“How are you feeling about the party coming up?”
“Pretty good, I think. It should be a nice event, and I’m looking forward to your folks meeting Mom and Claire. I hope your superfan Geneva doesn’t stick her foot in it with them!”
“Oh, I already told them about all my new nieces and nephews!”
“Oy, what did they say?”
“My mom said she couldn’t wait to meet them, and that we should bring them all to the Memorial Day family barbecue.”
“Seriously?”
“Mom doesn’t play about the barbecue.”
“Lord, can you imagine?”
“Oh, I can more than imagine—I can’t wait!”
I laugh, thinking about the whirling dervish that is Geneva Farber and Shawn’s family. We’re going to have to take video.
“Well, I’ll let them know the details. I think they’re in town that weekend.”
“What about the bet?”
“I’m good on everything . . .”
“Except the cookbook proposal,” he says matter-of-factly. “I noticed the tub in the kitchen corner is getting dusty.”
“Yeah, except that.” I fessed up to him about the cookbook proposal problem when I recognized that I was really not just procrastinating but genuinely stuck.
“What do you think is the block?”
“The whole idea of having a story to tell with my food, I don’t know how to pull that together.”
“What about the Love Plates idea? I thought you had settled on that.”
“Yeah, for a title, but what does it mean, really?”
“Baby, you have spent your life doing what you love, with love, for people you love. Didn’t you always say that the thing that keeps you out of a restaurant is the need for the personal connection? That’s what the title means to me when you say it. Loving the process, loving the product, and loving the recipient, even when the recipient is yourself. A celebration of how cooking is a pure act of love, and one of the most generous gifts you can give to someone. Right?”
“Sure, it sounds easy when you say it.”
“Well, let me ask you this. Do you care at all about winning this bet?”
I think about this. “I did, sort of, in the beginning. But now I feel like I already did the most important part, you know? My body is a little healthier. My mind is a little clearer. My life is a little wider and more interesting. And most importantly, I found you, so I’ve already won so big.”
“Well, thank you. So what if you thought of this cookbook thing as not part of the bet, but just part of this bigger, more open life you’ve embraced? Forget the deadline looming; forget needing to prove something to Lynne and Teresa, you’ve already proven it to yourself. Give up on using it to win the bet, but don’t give up on the dream of it. I think you can’t do the proposal because you haven’t done the book. So forget about agents and publishers, and just do the book. The whole book. Delve into the joy of figuring out the chapters and culling the recipes and drawing your amazing sketches. Let it come to you the way it wants to, and once it’s finished, then look at what you have and see how you want to handle it. Maybe you’ll want to self-publish, and not go the traditional route at all. Who knows? But don’t force it to try and win the bet, and don’t let it go just because of losing the bet. Let Lynne and Teresa win the bet, and you win at life.”
In one fell swoop, the tension in my shoulders releases, like a switch has been flipped. The idea of not worrying about how to describe the book and just delving into the actual making of the book, that seems freeing and like something that I could really do. “You are magic. Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“I do. Because it appears to be as much as I love you, which is enormously much.”
I push Simca out of the way and get back into Shawn’s arms, knowing that for the first time in forever, I’m not just where I should be, but I’m who I should be. And while I’m no less content than I was last year at this time, I’m a whole lot happier. Which means that letting go of winning the bet?
Actually means I win the bet.
Twenty-four
The place looks great, Teresa! Thank you for doing so much hard work,” I say, looking around the private room at Stella Barra. Teresa has put together beautiful flower arrangements on all the tables, from the walls she’s hung silver Mylar ballons with 40! on them in purple, and at each place is a cellophane-wrapped cookie with a photo of us from our eighteenth birthday party printed on it. There are bowls of retro candies on all the tables—our favorite stuff from our youth: Razzles and Nerds and Lik-m-aid packages and bowls of custom M&M’s also printed with 40! All around the room are photos of the three of us from high school printed on boards. She’s outdone herself.
“It’s terrific, T, thanks,” Lynne says, winking at me. I know she thinks it’s over the top and sort of ghastly, but I will say that she seems these days to be a little lighter, a little looser, and dare I say, maybe even a little more tactful. Maybe Gabriel is making her truly happy, in a way that lets her be more relaxed about life.
The waitress comes over with a tray of the official cocktail of the evening, the ELT French 40. It’s a riff on a French 75, adjusted to suit us, with bourbon instead of gin, champagne, lemon juice, and simple syrup, with a Luxardo cherry instead of a lemon twist. “Here you go, ladies. As soon as your guests are here we will start passing hors d’oeuvres, but I thought you might want a little sampler plate before they arrive.”
“That is great, thanks so much!” I say, knowing that in a half hour when people start to come in, we’ll have a hard time eating and mingling. We accept the flutes and toast each other. The drink is warming and refreshing at the same time. The platter she has brought us contains three each of all the passed appetizers we chose: little lettuce cups with spicy beef, mini fish tacos, little pork-meatball crostini, fried calamari, and spoons with creamy burrata topped with grapes and a swirl of fig balsamic. There will also eventually be a few of their signature pizzas set up on the buffet, and then, for dinner, everyone has their choice of flat-iron steak, roasted chicken, or grilled vegetables, served with roasted fingerlings. For dessert, there is either a chocolate chunk or apple oatmeal cookie, served toasty warm with vanilla ice cream and either hot fudge or caramel on top, plus there will be their famous Rice Krispies Treats on the tables to share. We opted out of the huge-birthday-cake thing, since as usual, the three of us all prefer different flavors of cake. Growing up, we always did cupcakes for the birthday celebrations, and saved the big cakes for individual family events.
“Damn, these are good,” Lynne says around a mouthful of fish taco.
“I could eat this whole plate,” Teresa says, popping a calamari tentacle in her mouth.