The Secret Ingredient

‘You do, you know.'

‘No, I don't,' Andie protested. ‘I don't read anything into anything.'

‘You read plenty into plenty,' said Jess. ‘Especially where Ross is concerned.'

‘Why do you say that?'

Jess glanced at her friend; she looked apprehensive. Damn, she shouldn't have said anything. ‘Oh, you know,' she said, trying to sound offhand. ‘You can just be a little paranoid sometimes . . .'

‘You think I'm paranoid?' Andie frowned, biting her lip.

‘No, I don't think you're paranoid,' she corrected. ‘I said you can
be
a little paranoid. Sometimes.' Like now, Jess wanted to say. Instead, she picked up a wheel of cheese and lugged it over to the slicer.

‘You're right. I think I used to be a little paranoid,' said Andie, leaning back against the bench. ‘Early on, with Ross. You know, you can't help thinking that if he was capable of leaving his wife for you, then what's to stop him doing it again?'

Jess nodded. ‘How much of this Reggiano do you reckon we should put out today?' she said, hoping to change the subject.

‘But that was ten years ago,' Andie went on, oblivious.

So much for that.

‘I don't think I'm paranoid any more. Ten years is a long time, we're established, secure, we're an old married couple, for goodness sake . . . Which is exactly why I thought the term “current wife” was odd. It seems so . . . transient, or temporary or something. But I wasn't saying it means . . . What exactly do you think it means?'

‘I don't think it means anything, hun,' said Jess, cutting into the rind. Lately Andie seemed to be obsessing rather a lot about what Ross did and what Ross said. Jess didn't like seeing her thrown off balance like this. Bloody Ross, heaven help him if he was up to something.

‘You don't think what means anything?' Donna asked, coming in from the back.

Jess frowned. ‘I have no idea how to answer that question.'

‘Hey, Donna,' Andie smiled. ‘I didn't realise you started early today?'

Donna blinked. ‘Oh, maybe I don't? I better check the roster,' she said, turning back again.

‘Don't worry about it,' said Andie, ‘you're here now.'

That was just like Andie. The deli operated almost like a sheltered workshop for her friends. And friends of friends. Anyone who needed a job was welcome to it, and Andie basically let them choose – even dictate – their hours. Jess took advantage as much as anyone. She had to give priority to any chef work that came her way, but that was patchy at best. The restaurant sector, particularly fine dining, had suffered a battering since the GFC, but Jess was able to take any work she was offered because she could fill the gaps working at the deli. This haphazard approach to rostering meant the place was seriously overstaffed at times, but Andie didn't seem to mind; it wasn't as though she was dependent on the income, and the shop turned a profit regardless. A gourmet deli, in what was perhaps the most salubrious of the eastern suburbs, had a licence to print money. And that was even before the
MasterChef
phenomenon had turned every other person into a wannabe cordon bleu. Jess remembered when a large part of their trade was in ready-prepared hors d'oeuvres for platters and sides. People wanted to impress their friends when they entertained with conspicuously expensive, modish fare, but they couldn't be bothered actually
making
it themselves. Now it was
all
about the making, and Andie was forced to keep the place stocked with a plethora of exotic or otherwise rare ingredients; she virtually ran a hotline to her favourite suppliers on Monday mornings to source ingredients for the latest
MasterChef
challenge.

‘Since you are here, Donna,' Andie continued, with a glance in Jess's direction, ‘let me ask you something. How would you feel if Toby introduced you as his current wife?'

Donna looked confused. Stumped even. She always tried superhard to say what people expected her to say. Jess, on the other hand, had no such compunctions.

‘Um . . . why do you ask?' Donna said tentatively.

‘Because Ross introduced her as his current wife and now she's being all paranoid about it,' said Jess.

‘I'm not being paranoid,' Andie defended. ‘You're the one who suggested it means something, I wasn't even thinking that.'

‘Then why did you bring it up?'

Now Andie looked stumped. ‘You know what,' she said finally, ‘you're right, I shouldn't bring up stuff like this with you. You always think the worst of Ross.'

Jess could hardly argue with that. Truth was, she didn't like Ross, for any number of reasons, but mostly because she didn't like what had happened to her friend since he came into her life. Jess and Andie had met at TAFE training to be chefs. They were excited, ambitious, full of big ideas about the brilliant careers they were going to have, maybe even opening their own restaurant one day. A little pie in the sky, but if you can't have pipedreams when you're twenty, what's the point of being twenty?

They graduated in their checked pants and chef's hats and started looking for jobs and a place to share. Chefs were better off living with other chefs, no one else would tolerate the crazy work hours and the stress and the obsession. Then reality began to creep in. The only jobs they could get were in the bistros of various clubs – the kind where the carpet was about as tasteful as the menu, and the ubiquitous chicken kiev and veal parmigiana weren't even made on the premises, which meant the chef did little more than heat and serve. Things were looking up when Andie got a call back after she applied for a position at Lemongrass, the ‘it' restaurant back then. But it turned out they didn't want her in the kitchen, they wanted her front of house. Andie regarded it as a foot in the door, and though it was that, almost literally, Jess was not so sure. What Andie didn't seem to understand about herself, or at least refused to acknowledge, was that she was way too decorative to be hidden out of sight in the kitchen. Jess eventually got her break as a line cook in the restaurant of a five-star hotel, while Andie remained front of house at Lemongrass for another couple of years. Until she met Ross. He'd frequented the restaurant with clients, never his wife of course, and it wasn't long before he began to pay Andie special attention. She started to drop his name more and more often. Jess noticed and ribbed her about it. Andie coyly denied. It was all typical flatmate banter. Until the night she brought him home after a shift, and Jess saw that not only was he an old man – at their age anyone over forty was old – he was wearing a big fat gold wedding band.

She'd dragged Andie into the kitchen. ‘He's married!'

‘Oh, yeah, kind of.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Well, it's been over a long time.'

‘But he still wears his wedding ring?'

‘Well, yeah, he's still married to her.'

‘You mean they haven't got a divorce yet?'

‘I mean they haven't even separated yet.'

‘What?'

‘He's got kids . . . it's complicated.'

‘No shit.'

Jess had been confounded at the time; what on earth did her friend see in an old guy like him? Okay, he was good-looking – for his age – and he had money, though Jess was not so sure how much he'd have after he went through a divorce. That's if he ever did, and she'd had her doubts. And yeah, sure, there had hardly been any prizes amongst the guys they'd been dating. Andie and Jess used to take turns holding the tissue box for each other when their hearts were broken by yet another dropkick. Well, they weren't really broken, just bruised a little, but with monotonous regularity. Jess got through the tumultuous twenties by toughening up and hardening her heart. She decided to play like a boy: just have fun, not get attached, not have any expectations so they couldn't get shattered. She had never really had misty pictures in her head of her wedding day – marriage was a bit of a crock, human beings weren't built for monogamy, so as far as Jess was concerned, everyone should just get over it. And the idea of children freaked her out a little, quite frankly. So maybe all these commitment-phobe guys were onto something, and Jess decided if she couldn't beat them, she might as well join them.

Andie plunged headlong in the opposite direction. She kept the faith, believing in true love and soulmates and all that hokum. But any half-decent guy – one with the slightest bit of self-awareness, a little depth, and not too much ego – would assume he was out of her league and not even have the gall to approach her. So that just left the wankers who wanted a trophy girlfriend. And Andie was certainly stunning. You could tell her eyes were green from across the room, and she had a mane of golden hair that was so thick she had trouble restraining it under her chef's cap. But Andie was dismissive of her looks, even contemptuous. She used to say, ‘You know, Jess, people are either only attracted to you for the way you look, or they hate you for it. Either way, you lose.'

That was the thing about Andie, despite an outwardly sunny nature – she was one of those people who was nice to everyone – there was a sadness underneath, something wasn't quite right. Jess finally got it out of her one night, after a few drinks. Her brother died tragically when she was in her second year at uni, and her mother fell ill soon after. Andie dropped out of uni to take care of her, until she died about a year later. So by the time Andie started at TAFE she was a few years older than everyone who had come straight from school. But Jess had always felt like the elder; Andie had a vulnerability about her that made her seem much younger.

So when Ross swooped into her life – with all the expertise of an Older Man – Andie was caught off-guard and vastly unprepared. He smothered her with an ardour she had never experienced before. He knew what a prize she was, and he didn't squander it like lesser men before him.

Jess was witness to it all, and to some extent it wasn't difficult to see why Andie fell so hard, particularly given the great, gaping hole left in her life by the loss of her brother and mother. But something about Ross had never sat right with Jess, and it wasn't because he'd left his wife for Andie. That was none of her business, and besides, Jess was firmly of the school that, just as oppositions don't win elections, a third party doesn't break up a marriage.

No, what bothered Jess was that while Ross trowelled on the charm, he always seemed to get his own way. Even this shop – it wasn't Andie's dream to run a deli, no matter how much of a foodie's haven it may be. But Ross didn't like her working restaurant hours, so she never did make it into the kitchen at Lemongrass. She quit instead.

Then seemingly out of the blue, Ross spotted the deli for sale and decided it would be perfect for Andie. Andie wasn't sure at first, but as usual, she came around to Ross's way of thinking, and ended up believing it was the best thing ever.

‘You're always so suspicious about Ross and his motives,' Andie was saying.

‘Huh?' Jess stirred now, looking up from the slicer.

‘Ross, you always think the worst of him.'

‘That is patently unfair,' said Jess. ‘I was actually agreeing with Ross that you read too much into things . . . if you remember back to the beginning of this conversation.'

Andie folded her arms. ‘Okay then,' she said, ‘you're going to have to solve this for us, Donna, once and for all.'

Donna looked startled. ‘Oh, don't ask me to solve anything, you know I'm no good at solving things. Oh gosh, look at the time! Shouldn't we be opening?'

‘I'll get the door,' said Andie, walking around the counter. ‘But just tell me what you think, Donna, I'd really like to know. How would you feel if Toby introduced you as his current wife?'

Donna glanced warily from Andie to Jess, and back to Andie again. ‘Okay.' She took a breath. ‘How would I feel . . . Well, the thing is, I suppose I am Toby's current wife, so there's nothing exactly wrong with him calling me that. But I don't think Toby would . . . Yes, that's it, I just don't think Toby would put it like that. Not that there's anything incorrect about it, per se.'