Chapter 5
Miguel ran to his room to get a dose of lorazepam.
The sedative was powerful: We had to restrain Piglet, who would have kept smashing his head against the wall if it had been up to him, but all it took was one injection and he fell into a deep slumber.
While I was bandaging his head, Miguel ripped into me.
I just stood there and took it, not saying a word. I can admit it when I fuck up.
I got a rag and a bucket and cleaned the blood from the wall.
I managed to get most of it, but a pinkish, translucent stain remained to remind me of what I’d done.
A feeling of defeat hung in the air. After all that, we still had a big problem on our hands: pay what we owe or move out and face a lawsuit.
Hugo suggested we talk in the living room over a nice bottle of wine.
“And what now?” Miguel asked, sitting on the floor with his long legs crisscrossed, like he was getting ready to meditate.
I was lying on the couch, my head on a pillow, running my index finger along the rim of my wineglass, while my brain searched for possible solutions to the mess we were in.
“Dante, how about asking your parents for help?” Hugo began, gnawing on his cuticles. It was his way of feeding his thoughts. “I think they would be happy to give you the money.”
“We’ve got to figure this out on our own.”
“Quit being so proud,” Miguel said.
“It’s not that. I don’t want to run to mommy every time things go south. She holds it over me, I don’t want to feel indebted to that woman. I’m independent now. We all are, we’re all adults here!”
“Well, it’s not exactly an option to ask my mom, is it?” Hugo said. “My family’s not as well-off as yours, Dante.”
I caught a whiff of envy in his voice. He’d had a humble upbringing; his dad was a bricklayer and his mom a homemaker.
He despised his origins and rarely spoke to his parents, even on the phone.
His dad beat his mom, who could never leave her husband.
She’d call now and again, but Hugo always asked me to make up an excuse so he wouldn’t have to answer.
Even though I found his behavior petty, I understood his reasons.
Hugo’s parents weren’t very happy when, back in Pingo d’água, he started getting tattoos, growing his hair long, and getting piercings in his ears and septum.
They liked it even less when he decided to go to culinary school—it was no profession for a man, and it didn’t pay well.
Hugo held a grudge because my dad owned a prominent notary office and my mom, even though she was from the countryside, accepted me as I was.
All Hugo wanted was to be accepted. His arrogance always felt like a defense mechanism to me.
It was the way he’d found to shield himself from the world, especially from his father.
He’d rather live alone at the top of his artsy-fartsy castle than risk getting hurt.
We sat in silence for a few seconds.
“Why don’t we try to get the money back from Cora?” said Miguel.
“She’ll never give it back,” I said. “It’s her job.”
“Then there’s no other way. Unless we pool our savings. I have about three thousand saved up for emergencies.”
“You can’t use that money. Piglet’s the one who got us into this mess. Let him figure it out!”
Miguel had been saving up to help his mother, Mirtes, who’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer and had undergone surgery the previous year. She’d worked as a housekeeper for my family since I was little and had practically raised me.
“It’s our problem too, Dante,” he said, with meditative calm. “I can put that money in the pot, no problem. You, Hugo, and Piglet will pitch in, too. We’ll get there. Don’t sweat it.”
“Don’t sweat it?! We’re talking almost twenty-six thousand!”
“So what do you want to do?” Hugo asked. “Rob a bank?”
“We can pick up part-time jobs on the weekends.”
“Dante, the country is in a recession!” said Hugo, slamming his fist on the floor. “Businesses are firing people, not hiring! What are we going to do? Use Bukowski to drive Uber?”
“I don’t know, I was just spitballing.”
Hugo stood up and paced quietly back and forth. Once he’d finished gnawing off all his cuticles, he grinned, waving his index finger in the air.
“Wait, I’ve got an idea.” He spat a cuticle out the window.
“Last year, I read about a website called DinnerWith that was getting popular abroad. The idea of the site was to do a cultural exchange, but through food, inside regular peoples’ homes.
Like, you go to a random country on vacation and have dinner at someone’s house, interact with the locals and try some home-cooked food—”
“Sounds cool,” interrupted Miguel, who was immediately shot down by Hugo’s glare.
“You know I hate all these foodie trends,” he went on, pouring himself some more wine.
“Gastronomy is a science of the gods, an art for the few. But now there’s all these people out there pretending to be chefs.
People who watched a few episodes of Top Chef and think they know how to cook.
Man, I hate all those shows, especially the Brazilian versions. ”
“What’s the idea, Hugo?”
“I read something the other day about a Brazilian version of DinnerWith. . It’s for anyone who has a little culinary talent and wants to earn some extra cash without having to open up a restaurant.
The idea is to connect these people to folks who are willing to eat at a stranger’s house, like a kind of culinary adventure.
I was curious, so I checked it out and the whole thing seems pretty legit.
It’s simple, you just create an account and then you can propose a dinner. ”
“Propose a dinner?”
“Yeah, you post the menu, time and date, the neighborhood, the maximum number of people, and the price per head. So, whoever’s interested—if anyone’s interested—pays and then they get the address by email. They don’t tell you beforehand to keep out gate-crashers.”
“And does it work?”
“Yeah. These kinds of sites are booming in Europe and the US, especially in New York. Feedback seems mostly positive, from both the diners and the ones hosting.”
“Do you think we could host a dinner like that here?”
Hugo walked over to the mini fridge in the living room and placed his glass on top of it. He took a rubber band from his wrist and tied back his long hair into a bun.
“Why not?” he said with a smile. “Most of the people on these sites probably got their recipes off Instagram. But we’ve got an edge: I can actually fucking cook!
I didn’t spend six months in France working at a three-Michelin-star restaurant for nothing.
Plus, we’ve got this huge apartment and there are four of us, so we can divide up tasks. It’s perfect.”
“I’m pretty busy at the hospital,” said Miguel. As a general rule, Miguel disliked any sort of change. “What do you think, Dante?”
“It might work. How much could we make?”
Hugo reached into his pocket and took out a pen and the notepad he used to write out the recipes he developed. He made a few quick calculations and tore out the page, holding it up.
“All right. So, the dining room table seats ten. If we charge five hundred per person, that means we earn five thousand in one night. I’d estimate our expenses at around eight hundred, for ingredients and wine.
There’s no cutting corners on that. It’s a fundamental tenet of fine dining,” he explained.
“The site takes a cut, but it’s not much.
I think we could probably pocket about four thousand per dinner, more or less.
So with seven dinner parties, we’d easily make enough. ”
“But we’ve only got two weeks!”
“We’ll have the first dinner. I’ll put together a killer menu, only stuff I can do with my eyes closed. If we manage to fill up four dinners, we can pay most of what we owe and then ask for more time for the rest.”
“I vote no,” Miguel said, standing up and walking over to Hugo. Miguel was taller but thinner than him. “This is crazy! Having ten strangers over for dinner!”
“It’s our only option.”
“And we need it,” I said. “It won’t hurt to try and see how it goes.”
Miguel put his glass down and walked to the window, looking out at the treetops and the people on the street. I could see in his eyes the moment he changed his mind. He respected us and knew that fighting wasn’t going to help. He let out a sigh.
“What do you want me to do? I don’t even know how to fry an egg!”
“Everybody chips in one way or another,” Hugo said, sounding like he’d already thought of everything.
“Miguel, since you’re always taking Bukowski to go to the hospital, you’ll do the shopping.
I’ll tell you where to find each ingredient on the list. You’ll have to go to the truck markets in Magé, the fish market all the way in Niterói, and the municipal market.
Buy from exactly who I tell you—that’s essential.
It’ll take some work, but it’s worth it. ”
“No problem.”
“Dante, you’re quick on your feet. You can welcome guests, serve wine, that kind of thing.”
“And Piglet?”
“That motherfucker stays in his room, out of the way. He’s done enough,” Hugo shot back. “Anyone want more wine?”
I nodded and Hugo opened a new bottle. He filled our three glasses with the smooth motions of a sommelier.
“There’s just one problem,” Miguel said. “If we leave out Piglet, he might get worse. He needs to be a part of this; he can’t feel excluded.”
Hugo quickly came up with a solution. “He’ll set up our account on the website.
They make you fill out a bunch of boring information, upload a résumé, your bank details, and all that.
Since Piglet’s good with computers, he can design a banner, something to catch people’s attention. Good marketing is key.”
We agreed on a date for the first dinner party: April 21, the following Friday.
Later that night when Piglet woke up, still a little woozy and with his head bandaged up, we told him about the idea.
He was in; he was a fan of anything that involved partying and food.
He promised to come up with a cool graphic by the next day and create an account on .
He suggested writing and posting some fake reviews, to make it look like there were people who’d already attended one of our dinners and loved it.
It was wrong, but it was a great idea. I apologized for what I’d said earlier, and he apologized, too.
He seemed genuinely sorry for having spent all our money on a hooker.
Hugo locked himself inside his room and only came out hours later, with the menu and the shopping list. My mouth began to water just reading his scribbles.
AMUSE-BOUCHE
Verrine of cured Manchego cheese with pink peppercorn foam and crispy pancetta
STARTER
Pupunha and shrimp mille-feuille in citrus sauce
MAIN COURSE
Grilled rack of lamb with citrus vodka and roasted green apple reduction
DESSERT
Lychee stuffed with Tokay jelly and mint granita
Petit four and coffee
Lamb was Hugo’s specialty. I’d been lucky enough to try that dish a few times, and it was orgasmic.
This felt good, like everything was back on track.
I don’t think I was relieved exactly, but I felt calmer, at least. The worst was over: These dinners were the perfect solution.
How could I have ever imagined all the shit that was about to go down?