Shannon pops her head up from the desk where she’s been sitting doing paperwork for the last half hour. “Hey, guys! What are you doing here?”
Little Heidi is still young enough that she can embrace her enthusiasm without caring what anyone thinks. She runs over to the desk squealing, “Mommy!” and throws her arms around Shannon’s neck.
Brandon, fully ensconced in the rules of being a pre-tween and too cool for that sort of thing, stands awkwardly by his dad and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Hey, Mom.”
Joe smiles. “I figured we’d come and steal you away for the night. Go get dinner as a family,” he says. “I know you’ve been crazed, so we’re staging a mom-napping.”
“Aww,” Butter says. “I want to be you guys when I grow up.”
Shannon lifts an eyebrow. “Did you just call us old?”
Liz freezes mid-placement of an edible pearl. Butter presses her lips together. “Uh.” She looks over at Joe. “So! Where are you crazy folks going tonight?”
Shannon is still staring at her with an eyebrow to the sky. Joe snorts.
“Hey, kids,” I interrupt. “How’s school?”
Brandon manages to stuff his hands deeper into his pockets. “Fine.”
I wait patiently for more information, but that’s all I’m getting. “Super. Good talk, sir.” I turn to Heidi. “How about you, kidlet? What’s new in the first grade?”
She bounces over to my station and peers intently at the cupcakes I’m working on. “It’s good. I like math, but my teacher keeps making us read chapter books.”
“What’s wrong with chapter books?”
“I like the science books. She says they don’t count as chapter books.”
“Lame.”
“Aunt Kat? Why did you not put as much frosting on that cupcake as you put on those cupcakes? Is it a special cupcake?”
I look down, and sure enough, her little finger is pointing at a slightly under-frosted cuppie.
Heidi is the kind of kid who demands accountability from her adults. If she’s required to give full disclosure as a youngling, she wants that courtesy in return. But being wee, she can’t exactly come out and ask for it. So she does this.
Last December, I was watching the kids for an hour on a Sunday when Joe was down with the flu and Shannon had an errand to run. The three of us were in the front yard building snow forts when Shannon pulled in the driveway in a rush. She’d sort of missed the edge of the pavement and driven over a small sliver of lawn, creating a slushy, muddy mess.
“Mommy, why did you drive on the grass?” Heidi had asked.
It was obvious it had been a mistake. She just wanted to hear her mother say the words, “I did something wrong.”
I like this about Heidi. It’s her way of deriving a shred of power in a powerless world. It’s impressive to me.
Then again, she’s not my kid, and I don’t have to live with a tiny person calling out every single error I make all the time, so I could see where the charm might wear off for her parents after a while.
I give her an enchanted grin. “You know what? I messed up. I didn’t even notice. Thanks for pointing it out, hon.”
Heidi looks incredibly satisfied with herself. Shannon leans back in her chair and gives me a look that says her daughter will now be intolerably smug for the rest of the night, thankyouverymuch.
Joe says, “Butter, why don’t you take the kids up front and spoil their dinner before Shannon shreds you for calling her old?”
Heidi hollers, “Yay!” and even Brandon looks excited. Butter abandons her bowl of pearls and happily scurries out of the kitchen with the kids trailing behind her like sugar-seeking ducklings.
“By the way, you’re not old,” I offer, still redoing the subpar cuppie pointed out by Heidi. “Regular spring chickens, you are. And hi, Joe.”
“Hey, Kat,” he says, leaning against the fridge. “How’s the sex quest going?”
My hand slips across the piping bag and I squirt frosting all over my station top. Joe snorts again. Liz gasps. I gape. Turning to glare at Shannon, I shriek, “You told Joe?”
Shannon drops her head into her hands. “Thanks for that, Joe.” She wheels around and pleads with me. “He’s my husband! I had to! I didn’t want him to find the charge for the stuff we ordered you and have him wonder what it was about. And besides, we don’t have secrets! We share everything!”
I shake my head. “Could you maybe not share the details of my special with him?”
Joe laughs. “I forgot about that. Special. That’s awesome.”
“Shannon!” Liz yelps.
“You are never having sex again, ever,” Shannon declares to her husband, slapping her hand on the desk.
Joe puts his hands up. “Oh, come on! I’m just teasing! I’m rooting for you, Kat. I remember how it was for Shannon, but she got through it. I know you’ll be back on the horse in no time.”
Taking a deep breath, I count to five in my head. “Great. Thanks, Joe.”
“You know, I was thinking,” Joe says, “if you’re so worried about not ever getting any, why don’t you just find a guy and get on with it?”
I like Joe. He’s a great guy. I’ve known him since I was eighteen, when he and Shannon met at college and became attached at the hip forevermore. From literally anyone else in the world, this line of questioning would be met with a punch to the groin. With Joe, I know it’s coming from a place of caring, a decade-plus of friendship and that weird blurry line of overfamiliarity from being married to my best friend and thinking he’s as invested in my life as she is.
“I’m working on it,” I mutter, scraping globs of buttercream off my equipment.
“You know, my friend Barry has always wanted to ask you out. He’s a pretty okay guy. I bet he’d be up for it.”
I try to remember Barry. “Doesn’t he work with you at the bank? The one with the goatee?”
“Yep. You guys could have a night, be done with it. Sex quest vanquished.” He pokes at a bowl of sprinkles on Shannon’s station. “Don’t get me wrong, I hope it all sorts out with you and Ryan, but if it ain’t workin’, I’ve got your back.”
Joe’s known Ryan pretty much as long as I have, and I always sort of hoped that when I paired off, my guy would be BFFs with Joe just so it could bring my chick flick friendship with Shannon into higher resolution. But while Ryan and Joe get along fine, their personalities are so different. Ryan tends to be a bit of an introvert, whereas Joe has never met a stranger in his life and will find any excuse to throw a shindig, usually just so he can show off his grilling skills.
Shannon makes a noise. “I am going to end you when we get home. Just so we’re clear.”
Joe shrugs. “Only trying to help.”
I put my focus into wiping the frosting off all my gear, but the thought is in my head. My big concern with Ben is that a failed sex attempt would tarnish whatever we might have going on in the friendship sphere, so maybe there’s some merit to Joe’s idea.
“Oh, Jesus,” Shannon snaps. “Please tell me you aren’t even sort of considering what he just said.”
I wave a buttercream-covered hand at her. “No, not really. For starters, Barry is kind of a slimy dude, so really no. Sorry, Joe. But I was just thinking in general. I don’t want to mess things up with Ben, you know? Maybe fixing the issue and then going back to Ryan and keeping Ben strictly as a pal isn’t a terrible idea.”
“It’s a horrible idea!” Liz squeals.
Joe looks affronted. “I don’t know if it’s horrible...”
“No,” Liz cuts him off. I’ve never seen her so forceful, let alone to her boss’s husband. It’s amazing. “It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard! I don’t know how all of what she’s doing with Ryan and Ben is going to work out, but the answer to everything is def
initely not going out and having a one-night stand with some other guy.”
Shannon looks proud. “Liz, if we get the Coopertown contract, you are so getting a raise. That was glorious.”
I shake my head. “No. God. Right. That’s an awful plan.” I shudder.
Crossing his arms and pouting, Joe mumbles, “It was just an idea.”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the input. But I’m figuring it out.”
Shannon huffs and stuffs her stack of paperwork back into a folder in the desk drawer. “We’re leaving,” she says apologetically to Liz and me. “I’ll see you ladies in the morning.” I can hear her muttering outrage and profanity to Joe until they hit the front room, when her voice comes out in enthusiastic mommy tones.
I call out as cheerful a farewell as I can muster before I turn my attention back to the task at hand. I really need to finish frosting this batch of cakes, but my mind is distracted.
It’s not just the awfulness of Joe’s plan that has me in my head. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I needed a good nudge to see the awfulness of Joe’s plan. But what’s really got me unsettled is that I considered what it would be like—sleeping with someone else—and the thought felt unwelcome. Intrusive.
Because, I realized, I don’t want to sleep with anyone else. And even though my aim here is being able to have sex with Ryan again, it would seem that right now, I want to have sex only with Ben Cleary.
Huh.
21
I’ve got seventeen million cupcakes on a cooling rack and at least forty-two million more in the oven. I officially hate cupcakes today.
I set my timer, sit back at the desk and go over my instructions for the Channel 7 show. The anchor wants to throw a zoo-themed party for his son, so I’m looking into what animals would be the cutest and easiest to show someone else how to create. I figure it will be good to show off a little and whip something out that’s best left to the professionals, but then fall back on something basic that even a novice can do. And judging by the video I found on YouTube of the anchors’ highly flammable performances with the local hibachi chef from a show last week, basic is a generous concept
Plus, I’m still trying to perfect a royal icing raven that can be assembled quickly for a thousand cupcakes per basketball game if need be.
Basically, it’s all cuppies, all the time right now.
Except for those glorious moments when my mind wanders back to Saturday night, and I think of lips and tongues and—sweet baby Jesus—what Ben did with his teeth.
And how maybe, by the end of tonight, I’ll crash through the boundaries of therapy sex, and I can finally get back into the land where I get to kiss and be kissed and fling sexy-times glitter like it’s my job.
“Oh my gosh,” Liz says, coming in through the back door, mid-panic.
“What’s wrong, sweets?” I ask, hopping up from the desk.
“My mom can’t make it up for my appointment!”
“I’m sorry,” I say sincerely. “Is everything okay?”
“No!” she snaps at me. I flinch. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her bark before, outside her outburst at Joe. She’s a new woman. “Mom’s got a stomach bug and can’t make the drive, but what will I do without her? She’s the one who is supposed to keep me from walking out with a bad dress, or from paying twice as much as I should!”
“So, she’s like your bodyguard?”
Liz nods desperately. “I’m not good at saying no to people. I just assume everyone is being nice and don’t realize I’m getting taken advantage of. What am I going to do? I already tried to reschedule the appointment and couldn’t!”
I shrug. “I’ll go with you. I love telling people no.”
Liz’s eyes go huge. “But the shop! We’re so busy!”
“Shannon,” I call out. Shannon’s head magically appears from the front room. “Liz’s mom can’t make her dress appointment, and she needs a bossy mouth to make sure she doesn’t get screwed. Can you and Butter hold down the fort so I can ride shotgun?”
“No problem.” Shannon’s head disappears.
Liz scrambles after her. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be an inconvenience!”
Shannon’s face pops back into view, and she looks like she wants to pat Liz on the head. “Honey, this is for your wedding. Of course I’m sure. Kat, take the laptop. You can work while you’re there if you get a minute. What do you have going?”
“There’s eleventy billion cuppies in the oven on timer. Set them out to cool and frost if you get a moment. I’ll decorate in the morning. The invoice is on my station.”
“Got it,” says Butter as she restocks the front display cases.
“Are you really sure?” Liz asks, wringing her hands.
I roll my eyes. “Yes, we are sure. Come on, or I’ll start saying no to you.”
I prance through the kitchen, grab the laptop and my sketch pad, and watch as Liz frantically grabs her purse and hangs up her apron, bouncing around to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. Then we head out the back door.
Twenty minutes and two buses later, we are across town at La Bella, a swanky bridal shop just bursting with dress options. As the ladies at the shop start fawning over Liz, I feel really sad that her mom isn’t here for this moment. Liz is super close with her family, and I know she’d love to be sharing it with her mom. I can tell it’s bothering Liz, too, but she’s holding it back as much as she’s able. Her eyes are a little watery, her eyebrows cinched, her hands twisting over each other.
It’s hard for me to picture what she could be feeling here. To me, marriage has never been that big a thing. I mean, I guess I’ve assumed that Ryan and I will eventually get married. It’s the way we’re headed, I suppose. But I’ve never been one of those gals who dreams about her big day or spends hours thinking about the perfect dress or floral arrangements.
I will definitely not be someone with a five-tier waterfall cake.
I just can’t see myself getting that jazzed about the pomp and ceremony. It’s a day. A party. An expensive party, no less. I get the significance, but I also know that I’d much rather have a savings account than a bunch of pictures of me wearing a five-thousand-dollar dress for six hours.
But then there are people like Liz. This is obviously off-the-charts important to her. I’d bet actual money Liz spent part of her childhood with a pillowcase hanging off her head, pretending to be a bride.
In the very deepest part of my brain, the place I try very hard to ignore, there’s a feeling of regret. A feeling that wishes I knew what child-Liz felt like.
Liz is whisked off by the sales associates, who hand her a glass of champagne and a carefully crafted monologue about big days and special moments and thanking her for letting them be a part of it. I grab a seat right outside the bridal display area, a big round room that’s 90 percent mirrors with squashy couches for an audience to view the fashion show.
Liz seems to know what she’s looking for, generally speaking. The associates try to talk her into trying on giant poufy numbers, but Liz, in her shy little voice, insists she’s looking for something more clean and basic.
One of the salesladies comes out with this enormous Cinderella-looking contraption, and Liz shoots me a look of horror.
“Really, no. She wants a simpler style, thank you.”
The associate levels a needling stare at me but carts the lacy monstrosity away. Liz gives me a smile. I wink.
She comes out in various dresses, and I take notes in my sketch pad, depending on what she likes and doesn’t about each one. I use Liz’s phone to take a picture of her in each dress and text them to her mom, who sends replies that are in all caps. She even calls a couple of times, until she realizes she can’t hear us while she’s looking at the pictures. I try to set her up on Skype on the laptop, but she does
n’t understand a word of me walking her through the install, so I abandon ship. Our dress search is an involved process, but Liz is happy to have her mom there in some capacity.
She looks just lovely. When she’s left to her own devices, she’s confident and fine. She knows what she likes. It’s when the salesladies try to barge in with their opinions on the matter that Liz gets flustered.
“Can we have a few minutes?” I suggest when I see Liz looking particularly nervous. The associates raise their eyebrows at me but shuffle away, leaving us alone in the giant mirror room.
“They are so pushy,” Liz whispers.
“Commissions, baby,” I say, then add, “You look really pretty.”
She straightens up and looks at herself in the mirror. “This one is very nice.”
“Are you scared?”
“Of picking the wrong dress?”
I blink at her. “No...of getting married.”
She giggles. “Oh, sorry. No! Why would I be scared?”
I’m aware that I’m gawking at her, but I can’t seem to stop. “I don’t know. Aren’t most people?”
She shrugs. “I’m just excited. Paul and I already live together, so that won’t change. And we’ve been dating for three years, so it’s not like we’re rushing into it. I’m just looking forward to saying ‘husband’ from that day on. That will be the fun part.”
“Oh my god, you’re one of those happy couples, aren’t you?”
She laughs at me. “Aren’t you part of a happy couple?”
I put my hands up. “Slow down there, killer. I don’t think I qualify as part of normal coupledom right now.”
She turns to face me. “You and Ryan have been together for a long time, right?”
“Ages.”
“I mean, I know you’re going through a thing right now, but wasn’t it good at some point? You guys are together for a reason, right?”
I sit back down on the smooshy couch. “I don’t know, actually. Sometimes I feel like we’re together just because we’re supposed to be. Like, we get along, we’re a good fit, we like each other, so why not? We’ve never really had that oh-my-god, let’s-rip-our-clothes-off, hot-and-heavy, super romantic stuff side.”
The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky Page 14
