Life From Scratch (28 page)

When my internship ended a couple months later, Leona invited me to crash with her while I looked for a job. I checked with the head of my internship at Bama to see if any relevant departments were hiring—nothing. I scanned the newspaper for some kind of food styling or food writing position—again, nothing. The lack of food positions shook my resolve, but I’d already missed the deadline to return to the CIA.

The next week I sent out two dozen more applications, this time to any job I was remotely qualified for, from web design to graphics to waitressing. I checked my email every 15 minutes—nothing.

When word got back to Keith, he suggested I help him with a few freelance web design jobs. I’d barely logged five hours when the phone rang. An interview later, and I’d landed a gig as marketing coordinator for a chain of regional auto body shops. It wasn’t remotely food oriented, but the pay was decent, I knew how to do the job, and my boss was nice, even if the hours were relentless. And
anything
was better than going back north, which increasingly felt like the epicenter of all my failed relationships.

I called Keith and told him I wouldn’t have time to help him with his projects after all. He sounded disappointed, but I figured it was for the best. Though he never flirted with me or made an inappropriate remark, I kept thinking of those dove gray eyes. After I hung up, I stared at his name in my phone contacts, my finger hovering over the delete button. Finally I pressed it. My other contacts slid into place as though he’d never been there.

With the new job, everything seemed to be falling in place, except for one thing—Michael’s money. I had no regrets about spending the first half on cooking school. No matter how far or hard I rolled, I knew the CIA’s lessons would creep back into my kitchen and life. But the question remained: What to do with the second half? The answer came to me almost before I’d asked the question.

I must make a home, to honor Michael’s memory—a home no one could take away from me. All the comfort food in the world wouldn’t matter if I didn’t have a home. I could use the last of the money for the down payment.

Just three weeks into my second-ever job, I found a real estate agent and got to work. Off my motorcycle, Tulsa’s streets didn’t gush by with quite the same urgency. Details came into relief, like the art deco buildings sprinkled downtown and throughout the old neighborhoods.

These stunning properties were remnants of the early 1900s, when Tulsa was known as the Oil Capital of the World. Many were now abandoned, ghosts of another time. Though these pouting beauties might one day be converted to trendy lofts, they were most certainly
not
for sale to the general public. To the north and south of downtown were solid craftsman houses, many built before statehood. These architectural gems were too expensive or too run-down for me to renovate on my own.

Then there was the trendy Brookside neighborhood near my new office, filled with a mishmash of homes from different eras. Some sold for more than a half million, whereas others cost $140,000. There was a shabby chic vibe to many of these more affordable homes, their puckered yards filled with lawn art, sprawling vines, and puffing, potbellied chiminea (those stubby, onion–shaped, front-loading fireplaces).

One day on a whim, I rode through the southernmost edge of Brookside behind my office. Just a mile south of the restaurants, the houses were even more affordable: Most were less than $100,000, and many only went for $75,000. Just across from a sun-beaten triangle knotted with weeds, a flimsy red-and-white sign caught my eye: “For sale by owner.”

The mid-century ranch wasn’t beautiful from the outside: a squat two-window facade with a cinder-block stoop. Except for the cherry-red shutters, it looked exactly like all the other houses around the triangle, some shade of drab beige. But it was surrounded by an eight-foot privacy fence, and the sign promised a hot tub and walk-in closet. I called my real estate agent from the street.

Inside, the living room walls were also cherry red. The two front bedrooms were bubblegum pink and sky blue. As if in rebellion, the windowless galley kitchen slumbered in a perpetual state of darkness; walnut cabinets and black appliances blotted out any glimmer of light, even during the daytime. The kitchen’s only saving grace was the faux Tuscan wall. The brickwork and plastering was a clear DIY job, but if I squinted just right, I could imagine myself in Italy. I loved it.

And then I walked into the master bedroom addition. The ceiling there was higher, at least nine feet, and built out with three long, lean windows that funneled the sunlight onto the shag carpet. I stood in the rays, eyes shut, and felt the warmth soak into my skin. I must have stood there a long while.

When the owner finally plodded into the bedroom, he pointed to the dark wood trim. The crown molding rippled along the ceiling, ornate and complex, different from the rest of the house—clearly the work of a craftsman.

“Looks British, doesn’t it? My wife wanted to paint that there trim white. I told her it’d be a crime.” He squared his jaw and arched his back as though contemplating fine art at the Louvre. Tilting his head sideways, he crinkled his eyes as if to say, “You better not paint it, either.”

Right after the New Year, I closed on the house. At the time, buying it felt exciting and important and adult, the way I felt sliding into my mother’s heels as a kid. I suppose I needed something to be all mine, as most unattached people do.

I was blind to the house’s faults, the way new lovers are: the roof that needed a thousand dollars worth of repairs to pass structural inspections, the mold-infested leak in the bay window, and the sloping dining room (a sure sign that it had been the back porch in a former life). I signed the contract without setting foot in the backyard. It just didn’t seem important. A quick scan through the window was enough.

Oh, but I was young.

My first night in the house, I finally stood in the backyard, keys in hand. An unseasonably warm wind blew through, carrying the scent of mud and melting snow. I craned my neck to stare at the stars, pinholes in the darkness. I’m not sure what happens after we die, but if ever there was a time to believe my brother’s spirit was with me, this was it.

I thought about what had led me to this spot; all of it had started with Michael’s money. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I love you. I wish you were here.”

As I looked up at the vinyl siding, the simple stone foundation, I recognized that this house was just the shell of a home. I couldn’t help but wonder if, as in
Babette’s Feast
, there was more to come, if Michael’s money would build something much greater than the sum of these parts.

My new job bled into my evenings and weekends until most days, I only had time for the house. The first order of business was covering up the red paint in the living room. I slapped on avocado green, then a yeasty sort of yellow before settling on beige. I added a couple of thrift store couches, also beige. I picked up a scallop-edged dining table from the dent-and-scratch room at the furniture store. And I slept on the beige shag carpet until I could afford a bed. When I stitched sheer curtains from fabric scraps, Mom reminded me she’d hung sheets and towels over the windows during our first weeks in Jamaica Plain.

When the first bills showed up, I realized I was going to need a roommate.

Vanessa, a friend from the motorcycle club, moved into the front bedroom the next month. Ten years my senior, she was more like a big sister than a friend. With cheekbones like Marilyn Monroe’s, acrylic nails, and straight-ironed hair halfway down her back, she made my perpetual pigtails and dirty fingernails look as ramshackle as they were.

After she moved in, finances eased up. I got a cat. I did laundry. I mowed my lawn. Once in a while Vanessa would ask me to teach her a recipe from the CIA, but I could never find the time. The days droned by, one more ordinary than the last, until winter backflipped into summer. I’d been in Tulsa for one year. Work was only getting harder, as we were trying to roll out a new series of ads for the fall, a big season in the auto body industry.

“You need a break,” Vanessa said one day after a motorcycle turned both our heads. “Let’s enjoy the summer before it’s over.” Over the last several months, Vanessa and I had done very little riding. We crammed it in the space between work and sleep. So we decided to go check out a track day.

We hung our arms over the fences all morning. Even though we could only see a sliver of the knotted course, the bikes floated, sighed, dove, groaned, and screamed, each one marking its unseen place on the track.

“I want to do this,” I said to her, eyes wide.

“Me, too!” she said.

“Hey there, stranger,” a voice said behind me, “I still need to pay you.”

Keith was standing a few feet away. I hadn’t seen him much since I’d bought the house months earlier. Every time we did meet, he offered to pay me. And every time, I skirted the subject because whenever our eyes locked, I had the sensation of seeing an old friend. And we couldn’t
be
friends. Not with those eyes. Today though, he looked different. He was leaner, his race leathers hanging off his hips, his goatee gone.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What do you mean? Five hours—that’s a hundred bucks!”

“I suppose …” I looked at Vanessa, then back to Keith, “I
could
get a back protector with the money.”

I fished a scrap of paper from my pocket and scratched down my address. “Send me a check and you just might see me out there next time.” I pointed to the faded asphalt.

“Well, you’re going to need to learn a few things, then,” he laughed.

Early the next evening, the doorbell rang. Vanessa was still at work. I peeked out the front window. Keith was at the door looking trim in black work boots, a pair of jeans, and a Superman T-shirt. I leaned forward to get a better look, but bumped the window with my forehead. His head turned in my direction. I jumped behind the sheer curtain: Had he seen me peek out at him?
Good job, Sasha
.

I took a deep breath, then gripped the door handle and pulled it open. “Hey, what are you doing here?” I tried not to look overly pleased.

He smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me stopping by like this.”

“Of course not. It’s great to see you again!”

“Can you come outside for a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

He motioned me toward his white pickup, swung open the door, pulled a large shopping bag from the cab and held it out to me. As I peered inside, recognition hit me.

“You got me a back protector?” I gasped. “Wow. Thank you!”

I rushed him with a hug, my arms clasped around his neck. His body was warm and smelled like summer. My tank top moved up just enough for his arm to graze the skin of my lower back above my shorts. Something about that moment, our two bodies pressed together, made me want to lean on him a little more. I fought the urge, pulling back, but the hug had lasted too long. I looked up at him, swallowing hard.

“What’s that look?” he asked.

“N-nothing. Listen, I’ll see you later.” I forced a quick smile. “Probably at the track!”