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Authors: Evan Marshall

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BOOK: Crushing Crystal
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“Nice Prudence. I was right,” she said. “Two things. First never undress on demand again. Bitches are in control. Remember, it's power we're after. Don't let people find your soft spot and exploit it. Second, you need to wear sexy bras and underwear each and every day. That bra is not a bitch bra. Do we wear sexy lingerie for men?” she asked the class.
“No?” they answered uncertainly.
“No. We wear sexy lingerie for ourselves. So that when our boss is yelling at us or some idiot man is complaining about us, we can take silent comfort in the knowledge that we could kill them with the sheer sexiness of the push-up bra that lies beneath one thin little sheath of cloth. Just knowing this gives us power. Okay, Prudence. Well done. Button up and take your seat.”
When I returned to my seat, there was a note from Jennifer.
“Bitch teacher's pet.”
This was the first time I had ever been shown favoritism by a teacher, and I wasn't sure I enjoyed her attention. I couldn't tell if Vilma selected me because she really liked me, or if she found me the most transparent person in the room.
Chapter 21
R
eilly was due back from Germany that Saturday and I wondered if I should call him to discuss our situation. He never mentioned what hotel he'd be checking into upon his return so I decided to call him at the office after I got back from my trip to California.
If I waited until after my visit with Matt, it would give Reilly more than a month to cool off from the gallery party incident. And I would be rejuvenated after just having spent nearly a week away from the craziness of my life.
I startled as my phone rang. “Malone!” Matt said, shouting from his car. “What's up baby!” Then I realized that this insanity had a payoff.
“Hi,” I bit my bottom lip. “Guess where I'm off to in like two minutes?”
“Not your spanking seminar again,” he teased. “Malone, I am so scared of you after that one. What's the message here? You think I need a take-charge woman?”
“This one's even weirder,” I told him. “Cooking Without Recipes.”
“What the fuck?”
“Cooking Without Recipes,” I said louder and slower, this time.
“I heard you, but I don't get it.”
“You know, cooking a meal without using—” I began.
“It just sounds kind of stupid. You bored or something?”
Definitely the
or something.
If I stopped moving for a second, Guilt would pay me an uninvited visit and tell me what a horrible person I am. My mother always advised, “If you don't like how you're feeling, get up and do something else. Nothing like a busy schedule to get your mind off your problems.” I heard this phrase repeatedly during the summer of Matt's departure from my life. Mom always used the same strategy to deal with her disappointments and it seemed to work well for her.
Jennifer buzzed from downstairs, so I rang her in. I heard her trot up the stairs and knock on the door. “One sec,” I told her while I motioned for her to come inside.
“Jen's here and we're already running late,” I told Matt. “I'll call you when we get back, okay?”
Jennifer picked up framed photos she'd seen a thousand times as I signed off with Matt. She wore a white chef's hat and oversized movie star sunglasses. “Ready to cook?” I asked after I put down the phone.
“Born ready,” she said.
“Do you do
anything
low key?” I pointed to her hat.
“Nevah!” she shouted dramatically and posed with her arm reaching up my kitchen doorway. “I'm a six-foot black woman. Why even try to be inconspicuous?”
“Must ask,” I started. “Where does one get a hat like that?”
“Benihana print ad. Even got the red kimono, which I must say makes me look like a sexy African geisha. I'm wearing it on Valentine's Day.”
“Are there African geishas?” I wondered.
“Look, I'll put my hair in a bun, stick a couple chopsticks in it, it'll be cute. Don't take me so literally. Let us go now Prudence-san,” she bowed.
Jennifer was in an especially good mood these days because she had a new boyfriend. His name was Adrian, otherwise known as “The One.” Adrian was the new art director at Ogilvy, and the two immediately hit it off when he started there in January. Adrian is a classic film buff and when they struck up a conversation, Jennifer told him she adored old movies too, hoping he'd invite her along to watch one. He did, but the minor problem for Jennifer was that she knows nothing about classic films. She called the Tisch film school at NYU and made fast friends with a professor. Every morning, Jennifer would call him and get a minilecture on the works of Orson Wells, Billy Wilder and John Ford. Not only was the professor charmed by Jennifer's effort to impress her new boyfriend, it also inspired him as an idea for his newest screenplay. It reminded me of Reilly's tour of the Carnegie.
Jennifer and I were late for the cooking class and rushed into the room apologizing. “So sorry,” Jennifer said, panting as we ran in.
“Getting a cab was like hand-to-hand combat,” I explained to the teacher. “Then we got completely locked up in some mess in midtown, which was absolute insanity.”
The teacher remained almost motionless. She looked like Gandhi with makeup and a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle. “You are here now and all is well,” Gita said like a lullaby.
“You're new to New York, aren't you?” I joked.
“I am new to each day,” she responded with some self-satisfaction with her response. “Let me begin again. Welcome to Cooking Without Recipes.”
“You don't have to start over on our account,” I offered. “There's no need to make everyone else go through your intro again,” I assured her as we made our way to the stove top next to Chad and Daniel. Sophie was at the planetarium with Devy and Oscar that day, and said there was no way she'd ever cook without a recipe anyway. Her mother used recipes. Her grandmother used recipes. “What the hell is wrong with a recipe?!” she asked as she declined the invitation.
Gita continued. “You arrived exactly when you were supposed to. If the class hears my words more than once, it is as it should be.”
Shit, let's hope no one else shows up late or we'll never get past her endlessly looping introduction.
Gita inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She bowed her head down and hummed lightly. “Welcome to Cooking Without Recipes,” she smiled.
Definitely not a New Yorker.
“I have cooked many meals,” she continued. She looked around the room and inhaled again. Then she smiled for another ten seconds.
“Many, many fine meals,” Gita said.
Never mind that dinner is served somewhere between midnight and three
A.M.
Jennifer shot us an embarrassed look as if to apologize for suggesting the class. “They ought to call this class teaching without an agenda,” she muttered.
Gita continued as if she was sharing great prophecy. “These many, many fine meals have been prepared without recipes.”
By this time Chad was tapping his index finger against the countertops and shifting his weight from one side of his body to the other. He tightened his lips and gave Jennifer a wide-eyed look to let her know she'd pay for this mistake.
“What is a recipe?” Gita asked.
Chad looked like he was going to collapse in frustration. “She doesn't even know what a recipe is?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Recipe,” Gita said.
“This is where you two came in,” Daniel whispered to Jennifer and me.
After twenty-five minutes all we've established is that the cooking teacher has no idea what a recipe is. It's a three-hour class! Do we get to cook anything or just ponder the meaning of recipes?
Gita continued at the speed of philosophical honey. “Who would like to share with me their understanding of what a recipe is?”
“Instructions on how to cook something,” Jennifer answered speedily.
Gita inhaled again. She smiled so long and still, she looked like an animal in a taxidermy office.
Gita, hello, are you there?
“No,” she finally said. “Anyone else?”
“Ingredients and directions on how to cook a certain dish,” Chad answered, annoyed.
Gita tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes.
“I think that one killed her,” Chad whispered.
With her eyes still closed, Gita continued. “No, that is not the answer I am seeking.”
We all looked at each other in shock. Both Chad's and Jennifer's definitions were exactly the right description of a recipe. What did this woman want from us?!
“A plan,” I blurted out. “A recipe is a plan.”
“Yes,” Gita snapped from her coma. “It is a plan, and yet our plans often fail us in life, do they not? We follow maps and still we are lost. We make business plans, then go bankrupt. We use recipes and burn our food.” Again she sounded as if she was Buddha on the mountain. I felt like raising my hand and letting her know that planning was, in more cases than not, very helpful. Sure, you could still get lost with a map, but usually it will get you to your destination.
Gita took a deep breath and told the class that she would guide us through a process of letting go of our plan, in the kitchen and in life.
Thank God! Finally some indication that she had an agenda for the class.
“Let go!” she shouted so loudly that she startled Chad out of his daydream. “Release the plan!” she said with even greater intensity. I couldn't help giggling.
“You!” Gita pointed at me.
Holy shit, not again.
“Do you know why you laugh?” Gita asked.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“That was not my question. I asked why you laughed. Are you aware of why you laughed when I said to release your plan?”
“I'm really sorry,” I said, this time unable to control bursting into laughter.
Gita stood beside me and waited for me to stop laughing. “Does letting go of your plan make you uncomfortable?” she whispered to me.
“No.”
Yes.
“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “But that's not why I laughed.”
“Then why?” she asked.
Can we cook now?
“I'm not sure,” I said.
“That is very clear,” Gita said as she returned to the front of the classroom.
Jennifer raised her eyebrows in a she-told-you gesture.
“When we let go of our recipes, we can tap into our natural cooking instincts. To cook is to nurture, and that is as natural as giving birth,” Gita said. “Do we need a plan to give birth?”
“I had a birth plan,” one woman commented.
“My question was do we
need
a plan, not did we use one to help ourselves feel that we are in control.”
“I thought it was pretty helpful,” the woman said.
Gita sighed as if she were surrounded by spiritual halfwits. Then she paused for one of her eternal moments and smiled.
We're Americans, Gita. Lighten up.
Gita put the fourteen participants in groups of two and handed one person from each set a black cloth.
Great, now she's taking hostages.
“Choose which one of you will wear the blindfold and be silent, and which one will be the guide. You will wear the blindfold,” she pointed at me. “You will rely on your partner's voice to guide you through a process of cutting onions, mushrooms and green peppers, and grating cheese. Then you will mix the ingredients in a bowl with eggs and cook an omelet.”
Incredulously, I asked, “We're going to cut vegetables blindfolded? What if we cut ourselves?”
“Then you will bleed,” Gita responded.
Then I will bleed? Then I will bleed, did she say?
“Why would I want to go through the pain of cutting myself with a kitchen knife if it could be avoided by simply watching what I'm doing?”
“Are you afraid of feeling pain?” she asked me.
Well actually, Gita, I am. Does that make me somehow less evolved than you? I don't want to slice my hand open and be rushed off to the emergency room for stitches, how silly of me not to be more open to the spiritual enlightenment that can only come from cutting off my own finger.
“Why do you assume you will cut yourself? Perhaps you will not,” Gita suggested.
“Odds are much better if I could see what I'm doing.”
She smiled. “You are so right,” she said as if she was laughing at a joke I wasn't getting. “Just do. I have bandages here for students who must cut themselves during the process.”
Must cut themselves?! What process? It was a goddamned omelet for Christ sake!
How I wished Sophie was at that cooking class. If I so much as nicked myself, she'd slap a billion-dollar lawsuit against the 92nd Street Y for having this wacko recklessly endanger unsuspecting cooking students.
Sure enough, I cut myself slicing green peppers.
“Owwww!” I shouted and lifted my blindfold.
Gita placed it back over my eyes. “I will clean your wound and put a bandage on you. With time you will heal. Right now, though, we are cooking omelets.”
Gita was clearly out of her mind, yet Jennifer and I continued cooking our meal as instructed. After I cracked the first egg, I dropped it on the counter instead of in the bowl. I realized I spilled the second one on the oven burner when I smelled the torched egg.
BOOK: Crushing Crystal
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