Free Good Enough to Eat by Stacey Ballis Page A

more days have been champagne days, and I’m so grateful to all of you for that. We may not be getting rich, but in a tough economy, and at a tough time of the year, we have made it through the first six months. I know most people would wait for the one-year anniversary of the opening day, but for me this dream began the first time I set foot in this room. Tonight isn’t just an anniversary for the store, it is in many ways my birthday. Because the day I committed to open this store is the day I was completely reborn. And I couldn’t have had a more wonderful group of people to spend this past year with, and I hope that you will all be here for next year’s celebration, and the tenth year, and the twentieth! Cheers!”
    Everyone toasts, clinks glasses, and the hum of conversation starts up again. I’m surrounded by good people, people who love me, and who stand by me. These are good friends, family by choice, and their warmth and happiness buoy me.
    “I’m so proud of you, girl!” Carey comes over and gives me a hug.
    “I can’t believe you came in for this. You are so sneaky!”
    “I wasn’t going to miss this, I haven’t been back to Chicago to visit in ages, and I’ve been dying to see the place. You did such an amazing job on it, Mel, truly. You should be very happy.”
    “I am, you know, I really am.” Which is true. I thought it might be weird to celebrate the store. It was only six weeks after the grand opening that Andrew left me, and it was the madness of the six months of work to get the place ready that was the time my marriage fell apart without my even noticing. Andrew had been blindly supportive of my decision to buy the space, had given me carte blanche with the home equity line and the savings account to get it finished, and insisted that his name not appear anywhere, claiming at the time that it was because he wanted the store to really be my baby.
    Strangely, I’m not at all resentful of the store. I don’t blame it, even though I know now that the reason Andrew’s good buddy Jeff told him to keep everything in my name was because he knew that Andrew was sleeping with Charlene, and that if he left me, half ownership of the store could have made him liable for half of the store’s expenses or debts in a divorce settlement. That the only reason he was so supportive of my buying a fixer-upper and spending endless hours on-site stripping floors and restoring the tin ceiling and supervising installation was that it kept me distracted and exhausted, the perfect combo for a guy who was stepping out on his clueless wife. It would have been so easy to place all the blame, at least for my cluelessness, if not for the ruination of my marriage, on this place and the time I invested here. But I’m proud of what I have accomplished, proud that we are here, and hopeful for the future.
    “Hey, Skinny, should we get the rest of the food out?” Kai comes over and places a delicate hand on my shoulder.
    “You go,” Carey says. “We’ll hang later.”
    Kai and I head back into the kitchen, where the platters and trays are set up. Grilled vegetable skewers with a lemon dressing. Beef tenderloin, roasted medium rare, sliced thin, with a grainy mustard sauce. Orzo salad with spinach, red onion, and feta. Dilled cucumbers and pickled carrots. White beans with sage. Saffron risotto with artichokes and chicken. Mini pavlovas and poached pears and poppy-seed cookies.
    “It’s a great party, Mellie Mel,” Kai says, sprinkling chopped parsley on anything that he can reach.
    “I really couldn’t have done any of this without you, Kai, you know that. I have no words to properly thank you.”
    “I’ll tell you a secret, Melanie. You saved my life. I owe you, not the other way around. I was a silly little twink at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, was only there because I couldn’t get into a decent college, and at least had some skills from hanging out at my grandmother’s restaurant as a