Fed Up (22 page)

But the piece on Alloy might be an aberration. Consequently, I looked up Francie’s review of Digger’s restaurant. After tearing apart the whole notion of small servings and declaring tapas to be a lame excuse to overcharge patrons for the supposed novelty of minuscule plates, the review went on to blast the quality of the food. It was one thing for a chef to hear that the service was poor or that restaurant was unacceptably noisy, but to attack the taste of the food was to hit a chef where it hurt. In contrast to the review of Alloy, this one didn’t ring true. Although I’d never been to the tapas restaurant where Digger worked, all the meals that he had ever cooked for me had been delicious. The Mystery Diner had made some direct assaults on Digger. For example:

 

Ouch! Digger had given me the impression that the review was a harsh critique of the restaurant as a whole and not a personal attack on his skill as a chef. In reality, Francie had slung insult after personal insult at Digger. She’d called him, among other things, an “untalented fool” and an “ordinary hack.” My close reading made me question Digger’s apparently mellow attitude about the review. Maybe Digger had simply been saving face. Still, at La Morra, Digger had repeatedly referred to the Mystery Diner as “he” and had given no indication that he knew the reviewer’s true identity. Plus, Digger had seemed genuinely clueless about gardening.

Stinging with empathy for chefs who’d been Francie’s victims, I struggled to be unbiased. Digger was Josh’s friend and therefore my friend. Marlee was not. Even when I took my bias into account, it remained true that Marlee was the one who’d shown outward hostility to the Mystery Diner. Hard though I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of that knife in the corkboard.

AFTER reading those beastly reviews, cooking was the last thing I felt like doing. For all I knew, Francie’s spirit might appear in my kitchen and criticize my efforts! But Adrianna and Owen were coming for dinner to go over the wedding ceremony. They were writing their own vows—at least they were
supposed
to be writing them—and I’d put together some ideas for the rest of the ceremony. All of a sudden, I felt a sense of urgency: unless I finalized my part, I’d find myself standing in front of an expectant crowd and babbling incoherently about the joys of marriage.

I ran out to the store and returned with everything I needed to make a simple pasta salad. My recipe had two big advantages: it was easy, and it produced one of the few pasta dishes I’d ever made that tasted even better the next day than it did when it had just been cooked. It consisted of fettuccine tossed with shrimp, avocado, red onion, tomatoes, Calamata olives, fresh basil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese. Francie’s ghost failed to materialize while I cooked, so I felt confident that I hadn’t offended the dead. I set aside the shrimp and the pasta, which would be cooked just before the dish was served, and I mixed the other ingredients.

When Ade and Owen showed up at seven, one look at Adrianna told me that she was seriously annoyed with her husband-to-be.

“What’s up? Why are you making that face?” I asked.

“You won’t believe what Owen has done!” Ade turned to her fiancé. “If you think there’s any chance that we’re using those vows—”

“She’s really overreacting,” Owen protested before Adrianna could finish. “I just wanted to mix it up a bit. You know, do something untraditional. We don’t want a formal, stuffy wedding ceremony, right? So I came up with something unique!” Owen handed me a folder that contained a sheet of paper with handwritten vows.

I eyed him suspiciously and braced myself. Owen’s idea of untraditional or unique was most people’s idea of crazy. I dragged a kitchen chair into my small living room and let Ade and Owen take the couch. Ade sat on one side of it with her head tilted and resting on her hand, while Owen sat at the opposite end of the couch with his hands solemnly folded. Despite the separation between the two of them, I could see that Adrianna was muffling a smile.

I skimmed through Owen’s proposed vows. Oh no! “Seriously?”

Serious was exactly what my question was not. As if there were any possibility that I’d deliver these lines! Incredibly and ridiculously, Owen had composed wedding vows à la Dr. Seuss:

 

I couldn’t bring myself actually to read the rest. Instead, I ran my protesting eyes down the sheet of paper. After catching sight of an especially hideous rhyme—something about a wedding ring, wanting to sing, and making Owen feel like a king—I gave up. Staring at Owen, I said, “I’m looking at you now, Owen, and you look like a perfectly normal human being, but it turns out that you are not.” Owen, in fact, looked not only normal but even handsomer than usual. Maybe Ade’s pregnancy glow had rubbed off on him. His cheeks had a rosy tint that brightened his fair complexion, and his black hair could’ve been primped by a
GQ
stylist. In case I’d failed to make my meaning plain on the first try, I said, “You’re an idiot, Owen. I love you, but you’re an idiot.”

“Hallelujah!” Ade shouted and clapped her hands. “A voice of reason!”

“Come on, it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s funny?” Owen pleaded.

“A wedding ceremony is not supposed to be funny,” I instructed. “You don’t have to use the traditional vows, but no way in hell am I reading this.” I crumpled up the paper and flung it at his head.

“Yeah, and what was that business about giving me cash?” Ade demanded. “You don’t talk about money in a ceremony. Or trash, for that matter.”

“Okay, okay, I give in! But it’s a happy occasion. I want everyone to have fun.”

My voice suffused with the authority vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I said, “This is the first and probably only wedding at which I’m going to officiate, and I’m not going to make a freak out of myself by reciting a bunch of dumb rhymes.” Fortunately, although I hadn’t expected anything quite so preposterous as Owen’s doggerel, I wasn’t caught off guard. Suspecting that both Adrianna and Owen were more attached to the idea of writing their own vows than they’d be to the process of composing them, I’d done my wedding-vow homework and consequently was able to hand them copies of material I’d assembled from Web sites and written myself. “What about these?”

“I don’t want that business about obeying the groom in there,” Ade said as she reached for the papers.

Owen’s face brightened. “Maybe we could put in a vow of
dis
obedience. I will never do anything Ade tells me to do!”

“You better watch it,” Ade warned him. “Your frivolous attitude is making me worry. Did you get your tux yet? I swear, Owen, if you got some garish tuxedo in loud colors, I’ll scream.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” To my ear, Owen sounded all too serious. “I got the boring black one like you told me.”

I’d have bet good money that Owen was lying, but Ade apparently believed him, and she didn’t need to be more riled up than than she already was. As she read the vows I’d put together, Ade kept nodding, and even Owen agreed that although my suggestions didn’t rhyme, they would work.

“Do you trust me to put together the service?” I asked them.

“Yeah, we do,” Owen rubbed Ade’s back. He looked at her and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Babe, it’s going to be a wonderful day.”

I said, “Good. I’ll do the whole wedding service, and all you’ll have to do is repeat after me.” Adrianna still looked stressed out, but at least she’d moved close to Owen and was leaning against him. “Relax,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about. This is all fun stuff going on, okay?”

I cooked the pasta and the shrimp, and tossed them together with the vegetable mixture. As we ate dinner in the living room, we talked food.

“How’s the menu coming?” Owen asked.

“Oh, I almost forgot! The food is going to be out of this world! Even though it’s still August, I know you wanted a fall menu, so Josh is going to put out an amazing spread with that in mind.”

“I know I’m a pain, but I always wanted to get married in the fall, and since that won’t work out,” she said, patting her belly, “we can at least eat like it’s fall. I’m probably driving Josh crazy.”

I brushed aside her worries. “Not a big deal. You know how Josh loves a challenge. He’s going to do an extravagant pumpkin stew cooked in a pumpkin, a salad with dried cranberries and maple vinaigrette, tenderloin medallions, a roasted rack of lamb with grape-chili jam and goat cheese sauce. What else? I can’t remember it all right now, but you’ll love it.”

“Sounds amazing,” Owen said happily.

“Josh is off on Friday to prep all the food. I think he’s coming here to do it. I’ll actually get to spend some time with him, so it’ll work out for well for me.”

I sounded more optimistic than I felt. When Josh was here, he’d be in his chef mode, and we’d have no real conversation. Still, it would be good to be together, and our shared focus on the wedding might restore our relationship.

I sent Ade and Owen off with the promise of a beautiful ceremony with vows that didn’t rhyme. After cleaning up the kitchen, I spent an hour at the computer writing the service and quit only when I was so tired that my fingers started typing in Dr. Seuss style. I collapsed in bed with the intention of sleeping in the next morning. The prospect was shattered by the sound of feet pounding on my front door.

“CHLOE? Let me in!”

I glanced at the clock. What the heck was Josh doing here at eight a.m.?

I flung back the sheet and forced myself to stagger to the door. “Hi, honey,” I managed sleepily. I rubbed my eyes and stared in confusion at Josh. My boyfriend had evidently kicked my door because his arms were full of trays and containers covered in plastic wrap. A small cardboard box was teetering off the top of the pile, and I grabbed a squirt bottle just as it began to fall. “What are you doing here? Oh, my God! Is today Friday?” I really was not awake yet. Panicking, I thought,
Oh, no! It’s the day before the wedding!

“No, no. It’s Wednesday. I just got the rest of the week off, and I thought I’d start cooking for Saturday. I’ve got a ton to prep, and my kitchen is a wreck.” In my opinion, the entire apartment that he shared with his sous-chef, Snacker, was a chronic disaster area, but I didn’t say so. “The goddamn stove broke again, and Snacker left a huge mess in there. Seriously, there’s no way I’m doing his dishes again, and he’s working at Simmer while I’m off, so who knows when they’ll get done. Can I use your kitchen?”

“Yeah. Of course.” I plodded into the kitchen and set the squirt bottle box on the table. “Coffee. I need coffee.”

I worked on brewing a pot of caffeine while Josh returned to his car for more food. I was psyched to have Josh here but totally surprised that Gavin had given him so much time off. Josh was lucky to get one day a week. Maybe Gavin had finally come to his senses and realized how badly he’d been treating his gifted and hardworking chef. Josh had had no vacation time whatsoever since he’d started at the restaurant last year, and Gavin must have realized that Josh was about to crack. Oddly enough, even though Josh would be cooking like a madman for the next few days, I knew that he was looking forward to catering the wedding. Chefs! For me, a vacation meant blue skies, burning sun, sterling ocean, fruity cocktails, and skimpy bathing suits, but Josh wasn’t the type to lounge around on a beach and do nothing all day. What did he do when he finally had time off? Cook.