Recipe for Disaster (15 page)

Hmmm. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I really should try to cook something special for her. Maybe that’s why she loved Grant so much. I grab her leash and we do a quick walk around the block. It’s still insanely cold, so she isn’t interested in anything more than a quick pee, a ladylike dump, and a fast return to the house.

I head back to the kitchen to assess the fridge. Gemma mentioned soft-boiled eggs and bacon and buttered toast soldiers. I’ve got some eggs, which I know Schatzi can eat, and there is still a half a packet of bacon. Well, eggs and bacon sound good to me; I only had a bowl of cereal before Jag got here, and I’m a breakfast-all-day kind of girl, and I bet the dog will like it too. I’m almost giddy when I get them out of the fridge. And then I stop. I’ve never made a soft-boiled egg in my life. I’ve eaten a zillion, Grand-mère was good at them, as was Grant. And I do love dunking little strips of buttery toast in the gooey liquid center. But I’ve never even tried to make one. I flip through the journal till I find it.

Soft-Boiled Eggs. Bring a small pot of water to a roiling boil. Drop in three fresh eggs. Cook for precisely three and a half minutes, and remove to a towel, dry the eggs, and place in the egg carrier.

That seems simple enough. Despite not having the egg carrier, I think I can manage it. I put some water on to boil. I put a skillet on high heat. Take six strips of bacon out of the package and lay them in the skillet. The sizzle is intoxicating. Nothing in the world smells as good as bacon; I defy you to disagree. The water comes to a boil in minutes, this BlueStar range can crank up to 24,000 BTUs; it never ceases to amaze me how quickly I can get pasta made here. I drop in the eggs, and turn back to the bacon and flip it over. It is spitting grease all over the stove, and when I turn it my arms get speckled with peppery little stings. I remember that Grant always made it in the oven, but I don’t know how, and Joe always did it on the stovetop. Of course, when Joe did it, it was always a mess; I’d forgotten that part. The bacon is almost done when I remember I was supposed to cook the eggs for three and a half minutes. I have no idea how long they’ve been in there. One minute? Two? I figure two, and check my watch. The acrid smell of burning hits my nose, and I look over to see that my bacon is scorching, and quickly pull the pan off the heat. I drop the now-mahogany brittle slices on the waiting paper towels. Just shy of black. Crap. By the time I turn back to the eggs, my watch says it has been almost two minutes, so I quickly get them out of the water and onto a kitchen towel. I let them sit while I make a couple of slices of toast, butter them, and sit down to open an egg. But there is no gooey runny inside, just a powdery hard-boiled yolk, with a thin film of green around the edge. Figuring Schatzi won’t care, I cut it up, break up a couple of strips of bacon, and dump them in her bowl with a half cup of kibble.

Schatzi wanders over and sniffs at the bowl. She looks up at me quizzically.

“Go on, girl. A special treat.” I pause. “Because I love you.”

The dog turns back to the bowl, and gingerly takes a piece of egg out. Then she makes a happy grunting noise and tucks in, wolfing it down like I didn’t feed her last night. Within minutes, the bowl is empty, licked clean, and Schatzi is grooming herself contentedly.

“You’re welcome.” I reach down and scratch between her silky ears, and she whips her head around and bites my hand, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to leave marks. Then she heads out of the kitchen.

I fucking hate that dog.

I look back at my own meal of burnt bacon and rubbery eggs and now-cold toast with the butter congealing, and take a breath. Goddammit, I should be able to cook a freaking egg. I dump the mess in the garbage and start over.

I put the water back on to boil and get a couple more eggs out of the fridge, a few more slices of bacon. I put the bacon in the pan over low heat in hopes of having better control. When the water comes to a boil I drop the eggs in carefully and set my watch for three and a half minutes. I turn back to the bacon, which is actually cooking well and not making nearly as much of a greasy mess all over. My watch says I have a minute and a half left, so I put a couple more slices of bread in the toaster. The bacon is looking perfect, and I take it out of the pan and put it on the paper towels. My watch beeps and I gently remove the eggs from the water. The toast dings and I grab it and butter it generously.

I sit back down and say a little prayer. And slice the top of the egg off. The white is set, and the yolk is a puddle of liquid gold. I dunk a piece of toast in the egg, and my eyes roll back in my head. So yummy. I pick up a piece of bacon, and it’s just how I like it, fairly crispy with the fat well rendered, but still with a little bit of chew. I wolf it all down; it may be the single most delicious breakfast I’ve ever eaten. And I don’t know why, but I start to laugh. Really laugh. Belly laugh with tears running down my face, in a way I haven’t laughed since I can’t remember when.

I
’m just drying off the skillet when the doorbell rings. Since Jag replaced it, it now peals a series of musical pings, very old fashioned, and no longer reminiscent of an air-raid siren. I almost look forward to it.

“Hello there!” I throw open the door expecting Jag with his arms full of materials, and instead am greeted with the only sight that could immediately put a damper on my decent morning.

“Hi, Anneke! I was in the neighborhood and thought maybe we’d have that walk or something before you head to work, if it’s not a terrible time for you. Hello, Schatzi girl! How is my sweet pup?” Emily scoops the dog up in her arms, and begins to waltz her around the porch, laughing and murmuring to her that she is the most beautiful of all the doggies. The dog, who not fifteen minutes ago savaged me for deigning to cook her a custom special breakfast, is now nuzzling this unwelcome stranger, and reaches her head up and licks Emily’s cheeks with the tenderness of any mother cleaning a dirty child. Of course.

“Hey, Emily, um, sorry I haven’t called . . . um . . .”

“Oh, goodness, you must be busy as anything, no worries at all, it’s why I figured I’d swing by, you know, try to catch you before you head out for work.”

“I work here, actually.” Why the hell did I say THAT?

Her eyes widen. “How cool is that! I feel terrible; I actually don’t really know what you do. But whatever it is, I bet it’s awesome to just be able to work from home. Especially a home as beautiful as this one, they just don’t make them like this anymore.” She looks around reverently. “It’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to move to Boston; I can finally see some serious architecture. I’ve been wandering all over Chicago just marveling at the buildings, and last week I went to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park and that was just, I mean, LIFE CHANGING!”

She puts the dog down, and before I know what is happening, she has come right on in, and is taking off her coat. Today’s hat is powder blue with some sort of yarn Mohawk in various shades of green, and earflaps, and the mittens are purple with yellow sunflowers. Apparently her winter-gear “shopportunity” was not just epic, but may have happened while high. She looks around for a place to put them, but I haven’t done the front closet yet, and don’t have a coatrack, so when she doesn’t find a logical place, she stuffs the hat and mittens in the pocket of her coat, and drapes the bulky thing over her arm.

“Come on in,” I mutter, taking the bundle of outerwear from her and dumping it over the back of the one chair in the living room.

“I know it’s a horribly rude thing, but would you mind awfully maybe taking me on a tour of your house; it is just one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen!”

Well, for whatever faults she clearly has, at least she has an eye for a nice building. Might as well get this over with; if I can spend a little time touring her around the house, then I can hopefully get rid of her for good.

“Sure. Follow me, and just be really careful and try not to touch anything.”

She grins at me as if I’ve handed her a Wonka Golden Ticket, and claps her hands excitedly. “Hooray!”

Hoo-freaking-ray.

A
pparently the building is magical. As soon as I started taking Emily around and showing her the house, explaining what it was and what I am trying to do, she shut the hell up. She oohed and aahed appropriately, asked a couple of questions, but essentially we did a tour and I talked and she listened, Schatzi clicking along at her heels. We finish up in the kitchen, and feeling magnanimous, I offer to make some tea.

“Anneke, this place, it’s amazing. I have to ask, how are you ever going to leave it when you’re done? I mean it’s so YOU, not that I know you even a little bit, but I feel like I kind of do just seeing what you are doing here and how you think about every detail and it will just be perfect, how on earth will you be able to give it up?”

And she’s back. I offer her a cookie from the glass jar on the counter, in hopes that if she puts food in her face this noise will stop coming out of it.

“If I don’t sell it I will be bankrupt and unable to eat, and I’m pretty sure the new owners aren’t going to see me as a feature they want to keep.”

“Do you always live in your projects?”

“This is a first.”

“Well, I can see why you would, even just for a little bit of time, I would totally want to live here, to be in this place, I suppose even if I knew it couldn’t be my forever home I could always have the memories of having lived here for a while, and I’d probably have done the same thing.”

“That’s a nice way to look at it.” I’m wondering exactly how I’m going to extricate this gangly child from the house.

“Hello!” Jag’s voice floats up the stairs. Hallelujah!

“Up here,” I call out, and I can hear his tread on the steps. Schatzi leaves her perch under Emily’s chair to go greet him. He enters the kitchen, removing his coat and dropping it over the folding chair at the worktable.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.” He crosses over and extends his hand. “Jagjeet Singh. Everyone calls me Jag.”

“Hi, Jag! I’m Emily Walsh. Everyone just calls me Emily.”

“Lovely to meet you, Emily.” They both look at me, waiting for me to fill in the obvious blanks. I swear to god, these days I cannot stand people.

“Jag is working with me on the house. Emily is visiting Chicago.” I’m not really sure how else to describe her, but clearly she has some ideas.

“I’m Anneke’s long-lost never-known stepsister from Florida. Her mom was married to my dad, and I dropped in on her head like the house in
The Wizard of Oz
all excited to meet her and she never even heard of me! But I’m in town for a little bit, and I always say that family is about the best thing you can ever have in your life, so I’m just pestering her and imposing on her time while I’m here so we can get to know each other.”

I love how I’m suddenly the Wicked Witch of the East in this little florid scenario she’s just painted. Although, if someone dropped a house on me I wouldn’t have to listen to her voice anymore, so it does have some merit as an idea.

“I see.” Jag turns to me, probably registering the pained look on my face, and then nods. “Well, then I should leave you sisters to each other. Anneke, I will be downstairs in the powder room doing the demo. Emily, nice to have met you.” And giving Schatzi a quick pet, he heads out of the kitchen.

Et tu, Jag?

“I’m sorry, you must want to get to work. What are you doing today?”

Whew. “Yeah, I should. We are working on the first-floor bathrooms.”

“What are you going to do in there?”

“Nothing fancy. Install the tub and toilet and vanity in the full bath, which is almost done, then demo in the powder room. We have to rip out the plaster and replace it with tile backer board, tile the walls and the floor, install a new toilet and a small sink, hang a mirror, do some lighting.”

“All for two little rooms. How long will that take?”

“Three days or so, depending.”

“Cool.” She pauses. “Do you think, I mean not today, but maybe another time I might come watch? I mean, I’m really interested in all of this, I watch HGTV like NONSTOP, and I’m always doing little DIY projects with furniture and stuff and I think it would be amazing to just see how some of this happens live and in person. You know, if I wouldn’t be in your way or anything. I could even help, if you wanted, I’m good at painting for sure, I repaint my room wherever I am at least once a year when I get bored and need a change, but I could even just be the garbage girl or coffee fetcher . . .”