When in Doubt, Add Butter (3 page)

Of course, I prefer to think Pepe died happy. I mean, at least he thought he was getting laid. That’s good, right?

Especially since, as soon as the feathers began to fly, I knew I’d just lost my job.

*   *   *

After the thrashing and hysteria ended—Marie Lemurra’s, not Pepe’s; you will be relieved to know that he went quickly and quietly after his few scratchy advances toward my car—I had to go into the house and prepare the meal anyway.

Fortunately, Marie was very aware of all eyes being on her, so she didn’t allow her anger toward me to continue bursting forth. The tension was unmistakable, however. I would be amazed if anyone there didn’t feel it.

Then again, there was always an edge to Marie, so anyone around her would have been hard-pressed to determine exactly what her problem was at any given time.

Mishaps like this were rare, thank goodness, but they
did
happen. People were usually very happy with my work. I can’t remember the last time I had a complaint. (I mean one that didn’t involve running over exotic pets, anaphylactic shock I had no way of preventing, or on one unfortunate occasion, a drunken spouse making a pass at me … and no, it wasn’t the husband.)

If the night had not involved a dinner party, I have no doubt that I would have taken a bath on this one. The way I worked was to buy the ingredients myself, then get reimbursement for them, along with my pay, at the end of the night.

In this case, it was a party for thirty, including Marie and two cast members from
The Real Famewhores of D.C.
or whatever the show was called. Marie had been fervently hoping the whole event would be filmed and included on the show in order to increase her screen time. Last year, she’d already made several appearances, backstabbing one person or another—at the time, she’d been tagged on-screen only as
MARIE L
—but then one of the cast members had grown popular enough to get her own show and there was room for one more in the regular cast, and Marie got the gig.

The camera crew had been to her house several times, including tonight, but filming never guaranteed the scene would actually be aired. This, of course, made Marie the number one most attentive fan, intently watching for any sign of herself, even if it was just her overbleached hair dipping out of the corner of the shot at Columbia Country Club’s banquet hall.

Once, when I’d arrived at her house for a small dinner party, I noticed she had the DVR strategically on hold for more than an hour until her first guest arrived so she could press
PLAY
and then pretend it just
happened
to be on when a close-up of her filled the screen.

“That was dramatic,” Lynn Bowes, my pal who worked as a waitress at most of these events, whispered to me as I chopped a Vidalia onion.

We’d become friends after we worked together a few times at the Chase Country Club, where my most lucrative work came in the form of special events several times a month, and we’d hung out a few times over the past couple of years on the rare occasion we both had a weekend night off.

“I’ll say.” I kept my voice low, but I was frustrated. “I don’t know what her problem is.”

“You don’t?”

I looked at Lynn. “What do you mean?”

“I mean a perfectly catered party for her friends going off without a hitch is about as interesting on-screen as paint drying.” She raised an eyebrow. “But histrionics, a catering catastrophe, and a dead peacock might just be enough to tip her over the edge into a leading role on that stupid show if the rumors of cast changes are true.”

It made total sense. “
Are
there rumors of cast changes?”

Lynn snorted. “Oh my God yes, this is the most boring bunch since the Bradys!”

I had always liked
The Brady Bunch,
but I took her meaning and gave a laugh. “Then Marie must be salivating at the prospect of getting a full-time gig here.”

“Ho yeah!”

My cell phone rang and I glanced at it. It was Penny, my cousin. She was heavily pregnant, on bed rest, and bored out of her mind. She called about three times a day lately. Fortunately, she was always entertaining.

“Excuse me a minute,” I said, and Lynn gave the
Ok
signal and walked away. “Hey.”

“Are you alone?” Penny asked.

“Ish.”

She laughed. “I’m calling to remind you not to hide from the cameras. I know you hate having your picture taken and yada yada yada, but someday, trust me, you’ll be glad you did this. In fact, I was thinking if you got on camera, this might even be like the first step toward getting on
Top Chef
or maybe even getting your own cooking show on the Food Network or something. This could be like your audition tape—”

“I’m not going to be on the show.”

“
Gemma!
You have got to
stop
this bullshit of being so shy about publicity.”

“I don’t
want
publicity.”

“You
need
it! You make frozen dinners for five people a week—that’s not going to get you a retirement plan.”

“No, but the country club will.”

She sighed. “Okay, but still—if you could make buckets of money being on TV and becoming a celebrity chef while that’s hot, why wouldn’t you?”

I sighed. We’d had this conversation so many times. Her confidence in me was touching but a little overly optimistic, I thought. “So many reasons.”

She made a sound of irritation. “I can’t believe you are so bullheaded about this.”

I laughed. “Why don’t
you
do it?”

“I swear, if I could so much as boil water, I’d be all over it!”

“I’ll teach you. I think I’ll have time on Fridays from now on, since I’m about to get fired.”

“What?”
Everything was always big to Penny. Two years older than me, but about a hundred times more energetic and bubbly, for her life was one huge party and she wanted to taste every single piece of cake and lick ice cream, good or bad. I could almost hear her adjusting herself into the most comfortable listening position.

“Oh, the usual, you know”—I peeled another onion—“dead peacock.”

“You tried to serve dead peacock to someone?”

“No!” I laughed at the thought. “Although that might be what they’re left with. No, the Lemurras bought a peacock as a pet or decoration or something equally ridiculous, and I ran over it.”

“How do you run over a peacock?”

“I didn’t see it.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Aren’t they kind of … obvious?”

I already knew I was going to get this question a lot. “Well,
maybe,
if you know to look for them! Otherwise, believe me, they’re fucking invisible. You can back right over one and not know it until you hear the screaming.”

“It
screamed
?”

“No,
she
did. Marie.” I frowned. Had there been cameras running at the time? I sincerely hoped not, though they couldn’t put me on the show without me signing a release, could they?

“You are totally making this up!”

“Really?
This
is the story you think I’d come up with on the spot? That I ran over a peacock?”

“Well, why would they even
have
a peacock there?”

“The eternal question. Look, I have to get back to work. Are you at home?”

“Very funny.” She was so sick of being homebound, it was starting to make her crazy.

“Sorry, I keep forgetting.”

“Would that I could!” I heard the bed creak as she obviously moved with some effort. “I can’t stand being pregnant for one more second. I think it’s time to start taking cold showers, running, doing all the things they say you shouldn’t do, in case it sends you into premature labor.”

“Don’t you dare! I can’t stay on the phone and babysit you right now, but if you take any chances that land you in the hospital for anything other than labor, you’ll be really sorry.”

“I know, I know.”

“I
mean
it.”

She laughed. “Okay, okay, got it. But promise you’ll call me if you want to talk.”

“I promise.”

I took out the asparagus and started to chop off the woody ends. I was about halfway through five pounds of them when Lynn came back, wearing a tight expression.

“She’s on the warpath,” she warned. “I don’t know if she’s really pissed or if she’s just playing it up for the cameras, but I get the feeling this is the real thing.”

I nodded. “That’s the impression I had.”

“I mean, she’s at a boiling point
right now.
You might want to gather your knives.”

“Oh, no, really?” My nerves jangled.

“She’s probably afraid PETA is going to come after her publicly and ruin her image or something.”

That would make the papers, albeit the small papers and probably just a corner thereof. “Good point. Jeez, do you think they will?” I paused in the midst of searing the game hens in a large pan. “Would they come after
me
?”

“Nah. That was an accident. The crime here is having a peacock on a property like this at all! It’s like keeping a pony in Times Square. Well, almost. Anyway, she’s the one who’s wrong here, not you.”

Dread knotted my stomach. “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right.” She glanced around and took a slice of Vidalia and popped it in her mouth. “I love these things. I could eat them like apples.”

“And never get another date because you perpetually smell like onions.”

“Who are you kidding? I’m never gonna have another date anyway. And I hate to break it to you, but neither are you. Our jobs are to cater to
other people’s
dates!”

“We need to get out now and then.”

“Damn right! We’re not going to be spinsters forever!”

I am
not
a beautiful girl. I am prettyish in the right light, I guess. Average height, average straight brown hair, murky green eyes that have been called everything from “exotic” to “expressive” to “creepy” (thanks, Mark Hutchinson in third grade) but are the one feature that keeps me from blending into the wallpaper.

I
used
to have a great figure—this was what fooled guys into thinking I was something I was not in high school, I think—but thanks to life and my vocation, I had to give up on the idea of maintaining a supermodel physique a long time ago. Where once I was tight, I am now best described as voluptuous, and really, I’m okay with that.

It beats the hell out of the obsessive dieting and exercising that characterized those thin years.

Look, I’m just being honest, not self-pitying. Because I also happen to know I’m quite charming to the right type of person. And a lot of men have called me beautiful. Even if that always feels like an exaggeration and almost always like a ploy of some kind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a compliment I will absolutely relish, but deep down I know it’s not something construction workers see when I walk past them on the street. Those wolf calls they’re supposedly famous for? It has rarely been a problem for me.

So there you go. It was actually Lynn’s use of the word
spinster
that made more of an impact on me.

I was fine being alone.

I just didn’t like feeling like I was
stuck
being alone.

“Women aren’t spinsters anymore.” I carefully set three more hens onto the large screaming-hot pan. They sizzled as soon as they touched the scorching steel. “Plenty of women choose to be single because the alternative is too appalling.”

“What,
marriage
?”

“Yes, for one thing.” That idea had
never
appealed to me, though I’d been semi-engaged once. Back when getting engaged and married and so on seemed like the Right Thing to Do. “Relationships in general. Show me a good one.”

“Don’t look at me! I’ve been married twice, and look what I have to show for it!”

I was so shocked, I burned my arm on the side of the pan when I turned to look at her. “Ouch! Shit!” I felt my face go hot, as well as my sleeve. “You’ve been married
twice
?”

“I never mentioned that?”

“No!”

She shrugged. “Then I guess you know everything there is to know about my marriages.”

“Wow.” I shook my head and looked at the baking sheets full of seared brown hens. “I’m amazed you’re even willing to date, given that every hookup could lead to something—”

“Don’t say it!” She held up her hand and laughed. “Don’t. Say. It. I fall in love easier than a toddler falls down. From now on, it’s just sex or nothing.”

“Good luck with that.”

She smirked. “Thanks.”

“So, chickie, what are you going to do for work on Friday nights now if this gig is up?”

“I’m going to have to find another client,” I said, feeling a twinge of panic in my stomach. It was like looking at a steep, slippery hill and knowing I’d have to climb it. Money was tight. Really tight. I couldn’t afford to luxuriate in a few Fridays off; I needed to get someone new quick. I had a small list of people I’d had to turn down in the past, but experience had taught me that when you call someone after the mood has passed, usually they’re no longer interested in your services.

So it would be another costly
Washingtonian
ad for me. My clients were not Craigslist kind of people. Craigslist was for bargain hunters, and I couldn’t afford to be a bargain.

“Want me to spread the word?” she asked.

“If you know anyone who wants a private chef”—I nodded—“absolutely.”

The conversation was interrupted then by Marie Lemurra herself, marching in to ensure that her servants didn’t waste a moment of her hired time chatting amongst themselves or having what could, in any way, be perceived as an enjoyable time on her dime.

“Work, work!” she trilled, but there was an unmistakable edge to her voice. “There’s no time for chitchatting. Not right now, anyway.” Her eye caught mine, and in that split second, I knew exactly what she was saying.

I was definitely fired.

So now I had Friday to contend with. Or, more specifically, the
lack
of Friday.