Too Many Cooks (23 page)

CHAPTER 28

Natasha and I have turned a corner. Maybe. At the very least, we've bonded. I still don't fully understand the bizarre arrangement behind her marriage, but we now have something in common—not a favorite designer or a matching timepiece, but a deep, emotional connection. We've both lost a mother, an event understood only by others who have experienced the same sort of loss. We can relate to each other now. Our relationship has reached a new level.

Or at least that's what I think until she struts into the kitchen an hour before the guests arrive.

“What the hell are you wearing?” she says, a scowl on her face.

I glance down at my outfit, a black sleeveless blouse that I've tucked into a pair of black cigarette pants. “Clothes?”

“Whatever. I guess it's fine.”

I'm not sure why it wouldn't be. I always wear all black when I cook for a party I'll also attend because black hides any potential stains. And anyway, black seems to be Natasha's favorite color. She's even wearing black pants tonight—a pair of pressed sateen culottes—though instead of pairing them with a black or gray shirt, she wears a crisp white blouse, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Between the two of us, her outfit seems like more of the problem. That white shirt is begging for a grease stain or a spatter of beef jus.

“I'm sorry—this is the only outfit I brought, aside from the clothes I'll wear home tomorrow.”

“I said it's fine. I just wish you'd cleared it with me before you packed.”

I still don't understand why my outfit is even remotely problematic, but I decide to let it drop. “I was just about to put the beef in, if you want to help.”

“I'd rather not mess up my shirt. . . .” she says.

I repeat: and my outfit is the problem?

“That's fine,” I say. “I can do it.”

I finish tying the beef and slather it in salt and pepper, place it on a bed of rosemary, and stick the roasting pan in the oven. Natasha eyes the pan warily.

“You do realize people won't be here for almost an hour,” she says.

“The beef takes a long time to cook—I'm roasting it low and slow. It won't be ready to eat for another two hours.”

“Fine.” She smoothes her shirt sleeves. “I still can't believe I'm serving red meat.”

“It'll be great. I promise.” I smile, trying to revive the bond we formed earlier. “If you don't want to eat it, I'm sure you can hide it under the potatoes, since you can't eat those anyway.”

Her expression indicates this is the most unwelcome advice she has ever received. “Do you honestly think I need your advice on how to handle a dinner plate?”

“No, I was just trying . . . I just thought . . .”

“You thought what? That I needed diet help from a twenty-something cookbook writer?”

“It wasn't diet help. I was just trying to be . . . friendly, I guess.”

“Friendly?” Natasha sneers. “I hate to break it to you, but we're not ‘friends.' You work for me. Remember?”

“Right, but I figured that after you told me about your mom, and I told you about my mom . . .”

“What? That because both our moms are dead we'd somehow become BFFs?”

“No. I thought . . .” What did I think? That she'd finally treat me with respect? “I don't know,” I say. “I guess I thought we'd reached an understanding.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

And for a lot of reasons I don't even fully understand, all I can think is,
Me too
.

 

From the moment the guests arrive, the house bustles with activity. Natasha and Hugh greet them, and introduce me as “the woman helping with Natasha's cookbook,” though I do notice that Hugh chooses the word “woman” and Natasha tends to favor “girl.” They make it sound as if Natasha has been slaving away, page after page, and I am merely the assistant helping with odds and ends, even though the opposite is true. But tonight that doesn't matter. Tonight, I am whatever Natasha needs me to be.

I help Natasha shuttle light hors d'oeuvres back and forth from the kitchen, while Hugh works the room, chatting with various members of his constituency. Natasha wasn't entirely wrong about the haircuts. One sixty-something woman sports a spiky brown coif, which she appears to have highlighted with tiger stripes of red and platinum blond, and there is a man wearing what is surely the most unnatural toupee on planet Earth. But considering I grew up in the eighties and nineties in a small Midwestern town, all of these styles are well within my comfort zone, and frankly, I feel much more at home here than I would have among Natasha's “fabulous” friends in London.

While the beef rests on the counter, covered by a tent of aluminum foil, Natasha dons a gray-and-white-striped apron from one of the cupboards.

“All right,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Where are the potatoes?”

“Still in the oven.” I point to the large white bowl at the far end of the counter. “I was about to dump them in there, if you want to take them out.”

I half expect her to balk, but ever since the guests arrived, she has been all business—serving hors d'oeuvres, taking drink orders, shaking hands. When we get back into the kitchen, I'm the one doing most of the work, but she puts on a good face in public. I suppose that's part of her job—she
is
an actress, after all. I'm starting to understand how she makes her marriage look so convincing.

“I'll take them out, but maybe you can scoop them into the bowl,” she says. “I don't want to get too messy.”

She grabs a pair of potholders and pulls the pan from the oven. I scrape the crispy, rosemary-scented potatoes into the bowl and sneak a taste of one for quality control. They came out perfectly: golden brown and crusty on the outside, soft and creamy on the inside, with enough salt, garlic, and rosemary to make the flavor pop.

“They're going to love these,” I say.

“They'd better. Although who knows with this crowd. Did you see that one woman's top? Nineteen eighty-three called: It wants its shirt back. . . .”

I'm not exactly sure which top she is referring to, though my guess is it's the blue bow-tie-neck blouse with small white polka dots, which looks as if it could have come out of Margaret Thatcher's closet. My mom had one of those when I was growing up—a hunter green one by Liz Claiborne that she called her “fancy shirt.” She often wore it on Christmas, tucked into a tan A-line skirt, and perhaps for that reason, I actually smiled when the woman walked through the door. It's strange the things that remind me of my mother and where they appear. I never would have expected to find comfort in a fifty-five-year-old woman from Nottingham, but seeing her made me feel unexpectedly at home.

Natasha and I cart out the bowls of potatoes and green beans to the dining room table, and once everyone takes his or her seat, including me, Natasha appears in the doorway, the platter of roasted beef resting on her arms.

“Dinner is served,” she announces.

She parades into the room and lays the beef in front of Hugh, the apron still tied around her neck and waist.

“I figured I'd leave you with the honor of carving,” she says.

“Ah. Right.” Hugh claps his hands together. “Where's the knife?”

I reach for a large carving knife on the table and hand it to him. We lock eyes for a brief moment. “Thank you,” he says.

I tear my eyes away. “You're welcome.”

Hugh carves the beef to the
oooh
s and
aaah
s of the crowd, and everyone passes along their plates, before digging into the beans and potatoes. Then Hugh raises his glass.

“A toast—to all of you, for everything you do to keep this town the lovely, vibrant place it is. Cheers.”

Everyone clinks glasses, then dives into the meal. My knife glides through the slice of beef without resistance, like cutting through a softened stick of butter.

“Natasha, you really have outdone yourself,” says the woman in the Thatcheresque top. “This beef is absolutely
gorgeous
.”

Natasha doesn't respond at first, as if she hasn't heard, but then she snaps to attention and smiles. “Thank you. I'm so glad you like it.”

“It really is brilliant,” Hugh says. His eyes shift to me. “You'll have to make sure you include this one in the book.”

“Yes! Tell us more about the cookbook,” says the man with the horrendous toupee. “When can we buy our copies?”

Natasha cuts her beef into minuscule pieces. “Probably about a year from now, maybe sooner. It depends on how quickly I finish testing the recipes.”

“And now—Kelly, was it? Kelly, what exactly is your role?”

I open my mouth to speak, but Natasha cuts me off. “She brings a method to my cooking madness,” she says.

“And what, exactly, does that entail?” he asks.

I try to jump in, but once again Natasha speaks before I can utter a word. “Oh, you know . . . following me around in the kitchen, writing down what I do, trying to take my improvisational style and turn it into something people can do at home.”

“Do you know each other from America?”

“Oh, God no.” She clears her throat, then flashes a smile, bringing herself back into character. “Sorry—no, I got her name through an American chef I know. She worked on his book.”

“And how does one get into that line of work?” he asks, finally posing a question Natasha can't answer for me.

“It's kind of a long story,” I say, “but I got interested in cooking when I was a teenager, and I always loved writing, so when I had a chance to help with a cookbook after college, all the pieces sort of fell into place.”

“Did you go to culinary school?” the woman with the tiger-striped hair asks.

“No, sadly not. All of my training has been on the job. I've worked in kitchens ever since I was a kid, though—washing dishes, working the sandwich line—so I have a decent amount of experience.”

“Ah, yes, washing up,” the man with the toupee says. “That was my first job, too, many, many years ago. I worked at the local pub and made a tenner a week.”

“Did you, Nigel?” Hugh says. “I never knew that.”

“Hard work, isn't it, dear?” Nigel says.

“Let's just say I was glad when I got promoted to the deep-fryer—although that was significantly messier.”

He laughs. “I once worked at a chip shop. Smelt like the place for days, even after showering.”

“Right? No matter how much I showered, I always smelled like someone had fried
me
.”

“Was your job also at a chip shop, then?”

“No, it was at a place called Abe's Coney Island.”

“Coney Island in New York? I think my son-in-law went there once.”

“No, this is a chain of restaurants called ‘Coney Islands.' They're basically big American diners that serve everything you can imagine.”

“Natasha, have you been to one of these ‘Coney Islands'?”

She looks up, as if she hasn't been listening. “Sorry?”

“A ‘Coney Island'—have you eaten at one?”

She pushes the meat around her plate. “No . . . I don't think so....”

“It's very much a Michigan thing,” I say, trying to save her. “Especially in and around Detroit.”

“Are you from Detroit?” a spectacled gentleman asks. “I've read some terrible stories in the paper about what's happening there.”

“I'm from a small town about forty minutes west,” I say. “But yes, what's happening in Detroit is heartbreaking. The entire city has basically collapsed. There are a lot of reasons why, but what's saddest, to me at least, is that I can't imagine the city bouncing back in my lifetime. It was badly managed for so long.” I look up at Hugh as I cut into my beef. “Now, perhaps if they had
Mr. Ballantine
to lead the way, they would be on stronger footing. . . .”

The table erupts in laughter, with the exception of Natasha, who looks startled, as if the laughter has jolted her out of a daydream.

“It's quite scary, though,” says Nigel. “If it could happen to a city like Detroit, it could happen anywhere. It wasn't long ago that entire cities in this country were decimated after the coal mine closures in the eighties. That's why we need sensible policies, locally and nationally.”

“Indeed,” Hugh says, “and that's why I feel so very strongly that this education bill will put our city—and all English cities, for that matter—at a serious disadvantage in the future.”

The woman with tiger-striped hair blots the corners of her mouth. “But is it wise to challenge the prime minister on his signature piece of legislation? Surely, as a party, we are setting ourselves up for failure.”

“In actual fact, I believe challenging him on it is the only way for us to succeed,” Hugh says.

He goes on to explain his strategy for blocking the prime minister's bill and for leading his party to victory in next year's election. As he speaks, the entire table is quiet, every pair of eyes fixed on Hugh as he speaks with enthusiasm and passion about his visions for the future—both for his constituency in Nottingham and for the entire United Kingdom. The more he speaks, the faster my heart beats. Aside from being charming and absurdly handsome, he is the kind of person who could change the world—who wants to, who seems to have been designed for that very task. How could I not fall for someone like that? How could I possibly look away?

When he has spoken for a good five minutes without interruption, he stops himself abruptly and smiles. “And now I'll stop talking because I fear I'm boring my wife and Kelly to tears.”