A Second Bite at the Apple (17 page)

Drew holds open the door to Tryst, a coffee bar cum lounge whose interior is filled with big couches, barstools, and large wooden communal tables, where people sit with laptops and steaming mugs of tea and coffee. The space has a warm glow from the rust-colored walls, which are lined with contemporary works by local artists. Drew spots a table for two by an old fireplace in the middle of the room and races to save it before someone else takes it.

“What can I get you?” he asks.

“Oh. Um . . . a café au lait, I guess?”

“Anything to eat?”

“I've had my fair share of Rick's almond poppy seed muffins today.”

He smiles. “I'll be right back.”

He saunters over to the bar, which is lined with coffee makers, espresso machines, and every kind of liquor imaginable. A series of chalkboards lines the wall, outlining the various menu options in funky handwriting and wild illustrations. When Drew returns, he places my steaming, bowl-shaped mug in front of me and slides into his chair, holding a pint of Guinness.

“How much do I owe you?”

He waves me off. “My treat.”

“Are you sure? I have plenty of cash from the market.”

He smirks. “Considering I bailed on you at the last minute, a three-dollar coffee is the least I can do.”

I cup my hands around the bowl. “That's sweet of you. Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” he says as he takes a sip of his beer. “So anyway, I was starting to tell you about the short-tailed albatross.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Habitat loss is a huge problem, but so is pollution. And the fisheries? Don't get me started.”

He goes on to outline the many threats to the short-tailed albatross and what his organization is doing to save the species, and as I sip my coffee I try very hard to focus and not let my mind wander to other things, like which Radiohead song is playing in the background or what Drew would look like dressed as a walrus.

“So have you spent much time in Alaska?” I ask during a break in the conversation.

“A bit. I spent the summer there in college. It was totally amazing.” He gulps more of his beer and wipes a bit of foam off his top lip. “Oh, but I meant to say—about the albatross? A major oil company is trying to drill near one of the nesting colonies, which would be totally detrimental to the species.”

“Maybe you could dress as an oil executive and hang an albatross around your neck.”

Drew frowns. “Why would I do that?”

“As a joke. You know . . . the Coleridge poem. ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' ” Drew stares at me blankly. “You didn't read that in high school?”

“I don't remember. Is it about habitat loss?”

“No. Never mind. It was a joke.”

“Ah.” He takes a sip of beer. “Well, unfortunately, this whole drilling controversy isn't very funny.”

“Right. No. Of course not.”

“Anyway, as I was saying . . .”

He regales me with more facts about the short-tailed albatross and its habitat, and once we finish our drinks, he offers to walk me home. As we meander through Adams Morgan toward my apartment, we talk more about the Alaskan wilderness and a bit about Maggie's farm, and by the time we reach my building, we've talked for a good hour and a half, and yet I still feel as if I don't know much about him, other than the fact that he could talk about the short-tailed albatross for days and looks mighty fine in a beaver costume.

“Well, I'd better head back to the hospital,” he says.

“Send your family my best,” I say. “Sorry. That's weird. Your family doesn't even know me.”

He smiles. “But maybe they will at some point, right?” He leans in and kisses me before I can answer, and as he does my shoulders stiffen. Eventually he pulls away. “I'll see you soon, okay?”

He heads down my front walkway, and when I enter my apartment, I head straight for the kitchen and open my junk drawer. I pull out the list I made yesterday and scan Drew's pros and cons again:

Then I pull out a pen and, under cons, I add, “Isn't Jeremy.”

Apparently I want to die alone. It is the only explanation. Drew is not Jeremy, but why would I view that as a “con”? Drew wants to save the planet. He is willing to dress as an albatross to do so. Jeremy, on the other hand, is willing to take money from anyone who will pay him. Or at least that's what his Wikipedia entry says. And Stu Abbott, my future dream boss, hates him. What the hell is wrong with me?

Wednesday morning, I send Stu the edited cold storage video, along with an accompanying column, replete with links and photos. Stu e-mails back right away with a few editorial comments, but overall he loves it.

“This is great,” he writes. “When can you send me the next one?”

We bat ideas back and forth and try to line up an editorial schedule, but after seven e-mails back and forth, he finally calls me.

“This is the problem with the digital revolution,” he says. “No one wants to pick up the phone anymore.”

“At least we weren't trying to do this by text message.”

“Yes, at least there's that.” He takes a sip of something and smacks his lips. “So I'm hearing a lot of buzz about this Green Grocers partnership with the farmers' market consortium. What's the word on the street?”

“I think it's nearly a done deal. Maybe a matter of weeks before an announcement.”

“I'd love to get ahead of that. Could you poke around and see what you can find out?”

“Sure.”

“The business section would probably cover the story from a commercial perspective—what it means for the company's stock, their overall business direction, blah, blah, blah—but I'd love to do something from the farmers' perspective. Like that Rick guy, or the apple lady—what would this mean for their business? And what does this say about the food movement as a whole?”

“I'll see what I can find out.” I pause. “But this sounds like a bigger story. Given the amount of time I'd need to spend on it, I'd need more than one hundred dollars.”

He sighs. “Let's see what you come up with. I'd love to give you more than a hundred bucks, but I don't control the purse strings. Believe me, I wish I did.”

I'm about to tell him I understand but I'm running out of savings. Then I remind myself there are dozens of other hungry wannabe food journalists who would happily take my place. If I don't want to do this for pennies, someone else will. So instead, I try a different angle.

“What if I gave you something really juicy?” I say, remembering my earlier conversation with Jeremy about Bob Young, the new Green Grocers CEO.

“What do you mean, ‘juicy'?”

“Something about the new CEO's past and what it could mean for the deal—an angle or tidbit no one else has. Some sort of inside scoop.”

“Keep talking.”

“I'd have to look into it, but if I could get you an exclusive angle, is that something that could get me on the payroll in a more serious way?”

He takes a deep breath and exhales into the phone. “If you can bring me a big story that I can sell to my superiors, I'll make sure you are appropriately compensated. How does that sound?”

I break into a broad smile and pump my fist back and forth as I press the phone tightly against my ear with the other hand.

“That,” I say, “sounds wonderful.”

 

The problem with dangling a juicy story in front of Stu? Now I actually have to deliver a juicy story. And if I'm being honest with myself, sexy investigative journalism isn't my thing. Those aren't the stories I want to write. I want to write people stories, stories that humanize some aspect of our food system. But if a salacious story is what it will take to get my foot in the door at the
Chronicle,
then that's what I'll write.

I spend early Wednesday afternoon looking into Bob Young's background, but as far as I can tell, the guy is a virtual Boy Scout: bachelor's degree from Stanford, MBA from Harvard, a run in the marketing department at Kroger before joining the Green Grocers team, where he has worked for the past fifteen years, first as the director of marketing and then working his way up the ranks to CEO. If there is an issue in Bob Young's past, I can't find it.

As I plug various permutations of “Bob Young + scandal” and “Bob Young + controversy” into Google, Jeremy calls. This is the first I've heard from him since he returned from New Orleans.

“So how was NOLA?” I ask. “Sufficiently wild?”

“Pretty tame, actually. Ate some amazing food, though. New Orleans truly is one of the best food cities in the world.”

“I hope you had some beignets at Café du Monde.”

“Like a boss. Twice a day, every day.”

“Ugh. I'm so jealous.”

“You've been, then?”

“I went with my mom and sister while my dad was at a sales conference down there. But that was like ten years ago.”

“Well, take it from me: Even a decade later, the beignets are still to die for.”

My stomach growls as I think about the beignets I ate that day, those magical deep-fried pillows of dough, covered in half an inch of powdered sugar. The exterior was crisp and golden, and when I took a bite—the airy, cloud-like interior still warm from the deep fryer—the powdered sugar fell into my lap like snow. I'd known the beignet was a cousin of the doughnut, but somehow without the hole in the middle, it managed to surpass any notion I had of what a doughnut could be. My mom and Libby bought the baking mix at the Café du Monde gift shop and tried to recreate the beignets when we got home, but they weren't the same. Zach suspected it had something to do with the leavening in the batter, but since my mom and Libby made them without me, as they did with nearly all of their cooking endeavors, I couldn't be sure.

“So what's the plan for Saturday?” I ask, shaking myself out of my sugar-filled reverie.

“We're brewing beer, baby.”

“Excuse me?”

He laughs into the phone, sensing my uneasiness. “My place. Five o'clock. I'm teaching you how to brew beer. Then we'll have dinner and, I don't know, watch a movie or something.”

“Beer. We're brewing beer.”

“Hells yeah, we're brewing beer. And you're going to love it.”

“Should I wear my corset and lederhosen?”

“You own a corset and lederhosen?”

“
No
. Don't get all excited.”

“Ah. Bummer.” He hums into the phone. “You know, I could probably hook that up for you . . .”

“I'm not wearing a corset and lederhosen. It was a joke. Let it go.”

“Okay, okay. Fine.” His voice is smooth and relaxed, and I can tell he is smiling. “Anyway, it'll be fun. I promise. Plus, my Flemish red ale will finally be ready for drinking. I've been working on that puppy for eighteen months.”

“Eighteen months? It takes eighteen months to brew beer?” What am I signing myself up for?

“Some beers—not most. Don't worry, I don't plan on keeping you in my apartment for eighteen months.”

“Yeah, well, thank God for that.”

“We'll have fun. Trust me. It couldn't be worse than falling in the Tidal Basin, right?”

I picture that night: the pitch-black walking tour, my gargantuan flashlight, the plop and splash of Jeremy plunging into the water, his trembling shoulders. “No,” I say. “It couldn't be worse than that.”

Because it couldn't be. Right?

 

No more than two hours after I get off the phone, I change my mind. Of course it could be worse than having Jeremy fall in the Tidal Basin. I could scald myself or ruin his beer recipe or spill his prized eighteen-month red ale all over the floor. But worse than any of those possibilities—worse than spilling boiling liquid all over myself—is the prospect of falling for him.

Sure, he makes me laugh and makes me happy, but every time I type his name into Google, I'm given 1,256,789 reasons why I have clearly lost my mind. I don't want to judge him, but it's so easy. All of his mistakes, all of his transgressions, they're at my fingertips, with a few strokes of my keyboard. Some days I wish I could hide from all this history, but I can't. His past is just so . . .
available
.

By the time Saturday arrives, I am downright stressed about the evening of beer making and awkwardness that awaits me. But despite the voice in my head telling me to stay away from Jeremy, I can't bring myself to cancel. I am, quite clearly, my own worst enemy.

Just as I am about to make what is surely a poor wardrobe choice, my mom calls. I've tried her a few times over the past week, ever since I spoke to my dad, but she never picked up and, uncharacteristically, never called back—until now, exactly forty minutes before I'm supposed to leave for Jeremy's apartment.

“I was beginning to worry about you,” I say, holding up a taupe cardigan as I look at myself in my full-length mirror.

“Worry? Oh, please. You have nothing to worry about. Worrying is a mother's job.”

“Speaking of jobs,” I say, discarding the taupe cardigan and grabbing another top from my closet, “how's the job search going? Dad mentioned you'd run into a little trouble.”

“Trouble doesn't begin to describe it.”

“What's the deal?”

“There is no deal. There isn't anything. Nada. Zip. The Williams-Sonoma by us doesn't have any openings. Neither does the one downtown. I'm checking with the one at King of Prussia, but I'm not holding my breath.”

“Have you checked out Sur La Table? Or the home section of one of the department stores?”

“Oh, that's just what I need. To wait on all of my friends at Macy's.”

“So what? You guys need the money, right?”

“There are jobs, and then there are jobs.”

“You're talking to a girl who is working at a farm stand so that she can chase her dream job.”

“That's different.”

“Oh, yeah? How? Last I checked, Libby wanted you to spend two thousand bucks on chairs. Where's that money coming from?”

She sighs. “You and your father are all burned up about those chairs. Poor Libby.”

“Poor
Libby?
” Classic. My mom always takes Libby's side. When Libby got a bad grade on an exam or paper, my mom would claim the teacher was incompetent, even when I'd had the same teachers and had aced their classes. When Libby's field hockey tournament was the same weekend as my clarinet recital, my mom chose Libby's tournament because, she said, Libby needed her support more than I did. And when Libby and her girlfriends ate the chocolate mousse I made as part of a project for French class senior year, my mom said it was my fault for leaving it in our refrigerator without a note. How was Libby to know?

“Mom, Libby lives in fantasyland. And anyway, if you cared so much about getting her the damn chairs, you'd take a job at the gas station if you needed to.” I catch myself. “I take that back. If Libby cares so much about the damn chairs,
she
should get a job at the gas station.”

She clicks her tongue. “Sydney.”

“What? Maybe it's time for Libby to grow up and realize she needs to take responsibility for things. Maybe it's time for you to tell her the Bank of Strauss is closed.”

“When it comes to our children, the Bank of Strauss is never closed.”

“Except if your name is Sydney and you want to pursue a career in food writing.”

“What?”

I let out a sigh. “Never mind. I don't want to get into this right now. And anyway, I have to run—I'm behind schedule.”

“Behind schedule for what?”

I clear my throat. “A date.”

“A
date?
” Her tone brightens. “Oh, that's wonderful. With whom?”

“ Just . . . a guy.”

“Yes, well, I assumed it was a guy. Not that I would have a problem if it
weren't
a guy. Your father and I are very progressive when it comes to our views on gay marriage.”

I roll my eyes. “Mom.”

“You know, I always thought your Aunt Ina was gay. Remember her good friend Selma? Anyway, in this day and age—”

“Mom,” I say. “Enough.”

“Sorry, sorry. I don't want to make you late.” She squeals. “For your
date.
”

Her tone, so downtrodden only moments ago, now brims with enthusiasm and joy, her spirits seemingly lifted by the prospect of my courtship. The level of her excitement threatens to grate, with its edge of surprise and profusion of eagerness, but I'm willing to indulge her relief—her palpable, unapologetic relief—that someone out there wants to date her awkward daughter. I will allow her this moment of satisfaction because, with every squeal and encouraging remark, with every indication she approves of my activities this evening, she makes it easier for me to tell myself this date isn't a terrible idea, brimming with problems and potential pitfalls and certain to end in disaster.