When in Doubt, Add Butter (12 page)

He glanced behind me again, as if he had to see what was in there before he could agree with me.

I sighed.

“And what’s your name?” he asked, hesitating.

“Gemma Craig.”

“Like the diet lady?”

It was incredible that I’d never realized this before and now, for the second time in a week, someone else was pointing it out to me.

“Yes,” I said, figuring it was easier than trying to explain the difference between
Jenny
and
Gemma.
“Almost exactly.”

He clenched his jaw. “Listen, ma’am, I really don’t think I should leave this with anyone but Mr. McMann. No offense, but I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Look, Barney?”

He nodded.

“I totally understand your concern. So how about this—do you have a number for Mr. McMann there?”

He looked at his log. “Yes.”

I handed him my phone. “Okay, then. Why don’t you dial it yourself, so you know there’s no funny business, and ask him if you can leave the papers with the woman at his address.”

He looked doubtful, but took the phone and said, “All right.” It seemed to take twenty minutes for him to check the number and the phone and get it dialed.

When he did, he handed it to me.

“No, I meant, you should—,” I started, but then Paul answered the phone.

His voice was hard and rushed, and it sounded like he was outside in the wind. “Lisa, we’ve got them down to manslaughter, but they’re still going for time, and I don’t think Schlesinger’s going to agree to it, because he’s convinced their evidence is inadmissible.”

Suddenly I was in an episode of
Law & Order
or something. “I’m sorry … what?”

“Wait, what?”

“This is Gemma? Not Lisa?” I was, of course, certain of both those facts, but I’m not good when I’m confused. It makes me come off as stupid.

“Gemma?” He sounded equally perplexed.

“Yes … at your house?” Again, I knew I was at his place, but the very mention of anything even vaguely criminal apparently made me act guilty of something.

“Oh. Gemma.” Understanding pinged in his tone. “What the hell are you doing on the phone?”

“I called you.”

He let out a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean— Never mind, my call forwarding is obviously fucked up. I thought you were my secretary. What do you need?”

“The courier’s here, but he won’t hand over the package unless you tell him he can.”

“What?”

“I said, the courier’s here? With the papers you were expecting? But he won’t—”

“Put him on the phone!”

Wow,
someone
was sure impatient when he was busy.

I handed the phone to Barney.

He took a short breath. “Hello, this is Barney with Crowly Couriers, and I have a delivery for—”

Even from my place across from Barney, I could hear Paul say, “Give her the fucking papers!”

Barney cleared his throat. “The package is addressed to a Mr. Paul McMann. Is that you?”

“Yes. Now, give her the damn papers.”

“Okay.” He handed the phone back to me.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No, not your fault,” Paul said. He didn’t sound so irked anymore. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just distracted by work—innocent guy about to serve time.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“I pay you to cook, not act as an ad hoc secretary and absorb my impatience.”

I laughed. “Look, with that temper, I’m just glad I’m not your wife.” Immediately I worried if I’d gone too far.

Fortunately, he gave a chuckle. “You’re not the first woman to express that exact sentiment.”

I doubted that, but I said, “I’m sure. Now, where did you say you wanted me to leave the papers?”

“Leave ’em on the study desk, please.”

“Done.” I hung up the phone.

Barney, a shade paler than when he’d first arrived, handed over the package and took out a small electronic box with a stylus. “Sign here, please, Mrs. McMann.”

Really no point in correcting him on that one. Then we would have started a whole new cycle of doubts, and I didn’t think either Barney
or
I was up for that. I reached for the signature thing, but he held on tight, apparently thinking I was out to steal useless business-specific electronics as well as possibly helping myself to other people’s boring work papers.

So I signed. It wasn’t neat and no one in a court of law would ever think it was my signature if comparing it to my usual signature, but at this point, I just wanted this kid to hand the thing over and leave so I could finish my job.

And he did.

I took the thick envelope and headed for the den, a room I’d been aware of but never actually entered. It was much the same as the rest of the apartment. Actually, Mr. Tuesday might have been a little bit on dark wood overload, because you could have knocked the wall out and the den would have fit seamlessly into the corner of the living room. It all looked the same to me.

Well, I assumed it was, anyway. The bedroom door was closed. For some reason, the bedroom door was
always
closed. I don’t believe there was anything sinister back there—maybe he was just a slob who never made his bed or something.

I
was.

Possibly he didn’t want anyone else to see that. So I walked past the closed door—yes, totally tempted to open it up and look—and dropped the envelope on the desk in the den.

I went back into the kitchen and took the meat loaf out of the oven, then reheated the glaze and added a little Frank’s hot sauce. As soon as it was melty, I poured the mixture over the meat loaf, broiled the dish for two minutes, and—voilà!—it was done.

I took it out of the oven and just beheld my masterpiece for a moment. This happens to me with making meat loaf: I always wish I’d set a tiny bit aside on another baking sheet so I could eat it myself. It was torture looking at this beautiful thing and knowing there was no way in the world I could cut into it without being obvious.

So I put an aluminum foil tent over it, par-steamed some French-cut green beans and almonds, and poked a couple of potatoes with a fork before dropping them into a ziplock with instructions on heating in the microwave. (Basically, “Put in microwave and push ‘potato’ button twice,” since pushing that button once was
never
enough, not in any microwave I’d ever tried.)

Once everything was done and ready to be reheated whenever he (and she?) got home, I put it all in Tupperware and into the fridge with clear directions for everything. I’d learned the importance of extra-clear instructions way back when one of my first clients heated a whole dish of chicken and biscuits with the plastic wrap still on. You could just never assume people had common sense.

I started to leave, then hesitated and turned back. It was hard to resist messing with him. Honestly, if we’d met in a college civics class or something, we probably would have been best friends, I could just tell. Even when he exasperated me—which was much of the time—he made me laugh a lot, too.

He was just that kind of guy.

Of course, if he ever said something seriously obnoxious about my cooking, I probably wouldn’t feel so kindly toward him. But he never did. For the most part, he was really appreciative, often noticing even subtle additions and changes of spice or flavoring. He complimented me on my work frequently, and honestly, there’s almost nothing I like better than praise for my cooking.

I’m not too proud to admit it.

So I took a pen off the desk and went back into the kitchen. I’d tossed his note, but there was a plain lined pad with a magnetic back on the refrigerator. I took a sheet off that and wrote:

P—

This is the last of the garlic—don’t worry, I’ll pick up some more before next week. They sell pounds of it in a jar at Costco, already peeled. I already have plans for Chicken with Seventy-five Cloves of Garlic, and of course, garlic bread and a nice sharp pesto spread to go with it.

I know this pleases you.

—G

I laid it on the counter and took a head of garlic from the vegetable bin and put it down as a paperweight. I wondered what his response would be.

And with that, I was done with Mr. Tuesday for the week. But I wasn’t done thinking about him.

Chapter 8

Wednesday.

“Hello, hello, hello!” Lex hurried into the kitchen, set his leather valise down on the granite-top desk, and came over to kiss my cheek. “I have been
dying
to see you and hear about the party in Georgetown—when—two weekends ago? Were the true wives there?”

“
They
were there. I wasn’t.” I mixed an Algonquin, his favorite martini with rye, vermouth, and pineapple juice, into a sterling shaker and shook it with ice. I poured it into a martini glass and handed it to him, feeling—as I did every time—like a poor man’s Myrna Loy.

He took a sip and closed his eyes in a moment of apparent ecstasy. “I don’t know how you do it, but this is better than Mother’s. Don’t tell her I said so!” He laughed.

No danger of that. “Thanks.” I put three eggs in a pan of cold water and put it on the stove to simmer.

He took another sip and set the glass down. “So why weren’t you there?”

I told him about the peacock incident. At the end, he laughed and asked, “So do you think any of it made it onto the show?”

“God, I hope not.” I explained the whole thing as I chopped lettuce, chicory, and watercress for his Cobb salad. “I never signed a release, so they can’t put me on, right?”

“Well”—he gave a skeptical look—“I don’t know what the rules are about blurring faces and license plate numbers.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t even think of that!”

He tapped his finger on his temple. “Always have to use the noodle. And be paranoid.” He sipped his drink again. “And
always
look your best.” This was something he clearly took to heart. Not one of his silver hairs was ever out of place, he was always dressed immaculately, even when in his “workout clothes.” (These consisted of a velour tracksuit that would have looked perfect on any wealthy sitcom character you can think of—Mr. Drummond, from
Diff’rent Strokes
comes to mind.) Somehow everything Lex wore worked for him.

I, on the other hand, had my mousy hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and was wearing green sweats I got from Target a million years ago along with a USMC T-shirt I’ve had since dating a marine a couple of years ago.

In short, I was
not
camera ready.

“Unless you plan on having a reality show, I don’t think I’m in a lot of danger of ending up on TV in the near future,” I said to him.

He raised an eyebrow mischievously. “Not a bad idea. The goings-on behind the scenes of a department store.”

I laughed and started dicing tomatoes. “Lex, you would hate having cameras follow you around every waking moment. Even
you
couldn’t control your close-ups all the time.”

He frowned. “Good point.”

I nodded. “So are you having another book club tonight?” I loved the idea of him having that group of equally elegant, old-fashioned guests over to shoot the shit.

“Not tonight.” He gave a small smile. “I canceled. Tonight there will be just one guest.”

“Ooooh! Are you divulging details? Who is it?”

He pressed his lips together for a moment, then said, “Terry. We have some very exciting things to discuss. But that’s all I’m going to say. I don’t want to jinx things.”

“I understand.” I didn’t, though, and I
totally
wanted to. Was Terry a man or a woman? There didn’t seem to be a way to ask that without seeming really nosy and inappropriate.

Which, of course, I was.

He took the shaker to the sink and rinsed it out. It had probably been driving him crazy, sitting there, empty and uncleaned. “Back to your dinner-party-that-wasn’t, what will you do on Friday nights now that you’re not working for the Lemurras?”

“Good question.” I took out ziplock bags I’d brought of diced turkey breast and crisp bacon and made columns of them on a platter. “I have a few prospects, but nothing I feel really good about.” I went to the stove, turned it off, and let the eggs sit to continue cooking until they were hard-boiled.

“There have got to be some nice, normal prospects for you.”

“You’d think. But there are all kinds of difficults out there.” Understatement. “It’s kind of chancy every time you go into someone’s private domain.”

“Indeed. However, if you don’t mind my saying so,
I’d
feel better if you worked for a woman.”

“
But
all too often, it’s the women who are the
most
difficult.” I raised an eyebrow. “Marie Lemurra.”

He nodded, but raised one silver eyebrow knowingly. “Yet less likely to try to impose themselves on you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’d be surprised how little the men I work for seem to notice me.”

He looked me up and down, but I think he thought I didn’t notice. I just
knew
he was assessing my current appearance and deciding that I was not only not
camera ready,
but I was not
man ready,
either, and he was, in fact, not the least bit surprised that the men I worked for didn’t notice me.

And, really, he was right.

“Stop judging,” I said lightly. “I’m not saying they
should
be noticing me sexually, only that half the time they bump into me like they’re not even aware there’s another human being in the room.”

Lex waved a hand. “I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“Only a little.”

“You know”—he sighed—“you’d look so pretty with the right clothes.… Let me take you to the store and have a shopper work with you. On the house!”

“I
have
clothes.” I laughed. The clothes I had probably wouldn’t qualify as clothes to him. “But if you want me to get dressed up to come cook for you, it’s gonna cost you extra.”

He laughed, too. “Now, Gemma, this is starting to sound like an illegal operation.”

“It probably should be. I’d make a lot more money!”