The Measuring Cup Thief
Jesse hated fences, especially broken ones. It reminded her of her marriage and how everything quickly fell apart. Jesse didn’t even notice that something was wrong until suddenly, her husband Alex wanted to move out of the house they shared together. They had only been married for four years, but apparently for Alex, that was four years too long. Once they decided to split, they realized that they both hated the house they had saved every penny to buy. Neither of them wanted the property, so they both got lawyers who each had their own preferred real estate agent. Except one of the lawyers (hers) was smarter than the other lawyer and suggested that instead of having an exclusive with one particular agent, they put the house on multiple listings so that it would sell faster. So that’s what they did. By doing so, the house sold in two days, even though the closing took much longer. Hence, three months later, Jesse was able to use the little equity she had from her share of the sale (a mere $15,000) and use it as a deposit for an apartment overlooking Lake Michigan.
She hadn’t thought about moving back to Chicago, but the time seemed right. Her job as a financial aid counselor at a college in upstate New York was dreary. She knew her winters in Chicago wouldn’t be any better, but at least she thought she’d have the lake to look at it. Where she had previously lived with Alex (up on a hill near a bunch of sorority houses), the only view was of her neighbor’s busted white vinyl fence. And that’s why she hated fences.
Before she decided to move back to Chicago, she had contemplated staying in New York. She had even driven around looking at properties she thought she could afford. Maybe she should buy an old house? Or even some land? But the properties she looked at were either too expensive or needed too much work. Or sometimes both. She knew nothing about plumbing and heating and couldn’t even imagine having to renovate a kitchen or a bathroom by herself. So, she abandoned the idea of buying a property and decided to not only move out of the area entirely, but look for a new job, too. Which is how she ended up in Chicago, a city that she hadn’t been back to in 20 years.
She found a fairly new apartment that fit her budget. But unfortunately, she had to wait a few days before she could move in. So, she ended up staying in an extended stay hotel out near O’Hare. It was a studio apartment with a microwave and coffee maker, so she was limited in the meals she could cook. Mostly, she’d eat a big lunch out at a local place (usually an omelet, pasta or grilled salmon), and bring back a salad or a sandwich for dinner. She’d usually eat in front of the television, but she had to turn the volume up on the set really loud because the sound of planes, either taking off or landing, was deafening. Sometimes she wondered if any one of those pilots missed the runaway, would the plane just crash on the top of the hotel? She figured if that happened, she’d probably die. And she didn’t want to think about dying just yet.
Jesse didn’t want to feel sorry for herself after the divorce but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Most days she just sat in the room staring out the window. She knew this wasn’t healthy. So, one day she went downstairs to the hotel gym and got on the treadmill. She contemplated putting on a pair of gloves before she touched the handrails because the thought of holding on to something that someone else had possibly sweated over kind of disgusted her. But she realized this was a stupid reaction.
Alex used to tell her that she was the first person he had met who wasn’t squeamish about sticking their hand in the cavity of a chicken and pulling out all the insides – the neck bone, the liver, and even the heart. When she told him that you couldn’t roast a chicken with all that gobbledygook inside, he told her she was using the word incorrectly. Jesse remembered telling him she knew what the word meant but wanted to equate it with chickens since chickens go “gobble gobble.” At which point, Alex just rolled his eyes and told her that only turkeys gobble, chickens cluck. Perhaps even back then, Jesse should have gotten the hint that their marriage wasn’t going to last.
Thirty minutes later, as Jesse was on the treadmill, she felt her phone vibrating in the pocket of her sweatpants. She stopped walking to answer the phone and heard someone from the apartment’s management company tell her that the apartment she had rented had been cleaned and painted, and she could move in tomorrow.
“Thank you,” was all she said.
The next day she headed over to the storage unit where she had stored a lot of her stuff and arranged for some guy who said he was a “man with a van” to deliver everything to her new apartment. She worried whether she could trust him and even gave him $50 upfront so that he wouldn’t just take her stuff and maybe try to sell some of it. But then she thought, other than an old TV set, lots of books and kitchen gadgets, she didn’t think her things were of much value.
Obviously, she was right, because the following day, right on time actually, the guy showed up and started to unload the boxes into the elevator. Her apartment was on the 10th floor, and she knew that since she faced north, it would be cold in the winter. She wondered whether she should buy a couple of space heaters and then she realized that heat was included in the rent. Hence, she wondered if she’d be one of those people who would walk around in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts even in the winter. Bizarrely, the thought of doing that made her happy.
She started out unpacking the boxes that were labeled “kitchen.” The kitchen had been her favorite place when she was still married. She liked coming home from work and making dinner for her husband, (she meant ex-husband). It would take a very long time, she thought, not to call him that. She wasn’t one to be spiteful over their divorce, so it’s not like when she thought of their relationship that she wanted to insert a nasty adjective in front of the word “ex.” Although, a few choice words – controlling, egotistical and just plain old mean, she thought were fitting.
Jesse started by unwrapping dinner plates, coffee cups and silverware. She found some mixing bowls, whisks in various sizes, and knives that she never could get sharp enough. They were those fancy French ones with a little bee at the top of the handle, and even in their dull state, she felt that she couldn’t part with them just yet. As she was unpacking, she started to think about baking something sweet. Should she make a cake? Or even cookies? How about a big batch of brownies that she could eat all by herself and not have to share with the ex-husband? She meant to add the word toxic in front of ex-husband, but she forgot. Apparently, besides living in a new place, she’d have to acquire a foul-mouthed way of thinking about her former spouse, too.
Jesse knew she was getting ahead of herself because she didn’t have any of the ingredients she needed to bake something, or even any food at all. So, she put on a coat, took the elevator down to the garage, got in her car, and drove to a supermarket in a suburb that was about 30 minutes away. She knew she would need to find a store that was closer to where she lived now. Maybe even a market that she could walk to, even if she had to buy one of those folding shopping carts that had wheels so she wouldn’t have to physically lug home any groceries. But then she realized she was just cooking for herself and how much food stuff would she need? Besides, she was living in a city now, she could just pick up a salad or maybe even some fish at Whole Foods. Or better yet, maybe she’d even head over to Eataly or Trader Joe’s and make herself the type of small plates, tapas meal that she always wanted to eat. Some bread and cheese and maybe even some prosciutto now that the stupid ex-husband was no longer around. She had forgotten about the word stupid which seemed to describe him quite accurately.
Thinking about prosciutto made her remember the mortadella they’d sometimes buy at an Italian deli in New York. Alex pretended he loved mortadella but first he’d remove all of the pieces of fat from a slice and push it to one side. Then he’d use a pair of tweezers to pull out the pistachios. She watched as he ate the nuts and only after he finished them would he eat what remained of the mortadella. When Jesse told him that they could have just bought some baloney instead, he just looked at her.
“Fried baloney sandwiches are really good,” he said.
Once she even watched him take the strips of mortadella that he had dissected and put them in a frying pan. She knew he did this just to annoy her which made her think he was selfish, too. Plus, it was just a really gross thing to do. This made her realize that she had not one, but four new words (selfish, toxic, stupid and gross) to describe her ex. She realized that she was smiling because she had forgotten that she hadn’t called him stupid until now. But her smile quickly faded because she realized that Alex wasn’t stupid at all. In fact, and she found herself sighing thinking about him, not only was he smart, he was actually brilliant. I mean who else would possibly think of writing a dissertation about the political and economic importance of the Danube River in the 19th century as it pertained to the Austro-Hungarian Empire? This academic pursuit yielded not only a Ph.D., but a job offer for a tenure-track position at the same college she had worked at. And because he was not your average, “I’m not good with numbers professor,” he managed to persuade some fancy-pants publisher to give him a fairly large advance to publish said dissertation as a textbook. This, of course, he then required all of his students to purchase if they enrolled in his class.
Jesse pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket and decided that she’d just buy a few things to get through the evening. But she got side-tracked once inside the store since she started to think about baking rather than cooking dinner. She ended up putting a bag of chocolate chips, a bar of unsweetened chocolate, a bag each of brown sugar and regular sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, and a big bag of unbleached, all-purpose flour into her shopping cart. She bought a carton of eggs, some butter, a small bottle of canola oil, and both Swiss and cheddar cheese. Her eyes gravitated towards a package of croissants she found near the bakery section of the store, and she knew that they’d probably taste terrible, but she bought them anyway. And because she bought croissants, she hunted for some jam. I mean, how could she possible eat croissants or even toast without jam? Actually, Jesse liked jam with nearly anything, so once she found the jam and jelly aisle, she stood there for a while unable to decide which flavor she should get. Finally, she just decided to get blueberry, but the fancy French kind that advertised on the front label that it was made with 100% real fruit. Jesse found this odd, and thought well, what else would it be made with?
When she drove back to the apartment, she realized she hadn’t bought anything for dinner, so she decided she’d just make herself some eggs. But first, she’d definitely bake a batch of brownies. When she looked around the kitchen at all the stuff she hadn’t unpacked, Jesse realized that she didn’t know where her measuring cups were. It’s not that she couldn’t just “wing it,” she could. But the stainless-steel ones she had with pretty colored handles were cute. And she missed them. So, where were they?
Jesse started opening more boxes that were labeled “kitchen.” When she reached into a pile of bubble wrap, she pulled out some tongs, a fish spatula, and even crème brûlée ramekins. Jesse ended up staring at the ramekins a bit too long, which caused her eyes to tear up quite a bit. She couldn’t help but remember how many times she’d made that dessert for Alex only because it was his favorite.
Jesse stopped looking through the boxes and decided to just focus on making the brownies. She kind of knew the recipe by heart and she figured she could just use a big spoon (which she had) to measure the ingredients. Not even five minutes later, she had all the ingredients mixed together in a bowl when she realized that she didn’t know where her baking pans were either. She looked at the boxes in her kitchen and in the one that was open, she saw a cast iron pan. Hadn’t she read about cooking brownies or even pie in a cast iron pan? But outside over a wood fire?
Jesse stopped to look outside her kitchen window to stare at Lake Michigan. Perhaps she should have moved to the mountains, she thought. Or at least the country where she could have a firepit or at least a grill. Nonsense, she told herself, she would be very happy in Chicago. She just needed to get used to it.
Jesse heard her cell phone ringing. When she looked at the number, it was Alex. She hesitated before she picked it up. She couldn’t imagine why he was calling her. What else did they have to say to each other, now that everything was done?
“Hello.”
“Hi. How are you?” her ex asked.
Jesse realized this was a formality; he didn’t really care how she was.
She didn’t answer.
“I think I have some of your things,” he continued.
Jesse couldn’t resist; she was curious. “Like what?” she asked.
“Kitchen stuff.”
“Do you have my baking pans?”
“Yeah.”
“What about my measuring cups?”
“I’m keeping those,” he said.
Jesse couldn’t think of anything to say, not even to ask him “Why?”
And before she could protest, he answered for her. “Because I know you liked them. I’ll UPS everything to you, just not those.”
And then he hung up. The only thing Jesse could immediately think to do was to break every single one of those damn ramekins. But she wouldn’t risk breaking a window in her new rental by throwing a ramekin at it. She suddenly wished she had a fireplace, even a non-working one. Because throwing a ramekin or two at a fireplace hearth would at least have been dramatic. But she didn’t; she just dumped them in the trash, washed her hands, and spooned the brownie batter into the cast iron pan.
But still, even after that brief conversation with Alex, her insides felt like the chickens she used to prep for the oven. She instinctively touched her neck; it was still there. And she figured her liver was okay, too, otherwise she’d probably have really bad stomach pains. But her heart? Well, her heart felt like it had been ripped from her body.
Jesse concentrated on turning on the stove and she watched as the brownie batter slowly began to bubble around the sides. In the meantime, she started to scramble some eggs, but then she realized that she needed to find another pan. She went back to one of the boxes and found a small saucepan, so that’s what she used. She put an extra-large pat of butter in the pan, put it on the stove and turned on the gas. She watched as the butter melted and turned a bit brown. Only then did she add the eggs, stirring them quickly until they were done enough.
She took the pan off the stove and grabbed the big spoon she had used to mix up her brownies. She washed it and then rubbed it dry with the bottom of her t-shirt. She started to eat the eggs right out of the saucepan, and then she started to laugh. She thought that maybe Alex wasn’t so brilliant after all. Maybe he was just a thief.
She said the word out loud, and then she started shouting, “Thief! Thief! Thief!”
She kept yelling at the window as she looked at the view of Lake Michigan, and suddenly, she heard a smoke alarm go off in the apartment. Damn if she hadn’t burned the brownies.