The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs (24 page)

Sometime later in the evening, I awake with my face pressed against my keyboard to the sound of someone banging at my door.

I snap upright and smooth my hair into place, running my fingers along my cheeks, which bear the imprint of my computer keys. With every passing day, I take the art of looking terrible to new and unexplored heights.

“Coming!” I shout, dusting the flakes of Honey Bunches of Oats off my T-shirt.

I pull open the door, in all likelihood resembling an alien shar-pei, and find Blake standing in my entryway with his hands tucked into his jean pockets.

“Hi …,” he says, eyeing the right side of my face. “Sorry—I was coming down to check on the dehumidifier. Did I … wake you?”

“No. Yeah. Kind of.” I touch the side of my face. “I fell asleep on my computer. Sorry.”

Blake swats away the gnats and mosquitoes, both of which I’m convinced are breeding in my entryway. “I can come back later, if that would be better.”

“No, no—now is fine. Come on in.”

I let Blake inside, and he inspects the dehumidifier and the overall state of my apartment, giving particular attention to the areas surrounding the front and back doors. I pretend not to notice his facial expressions when he observes the disgraceful trifecta of my air mattress, beanbag chair, and pile of rumpled clothes.

“Looks like you’re back in business,” he says. “And I finally—officially—fixed the drainage problem, so the apartment shouldn’t flood again.”

“Cool.”

Blake tucks his hands back into his jean pockets and leans back on his heels. “So … what did you end up doing with all those groceries? I noticed my freezer was disappointingly empty when I got back from Tampa.”

Thank god
.

“I … braised some of the pork belly. Sautéed the broccoli rabe. Nothing special.”

Blake raises his eyebrows. “Nothing special? I don’t think I’d know how to cook pork belly if you paid me.”

“It’s not hard. You could handle it.”

“No, seriously. I don’t even know what the word
braise
means.”

“It means cooking something in liquid. Super easy.”

He smiles. “You’re quite the cook, huh?”

I shrug. “I’d pretty much cook constantly if I could.”

“I’m telling you—you should start an ice cream business. Or a pork belly business. Whatever floats your boat.”

I force a smile. “I’d love to. Maybe someday.”

Blake rubs his chin and nods his head, scrunching his lips together as he studies my face. “In that case,” he says, tapping his finger against his bottom lip, “I have a proposition for you.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Okay …”

Blake surveys my apartment, and his eyes land on my Aerobed. “Want to come up to my place to talk about this? Not that there’s anything wrong with your place, but …”

“You have more furniture than an Aerobed and a beanbag chair?”

He grins. “Exactly.”

I follow Blake up to his house and pull up a seat along his breakfast bar. He grabs a bottle of Vouvray from his refrigerator and points it in my direction.

“Wine?”

I stare at the bottle and consider his offer, which seems a little weird and forward but also very appealing after my day from hell.

“Sure,” I say. If I’m not going to drink after a day like today, why drink at all?

Blake grabs two wineglasses and fills them both halfway, pushing one glass across the table toward me. I take a long sip of wine and let the chilled, fruity Vouvray trickle down the back of my throat.

“So,” he says. “My proposition. I’m having a huge Halloween party on the thirty-first. How would you feel about catering it?”

I spit the wine back in my glass. “Sorry?”

“When it comes to food … let’s just say I’m much better at the eating part than the cooking part. But I want this party to be awesome. I could use a helping hand from someone who knows her way around a kitchen.” He sips his wine. “Not that you know your way around
my
kitchen, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Right. Because why would I know my way around his kitchen? That wouldn’t make any sense at all. The bigger problem, of course, is that I’d planned an entire Halloween menu for The Dupont Circle Supper Club and hoped he’d be out of town that weekend.

I grab my wineglass and take another swig. “Won’t you be in Tampa that weekend?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. I’m taking the weekend off.”

“Any particular reason …?”

He widens his eyes, bewildered by my ignorance. “Uh, because it’s
Halloween
.”

“I didn’t realize Halloween was a holiday requiring devout observance.”

“It is if you’re me. My costume parties are legendary.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He flashes a geeky smile. “Like, major. Get ready for it.”

Great. I can only imagine the levels of geekdom this party will achieve.

“And anyway,” he says, “it’s the weekend before the ANC election, so I should be in town. The party will build momentum leading into the election.”

“How many people are we talking? For the party, I mean.”

Blake waves his hand back and forth. “About fifty, maybe?”

Fifty?
Fifty
? I’ve never cooked for fifty before. Holy crap. On the other hand …

“I assume there would be some sort of compensation involved,” I say, fiddling with the stem of my wineglass.

“Oh—sure.” Blake’s smile fades, and he bites his bottom lip. “Although … I need to check on whether or not that’s legal.”

“Why wouldn’t it be legal?”

“Well, usually to operate as a caterer you need to obtain a catering license. But I think there’s an exception if you’re cooking at the home of the person who’s paying you.” He pauses. “Let me check it out. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“You could always pay me under the table. No one would have to know.”

He chuckles. “Ha, right. Nice one, Sugarman. That’ll do wonders for my campaign.”

I laugh nervously as I grab the wine bottle and refill my glass. “It’s just a volunteer position, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re running for mayor.”

“Just because the commission doesn’t have legislative authority doesn’t mean the members don’t have to follow the law. We represent the neighborhood. Plus, if I ever run for higher office, I need a clean record. Hiring an illegal cleaning lady, paying an unlicensed caterer—I don’t need anything like that hanging over my head.”

I gulp down my entire glass of wine. “You want to run for higher office?”

Blake’s cheeks flush, and he waves me off. “That’s a conversation for another time.” He glances down at his watch. “Anyway, I should get to bed soon. Congressman Holmes has back-to-back live shots on MSNBC and CNN tomorrow morning, and then he’s meeting with a reporter from the
New York Times
, before heading into a markup of the immigration bill.” He smiles. “And that only takes us to ten
A.M
.”

I let out a drawn-out sigh. “I have a big day ahead of me, too.”

The difference being, my big day will involve me getting fired.

“Remind me what you do again? You’re a think tank person, right?”

I nod. “Institute for Research and Discourse.”

“Wow, don’t sound
too
excited. You say it like working there is some sort of punishment.”

“Some days I’m not so sure it isn’t.”

He slaps his hands against the counter. “Well then maybe my party can be your launching pad to a new career.”

I let out a huff as I play with the base of my wineglass. “Wouldn’t that be nice …”

“Again with the lack of enthusiasm. From what you said, I thought you’d love to cook for a living.”

“I would. My parents … not so much.”

“What, they aren’t fans of your cooking?”

“They’re not fans of cooking as a career.” I look up at Blake, whose eyebrows are scrunched into a knot on his forehead. I shrug. “Cooking isn’t a serious profession.”

“That’s not true,” he says. “Any profession is serious if the person doing the job takes it seriously. Who cares what they think?”

“They’re my parents. There’s a lot of history there.” I push my glass back and forth across his granite counter, holding it by the base. “What, you don’t care what your parents think?”

“Well, my dad is dead …”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

“But, yes, of course I care what my mom thinks, and what my dad thought when he was alive. That doesn’t mean I let them dictate my entire career path. There’s a fine line between respecting your parents and letting them control your life.”

“What about the line between asserting your independence and pissing off your parents for all eternity?”

Blake laughs and looks down at the counter, his hands gripping the edge of the granite countertop. When he looks up, a broad smile still painted across his face, I am struck by the color of his eyes. They are a pure, deep gray—not quite blue, not quite green, with a dark gray rim around the iris.

“Listen, at some point, you’ve got to fish or cut bait, right? That’s what growing up is all about.”

Another nautical reference. At some point I need to address this.

“I guess.” I let out a heavy sigh. “No one told me growing up would be such a huge pain in the ass.”

Blake smirks. “Deciding between a job at a prestigious think tank and a catering career—yeah, life is hard.”

“Oh, shut up, Long John Silver.”

I slap my hand over my mouth and feel the blood rush to my face because,
oh my god
, I just told my landlord—whose house I am using for an underground supper club—to
shut up, Long John Silver
. What is wrong with me?

“Sorry,” I say, my hand still over my mouth. “I didn’t mean that.”

Blake chuckles, his eyes wide. “Long John Silver? Where’d that come from?”

“I … it’s something my friend and I say sometimes. Never mind.”

“What, is that like cockney rhyming slang or something?” He swings his arms back and forth as if he is marching in place. “‘That bloke’s a Long John Silver.’ ”

I start shaking with laughter at Blake’s absurd English accent and even more absurd pantomime. “I don’t even think that’s how rhyming slang works,” I say. I glance up at the clock on his oven. “Anyway, don’t you need to get to bed?”

He looks at his watch. “Yeah, I think I said that twenty minutes ago. But you somehow managed to derail me with your cute smile and first world problems.” He blushes. “I take that back. Your smile isn’t
that
cute.”

I purse my lips and arch one eyebrow high while furrowing the other.

“Now that’s a much better look,” he says, grinning.

Blake walks me to the front door, and when I don’t hear the door close behind me by the time I reach the bottom of his steps, I turn around and see him standing in his doorway.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll figure it out. Your career, I mean.”

“I guess.”

He shrugs. “It’ll happen. You’ll do what you have to do to maintain your sanity.”

Somehow those few words make me feel better—not because my future is any clearer or because Blake is suggesting my sanity is still intact (although I do appreciate that), but because for once someone has faith in my ability to chart my own path. What’s surprising is not that I feel better, but that the person who made me feel this way isn’t my best friend or my parents or anyone I’ve known for more than two months. It’s my landlord, a man to whom I’ve been lying for nearly a month and whose political career I could, with just one misstep, easily ruin.

The next day I arrive at the office a good forty-five minutes before Mark does. This is a strategic move on my part, though the specifics of my strategy elude me. I suppose I want enough time to collect my thoughts and organize my desk before Mark fires me. As if, somehow, that will soften the blow.

I power up my computer, and the first e-mail I see is one from my mother, with the worlds “Visiting DC!” in the subject line. I cannot see how this e-mail will contain anything but bad news:

Any word on canceling your trip to the mountains? Your father and I would LOVE to see you next weekend. If you cannot change your plans, we’ll understand, but please give us some alternate dates. Otherwise it will be Thanksgiving before we see you! Speaking of which, we really need to discuss our Thanksgiving plans. Aunt Elena is still keen on the reenactment idea, but there is no way in hell that’s happening.

Hugs and Kisses,

Mom

p.s. How is the GRE prep going??

I don’t know what deluded me into thinking a lame excuse about a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains would stave off my mother. It’s as if, deep down, she knows I’m lying, and by gently applying pressure through a series of innocent and inquisitive calls and e-mails, she will ultimately break me. That’s how she operates. In high school, when Alex Greenberg threw a wild, unsupervised party and I lied and told her Alex’s parents were there the whole time, she casually kept asking and asking and asking about it. Had Dr. Greenberg’s ankle healed? Did Mrs. Greenberg mention whether or not she’d be attending the parents’ reception next week? How was their trip to Bermuda? Finally, I caved under the stress and started crying and told her everything. As my mother, she knew keeping secrets was my weakness, and she knew just how to play me.