The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs (41 page)

My cinnamon buns aren’t that great?
My cinnamon buns aren’t that great
? What the fuck is he talking about? No, I cannot even address this because, quite clearly, Jacob’s taste buds are up his ass. Also, I cannot address the fact that I am more upset about him not liking my cinnamon buns than I am about him using me for sex. Because, let’s be honest, that makes me sound 100 percent, A-plus crazy.

I will also choose to ignore how close I just came to blowing my cover in front of Blake. If he finds out I
am
The Dupont Circle Supper Club, I’ll lose his friendship and support and advice. At least Jacob and I both hold sensitive information about each other. If Jacob rats me out, I will find Alexis and go nuclear on him.

Five minutes after we return to our table, Vanessa storms out of the restaurant, and Jacob follows after her. Once he is no longer in my presence, my stomach gradually disentangles itself, and I manage to enjoy a dinner of steak frites and red wine with Blake and his friends. Every so often, between courses, Blake leans over and whispers, “You okay?” to which I reply, “Of course,” which for most of the dinner is only half true. By the end of dinner, however, I’m not lying anymore. I am okay. I’m over it.

After dinner, Blake walks with me down Connecticut Avenue toward his house, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket. A chilled wind blows in our faces, and I cross my arms to keep from shivering. After a mild October, November is here, and the weather has finally started to turn.

As we cross Dupont Circle, Blake takes off his coat and hands it to me. “Oh—no. I’m fine,” I say, my teeth chattering. “Thanks, though.”

“You’re shivering,” he says. “Take the damn coat.”

I pull on Blake’s coat, which is about ten sizes too big, and cross my arms over the front to keep it shut. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

“You could have stayed with your friends, you know. You didn’t have to walk me home.”

“I know. But I’ll feel better knowing you got home okay. I’ll meet up with them later.”

“Well, thanks. And thanks for taking me out tonight. I’m sorry if I messed up your plans.”

“No need to apologize. I had fun. And I’m glad I kept you from drowning in a quart of Edy’s tonight.”

“There are worse fates …”

Blake laughs. “I can’t believe you were actually going to spend Saturday night all alone.”

“You can go ahead and crown me the least social person you know.”

“I—sorry, that’s not what I meant,” he says.

I smile. “I know. No offense taken.”

As we reach our building, I fish out my keys from the bottom of my purse and slip out of Blake’s jacket. Blake puts his coat back on and grinds his heels into the pavement while I throw my purse over my shoulder.

“So … I was wondering,” he says. “I’ve been invited to a gala next Saturday hosted by the Georgetown Cancer Center. My boss helped pass a bill that increased access to cancer screening, and he’s winning an award for that, so I have to go. But I’m allowed to bring a date, so I thought … maybe you’d like to come with me.”

My stomach sinks. Next Saturday night is the carnival-themed supper club we’re holding at the rental loft in Northeast. As much as I relish the idea of re-creating the pumpkin funnel cake I remember from my days in Ithaca, I have to admit: there is a part of me, however small, that would like to accompany Blake.

“I … already have plans,” I say.

“It’s just up the street at the Hilton …,” he says, trying to persuade me.

“Sorry.... I can’t.”

Blake presses his lips together and nods, visibly disappointed. “Oh, well. It might have been too much for you anyway. I have to show up at six with my boss for the silent auction, and the gala goes until midnight.”

“Wow. A marathon.”

He chuckles. “Yeah. Like I said, it probably would have been too much. I’m sure spending six hours with your pirate-talking landlord isn’t your idea of a good time.”

I look down at the pavement as I rub my hands together to keep warm. “It doesn’t sound so bad,” I say.

When I look up, Blake’s eyes are fixed on mine, his lips drawn into a soft smile, the apples of his cheeks stained with the slightest hint of pink. He searches my face as he removes his hands from his coat pockets and presses them together, tilting them back and forth as he cracks his knuckles.

“Hang in there,” he says. “Not all guys are assholes.”

“So I hear.”

He stops cracking his knuckles and points his finger at me. “Hey—
I’m
not an asshole.”

“True,” I say, biting my lip to keep from smiling. “At least that’s what the evidence so far suggests.”

He knocks me playfully on the shoulder. “All right, to bed with you. I’ll talk to you sometime next week.”

“Good night,” I say. “See you soon.”

And, as I watch him walk away down Church Street, I hope that I do.

At noon on Monday, I meet Rachel outside the NIRD office, and we hop in a cab headed for Hugo’s loft in Northeast. We zip down Massachusetts Avenue, passing the Washington Convention Center and NPR’s headquarters, as dozens of people wander up and down the sidewalks on their lunch breaks. The cabdriver veers onto H Street and crosses North Capitol Street, taking us from the northwestern quadrant of the city into Northeast, and almost immediately, the landscape changes. The sidewalks become less dense and the buildings are spaced farther apart and the areas around us feel eerily quiet and dead. In the distance, however, I see signs of life, with multicolored storefronts and traffic congestion and signs for restaurants and coffee shops.

I tap Rachel on the shoulder and point through the front windshield. “Have you visited this neighborhood recently?”

“The ‘Atlas District’? Not since it gentrified and became a hipster hot spot. But it’s supposed to be great—lots of cool restaurants. Kind of the perfect spot for us, actually.”

“Except for the fact that the name of our supper club doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Rachel shrugs. “Details.”

Our cabdriver speeds past Ethiopic Ethiopian Restaurant and Sidamo Coffee and Tea, navigating the bumpy road, half of which is being ripped up by a series of large bulldozers, another sign of the neighborhood’s ongoing change. He turns right onto Eighth Street NE, guiding us down a street that, with its blue and pink and white row houses, looks awfully similar to Church Street. Before long, he turns left onto a small side street, at the corner of which sits a tall brick building with a series of modern balconies cascading up its face.

Rachel and I pay the cabdriver and head for the building’s front door, which is covered by an angular, brushed metal awning. Using the key Jackson gave her, Rachel buzzes us through the front door, and we stride through the contemporary steel-and-concrete lobby to the elevator bay in the back.

We slip into the elevator, and Rachel presses the button for the third floor. As we wait for the doors to close, I glance over at Rachel, who—with her mustard tweed jacket, gray camisole, and cream pants—appears to be wearing the J.Crew catalog from head to toe. I, on the other hand, am wearing jeans and a plaid button-down because I am unemployed.

“So … how is the boy?” I ask timidly.

Rachel’s cheeks flush. “Good. He wants to take me to Middle-burg next month for a weekend getaway at some B&B.”

“Wow. Romantic.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. Me and romance? Who’d have thunk it.”

I nudge her in the side. “Eh, it gets the best of us.”

“I guess so.”

She smiles softly, and I search the dreamy look in her eyes, a starry-eyed expression I don’t think I’ve seen on Rachel in … well … ever. “You really like this guy, huh?”

She presses her lips together and slowly nods. “I think I might even love him.”

“Whoa—
love
? Seriously? That’s huge.”

She shrugs. “It’s like I’m a new woman. I don’t even recognize myself.”

I chuckle as the elevator ticks up to the third floor. “I like this new woman. Tell her to stick around.”

The elevator doors open, spitting us out onto a long, narrow hallway with dark concrete floors and bright white walls, which are lined with industrial caged sconces. We tread down the hallway until we reach Hugo’s studio, a corner unit at the end of the hall. Rachel jiggles the key into the lock, and as soon as she opens the door and lets us inside, I know the space will be perfect.

The room is open and bright, with a wall of windows on two sides and exposed brick on the other two walls. The studio isn’t huge, but it’s larger than Blake’s dining and living rooms, meaning we will easily be able to fit thirty-six people in here. A small sliver of a kitchen sits along one of the brick walls and includes a refrigerator, a sink, and a gas range. The kitchen is only moderately bigger than the one in my apartment, but I’ve chosen a menu I think I can manage in a kitchen of this size and will do most of the prep work in advance.

I decided to base this weekend’s menu on carnival foods, inspired by the traveling carnivals and amusement parks I visited as a kid. When I was young, my friend Lisa’s parents would take a group of us to the June Fete every summer, where we’d gorge ourselves on funnel cakes and sno-cones, after riding the Gravitron and Ferris wheel and getting our faces painted. The tradition continued when friends invited me to their New Jersey beach houses over the summer, and we visited Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, where we’d play bumper cars and ride the Tilt-A-Whirl and stuff our faces with hot dogs and boardwalk fries. Admittedly, I always wished I could visit an official state fair, the kind where hogs and cattle are on display and everything—from butter to Oreos—is deep-fried. But growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, the June Fete and the Jersey Shore were as close as a girl could get.

My menu, however, will pilfer the specialties of other carnivals and state fairs, giving a nod to everything from giant turkey legs to corn dogs on a stick. Rachel managed to find some vintage carnival signs to hang on the walls and will decorate the tables with white-and-red checkerboard tablecloths, antique milk bottles filled with colorful pinwheels, and mock carnival tickets. If all goes according to plan, this could be our best supper club yet.

And, really, it has to be. As it stands, The Dupont Circle Supper Club is my only source of income—my only means of paying my bills and preventing my parents from discovering I am a huge disappointment. If I want our guests to sweeten the sixty-dollar fee with a nice tip, this dinner has to be perfect. I need this money. I need to buy myself time. At this point, my only backup plan is an acceptance letter and financial aid package from L’Academie de Cuisine, and I haven’t heard a peep from them yet. Not a promising sign.

Rachel and I inspect the oven and refrigerator, and then I walk the perimeter of the room, peering out the windows and across the city. “I like it,” I say.

Rachel beams. “It’s great, right?”

“I think it’ll be perfect.”

We check out the dishwasher, which is considerably smaller than Blake’s, meaning we’ll be on the hook for a lot more hand washing. But if washing a few more plates by hand means I will save myself Blake’s ire, that’s fine by me.

Rachel twirls Hugo’s keys around her finger. “So we’ll hit the farmers’ market Thursday, yeah?”

“Yep. And I’ll do the bulk of the prep work at my place Friday night, so that we’ll have more time to set up Saturday. You’ll take care of tables and chairs?”

“Already on it. Thompson at NIRD is hooking me up.”

“The kitchen director?”

She nods. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle the logistics.”

She wraps her arm around my shoulder and walks me through the front door, locking it behind her as we head for the elevator. We wait in the cool, stark hallway for the elevator to arrive, and when it does, we step inside as Rachel sighs.

“Back to reality,” she says.

These days, I’m not even sure what that means.

The Thursday before the supper club, Rachel sneaks out of work early and meets me at the Penn Quarter farmers’ market to pick up the turkey legs, Brussels sprouts, pears, and potatoes. I sneak out of nowhere because I live alone and am unemployed.

“Well, well, well,” Shauna says as Rachel and I approach her stand. “If it isn’t Washington’s favorite carnivore.”

“I’m not sure that’s a title I even want,” I say, eyeing the rows of pork and lamb.

“You put in an order for three dozen turkey legs this week. That’s your title, whether you like it or not.”

Shauna yells for Sam to grab our turkey legs off the truck, and while we wait, she eyes me and Rachel suspiciously. “What kind of operation are you two running?”

I feign ignorance. “What do you mean?”

Her lips curl into a smirk. “Every week or two, you put in an order big enough to feed a football team. No, two football teams. What gives?”

I shrug. “We have a lot of friends.”

She scrunches up her forehead. “No one has
that
many friends.”

“We do,” Rachel says.

Shauna rolls her eyes, a disbelieving smirk still plastered on her face. “Uh-huh. It wouldn’t be for a certain ‘supper club,’ would it?”