Three Blonde Mice Read online

  I kept waiting for the Vanderkloot-Arnolds to laugh or make a snarky remark to show us they had a sense of irony or were just plain joking, but no. Again I had the thought that it would be a long week.

  “I’m Connie Gumpers,” said a woman who gave us all a little wave. She was in her late fifties, short and chunky, with a muffin top she didn’t try to camouflage with a tunic like many middle-aged women in Manhattan. Instead she wore a too-tight Green Bay Packers T-shirt with her blue jeans and sneakers. There was something equally refreshing and low maintenance about her brassy blonde hair with visible gray roots, which hung at random around her ears. “My husband Ronnie and I live in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Our grandkids were begging us to take a cooking trip for our anniversary because they know their Gammy watches food shows 24/7.”

  “She sure does,” said Ronnie, a heavyset man whose jeans strained to contain his bulk, and whose balding head carried the burden of three chins. He was sweating profusely, and I feared he might collapse in the heat. “Bobby Flay’s her favorite TV chef, but she also goes crazy for that judge on Chopped.” He turned to his wife. “What’s his name, Cupcake? The one with the tan and the fancy suits?”

  “Geoffrey Zakarian,” she said. “He’s a dreamboat. But I love the whole bunch of them—Giada, Ina, Rachael, Guy, and especially Jason Hill. I’ve followed him to other cooking demonstrations and now I’ll be seeing him again this week. Yay!”

  “She’s a hoot, isn’t she?” Ronnie nodded at his wife affectionately. “Wonderful, wonderful mom and grandma. All those years I was building my building business? She took care of everything at home, kept it all running like clockwork. Now I’m retired, and we’re living the high life.” He paused to catch his breath. He was sort of wheezing. “She does her chef thing, and I let her drag me along for the ride. I say ‘drag me along’ because I’m not all that gung-ho on the healthy this, healthy that. Give me a four-cheese Whopper with a side of onion rings and I’m a happy man.” He chuckled. “I love to eat—so does Cupcake—but we do other fun things together too. We learned how to restore old clocks, took a course in woodworking, went with the grandkids to Comic Con, the convention where all the superhero actors go to plug their movies. And we spent a couple of weeks in Gay Paree.” He chuckled again, guiltily this time. “I guess I’m not supposed to say that anymore. Sorry if I offended anybody. Great people, the gays. The French too. They get a bad rap for being uppity, but they were friendly as all get out when we were over there. Now here we are doing the Cultivate Our Bounty thing with you nice folks because Connie wanted to see her chef and we’re celebrating our anniversary. Good, good times.”

  I gave Jackie and Pat my cross-eyed look. We started laughing like naughty children, which prompted a “shush” from Rebecca.

  The third couple wasn’t a couple at all, at least not in a romantic sense. They were a mother and son duo, and the son was Jonathan. “Beatrice Birnbaum,” boomed the deep-voiced septuagenarian—a stunning, erect-postured, commanding woman who removed her sunglasses and squared her shoulders before she spoke, and gave off the sense that she was not to be crossed, despite having a big, wide smile plastered across her face. She had the shiniest silvery gray hair I’d ever seen, lacquered and expensively cut, with bangs across her forehead and layers framing her face. “My son Jonathan and I live in Palm Beach, but we come north in the summer to visit family and friends. Jonathan’s an attorney who harbors ambitions of being a chef, of all things. I hope this week will disabuse him of that notion.” She maintained the smile even as her tone suggested utter disdain for her son and his “notion.”

  We all glanced at Jonathan, who at forty-plus was old enough to make his own career decisions as well as stop traveling with his mother.

  “Beatrice thinks I must be going through a mid-life crisis, and maybe I am, but there are worse things, right?” he said, with a jolly laugh that broke the tension and reinforced my interest in him as a potential romantic partner. I’d just have to wean him off his mommy. “The truth is, I’d really like to go to culinary school in my spare time and see what comes of it. Cooking farm-to-table food and feeding it to people seems like a creative and enjoyable pursuit.”

  “It is indeed,” commented Rebecca. “A noble pursuit.”

  “I have a genuine appreciation for the work that’s done here at Whitley,” Beatrice allowed, still smiling incongruously. “And there’s nothing I relish more than a meal prepared with the freshest ingredients and the utmost skill, but Jonathan’s father, my dear Arthur, built that law firm. He’d turn over in his grave if he knew his only son was thinking of throwing it all away in order to make beet-and-goat-cheese salads.”

  As Jonathan winked at me as if to say, “Don’t pay any attention to her,” I decided to begin the weaning process immediately.

  “I’m Elaine Zimmerman,” I said. “I’m a senior account executive at Pearson & Strulley, the international PR firm, and I don’t think I’m throwing it all away by taking a week off with my best friends, Beatrice.” Her smile faded, and she glared at me. “I’m a complete klutz in the kitchen, and I couldn’t tell you the difference between snap peas and snow peas, never mind whether that Belgian salad vegetable is pronounced en-dive or on-deev, but it’ll be fun to watch good cooks like Jonathan work their magic.”

  “Thanks for the assist, Elaine,” said Jonathan, giving me a grateful, knowing smile, as if we’d just gone through an ordeal together. “Something tells me you’ll be out-cooking us all by the end of the week.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, pleased that I had scored the compliment.

  “Hi everyone,” said Jackie. “I’m Jackie Gault and I run a nursery in Westchester County. I’ve logged lots of time in the garden, but farming is new to me. I’m really excited to cook what Whitley grows.” She pumped her fist, just the way she did when her favorite baseball team won. She knew the names and stats of all the players, and could sit and stare at a game for hours. She deserved a boyfriend who would appreciate the jock in her. Isn’t that what men wanted? A woman who shared their interests? I’d shared Simon’s interests. We’d sent each other links to magazine pieces we liked and ran off to see buzz-worthy films as soon as they were released. We’d read the same books on our iPads and compared notes about them as soon as we were both done. A lot of good that did me.

  “Hello, my name is Patricia Kovecky,” said Pat, who rarely used her formal first name unless she was feeling insecure in front of a group. “My husband is Dr. William Kovecky.” She lowered her eyes as she waited for the others to recognize that they were in the presence of Mrs. God of Gastroenterology. No one did. Again, I felt the need to jump in.

  “Bill’s a regular contributor on GMA,” I said, jumping into publicist mode. “Brilliant gastroenterologist, which will come in handy if anyone eats dandelion greens and gets a bad case of the runs.”

  Jonathan laughed. He really was a likable person, the opposite of his mother, and I was glad he wasn’t letting her spoil his trip. But Lake seized on my comment as if it were a major teachable moment.

  “Dandelion greens are richer in beta carotene than carrots, and they provide valuable nutrients,” she said with the zeal of an evangelical.

  “We use the tender young greens in mesclun salads and smoothies,” her life partner Gabriel added. “They should become part of your diet, Elaine.”

  My diet was none of their business. Evidently, they were going to be a chore.

  Pat cleared her throat. “I have five teenaged children, and my youngest, Lucy, put on a few extra pounds in the past year. I didn’t think too much of it until she came home from band practice one day—she plays the clarinet—and said two of the other girls called her fat. Well, you could have knocked me over with a fender when she told me that.”

  I was about to say, “It’s feather, Pat,” but kept my mouth shut for a change.

  “So I’m interested in learning how to cook farm foods that will help Lucy lose weight the healthy way.” She patted her tummy. “The
same goes for her mother.”

  “I’m Alex Langer,” said an attractive woman with flowing blonde locks, who was decked out in the style known as Boho chic. Her outfit involved an ivory top embroidered with butterflies and a matching bandana around her head, jeans with holes at the knees, gladiator sandals, and lots of interesting little chains and bracelets. The only deviation in her loose, laid-back look was the enormous rock on her left hand. I’m talking about a diamond that made my eyes bug out. She was about my age, I guessed, and showed the same signs of wear and tear, but she had two things I didn’t: an engagement ring and a man who was ready to commit. “I live in the city and I’m here for two reasons,” she continued. “I definitely want to improve my cooking skills. And I’m writing a screenplay about a chef, so this trip is research.”

  A screenplay? Was this a PR opportunity for Pearson & Strulley? Ever on the hunt for new clients, I asked, “Is it your first script, Alex, or have you written movies we’ve seen?” In other words, was there a studio that needed an Oscar campaign? I didn’t work on those accounts personally, but we had an entire department that did.

  “My first screenplay,” she said proudly. “In my real life, I’m a dental hygienist.”

  Well, that part made sense. Her teeth were spectacularly white and straight. She probably got discounts on the braces and bleaching.

  “My fiancé treated me to the week here,” she explained. “He would have stayed after dropping me off, but he’s got a business to run.”

  “He sounds like a catch,” said Jackie with an envious laugh. “Does he have a brother?”

  “He absolutely does,” said Alex. “We’ll talk.” She had a warm and friendly air about her—something this group sorely needed.

  “Well,” said Rebecca, “I’m glad you all came to Whitley and hope the week delivers on your expectations, whatever they may be. We have lots to do today, so let’s get moving. After I finish the guided tour of the farm, you’re going to forage for wild edibles with Kevin, our gardener, and then spend the afternoon with Chef Hill, who’ll teach you how to cook what you pulled out of the earth and much more.”

  “Jason Hill! Yay!” squealed Connie, who waved her arms in the air as if she were trying to beat back a colony of bats. “He challenged Michael Symon on Iron Chef a couple of years ago. He lost—the judges thought his rabbit risotto was too soupy—but I love him! The last time I saw him was when he came to Chicago, and he was the best!”

  As Rebecca turned and began to lead us up a steep slope, toward a dense thicket of vegetation into which we would be foraging, Jackie grabbed me and said, “Is Connie a chef groupie or what?”

  “She seems okay,” I said, “one of those comfortable-in-her-own-skin people who follows her bliss, to pile on the clichés. Same with Alex.”

  “Jonathan is such a gentleman,” said Pat, “and a very devoted son.”

  “He’s probably loaded,” said Jackie. “I didn’t hear anything about a wife, by the way.”

  “I bet he had one, but Mommy Dearest bumped her off so she could have him all to herself,” I said.

  “Elaine.” Jackie groaned. “No murderers on this trip, remember?”

  4

  “What you’ll be seeing are the kinds of plants you’ll find around farms, around manure piles, around compost piles—agricultural settings where there’s disturbed soil,” said Kevin Koontz, Whitley’s forager-in-chief, a thin, serious man who wore a denim shirt, jeans, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a handkerchief. If he’d been chewing on a blade of grass, I would have cast him in a dinner theater production of Oklahoma. “You might also find them among the weeds in your own garden or your neighbor’s. Here’s an example.”

  As he yanked one of the weeds out of the ground, I wiped a gallon of sweat off my face. After what had felt like an endless hike, we’d stopped under a shady grove—a respite.

  “It’s amaranth,” he said, passing around sprigs of a green-leafed plant I couldn’t tell from basil or a thousand others. “The leaves are incredibly nutritious, packed with vitamins and protein. That being said, it absorbs nitrogen, robbing oxygen from your body, so you can experience some toxicity if you consume too much of it.”

  I raised my hand. “Toxicity?” Why were we paying so much money to forage for supposedly edible foods that could poison us?

  “You don’t gorge on it,” said Lake. “You just use it in cooking the way you’d use other greens. Like sorrel.”

  Sorrel schmorrel. I had a terrible urge to punch Lake Vanderkloot-Arnold in the face, but she was so emaciated I could probably just breathe on her and she’d fall over.

  “I’m not trying to scare anybody,” said Kevin. “I just want you all to be aware that it’s not healthy to eat pounds and pounds of amaranth. If you watch sheep graze, you see that they’re foraging, eating a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We should follow their example.”

  “That’s what my cardiologist tells me,” Ronnie said, followed by a loud belch, one of those burps that start out as a hiccup. “Eat a little bit of this and a little bit of that, have smaller portions and skip the visits to Olive Garden for their all-you-can-eat pasta.”

  “You seriously go to that place?” Gabriel said, his expression registering pure revulsion. “Their food is antithetical to everything about farm-to-table.”

  Ronnie shrugged. “It comes from a farm somewhere. And it sure tastes good for the price. I have a nice little nest egg, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to save a buck when I’m hungry.”

  “Lake mentioned sorrel, and we just happen to have some,” Kevin went on, bending down to pull more weeds out of the ground and pass them around. I noticed that Jackie was trailing right behind him, no doubt interested in him as a sexual partner.

  “Sorrel’s a really good diuretic,” said Gabriel, who between the diuretics and the inevitable juices probably peed every six seconds. “Everyone should add it to their diet.”

  “And here are highbush blueberries,” said Kevin, pointing to a tangle of plants I actually recognized. “Feel free to enjoy some while we talk.”

  Everyone reached for the little purple berries and popped them into their mouths except me. Weren’t we supposed to wash fruit thoroughly before eating it?

  Kevin led us deeper into the heart of darkness where he picked, discussed, and passed around samples of lamb’s-quarter, chocolate mint, purslane, and many other varieties of plants that we were to add to our culinary repertoires. I have to admit that I did find the foraging expedition educational in the same way that any sort of travel is broadening, and I was open to eating weeds if they were really so healthy, but I didn’t have a farm in my apartment, you know? I didn’t have a backyard either, or even those tiny containers of herbs that people put on their windowsill. I didn’t have plants, period, because they always withered and died from too much water or not enough, and I’d feel like a failure every time I carted a dead philodendron to the trash.

  “Elaine, want to sample this one?” Jonathan asked, sidling up next to me and offering me one of the weeds.

  “Sure, thanks,” I said. It tasted like the sort of bitter, too-tough-to-chew garnishes I always left on the side of the plate, but what I did enjoy was the way the tips of Jonathan’s fingers gracefully brushed my lips as he fed me. It was a very intimate gesture, and I would have blushed if I’d been the type.

  “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked, his brown eyes boring into me with laser focus. I always heard that there were men who could make you feel as if you were the only one in the room (or in the woods, in this case), and Jonathan Birnbaum had that gift.

  “Yes, I conked right out,” I said. “You?”

  “I had a dream about you,” he said. “We were in Palm Beach swimming in my pool. You were doing the breast stroke, as I remember.”

  “Sadly, the dog paddle is the only stroke I know.” So he was imagining me in a bikini or perhaps as a skinny-dipper—doing the breaststroke.

  “At the risk of repeating my
self, I’m really glad you’re here, Elaine,” he said. “Something tells me you’re going to make this trip a memorable week for me.”

  “Oh, come on. You probably say that to all the women who come to cultivate their bounties.”

  He laughed. “Only the ones whose bounties are worth cultivating.”

  “Help! Help!” came a shout from behind us. “I fell!”

  We turned to find the shout, and it belonged to Beatrice. She was lying flat on her back in the bushes, moaning. She must have slipped on a rock or a branch.

  Jonathan hurried to her side with me in tow. Amazingly, every strand of her shiny silvery gray hair was still in place, even her bangs, and there was no evidence of blood or torn clothing. Still, she was in her seventies, and bones were brittle at that age. My mother had her original hips, knees, and teeth—her marbles too—but it was a crapshoot.

  “Can you tell me where it hurts, Mother?” Jonathan asked. He lowered himself to the ground and sat next to her.

  “Try not to move, Beatrice,” said Kevin, our forager. “Let’s be sure you’re not injured.”

  As everyone gathered around and murmured their concern for a member of our newly formed group, Jackie whispered, “I love the way Kevin’s taking charge. He has a cute ass, too.”

  “Ow,” Beatrice wailed, ignoring Kevin’s warning and grabbing and clinging to her son’s hand and twisting her body in his direction, nearly dragging him down with her. “I think it’s my back.”

  “So you didn’t break a hip or anything?” said Jonathan.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, grimacing and wincing and making every pained face I’d ever seen, creating quite the theatrical experience. “My back is sore.”

  “It’s always sore,” he said gently. “You have arthritis, Mother.”

  Pat whispered, “Do you think she’s faking? Lucy fakes stomachaches when she doesn’t want to go to gym class.”