Oh! You Pretty Things by Shanna Mahin

Author:Shanna Mahin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Thirty

The next Wednesday, I’m standing in Scout’s minuscule kitchen at seven in the morning, cooking six dishes to drop at Eva’s house, both in the antiquated oven and on the greasy, temperamental stovetop.

I’m not at home because my mother’s perfume gives me nightmares, endless labyrinths of Calèche-scented flowers beckoning like giant Venus flytraps. I woke up sweaty in my dark, empty room two mornings in a row, then packed a bag and fled to Scout’s. Just until I find a new apartment.

Which will be easier if I don’t get fired, because I’ve completely overextended myself. Almost everything I’m cooking is completely outside my comfort zone because Eva is vegan. Well, she’s Hollywood vegan, which means she’ll eat feta cheese and goat-milk Parmesan, but not cheddar or Swiss or Gouda.

“My old chef used to make me these amazing crackers, and goat-milk Parmesan was the only ingredient,” she told me. “I’ve been dreaming about them for weeks. But it has to be goat milk; it can’t be cow. Oz will freak.”

Oz is Eva’s celebrity nutritionist. She had his office e-mail me the ingredient list for her protein shakes and it’s thirty items long. His receptionist called to make sure I received the file and she sounded like Joan Cusack’s character in Working Girl.

I shouldn’t have been intimidated, but I was. She sounds like she’d fly out here and kick my ass if I don’t remember that Eva needs an extra 5,000 IU of vitamin D when she works more than two nights in a row. I’d asked why, and the receptionist asked, in a nasal, icy voice, exactly where I’d gotten my culinary training, again?

“Oh, shit,” I said. “That’s Eva on the other line. Thanks!”

I hung up before she could ask anything else. I bet she knows where to get goat-milk Parmesan cheese, the whore.

I leave two messages for Eva’s manager, Melanie—we haven’t talked since she ditched out at the Ivy—but she never calls back. Finally, I just buy sheep’s milk Romano from Bay Cities on Lincoln and I’m hoping for the best. Of course I Googled it, but the real in-the-know stuff in L.A. is never online. I’m sure there’s some grizzled old dude in Rolling Hills who makes five hundred pounds of the stuff a year, and you have to get on a waiting list behind Beyoncé’s chef and the guy who buys for Mozza, and that’s if someone recommended you.

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