Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched (13 page)

“Jesus Christ, Keira,” I heard Alanna yell. “Watch what you're doing!”

But it was too late; Keira had backed right into one of my waitresses, Mia, and the plate she was adding to her tray landed sideways on her uniform.

“What the hell!” Mia shouted, peeling the plate and an order of caramelized eggplant from her silver shirt.

“Sorry!” Keira said, and knelt down to scoop up roasted vegetables that had fallen.

I had to fire her.

And while I was yelling
You're fired!
at people related to my fiancé, I'd include Zach's mother as my wedding planner.

“You can't be so hard on people,” Zach said into my ear on the phone at almost 1:00 a.m. He was away on business in San Francisco for the next three days and I already missed him like crazy. “Let them be who they are and meet them halfway.”

I flipped over onto my stomach in bed, staring out the dark window at the building that had brought us together. “I'm trying. I didn't say a word of what I really wanted to say—to your mother or to your stepsister.”

“Good. And you didn't spontaneously combust. You'll get used to them, they'll get used to you, and you'll find a happy medium.”

Why did I doubt that?

“And, yeah, Keira screwed up her first day. You have to give her credit for not quitting. She was probably humiliated a hundred times tonight. But she'll be back tomorrow. Give her a chance.”

“Can I fire your mother, then?”

He laughed. “She wouldn't let you fire her. She'd just ignore you and keep throwing sketches of twenty-foot-tall wedding cakes at you until you caved and said yes to whatever she wants.”

“I miss you. My head hurts.”

“I miss you too. And don't worry about either Keira or my mother. Everything will be okay, Clem. Just do what you do and let them do what they do. That's the key to life.”

If only they could both do what they did really far away.

T
he next morning, I woke up in a crappy mood and no one was around. Sara had slept at Joe's. Harry was at a seminar on number crunching. My other best friend, Ty, was in Paris working as a pastry chef. I missed him. And Alexander was volunteering at his “little brother's” middle school today.

I had only one place to go when I felt this way and no one was around to tell me bad jokes and drag me out to do some goofy karaoke until I cracked a smile.

Home. My parents' farm.

Three hours in the car, headed north and blasting vintage Bee Gees, helped. So did the turn onto the long dirt driveway that led to my parents' place, their dogs, Willy and Pete, coming to greet me and running along my car until I parked.
The white farmhouse, surrounded by acres of green fields and colorful crops, was better than a double martini. I sucked in a deep, clean breath and looked all around. A few more deep breaths of the country air, a long walk on the property with the dogs, some kitchen time with my dad, and a good talk with my mother, and I'd get my mojo back.

A few hours here always worked. This was the place where I'd been through everything for the first time. The place I'd learned to cook at my father's side when I was five, handing him eggplants and carrots and garlic and watching everything he did. It was the place where I'd had my first kiss as a know-it-all thirteen-year-old. The place where I knew, without a doubt, that I'd fallen in love with Zach whether I liked it or not.

I was about to head into the house when I froze beside the orange trees. This was also the place where I'd have my wedding. Not only did I grow up in this country, so did Zach, just a half hour away. This was home for both of us. And this was where I was getting hitched.

Whether or not the wedding planner I didn't hire liked it.

If it rained, we'd set everything up in the barn, which my parents had built themselves thirty years ago. The barn was gorgeous, seriously. If I could have transported the barn to Santa Monica, I would have opened my restaurant inside it.

“Clem!”

I turned around to see my dad walking—not fast, as he used to, but walking—toward me, in his LA Dodgers baseball cap and short, green wellies, dragging a small, red wheelbarrow
behind him as his dogs raced ahead of him toward the crop fields.

“You look great, Dad.” I hugged him. Stage III cancer or not, he had good color in his cheeks, his blue eyes sparkled, and he was free of the wheelchair he'd been forced to use when his chemo treatments made him too weak to stand.

“You too,” he said, studying me. “Though I know my girl and I can see something's bothering you.”

I could never get anything past my father. He knew me better than anyone else. “Actually, something
was
bothering me, but the minute I got up here, I solved it. What do you think of me getting married right here?”

My dad grinned. “You know your mother and I would love that. Come harvest with me; you can check out all the views to see where you want to set up the ceremony and reception.” He pulled the wheelbarrow effortlessly.

“Good idea.” I followed toward the fields “What are we picking?”

“Mostly eggplant and zucchini. And I think the red peppers are ready. I'm making dinner for our new neighbors tonight—a family of six. When I told them I grow all the food we eat, they were skeptical, so I invited them to come see for themselves. I promised them the kids would eat every morsel of their dinner.”

“You must be making harvest pizza, then.” I lived on my dad's pizzas when I was a kid.

“Sure am. And blueberry pie for dessert.”

“So funny that they don't believe you can actually grow all the food you need.”

He nodded. “A lot of my neighbors were like that—until I invited them to dinner, and now they pay me for my wheat and fresh produce. Two families even have a standing order every Friday night for me to bring over two harvest pizzas and dessert.”

“Farm to table. That's what I try to stick to at the restaurant. Buying only local ingredients from farmers' markets. Good nutrition and good for the environment.”

You know all that gorgeous produce in your supermarket? Yeah, it looks good, but how long were those Maine blueberries in transit? Why buy broccoli stamped with Ecuador when you can buy it fresh a mile up the road? And did you really want to use Georgia peaches for your homemade cobbler when they were sitting on a truck for two thousand miles? Who knew what the hell they were sprayed with?

My dad could pluck some vegetables and legumes from the ground, grab some wheat from his mini-silo, grind it up, and serve the most delicious, healthiest burritos—with his kick-ass salsa—you've ever had. Straight from his farm to your table.

He wouldn't let me pull the wheelbarrow for him, but didn't seem to be short of breath or having trouble. Sometimes, such as now, when he didn't look sick, I could almost forget he had cancer. “Nothing I love more than bringing in a full wheelbarrow
and deciding what to make for dinner.” He smiled at me, surveying his fields.

I
loved nothing more than seeing my dad out among the rows of crops: eggplant, corn, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, at least twenty varieties of lettuce, and every kind of bean imaginable. I plucked a peach from the old tree as we passed the barn and headed toward zucchini rows. I bit into the peach. Hellz yeah,
this
was a peach.

Suddenly, I had the wildest idea.

And maybe not
that
wild, either.

I glanced into the barn.
If I could have transported the barn to Santa Monica, I would have opened my restaurant inside it.

Clementine's No Crap Outpost, Carlton Cooper, executive chef. Farm to table, vegan.

At thirty by fifty feet, the barn was just the right size to add a kitchen and a small office. In the dining area, I imagined long, wood country tables, where diners would eat communal style, maybe some small tables for more intimate groupings.

My father had always talked of opening a restaurant someday, but he'd never let it go past talk.

This could work. My father's dream could come true. I'd hire a small team for him and drive up a couple times a week.

Clementine's No Crap Outpost. Bloody brilliant, as my British friend Alexander would say.

I had no time in my schedule to open a second restaurant,
but I'd make time. The idea was too good, and it would make my father incredibly happy.

I'd spend some time figuring out the logistics, then get Zach's business expertise, and once I had a real plan, I'd tell my dad.

Clementine's No Crap Outpost. Hellz yeah!

Watching the faces of the Brutman family—a thirtysomething couple and their four children, who were ridiculously well behaved, I got even more juiced about the outpost. Granted, one of the kids pulled every vegetable off his pizza, and another one said the “cheese” tasted weird, but they gobbled up the farm-to-table meal, and the Brutmans couldn't stop talking about how fresh the pizza crust was, how well the soy cheese melted and bubbled, how soft and flavorful the slices of zucchini and peppers and eggplant were.

While my mother was giving Molly Brutman the low-down on the best this and that in the area, and my dad was in the kitchen with Mike Brutman and the kids, showing them how to make their own pizzas, I slipped away outside and texted Zach.

Found the perfect place for our wedding. My parents' farm. What do you think?

No answer. Not an hour later. Not three hours later.

Because he hated the idea? Because he regretted proposing? Changed his mind?

Finally, late that night, as the sound of crickets was lulling me to sleep, Zach texted back.

Agree it's perfect. Let our wedding planner know. Z

“Darling, you can't be serious,” Dominique said the next morning into my iPhone. “The wedding on a country farm? Three hours north of the city? I'm sure it's quaint and all, but just imagine everyone's expensive heels digging into dirt. Surely you understand it's not ideal. I've barely gotten used to losing May seventh at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”