Simmer Down

agencies other than their own field placements. I was taking advantage of Adrianna’s skills. I’d hooked up with Moving On, a small house in Cambridge that provided temporary housing for women in what were euphemistically called “transitional situations.” The director of Moving On, Kayla, was thrilled with my idea of bringing Adrianna along. The day after tomorrow, Ade was going to give some of the women mini makeovers—and with them, we hoped, boosts in self-esteem. Kayla said that a few of the women had job interviews coming up and could really use help with self-presentation and self-confidence. Besides, these women’s lives were short on fun. New makeup and hairstyles would be a blast for them. Adrianna had even charmed the makeup company she represented into donating some products for her to give out.
    I heard Josh open the bedroom door and head to the shower.
    “Morning,” I called.
    “Hey, babe. Can you turn the oven on for me? To about three twenty-five?” He turned on the water. “I have to bake up the focaccia crisps.”
    “Sure.” I went to the kitchen. As I set the oven, I felt proud to make a contribution to Josh’s food. I was so excited about tonight that I could hardly stand it. This evening, Josh would be introducing his food to the rich and famous, ; and he’d probably become an overnight success and achieve national recognition as the hottest, most influential chef of our time! Okay, I was jumping the gun, but Food for Thought and the opening of Simmer really were excellent opportunities for Josh.
    Now what was I going to wear again...?

THREE

    AT five thirty, Josh and I pulled his yellow Xterra up to the gallery and double-parked so that we could start unloading his food and equipment. Mercifully, it was not snowing or freezing. On the contrary, the weather was unseasonably mild. I hoped the warm temperature boded well for a high turnout this evening. Josh followed me up a set of cobbled steps to the first floor of a quintessential Boston brownstone and into the gallery, which had originally been the first floor of an almost palatial house. A generous and graceful bay window overlooking Newbury Street had been set up as a well-stocked bar. Most of the interior walls had been torn down to create a large front room with an archway that led to the back of the gallery. Everything was brightly lit from the amazingly high ceilings, and beautiful pine floors stretched all the way from the entrance to the rear of the gallery. With the exception of the floors and the artwork, every surface was almost overwhelmingly, even blindingly, white, as if the intention were to impair the vision of those who visited the gallery: white walls, white ceilings, white reception desk. In the case of some of the works on display, the effect was, I thought, a charitable one. A massive canvas depicted what looked like a close-up view of abdominal surgery, blood, guts, and all. An appendectomy gone hideously wrong? Another painting, also large, was probably titled something like Study in Cobalt', blue, blue, and more blue evenly and smoothly spread over the whole surface. Here and there, pieces of sculpture in bronze and stone sat on white pedestals, and under the archway was a monumental hunk of smooth granite in the form of a gigantic egg.
    Well beyond the archway and the egg, at the far end of gallery, Naomi was tossing a white tablecloth over what I presumed to be our table. She was being helped by a frizzy-haired, lean man dressed entirely in black who fumbled awkwardly with the white fabric.
    “Chloe!” Naomi called to me. “Isn’t this exciting? Please, come meet Eliot Davis, the owner of this incredible gallery. Oh, and this must be your Josh?” She beamed at me in an uncharacteristically giddy fashion. I studied Naomi for a moment, trying to determine what was different about her tonight. Did she have on makeup? Yes, I definitely saw a pink hue on her cheeks and... was that lip gloss? I was even pretty sure that her chunky braids had been rebraided. Their usual stray hairs weren’t visible. It suddenly hit me: Naomi was nervous! I’d seen her before only in the office or at the irritating rallies she was forever dragging me to. She was completely out of her element here in this upscale, sleek gallery where the visitors were going to reek of money and class and Botox. In her effort to dress up for the event, she’d put on a turquoise peasant blouse, what looked to me like karate pants, and