4
“Babe.”
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. I award myself a mental grace period in hopes that Benji realizes the sandwich I’m making requires actual skill. For me, at least. I don’t cook much anymore—well, let’s be frank, I never really did—now that an esteemed chef shares my address. But when I’m hungry and he’s exhausted, it’s back to a basic turkey-and-cheese for me.
I didn’t think I’d ever feel hungry again after last night’s nonstop food fest at Republic, but Benji picked up a crusty-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside loaf of bread with actual chunks of roasted garlic baked right in it from the Farmer’s Market while I was at work. And it’s a beacon of carby goodness that won’t stop calling my name.
Just like Benji.
“Hey, sweet babe?” he asks again.
“Yeah? What is it?” I finally respond after a lengthy pause.
“Come here. Come look at this email. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a fucking restaurant.”
Benji has left my laptop open on the couch, I’m assuming for me to peruse said email at my leisure while he grabs one of the last Camel Lights from a dingy pack in the pocket of his gray hoodie. I bought that pack for him earlier this morning as he walked me to the bus stop and it already looks like it’s been through a shredder. Stressful day of buying fancy bread and checking email on the couch?
I’ve always thought there were two kinds of smokers: the James Deans and the truck-stop loiterers. Benji is a James Dean, so I let it slide, especially since a cig hanging from his lips means he’s not smoking coke through a foil pipe.
I humor him, taking a seat on my couch and grabbing my laptop. To be clear, I’m not fighting some sort of custody battle over inanimate objects. It’s just that ever since Benji moved in with me a few months ago, boundaries have become a bit...blurred? Most days, I really like sharing my space with Benji. But every once in a while, I start to feel a little claustrophobic. It could be the 500-square-feet cabin fever kicking in, but today is most definitely one of those days.
Last night, I was famous, he was sober, and we were more in love than ever before when we had amazing sex until two in the morning. Then come 9:00 a.m., I was sluggishly pushing out tweets about a cotton swab while wondering why Jazzy and Maya wouldn’t text me back about some stupid TV show and if my direct deposit will hit when it’s supposed to so my bills aren’t late. It’s exhausting going from cloud nine to nine-to-five over and over.
Again, not the time for an emotional audit. Not when I need to see what this email is all about.
Dear Benji, the email begins. Before I read more, I peek at the sender’s address: [email protected] The email rings a bell, though I can’t quite place it.
My name is Angela Blackstone. I was a patron at last week’s pop-up dinner.
Bingo. It all comes back to me. I picture pasting her name and email into an Excel spreadsheet and recall her paying for two tickets to last Friday’s penthouse event.
As a fan of the Chicago food scene and industry professional myself (I’m the General Manager of Florette just outside of Chicago), I can confidently say you are doing some of the most interesting, flat-out genius stuff I have ever seen in a kitchen. From the carrot mousse as the amuse-bouche to the bourbon honeycomb panna cotta for the sweet finish, it was all so theatrical. Meaningful. Complicated. Appetizing. Amazing.
Now to be candid, as much as I follow your culinary delights, I am also privy to what they say about your lifestyle. Regardless, I want to talk to you about an opportunity.
I know what goes into a five-hour, five-course dinner like the one you hosted Friday. And so long as blood, sweat and tears don’t count for shit as seasonings, I know you are not actually considering doing pop-up dinners for the rest of your career. You are one of the best that ever has been and ever will be. It would be a shame if all of that capped at these fly-by-night dinners.
Like I said, I am in the industry. I helped open some of the best restaurants just outside of Chicago and earned accolades of all types less than 12 months after the doors opened. The gentleman financially behind those places is looking to invest, finally, in a space in downtown Chicago. As a result, he has excused me from my current role to start scouting for this forthcoming restaurant. After the location and talent is secured, it will be a fast, hard open. I will become the new GM and I’d like you to be Chef de Cuisine.
This is not a joke. This is not a drill. Reply for further details and give my best to Allie. She was a wonderful hostess on Friday night. Just tell her to keep an eye on her billfolds if you keep doing those pop-ups...
-Angela
Ah-ha.
So the bitchy blonde firecracker who damn near broke my sternum shoving a folder of cash into my chest wants to give my boyfriend a restaurant. Well, she’s going to have to get in line with the fifty other people who, for their own selfish reasons, like to dangle shiny false hopes in front of a guy who is trying to focus on getting his life together.
I take a bite of my sandwich and the crusty bread roughs up the roof of my mouth. The nerve of this woman and her sadistic little email has also managed to suck the saliva from my mouth, and now I’m rage-chewing and wishing I hadn’t forgotten my Diet Coke on the counter.
“What do you think?” Benji says as he blows a thick stream of smoke out the window.
“Still reading,” I say. Still processing is the real answer.
In Benji’s defense, yes, Angela’s offer sounds legit. But there’s a good chance she’s like all the rest: just someone who wants fewer degrees of separation between herself and the beautiful lunatic they see portrayed in the media.
I’ve got one job when it comes to Benji, at least until he gets a little more sobriety under his belt. And that job is to protect him. Protect him from the people who want to either glorify his addiction, or sabotage it.
I’ve got to look out for myself, too. “Give my best to Allie.” A cordial sign-off from a woman who just four days ago let me know exactly what she thought of my ability, or should I say inability, to command a room? I smell bullshit—even through the aromatic cloves of garlic six inches from my nose.
“I think this could be good for my reputation,” Benji says, ashing out the window before taking his next drag.
Here’s the thing about his reputation. He may be the one responsible for trashing it, but I care about building it back. I know that’s mostly his job, but we need people not to lose interest in his pop-ups. If he switches gears and takes the bait Angela’s hooked, we risk losing out on the type of cash flow that can be made with the snap of a finger. Or the sear of a scallop, I should say.
I get the allure of what Angela is offering: steady paychecks from a hot, new open. But Benji has sabotaged anything and everything that could have been good for him. In fact, he admitted that verbatim to me the first time we met. I thought it was the whiskey talking, to be honest, so I just giggled, asked for another glass of sauv blanc, and looked past it. I mean, who just matter-of-factly states that if it’s a good thing, he’s going to throw acid on it?
Perhaps not taking that warning seriously was an oversight on my part during the whole getting-to-know-him phase. But as his current girlfriend, I am now very familiar with his former MO. So while I should be supportive and excited at the thought that someone wants to give him a chance—a real, substantiated chance—I just can’t see the light when so many red flags clog my vision.
Angela has no idea how fragile Benji really is. Her job is to taste his food, catch a glimpse of him in the kitchen, post it on her Instagram and feel like the popular kid in school when the likes roll in. That’s it. She has no idea the size of the pot she’s stirring by promising sunshine, rainbows and restaurants. But I’ve managed to show him the way thus far and I’m not letting him take a detour on this dead-end offer. Go ahead, call me his part-time girlfriend, part-time game keeper. It’s true. God, Facebook “it’s complicated” relationships have nothing on us.
Then why the hell am I sticking around? Because the sex is just that good? I mean, it’s the best I’ve ever had by far, but that’s not what keeps me here. And neither is the cooking, although that’s a hell of a hook. So have I bought into the delusion that I’ll be the one thing that changes Benji, that sobers him up, shakes his shoulders and turns him into the Top Chef the whole country knows he can be?
Well.
Kind of.
I haven’t failed at much in my life so far. At least, not this quickly. For all the irritation and frustration a situation like this can carry, part of me really does believe that I could be the missing piece. Benji seems to think so, too. He tells me every day that no matter what success he has, it’s because of me. Everyone can see he’s doing so much better now that we’re together. And last night—three months of sobriety—is proof.
Benji rejoins me on the couch. My apartment reeks of cigarette smoke and mustard. I hate to admit that it’s not a terrible combo.
“That email’s crazy, right, Al?”
That’s one word for it. I don’t know what to say back, so I let Due Diligence Debbie chime in.
“Sure, but do you even know anything about this chick?” I decide not to tell him that I do, that she nearly football-tackled me over the little slipup I made when busing tables.
He takes the laptop back but doesn’t answer the question.
“Also, what happens with your pop-ups? You’re just going to ditch doing those right after FoodFeed announces it’s the one can’t-miss dining experience of Chicago? You finally have a real, passionate following, Benji. Just the other day I was at brunch and my server was begging me to spill the beans on your next dinner. Do you realize how easily you could sell them out? You’d be booked the next six dinners if you scheduled them.”
Full disclosure when it comes to his pop-ups: I front all food and supply costs. It’s not something I wanted to do, but when he came to me with a solid plan about how to pull off these pop-ups and contribute financially to our household, the Bank of Allie was really the only one willing to give the loan needed to get his idea off the ground. Plus, it was the only way to do this while avoiding his number one trigger—easy access to cash.
It works like this: Benji announces a pop-up on social media after he secures a “venue.” I use that term loosely since he never actually acquires any permits or paperwork. Therefore the destination for these dinners depends on who’s willing to say yes to letting him take over their space for a few hours, which usually means it’s only a matter of days between the initial announcement and the dinner itself. By that point, I will have withdrawn anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars from my personal account to purchase the last-minute ingredients and supplies.
Fronting the money isn’t as scary as it sounds. When someone wants a seat at the pop-up, they have to pay immediately online. The money goes directly into my account so I can pay myself back. After I’m reimbursed, the profit is enough to cover stuff like his cell phone bill, our gas and water usage, a fraction of the cable bill. We could probably stand to make even more of a bottom line, but there are only so many seats available to sell and Benji has a habit of insisting he needs just twenty dollars more for bigger sea urchins...or for a new slotted spoon...or to pay Sebastian in cigarettes. Even though the ebb and flow of things has become my obsession in the last few months, I can’t begrudge him twenty dollars. Plus, when I see people post gorgeous pictures of his beautifully composed dishes, I know there’s no possibility he’s abusing our system.
So if the pop-ups alone just cover the basic bills, where do we really rake it in? With gratuities. By the time the dinners end, patrons forget they’ve prepaid for their meal so it feels weird to them leaving the table empty—especially since they had a good time and ate great food. They dip into their wallets for whatever cash they have stashed away and make sure to leave it all as a token of their appreciation. It’s exactly like last night when Benji cascaded twenties like a waterfall onto the table at Republic before we got up to go home. But we were just two people, and stone sober at that. When an entire roomful of overserved celeb-chef chasers are involved, the result is hundreds of dollars just for a glimpse of the man-bun and a taste of his Sriracha Jell-O cubes.
I’ve thought about looking into legitimizing this business but the thought of figuring out an LLC for a guy whose credit looks like it’s been through a meat grinder is daunting as fuck. For now, I’m not worried as long as we continue to keep the gratuities as all-cash and totally under the table.
And as long as Angela is not in the picture.
“The pop-ups are what they are,” he says. “But this...this could be legit. Like, some real steady shit.”
He cracks his knuckles—the gesture I know means he’s getting excited about something. The first time I saw him do it was the second time we ever hung out. He had just gotten a text from a buddy who’d scored an eight ball (aka a helluva lot of cocaine) from a dealer known for having the good shit.
“I don’t know, Benji. I don’t have the best feeling about this proposition,” I say.
“Come on, Allie. You know I want my own restaurant. That’s always been the goal. To get four stars from the Trib. To have Candice Allegro give me a James Beard Award.”
To get what? From whom?
“All I’m saying is: Why would I slave my dick off doing pop-ups anymore if I don’t have to?”
This is a wee bit frustrating to hear considering he’s spent about two-thirds of his tenancy in my apartment basically just sitting on my couch focusing on his sobriety. The pop-ups are new and exciting. They’re just starting to get off the ground. Should he already consider retiring?
“But you’re making a profit that you don’t have to split every which way,” I remind him. “And you get to do what you want to do with the menu. Wasn’t that the goal?”
“You’ve got to think bigger than these pop-ups, babe. These dinners were always just supposed to be a distraction. A means to an end. And it looks like the end is coming real fucking quick.”
Benji hits Reply and starts pounding letters on the keyboard. I already know he’s drafting a note back to discuss this more so I excuse myself to put my dirty dish away before he asks me to proofread it.
Moments later: “Boom. The bitch already wrote back. We’re on for coffee tomorrow.”
The speed at which he propels himself into these head-on collisions is beyond my understanding. Sometimes, the chasm of difference between us repulses me, though I wish it didn’t. I just think about relationships like my mom and dad’s and wonder if I’m on the right track. They’ve been married for thirty-some-odd years and together even longer than that. Whatever the secret to a lasting relationship is, they know it. Would my dad ever do something rash without discussing it thoroughly with my mom? Before I play it out in my head, I stop comparing. This is my love story, I reason.
I rinse my dish under the sink as Benji comes up slowly and softly behind me. He puts his arms around me and lays his head on my back.
“Put that down,” he says. “I’ll clean when you’re at work tomorrow.”
I’d rather not leave filth in the sink overnight, but Benji starts kissing my neck and suddenly I lose my motor skills. He guides me a few steps to our bed and lifts my shirt over my head.
* * *
Benji had his own place for a hot minute. He invited me over sometime around our third date and made me dinner while sipping out of a fifth of whiskey he kept by the oven like a handy bottle of olive oil.
He plated the meal and slid it across his large kitchen island. I climbed up on a bar-height stool and he sat down next to me a moment later.
“Dig in, baby girl,” he said.
As I looked down at the plate, I was so intimidated. Scared I didn’t know how to cut into whatever he made and that I would proceed to eat a part you’re not supposed to. I was unsure if I’d even like the way it tasted.
But one bite in and my world was rocked.
“You like?”
I could only nod as I swallowed my food.
“Next time, dinner at my place. I’ll make you my famous grilled cheese. I use tinfoil on an ironing board,” I said.
At that, he spat out his most recent pull of whiskey and let out a laugh from deep within his chest. I hadn’t ever heard a laugh like that, especially not from him. It softened his edgy demeanor even though I’m pretty sure he was mocking me for my lack of kitchen skills.
“You know what? An ironing-board grilled cheese sounds hella good. Sign me the fuck up for that,” he said.
The rest of the night went just like that: jokes and drinks. He was way more palatable than I had ever imagined him being.
“Okay,” Benji had said as he cleared away our dirty plates. “Now, you’re going to fuck me.”
It wasn’t a demand. He was simply right. I was going to sleep with him. I wanted to sleep with him.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of my alarm on my phone around six in the morning. I had set it extra early so that I could get back to my place, shower the sex off and get to work looking somewhat put together.
As I reached to silence my phone and sneak out of bed, Benji pulled me back like a magnet, burrowing me into the nook of his chest. I was the small spoon, which in itself wasn’t so outstanding. But he held me closer, tighter, harder than I had ever been held by anyone before.
And in that moment, when even in his sleepy haze he still objected to my leaving, I knew this wasn’t going to be just a onetime thing. Was it a lifetime thing, or even a long-term thing? Who knew? But contrary to my story with Benji being over, I was sure whatever was coming had only just begun.