When in Doubt, Add Butter

by Beth Harbison

  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 wel
l!”

  “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.”

  “Everyone has something they’re insecure about.”

  “Come on. Not many people get like this.” She swept her hand across her hips and thighs. “I’m fat, not stupid, not blind, not unaware, and not bulletproof.” Her voice cracked over the word bulletproof, and I knew this pain must be close to the surface for her all the time, even as she struggled against the cruelty of judgment or outright mockery from strangers.

  I went and put my arm on her shoulder and looked earnestly into her eyes. “But everyone who has a goal starts somewhere and then moves toward it incrementally. Always incrementally. No matter who you are or what your goal is.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Of course. How many people can decide on some lofty aspiration and then just jump right into it? No one. No one can just lose weight instantly because they decide to. You can’t just be a great tennis player immediately because you decide to. It takes work and small steps. Don’t give up now!”

  There was a long silence before she said, “Sometimes that seems easier.”

  “It probably is,” I agreed carefully. “But do you want easier or better?”

  She looked at me. “I’m just not sure. This is my last-ditch effort to lose weight. Strict portioning, exercising, though that’s pretty limited so far, and trying to be patient while I wait for time to pass and results to show. But like I said, I’m scared it won’t work. That I’ll be like this forever, and I can’t endure that. I just can’t. I can’t live like this.”

  “Worst-case scenario, and I don’t believe you will fail, but worst-case scenario, you don’t lose much weight.… Is that really unendurable? You’ve been this weight for some time now, haven’t you?”

  “A long, long time. It’s a nightmare. It’s hard, it’s embarrassing, and maybe worst of all, it’s”—she bit her lip just as I saw it start to quiver—“it’s like slowly turning to stone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She nodded. “This isn’t who I am. This isn’t who I want to be. I want to walk—no, hell, I want to run and jump and climb and … whatever. I want to be able to move and do whatever I want, just like anyone else. Instead I feel trapped in this body like you’d feel trapped in a straitjacket.”

  “I don’t want to be cliché, but in this case it seems like the most appropriate response: You need to look at this one day at a time. If you look at the whole, you’ll go crazy. But one day at a time, you will reach a day where you find you’ve done it. And, yeah, sometimes you’ll fall.” I gestured toward the chip bag. “But you just have to get back up again.”

  I’d learned so much from Willa, so much about what she was going through, what an unhealthy relationship with food looked and felt like, and how unfair my own conclusions about grossly overweight people had been in the past.

  Obviously, hers was not a condition that looked like fun, but I had a feeling it was a more hellish battle than I could even imagine.

  “I’ll try. That’s all I can say, I will keep trying.” She shook her head and stopped talking. A tear slid down her cheek.

  I gave her a hug. “Listen to me. You’re not in this alone. I’m with you every step of the way. We’re going to do this side by side, and we’re going to do it slowly, okay?”

  “No miracles?”

  “There are a million miracles here!” I thought of the baby inside me. “We have our friendship to do this together, we have our brains to figure out how to do it, and we have our determination to get there. Both of us. Right?”

  “You’d call me a friend?”

  “Of course! Wouldn’t you?”

  She considered me, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “So would you bet on us or against us?”

  “On,” she said. “Definitely on.”

  “Excellent.” I put my hand out. “We have a pact, then. We’re going to get through this, even when it’s hard.”

  “Yes.” She shook my hand.

  “And listen, Willa, seriously, if you ever need to talk, I don’t care what time it is, you can call me.”

  “Thank you.”

  I smiled. “How did your weigh-in go, by the way?”

  “This week I only lost two pounds.”

  I was surprised. Given her level of discouragement, I’d been half afraid she’d gained. “Two pounds is a lot.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Think about a pound of butter,” I pointed out. “Seriously, think about how it feels in your hand, so much bigger than your palm. You can’t wrap your hand around it. Then consider one of those in each hand. If you stuck them to your hips, you’d notice a huge difference. But you didn’t, you lost that much fat. That’s something to consider!”

  “I guess you’re right.” She nodded. “I wished it was more, but I guess that’s not realistic.”

  “Listen, if the rest of the world thought it was realistic to lose five pounds in one week, I think there would be a lot more motivated dieters out there.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I am. And that’s what we’re going with.” I didn’t ask her why she’d felt afraid it wouldn’t work, because I knew very well that fears weren’t always logical or reasonable. When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t always see the two pounds down; she also saw the two hundred, or whatever it was, to go. “You see that this is progress, right? That this is exactly what we were just talking about.”

  “I guess so.” She brightened a tiny bit. “Plus I do have a bit more energy as well. Not a lot. Like I said, I’m not going out to any big social events any time soon, but maybe—just maybe—I can imagine reaching that point in the future. The metabolism is firing up, albeit slowly.”

  “Wow, that’s really exciting! Way to go!”

  “Thanks, but so much of this relies on my willpower and”—she gestured at herself—“as we’ve discussed, that has been a challenge for me in the past.”

  I shook my head. “You’re doing great. You’re determined, and you’re already succeeding in leaps and bounds!”

  “Okay, okay.” This was clearly making her uncomfortable. “I’ll try, like I said. Now, tell me about you instead.”

  I knew the conversation was over. She’d opened up in a way she didn’t usually, and now she seemed a bit self-conscious about it. I had to take small steps with her, too. So I went ahead and regaled her with my own sob story. “I lost another party at the country club today.”

  Willa gasped. “How is that possible? You are truly an amazing cook.”

  “Well. Thanks. Something is going on, and I don’t quite understand what it is.”

  She eyed me keenly. She sure could read people. “But you think it’s—?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, please, Gemma. Don’t kid a kidder. You just got me to spill my guts, so to speak. Now it’s your turn.”

  She was right. “I think that woman I work for is sabotaging my business.” I explained about Angela’s connection to the country club.

  “Could this be about her wanting to have you work for her on weekends? Something simple like that?” Willa asked.

  I shook my head. “She’s never asked me for any other days.”

  “Has she asked you to cut down on the days you work for her?”


  “Never.”

  She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know.”

  “Does she have something against you personally?”

  “Not as far as I know. Yes, her husband made that pass at me a few weeks ago, like I told you, but she wasn’t there and you can be damn sure he didn’t tell her—or she would be on the other side of the country and would have taken half his fortune with her.”

  “Is this that TV guy?”

  No point in playing coy. “Yes.”

  “Why would his admitting anything give her more of an advantage over his money?”

  “Adultery is frowned upon in divorce court in Maryland.”

  “Unlike all those other places where it’s applauded?”

  I laughed. “Okay, true, but especially here. If she knew he’d done something untoward, she’d have him by the balls.”

  “But there’s probably a burden of proof.”

  “An admission would be proof,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying. I’m sure he didn’t admit anything, so that can’t be it.”

  She nodded. “Unless they have a kid and you were caught on the nanny cam.”

  Oh my God.

  How had this not occurred to me before?

  I’d been changing my shirt in Stephen’s room, in front of that row of stuffed animals. That is exactly where a nanny cam would be hidden. Angela wouldn’t even have been looking for me, so what a shock it must have been, if this was really what had happened, for her to see me waltz in and take my shirt off, followed shortly by her husband coming in and planting one on me.

  “That’s what it was!” I gasped.

  “What?”

  “Nanny cam. She saw it on the nanny cam. But it wasn’t incriminating enough.” I remembered the steak she wanted me to make for Peter. “Good Lord, so she started to try to set him up to make another pass at me. She got him a steak and left the house so I could prepare it.”

  “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

  “Exactly. Especially since he’d already made a pass at me, so she might have felt his interest was established.”