I’m sweaty, my pulse is racing, Simca is in need of a pee, I’m in desperate need of a shower, and Lynne and Teresa will be here in less than an hour for our reunion girls’ night. I drop the bag of groceries on the counter, turn the oven on to 350 degrees, toss Simca out into the backyard with a promise for a real walk before bed, and take the stairs two at a time to the bedroom, stripping off my clothes as I go. I take the world’s fastest shower, throw my dripping hair into a bun, pull on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and run back downstairs.
At least I know better than to plan an after-work dinner that requires last-minute preps. I did almost everything for tonight yesterday, including setting the table, so now that I’m clean, I can take a deep breath. I take the roasting pan of braised chicken thighs with shallots and tomatoes and mushrooms in a white wine Dijon sauce out of the fridge and pop it in the oven to reheat. I dump the celery root potato puree out of its tub and into my slow cooker to gently warm, then grab the asparagus that I steamed yesterday and set it on the counter to take the chill off. I pull the butter lettuce I bought at Whole Foods out and separate the leaves into a bowl, filling it with cold water as I go, and when they are clean, I pop them into my salad spinner and whizz the crap out of them. They go into the big wooden salad bowl I got in Morocco. When dinnertime comes I’ll chop the asparagus and add it to the salad along with some tiny baby marinated artichokes, no bigger than olives, and toss with a peppery vinaigrette. The sourdough baguette I picked up goes on the table intact; I love to just let guests tear pieces off at the table. The three cheeses I snagged at the cheese counter get set to the side so that they will be appropriately room temp by the time I serve them after dinner. I might not be French, but all those years there have stuck, and I simply cannot have dinner without some cheese after.
In a way, I’m kind of grateful for the urgency. I don’t have to think too much about tonight and the girls, and wonder how things will go. Beyond the quick bullet points of our current status—happily married with kids, happily divorced without, contentedly single and not looking—we didn’t do a lot of real sharing last week. I’m not really sure of either of them. I woke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night wondering if the person I have become is remotely as interesting as the teenager I was. When they knew me, I had athletic drive and passion. Even after the injury, I was focused on my recovery and on figuring out what to do with myself, determined not to be one of those sad-sack former high school star athletes who spends all her time bemoaning what might have been and resting on laurels. I finished strong, got into Northwestern, got accepted at the toughest culinary program in the world, and headed off to a glamorous life abroad.
But they don’t know about Bernard, or how I let myself sink into believing that I wasn’t destined for a relationship after him, or how I fell into my current career and have been treading water ever since. They don’t know how hard it was to help take care of Dad as he fought and lost his battle. How awful to see what it did to my mom. They don’t know that outside of Mom and Aunt Claire and my employers, I pretty much have only one real friend, and my social life consists primarily of hanging out at home with my dog. My job is reasonably active, but I haven’t done anything remotely athletic since the day my physical therapist pronounced me healed.
Lynne and Teresa are living their dreams. Lynne, as far as I can tell, is insanely successful, and Teresa is raising her family, and I’m . . . what? Cooking. Not famously, not publicly, not in a way that will win any awards. Just cooking. Professionally, personally, this is what I’ve got. I don’t ever really think about it, but tonight, with the two of them rematerializing before me imminently, my life suddenly seems so minute and unimpressive.
I shake my head, push the thoughts out, and focus on setting out the predinner nibbles I picked up when I went to get the lettuce and cheese. Olive-oil-roasted Marcona almonds, crunchy fried Peruvian corn kernels, some fat olives. Teresa said she wanted to bring something for dessert, and Lynne said she would bring wine, so we should be in good shape. I’ve got a few bottles of sparkling water in the fridge, as well as some carafes of filtered still water. I let Simca in and get her dinner organized.
“I know, Sim, I’m sorry. Mama’s a bit up under it tonight,” I say as she gives me her patented world-weary look. I sneak a spoonful of peanut butter into her kibble, an extra treat for putting up with me. I could swear she winks at me before tucking in. She has finished her dinner and is delicately cleaning her paws when the bell rings.
“Okay. Ready or not, here we go,” I say to her and head to answer the door.
? ? ?
Wait, wait . . .” Teresa says, ripping off another piece of baguette and dunking it directly into the puddle of sauce at the bottom of the chicken pan. “He had a wife?”
Apparently, two bottles of wine in, dishing about Bernard seemed like the thing to do. It started easy enough; we decimated a bottle of champagne with the nibbles and fell back into the where-is-so-and-so and did-you-hear-about-what’s-her-face. This was followed by a really spectacular bottle of C?tes du Rh?ne with the chicken, plenty of praise for my cooking, and sharing about jobs and children and family stuff.
With the warm food and wine filling us up, Lynne started questioning me about my love life. At first I waved it off, like I do with everyone. “If he is out there, I’ll be delighted to meet him, but I have a wonderful full life without him, and if he never shows, I’m okay with that too.” A very empowered speech, I’ve always thought. A good sound bite, even if a part of me I don’t really like to acknowledge thinks it may be false bravado. But Lynne narrowed her eyes at me, and Teresa sucked her teeth in that classic Italian Mama way.
“Bullshit, baby girl, I call Bull. Shit,” Lynne said, dividing the last of the bottle between us.
Teresa raised that animated eyebrow, and it all just spilled out.