8
Hi Connor,
I have a doctor’s appointment at 11am today so I’ll be taking my lunch a little early. I should be back around noon but will call Linda if anything comes up. Stacey and Dionte will watch the social streams for me while I’m OOO.
Thanks,
Allie
Send.
It’s Friday. Our appointment to see the space with Craig (or should I say “Doctor” Craig?) is coming up in just a couple of hours. I haven’t slept soundly since—well, to be frank, since I met Benji. But I’ve been especially restless since our conversation two days ago over roasted chicken. While Benji was able to escape promptly after things got heated and attend a support meeting with his sponsor, I still haven’t been able to find a similar source of instant chi. Even if I did drag myself to a support group like Nar-Anon, I’m not sure how it would change the enormous ask I know is coming from the man I’m supposed to be loving and supporting in his recovery in any way I can.
I also can’t just call a friend to reaffirm that I’m not crazy. If I respond to Jazzy’s and Maya’s apology texts and fill them in with what’s going on, it’ll just give them more material for a relationship they already think is a joke. I know the three of us will work our drama out in time, but right now I need them to sit and stew a bit so they understand it’s not okay to haphazardly mention over drinks that they think my boyfriend is going to spiral out any minute.
Aside from them, the remaining members of my circle of trust are some girls from book club who I never really hang out with unless Jazzy and Maya are there and my coworkers, Stacey and Dionte. I’m friendly with these two, as friendly as you can be with people you spend forty-plus hours a week with. But the daily woes I face with Benji are hardly fodder for watercooler gossip.
So I guess that leaves my parents—or more specifically, my mother.
Ever since I was a kid, my mom would say, “As long as you tell me the truth, I won’t be mad.” I tested this theory once in a toy store that sold rolls of scrapbook stickers. I peeled off six inches worth of sparkly smile faces and put them in my pocket.
When I got home, I immediately stuck them on my school notebooks. Soon after, she asked me where I got the stickers. I told her I found them in a bush outside of the toy store. She then promptly grabbed my arm, tossed me in the car and drove me back to the toy store where she made me tell the owner what I did, apologize profusely and give them all back. I got grounded for a month.
Flash forward to the night I graduated high school and confessed I got caught underage drinking at a house party. She was disappointed, but helped pay my legal fees and get it expunged from my record like it was NBD.
That said, I’m sure I’ll have her support, but it just doesn’t feel like the right time to tell her about Benji’s restaurant proposition. But I guess it’s always the right time to just hear her voice. So I call her.
“Hi, honey,” she says. “Is everything alright?”
I try to call my mom most days on my way home from work. It makes the smell of BO on the bus less noticeable. I forget that a call from me this early in the morning could be cause for concern.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’m just, um...” bad at lying, I think to myself. “I had a few minutes before my next meeting and wanted to get the phone number of your hair lady. I’m in dire need of a root touch-up and everything in the city is booked.”
I’m not in need of a touch-up, nor do I need the phone number of a lady who does hair for middle-aged women in the suburbs. But what I do need is my mom’s care and concern, even about something as trivial as caramel-colored highlights.
“Sure. I do have it written down somewhere, but I’ll have to call you back. I’m on my way to tennis. I read in the paper that the girl I play doubles with got caught shoplifting at Kohl’s and I want to see if she says anything about it.”
“Cool. Have fun playing detective, Mom.”
“I will. Love you, Al. ’Bye.”
Oh, normalcy. How I’ve missed you.
* * *
Benji has been exceptionally polite to me for the past twenty-four hours. He even went down on me, which he hasn’t done since being fueled by cocaine. Not because he’s against it when he’s sober, but because he says his taste buds are too sensitive to do it. I’m not sure how much truth there is to that, but it seems like a good excuse for a high-profile chef to get out of doing some dirty work.
This morning I woke up to the simplest, sweetest email. Benji sent it to me sometime after I fell asleep last night (note: a chef and a nine-to-fiver have completely different circadian rhythms) and I’ve reread it probably twelve times already today.
You are my princess. Everything I ever wanted but never knew I needed.
Lunch is in the fridge for when you leave to catch the bus. Love you SO SO SO much.
-B
The email, the lunch, the cunnilingus—I know it’s all leading up to our meeting with Angela and Craig. And Benji knows, too. Anything he can do to lessen the blow of asking me to sign over just about everything I have to my name, he’ll do. And while I must admit that the steak sandwich with caramelized onions and leftover gnocchi for lunch is a nice touch, it doesn’t make my decision any easier.
My phone buzzes with a text.
On the way w/ Angela. Pick U up @ 10:45. White Jetta.
I can feel the anxiety start to flow through my veins the way you can feel the buzz of alcohol, except this is nowhere near as fun as being tipsy. It’s just a conversation with this Craig guy, I remind myself.
This Craig guy. I wish I had his last name, or the name of his investment firm, so I could have done some online due diligence. I picture someone tall and tan (probably because he just got back from playing golf in Palm Springs) with sandy blondish-gray hair. I’m expecting porcelain veneers and a personality to match: fake, flashy and distracting.
Could a guy like him—or at least, a guy like the one I imagine Craig to be—even be serious about financing a restaurant with someone like Benji? I know Angela was candid in her email, saying she knew about Benji’s past, but the first three Google hits for “Benji Zane” revolve around drugs, firings and going off the deep end. Wouldn’t that scare any practical person away?
Then I remember the first time I Googled Benji and answer my own question. Nope. In fact, it does the opposite. It pulls you in like the suction from a drain.
Downstairs, reads the text from Benji. I take a deep breath, throw my phone into my purse and slither out for my appointment without so much as saying “I’ll be back soon” to Stacey or Dionte.
As I trot down the back access stairwell, my heels clicking on the metal steps, I wonder how Angela is going to treat me when we meet again in just a few moments. After all, the last time our paths crossed, the encounter was essentially a less intense version of a strong-armed assault. She can’t possibly be that rude to me in front of Benji, right? I have to imagine pissing off the chef’s girlfriend/bankroll is a huge faux pas if she wants to get this restaurant off the ground.
Angela’s white Jetta is parked in front of the entrance to my building in a fire lane with her hazards on. Benji is in the passenger’s seat but quickly gets out when he sees me coming.
“Hi, baby, you look cute today,” he says, giving me a kiss and letting me sit shotgun for the ride over. He’s in a gray blazer and black skinny jeans looking like a more burly, more built Adam Levine. I buckle my seat belt, remind everyone I have an hour, hour and a half tops, and get ready for the awkward ride over.
“Angela, meet Allie. Allie, meet Angela.” Little does he know, we’ve already met; hell, we’ve already been physical together.
We both say, “Hi, nice to meet you,” at exactly the same time. It’s a truce.
“Thanks so much for coming to get me—excited to see the space,” I say out of respect for Benji.
“My pleasure,” says Angela, pulling back out into traffic. “Full disclosure, there’s a few things you’ve got to look past. It hasn’t been maintained as well as it should have over the years, but the possibilities are endless. It’s a real diamond in the rough, as they’d say. You’re going to fall in love with it.”
Is she describing the restaurant? Or the man sitting behind me?
Take the money aspect out of the equation, and I am excited to see the space—truly. I know how big a deal Randolph Street is, and the fact that there’s a soon-to-be-abandoned space up for grabs is major. No matter who winds up there—whether it’s us or some other chef (god, I hope it’s the latter)—the square footage will inevitably convert into something press-worthy, and we’ll have seen it first. Even with all the anxiety about what will happen next, I can still appreciate the exhilaration of it all.
As we weave under the El tracks and over the Chicago River, I note that Angela is in business attire and looks just like her profile picture—part lesbian, part Swedish model. The unforgiving sun reveals she’s wearing a full face of concealer two shades too light and her signature bold lipstick is cracking. You would think a front-of-house professional would get a grip on her makeup game, but whatever. I shake my lingering bitterness toward her by engaging in obligatory conversation about traffic as we make our way to the West Loop.
“And...we’re here. Nine hundred West Randolph,” Angela says, throwing the car in a loading zone spot directly in front of the door and shifting into Park.
Benji grabs my hand as I step to the curb, taking in the digs. It’s as if a Realtor is showing us the entryway to our first home. I feel grown up.
She fidgets with the code on the lock and finally we are in. The space is small, but it has character—starting with the fact that the entire storefront is a glass garage door. I like it.
“That’ll be the first thing to go,” Angela announces as if she was reading my mind.
“It’s so 2012,” says Benji with a hint of elitism.
Well, at least their hatred of receding glass doors is in rhythm.
Angela continues to walk the space and spew off facts and figures about the foundation, piping and electrical—stressing that all will need to be inspected and likely replaced before opening.
“Hey, babe, real quick,” Benji starts softly. “Just want you to know, there’s no pressure here. Okay? You really do look beautiful today. And I love you.”
No pressure? Is it possible that he had a bit of a heart-to-heart with himself over these last forty-eight hours and realized asking for $30,000 from his girlfriend of four months is a bit much? Or maybe he realized that a little humble pie might not be a bad thing to put on this particular menu. As in, maybe he doesn’t need 10 percent ownership off the bat. Maybe just being employed will be a big enough step up from where he is now.
Whatever the reason for his sweet reassurance, I’m grateful.
“Thanks, babe,” I say as we continue the self-guided tour.
The restaurant that Benji was the exec chef at before things went south held approximately 300 people and served breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week. As alluring as it is to have your name on a menu for a beast of a place like that, it’s understandable how someone could crack from that amount of pressure. But this spot is quite the opposite. It’s not built out yet, but it feels like the same size as the venue for the pop-up dinner. If I were to guess, I’d say the maximum capacity would be about fifty people at a time.
I follow the thought. If this restaurant only does dinner service, and plans on being closed one day a week, then Benji could approach it the same as one of his curated dinners. He could probably handle it.
The restaurant is long and narrow and smells like mothballs and sweet-and-sour sauce. Even though we entered together, Benji has since dropped my hand as he beelines to the back, where the kitchen is. I imagine he wants to see firsthand what his headquarters look like and if there’s sufficient space for a sporadic walk-in cooler romp session.
I stare at him standing in front of the current oven. He’s dragging his pointer finger across the range. While he’s probably imagining a brand-new appliance as he cuts through the filth and dust, I imagine him stirring that balsamic reduction whatever-whatever from the first night he made me dinner.
The flashback reminds me that I’ve never seen Benji cook in a proper, professional kitchen. Since we’ve met, it’s been a hodgepodge of his kitchen, my kitchen and portable burners at whatever pop-up space he could secure on a whim. So even though this space would drastically change if it became his, there’s a certain magic that envelops him in a setting like this. I see him calling orders. “Two scallop, no butter. Fire asparagus. Fire broc.” I see him tasting a sauce with the tip of his pinky finger and ordering some sous to add more salt. I see myself stopping by, entering through the back door because he forgot his favorite apron at home, and in front of everyone, in the middle of the weeds, he stops everything to kiss me.
In the moment, I want this for him. I want the dream to come true.
“What do you guys think?” Angela asks, coming back into the main dining area, snapping me out of whatever nostalgic, flowery moment I was experiencing.
“It’s so fucking beautiful.” Benji sounds like he’s touring the Smithsonian.
I can feel his extremes flaring up the way you can feel lightning in the air just before it cracks across the sky. Not surprisingly, he’s falling hard and fast for this place.
“Shit. Is that Craig?” he asks Angela as he spots a man—scratch that—as he spots precisely the man I imagined getting out of a Porsche convertible parked across the street.
“It sure is,” she proudly confirms.
The guy looks spry from here, jogging across the street with an outstretched wave to slow an oncoming sedan.
“Angela, sweetheart, how are you?” he says as he enters the building, air-kissing both of her cheeks. “This place is just as incredible as you described! What a find!”
I wonder briefly if they’ve slept together, which would debunk my theory she might be exclusively into girls, but don’t have time to investigate their body language before Craig fixes his sights on Benji.
“Craig Peterson...” Angela trills, “...meet Benji Zane.”
Peterson, Peterson, Peterson. I need to remember that for online-stalking purposes later.
The two shake hands.
“So Angela told me she had an orgasm when she ate your food. Do you think you could share the recipe so I can give it to my wife?” Craig cackles and brings Benji in for a hug. “I’m just kidding. It’s good to meet you, Chef!”
Oh god. It begins.
Addressing a chef as “Chef” is one thing when you’re standing next to him in the kitchen chopping onions. But Benji’s in a blazer and Craig is essentially a stranger, so this move is a total ego stroke on Mr. Peterson’s part. I find it irritating, but the twinkle in Benji’s honey-brown eyes tells me he’s flattered.
“And who’s this?” Craig asks no one in particular as he looks my way.
“This is my girlfriend,” Benji asserts. “And my business partner. Allison Simon.” His chest puffs a bit as he rolls the full, three-syllable version of my name off his tongue.
“It’s great to meet you as well, Allison.”
“You can call me Allie,” I say as we shake hands.
“Allie, then. Let’s have a look around, shall we?”
When Angela and Craig turn toward the kitchen, I raise my eyebrows in Benji’s direction to let him know I’m not particularly fond of my new dual role in his life. Simply fronting him some money is a drastically different level of involvement than being a “business partner.” He gives a conciliatory smile and mouths, Sorry.
“So what are they asking?” Craig asks when the tour is over and we’ve arranged ourselves near the clunky old host stand.
Angela digs through a folder stuffed with printouts to find what I assume is the listing sheet. “It looks like we can get in here at 300 initially. Granted, there are some issues the city is going to flag before we’re approved to do the deal. I spoke with the Realtor and the seller can’t afford to fix them, so it’s on us to prove funds and clean it up.”
“So three-hundo to get in, and how much more to green-light it with the city?” Craig asks.
“It’s too soon to tell without the formal inspection,” Angela says. “But I’m guessing it could be three times that.”
“Well, even at under a mil, that’s a fucking steal for Randolph Street. Ben, what do you need to outfit the kitchen?”
Who’s Ben? Ugh.
“I can do a kitchen for forty.”
The conversation is moving fast. It dawns on me all at once that not only are we speaking in thousands, but these are numbers Benji has already calculated and considered. No pressure, Allie. No one can force you to write a check...
“And how long ’til open?”
“Depends,” Benji says. “Do you want to open this year? Or next?”
“Hmm, let’s see...do I want to make money or do I want to sit with my hand on my dick? I want to open this restaurant as soon as humanly possible.”
Have I mentioned that Craig is exactly the guy I imagined in my head?
“Fair enough,” Benji says, appreciating the crass sense of humor. “Well, assuming you guys handle the structural and architectural changes, I need maybe a month? Forty-five days?”
“Staffing and equipment done in forty-five days? So it’s a month and change ’til we’re making money?” Craig wants to confirm. I want to object. How is a full-blown restaurant going to manifest itself before the time my next period comes?
“Yes. Tops,” Benji says. His confidence is terrifying. And sexy. And terrifying.
“Wow. That’s faster than I thought. This ain’t the suburbs anymore, is it, Ang?”
He nudges her with his elbow and she smiles. It’s about to be game over if he calls me “Al” next. “Alright, Benji. What do you guys want here?” Craig’s question is directed at the two of us. I know things are getting serious because, all of a sudden, I exist.
“I want to be able to execute my vision, my menu, my way. Everything from the people to the pots and pans.”
“Interesting. Go on,” Craig says.
I don’t get it. Does he actually want to hear what this tattooed kid has to say? Or is he just taunting him because he knows he can steamroll Benji at any time with the wad of hundreds protruding out of the back pocket of his khakis as we speak?
“Well, for starters, there will not be a pot pie of any sort on my menu, or any of the safe shit you and your golf buddies are used to eating back at the clubhouse. Food is going to get gnarly here, okay? We’re going to push a lot of boundaries. Some people are going to hate it, others will love it, but the bottom line is anyone on the inside has got to be okay with it or I walk right now and you can get some no-name banquet chef from the W Hotel to be your yes-man.”
His parting words indicate the whole thing could implode right here, right now. I’m probably the only one praying for that, though.
“We’ve talked about this.” Angela steps in, her face finally as white as her ivory concealer. “And there’s no one else we’re positioning to be chef for this space.”
I’m not sure if she’s reminding Craig or calming Benji, but either way the absence of a Plan B raises my heart rate.
“So you want some say,” Craig says haphazardly. “Well, that comes with a price. But I’m sure you and your...business partner...already know that.”
He chokes on the description as much as I would have. I don’t take offense.
“Yeah, we know.”
Benji’s gesturing with his hands more than usual and I can tell it’s to bring his tattoos into frame. Ink like that is tattoo-speak for “I’m not fucking around here,” and Benji is turning up the volume for Craig while I secretly hope it’s turning him off.
“So you’re prepared then to put down the standard ten percent upon contract execution, I take it?”
“So long as that’s ten percent on the initial price, and not the all-in markup for that structural shit you guys mentioned, then yes. We’re prepared for that and a contingency plan for more ownership over the next five years.”
Benji has gone completely rogue at this point. Short of withdrawing the money himself, he’s verbally committing to tying up my wealth with that of a man whose fake teeth and splotchy tan are nothing compared to the loudness of his tie.
We all stand silent, unsure of whose turn it is to talk next.
“Hell, cash or check, Angela? Let’s call the Realtor and get something in writing by close of business today. I want to start throwing lipstick on this motherfucking pig come Monday.” Craig throws up his hands like he’s at a surprise party.
My heart palpitates in my chest like kernels of popcorn erupting in a hot, oiled pan. I wonder if anyone can hear my breathing, which has gone from shallow to heaving. I can feel the panic literally flowing through my veins into the tips of my tingling limbs. “Wait,” I finally hear myself say. “Wait just a minute.”
Actually, I want to scream, let me rephrase: I’m five seconds from a nervous fucking breakdown. Only falling apart isn’t an option. Isn’t there some unwritten rule that only one member of a couple can go totally off the deep end at any given time? How peculiar that my only options for a calming force are a perfect stranger in a wrap dress, a wealthy son-of-a-bitch or my just-this-side-of-drug-addiction boyfriend. Of the three, Angela is looking more and more like the only one who can talk me down.
“Angela, can I talk to you outside? Alone?”