Four Seasons…November I

Written by Writer Dad on December 21, 2009 - View Comments
Categories: Writing

Paige pulled an impossibly long drag, drawing every last bit of life from her cigarette before crushing it to nothing and abandoning it in the ashen graveyard already littered with a hundred or so other butts and stubs.

This is bullshit, she thought; the tenth such thought in half as many minutes.

What the hell was she doing driving all the way down to Malibu on Thanksgiving morning, just to cook dinner for some rich dude she knew only from magazine spreads and the lusty late night ramblings of her old best friend?

Life was odd. Paige would never have believed it just a year ago, the way the last few months had unfolded. What was that expression? She exited the highway and accelerated the Prius, pulling alongside a row of tall palm trees tickling the sky. Oh yeah, stranger than fiction. This was definitely that.

The drive was gorgeous; nothing at all like Paige had expected. She knew the view would be impressive, but never imagined the trip would be entirely void of traffic, even on a holiday morning. Despite working everywhere from La Jolla to Bel Air, Paige had never been to Malibu. She pictured the houses as overbuilt track homes with ridiculous price tags, but was surprised by the character of the glass mansions and sweeping Spanish villas she passed along the highway.

What the hell am I doing?

Paige pulled onto a sweeping drive, approximately the same square footage as her apartment complex, and swung her car to the front of what she thought was the rear entrance to the modest sized Mediterranean villa. She removed the sunglasses from her face and tossed them onto the passenger seat, then leaned down and flipped the latch that opened the trunk. She took a final glance in the rearview mirror then stepped out of the car.

“You must be Paige?” The statement disguised as a question came from a strong yet gentle voice behind her. The man standing there was tall, with thick dark hair that hung past his eyes just enough to indicate he answered to himself first. He looked different in person than he did in the media, though the reality suited him. Paige had been a professional chef long enough to know the difference between the two sides of the camera. The ridiculously rich were rarely more than shadows of their projected image; always smaller and sometimes mean. In Dean McGee’s case, there was no comparison. Dean was handsome in a home town boy makes good sort of way, but it wasn’t possible for even the glossiest page to capture the depths of kindness and pain which coalesced in the sparkling sea of his slate colored eyes.

“That’s me.” Paige held out her hand. Dean took it with his right, packaged it warmly in his left and delivered a soft handshake that somehow managed to send a shiver of chills rolling through her body.

“Can I help you with any of this?” Dean gestured to the pile of ingredients, bagged in canvas and filling every square inch of Paige’s rather large trunk. She looked away, then back at the trunk. “That’s okay,” she said. “All part of the job, really.”

“Nonsense.” Dean smiled and grabbed two bags for each hand, then took a step back from the Prius. Paige accepted the gesture, reluctantly on the surface though inside she felt girly, giddy and caught completely by surprise.

They made several trips inside the house, down a long hallway with nothing on the halls, through a cavernous living room with barely any furniture, and into a cozy kitchen with every accoutrement imaginable. A set of French doors opened onto a small private cul-de-sac where Paige saw an ancient Porsche with cherry red paint. For some reason the car reminded her of a bathtub.

“Guess it would have been easier if I’d parked outside the kitchen.”

“Nah,” Dean said, setting the bags on the counter. “It’s never too early to start working off your dinner. Did you bring the chocolate?”

“Sure did.” Paige smiled, remembering the fifteen pounds of dark chocolate wrapped in a towel and sitting on the floor of her backseat.

They made several trips, mostly in silence. After the final bag was set on the counter, even though they both knew the trunk was empty, Dean followed Paige back outside. A gentle wind flew in from the Pacific, fluttering the fabric of her dress and sending a second shudder through her body. Dean produced a pack of Camels from nowhere and offered one to Paige. “Interested?”

Paige was grateful. “I didn’t know you were a smoker,” she said.

“Only in California.” Dean set the cigarette between his lips. “I used to smoke in high school. Guess there’s something about the left coast that makes me want so suck on death.” Dean laughed and held the lighter under Paige’s cigarette as she inhaled.

“I know what you mean. I only started smoking when I moved out here, and I always feel like I have to hide the habit, especially when I’m working. Thanks for being cool.”

“Nothing to it.” Dean nodded.

They smoked in silence as quiet anxiety crawled across her flesh. It wasn’t that Dean was rich, it was that he was Dean McGee; darling of the New Economy and childhood lover of her old best friend. “So is this gonna be the usual see and be seen sorta shindig?” Paige finally said to break the discomfort of an awkward quiet.

“Hardly. It will be an intimate gathering with a handful of guests.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said on the phone,” Paige flicked her ash into a pot of antiqued hydrangea, “but you’d be surprised how often I hear that only to show up and find a red carpet.”

“I really wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?  “Be surprised.”

“Oh,” said Paige, “I guess not. So what is it then, family?” Paige exhaled into Dean’s long silence then said, “Sorry if I’m prying.”

“Not prying at all. You’ve a right to know who you’re cooking for, and eating with.”

“Eating with?”

“I wouldn’t ask you to cook on Thanksgiving and not join the jamboree. That’s not cool. You’re welcome to stay and I’ll be injured if you don’t.”

“I’m not really comfortable eating on the job.”

“Once the food is cooked, consider your job done.” He stared into Paige’s eyes for a moment, then leaned about an inch and a half closer. “Just say yes. It’s Thanksgiving after all. You’re the one doing me a favor.”

“It’s not that big a deal, really. My family is all back East.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m originally from Jersey. I’ve been out here for five years. I would have probably just spent the evening alone anyway.”

Dean was smiling. “Libby never told me you were from Jersey.”

Paige looked surprised. “I didn’t know Libby said anything about me in the first place. When did she start running out of interesting things to talk about?”

“You know Libby, she talked about everything. Didn’t you know I was her long distance cure for insomnia?”

Paige laughed. “Yeah, she mentioned that a few times. Said you were the easiest person in the world to talk to. Truth is it always made me kinda jealous.”

“Shouldn’t have. Libby loved you. We had history is all. We liked to bitch about the same stuff, you know? Common shit makes enemies friends and friends closer.” Dean walked over to the hydrangea, smothered his cigarette in the dirt and covered the evidence. Paige, not quite sure what she should do, did exactly the same.

“Ready for the day?” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be.” She turned to walk inside. “Thanks for the smoke.” Dean nodded.

Paige entered the kitchen and began to free the elements of the evening’s feast while staring at the Pacific in quiet awe, watching the waves break against the shore and wondering how it was possible the same sea could look so much more majestic just a few miles south.

The rich, she mused, apparently had access to better oceans.

Paige started to prepare the pumpkins for the puree soup she planned to serve with a porcini potato soft cheese carrot crepe roll. The salad would be simple; wild organic greens with edible blossoms, served with a strawberry balsamic dressing. She had wanted to serve braised lamb shoulder for the main course, but the only thing Dean had insisted on besides chocolate for dessert was turkey. “Too traditional to ignore,” he’d said. He had told her that as long as there was turkey on the table she could dress it however she liked. It took Paige a second to decide on a maple marinade and mixed herb pork sausage stuffing, with carrots and buttermilk mash and a thyme infused turkey jus.

In addition to the chocolate, Paige was preparing a pumpkin cheesecake with a lemon eucalyptus white chocolate ice cream, drizzled with nasturtium syrup, balsamic reduction and a real nasturtium bloom as garnish. Paige was supposed to prepare the chocolate in as many ways as she could think of, “without overdoing it.” She had a half dozen baskets of strawberries, each berry roughly the size of her fist. She would melt the chocolate and dip the berries, leaving them hours to cool. She would also shave it, chunk it and turn it into truffles.

Paige looked at all the color she had added to the counter and sighed. There was something in that moment that always filled her with a bit of sorrow. She loved every step in preparing the food, from the pictures in her head to the items in her basket, but seeing the abundance spread before her never failed to remind her of the wide chasm between what she had and what she never would. The urge to smoke was always strongest right after she finished the first part of the preparation ritual, but smoking in the kitchen was a cardinal sin. It didn’t matter how cool Dean was, she could imagine lighting up in the kitchen about as easily as she could imagine wearing a red dress to a funeral.

She stepped outside, breathed the salty scent and collapsed into the seat of a worn chair that looked older than Dean’s name on the deed. She allowed herself to sink into the moment, knowing full well it would be the final one.

“Paige?” She turned around and saw Dean standing in the kitchen admiring the counter display. “Everything looks beautiful. Mind if I borrow you for a minute?”

“Of course.” Paige was suddenly glad she decided not to smoke.

Paige followed Dean through the kitchen and into the living room where she saw an old man in a portable bed, sitting in front of a 42” LCD screen watching an old western, Paige was pretty sure it was one of the ones where Clint Eastwood played the man with no name. The old man looked happy, staring at the picture with a smile nearly as wide as the screen.

“Saul,” the old man looked up at the sound of Dean’s voice, “I’d you to meet our special chef for this evening.” Dean then turned to Paige. “This is Saul, our guest of honor.” Paige crossed the room and offered her hand to Solomon.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“And I’m pleased as hell to meet you.” Solomon turned his attention back to Eastwood staring down a pack of rabid bandits. Only then did Paige realize the high cost of the old man’s greeting. His voice had sounded like a whisper with talons and his face was a Halloween mask. Like an optical illusion, the intimate view swallowed the far kinder one she had found on the far side of the room. From the entrance Solomon had looked moderately healthy, up close he looked like death’s broken promise.

Paige did the unexpected and bent over the rail of Solomon’s bed. She kissed the old man on his weathered face, scratching her soft freckled skin on a thick burr of his patchy silver thatch. “I’m going to make you the best meal you’ve ever had.”

“I expect it,” Solomon almost said just before he fell into a fit of wheezing, but Paige knew what he meant anyway.

Dean gave her a warm nod and she slipped from the room and back into the kitchen. What was that all about? she wondered. Who was that old man? Was he related to Dean?

She turned her attention to the meat and allowed the questions to fade as she dipped into her culinary rhythm. Hours fell from the clock as Paige kept pace with the meal. Eventually she heard the chime of the doorbell punctuate the dim echo from Solomon’s marathon of westerns.

Commotion soon filled the house and Paige wondered what was next. This job was unique. Her instructions were usually explicit, with no margin for error or improv. She knew Dean wanted her to join the gala, but the thought brought a lump to her throat that she had been trying to swallow since the first suggestion. The cool reality now lay just a few minutes away and she felt as though she was wearing nothing but freckles. The food was prepared and grouped on the counter, just as she had been asked. Any minute now she would have to wash up and make nice. Oddly enough, it was only at that moment when Paige realized she had nothing to change into. She never expected to join the party and hadn’t come prepared. She felt filthy, and even though she knew it was mostly in her head, she couldn’t imagine feasting on a meal fit for a prince while feeling like a soiled pauper.

She heard the telltale sound of feet on stairs behind her. Paige turned around and noticed a narrow staircase spilling into an alcove on the other side of the kitchen just as Dean landed on the final step.

Paige smiled. “Every thing’s ready,” she said.

Dean smiled back. “I know. They can smell it all the way to the canyon.” Paige looked down and let her even tresses of flaxen hair cover the blush on her face. “How would you like to freshen up before joining us?”

“I would love to,” Paige said, “but I don’t have anything to change into and I feel dirty.”

“All taken care of,” Dean said. “Just follow me…”

Due to the length of this chapter, it will be concluded tomorrow.

Four Seasons…September It took Dean three decades and two divorces to finally...
Four Seasons…May “I’m not eating her egg rolls and I don’t care...
Four Seasons…February The alarm clock screamed at the same time it did...
Four Seasons…August Caitlin stepped into the air conditioned hallway and set their...
Four Seasons…March (FYI – this story has a couple of naughty words.)...