Tess
AS TWILIGHT HOVERS over the Chicago skyline, the color of the sky reminds me of his eyes—stormy gray. My small car can’t accelerate fast enough for me to erase the image from my mind. I concentrate on moving through the traffic on Clark Street, changing lanes when I can, in an effort to think of anything else because he will not capture anymore of my attention.
After all, I have spent the last six years of my life with him, and thought it would be forever. Boy, was I wrong.
As crazy as it sounds, when Ansel Gaspard and I met, I just knew we were going to hit it off.
That day is a day I’ll never forget.
It was my first day at the Culinary Institute in New York City. I had recently transferred from the University of Chicago to complete my final year of studying restaurant management at the elite establishment. It was also Ansel’s first day. He had moved from France to finish his advanced culinary arts training in the city where he had decided he wanted to live.
He was late for class, and the only seat open was the one next to mine. I looked up. He looked down. When our eyes met, we both knew we had to have each other. I always said he charmed me from his very first ‘bonjour’. Not only was he hot, but his French accent left me breathless.
We quickly became an item, and before I even blinked, the year was over. That was when we became business partners. You see, after graduating, Ansel convinced me to stay in the city, and then he convinced me we should open Gaspard together. “With mind and talent, we can’t go wrong,” he’d said.
Unlike most businesses, startup expenses weren’t an obstacle for us because Ansel came from money. Gaining attention, notoriety, establishing ourselves, now those were obstacles. The first two years of Gaspard being in business were tough, both physically and emotionally. Ansel and I worked seven days a week, usually different shifts to keep management coverage. I opened at two and usually left by ten. He came in at four and stayed until closing. Our relationship had always been easy and I didn’t think the lack of quality time we spent together mattered. The fact was, I was independent, and I never relied on anyone.
So, I did my thing. He did his. I thought it worked.
Things started looking up for the restaurant after Ansel earned his Michelin star. So much so that two years later, four years after we opened the doors, we were considered one of the best French restaurants in the city, and we had done it together.
Together.
We were a team. At least I thought we were.
Bastard.
My phone rings and the sound jars me from my hostile thoughts. Reaching across the passenger seat, I slip my hand into the front pouch of my purse. When I check the display, I can’t help but smile. It is my best friend, Fiona Miller.
She’s the girl who moved next door to me in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst when we were both five. Ever since then we have been stuck together like glue. We’ve seen each other through so much, and I can honestly say I love her like no one else in my life, except maybe for Max, her son.
“Hi, Fiona,” I answer.
“Tessseee,” she greets. “You’re never going to guess what I’m doing right now.”
I glance at the clock on the dash of my new car. Well, new to me. It is only six in the evening. Is she drunk this early? That’s not like her at all. “Making dinner?” I guess to appease her. And drinking too much wine, I want to add but don’t. Not yet anyway. I need to feel the situation out. See what’s up.
“Beeeeeppppp . . . no. The baby already ate, and there will be no further food preparations in this household for anyone by me tonight. Try again.”
Okay, I think, something happened, and hence the wine. Just then I hear a noise in the background that sounds like splashing. “Giving Max a bath?” I guess again.
She laughs, but it doesn’t sound sincere. “Well, yes, but no. Hell, forget the guessing game, I’ll just tell you. I’m walking around the bathroom in my brand new bikini with a giant glass of wine in my hand trying to keep it together. I’d lock myself in here for the next two weeks if the doorknob wasn’t broken.”
“Fiona, what happened? What’s going on?” I ask with concern.
With a sigh, she whisper yells, “Ethan wants to postpone the trip.”
I stop at a light. “Oh, no, Fi, why? Did he chicken out about spending the money?”
She gives me a slight laugh. “Believe it or not, no.”
“Did something come up at work?”
Ethan has recently become junior partner at his firm and seems to work all the time. “No, believe it or not, it isn’t work either,” she replies with a sniffle this time.
She’s been crying.
“Then why?” I ask. “You’ve been planning this trip to Fiji for months. It’s your dream honeymoon, and Ethan knows it.”
Fiona and Ethan are both attorneys. They met while working on a case, on opposite sides. It was not love at first sight. More like hate at first sight. Fiona was an associate at one law firm and Ethan was an associate at another. They spent a lot of time together over a thirty-day period, and somehow ended up between the sheets. Just once, she insisted. Still that was enough for her to accidently get pregnant. Shortly after the discovery, they married, she took a leave of absence from her job, and now almost four years later, they are finally going on their honeymoon. Fiona has been looking forward to this trip for a quite a while.
“Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.” Max is on repeat again and I have to suppress my chuckle. This is a new phase and Fiona goes mad when he does that.
“Max, what does Mommy say about repeating the same word over and over?” Fiona asks him softly.
“Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.”
She sighs. “Sorry, Tess. Are you still there?”
The light turns green and I hit the accelerator. “Yes. Now tell me what happened? Why does Ethan want to put the trip off?”
“I don’t think I should tell you,” she hiccups.
“Fi, tell me,” I demand.
Her voice grows low. “Don’t be mad.”
“Okay, I won’t be mad, I promise. Now tell me.”
“He’s worried Max will be too much for you to handle in your state.”
I frown. “In my state?” I say in question.
“You know what I mean.”
“In my state!” I repeat loudly.
“Max has been a lot to handle lately, and Ethan’s not sure you’re up to taking care of Max after everything that happened with Ansel.”
“I was going through a break up, Fi, not a break down.”
Yes, for a small period of time I might have felt like my world ended. And at the time I thought it had. My life was Gaspard—the restaurant—and it was taken from me. Sure, I had suddenly moved back to Chicago three weeks ago and cried on Fiona’s couch for seven days straight. I felt lost. Who wouldn’t? I’d spent years giving everything I had to my job. And yes, I might have even refused to go out of the house. And perhaps I had eaten nothing but ice cream for three of those seven days. But that was weeks ago.
Slowly, I’d slipped out of the haze and realized I could do it again. The restaurant that is, not Ansel. This time it would be my way. Simple. Easy. No show. No glitz. No glam.
And I got my shit together.
I moved into my own place, a very affordable studio just west of the South Side. I haven’t unpacked, or bought furniture, but those are minor details. I’ve been busy getting started on my new quest.
Fiona thinks I’m crazy to attempt this alone. She says she knows a guy who would be perfect for me. “Why not settle down and buy a house with a white picket fence?” she has said over and over. I put an end to that crazy idea before she could even blurt the guy’s name out.
I’m not cut out for relationships.
I can never be what men want me to be.
I’ve proven that over and over.
Managing the restaurant made me feel like I mattered. Like I was in control. It made me feel like maybe that is who I am.
So, my answer is to be me. Or a version of me that seems closest to who I am, anyway.
That doesn’t make me crazy or unfit.
It just makes me closer to the me I think I could be. It seems I’ve moved away from that person over the years.
Besides, putting all of my woes aside, I had planned to watch Max for the two weeks Fiona and Ethan would be gone way before Ansel and I broke up and I moved back to Chicago. I was flying here to stay at her house. If I could handle it then, I could handle it now.
“His words, not mine,” Fiona states. “And you said you wouldn’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad, Fi, but you don’t think it’s a little late to start second guessing the person you both entrusted to take care of your son in the event of your death? His Godmother. His guardian,” I remind her.
“That’s what I told him,” she whisper yells.
“And?”
“He said he’s having cold feet.”
I slam the steering wheel. “That’s bullshit. He’s going on a vacation, not getting married again. He’s just using me as an excuse to get out of it for his own reasons, and that is completely unacceptable. Now how about you get Max out of the tub, dry that hot little bikini of yours, and get packed. You are going on your honeymoon tomorrow as planned.”
She sighs yet again. “Tess, I don’t think I can change Ethan’s mind this time. He seems determined to postpone this trip.”
Switching lanes, I prepare to make a U-turn. The offices of Fitz, Graham, and Wheeler are only minutes away, and I am going to pay Ethan Miller a visit. “Fi, you might not be able to persuade him, but I guarantee I can.”
“Tess, what are you going to do?” she asks hesitantly.
My wheels skid on the black ice as I make the illegal turn. “Why, Fi, what all unstable, broken-hearted women like me do. Put him in his place.”
And that I say with a smile.