Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
ELLIS
Apparently, it wasn’t safe to assume we’d be left to our own devices if we didn’t show up for the cooking class.
We end up hoofing it to the manor house after they summon us through the sound system one more time, fixing clothes on the way and following the signs pointing to the cooking class and the thumping sounds of music blaring.
I’m about to tell Wren that I’ll cover us and let whoever the host is know that we won’t be participating, when a tiny woman comes flying around the corner in a cloud of white, gauzy material, her arms wide and her smile wider.
“They’re here!” she croons toward the room she’s just left, which makes the room erupt in a cheer. She turns back to us. “We’ve been waiting for you!” Her smile is as white as her slicked-back hair and her linen pants. She dances her way back into the room, gesturing for us to follow.
“I’ll tell them we’re not staying,” I say to Wren. I have to shout a little over the music.
“We’d better just do it!” she shouts back. “I’m curious now.”
We round the corner to a long, tiled room with four separate islands complete with stove-top burners, sinks, and counters overflowing with ingredients and cookware. One wall of the room is lined with photos that showcase the grounds during various phases of construction, another is filled with cabinets and a gigantic refrigerator, and the last has a huge set of accordion-style doors that are open to a patio with an iron railing.
There’s a group of eight mingling and swaying together in one area of the room; half of which are wearing something that states brIDESMAID . A girl in a white sundress wearing a crown and a veil shimmies her way over to one of the guys in the group. He takes a swig from a flask before he passes it to one of his buddies and intercepts her, dropping her into a dip and kissing her. The rest of the room applauds accordingly.
The white-haired woman is doing some sort of salsa with an equally linen-clad man at the front of the room, and standing stoically off to the side are Ferret and his partner.
“Oh no, our nemeses,” Wren says into my ear.
I refrain from groaning. I don’t think I can handle anyone going on about a “bright finish” right now.
“G’day, everyone!” calls our hostess from the front, turning down the music volume from a remote. “I’m Bernadette, but please call me Bernie, and this here is my partner, Robbie, but please call him Bob. As you might’ve guessed, we are from Australia. Please don’t ask us to say ‘aur naur’ or anything of Cleo or condensation, as this is the one and only time we will mention it.” She claps loudly.
“Right, then,” says Bob. He launches into a brief history of the place and when they built it. It’s lost on me because I’m a bit stuck on the bachelor-bachelorette party, who, upon closer inspection, all appear to be fucking blitzed .
“First things first,” calls Bernie. “Mingle about the room and introduce yourselves. Let everyone know why you’re here, what you’re celebrating, what have you.”
Wren and I share a commiserate look. “I know you don’t want to meet new people, but…?” she says.
I’m not sure I’d like anything other than to finish what we started in the vineyard, but I’ll muster up the social energy. “I can summon some manners,” I say. “Keep a wide berth around the maid of honor, though. She’s, without a doubt, hurling before the end of today.”
“Oh, for sure she is,” Wren agrees. We watch the girl’s chin rear back with the force of her belch, skin going a shade greener.
“I reckon this isn’t their first stop of the day,” Bernie says to Wren and me, nodding toward the group with Bob tucked into her side, a genial grin on his sun-weathered face. “What are you lovebirds here celebrating, then?”
“We dropped our son off at college,” says Wren.
“And it’s her birthday today,” I add.
“Surely you’re too young to have a kid in college,” Bernie says to Wren, genuinely perplexed.
Wren looks my way with a knowing smirk, and we end up grinning at each other like no one else is here. Like there are no groomsmen talking about hitting some sort of wine bong called a porrón in the opposite corner and like Ferret and his partner aren’t mean-mugging the rest of us. We turn twin, politely subdued expressions on Bernie and Bob, and raise our brows patiently. The same timing and same looks we mastered when Sam was little. We learned early on that we didn’t owe anyone else explanations about our ages.
Their smiles stiffen, and the bride from the bachelorette party stumbles over to nudge Wren with her elbow. “Older men, though, am I right?” she says, tilting her chin my way in explanation. I look over at her fiancé, who does, in fact, appear to be older than she is, by more than a decade if I had to guess. And she thinks Wren can relate?!
Wren makes a good show of trying not to laugh before it bursts out of her.
“How much older do you think I am?!” I ask the bride indignantly.
Wren wails another laugh, and the bride blushes. “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” she says. “You just, well, you look—” She grimaces and shrugs apologetically.
Wren finishes chortling enough to peck a placating kiss on my chin. “You just have a very distinguished look about you,” she says.
I feel like milking it and want her to kiss me again. “You mean tired and old,” I grouse, trying to look stern. “Haggard.”
“Handsome,” she corrects, smiling softly. She quickly kisses the corner of my mouth and scratches a hand through my hair. I feel like purring.
The rest of our classmates have gone back to socializing among themselves when Bob claps from the front of the room.
“All right, everyone,” he starts. “As we covered, Bern here and I are Australian, living on this replicated Italian villa we get to call home, growing French grapes on Californian soil. So , naturally, we will be cooking Indian cuisine today!”
Ferret raises his hand, then speaks out before he’s called upon. “Do you have a pairing list to accompany the meal, or are we just supposed to wing it?” he asks.
“Uhhh, drink whatever you’d like to, mate. There’s beer in the fridge, too,” says Bob.
Ferret looks like he might have an aneurysm. His partner looks asleep on her feet, rocking back on her heels. I bet for all his sipping and spitting, she’s been consuming.
I have a sinking feeling this entire debacle is about to get ugly.
“Everyone needs to divide into three groups,” Bernie explains. “One will be in charge of samosas, one will be making a variety of chutneys, and the last will be assembling keema. There are no vegetarians or diet restrictions here, yeah?” We all sound off our nos. The maid of honor yells out, “ Naur! ” obnoxiously. “Right, then,” says Bob, sharing a long-suffering look with Bernie before continuing. “Everyone, divvy up! Only rule is y’can’t stay in a group with the partner you came with! I know, I know. Very sad. But the goal of this class is to mingle. To mix it up and do something fresh. Feel free to put your spin on any part of your dish you’d like, but you’ll find instructions are in the binder at your island, along with all the proper tools you’ll require.”
This new bit takes me from mildly irritated to flat-out annoyed. I don’t want something fresh. I don’t want to mix it up. I need to be back with my wife as much as humanly possible and spending this time wisely. I’m officially pissed at Sam.
“Wanna sneak out?” I try, leaning into Wren.
“If they tracked us down earlier through a property-wide sound system, you think they’ll let us ditch without a fuss now?” She chuckles. “I’m hungry, anyway.” She swats my ass lightly before she struts off toward the samosa island, immediately wrangling the groom, the maid of honor, and Ferret’s partner to her station.
I’m pouting. I love when she gets bossy in a kitchen.
Of course Ferret moves to me first. Dammit. The bride and a barely coherent groomsman join us.
“Bear,” Ferret says, holding out his hand for me to shake. Fuck, that’s not going to be easy to remember.
“Ellis,” I reply with a worn-out sigh, taking his clammy palm in mine.
I learn that the bride’s name is Tabitha, and the groomsman (who is also the best man) goes by Schwartz.
Bob turns up the music again just as Bernie comes dancing around with a tray full of shots.
Great. This is definitely gonna get ugly. I take one, salute Wren from across the room, then toss it back. If you can’t leave them, join them, I guess?
Schwartz starts reading the directions for the spicy pineapple chutney with one eye shut. I start pulling ingredients out of bowls and grab a cutting board and a knife, moving aside a pair of gloves that was haphazardly thrown in with the pineapple.
Tabitha’s fading fast all of a sudden. After apologizing to me a few more times about comparing me to the Crypt Keeper and leaning into my shoulder drowsily, she’s now swaying to Michael Bublé and drinking from a tumbler with a penis straw. Fer— Bear is completely off task and useless, gone hunting for “an aged Riesling” because “anything else might as well be bilgewater with this meal.” I am the soberest, so I grab the knife and get to chopping. Pineapple first, then the chilies. Tabitha and Schwartz start bickering about what he is and isn’t allowed to talk about in his best man speech while they absentmindedly eat the diced pineapple straight from the bowl. I slide it away and chop a bit more, then cut up the onions as quickly as I can. I’ve cooked in a firehouse for years and have never desensitized my eyes to the damn things, so of course they start to water in the process. I wipe at them with the back of my wrist and wrap up the rest of the cutting that needs to get done so I can make a quick trip to the bathroom and not leave my dead-drunk team unsupervised with knives.
A spot under my eye starts burning when I’ve taken care of my business and start washing my hands. I swipe at it with a little cool water and get back out into the kitchen. Christ, someone started playing “Sweet Caroline.” We’ve descended into chaos. Bob and Bernie look out on the group fondly, like this is any regular old Sunday to them.
The maid of honor is now fast asleep, slumped in a chair on the patio with her head hanging limply, shoes cradled in her lap. Wren’s all business, making her still-upright teammates laugh and smile. She’s got everyone in a line putting together samosas and has some already cooking in a fryer.
Shit, my eye burns again. It starts to water. I wipe at it again and it gets worse, right before the other one starts to sting, too. I rub at them harder, and suddenly, it’s like I poked at hot embers and stirred up a flame.
My heart starts to pummel in my chest, panic ratcheting through me as the pain picks up. The sting is immediately too raw to open either of my eyes at all and I don’t know my way around this place, so I don’t know what to do or where to go.
“Ellis?” I hear Wren ask when I bump into an island and curse. Tears are still leaking from my eyes despite being clenched shut as tight as I can keep them. “Ellis, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“No. I don’t know what happened. My eyes are on fire. I… I can’t open them.” As soon as I say this, I feel a tingle in another place.
The absolute last place I want to feel a burn.
It ignites the moment my brain acknowledges it.
FUCK.