When in Doubt, Add Butter (25 page)

“I won’t be here to eat tonight, so don’t bother with anything for me,” she said, stepping up to me in a cloud of heavy perfume and standing before me like we were gang members playing chicken. “In fact, it’s just Peter tonight. The two of you will be completely alone.”

She paused only briefly, but a shudder ran through me.

“So,” she went on, “there is a rib-eye steak in the refrigerator for you to prepare for him.”

“A rib-eye steak!”

She nodded. “It’s his favorite.”

“Okay.” Something was off here. “But I thought you were concerned about any sort of cross-contamination, whether it’s pans, utensils, or whatever. I’m not sure how to prepare a steak without using the tools I usually do.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She waved her hand airily; then her tone changed to something, if not nice then at least
nicer.
“Just clean it well, and I’m sure it will be fine.”

This just didn’t sound like her. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. Why are you doubting me?”

“I’m not, it’s just…” Just what? “Whatever you want, Angela. I just don’t want you to be concerned about it later.”

“I won’t even be here,” she said, as if that were the solution. “That’s why I thought it would be nice for you to just give him what he wants for once. If I’m not here, who cares?” She shrugged broadly. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

It didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t interested in figuring out what was behind this change of heart. Maybe she was slipping off to sleep with some boyfriend or something and wanted to assuage her guilt by letting her husband eat something she would normally deem sinful—who knew? It wasn’t for me to decide.

“Okay, I’ll make the steak.”

“Perfect,” she said without enthusiasm. “And, I hate to ask this, but perhaps you could stay with him while he eats, since Stephen and I won’t be here? It can be upsetting to eat alone.”

As far as I knew, he’d done that plenty, but I was pretty sure she was up to something now and whatever it was, I did
not
want to know, so I just nodded and said, “If he gets here while I’m still cleaning up, then, yeah, of course I’ll keep him company.”

“Good.” She headed for the front door and didn’t say another word.

Peter came in about fifteen minutes later.

“What is that smell?” he asked, incredulous. “Is that steak?”

“It’s about to be,” I said, scraping shallots out of the pan and onto a plate. “Angela got it for you.”

“Angela got me a steak.”

“Yup.”

“Did you check to make sure there were no holes in it from the injection of poison?”

“No, I didn’t. But it’s right there if you want to take a look.” I gestured with the spatula.

And he actually went and looked.

“She said she wasn’t coming back, so she wanted you to have one of your favorites,” I fudged. “I think she was trying to make a nice gesture.”

He looked at me as if that were every bit as unlikely as it felt when I said it. “Nice.”

“So how do you like your steak cooked?”

“Rare.”

I nodded. I could have predicted the answer. Whatever I asked, the answer was bound to be the opposite of what Angela approved of. “I can have it ready in fifteen. Does that work?”

“Sure. Just give me a shout. I’ll be”—he gestured—“in the den, watching TV.”

“Will do.”

When he’d gone, I seared the steak for two minutes on each side, and then set it aside, tented with foil, while I reduced port wine in the hot pan. I couldn’t get over how incongruous it was to be doing this in Angela Van Houghten’s kitchen. If she were here, smelling the delicious aroma of steak and anything from the onion family, her head probably would have blown off.

But that scent was going to linger for hours. When was she planning on coming back? Was whatever she was doing so compelling that she was willing to put up with this in order to do it?

It seemed so. She didn’t have a suitcase in her hand when she left. There was no moving van out front. Presumably, she was going to come back to this tainted kitchen and her husband’s steak breath, and then what?

Oh, well. It wasn’t for me to figure out.

All I had to do was cook when, where, and what I was told to, and to take the money and run.

And after I called Peter to dinner, and he brought the day’s
Wall Street Journal
and a clear disinterest in any sort of interaction with me, that was exactly what I did.

With tremendous relief.

Chapter 20

I was surprised to find Mr. Tuesday himself—well, okay,
Paul
—in his apartment when I got there. This
never
happened.

But I have to admit, I felt a thrill as soon as I saw him.

“Hey,” I said, dropping the keys into my pocket. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Sorry.” He put some papers aside and stood up. “I should have warned you so you wouldn’t be alarmed.”

I laughed. “Yes, from now on, you must make sure to tell me when you’re going to be in your own home.”

We walked into the kitchen together. “I finished early at work.”

“Oh?”

He shook his head. “No, I wanted to see you.” He opened the fridge. “Beer?”

“No.” My hand shot instinctively to my stomach. “Thanks.”

He didn’t appear to think anything of that, just took one out and opened it for himself. “You know, you’ve been coming here for more than a year, and suddenly even the word
Tuesday
makes me nervous as a cat.”

“I know what you mean.” Excitement flowed through my veins and muscles like cool water. “I’m having a hard time thinking of you as Paul and not Mr. Tuesday.”

“Mr. Tuesday?”

I nodded. “You were very mysterious for a long time, you know. I couldn’t puzzle you out. All I knew for sure was that you were a man and I cooked for you on Tuesdays. Hence, Mr. Tuesday.”

He smiled. “So if I’d introduced myself to you that way at No Plans…”

“I would have completely freaked out.” I laughed. “But at the same time, maybe I would have recognized your voice.”

“I’ve thought about that same thing. I wonder if that wasn’t just part of what made you so comfortable to me.”

“Familiarity?” I took a block of cheddar and a block of Monterey Jack out of the grocery bag and set them on the counter; then I filled a pot with water and put it on the stove over a high flame.

He nodded. “In a way.”

“Doesn’t that breed contempt?”

“Not in this case.” He watched me work for a minute. “Macaroni and cheese,” he said appreciatively.

I took out the box of elbow noodles and smiled, feeling warm at the pleasure on his face. “Sometimes you’ve just got to have the best of the worst.”

“And you definitely make the best.”

“Thanks.” I pulled out the food processor and set up the shredder disk. “I bet you say that to all your cooks.”

He nodded and drank his beer. “Yeah, I do.”

I shredded the cheeses while he walked around me to the sink. As he passed me, he knocked lightly against my elbow.

The heat shot straight up my arm.

He stopped. “Gemma.”

I turned. “Yes?”

He hesitated, then expelled a breath. “I want you to keep cooking for me.”

“I am.” I looked at the ingredients spread out before me.

“I mean, I don’t want to ask you to resign—”

My heart filled with dread.

“—and I don’t want you to work for free. But I don’t want you to stop coming on Tuesdays.”

Now I knew what he was getting at.

But I didn’t know how to pinpoint it any better than he did.

So I leaned my back against the counter and looked up at him, waiting to see how he’d put it.

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“I don’t.” It wasn’t a question, but even I could hear the hope in it. I hoped he wanted the same thing I did.

“I want you.”

Feeling as if I were watching someone other than me doing this, I reached out and he pulled me into his arms. But somehow between the impulse to reach for him and the actual connection, everything came together. The next thing I knew, we were mouth to mouth.

I don’t know for sure who initiated it.

I think it was him.

All I know is that I thought I was cooking in his kitchen, just as I had done every Tuesday for more than a year, but suddenly I found myself kissing him, openmouthed, tongues touching, arms tightening around each other, and hearts pounding just inches apart. It would have been easy just to keep doing this forever.

But I drew back. “This is unprofessional.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Unprofessional? This was … Well, whatever it was, the least important thing was “unprofessional.” If anything, it was appropriate, right? An attraction that could—God willing—go somewhere between two people who had a lot more at stake than just dating.

Right away, he looked chagrined, though he didn’t move his arms from my back. “You’re right. I shouldn’t put you in this position.”

“No, wait.” I wasn’t making sense. I wasn’t going to make sense. I knew that already, but I couldn’t stop. “I don’t mean it’s unprofessional of you, I mean it’s unprofessional of
me
.”

“No, it’s not—”

“Yes.” I looked at him and bit my lip. Time to stop thinking—thinking was too foggy for me right now—it was time to
feel
. “But.” I drew him in closer. “I don’t think I care.” I kissed him again, and he met me with equal passion.

This time, he drew back. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Oh, I was sure. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He pulled me against him, and once again, his tongue was in my mouth, warm, comforting; the taste of him sweet and yet oddly familiar—or at least
right,
if not
familiar—
all at once.

“It’s not too late to pretend this never happened,” I pointed out, though weakly. Of course it was, but I didn’t want him to do anything he didn’t choose of his own free will every step of the way.

“Yes, it is. I’m not going to pretend
anything
didn’t happen.”

“Are you sure?”
Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.

“Yes.”

Still kissing, we moved over to the sofa together and sat down, somehow twining ever closer. I felt like I could just crawl right inside him and be safe forever.

And for hours, that’s exactly what it was. Touching, kissing, talking, then touching and kissing some more. We were like teenagers, yet like adults as well, wound up inside some vortex that felt familiar and yet incredibly new to me all at the same time.

Though I really wanted to on some level, we didn’t go to bed together that night.

Instead, we sat and made out on his sofa for about an hour and a half, like hormonal teenagers.

It was the best night I’d had in a long, long time.

At least when I was able to forget I was already pregnant.

Chapter 21

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” Makena said, and I didn’t even want to hear the rest. “Another party has canceled.”

“Who?”
This was unfathomable.

“National Theater Group.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, Gemma.” I heard her sigh, but I could tell she was more irked at the extra work this was creating for her than she was worried about the effect it would have on me. Which was fine; she wasn’t responsible for making me feel good. “Luckily, this time Angela was here to suggest an alternate caterer who was, thank God, available that day.”

Like this was good news to me.

“Angela suggested an alternative?” I questioned.

“Yes, isn’t that incredible? She’s never done anything like that before, she’s usually so into her own thing, but it worked out great this time.”

“How lucky for you,” I said drily, but she didn’t notice.

“Totally! Anyway, sorry for the bad news, but this is starting to feel like a bad trend. I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but you might want to start looking for another place to supplement your work.”

“No kidding.”

“Sorry?”

“I agree with you.” I was struck by a sudden thought. “Makena, was Angela the one who told you the NTG wanted to cancel?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

I frowned. “Well, you said she was right there with an alternate suggestion.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.” Clearly, she could not have cared less. And why would she? “Anyway, I have to go. As usual, I’ll let you know if anything new comes up.”

*   *   *

When I got to Willa’s on Friday night, I was surprised—no, I was
shocked,
seriously—to find her sitting on the sofa, eating from a large bag of Maui onion kettle chips.

“Hey, Willa,” I said cautiously.

She looked shocked herself and dropped the bag; crumbs scattered everywhere. “You’re early.”

I looked at my watch. “No, I’m not.” I had to approach this carefully. She looked so alarmed that I was there, that I had “caught” her having fallen off the wagon, that I didn’t want to make her feel any worse than she already did. I went to a nearby chair. “What’s wrong?”

She bent down awkwardly to pick up the chips. “What do you mean?”

I chose my words carefully. “Willa, when you hired me to cook, you said it was because you didn’t want to have any other food in the house except what I made. Now, I’m not judging, and I love those chips myself, but as your friend, I have to ask if something has happened to make you change your course here.”

She took a breath and sat up very straight for a moment, then wilted. “I want to give up.”

“But you’re doing so well!”

“Things have tapered off.” She paused, then dropped a handful of crumbs into the bag, folded the top over, and tossed it to the side. “To be totally honest, I’m really afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?” I expected the answer to be something along the lines of the cruelty of others, but I was wrong.

“I’m afraid that dieting isn’t really going to work,” she said. “That all the work and deprivation are actually pointless.”

I nodded and she continued.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to haul around a body that feels like a bunch of saddlebags for the rest of my life. It’s exhausting. And this isn’t a problem many people can relate to or, you know, talk to me about. It seems absurd to them.”