Spooning Page 13

  “I'm cooking,” I sputtered. Duh!

  “So I see. Congrats. Is this a newfound skill?”

  There was no need to defend my nonexistent cooking skills. And forget being impressive. Now, with flour on my face, dough in my hair, and stained (from God knows what) sweatpants on my holiday-enhanced thighs, I had no chance of making him pine. Instead, I had to become the cold bitch. The non-codependent, confident, self-assured woman of the new millennium. She-man, activate! I thrust out my hip and struck my best cool bitch stare with the wooden spoon jutting out from my side.

  With a cool tone, I again announced, “I'm cooking.”

  “You already said that,” he laughed. Laughing is not the correct response to the cool bitch stance. Damn!

  “I happen to be doing extremely important charity work on behalf of all the single girls in NYC.” Always stress being single as a positive. “What do you want?”

  “Besides your effervescent holiday cheer, I need my extra apartment keys back.” What a mother-f'ing jackass! He had come by to pick up his spare keys. How pathetic. How un-holiday like, especially since I'd only come by the keys while I was waiting for him at his apartment that night he'd never showed. What kind of person had the gall to drop by unannounced after an incident like that? Had he no shame? Then again, could it just be a reason to see me? (Have to salvage a glimmer of hope.) Whatever his motivation, I wasn't going to let myself turn into pathetic, lonely ex-girlfriend. Be strong Charlie, be strong.

  I stomped to my bedroom and fished the keys, which were lying next to my sexy panties, out of my top drawer. How fitting! Lucky for him, I wasn't fishing the keys out of the toilet, where they'd almost ended up a couple of nights ago after a night out with the ladies. I sashayed back to the kitchen to a view of Mr. J. P. Morgan's incredible ass. He was bent over staring at my tasty little morsels in progress.

  “Here!” The whole thing suddenly felt so juvenile. I wasn't even sure why I cared. He had disappointed me countless times. Even now, when there were a hundred different ways for the scene playing out here in my kitchen to go, I knew he would behave in the most thoughtless way possible.

  The night before, when I'd been drowning my sorrows over a cup of Swiss Miss, Tara had actually forced me to check The List. Over the past few months, we had come up with the “Top Ten Romantic Interludes in NYC” (aka, The List) that we all were determined to experience with a man and/or have a man do for us; it had been tacked up on our refrigerator next to the Chinese takeout menu:

  10. Watch the Macy's Day Parade together from the street with a cup of hot cocoa.

  9. Enjoy the symphony in the park with a picnic basket and wine.

  8. Have a portrait painted by a street artist at our lover's request.

  7. Give a blow job while on the subway.

  6. Watch our man, dressed in a suit, walk through the park toward us.

  5. Enjoy a pizza and beer picnic at a city playground.

  4. Take a tram ride to Rosie Island (aka, Roosevelt Island).

  3. Have sex on a city rooftop.

  2. Be presented with flowers bought off a street corner.

  1. Circle Central Park in the winter by way of a carriage ride.

  Number 7 had of course been Tara's suggestion. The rest of us doubted that we'd get a chance to check that one off The List due to the crowded-at-all-hours subway trains, but Tara was determined. “It's ‘risky business' all right,” she'd quip. The race, or should I say the dare, was on.

  So far, Mr. J. P. Morgan and I had hooked-up on the roof of my building, but hadn't had sex outside of that one night in bed, so I couldn't officially scratch off number 3. Basically, he was a failure on the romantic front. It was December for God's sake, and number 1 was so obvious!

  “Thanks,” he said as I handed him his keys. “My sister will need them when she comes to visit this week.” He had a sister?

  I remained hopeful as he stood in the door. But he made no attempt to toss me a cute, flirty remark, or to invite me to his company cocktail party, which I knew he was dreading, and which I also knew was coming up this Saturday. Nope, it was over. And I needed him out. I walked to the door, opened it, and pointed down the long hallway with my floury finger.

  “Bye!” I said with authority. He gave me his cocky smile (God help me!), shrugged his shoulders (so helpless, hmmm), shuffled out (so sad, ohhh, don't go!), and then chuckled (so cocky, ahhh!). Good God, would I never learn? I slammed the door and breathed in deeply.

  Smoke.

  Shit, the cookies were burning! It was 4:27 P.M. Damn you, Mr. J. P. Morgan! It was going to be a horrible, no good, very shitty Christmas.

  Since Mr. J. P. Morgan had sabotaged my first batch of cookies, I had to start over and take another stab at the great cookie bake-off. I would stay true to our Cooking Club rule of “never, ever buy, just try, try, try.” My cookie choice, the Sledge Cookie, had been in honor of my sixth-grade teacher, who'd introduced me to the recipe. She had taught us her infamous cookie recipe in order to cement fraction skills. I had failed both the cookies and math in general. This time, however, I could and would make her proud.

  In my haste to mix a new batch of dough I knocked over a bottle of red food coloring. Not that Sledge Cookies require coloring, but in my disorganized, post-ex-boyfriend encounter state, I had pulled each and every baking item out of our cabinets. I figured that I might be inspired to add a creative twist or two to the recipe. Cooking truly is an art. If you wanted to be a real powerhouse in the kitchen, you needed to utilize that right side of the brain that was responsible for artsy-crafty things. But due to time constraints, I ended up sticking with the recipe line by line. However, when reaching for the brown sugar, I had knocked over the tiny red bottle, spilling its contents all over the counter, cabinet doors, stovetop, and floor.

  Who knew that food coloring could dye items in different shades? A small drop of red will cast a pinkish hue, like that preppy shade that goes so well with green (note the once- white kitchen counter). Add about three drops, and you attain that rainbow red we all colored in grade school (see streaked cabinet doors). Add about five drops and you create that deep maroon found in velvet drapes in an old Newport mansions (observe said stovetop). Add a whole bottle, and well … blood. Think murder, decapitation, stabbing … a whole bottle of food coloring makes for quite a dark, shall we say rich redblackish color. Yep, and that was our floor. I grabbed a paper towel and started mopping at the red dye. Ten minutes later I had the situation under control—except that the red dye had wreaked havoc on my nails! Food coloring is water-based according to the box, but it does not come off of skin that easily, nor does it wipe clean from cuticles or come out of nail beds. It had spread like some infectious disease. No amount of rubbing made it disappear.

  I remeasured, restirred, reheaped, and rebaked. This time, the cookies came out perfectly. Take that Sunshine & Sensibility! I was almost ready for Wade's crazy cookie swap. But, needless to say, my nails needed work. So, off to the local mani-pedi salon!

  Nail parlors are a way of life in New York. They inhabit every street corner and are the poor man's lap of luxury. Any fool can afford a $10 slice of manicure heaven. The hand massages alone are worth your laundry quarters. Given the fact that you have no idea what the usually Asian manicurists are saying about you, and you have about forty minutes of sheer nonconversational bliss (including drying time), it's the cheapest place for therapy in all five boroughs. You talk, they listen, they respond in Chinese or Korean or Vietnamese and always nod sympathetically. If you can fit it into your schedule to go in one of the first few days of the week, MTW, before say about five o'clock, then you can usually get at least $3.00 knocked off the price—perfect for an indulgent cup of coffee afterward. As with sex, you have to reward one act of indulgence with another, right?

  I had exactly two hours before the Cooking Club meeting began and since I had to fit in the emergency manicure, I wouldn't be able to indulge my shower drinking habit. It's a little routine we
started back in college to get ourselves psyched up for a night out (my college roommate was convinced that the heat and humidity added to one's buzz). So before a party, I'll usually enjoy a beer or two as I loofah and lather. The shelf to my right in the shower can hold one bottle of shampoo, two conditioners (choice depended on the urban hair conditions), about three random body washes, and a bottle of beer—16 ounces or less. I decided to jump in the shower before I hit the mani-pedi salon to avoid the post-smudging factor, but after the shower I grabbed a beer bottle and slipped it into my mitten as I sailed out the door. When I arrived at the nail salon, the woman minding the front desk glanced at me, then my bottle. I nodded as if to say, “Happy Holidays,” then settled in for my pampering. If rich ladies can take a nip or two while having their faces lifted, why can't a hip chick take a swig or two while having her nails shaped into squovals?

  I grabbed the nearest bottle of red and the new issue of Cosmo and waited for the woman to signal me to the open pedispa bowl. Why red, you ask? Why the food coloring situation, of course. The shade of red I chose was called The Morning After. Here's hoping I would have a morning after with someone much cuter and kinder than Mr. J. P. Morgan someday soon!

  “Wow!” Macie exclaimed as I put down my platter of treats. The Diva had taught us a valuable lesson in entertaining: half of the battle is presentation. I had put my dozen Sledge Cookies in a bread basket lined with that swirly cellophane. I had baked a total of 36 nonburned, post–Mr. J. P. Morgan cookies, and had chosen the choicest twelve out of the three batches. I had even added a manila tie-on tag:

  To the Dirty Half Dozen:

  I apologize in advance for any flour chunks.

  Enjoy!

  “Flour chunks? I'm not eating them!” declared Sage. Macie's and my eyes met and we began to giggle. Any excuse to get out of eating sugar-coated desserts! Sage was on the ball.

  “Yum!” Macie said, biting a cookie. “These are divine, Charlie. You may be worthy of the most-improved award!” I smiled realizing that it was my first smile of the day.

  “They have lots of oatmeal in them, so they are on the healthier side,” I added pointingly to Sage.

  “Not what I expected from you,” Tara said, taking a bite. She closed her eyes in sugared bliss. “I just love sweet surprises!”

  “And they aren't too hard to make. You add the best parts, the butterscotch bits, chocolate morsels, and butter brickle, at the very end and just fold them in. And I think the key is the smidge of cinnamon.” I sounded like a regular Betty Crocker as I tried to distract myself from letting tears fall. I slipped off my gloves to reveal the plastic baggies underneath that were protecting my newly painted nails. Plastic baggies on one's hands and feet were the weirdest sensation of them all. Flashback to my mom shoving my baggy-covered feet into red or yellow rubber boots on rainy days before school. All day long my feet would squish.

  “Fuck-me red, huh?” said Tara pointing to my nails. “Hoho-ho! Mr. J. P. Morgan might be lured back with that Christmas surprise.”

  “No, not likely. I think we may be over.” My voice caught in my throat.

  “What? What do you mean? He still hasn't called?”

  “No, he, um, came by …” I sniffed.

  “Did you drop to your knees?” Tara smirked.

  “God, Tara, even you know that he's never been worthy of the godlike status Charlie's bestowed on him,” scorned Macie.

  “Nooo.” Tara rolled her eyes. “Not because he's a god. She needs to be eye-level with the goods to perform the fancy tongue lashing I described before.” She got down on her knees in demonstration.

  “No!” I shouted a little too loudly as a few tears fell. I stuffed a cookie into my mouth so that I wouldn't accidentally bite off my own tongue. “No, he took his apartment keys back,” I mumbled, wiping my nose. All five mouths were open, for once not awaiting food.

  “Oh,” said Wade, giving the only appropriate response to for the situation.

  “What did you do?” asked Syd. Her eyes were wide as if watching her favorite soap. Even I felt tired of all the drama.

  “I burned the damn cookies. But then I decided that I just … needed … to … start … over …”

  My eyes began to fill up with more post-dumping tears when Tara belted out, “Shithead got run over by a reindeer, walking home, from taking back his keys!”

  “Here, Charlie.” Macie held out her plateful of cookies.

  “Hmm?” Then I took a closer look at the plate.

  “Gingerbread men, snowmen, and the man of them all, Santa!” Macie listed. I began to laugh. “Take your pick!” I grinned and took a deep breath to still my hysterical hiccups.

  “Why can't I find the perfect recipe for a man?” I bemoaned, my mouth full of delicious crumbs.

  “So you were burned this time. But we're going to keep playing with the ingredients and perfecting the proportions,” Macie reassured me as she bit off Santa's head with a loud chomp. “In a few days it's a new year.”

  “Aren't the holidays a popular time to move?” Syd asked.

  “Huh?”

  “My point being that it is time to move on—a new year means a new man.” Pretty profound for our Syd.

  Macie held up her cup in a girls' solidarity toast, and even Skinny Sage gulped back a mouthful of fattening eggnog. I looked around the kitchen. Wade was rearranging everyone's plates, Sage was licking the frosting off of a glazed cookie, and Syd was sitting on the counter debating J. Lo's post-breakup remedies with Tara. It was a New York moment.

  God Bless Everyone!

  Sage's Skinny Soup

  Three 16-oz cans fat-free refried beans

  Three to four 14½-oz cans (or 1 large can, 18 oz) fat-free chicken broth, depending on the consistency you desire—thick or thin

  Two 12-oz cans white chicken chunks (drained), or 3 cups, cooked chicken breasts cut up in chunks

  One 15-oz can fat-free black beans, drained

  1 large jar (16 oz) salsa (hot, medium, or mild … it's all up to your taste buds)

  Two 15¼-oz cans white corn, drained

  1 red bell pepper, diced

  1 yellow bell pepper, diced

  ½ red onion, finely chopped

  ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

  1 zucchini, chopped

  Salt and pepper to taste

  Toppings

  Tortilla chips

  Grated cheese

  Note: The additional toppings will make the soup not-so-skinny!

  Combine all of the ingredients, except the toppings, in a large pot and stir. Simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally. Serve hot. If you are not counting calories or just don't care, top it off with a few tortilla chips and a handful of grated cheese. This soup can be served either as an appetizer or a main course. Don't forget to serve with either some ice-cold beers or frozen fruity margaritas. Enjoy!

  Alleluia, it's finally January! I never thought I'd be praising the Lord for winter, but if this month didn't get here any quicker, my legs would have turned into a pair of honey-baked hams. For over a month, the nightly news had been covering the curse of Christmas calories. Oprah had even mentioned cutting back the festive fat several times in the past few weeks. You'd think that after twenty-two years, I'd be up to speed on how to prepare my body for the holiday hog fest. The problem was that my “shove your face with cookies, candies, stuffing, alcohol, and gravy” didn't stop until January 2; exactly two days after I'd had all the champagne I could manage to pop and exactly one day after I had inhaled bowls of chips and dip at my family's next-door neighbor's College Bowl Football party.

  So for the New Year, we girls decided to call a truce with all the buffets and all the bartenders in the greater New York City area. We had decided to put on our helmets and hunker down in order to strategically plan our attack to fight off the January Jiggling Blues (aka, your ten-pound winter coat that seems to be still on you even after you hang it up in the front entrance- way). Yes, we were fighting the fat head on.
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  In this type of situation there was only one person who could come to our aid. So which one of the girls could answer our pathetic prayers and help us get rid of our holiday poundage, quick? Well, it was the one who knew food like the back of her Lean Cuisine microwave meal: Sage. The roommates decided that Skinny Sage was the one who would plan and implement our attack—killing the dimpled elephant legs right in their tracks.

  “Sage,” I wailed. “If I drink another vodka tonic, if I eat another damn Swedish meatball … I'll actually have to get pregnant so I can blame it on baby weight!” My stomach began to convulse just talking about it.

  “Be quiet, Charlie,” commanded Sage. Oh, the bulimic bitch we all loved to hate was in effect! The five of us had all shown up at her apartment, armed and ready to go. Wade had even taken drastic measures and come over in her brand-new workout gear.

  “I didn't have anything else appropriate for the severity of the situation,” she noted.

  “I warned you!” Sage shook her head at all of us. “I knew this Cooking Club was a bad idea.”

  “Jesus, Sage,” I said. “We didn't come over to get lectured. I can go to my mom for that. I came here to get your advice on how to stop watching my ass expand in front of my eyes!”

  “Well, as you can see, it's a little too late for preventive action. So, we now have to fight the fat in a more drastic and militant way.” Sage was the Cooking Club's very own General Custard (minus the egg yolk, sugar, and cream). She turned away from us and frantically began to rummage through her fridge. She reached deep behind the Pellegrino water, the fat- free yogurt, granola, and spray butter to where most people hide the cookie dough.

  “Ah, here it is!” she squealed. I was expecting some sort of fat-free, calorie-less dessert. You can just imagine the look on my face when she pulled out a Ziploc bag containing five pieces of paper.