ONE
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"Whisk!" Heather said, her hand out, her tone brisk.
The kitchen was warm, both from the recent use of the ovens and from the golden summer sunlight pouring through the window, filtered past the leaves of green herbs that crowded the sill. Their tender stems made lattice shadows on the white tile floor.
"Whisk!" eight-year-old Chloe confirmed, placing the copper-plated cooking tool in her mother's hand. The light caught her pale blond braids and turned them nearly white. Heather kept waiting for Chloe's hair to darken to the deeper sandy color Heather had, but it stayed as bright as it had been when Chloe was born.
"Silicone spatula!" Heather said as the tucked the whisk into the modified tackle box she used to carry her tools—all except for her knives, which had their own case.
"Spatula!" Chloe darted across the bright, open kitchen to retrieve the spatula and put it in her mother's hand. The kitchen was the nicest room in their modest little Brooklyn apartment, which was appropriate since it was the one they spent the most time in. Heather's catering business demanded nothing less.
"Measuring spoons!" Heather called, and she listened as Chloe rattled through a drawer for them briefly. This was a game they'd played since Chloe was old enough to tell a basting spoon from a spaghetti server. Chloe ran back and forth like a nurse attending a surgeon, helping her mother pack up for her next event. It helped her feel involved and kept her from sneaking around and stealing bites from the aluminum trays full of prepped hors d'oeuvres and ingredients waiting to go into the van.
"Measuring spoons!" Chloe said, handing them over.
"Perfect!" Heather took them, packing them away and then standing back. "I think that's just about everything."
"Wait! Apron!" Chloe said, running to get one. She returned with a red one that had white ruffled lace around the bottom edge.
"The red one?" Heather raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah, and you should wear your pearl earrings too!" Chloe said, handing her mother the apron. "It's been forever since you got rid of Craig."
She said Heather's ex-boyfriend's name with all the undisguised scorn an eight-year-old could muster.
"You should try and impress someone new!"
Heather laughed. "I'm going to be working tonight, not looking for a date."
"But it's a fashion show!" Chloe said. "There's gonna be all kinds of pretty people there in all kinds of pretty clothes!"
Heather sighed wistfully. Chloe's passion for fashion, though a relatively recent one, was ferocious. Heather had been encouraging it and had learned not to underestimate it the hard way.
"I probably won't see any of it," Heather reminded her. "I'll be in the back working, after all."
"Better than being stuck here getting sewing lessons from grandma," Chloe grumbled.
"I thought you loved sewing?" Heather frowned. It was Chloe who had added the white ruffles to the red apron under Nana Linda's supervision.
"I do," Chloe said with a grumpy huff. "I'd just rather be at a fashion show..."
"Well, what if I told you that you will be?"
Chloe's eyes widened with sudden, delighted hope.
"Nana Linda is playing bridge with her friends tonight," Heather said, grinning. "So you get to come to work with me!"
Chloe squealed with delight, jumping up and down, and then she froze abruptly.
"I have to go change," she said in mock horror. Then she bolted down the hall to her room.
Heather rolled her eyes and turned back to her toolbox. Chloe would probably pull out her entire closet before she picked an outfit, so Heather knew she would have plenty of time to double check everything. She ran her hands over the cool granite countertop as she went over the list she'd made the night before on a yellow legal pad crowded with similar lists.
Checking it against the contents of the toolbox, she realized she'd almost forgotten the glass ramekins she used for organizing spices and small ingredients before cooking. She turned to one of the overhead cabinets to fetch them, pushing aside the glasses and coffee cups stored in the same place. She paused when her fingers grazed a forgotten mug near the back of the cabinet. Slowly, knowing she probably shouldn't, she pulled the mug toward her.
Straight-backed, crisp as the edges of her chef's uniform—trim black pants and a white coat—Heather stood in a pool of sunlight from the kitchen window as she turned the ceramic mug over in her hands. It was off white, with an artsy cut-out graphic of Fire Island Lighthouse. They'd gone there on vacation last summer, she and Chloe and Craig. Chloe and Heather had been picking out stuffed animals and key chains in the souvenir shop when he’d picked this up, caving to their insistence that he get something to remember the trip by.
He'd been noticeably unenthusiastic most of the trip. He had wanted to go somewhere more “fun,” without Chloe, but Heather had insisted it be a family trip. It had been Chloe's summer vacation after all. She wondered if that had been the beginning of the end with Craig, or just the point where she’d started noticing all the warning signs.
It had been a month since the breakup. Heather had to admit she hadn't exactly taken it well. She had wanted it to work so badly. She knew she could do fine on her own, but she wanted Chloe to have a father figure.
Looking around, she realized the mug wasn't the only thing of Craig's still hanging around like a bad smell. He'd left one of his jackets hanging by the door. Forgotten razors and deodorant were in the bathroom. Old DVDs and records lay in the living room. There was more, probably. She put the mug down, looked in her toolbox one last time, ensuring it was ready to go, and then closed the lid.
A minute later she was touring the house with a cardboard box, scooping Craig's things into it with businesslike detachment. Maybe she'd find someone to raise Chloe with in the future, but it definitely wasn't going to be Craig, so there was no point in being emotional about him now. She smiled as she chucked his baseball cap and his copy of Barbarella into the box, relieved. This was good, finally shaking off the settled rubble of that disaster of a relationship. It was good it was over. She was glad it was over!
She paused in the bathroom, his old toothbrush in her hand, as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She'd kept her figure after having Chloe. She was a chef. If there was anything she knew how to do, it was how to eat healthily. And she stayed active, working out three times a week. Her dark blond hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail, out of the way for work, but it was shiny and full above her blue-gray eyes. She was wearing minimal makeup. It always ended up running while she was working, so she didn't see the point. Still, she used to think she looked great. But it hadn't been enough for Craig, who'd cheated on her more than once before the end. More than once he'd tried to say it was her own fault for “letting herself go.” Logically, Heather knew that had nothing to do with him deciding to sleep around, but the words had stung anyway, and they’d hung around long after Craig had gone, telling her she should be trying harder.
She shook herself to clear her thoughts, dropped his toothbrush into the box, and moved on. She should call him, she thought as she set the box down on the coffee table in the living room. She contemplated it for a moment, the prospect of talking to him looming unpleasantly like a vulture over fresh roadkill. Then she shook her head. Not today. Maybe in a week, when things felt a little less raw.
She checked her watch and hissed an anxious breath through her teeth.
"Chloe, we've gotta go!" she called. "We're late!"
"I'm coming!" Chloe yelled back. "One more outfit!"
Heather rolled her eyes and went to drag her daughter out of her closet.
Once Chloe had been assured her outfit looked fine, they rushed to load the food and the last of the supplies into the catering company van waiting downstairs. She met her mother coming out of her own apartment a floor below as they carried the last tray of food down.
"Hi, Nana!" Chloe called, waving from behind the Tupperware container of dishes she was carrying. "I'm going to a fashion show!"
"I know!" Nana Linda chuckled indulgently. Heather's mother had aged well. She was still tall and straight despite being over sixty, and she had thinning, silver-white hair that she kept pinned up.
"Thank you so much for taking Chloe tonight. It's Eleanor’s seventieth. She's insisted we not make a fuss, but I should at least be there."
"Of course, Mom," Heather said. "It's no big deal. Chloe's old enough to behave herself, and she's desperate to see the show anyway."
"You're a saint, darling," Linda said, pulling Heather into an awkward cheek kiss over the tray of food she was holding. "It's no wonder those men walk all over you."
"Mother!" Heather scolded, embarrassed.
"You can't fight the truth, Heather," Linda said, patting her daughter's cheek. "But you can try to be less of a pushover with the next one."
Heather sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing, not with Linda, even if giving in just proved the old woman's point.
"We have to get going," she said. "We're running late. Enjoy your card games."
"Oh I will," Linda said. "Eleanor will be drinking, and she can't bluff to save her life when she's drunk. I'm going to make a killing."
"Try not to bankrupt the woman on her birthday," Heather called back as they headed for the stairs.
"Try not to come home without a male model!" Linda yelled, cackling with laughter.