stop thinking about it, though. Planning the menus for the classes, maybe taking field trips to farmers’ markets.”

“Tons of people would sign up, Clem. I would. And who cares if the kitchen is small? It’s actually the biggest room in the apartment, and”—she glanced around—“I’ll bet eight people could fit in here without it being killer claustrophobic. Remember the party we had when I got the orthotics commercial? At one point, everyone was in the kitchen to see that shoe-shaped cake you made me, and that was, like, twelve people.”

Sara had gotten cast as Real Woman on Sidewalk Rubbing Foot for an insole commercial. I made her a cake in the shape of a strappy sandal to celebrate. “You really think I could get students? It’s not like anyone beat down my door for the personal chef thing.”

“People are totally into cooking classes. Learning something, meeting new people, the whole thing. And the vegan angle makes it new and different for people. Everyone’s heard of veganism, but no one really knows what it is. I mean, my mom always says, ‘But she still eats fish, right?’ ”

If I had a student like Sara’s mother, I might jump out a window. No, Sara’s mother, I do not eat fish. Yes, bacon counts
as meat. No, I don’t eat eggs. No, I can’t (and don’t want to) have even one tiny taste of cheddar. Yes—and add megaphone here—I do get plenty of protein. But teaching vegan cooking was a great idea. People
did
love cooking classes. And between the personal chef business—if it ever picked up—and the cooking classes, I could probably eke out a living.

Thanks especially to the happy couple’s big fat starter check.

I took a bite of almost-cheesecake and sat down with my trusty notebook.

Skinny Bitch Cooking School!

What: Learn to make crap-free favorites, from lasagna to pad thai, from almost-cheesecake to not-your-grandma’s apple pie. Only $400 for a six-week class from famed vegan chef Clementine Cooper.

When: Tuesdays, 7/2 – 8/5. 7 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

Where: Montana & 14
, Santa Monica

How: (310) 555-7124 or email [email protected]

After posting ads for Skinny Bitch Cooking School everywhere, from light posts to coffeehouse bulletin boards to Twitter, Sara and I waited for my phone to ring and my email to ping.

Day one. Nothing.

Day two. Nothing.

Day three. Sara signed up, leaving the four hundred dollar fee (and it wasn’t like she had it to spare) in cash on my dresser.

Day four. Nothing.

Day five. A stranger signed up! Eva Ackerman. That made two students.

Day six. Another stranger signed up. Duncan Ridley.

By day eight, Sara and I stopped straining to listen for the phone and pings of email. But I had three students. Enough for a real class. A cozy, hands-on cooking class.

Three students at four hundred bucks a six-week session. Suck it, Emil.

I was on my way. To not being evicted, for a start. It was something.

Chapter 4

My three students were due to arrive in five minutes for the first class. Well, two of the three, since Sara was already there. I’d spent the day shopping at the grocery store and the farmers’ market for the menu—lasagna, sun-dried tomato and eggplant bruschetta, and a simple salad—and scrubbing the kitchen with white vinegar and baking soda until it sparkled.

My cell rang.
Please don’t be one of the two calling to cancel
, I prayed.

It was just my mom and dad calling to wish me luck. Then Ty. Then Sara from the bedroom, asking if her Target Missoni skirt would be too short if she were sitting on one of the kitchen bar stools. It wasn’t.

The buzzer rang, and I pressed TALK. “Skinny Bitch Cooking School,” I said.

“We’re at the right place then,” a guy said. “It’s me, Duncan, and—I’m sorry, what’s your name?” Silence. “And Eva right behind me.” I buzzed them up.

“He sounds cute,” Sara said.

The doorbell rang. I took a deep breath and opened it.

He
was
kind of cute. A bit uptight looking, maybe. Twenty-something with short, sandy blond hair and blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He had a messenger bag slung over his torso. “Hi, I’m Duncan. Ridley.”

Behind him, a scowling thirty-something redhead with a chin-length bob and dark circles under her eyes said, “I’m Eva Ackerman. Eva. Not Eve. Not Eves. Not Evie. Eva. Just Eva. For some reason, people have trouble with this.”

“Hi, Eves!” Sara said, sticking out her hand. “Just kidding.”

“I have no sense of humor,” Eva said, marching in with a great eye roll at Sara. “In fact, my soon-to-be ex-husband screamed that into my ear about five minutes ago before he hung up on me. Tell me, is this funny? ‘Maybe you wouldn’t need to request so much alimony if you stopped eating like a cow.’ ”

“I don’t think that’s funny,” Duncan said. Quite earnestly, too, which meant he’d already won Sara’s heart.

“Yeah. Not funny,” I said. “But come in. I’m Clementine Cooper, your teacher.”

“And I’m Sara, the teacher’s roommate, but also a fellow student. No discount, either. I’m not a vegan. Or a vegetarian. But I’m following Clementine’s Skinny Bitch diet, and I’ve already lost almost five pounds in a week.”

“Really?” Eva asked, eyeing her up and down, then down and up.

“Well, you can’t totally tell yet,” Sara said.

“Since we’re a small group,” I said, thinking I’d better separate Sara and Just Eva, “why don’t we sit down for a minute and do that dopey introduction thing—why you want to take the class, what you eat now, what you hope to learn, all that jazz.” I got that break-the-ice idea from my sister, naturally. “I’m Clementine Cooper, and I grew up on an organic farm in northern California. I could peel and chop an onion without crying by age five. The summer after high school I went nuts and ate everything my parents wouldn’t put on their table—burgers, lobster rolls, fried everything, eggs galore, sugar—and fake sugar—up the wazoo. After a month I felt and looked like total shit and went back to how I grew up eating. I have a certificate in vegan cooking from the Vegan Culinary Institute and have worked at a slew of restaurants. What I’m really into is helping people cut the crap out of their life.”

I glanced at Eva, and she cleared her throat.

“I’m Eva Ackerman, just Eva, as I’ve said, which is something my boss’s moronic assistant can’t seem to remember. ‘Hey, Eves,’ every fucking morning. ‘Night, Eves,’ every fucking night. And she’s twenty-two and has an amazing body and I hate her guts and—”

“I hate twenty-two-year-olds with perfect bodies, too,” Sara chimed in.

Eva gave a wobbly smile and went on. “My husband left
me two weeks ago for some absolute child in his Pilates class. I didn’t even know he was taking Pilates. I’m dealing with the separation agreement now, and it is a nightmare. My therapist says I need something positive in my life to focus on, something just for me, and suggested I take a class, writing or healthy cooking or something. I’ve been shoving McDonald’s super-size French fries in my mouth lately.” She glanced around, seeming like a human being for the first time. “I probably wasn’t supposed to give you guys my life story in the first five seconds, was I?”

“I like people who lay it on the table,” I reassured her. She shot me another wobbly smile.

Sara introduced herself as an office drone/aspiring actress on a self-appointed mission to go from fat extra to ingénue. “Your turn, Duncan,” she said, turning to him, rather rapt.

He cleared his throat. “Duncan Ridley, twenty-eight. Vegetarian interested in going all the way. Oh, and librarian. Anyone laughs or says ‘Really?’ gets shot.”

Sara laughed. “Really? I mean, you’d really shoot us?”

He didn’t smile. “Male librarians and nurses freak people out. I can’t love books?”