The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs (17 page)

Rachel sighs into the phone. “You really think Long John Silver reads some obscure DC food blog?”

“Probably not.”

“Exactly,” she says. “We’re fine. How much longer is he away?”

I lick a blob of date puree off my finger. “He gets back tomorrow morning. But he’s away again next weekend, and then again over Columbus Day. He’s on the town hall circuit thanks to the immigration debate.”

“Perfect. We can hold another dinner in his house next weekend, and another one in October.”

“In
his
house?”

“It’s bigger and nicer than yours,” she says. “Smells better, too.”

“That’s because mine flooded.”

“My point exactly.”

“Weren’t you the one warning me about trespassing and all that?”

Another sigh. “Let’s just say it worked out better than I expected. I really don’t think it’s a problem.”

“That’s probably because you’re not the one who would face eviction.”

“You’re not going to get evicted,” she says. “Face it—you’re a hit. People are clamoring for a seat at your table. Why would you want to pass that up?”

Of course I wouldn’t want to pass that up. Who would? Last night was like a dream, where I could finally immerse myself in the sort of career I’ve always wanted to pursue—running my own kitchen, letting my imagination run wild, satisfying a group of patrons I could call my own. I spent the night fearing I would wake up and realize none of it was real, that I’d been hit on the head, like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
, and all of these people were figments of my imagination. But it was real, and I want to relive the thrill of last night again and again, if only to prove to myself that I can.

There is, however, the issue of my landlord’s house, the main issue being … it isn’t mine. To be fair, we cleaned his place from top to bottom and left it in even better condition than when we arrived. And, when you think about it, he invested so much time and money and effort into renovating his kitchen, it’s almost like we’re doing him a favor. If he isn’t around,
someone
should be using his kitchen. Letting a Viking range sit around like a piece of art? That doesn’t even make sense.

Besides, now that I’ve actually hosted a supper club, I see Friday’s flood was a blessing in disguise. There’s no way I could have pulled off last night’s dinner in my tiny apartment. No way. And now that I know what’s involved in making The Dupont Circle Supper Club a success, I can’t imagine ever hosting one of these dinners in my apartment—which, no doubt, still smells like a bat cave.

“Fine,” I say. “Let’s meet for coffee and discuss the details. If we’re really careful, we can probably make this work.”

Rachel squeals into the phone. “Awesome. I’ll meet you at Kramerbooks in, what, an hour?”

“Make it two,” I say. “First I need to hit CVS and deal with the mess in my apartment.”

The line at CVS stretches down aisle three, and I am forced to wait as two clerks with no sense of urgency ring up one customer after the next. As I inch my way forward, I suddenly hear the whine of an unmistakable voice.

“Ugh, could this line be any
longer
?”

I whip my head around and see Millie standing right behind me. And standing next to her is Adam.

His dark brown eyes spring open. “Hannah! Hi!”

My stomach flip-flops. It’s been two months since Adam and I spoke. Two months since the breakup. I’ve tried not to think about him since then, but I haven’t been very successful. As much as I want to erase him from my memory, I can’t, and I find myself thinking about him at the oddest times, like when I roll over on my air mattress and find myself lying on a chilled strip of cotton, the side of the bed where he used to sleep. Some days the thought of him sneaks up on me when I walk by our old apartment, or when I hear a song by Maroon 5, a group Adam always pretended he didn’t like but would listen to at home all the time. Other days I think I hear his laugh or see his face, and when that happens I think about what I would say if I ran into him. But of all the scenarios I’ve run through in my head, none of them have adequately prepared me for seeing him in person—for being so close I could touch him. Seeing his face and hearing his voice knock the wind right out of me.

Adam scratches his jaw with one hand as he awkwardly sticks the other into the pocket of his Diesel jeans; I could swear he had been touching the small of Millie’s back.

“Hi,” I say, trying to seem as relaxed as possible. “What brings you all the way to Seventeenth Street?”

This is a lame attempt at a joke. Neither of them lives far away. Adam’s apartment—my old apartment—is about three blocks from here.

“We were having brunch in the neighborhood,” Millie says. “What about you?”

“I live a block away.”

Millie eyes my basket, which is filled with bleach, carpet cleaner, air freshener, and a pair of rubber gloves. “Growing pains in the new apartment?” she asks.

“Something like that.”

I look down at the items in Millie’s basket: antibacterial hand wipes, three protein bars, a jug of Listerine, and a box of condoms. Adam catches my glance and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“By the way,” Millie says, “I’m impressed you were able to turn in that currency paper Friday. I know how difficult that must have been to pull off, considering you lost all of your work.”

“Thanks.”

Millie is being pleasant. This scares me. I am half expecting her to reach in for a hug, at which point her jaw will snap open, and she will eat me.

“Mark and Susan will probably agree the paper needs some serious tweaking, but at least you’ve given them something to work with,” she says.

Ah, there’s the Millie I know and love: never passing up an opportunity to make me look painfully average.

I rummage through my purse in search of my wallet, not wanting to waste any time when it’s my turn at the register. All I want to do is pay and get the hell out of here, and staging an intense exploration of my bag’s interior is a good excuse not to talk to Millie or Adam.

“Hannah?”

A third voice calls my name, one that isn’t Millie’s or Adam’s. I look up and see Jacob Reaser standing right in front of me. He threads his thumbs through the belt loops on his jeans and smiles. I drop my wallet on the floor.

“Jacob—hi,” I say, bending down to pick up my wallet. “Wow, it’s like a party in here today.”

If they had parties in
hell
.

Jacob and Adam look each other up and down. Adam studies the washed-out New Pornographers T-shirt tucked beneath Jacob’s moleskin blazer.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “Adam and Millie, this is Jacob. Jacob, Adam and Millie.”

Jacob gives a friendly hello as he shakes both of their hands. “Nice job last night, by the way. That brisket was killer.”

“Oh … thanks.” I cast a sideways glance at Adam and Millie, since they clearly have no idea what Jacob is talking about, and I don’t want them to.

Adam knits his eyebrows together. “So your brisket is making the rounds, eh?”

“Not really.” My eyes shift between Jacob and Adam. “It’s a long story.”

“We have time,” Millie says.

If there is one person in the world who I don’t want to find out about last night, it is Millie. She has an uncanny ability to wring the joy out of pretty much anything. I pray for a sudden natural disaster—an earthquake or a tornado—to interrupt this scene and terminate this conversation. Either that, or The Rapture.

“Really,” I say, waving my hand. “It’s not worth explaining right now.”

I look at Jacob. This time, I think he gets the hint.

“Next customer!” shouts the man behind the register. That’s me. Oh, thank god.

“Great running into you,” Jacob says. I start to move toward the register, but he rests his hand on my shoulder and stops me in my tracks. “And hey, don’t forget—you still owe me a batch of cinnamon buns. Call me sometime.”

I smile nervously, something I’m sure Adam notices. “Yeah, okay,” I say. “I will.”

Jacob offers a half-wave good-bye, one of those hip-height gestures that falls somewhere between a peace sign and the number three. Not everyone can pull that off, but Jacob can. He seems to pull off a lot of things.

I walk up to the register to pay, and when I look over my shoulder, I see Adam clenching his jaw and staring at Jacob with narrowed eyes.

And even if it’s only the tiniest bit, I have to admit, I suddenly feel better.

I show up at Kramerbooks fifteen minutes late because, let’s be honest, I’m me, and punctuality evades me on a regular basis. As expected, the place is a mob scene. Kramer’s sits on Connecticut Avenue just north of Dupont Circle and is a Washington institution of sorts, functioning as a bookstore, restaurant, and bar all in one. The front always swarms with people perusing the book displays, which overflow with stacks of paperbacks and hardbacks, everything from political memoirs to the juiciest works of fiction. Some of the people browsing through the books are bookworms, but many are waiting for tables in the store’s Afterwords Café, particularly at brunch time on the weekends, when the throng almost doubles in size. At the moment, I can barely move through the store without unintentionally groping someone’s ass.

I peer around the corner toward the bar area and spot Rachel sitting at a small round table, scrolling through her BlackBerry. She perks up as she spots me heading her way.

“Six more reservation requests,” she says. “Word travels fast.”

I slide into the wooden chair across from her and sling my purse over the back. “So that puts us up to what? Sixteen?” I do some hazy math. “We can’t fit sixteen in that dining room. At least not comfortably.”

“I know,” Rachel says, nodding. “That’s why I’ve come up with an idea. Blake is away from Friday until Tuesday morning, right?”

“Yeah …”

“So we can hold two or three dinners in one weekend.”

“
Three
?” I snort loudly. “No way.”

Rachel furrows her brow. “Why not?”

“Because there’s no way I can make that work.”

She purses her lips. “Well, sure, not with that attitude.”

“You don’t get it. Aside from the fact that we’re talking about holding dinners in
my landlord’s house
, I can’t front that kind of money—at least not yet. We made a decent profit last night, but not enough to bankroll the shopping for three dinners in a row.”

Rachel sighs. “Fine. I see your point. What about two dinners? Saturday and Sunday? You’d have twice as much stuff to prep, but we’d use the same menu both nights, so you’d only have to do it once.”

“I still don’t love the idea of using Blake’s house.”

“Hannah, it’ll be fine. The place was spotless when we left last night. I thought cooking was your passion—I thought you wanted to give this a shot.”

“It is. I do.”

“So? Let’s do this. Two dinners, Saturday and Sunday.”

I stick out my jaw and tap my foot nervously against the floor. “Maybe.”

She grins. “I know that tone. That means yes. Yes?”

“I …” I watch as the smile on Rachel’s face grows. “Okay, yes. Fine. Yes.”

Rachel claps her hands together and pulls out a tan moleskin notebook. “Great. Let’s start with the menu. We need a new theme. Any ideas?”

“Actually … yes.”

Ever since we came up with the last dinner’s theme, I’ve been brainstorming other ideas that might work with a group—concepts that would bring together the notion of culture and tradition and would allow me to share my stories and encourage others to share their own. I started thinking about my favorite foods and what I miss since moving to Washington, and that brought me to my hometown: Philadelphia. I thought about cheesesteaks and hoagies, tomato pie and roast pork sandwiches, water ice and Philly-style soft pretzels and black cherry Wishniak soda. All of those foods are woven deeply into the fabric of my childhood, and I haven’t been able to find a decent version of any of them since I moved away from home. So my latest idea—the one Rachel, the taskmaster, has yet to endorse—is to base a menu around Philadelphia’s favorite foods, which I’ll deconstruct and reinvent and whose origins I’ll explain to our guests. Sure, the motivation is a little selfish, but I want to deconstruct a cheesesteak, and by god, that’s what I’m going to do.

And selfish or not, I think people will connect with the idea behind the dinner: the way food tethers us to our personal history. For me it’s Philadelphia, but for someone else it’s London or Boston or Nashville. You move somewhere new and suddenly you can’t find the foods you grew up with. It’s the sort of experience that makes you feel like you’re from a place—mentioning a favorite food and having everyone look at you as if you’re crazy, not because they don’t like that particular food but because they’ve never even heard of it.

Rachel brightens as I describe my idea and go through the possible menu options. “Love it,” she says. “Fantastic.”

She starts scribbling in her notebook, outlining ideas for table decorations and lighting options. As I rattle off menu ideas—pretzel bread, mustard sauce, lemon water ice, cheesesteaks—she makes bullet points and annotations, noting what colors the menu might involve and how that might play into the overall color scheme. As someone to whom “color coordination” means wearing all-black, I am at a loss.