Cream of the Crop Read online

  “Gotta go, I’m feeling the sudden urge to have a tuna melt,” she cackled, hanging up the phone.

  “Sonofa . . .” I muttered, dialing her back immediately. Of course she didn’t answer. Or when I called her again ten seconds later. Or answer the nine texts I sent her over the next five minutes, each one laced with increasingly creative obscenities.

  “Natalie, you got a minute?” my boss, Dan, asked, sticking his head inside the door.

  I looked up, sighed, and put down the phone. “Of course. What’s up?”

  “Remember that gourmet food store you worked with last year?”

  “Brannigan’s? Sure, they just opened their fifth store—in Chicago, I think.”

  “There’s a sixth store now, in San Francisco.”

  Huh, I’d missed that in the trades. “Wow, good for them.”

  “You still in contact with their marketing team?”

  “Yep, want me to reach out?”

  He nodded. “If they’re in San Fran, they’ll be expanding again. If they do that—”

  “—they’ll need a new marketing strategy. I’m on it.” I cleared a spot on my desk and started making notes. “I’ll reach out to Sara; she’s heading up creative over there now.”

  “Perfect, keep me in the loop,” he said, walking back out of the office, pausing just before he left. “What happened to your usual stacks? What gives?”

  I was known for having multiple, very neat stacks all over my office. It was how I kept the creative and analytical parts of my brain together. Spread it all out so it was easier to see, but the stacks were always squared off.

  I looked around. It was messier than usual. “Just keeping all the plates in the air. They’ll be back in their stacks before I leave today; no worries.”

  “Who’s worried?” he said.

  Still, I made a mental note to tidy up a bit while I pulled up Brannigan’s website. They’d updated it recently; it had a great new look. After running a mom-and-pop gourmet store here in the city for forty years, the actual mom and pop had retired, passing along their pasta and escargot empire to their kids. The “kids” had turned the business into something new and exciting, which was rare in this niche market. They’d opened a second store in the city, then branched out to the outer boroughs with a flagship in Park Slope over in Brooklyn just when the neighborhood was becoming the most fashionable place to live in in New York City. A fourth store had opened in Philadelphia, and then Chicago. Oh yeah, and now San Francisco.

  I looked through my client files, shot off a quick email, and was on the phone with Sara by that afternoon. I’d spent the interim pulling stats on some of the brands and vendors they featured in their stores, and noticed they seemed light on . . . cheese.

  An idea began to take shape.

  After the usual pleasantries were exchanged, congratulations on all the success (due in no small part to the fantastic campaign my team had crafted for her before they began expanding), I told her that of course Manhattan Creative Group was looking forward to working with them again in the future and that when they were ready to begin the next phase, we were ready to launch them into every major city in the country, making them a household brand. And I might have mentioned, several times, this wonderful new cheese maker from the Hudson Valley, the next big foodie scene in the culinary world . . .

  By the end of that call, I’d not only secured a firm commitment for future advertising business with our firm, but planted several seeds about Bailey Falls Creamery, and had arranged to have some of their best cheeses sent to her and her team at their corporate offices in Midtown.

  I’d tell Oscar the good news once I knew his cows were being babysat. And after I knew the outcome of Roxie’s conversation with him, about whether or not he was my boyfriend . . .

  The outcome came that night when I got a text from Roxie.

  Leo will babysit your boyfriend’s cows. Pretty sure no one has ever said that before. Welcome to life in the sticks.

  I texted back:

  Brilliant! I’ll tell Oscar

  he’s free and clear to spend the weekend with me. I thank you, and my future orgasms thank you.

  You’re welcome. To both of you.

  So? What the hell did he say when you asked him?

  Number one: I said he was your boyfriend first, so I get bragging rights.

  Wait, did someone else say it?

  Your boyfriend said it, too.

  There was a long pause . . .

  Hello? Are you still there?

  I’m lying on the bed, kicking up my heels and squealing into my pillow!

  Why the hell isn’t there a pom-pom emoji? Here you go—closest I could come up with.

  That’s a football

  Well, they shake pom-poms at football games. And he is Mr. Football . . .

  I love you.

  I know you do. Gotta go. I wonder what kinds of snacks you buy for a cow sleepover?

  I set the phone down, still feeling giddy that I had a boyfriend. And then, not too long after, felt the first pangs of Holy shit . . . do I have a boyfriend?

  I was indeed able to convince Oscar to drive into the city a day early, and I didn’t even have to try that hard.

  “What good is it having employees if you can’t trust them to do their job on their own once in a while?” he’d said, then told me that one of his interns from the culinary school had already stepped up and was in charge of bringing in everything they’d need at the market on Saturday. He was well and truly off the clock, for the first time in a long time.

  And I was ready to show him another side of my Manhattan. The glitz, the glamour, the secret nighttime hot spots, and the members-only clubs that I belonged to. It was the side of Manhattan you see on television and reality shows. I’d run in those circles since I was a kid, and I couldn’t wait to show Oscar. And to show him off a little—let’s be honest.

  My absence from the social scene over the past month had been noticed. And I was aching to get out and about, eat some gorgeous food, drink some fabulous wine, go dancing at the hottest clubs in town, and shake my ass all over my city.

  My plans were 100 percent derailed when Oscar showed up at my apartment Friday night, took one look at me in my replacement thigh-high Chanel leather boots with the four-inch heels, growled “Fucking hell, Natalie,” dropped his duffel bag, threw me over his shoulder, and took me straight back to the bedroom.

  Did I forget to mention I was wearing only the boots, a brand-new apron I’d had designed with Bailey Falls Creamery emblazoned across the front, and a long string of pearls?

  Yeah, it really wasn’t fair of me.

  He fucked me for three solid hours, and then we ate Moroccan takeout at 11 p.m.

  I kept the boots and the pearls on the entire time. The apron went by the wayside.

  We didn’t see the outside world again until Saturday morning, when we headed to the market. I’m sure New York missed me, but I wouldn’t trade that night for the world.

  “So, about tonight.”

  “Tonight? I thought we’d have another night like last night, but if you want to go out, I could be talked into those dumplings again,” he replied, dropping a kiss between my neck and shoulder, to the dismay of the woman at the front of his line. The dismay was shared by the next woman, the woman after that, and the man after that. I understood; I’d been in that line only a few weeks before.

  But back to tonight. “No, no dumplings. And yes, obviously last night was incredible,” I said when he moved my apron strap over and dropped one more kiss just below my ear, making me go all shivery. “But tonight, we’re going out.”

  “I still can’t believe you had these made for everyone.” He gestured at the rest of his team, now proudly wearing the new aprons. He wasn’t sure about them at first, wondering why in the world he needed to wear an apron tha
t said Bailey Falls Creamery when he was standing under a sign that said the same thing, but eventually he acquiesced and slipped it over his head with a sheepish look. “So, where are we going tonight?” He handed an order of cheddar to the next customer with his usual “strictly business” expression.

  “How would you feel about going to the opening of a new art exhibit?”

  He looked back at me while handing over a wheel of Brie. “What, like paintings?”

  “No, it’s an abstract exhibition—a photographic study of New York City trash cans juxtaposed with large-scale plastic installations, designed to represent man’s overarching reach toward industrialization, and its impact on the environment with its waste.”

  The entire line had fallen silent, as had Oscar’s team, listening to what I was saying with confused looks on their faces.

  “It’s garbage art?” he asked, looking beyond skeptical, then noticing that the line had stopped. “Here’s your cheese,” he grumbled, handing over a package and putting the line back in motion again.

  “I can’t describe the work as well as the artist; you’ll have to ask her for her explanation.” I sighed, rolling back and forth on my ankle.

  He instantly spotted it. “Why are you nervous about going to see garbage art?”

  “Because the artist is my mother,” I squeaked.

  “You want me to meet your mom?”

  “And my dad? Is that too weird?” I said, pulling at my apron.

  It was weird, it was totally weird. Why was I doing this? This was too much too soon, and it was suddenly very warm in this stall.

  Oscar studied me carefully, and I wondered what he was thinking. Would he say yes? Would he say no? Would he order me out of the stall? Would he run screaming in terror at the idea of meeting my parents? What the hell was I thinking? I never did this!

  “Okay,” he replied, turning back to his customers. “What do you want?” He always accentuated the you, making it sound like the customer was somehow putting him out.

  “Wait, so, you’ll go?” I asked, breath moving back into my lungs.

  This was happening—this was really happening! The budding panic was gone the instant he said yes, and I realized how very much I wanted to introduce him to my world and my family. This. Was. Happening.

  He turned toward me with a grin. “Sure, no big deal. Not sure I have anything to wear, though. I didn’t bring anything fancy.”

  “We can go shopping after we’re done here!” I squealed, giddy over the idea that my boyfriend and I would be stepping out on the town tonight. “I can call Barneys or Bergdorf’s and have them set some things aside for you—”

  “Can we go to Macy’s? The one that has the parade?” he asked, his face lighting up. “We always watched the parade every year, before the football games started up. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  He was smiling. Even at his customers. And between orders, he actually began to . . . whistle.

  Macy’s it is.

  We took the subway to go shopping, something he’d never done before.

  “We can just take my truck, no biggie,” he said, gesturing to where it was parked behind the stand.

  I shook my head. “It’ll be faster this way, and we won’t have to worry about parking. Besides, no one drives in the city.”

  He looked around at all the traffic with raised eyebrows, then turned to me with a “tell me that again” expression.

  “Seriously, look again at those cars. They’re all cabs, Uber guys, or private drivers. It’s much faster to move underground,” I replied, taking him by the hand and leading him toward the station on Thirty-fourth Street.

  They had a helluva men’s department at Macy’s, and within an hour we had him outfitted in a nice oxford shirt, a new tie, and a jacket. He refused to buy new pants, though. “Jeans are fine. I always see guys in jeans in those fashion magazines,” he’d said.

  And I agreed. He looked damn fine in jeans.

  Back on the packed train afterward, we stood front to back with the other Saturday shoppers, our bags and bodies jostled about with everyone else. I spied someone with a Brannigan’s bag, and I realized now was as good a time as any to give him my good news.

  Turning to face him in the tiny space I’d created, I beamed up at him, tucking into the spot below his arm, where he was holding tight to the bar above. “I have news for you, mister.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” he asked as he looked down at me.

  “Ever hear of Brannigan’s?”

  “Sure. Gourmet food store, expensive food for fussy people. They just opened a new store in San Francisco.”

  Stifling an eye roll, I leaned up on tiptoe to press a kiss on his chin. “I wouldn’t call Bailey Falls Creamery fussy, would you?”

  “I don’t get it,” he said, confusion on his face.

  “I know the woman that heads up their marketing, and I touched base with her a few days ago. I might have mentioned a certain creamery in the Hudson Valley that was making some pretty great cheese.”

  “Oh?”

  “I also might have sent over a sampling of my favorites to their offices.”

  “Oh.”

  “And she might have sent me an email this morning telling me how batshit crazy everyone went over your cheese, especially the Brie.” I smoothed out his jacket, patting his chest as I went. “And you know how I feel about your Brie.”

  He was silent.

  “So anyway, she asked me who was in charge of your marketing, and I told her that there was a very good-looking farmer who handled most of that, and if she was interested I could put her in touch with you, and—”

  “Wait, hold up. What did you do exactly?” he asked, his face not angry but not happy, either.

  “I didn’t do anything, other than put someone with the fastest-growing gourmet foods franchise in the country in touch with one of the best local cheese makers I know.”

  He was silent again, his eyes distant.

  “The best, but not the most chatty,” I mumbled.

  I didn’t get it—why wasn’t he excited? Before I could say anything else, tell him more about what an incredible opportunity this was, how people would slaughter a Camembert for the chance to get their product in front of a company like Brannigan’s, he caught my chin, tilting my face up to look at him.

  “I appreciate what you tried to do here, and I know why you did it. But no thanks.”

  I gaped up at him. No thanks? No thanks? Who said no thanks to something like this? I must not have explained it well enough; he must not know what—

  “And I know what a big deal this is, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “How’d you know I was thinking that?” I asked, amazed.

  He smiled, a little sadly. “I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, Pinup. I can see when you’re working something over in that pretty head of yours.”

  “But if you know what a big deal this is, then why don’t you—”

  “I just don’t,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I just don’t,” he repeated, as if there wasn’t any more to say about it.

  I had more to say about it—lots more. But before I could launch into my pitch, the train slowed. “This is our stop, right?” he asked.

  As we exited the train, he shuffled his bags all into one hand so he could hold mine. Our fingers fit together the same, he traced the same design on the inside of my palm with his thumb—but I couldn’t help but think something had changed.

  And it continued to change as the night went on. Things seemed relatively okay when we were back at my place. He wolf-whistled at me when he saw my dress for the evening, a heather-gray wrap dress that clung in all his favorite places. And he ran his hands across those places. “Tits and ass, baby—that’s what makes me a caveman,” he quipped, his hands full. I chuckled and swatted at his hands,
begging off to finish my hair.

  “Your ass could make me go caveman,” I quipped back as he got dressed for the evening. Oscar in country clothes was always a sight, but Oscar in city clothes? Mercy. Hair slicked back a bit, loose of its usual tie, it just dusted the tops of his shoulders. His powerful build was even more dramatic in the tucked-in button-down and the “fancy schmancy” jacket, as he called it.

  He was beautiful.

  But somewhere between the laughing over the tits and ass, and the walk down to the town car when it pulled up, he was withdrawing. There was a tension between us that had never been there before.

  A strange sense of almost not knowing what to say, when we’d always had plenty to talk about. When I opened my door to get out of the car—a habit that Oscar was slowly breaking me of—he made sure to get there before I got out, but his usual head shake and “Woman” had an edge of frustration, rather than teasing.

  Dinner was quiet, and increasingly awkward. I took him to one of my favorite spots, a little French bistro that I typically reserved for special occasions. When the maître d’ took my coat, beating Oscar to it, Oscar rolled his eyes. When the same man pulled out my chair before Oscar could, Oscar may have growled. And when the manager came over to greet me, dropping kisses on both cheeks and saying how long it had been since I’d been by and how much he’d missed me, Oscar quietly steamed in his chair.

  Once given the menu, however, he no longer steamed quietly.

  “What the fuck kind of food is this?” he asked, his voice loud enough to make the people at the nearest table look over in alarm.

  “It’s French,” I replied, my voice even and cool, and quiet. “Country French, specializing in Provençal cuisine.”

  “I don’t know what any of this is,” he replied, arching his eyebrows as he read through it. “It’s all in French; how is anyone supposed to know what they’re eating?”

  “I felt like that the first time I came to a French restaurant, too,” I agreed, smiling a little to show him I was on his side. “My mother taught me a few French words so I could figure out a few things on any menu. Once when we were in Paris, I thought I was ordering chicken, but I got—”