Two days after my dinner with my agent-manager-bankroller Jackleen and the Man Who Never Cooked, I emailed him.
“Let’s say I took you up on your offer to produce a plate of food 3 nights/wk, would Mon-Wed-Fri suppers be agreeable?”
I heard back within minutes.
“Those days good. I eat everything except blue cheese and liver. What about dessert? Is that part of the deal?”
Deal? What deal? As a practicing attorney, I’d had to keep a close record of every minute spent on a particular client’s case. I wrote back, “Before we decide on compensation, we should check to make sure two people serving sentences can associate.”
“Check with?”
I replied, “My warden.”
* * *
Trying my best to sound hypothetical and chatty during my parole officer’s next drop-in visit, I asked her if she’d ever been assigned to multiple people under home confinement in the same building.
“Why would I?” she asked.
Why would I? It sounded like the challenge of an inarticulate playground bully. I said, “It seems possible that in some huge building in a bad neighborhood you could have multiple offenders.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “Just making conversation.”
She’d been there only five minutes, having ascertained I hadn’t skipped town, when she handed me back the mug of coffee I’d served her, and said, “Have to run.”
“Before you go . . . my doorman hinted that I wasn’t the only other resident he’s seen wearing an ankle monitor . . .”
She frowned. “Not one of mine.”
I said, “You’d think, for efficiency’s sake, they’d want to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Name?”
I didn’t give up Perry. I said, “The doormen here are ridiculously discreet, so I couldn’t pry that out of him. But I have a question: What if I came into contact with him or her? Would Big Brother know?”
“Big Brother?”
I pointed to my monitor. “Whoever’s at the other end of this.”
“You’re worried about what—saying hello to someone in the hallway who later turns out to be a guy under home confinement?” She expelled a jeesh, testifying to the stupidity of such a prim, middle-class concern.
I said, “I’m new at this. I don’t know if I’d be punished for consorting—”
“In this place? We’re not talking about some halfway house where people who shared a cell arranged to meet on the outside to cook up some monkey business. I mean, this is the kind of building where people have housekeepers and nannies.”
I said okay, thanks. But I had another question, involving the geography of the building. Specifically, can I go up to the roof garden?
“Here? Why wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe out of range?” I pointed ankle-ward. What I was actually trying to determine was whether she knew that the judge had barked, “And you’d better keep off that roof of yours!”
“If it’s part of the building, go for it.”
That brought on a wave of relief, causing me to gush, “That’s great! There’s tables with umbrellas and lounge chairs. It’s such a . . . sanctuary.”
Would “lounge chairs” ring a bell? Obviously not. She said only a relatively cheerful “If you’re planning to jump, don’t. It’s the last thing I need.”
* * *
I drew up a contract, the first thing I’d done in weeks that vaguely resembled the practice of law. Not that I needed anything in writing; it was just something to do. I kept adding sentences, such as “If I produce an excess of a certain entrée, would he agree that serving said leftovers within the same week would be an acceptable practice?” Wait, was that necessary when all I had to do was freeze the leftovers, date the packages, and serve them weeks or even months later, as if de novo. Desserts? Not a given. On Sunday nights, I’d email him two choices for each of the three upcoming dinners. I would deliver the plate or plates at 7 p.m. on my own dishes. I assumed he had salt, pepper, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, napkins, knives, forks, and spoons?
With its roman numerals and lettered clauses, the agreement looked stiff. I designed a logo, freehand, using the stylus that came with my iPad. It was a friendly plate of spaghetti and meatballs with steam rising above it. A title? A company name? I looked up “logos.” One expert said the designer should start in the subconscious and pick something that is a visual extension of who you are, and at the same time is aspirational. I came up with it while soaking in the tub, listening to a podcast about Watergate and the near-impeachment of Richard Nixon: I’d call my unincorporated service Ms. Demeanor.