Recipe for Disaster (38 page)

“I bet she would. Well, between the wedding and tonight, I think my friends would be delighted to go to Caroline’s any old time.”

“Everyone did seem to have fun.”

“Especially Emily.”

“Indeed.”

Liam was perfectly charming, connecting with all of the girls in the same way he did the night at Del Frisco’s, cementing his place in their good graces. He schmoozed all of Jag’s pals, praising Jag’s skills in ways that made Nageena glow with pride, and made me feel even worse that her love had to spend his whole night doting on me with extravagant affection. I caught her eye whenever I could, and squeezed her arm or shoulder whenever I walked by her, just to let her know I was there and I got it. I wish someone had been able to do that for me. Watching Liam being an attentive date to Emily was like a punch in the gut. He kept leaning over to whisper things in her ear, making her giggle. She was wearing a light loose summer sundress that managed to be sexier and somehow more revealing of her perfect willowy body than if she had been clad in spandex. Her golden hair was pulled off her face with a clip, little wispy pieces escaping. Liam, in his dark jeans and crisp white linen button-down shirt, looked like an Abercrombie ad, and the two of them together made for a sickeningly stunning couple.

Every time I looked over at him, he would catch me, and smile or wink or raise his beer bottle, and the kiss would come right back to me, and my knees would weaken and my breath would catch.

“How are you doing with her staying?”

This seems as good a time as any. “I’m okay, or at least I’ve decided to try to be okay, but we have two problems. One, my mother is coming. And while that wasn’t an issue when Emily was going to be in Boston, now she’ll be here and I don’t really know what to do with that. On the one hand, it might be good closure for Emily to see her, to see her with a clearer eye, to confront her. On the other hand, Emily’s memories are so overwhelmingly positive, do I want to be the one to take that away from her?”

“That’s a tough one. But if you think you shouldn’t tell her, don’t tell her. She’ll be at her dad’s for the long holiday weekend anyway, and as long as we keep your mom away from the house, it should be a piece of cake. What’s the second thing?”

“I think we should tell her. About us. The truth. It’s been so difficult having her living with us and being on edge all the time, I don’t know if I can go another four months. I think we can trust her, and if you approve, I’d really like to have us both sit down with her and lay the whole thing out.”

“I dunno, Anneke. I get why you want to, I do, but she’s so young, and the young are impulsive. What if she slips, what if she tells one of her friends? You know how romantic she thinks our whole fictional love story is, I can only imagine what fantasy she’ll create around the truth.”

“I know it’s a risk, but I feel like it might be one we should at least consider. I mean, think about four more months of having to sleep with me, and not sleep with Nageena.”

He nods. “It would be nice not to have a snoring wildebeest stealing all of the covers for a change.”

“Hey, it’s my BIRTHDAY.”

“Not anymore,” he says, checking his watch to confirm that it is after midnight.

“Fine. Will you at least think about the Emily thing?”

“As long as you are willing to admit that it is a bigger risk than telling Nageena, and we should tread lightly. After all, if she and Liam are getting closer, what if she told him?”

“Liam is just being nice to her.”

Jag pauses.

“Do you know something?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“WHAT?”

“I just overheard Caroline saying to Emily that she was glad she was going to sleep over there so that you and I could have a nice night, and Emily said she had made other arrangements, but she was so thankful for the offer.”

I feel like I could throw up.

“Maybe she is just going to her girlfriend’s house, I mean, that’s where she goes on our ‘date nights,’ right?”

But I know in my gut that isn’t where she’s going.

“Liam wouldn’t, would he?”

“I told you about him, he isn’t what he appears to be.” He’s a lying, womanizing, evil pile of poop. And I really wish that I were more worried about the impressionable, starry-eyed young woman who calls me sister than I am about the fact that mere hours ago Liam Murphy was kissing me and waking up some dormant part of myself, and might now at this very moment be doing the same to her.

Jag is silent, and it speaks volumes.

“What?”

“She’s a grown-up. So is he.” He shrugs.

“She’s a child, and he’s an ass.”

More silence.

“WHAT?”

My husband puts his arm around me and pulls me close. “Methinks my wife doth protest too much. It’s okay to be jealous.”

“HA!” I say too loudly. “As if. Jealous? Of what?”

“Of Emily. Of the idea of Emily and Liam. Of the idea of Liam, I suppose, at the end of the day.”

“So what, now I’m supposed to want to be with Liam? I’m pretty sure they don’t make antibiotics strong enough for that.” Even I can hear the false bravado in my voice.

“I think you like him more than you want to, I think you are attracted to him in ways you would prefer not to be, and I think you aren’t interested in admitting that you’re lonely.”

“How can I be lonely when I’m never alone?”

“It’s not the same, and you know it.”

I do. And the very idea makes me insane.

Jag and I head downstairs and spend our individual time in the bathroom. We get into bed and turn off the lights.

“I’ll think more about telling Emily if you think more about what you need in your life. I’m not saying it’s Liam or that it should be, but it’s okay if it’s someone.”

“Fine.”

Jag leans over and kisses my forehead. “Happy birthday, Anneke. I, for one, am very glad you were born.”

“Well, you might not be for long.”

“Why is that?”

“I invited my mother to Thanksgiving.”

For a moment there is silence, and I’m waiting for him to blow up at me, and then the bed starts shaking, and then he barks in laughter and then I laugh, mostly in relief that he’s not mad at me. We both crack up, just lying there in the dark, and my husband drifts off, and I wait all night for the images of Emily and Liam to stop flashing in my head, until finally, I can sleep.

F
rom Gemma’s Journal:

The Master is taking the Missus to a fancy-dress party. They are dressed like a milkmaid and shepherd, and are both near giddy with the freedom the disguises are giving them, reminding me of masked balls at the big house when I was a girl. The cook who trained me told me that all of the upstairs folks wore masks every day, the importance of a certain public face that often hid the private faces that we saw. The outwardly imperious dowager who loved to sneak belowstairs to play cards with the footman. The ever-proper lady of the house who was having a torrid affair with the stableman. The charitable older daughter who volunteered with the orphanage and visited wounded soldiers in hospital, and once beat her lady’s maid within an inch of her life with a silver hairbrush for laying out the wrong dress. We all have the mask we show to others, and our secret hearts, and rarely are the two at peace.

It took a week for Liam and I to be relatively normal around each other. Another until we stopped avoiding working together. And just this week things are starting to feel back to normal. At least on the surface. I’m doing my best to keep my mask on, to focus on the work, on scratching things off the list one by one. But inside? I’m a hot mess. I can’t stop thinking about the kiss, and the way it made me feel. Like we were inventing kisses. I’ve tried to convince myself that I’m just lonely, starved for physical affection, in need of some sex with another human being, but even I don’t believe me. And, which is worse, Emily has attached herself to Liam’s hip, the two of them suddenly have all sorts of inside jokes, and little looks, and every time I see them together I want to hit him in the balls. With a sledgehammer. Covered in fire ants. Twice.

Part of me wants to tell Emily to stay away from him, but since I still don’t know if they’ve slept together, I can’t take that risk. It’s one thing if it’s an unrequited crush that I could help her move past; it’s something else if they’ve actually been together. I wouldn’t do that to her. Part of me wants to tell Liam that Jag and I aren’t real, see what he says, how he reacts, but I know that ship has sailed, and Jag would never approve. We’ve been putting on a very good show; our Saturday date nights are a major topic of conversation with Jag and Liam, and we’re physically affectionate whenever he’s around. I don’t have the words or energy to confess, despite the fact that a part of me believes that telling Liam might be the unlocking of a door I never even knew was in my heart, let alone knowing I should look for the person with the key. Every time I think this, I shake it off and try to just think about work. There’s no time to entertain flights of romantic fancy where Liam is concerned; work has to be everything. The house is really beginning to shine. We are less than five weeks away from the Thanksgiving Invasion, and feeling very comfortable with where we’ll be by then. If we stay on pace, we may actually be pretty close to finished when everyone arrives.

It took me a whole week of painstaking work, but I managed to get all of the wallpaper off the vestibule walls and revealed the original murals in surprisingly good shape. A friend of Marie’s from art school who does conservation accepted a piddling amount of money to restore it, and it makes the entrance so special. The gilded background with its chinoiserie landscape design is just the perfect thing, and every time I come in the front door it makes my spine straighter. At least until I have some insane vision of Liam slamming me up against the wall and kissing me until the glass in the front door fogs over and then I schlump over again.

Lucky for me, tonight I can actually distract myself with the girls and chocolate. Halloween in this neighborhood is spectacular and insane. Somewhere in the arena of eight hundred kids will stop by tonight. Hedy, Caroline, and Marie volunteered to help man the door as the endless hordes descend. Jag is going to Nageena’s for a rare date night; we told everyone he was doing something at the Sikh center. I splurged at Costco, buying enormous bags of the mini bars of my favorite candy, putting it all in a huge plastic cauldron I found in the clearance rack at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I’ve got hot apple cider spiked with rye to keep us warm, and various bags of salty snacks to balance the sweets. Caroline is bringing sandwiches so that we can picnic on the front porch, and luckily, while it is brisk, it isn’t bitter, and no rain is expected for a change.

For now, the rest of today, I’m focusing on the floor in the prep kitchen. When we went to strip the original floors, we discovered that the soft maple had already been sanded one too many times; nailheads began to appear everywhere. We pulled it all up, and reinforced the underlayment where necessary. I realized that the original flooring in the downstairs kitchen had once been end-grain wood tiles. Often used at the turn of the century for warehouse and factory floors for durability, it seemed a natural way to bring a special touch to a small space. When I’m done, the floor will look much like a huge cutting board. I found salvaged large six-inch square red oak beams from an old barn, and had them cut down into one-inch-thick tiles, and sanded smooth on one side. I’ll install them directly onto the plywood with heavy-duty adhesive, and then effectively grout them with wood putty to fill any gaps or small holes or cracks. When the putty is dry I’ll sand the whole thing, and seal it with a combination of mineral oil and beeswax, which will bring out the natural grain and color in the wood. Hopefully when I’m done it will look essentially like Gemma’s kitchen floor would have.

I’ve put down a pair of chalk lines crisscrossing the space, so that I can begin at perfect center. Too many people start flooring flush against one wall and work to the other wall, which often makes for awkward cuts, or a floor that just feels slightly “off” to the eye. I’ll start in the middle and work my way out, disguising the cuts at the outer walls and under cabinets. Once the baseboard molding is reinstalled, it should look fairly perfect. I get my heavy-duty kneepads, and bring the first box of tiles into the small kitchen. Working in two-foot-by-two-foot sections, I lay down the ultrasticky adhesive, and scrape it with a quarter-inch notched trowel. I carefully lay in the wood tiles, getting them butted up against each other as closely as I can. I’m glad I found the salvaged beams; new wood would never have had this beautiful tight grain.

I love how work like this can absorb me completely. The noise in my head, the worry about what I may be feeling for Liam, or what he may be feeling for Emily, the fact that my mother is coming, the dwindling days that I get to live in this special house before I have to let it be someone else’s home, it all goes away. I lose myself in square by square. Put down the adhesive, lay the tiles, keep them even and tight, check my level. The work is precise and meticulous and doesn’t leave room for examining your life. And let’s be clear. Socrates may have said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living, but I think that it is precisely that type of thought that has led us directly to reality television, and I’m pretty sure if Socrates ever met a Kardashian, he’d have gone into the first bar and ordered himself a double hemlock straight up with a twist.

It takes me four hours to get the center of the floor done, and another hour to mark the first set of cuts needed to do the far wall under the windows. I’ve not only marked each tile for its precise cut but also numbered them in case they get out of order while I’m cutting them. I load the tiles into an empty box, and take them down to the garage, where we’ve set up the chop saw and other bigger equipment. I’m just finishing the cuts when Jag comes to the garage.

“The floor is looking stunning. What a wonderful and unusual idea.”

“Thanks. How is the painting going up there?”

“Third floor is officially done with taping and priming. I’ll start painting tomorrow morning.”

“That’s awesome!”

“You want me to help you for a bit? I’ve probably got an hour and a half or so before I have to take a shower and head to Nageena’s.”

“Sure, that would be great.” I hand him the box of tiles and we head back inside. The wall goes quickly, with Jag handing me the tiles in order as I install them. I show Jag how to measure the end tiles for the wall underneath the cabinets, and he goes to cut them in batches, bringing them back to me to install while taking the next batch to go cut. We set the final tile just as Jag’s phone alarm goes off.

“That is what I call good timing,” I say, standing and stretching.

Jag stands next to me and puts his arm around my shoulders, kissing my temple. “Now that is a floor.”

“Yes it is. And you stink, husband; it’s like you’re smuggling old meatloaf in your pits. Go shower.”

“Oh, wife, how you talk to me.” At which point he sniffs at his own armpit and pretends to swoon. I smack his tush, and he heads downstairs to get ready for his party. I tidy up in here, wash my trowel off, and pack up all the remaining tiles and half tiles for the garage. I always leave my homeowners with their extras; in case of future damage, they can pop out a single tile and replace it with one from the same lot, or cover a wall stain with the original paint.

I take Schatzi for a quick walk, and by the time we get back Jag is done with the bathroom, so I jump in for a quick shower. Since it is just the girls tonight I toss my wet hair in a bun, throw on some ratty jeans and a thick fisherman’s sweater full of holes that had been Joe’s, and my old K-Swiss sneakers that I’ve had since high school. Emily jumps in the shower after me, very excited to get into her costume, a cowgirl getup that at least is going for cute and not sexy. I head upstairs and feed Schatzi, and send all the snacks and the cider downstairs in the dumbwaiter. I always race it down the stairs, trying to be waiting for it to arrive, but so far it always beats me. And I’m pretty sure one of these days I’m going to break my neck flying down the stairs.

I put the pot of cider on the stove in the prep kitchen, with mismatched mugs next to it on the counter. The bags of chips and pretzels and cheesy crunchies I take out to the table I set up in the vestibule, which we’ll take outside when everyone gets here. I go back to the kitchen to see how the cider is getting on; I want it to be warm, but not scalding. It’s barely steaming, and I turn the heat down, and ladle a bit into a mug. I bring it to my mouth, inhaling the fruity boozy steam, and take a large sip.

“How is it?”

I immediately spray the mouthful out in a spectacular arc, much of which, to my horror, heads in the direction of the uncovered pot.

“LIAM!” I spin around to see him red-faced and suppressing laughter behind me.

“Oops,” he says.

“Now look what you made me do.” I peer sadly into my beautiful pot of cider, cinnamon sticks and allspice berries bobbing merrily.

“I didn’t see a thing,” he says, walking over, and pointedly taking a ladle, pouring it in a mug, and taking a big gulp. “Delicious.”

My knees turn to pudding.

“There’s plenty of booze in here to kill any cooties you might have. And I won’t tell. Julia Child always said what happens in the kitchen stays in the kitchen.”

“I can’t serve SPIT to my friends.”

“Would you give any of them blood? A kidney?”

“Of course. They can have the organ of their choice.” This makes me think about Grant’s friend Jenna, who gave her best friend part of her liver, sadly to no avail. Grant and I used to double-date occasionally with Jenna and her husband Elliot, and I loved them both. They live not far from here, but I didn’t tell them when I moved into the Palmer house. They were his friends, not mine, and I’m sad to have lost them in the split. Although they do have the worst-behaved dog on the planet, who slobbered all over Schatzi the one time we tried to meet at the dog park, and ate my purse the last time they had us over for dinner, so maybe it isn’t the worst loss.

“Well, then they can suffer a tiny bit of your spit. It isn’t toxic.” He says this with a knowing glance, which immediately makes me blush, and makes other areas dampen.

“Well, it does seem wasteful to throw the whole thing out . . .”

“That’s my girl.”

“What are you doing here? You know we’re not working tonight.”

“I know, you’re doing the trick-or-treating thing.”

“Right.”

He looks sheepish. “Is it not okay? Emily said people were coming to help.”

“You want to help with the trick-or-treaters?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. No one really comes to my place.”

“Of course, you’re very welcome.” Which he isn’t, but what else can I say?

“Thanks, Anneke. I love seeing all the kids in their outfits.”

“Don’t you mean all the ladies in their myriad slutty costumes? I’d have thought for sure you’d be at a bar on Rush Street or somewhere in the Viagra Triangle.” This comes out meaner than I intend it. But Liam just laughs.

“Please, I got an eyeful today at work. We had a slutty nurse, a slutty kitty, a slutty French maid, and a slutty pirate wench.”

“So it was Thursday.”

“Exactly! But at least they were so focused on prancing around in their costumes they managed to not break the copier, lose my blueprints, misfile my invoices, or spill coffee on my laptop.”