Good Enough to Eat (18 page)

She looks up at me, eyes wide. “Really?”

“Really. Frankly, I think neither of them deserve our company tonight.”

She smiles wide, and hugs me. “Thanks, Mel.”

I hug her back. “C’mon. Let’s get the dessert out there. The sooner we serve them the sooner they’ll go.”

I slice squares of the apple galette, and put them on plates with forks. Nadia pours Nate a neat bourbon, and we head out to the living room.

Nate and Daniel are talking in low voices, and stop when we enter the room. They accept their plates, and the four of us sit in awkward silence as we eat the light, crisp galette, the crust buttery and shattering, a whisper of apple melting on top, the light fig glaze providing a caramel depth.

“This is really good,” Daniel says softly.

“Delicious,” Nate says, taking a deep draught of his bourbon.

We finish our morsels, and I motion Nate into the kitchen with me.

“I’m going to stay here tonight after all,” I say.

“Yeah. I sort of figured.” He runs his hands through his hair.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Sorry for putting you in this situation, sorry for snapping at you before, sorry for bailing on you . . .”

He leans forward and kisses me gently. “Me too.”

“Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too. Want me to get that idiot out of here so you and Nadia can talk about how dumb men are?”

I laugh. “Please.”

He kisses me again. “Done and done. I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can grab a late bite or something when you get off work tomorrow night?”

“Sure, sounds good.”

We head to the living room.

Nate claps Daniel on the shoulder. “So, buddy, what do you say, should we thank these gorgeous women for dinner and get out of their hair?” He says it in a way that doesn’t really make it a question, but more of a proclamation. Daniel looks flustered, but gets up anyway.

“Thank you for dinner, Melanie. It was very nice.” He puts out his hand and I give him mine in return. His hand is surprisingly soft. His sleeves are frayed around the cuffs, and there is something about this that suddenly seems sort of dear. He smiles, somewhat pained, and lets go of my hand to hug Nadia. He whispers something in her ear that makes her smile sheepishly.

Nate comes over and holds me tight, kissing the top of my head. “See you tomorrow, beautiful. Love you.”

I look up into his face. “Love you.”

They leave together, and Nadia and I look at each other.

“Thanks for trying,” she offers, shrugging.

“Yeah. Let’s never do this again.” We laugh. “We’ll leave the kitchen for tomorrow. Pajamas in ten minutes?”

She grins. “You bet.”

She heads down the hallway, and I go to my room to change. The evening was a disaster, and I have to worry about my fragile roommate, who has suffered more than anyone ought to for the sake of a nice evening at home, and who, despite her best efforts to the contrary, needs me. And I, despite my best efforts to the contrary, sort of like it.

 

 

“Today, Miss Nadia, we are making chili.” An assignment from Carey. Food does not have power, not over us, not over our emotions, not over our lives. The only food you should ban from your life is food that you dislike for its own inherent qualities, not for the qualities you imbue it with. I’ve purged phrases from my vocabulary like “chocolate pudding is the devil” and “Cheetos are out to get me.” I’ve tried to stop thinking about food as “bad” or “good,” and only to think about it as fuel for my actions, sustenance for my body, pleasure for my soul. Carey was talking about a new chili recipe she had tried that she loved, a low-fat ground chicken version with green chilies and white beans and offered to send me the recipe. When I admitted that I hadn’t eaten chili, one of my former favorite foods, in more than a year and told her why, she told me to get the fuck over it, reclaim and disempower it, and remember it only as a source of joy. And protein. Ever dutiful, I’ve got Carey’s recipe in my bag, have made some initial changes to it, and am actually looking forward to cooking it today.

“Cool. I love chili.”

“I used to love it. I’m hopeful that I will love it again.”

“Excellent. So, um, Mel, I, um, have an idea for the business,” Nadia says quietly beside me in the car on the way to work.

Things have been pretty good between us since the dinner party debacle. I think she really appreciated my choosing her over Nate, and while she’s still vague about her past, she is more open about her thoughts and feelings, seems to be more relaxed at the store, more comfortable at home. Every time I think about trying to get more information out of her, I remember what Delia said about some people needing to keep their past in the past, and suppress the urge to press her. She and Daniel are still hanging out, and she confided that they have indeed consummated their relationship, and that it was better than she anticipated. She is referring to him as her boyfriend, and while I don’t particularly understand the attraction to him as a person, I am proud of her attraction to him as an idea, someone stable and unlikely to con her, cheat on her, or leave her in emotional ruin. I can’t say that I hope they survive, but I hope they hang in there long enough for her to realize that she deserves someone to be nice to her, that she doesn’t have to give more than she receives, that love shouldn’t be a source of pain. She’s also been slowly getting more involved at the store, chatting with customers, asking Kai to show her some basic knife skills, giving Delia neck and backrubs when she gets tired and sore from lots of chopping and stirring and schlepping bags of produce.

“You do, huh? What’s that?”

Her voice is low, almost sheepish. “Well, you know that Sacramento Sloane business? The low-cal food delivery service?”

“I do.” One year, relatively early in our marriage, Andrew got handed a big case that was being run out of the Los Angeles office, and had to go out there for six weeks. I thought I’d take the opportunity to maybe drop a few pounds, and signed up for the service. It was exorbitantly expensive, and the food was inedible. I’d eat the miniscule portions, add a salad, a piece of fruit, and then an hour later I’d be face-first into a bag of chips, or on the phone ordering real food.

“Well, you know Janey thinks they killed her mom?”

I almost slam on the brakes. “What?!?”

Nadia laughs. “Yeah. A couple of years ago, Janey’s mom, who had been subsisting entirely on fast-food takeout and things fried in bacon grease her entire life, decided that she would try and lose some weight. She was pretty heavy, and was having some cardiac issues, so she signed herself up for Sacramento Sloane. They made her first delivery on Monday afternoon. She ate her first meal for dinner Monday night. By Tuesday she was dead.”

“Food poisoning?”

“Heart attack. But still. Anytime anyone says Sacramento Sloane, Janey says, ‘She killed my mom, you know.’ It’s pretty silly. Anyway, I was just thinking, people spend a lot of money on that stuff and it isn’t very good. What if you started a delivery business yourself? I mean, wouldn’t it just mean making more of what you already make for the store and packing it up? You could charge for delivery or people could pick it up at the store . . . you know . . . I’ve just been thinking about it lately.”

I’m stunned. It’s a brilliant idea, and a logical one, and something that never in a million years would have occurred to me. It would be a big undertaking, but is such a natural offshoot of what I’m already doing, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it myself.

Nadia takes my stunned silence for disapproval, and jumps back in. “I’m sure you probably don’t want to deal with it, and just want people to come to the store, never mind . . .”

“It’s brilliant.”

“What?”

“It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. I never thought of it, but you’re a genius!”

Nadia looks at her lap, and grins. “You really think it’s a good idea?”

I pull the car into the parking space behind the store and turn off the engine, turning to face her. “Honey, it’s fucking AMAZING. And I love you for thinking of it, and if you’re interested, and it works, I’d be able to have you on full-time to run it.”

“Really? You’d let me do that?” She seems shocked.

“It’s your idea, why don’t you do some research into what other services are available in Chicago, what they provide and what they charge. I’ll pay you an extra few hours to track down the info, and then we’ll see if this is something that makes sense for us. If it does, we’ll see what we need to do to make it happen, and if we get the business, then it can be your baby. You handle the customers and orders and I’ll handle the food. Deal?”

She smiles at me, eyebrows dancing madly. “Deal.”

“C’mon. Let’s go to work.”

She hops out of the car, somehow looking taller, older. And suddenly, I feel very lucky to know her.

We head inside and begin getting things organized. We’ve barely started when Kai flies in. He crosses the room and grabs me in a powerful hug for someone so small.

“Oh, Ittly Bittly, poor, poor little Mellie Mel, I couldn’t believe it myself. Is it a shock? Did you know? You couldn’t have known and not told me! The balls! And the gall! The unmitigated gall balls! Do you want me to cover you today? I can get you in with my masseuse. . . .” Kai is rubbing my shoulder, his brow furrowed, deep concern for my well-being pouring off him like feverish heat. And I haven’t the faintest idea what he is referring to.

“Kai, honey, I’m not sure exactly what you are talking about here. I’m fine. Why on earth do you think I have reason to not be fine?”

Kai puts on a soothing voice, similar to the tone you would use when speaking to a small child or someone of limited intelligence. “Melanie, princess, don’t you read the paper?”

“Like, the newspaper?”

He shakes his head. “No, the Pickwick Papers. YES, the newspaper!”

“Sometimes I do the crossword . . .”

Kai reaches into his bag and pulls out a section of the
Chicago Tribune.
“Sit, honey. Nadia, make some tea.”

Now I’m concerned. I sit down on one of the stools in the kitchen and Kai hands me the paper. Engagement announcements. Pictures of happy young couples, posed so you can see the engagement rings, son of so and so, daughter of so and . . . my heart stops.

Andrew. Andrew and Charlene. Andrew Lezak and Charlene Lindsay announce their upcoming nuptials to take place this June in Majorca. Andrew is grinning in the fake toothsome way he always does in pictures. Charlene, in all her enormous glory, is flashing a ring the size of a fucking doorknob. They are getting married next month, in goddamned Majorca, which was supposed to be where Andrew and I were going to go this year for our tenth anniversary. I feel sick. I feel hurt. I want to cry. Or maybe throw up. Or maybe throw up and then cry. Nadia puts a cup of tea in front of me, and sees what I’m staring at.

“Oh, Mel. That’s so awful.”

I take a deep breath. I am not going to lose it. They aren’t worth it. “Well, they’ve been together for nearly three years, why shouldn’t they get married?”

“He could have called you, given you some warning. . . .” Kai says.

“Why? He didn’t bother to tell me that they were fucking each other behind my back, why would he tell me that they are engaged?”

Nadia and Kai look at each other, unsure of what to do.

“I’m fine, guys, I’m fine. It’s a surprise, unexpected, but ultimately none of my business.”

They look at me blankly. My shoulders drop. “Not buying it, huh?”

They shake their heads in unison.

I think about it. I fight every urge to put on a brave face and muscle through this day. “Kai, if you can take care of things here today, that would be great. I’m going to leave. Nadia, if I go out I’ll leave you a note at home or send you a text or something. Thanks, guys.”