Steamed (36 page)

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Authors: Jessica Conant-Park,Susan Conant

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Boston (Mass.), #Cooks, #Women Graduate Students

BOOK: Steamed
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Although I completely believed in the work I was doing, Naomi’s extreme dedication and overzealous work ethic grated on me—that and her new-age, hippie, hold-hands-and-tell-me-your-feelings style. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to avoid our morning “staff meetings,” a term that I found ridiculous not only because
staff
meant Naomi and me, but because
meeting
meant my being pressured to verbalize some sort of spiritual feeling about what the day would bring. Last week, for example, while gripping my hands in hers, Naomi had closed her eyes and whispered, “Today I will look inside myself to find strength, sensitivity, and courage. I will reach out to my sisters in need and take on their challenges as my own.” Then she’d waited for me to take my turn. I usually snuck in a good eye roll before she opened hers and before I compliantly faked my way through some copycat bullshit.
I liked some of my classes and parts of my internship, but for the most part I was finding that I didn’t fit in with my earnest, do-gooder classmates. I definitely considered myself a liberal, politically correct twenty-something, but I wasn’t all about marching the streets for causes, petitioning against this and that, or engaging in long discussions about oppression and injustice in the world. So far, I’d managed to keep my true character hidden from my peers. In brief, I wasn’t the most devout social work student there was. I blamed my uncle Alan for my being one at all.
When my mother’s brother died a few years ago, his will revealed what I considered to be blackmail: I would receive an inheritance only if I completed a graduate program of my choosing. Uncle Alan’s estate would pay for school and give me a monthly stipend distributed by his lawyer, and if and when I earned my degree, I could collect the rest of the money. In other words, Uncle Alan had no confidence in my ability to further my education on my own. Not that I’d actually
had
any plans of my own ever to poke my head into a classroom again after college, but I wasn’t about to turn down a lucrative opportunity just because of a few insults about my ability to get my act together and find a career. After rifling through piles of graduate school catalogs, I’d narrowed my choices to two different easy-sounding programs, one in social work, the other in performing arts. Since my most recent acting experience had been in elementary school when I’d played Nana the dog in Peter Pan, I’d figured that a career on the stage was out. Plus, that snot-nosed Eric Finley had called me Nana until we’d graduated high school. Who knows? Maybe I would’ve been a brilliant thespian if it hadn’t been for Eric’s tormenting me.
So, social work it was. I was getting through mostly unscathed and enjoying the advantages of a school schedule versus some dreary nine-to-five job. And having a winter break meant that I could sit at home today and admire Josh as he worked on his food. The work on the new restaurant, Simmer, wasn’t quite finished. As of today, there was still no electricity in the kitchen, so Josh had been working out of my condo to test dishes and feed recipes into his laptop. Although I didn’t exactly have a gourmet kitchen, even my small space was better than the eat-in kitchen Josh had at his apartment. By some miraculous act of God, I’d been able to convince my landlord, Chuck, that I’d move in only if he installed a garbage disposal and a small dishwasher. Not realizing that he could’ve rented this condo unit to about a million other people for more money, even without the new appliances, he’d agreed. And with Josh cooking out of here, I was happier than ever to have those two kitchen accessories. He’d been testing a lot of recipes this month. Three or four times a week, he’d come over with bags loaded with beautiful fresh produce, meat and fish wrapped in white butcher paper, wine for reducing in sauces (and drinking), fresh pasta sheets, and packages of aromatic herbs. I’d learned that a chef’s grocery shopping looked distinctively different from mine. When Josh shopped for the restaurant, there was nothing frozen or precooked; everything was fresh and raw and gorgeous. Since Gavin was picking up all the shopping costs, Josh spared no expense in buying the highest quality ingredients he could from specialty shops around the city. And I was a delighted taste tester.
Today, he was not, however, testing recipes but preparing food to serve at the Food for Thought event going on tomorrow night. The annual charity fund-raiser, which was held at Newbury Street art galleries, paired social service agencies with local restaurants. Inside each of the posh galleries, one agency and the restaurant paired with it got to set up a booth to showcase services and food. When Naomi had first brought this event to my attention, my inclination had been to run screaming from something that was going to interfere with my vacation. I quickly realized, though, that Food for Thought was not some bothersome and negligible event; it was a high-class, high-publicity Boston affair and was the perfect opportunity to promote my boyfriend’s talents.
Boston Magazine
always did a piece on it, and local restaurant reviewers would definitely be there. Gavin and Josh were thrilled to be involved, and the timing coincided perfectly with Simmer’s grand opening. It took only a little conniving to have the Organization and Simmer assigned to each other. Our tables were to be featured at the trendy Eliot Davis Gallery, which was just a few doors down from Simmer. Oh, and, yeah, I could help promote the harassment hotline I was in charge of. I kept forgetting that.
I was much more excited about Josh’s end than mine. Naomi was forcing me to learn about “marketing the agency,” as she called it. So far, the activity mostly consisted of her calling me six hundred times a day to see whether I’d finished making idiotic posters and flyers about the Boston Organization Against Sexual and Other Harassment in the Workplace.
Speaking of which, the phone rang. One peek at Caller ID made me sigh.
“Damn Braids, again,” I grumbled, referring to Naomi. She had the misfortune to think that plaiting her four feet of brown hair into zillions of fat braids that poked out of her head was attractive.
“Hi, Naomi,” I said with resignation.
“Hey there, partner,” she chirped. “How are the materials coming? Are you just about finished?”
I glanced down at the drawing I’d done of a male stick figure trying to fondle a female stick figure. I drew a big X over the image and scrawled ILLEGAL across the top of the page. “Doing great,” I lied while crumpling the paper up and tossing it into the trash. “I’ll e-mail you something at the office later to print out.”
“Wonderful. You know, this is a significant opportunity for us to really get the word out.”
Getting the word out
, I’d learned, was hard-core social work jargon. If I wanted to appear studious, I’d need to start tossing it around.
I need to get the word out about the sale at Banana Republic!
Or maybe,
It’s vital to get the word out about salon-quality hair care products!
“Oh, listen,” continued Naomi, oblivious to my day-dreaming, “I have one other assignment for you. I want you to work on a list of things in life that cause you to feel anger. This is an exercise that will really help you get in touch with who you are, where your fears and strengths come from, and how you can best work with your clients. When I was in school, my supervisor had me do it, and I found it incredibly enlightening.” I could practically see Naomi’s face suffused with exhilaration at the prospect of
my
enlightenment.
“I’ll start on that right away,” I said, turning to my laptop and writing:
 
Anger-Inducing Experiences
by Chloe Carter
 
1. Being forced to write stupid lists by psychotic supervisor.
 
 
“You know, Chloe, the holidays are a great time of year to do some introspective thinking and get a good look at yourself. Reassess where you are professionally and personally, and set goals for next term. In fact, I think I’ll do the same assignment I’ve given you to work on. We can compare them in a few days!”
Oh, Naomi, I’m giddy with excitement!
“Before I forget, I got a message on my voice mail at the office that was for you. The woman didn’t leave a name, but I think it was a follow-up call about a sexual harassment issue at her job. You can call into my messages and listen if you want. I think it’s that same woman I’ve spoken to a few times before passing her on to you. Remember?”
I had mastered the basics on handling sexual harassment hotline calls, but some of the callers were in really dicey situations, and my limited experience sometimes left me at a dead end when I tried to help. Also, unbeknownst to Naomi, I frequently jumped outside of the hotline instruction manual to suggest slightly radical alternatives. In this woman’s case, I think I may have advised her to chomp on garlic-stuffed olives so she could fend off the man harassing her with her stinky breath. That suggestion, as I recalled, hadn’t gone over too well, and I’d transferred the anonymous caller to the thoroughly professional Naomi.
“I think I know who it is.” Naomi sighed. “I’m glad she called back. I’ve been waiting to hear from her. I’ve been working really hard to put a stop to her situation. Totally intolerable what that young woman is going through.”
I agreed with Naomi. Every time this caller went to work, she faced her asshole boss and his attempts to maul, grab, and pinch any available body part.
“All right,” Naomi continued, “I’m going to call her back right away. I am taking care of this situation before the year is done. Enough is enough! And I’m going to check in with Eliot Davis at the gallery. Have Josh there by five-thirty tomorrow to start setting up, okay?”
I promised that I would, hung up the phone, and went back to staring at Josh, who’d barely spoken for the past two hours. Under normal circumstances Josh could carry on a full-blown conversation while cooking food good enough to make you shake your head in disbelief that you’ve managed to live on anything else. Today was different. The food he was making today would be the public’s first taste of his new menu, and the pressure was keeping him quieter than usual.
He was making Parmesan and panko-encrusted beef medallions served on crisp wafers and drizzled with an oregano vinaigrette. Panko, it turns out, is Japanese bread crumbs and not, as I’d feared, some sort of weird plankton. Because he was forced to work out of my little kitchen, Josh was playing it a little safe with this dish. He had wanted to do smoked bluefish with wasabi vinaigrette, but the odds of successfully smoking enough bluefish out of my beat-up oven were pretty bad. The amount of prep work for this beef dish wasn’t too serious considering that he had to make three hundred servings. Today he would clean and slice the tenderloins into half-inch-thick medallions, make the Parmesan-panko mix, blend up the vinaigrette, and bake herb focaccia, which is, of course, a somewhat flat and totally delicious Italian bread with olive oil drizzled all over the top.
“Hey, Red?” Josh was teasing. Every redhead in the world is cursed with the nickname, and he knew that I loathed it. Why do people think that they have the right to address redheads by their hair color? I spent my childhood cringing every time someone asked, “Red, where’d you get your red hair?” My redheaded friend Nancy used to respond, “From under my father’s armpits!” She often shut people up, but I never had the nerve to answer with the same retort.
I smiled at Josh. “If you call me Red ever again, I’ll—”
“Could you take the oregano leaves off these stems for me? I need them for the dressing.”
“No problem.” I took a handful of the fresh herbs from his hand, pulled my chair closer to the table, pushed my computer aside, and began plucking leaves. That was fun for all of eight seconds. Then I realized what an excruciatingly annoying job this was.
 
2. Removing oregano leaves from stems, even when helping hottie boyfriend.
 
 
“I want a different job,” I complained.
Josh came closer and peered at my piddling pile of leaves. “Here, hold the end of the stem in one hand, and then pinch it between the thumb and forefinger of your other hand and glide down the stem to pull off the leaves.”
“What about all these little branchy, twiggy things sticking out the side? Nope. Not doing this. Give me another job,” I insisted.
“Some help you are,” Josh teased. “Don’t worry about it. You should probably finish your stuff for the booth tomorrow.” He turned back to his cutting board. “I can’t believe I finally get to meet the infamous Naomi. She definitely sounds unique.”
Images of granola-crunchy Naomi swirling her many brown braids around, engulfing Josh in hugs, and spouting words about peace and love started to give me a headache. I appreciated her gung ho attitude about Josh and me—she was forever telling me about the benefits of having a loving, supportive partner when working in an “emotionally draining field”—but she and Josh were two very different personality types; he didn’t have a Peruvian-knitted-cap bone in his body.
“Yes, well, she’s excited to meet you, too,” I said truthfully. “She asks about you all the time. Actually, I think she might have something romantic going on herself.”
“Really? What makes you say that?” He began to assemble ingredients for the foccacia.
“She’s been sort of giggly and even more high-energy than usual. She hasn’t said anything, but I just have a feeling . . . maybe it’s that lady who runs that American Federation of Labor thing down the hall from us. She’s always coming in to see if Naomi wants a chai tea from the cafe.”

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