AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Another stop at the bookstore netted her more candles, and a book Trey had recommended over dinner.
Since she’d be cooking—a lot—the next day, she made one more stop for a takeout pizza.
After bringing in the flowers, bookstore bag, and pizza, she let Yoda walk off his time in the car before hauling the groceries in.
When she shut the door the last time, her in-house DJ greeted her with the Moody Blues and “Lovely to See You.”
“I can’t say the same because, big laugh, I can’t see you.”
When she carried the groceries into the kitchen, the flowers and pizza were gone, the bookstore bag neatly folded with her new book on top.
“What the actual fuck.”
As she dumped the groceries, she saw the warming light on the oven glowed red. And found her pizza inside. Dragging off her knit cap, she turned. There, on the big dining table, her flowers spilled artistically out of a low oval dish, with the new candles arranged—just as artistically—on the mantel.
“Should I be thankful that might be better than I could’ve done, or just a little pissed off?”
She decided she could be both, and went in to put away the groceries before somebody else did it for her.
“You know,” she said to the dog, who was busy gnawing on his new chew bone, “I was going to hire a cleaning service. But somebody else already keeps it all cleaned and polished.”
She decided to work through the evening, so had pizza at her desk with the fire she hadn’t lit crackling. She completed the proposal for the Doyles, worked up another for the florists.
As an experiment, she deliberately left her plate and empty glass behind when she shut down for the night.
A light snow fell as she walked the dog. He amused her by leaping at it, turning in his happy circles. When she rounded back, she noted the lamp glowed against the glass in her bedroom.
No doubt the fire would glow as well, the bed turned down. Nolight in that third-floor room, but she wondered if the glass held darker there than all the other windows.
Back inside, she walked up, turned first to the library.
No plate, no glass on the desk.
And in her bedroom, a turned down bed, a low fire, and the quiet light to guide her way.
She planned out her dinner party day not like a general prepping for battle but like a lowly recruit who’d been inexplicably field promoted.
Stage one, marinate the giant slab of cow, then say a desperate prayer she hadn’t screwed that up.
Stage two, work until noon, and pretend she had no other tasks.
Stage three, put on an apron, line up all the ingredients, and face the music. Literally, as her tablet played Lil Wayne’s “No Worries.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Twenty minutes later, she FaceTimed Cleo.
“Hey, hi!”
“Can you take a break?”
“Sure. Is everything all right?”
“I’m cooking. I’m afraid. Mom said to brown the hell out of the roast, so I did. Does this look right?”
She turned the screen so it showed the roast resting on a platter.
“I guess. This is above my pay grade. No one would pay me to cook, so it’s definitely above my pay grade, but it looks right. Is it done? This early?”
