The Discount Life: Step Three Cont'd

Oh My God. This just in: he’s gorgeous. There is a man sitting at the island in front of me and he’s tall, dark and handsome, which in and of itself is not that uncommon in the greater metropolitan area of Philadelphia. But usually in the wake of a beautiful man at the supermarket, there is a beautiful woman, dashing all your hopes that he is secretly searching for you instead of a good zucchini. But this man was tall, dark, handsome and suspiciously alone. I watched the minute hand tick by on the giant clock at the front of the room. Tick after tick, he remained solo. He had a boyish look about him. Too put together to have picked his gray sweater and jeans off the top of the pile, too disheveled to have put more than five minutes into the overall appeal of the look. His hair was messy. His chin had a bit of scruff, which made up for the bit that receded. He had a very good watch on (I’m a sucker for anything shiny). In other words: he was perfect. He was so appealing I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was a man that walked in to join him.


The minute hand finally hit 7pm and a sprite, tiny sprig of a woman walked in and closed the door behind her. You would hardly guess she ate at all, let alone cooked. She began to make her way to the front of the room where a giant island stood waiting as her podium. Her presence quieted my nerves- mystery man was still alone and he was smiling at me.

“Looks like we’re on our own.” His teeth were very white. I got nervous and squished my lips together into an awkward smile. Say something Chloe. Say something.

“Yeah.” Stupid.

“Good evening class. Welcome to Cooking to the Next Level. I’m Alex & I’ll be guiding you through eight classes of culinary fun.” She blathered on for a couple of minutes about what we could expect to learn in the coming classes. I focused my eyes on her but behind their trained gaze my brain was busy lamenting that my response to a gorgeous man’s one liner was “yeah”. And by the prolific commentary flowing from our teacher, it seemed it would be ages before I’d get the chance to redeem myself.

“We’re going to learn how to take your basic sautéing, stocks and sauces and turn them into practical but gourmet dishes….” He was facing forward and paying attention to Alex as she spoke. Was he actually, of his own accord, interested in this? I was impressed.

“We’re even this week, perfect,” Alex said. I glanced around. The number of people in the class, save my missing partner, was a perfect eight. “Let’s pair up.” She walked around the room and pointed at the people she was putting together. “You two together,” she said pointing to Mr. Handsome and me. Of course I loved Alex from the beginning. She was an excellent judge of pairing, which, I can only assume, is a skill that lends itself to cooking as well. And, just between you and me, I didn’t care if Mel never came to this class.

Mr. Handsome collected his things and came around to my island smiling. “Hi. I’m Christian.” He set his stuff down and offered a handshake. I took it. “Chloe.”

“Nice to meet you Chloe.” He surveyed the room. “I don’t come to these types of things often,” he said. “Well, not alone I mean. “ Damn. His supermarket wife is around here somewhere. I knew it.

“Me neither. I’m doing it with a friend but she couldn’t make it tonight.” He smiled and nodded his head amiably. Alex was explaining how the use of the room was going to work….we all have to be responsible for the condition of the room before we leave tonight… and much like the school of my younger years, I tuned out the minute she mentioned cleaning up. I leaned in to my partner and said quietly, “If you don’t really cook, why are you here?”

“I bought this as a gift for my girlfriend. We were gonna do it together but she bailed.”

“Aww. “ Lucky me. “She’ll come next week, I’m sure”, which I was positive of because my luck could only stretch so far.

“No. I mean we broke up.” And the bright shining light of happiness cast a spotlight on me once again. “But I figured I paid for the class, so I might as well come. You never know.”

“I’m so sorry.” Blatant lie. Of course his singleness elated me. “I’m impressed that you thought of this though. It was nice of you.”

“Don’t be. It was my hairdresser’s idea. She said it would show that I was creative and interested and putting in effort for together time. Sophia said it was a dollar short and a day too late.”

“Well, it might work out to be fun anyways.”

He smiled at me. “I think so.” I was vaguely aware of Alex, mid room, encouraging the class to open our recipes to the second page but I chose to let my focus detour on Christian’s pearly whites. His smile was not just beautiful because he was last year’s Jcrew model. It was beautiful because it was genuine. He was not just tolerating this discussion.  He was enjoying it.

“I just want to warn you,” he whispered, leaning into me and looking intently at Alex, “ I’m knew to this. I may be a bad partner.”  Stop. Here’s the thing: life has a way of giving you the answer long before you’re ready to acknowledge it. I read somewhere that your body can sense what is good and bad way before your brain actually reaches the same conclusion. You’re body heats up in response to that which it senses is going to result in a negative outcome. What a shame we don’t pay attention to our heat sensors. We could save ourselves a great deal of time. But heat can be read two ways: 1) foreshadowing and 2) lust. I chose the latter and said, “I’m a pretty good cook. I can carry some weight.”

“Not too much, I hope. I like to think I carry most of my own weight.” Even better.

“For those of you who’ve already made this dish, I think you’ll be surprised what a difference a little added spice and texture can do to the stuffing.” Alex was at her podium. We had talked right through her entire lecture and landed unpreparedly at “Let’s begin.”

“I think we’re on page two. That means we’re making stuffed peppers, asparagus with squash aioli and French endive salad,” I said.

“With added spices and texture,” he said.

“With added spices,” I concurred with a giggle.

“You want to take the asparagus, I’ll take the salad and we’ll do the peppers together?”

“Sounds good,” I said. He walked across the room to the communal refrigerator and retrieved the ingredients we would need. When he came back to the island he said, “I was worried about this class but it’s turning out to be really fun.”

“It is,” I confirmed. We shared a smirk. The kind that embodies more than our spare words had allowed; a knowingness. I broke contact and glanced around the room to check the progress of our classmates. “I see boiling water and chopped veggies going on. I’m pretty sure we’re on the right track,” I said.

“We better be. I’m trusting you to keep us on the straight and narrow. I wouldn’t want to head down a dangerous path on the first day of class. If the teacher hates me already it’ll be like high school all over again.”

“Were you a trouble maker in high school?”

“No but I was easily led.” He met my eyes before looking away and saying, “Beautiful women can do that to me.” I blushed immediately. Was he referring to me? Panic. What do I say? This was the part I was so bad at. Instead of letting a perfectly fun, sexy statement roll by like I deserved it, I inevitably retort with something cutting like don’t be juvenile or, “I don’t see any of those here.”

“Well I see two for sure.” I raised an eye to his face but refused to look entirely at him. “You,” he said matter of factly, then made a dramatic stretch to look around behind me and said, “And that red head over there.” My head swiveled, perhaps a beat too fast. She was akin to a ginger haired Gisele Bundchen. Her Amazonian display dwarfed my 5’5 frame and my freshly highlighted hair felt extra Sandy with a bit too much root next to her flowing red locks. Should I have put more make up on? Chloe, your insecurity is showing. Shut up. I slapped his shoulder. “She’s Oh-kay”.

“She’s hot.” He emphasized hot with such force you’d think he’d just picked up a pan at 400 degrees with no gloves on. In response, I chopped my onions with equal, if not more vehement, force. “She’s pretty,” I said flatly.

“Don’t feel threatened,” he grinned,” I said you were beautiful first.” Can the pleasure of successful flirtation even be described? The clashing banter of wit and sex resulting in high wave frequencies that take a regular evening from passive to frenzy, have not a name to aptly depict the hypnotic passion they inspire. Making matters more intense, he was gorgeous. I could practically heat this entire Philadelphia block with the spike in my pheromones. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Besides,” he said, “She came with someone. She’s taken. And you’re here with me.”

“Love the one your with? Gee thanks.”

“No. Love the one who’s beautiful AND single.” Single. Wait. I wasn’t single. No, I had Stanley. Shit. My pheromones had just been shot down with metaphoric Tommy guns made of dry humor and lead weight.

“I’m actually not single,” I said with less enthusiasm than any comment I’d made all night.

“Oh,” he said in that way men do where, unlike women, they can’t hide their disappointment behind buoyancy and with one word make clear their regret at the turning tide of events. “How come the lucky guy isn’t doing this too? You said you had a girlfriend coming to take the class with you.”

“His hairdresser didn’t tell him to,” I shot at him. My venom was well aimed. I regretted it the second I watched his head droop.

“Touché,” he said. I stopped my chopping and raised a hand to his shoulder, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound so mean.”

“No no. It’s true. I’m here alone because I was a lousy boyfriend.” He ripped his freshly washed lettuce and placed it in the bowl Alex assigned for everyone’s endive salad. “So how long you been with him?”

“Six years.” I paused. “But it hasn’t been going well for a while.” In general, I consider myself expert at deflection. But when I said this I couldn’t remove my own despondence. Why? Why did I just put that information out into the world? I hadn’t said that out loud….ever.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He said it softly and I got the feeling he meant it much more than when I made the same reply to his break up. I shrugged and said nothing in response. “You going to do something about that?” I shrugged again. Speechless. I could not meet his eye. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be your cooking partner even with….what’s his name?”

“Stanley,” I said.

“Stanley,” he repeated, a half sigh accompanying the name. “I’ll be your cooking partner even though you have Stanley. We just can’t have sex now.” He laughed and right then, I knew. I didn’t want to have Stanley. I knew it like you know that someone is about to deliver bad news. I knew it like you know lightening is going to strike after an ear cracking slap of thunder. I didn’t love him. I was going to fall in love with the devilishly wonderful man before me and there was nothing I could do about it.  Half truth. There was nothing I was going to do about it because he saw me – All the Way. And for the first time, in a long time, I felt the remembrance of the pieces of me I had so pragmatically instructed myself to view as superfluous and let go of.

When my two minute self-growth movie clip rolled by and my new Julia Robert’s self looked back at this moment, I would know that the core of relationship failure comes down to this:  You cannot be in love with a person who doesn’t see you - doesn’t hear you even though they’re listening - doesn’t understand you even though you’ve explained yourself in detail. Toleration is a coping skill and, in excess, cannot happily be a replacement for love. Thus, my relationship was deteriorating long before the JCrew model chopped a pepper next to my abnormally heated body.

But I wouldn’t know all this until later, when a bittersweet parting that night sent me on a confused detour to the Barnes & Noble self-help section. “Get Some Manners”, a book I shyly plucked from the bookshelf and thrust under an InStyle magazine to discourage witnesses from believing I was the kind of woman who actually needed therapy, was the true beginning of the DLA. It cracked open the façade and gave me the strength to realize the life I wanted. All the Way is a small term for such a large definition. In the end, the petite phrase stands as a paradigm for truth, value and what’s real.  But right then, all it really meant was my life was going to fall apart. You know that saying, it’ll get worse before it gets better? All The Way kind of works like that. A systematic destruction of a very strong Discount Life before the dawn of a solid rebuild. But when I left Christian that night, each of us turning the keys to our own cars, no infractions committed despite the yearning, all I was really thinking was that I was crazy. That I was alive and vibrant and tingling and absolutely, no holds bars – Crazy. And, that logic aside, next Thursday couldn’t come soon enough.