Epilogue
The London School of Culinary Arts is much bigger than the Saint Honoré School of Culinary Arts. As an added bonus, it isn’t located in Cowley, England, but in Ealing, which is to the west of London.
“I think is lying when it says, ‘London,’ ” Mebel says as she and Gemma walk out of the tube station and make their way to the school. “This is very far away from actual London.”
“Close enough,” Gemma says cheerily.
“Very far,” Mebel grumbles.
“I mean, this entire place is technically still London. What is it that constitutes London to you?”
“Harrods,” Mebel says without hesitation.
Gemma grins. “Of course. Well, that’s only a few tube rides away, so I think we can just about manage. It’s far better than Cowley, at least.”
And at this, Mebel has to agree. It’s their second week of class here, and Mebel has gotten used to the new place.
The school has a lot more students enrolled, and because it is London, the student body here is a lot more varied, with people from all around the world.
Most of them are in their early twenties like Gemma, but there is a handful of older people—people in their mid-thirties who decided they would like a career change.
There is even a woman in her fifties who told Mebel that she had enrolled in the school because when her kids went off to university, she found herself at a loss for what to do.
It warms Mebel’s heart to meet others who, while not quite in a similar situation as hers, at the very least, are going through something adjacent.
It is the third week of January, and though it is one of London’s bleakest seasons, even the gloomy English winter is unable to take away from Mebel’s deep sense of joy. So many things have happened over the last couple of months, and Mebel feels like a whole new person.
After the Pemberton Ball debacle, Mebel flew back to Jakarta for a while to sort her life out.
There, she sought out an attorney from a female-owned law firm and began the divorce proceedings.
As expected, Henk chose to fight her all the way, refusing to agree to any of her proposed terms. It was expected, and Mebel did not care either way.
She knew it was only a matter of time before Henk found a new Wendy to catch his interest, after which Mebel was sure he would agree to the divorce.
One good thing about Henk is that he is wealthy enough to not care about their joint accounts.
There is more than enough money for Mebel to peacefully live off for a couple of years, provided she doesn’t buy any more luxury goods.
This would’ve been unthinkable just months ago; the idea of not being able to march into Dior or Gucci and buy everything she likes the look of would’ve been torture back then.
But now, Mebel is done with shopping sprees. Well, she is done(ish) with them.
She even does a sort of spring cleaning with Hannah.
They go inside Mebel’s vast walk-in closet and sort through her items one by one.
Hannah tells Mebel that she will open up an online shop and sell all of Mebel’s unwanted items, which will provide Mebel with more income.
What Hannah doesn’t know is that Mebel plans to give all of the money that comes from selling her luxury bags and shoes to Hannah to start up her own business.
It’s Mebel’s way of apologizing to her daughter-in-law for raising a son like Sammy.
Speaking of Sammy, Mebel only sees him once in Jakarta, when he comes over to drop Luciana off at Mebel’s. He is obviously uncomfortable around her, his eyes only meeting hers for a split second before skittering away.
“How is everything going?” Mebel asks him, and he shrugs.
“Hannah’s got lots of funny ideas now. Probably inspired by you,” he adds, his voice dripping with resentment. “The other day, she said, ‘How come children take their father’s last names when it’s the woman that gives birth to them?’ ”
Mebel laughs, and Sammy glares at her. “Oh, come off it, Sammy. You know she has a point. It’s utter bullshit that children take their father’s surnames.”
Sammy stalks off, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Mebel is somewhat sad to see her son leave, but she is learning to let go of attachments to things she can’t control.
The only thing she can do now is hope that Sammy is a big enough man to open up his mind and heart to Hannah and the girls. She thinks he will, one day.
Surprisingly, while Mebel is in Jakarta, she receives quite a few invitations to dinners and lunches.
Not as many as before, and no big formal events, but enough to keep her somewhat busy.
The invites come from Meimei and Natalia and other women at the country club who, since hearing about her troubles with Henk, have opened up their lives to Mebel.
Over several sumptuous meals, they come clean about their own marriage problems, and Mebel hears it all.
Infidelity, sickness, toxic marriages. She listens while nodding with empathy, marveling at how they’ve all gotten so good at pretending that everything is perfect on the outside that they have come to believe that everyone has got it together and the only ones falling apart are themselves.
But now she knows that this is far from the truth, that as it turns out, most people are just treading water, trying to get by.
After Christmas, Mebel flies back to England, where she stays at Gemma’s tiny Cotswolds home for two weeks before their term starts.
There, in Gemma’s house, they shoot countless cooking videos, each one more creative than the last. They re-create the now iconic Peking duck confit, and the video goes viral, gaining over two million views in a matter of days.
The comments are full of people exclaiming over how delicious the recipe looks and how they were geniuses for coming up with it.
A few people who are in the know also pipe up about the controversy surrounding Alain.
“He’s gone back to France,” Gemma says, when they see the comments mentioning him.
“Good riddance,” Mebel says. She has been trying her best to develop a British accent, but it sounds more Australian than anything.
“Wrong move for him,” Gemma says, “because more women than ever are coming forward in France. And not just from the school, but from the restaurants he owns. Like waitresses and receptionists and such.”
Mebel wishes she could say that surprises her, but nothing about Alain can possibly surprise her now.
She still struggles with some guilt at not figuring things out sooner, and disgust at herself for the relationship she had with him, but she knows that this, too, will pass with time.
She’s learning not to blame herself for everything, not to shape her purpose and existence around the men in her life.
She’s learning so much, and with every lesson she takes in, she is coming to the realization that at the age of sixty-three, there is still so much more to life, so many more things to discover, to humble herself with.
And so it is with a smile on her face that Mebel walks up the steps to the London School of Culinary Arts.
She pushes the double doors open with enthusiasm, her face bright with eagerness.
The world is at Mebel’s feet, and she is ready to march right through and experience every wondrous, painful, messy moment of it.