When in Doubt, Add Butter

by Beth Harbison

  Yes. Yes, I was.

  I picked up the deck. Tarot cards this time. It was much taller than the playing cards he’d used before, and so wide, I had trouble keeping them from flying out of my hands while I shuffled. “How long should I do this?”

  “Until you’re done.”

  Helpful. I shuffled a few more times, felt as done as I was going to, and handed the cards back to him.

  He set them down in an elaborate layout, then looked at them like a forensic scientist trying to study a minuscule drop of blood.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked when it started to feel like a lot of time had passed with him saying nothing. “Don’t I have a future?”

  He looked at me, sharp-eyed. “You have a future. Everyone has a future.”

  Somehow that wasn’t reassuring. What if he was seeing that my future was just another hour or so?

  I was being ridiculous. Psyching myself out over nonsense that had no credence. Really, I couldn’t even believe I was here doing this at all.

  “I see a blond man here. Something about the arts. And film. Again with the film.”

  “Ah.” I gave a dry laugh. “Is it Brad Pitt?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  He knew I’d made a stupid joke, but he didn’t care to understand it. “I do not know who it is, but you make some movie with him.”

  “Okay, well, I don’t know what that means, but maybe it will become clear later.” It didn’t take psychic powers to detect that I was being short, so I softened it by adding, “What I really need your help with is figuring out if there’s someone out there trying to sabotage my work.”

  “What, like poison your food?”

  “No, just”—I gestured vaguely—“I don’t know, someone who didn’t like my food.”

  “Your food is wonderful.”

  He said it with such uncharacteristic enthusiasm, I had to laugh.

  “Thank you!”

  “If someone doesn’t like your food, they are crazy.”

  Any crazier than the girl going to the psychic to find out who doesn’t like her? “That’s very kind of you. But I think someone out there might have lost a big job for me, and I’m wondering if this is something I need to worry about.”

  “Nah. No worry.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You will always have work.”

  I could have quibbled with that, but he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it one way or the other—unless he fired me, too, of course—so I let it go.

  “There is a child on the way.” He frowned at the cards. “Do you know this?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking Penny would freak if she knew the psychic saw her baby. “Is everything all right with that? Is the baby healthy?”

  He nodded. “Everything is very good. No problems.”

  Okay, but Penny would be glad to hear that. Good that I could give her the positive report, since she took this stuff seriously. “When will the baby be born?” I know it’s silly, but I thought it would be pretty fun if, somehow, he could peg the date and I could impress everyone with my own “psychic powers.”

  He shook his head and said, “It’s undetermined so far. I don’t know.”

  “Rats.”

  He gave a light chuckle before saying, “You have other things to worry about first.”

  “Great. Bad things?”

  “Not too bad. But you must be very careful,” Vlad went on.

  “I’m always careful,” I said quickly. “About everything. Honestly, I am very mindful of keeping my equipment clean, the food fresh, and so on—”

  “I don’t mean with food.” He gave a small smile then. “But it’s true, you are. I can see here, and in my home, you are scrupulous about such things.”

  “Thank you.” I think.

  He frowned. “The thing that comes up over and over is that movie you make.”

  Crazy. The one thing that was never going to happen. But then it occurred to me: Marie Lemurra’s party. The film crew, the peacock … the screams. Could Vlad possibly be seeing my footage ending up on TV even though I hadn’t signed a release? Would it be legal for them to blur out my face or bloody license plate or both, and would anyone who knew me not recognize me and my car anyway? If they blurred out a license plate for legal reasons, would they still be free to leave the distinct EAT BERTHA’S MUSSELS bumper sticker I had on there? I’d gotten it in Fells Point a few years ago because it cracked me up, but would it now be the thing that identified me as an exotic pet murderer?

  “Your future is very uncertain,” Vlad said, breaking into my thoughts. “You’re moving, do you know that?”

  “What?” I met his eyes. “Do I go broke? Do I have to move because I’m broke? Will I be living in a cardboard box somewhere on Wisconsin Avenue?”

  He looked at the cards and shook his head again. “No. I don’t think so. This is your choice.”

  Good. That was good. I breathed my relief. “So my work is secure.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What?”

  He tipped his hand side to side. “Your work is flexible, no? You have a free night since your lady is gone.”

  Gone seemed like unfortunate wording, but I knew what he meant. “Yes, that’s true.” I glanced at the cards, as if a peek could tell me what I needed to know.

  “And someone else will no longer be hiring you, too.”

  “I’m losing another client?”

  He frowned once more at the cards. “Something changes there.”

  Great, so someone might fire me. Probably Willa. I’d been there one time since meeting her, and she’d been so intent on her online stuff that she hadn’t even made eye contact with me the entire time, though it was evident that she didn’t like having someone else in her house. She was probably going to sack me. “Will someone new hire me?”

  “Not right away.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment; then his face returned to his stony set.

  “Is anyone else going to let me go?” I asked carefully, knowing there was always the possibility that he, himself, might do exactly that. Might, in fact, be planning it right now.

  But again, he shook his head and gave a raspy chuckle. “Not Olekseis,” he reassured me. “No one makes a kugel like you do.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  He gathered the cards. “You have any other questions?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just the same ones over and over again.”

  “Nothing about romance and love?” He raised an eyebrow. “Almost everyone who come here has questions about romance and love.”

  “That’s the one thing I’m not worried about right now.” I laughed. “Thank God.”

  He turned down the corners of his mouth as he nodded. “And you are right. Your love life is good. This is when it usually hits. When you are not expecting.”

  I stood up. “Yeah, well, I’m definitely not expecting.” I opened my purse and took out the cash I’d brought, hoping it was enough. “I wasn’t sure how much—”

  “Pffft!” He waved it away. “No charge.”

  “But I can’t take advantage of you that way. You pay me for what I do.”

  “You can’t afford Vlad Oleksei on that.” For the first time in my presence, he really laughed. “Besides, I am eager to see how your story comes out. You keep coming, yes?”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” I started to leave, but his voice stopped me.

  “One more thing.”

  I stopped. Oh, no. What could it be? An IRS audit? I turned to him. “Yes?”

  “The borscht you will make tonight—I like extra garlics and onions.”

  I’m sure he heard my sigh of relief. “You’ve got it,” I said. “And light on the cabbage?” They always wanted me to go light on the cabbage. Never eliminate it, just go light. I suspected that was Vlad’s preference.

  He smiled and nodded. “Just right.”

  So at least I had something right.

  I guess ev
eryone likes praise for what they do, but that night I enjoyed cooking for the Olekseis more than I ever had before. Everything about the ingredients, the smells, the textures, everything delighted me.

  Maybe I should specialize in Russian food.

  I sliced the garlic and dropped it into the pan. It started to sizzle, and I turned the heat down and began slicing the onion. It was very fresh, very pungent. My eyes watered, and I got sniffly. Then I smelled a hint of burn on the garlic and hurried back to the stove and shook the pan. Just in time. The slices were brown but not too brown.

  I was getting good at this. I could detect the smell of burning just before it happened. That had to be some sort of superpower.

  As I put the rest of the dish together—dicing deep, ruby beets; slicing carrots and Yukon gold potatoes; sizzling spicy sausage in the pan; spicing and tasting, and mixing, and finally pureeing the whole thing into a savory maroon liquid—I continued to marvel at the perfect ripeness and freshness of every ingredient I’d picked out. This was going to be the best batch of borscht I’d ever made, and normally I didn’t even like it! I took a spoon out of the drawer and tried it.

  Perfect.

  I could have eaten the entire bowl.

  For all my worry about losing jobs, this was a good reminder: As long as I continued to do a great job at what I was hired to do—that is, cook nourishing, satisfying food—my livelihood would be safe.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Chapter 15

  It wasn’t any of Vlad’s words that ended up haunting me that night, but my own.

  I’m not expecting.

  Forget the context, whatever he meant, whatever I meant at the time, the upshot is that I heard my own words and realized with all the chaos and craziness that had been going on around me lately, there might have been something wrong that I hadn’t been paying attention to.

  Sensitivity to smells, like chicken or onion.

  Unexpected queasiness, like when I was making the eggplant for the Olekseis.

  Hair-trigger moods, like freaking out because Mr. Tuesday might not have found me attractive when I was at his apartment, looking like total shit, being his employee.

  The constant appetite for hot sauce, especially with sharp cheddar cheese.

  None of this stuff was normal. At least not for me. How on earth had I not stopped and wondered, if not what these strange changes in my mind and body meant, at least where the hell my period was.

  I was wondering now. As I scrolled through iCal on my computer, dread grew in my heart with every week that had passed without me notating five days with red X’s. Back, back, back … There it was.

  Seven and a half weeks ago, I’d had my last period.

  Five and a half weeks ago, I’d had my one-night stand.

  Look, you’re probably already thinking I’m no genius for taking even that long to put two and two together, and I see why, but I was not the kind of girl who got pregnant. (Well, not anymore.) It never even occurred to me as being a possibility. I had always been so incredibly vigilant about being protected (or doing nothing at all), that the idea that there might ever be a mishap or problem was absolutely out of the question.

  Unacceptable.

  Silly, I know. It was obviously a possibility. Until you no longer have the equipment, it’s a possibility. And even then, you still hear the stories of “miracle births” sometimes.

  It’s just that it didn’t feel that way to me. To me it had never, ever in my adult life seemed like a possibility because I straight-up, flat-out did not want it.

  I’m going to be honest about this now: I was never the little girl who played with baby dolls. One of my earliest memories is of Penny trying to steal a Baby Tender Love from the Toys R Us on Rockville Pike. She was caught immediately, of course—an eight-year-old with a box shoved up under her Snoopy T-shirt is hardly subtle, but still, anyone who wants a baby so badly that she’s willing to have DOLL THIEF stamped on her record forever is clearly meant to have babies.

  I, on the other hand, played dolls with her only halfheartedly. If asked by a grown-up what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say I wanted to be like my mother. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! I got my chance to be like my mother, a struggling single mom with no good man in sight.

  As time went on and boyfriends disappointed me, I began to call the hope chest my mom had given me for my twelfth birthday a “hope not” chest. The wife-beater-wearing, beer-swilling jerk Mrs. Rooks had put into my head never fully left my mind.

  But the whole kid thing … The images of myself watching The Bishop’s Wife with a glass of wine and half-eating the (delicious) cookies my son or daughter had left out for Santa were all new for me. The desire to have a little person sleeping soundly upstairs, and someone to uncork the wine while I picked out the movie—I’d never thought of them as being nice before. But lately …

  First I called Lynn.

  “Those condoms.”

  She didn’t ask what I meant. “Huh?”

  “From your drawer. How old were they?”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know. Like I said, I’d forgotten they were even there. I think I must have gotten them when I lived on Calvert Street like seven years ago. Maybe more. Why? What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing. I hope.” My throat tightened. “I really, really hope.”

  There was a long silence.

  Then: “You’re thinking they failed.”

  “At least one of them. Maybe.”

  “Oh God, Gem, you have to get a test.”

  “I don’t want to get a test!”

  “Because you don’t want the answer?”

  “That’s exactly why.” My stomach hurt. There was a lump in my throat. I’d been here before. I didn’t want to go back.

  “Gemma.” Her voice was firm. “Get the test. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about and you’ll feel better. Then call me back and tell me what happened so I can feel better, okay?”

  I told her I would, but the words rang hollow to me. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to.

  But I knew I had to.

  But first I called Penny.

  “How did you know you were pregnant?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “My stomach got really huge, and started moving around by itself, and then a baby came out.”

  “Funny.”

  “What do you mean, how did I know I was pregnant? You were there when I took the test!”

  “I know, I know, but what made you think you should take the test? What were the symptoms?”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. I don’t think I like where this is going. Why are you asking?”

  “No reason.”

  All right, yes, I know exactly how stupid this conversation is. Though many have tried, no one in the history of the world has ever been able to talk themselves out of being pregnant. The human body is a miracle and so on, but not so much of a miracle that you can simply will yourself into or out of a pregnancy.

  But denial is a powerful thing, and that’s exactly the pool I was swimming in.

  Penny was having none of it. “Holy cow, Gemma, you are not pregnant from that one-night stand, are you?”

  “Well, I hope not!”

  “How long ago was it?”

  “Five weeks, give or take.”

  I heard her sigh. “No period, I guess.”

  Irritation niggled at me. “Yes, Penny, I have my period right now—isn’t that a major sign of pregnancy?”

  “I had to ask!”

  “No, you didn’t! It’s not helpful!” Wasn’t impatience another sign of pregnancy? My heart began to pound. This was starting to feel real. What was I going to do? What if I was pregnant? What would I do?

  No, no, no, no, this wasn’t possible.

  Not again!

  “Okay, so five weeks isn’t that long,” Penny said. “That makes your period, what, three weeks late?”

  “About.”

  She sighed again. I wanted to
tell her to stop, but that would, literally, be telling someone how to breathe. “This could be perimenopause.”

  “That’s what I thought!” Though I hated to admit it out loud.

  “Or even menopause, really.”

  “Slow down, Cloris Leachman, you’re older than I am, this is not menopause.”

  “Okay, then, it’s pregnancy!”

  “I’ll take menopause!”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “Seriously, do you have symptoms or did you just look at the calendar and realize things were off?”

  I closed my eyes, knowing just how this was going to sound. “I’m suddenly really sensitive to smells—”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I know. I remember.”

  “Remember that time Dell was cooking bacon, and I had to leave the house because it smelled like he was frying up the old man next door?”

  My gag reflex tightened. “Stop.”

  “Okay, sorry. Go on.”

  “I’m a little oversensitive.”

  “All right, all right, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll be more respectful. Just go on.”

  “I am. I mean that lately I’ve been a little oversensitive emotionally. I feel like crying easily.”

  She sucked air in through her teeth. “Okay—?”

  “And I nearly puked the other day when I was making eggplant for the Olekseis. I mean, seriously, it just suddenly seemed completely revolting to me.”

  “Get over here.”

  “What?”

  “Get over here now. You’re taking a pregnancy test.”

  * * *

  An hour later, we stood side by side in her bathroom, the mirror reflecting our shocked expressions as we looked down at the extravaganza on the counter.

  “Do you think there’s any chance that they made a bad batch and the indicators are in wrong so two lines means negative instead of positive?” I said in a voice that sounded questioning but really wasn’t. Obviously, I knew.

  “And all five of these tests are from the same bad batch from different brands?” Penny shook her head. “Seems unlikely.”

  The sticks were lined up on the counter like some ironic little picket fence. If just one of them—just one—had had a different answer, I would have felt at least a little hope.