Table for Seven (16 page)

“Having fun?” she asked.

“I had never had my nails buffed before. I feel like one of those mob guys in the movies,” Coop said. He held up his hands to show her his nails, which did look especially clean and shiny.

“Mob guys get manicures?” Audrey asked.

“Apparently. At least, Hollywood’s version of the mob. The wiseguys are always getting manicures, and those hot towel shaves and massages,” Coop said.

“And this is behavior you want to emulate?” Audrey asked, her eyebrows arching high. She shifted the box of face creams to her left hip.

“Fuggedaboutit,”
Coop said in a throaty voice, waving one manicured hand around.

Farrah giggled and held up a towel. “Give me one foot,” she said.

Coop obliged, lifting one tanned foot out of the water. Farrah toweled it off and then began rubbing it with exfoliant cream. Coop laughed and squirmed.

“That tickles,” Coop said.

“It smoothes your skin,” she explained. “You don’t want to have nasty scaly patches on your feet, do you?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“No, you don’t,” Farrah purred, clearly deeply infatuated.

“I’ll leave you to your pedicure,” Audrey said.

“No, don’t go,” Coop said. “Keep me company.”

Audrey hesitated.
Just go
, she told herself.
Don’t feed into his ego
.

“There’s an empty seat right here. We can have a lemon water together,” Coop said temptingly, gesturing toward the empty pedicure station. Even though Farrah was the only nail technician on staff, Audrey had opted to put in a double pedicure station when she opened the spa, which allowed girlfriends or a mother and daughter pair to get pedicures together.

“I guess I have a minute,” Audrey said, setting the box down in a corner.

“Okay, put that foot back in the water, and give me your other foot,” Farrah instructed Coop, as Audrey climbed somewhat tentatively up onto the pedicure chair. It wasn’t the easiest task to manage in four-inch heels.

“Did you see Leland’s email with the menu for the next dinner party club?” Audrey asked.

“No. What’s he serving?”

“Something called S and M chicken,” Audrey said. She smiled. “What on earth does that mean?”

Coop laughed. “Let me guess—bacon is somehow involved.”

Audrey nodded. “I definitely remember bacon being well represented on the menu.”

Farrah wrinkled her nose. “Gross,” she said.

Coop looked down at her in surprise. “You don’t like bacon?”

“I’m a vegetarian,” Farrah said.

“I guess I’ll just have to eat extra meat for you,” Coop teased.

Audrey expected Farrah to get huffy. She was the sort of vegetarian who made pointed comments about “food with faces” while eating with non-vegetarians. When Audrey took her staff out for a holiday lunch the previous December, Farrah made gagging sounds when Lisa ordered a cheeseburger, and a fight nearly broke out at the table. But, apparently, it was a different story when the gentle teasing came from an attractive man, for Farrah just giggled and began rubbing Coop’s foot with a pumice stone.

“Do mafia guys get pedicures, too?” Audrey asked.

“Somehow I doubt it. It’s not very manly, is it?” Coop said. He shot Audrey a sideways grin. “But something tells me that you knew that when you suggested this.”

“I just thought you’d enjoy it.”

“I am enjoying it,” Coop said. He wiggled his toes. “And, after all, what man doesn’t want to have pretty feet? All of the guys at the editing studio will be so jealous.”

Audrey couldn’t help laughing. Coop was being a good sport, she’d have to give him that.

“Tell me more about the movie you’re working on,” she said, kicking off her heels, and tucking one foot underneath her leg. “You said it was about the effect of tidal waters on migrating sea animals, right?”

FRAN BALANCED THE POTTED orchid in her left hand and rang Leland’s doorbell with her right. A few minutes passed
before Leland came to the door—he moved slowly these days, which worried Fran—but when he saw her, he beamed.

“What a nice surprise,” Leland said. He was wearing a crisp white apron over his golf shirt and khaki shorts. His bulldog, Winston, sniffed in Fran’s direction, before sitting down with a deep sigh, as though the effort of walking to the door was too much to bear. “Come in, come in.”

“You look like you’re busy,” Fran said, hesitating. She bent over to pet Winston on his white head. In return, he snorted and slobbered into her hand. “I’m just here to drop off this orchid for you. They were having a sale on them today at the farmers’ market. Isn’t it pretty?”

“It is. Thank you,” Leland said, taking the orchid. “But you have to come in. I was just about to make lunch. No, no refusals, I insist.”

“Are you all ready for tonight?” Fran asked, as she followed Leland, Winston at his heels, back to the kitchen. Most of the interior was still painted the boring beige shade the builder had slapped on. But the kitchen was the one room Leland had put his imprint on. The kitchen walls were a sunny yellow, and all of the cabinets had been painted a crisp glossy white. A framed poster of Picasso’s
Petite Fleurs
hung on one wall. Winston hopped into his basket, circled three times, lay down, and was instantly asleep.

“I was just putting the finishing touches on my dessert,” Leland said, setting the orchid down in the middle of the oak pedestal table.

“It looks amazing,” Fran said, admiring the towering coconut layer cake rising up from a glass cake stand. “A real showstopper.”

“Baking has always been my favorite of the culinary arts. There’s something so magical about it. You mix together
ordinary ingredients—butter, sugar, flour, and eggs—and somehow they transform into something special,” Leland said.

“I think you missed your calling. You could have been a master pastry chef,” Fran said. She perched on one of the tall wooden stools lined up in front of the island.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Leland asked.

Fran glanced at the clock. “It’s only eleven-thirty,” she said.

“So? If we were French, we’d have consumed a whole bottle before lunch even started,” Leland said.

“That’s true. And it is a Saturday,” Fran said. “What the hell, why not? I’m easily persuaded.”

Leland uncorked a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and poured them each a glass.

“Yum,” Fran said, taking a sip.

“It will go well with our lunch,” Leland said. He opened the refrigerator and began pulling out eggs, spinach, cold red potatoes, and, of course, bacon.

“You really don’t have to cook for me. You are hosting a dinner party tonight, after all,” Fran said. “Better yet, why don’t you sit down and let me cook lunch?”

“No, let me enjoy cooking for a beautiful lady. It happens all too rarely these days. Just keep me company,” Leland said. Brandishing a large chef’s knife, he began to dice the bacon. And it will give us a chance to talk.”

“Uh-oh,” Fran said. “Am I in trouble?”

“You? Never. It’s only that I’ve noticed you haven’t seemed yourself lately.”

“Really? How so?”

“You’ve seemed distracted. And your gardenias need watering. It’s not like you to neglect them,” Leland said.

“I guess I have been a little distracted,” Fran said. She twirled the wineglass in her hand. “When I’m at work, I’m thinking about the girls or what needs doing around the house. And when I’m at home, I’m thinking about work, I can’t seem to settle to anything.”

Fran didn’t add that the one constant in her otherwise scattered thoughts was Coop. Ever since the day she’d seen him in the wine store, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. She knew it was stupid to obsess—Coop clearly wasn’t interested in her, and besides, there was the not-insignificant detail that she was married. And yet, it was out of her control. She found her mind wandering throughout the day, imagining scenarios in which she and Coop might bump into each other. Feeling his lips grazing over her cheek as he kissed her in greeting. Picturing herself touching his arm lightly as they spoke.

If she was feeling particularly fanciful, these daydreams would spin into increasingly outlandish scenarios. Coop confessing his attraction to her. A hastily arranged assignation. And, once there, ripping each other’s clothes off …

No
, Fran thought.
Stop it
. She wondered if she was having a midlife crisis, or if it could possibly be some sort of hormonal imbalance.

She and Coop had always flirted with each other. Why, after all these years, was her imagination getting carried away? And to such X-rated places? Had there always been an attraction between them that she was just now noticing? Or had it come about recently? Maybe it had to do with the decline of her marriage. These days, she and Will were like roommates—companionable and comfortable and utterly passionless. Fran had tolerated the situation for years, assuming
it was where all couples ended up eventually, and that on balance, it was all right.

Except that now, suddenly, it wasn’t.

“It happens. You just have to be careful,” Leland said. He transferred the bacon and what looked like minced shallots into a hot skillet, where the mixture began to sizzle at once.

Fran looked up, startled, wondering if he’d been reading her thoughts. Did he mean she had to be careful about Coop? Dear God, had she been so obvious? Then she remembered the last thing she’d said out loud was that she’d been distracted lately.

That’s an understatement
, Fran thought.

“Careful, how?” Fran asked.

“You don’t want to spend so much time worrying about life that you miss out on it while it’s happening,” Leland said, stirring the bacon with a heat-proof spatula. He looked up from his work and smiled wryly. The network of lines on his face creased like a paper fan. “I sound like an old fart, don’t I?”

“Never,” Fran said. “And you’re absolutely right. I’ve been in my head too often lately. I need to be more present.”

She meant what she said. And yet, the fantasies about Coop—of kissing Coop, feeling his arms around her, the imagined lovemaking—were irresistible. She was too addicted to them to give them up. It was like jelly beans—as long as they were in reach, she was incapable of not eating them. The only solution was to never keep them in the house. But what did you do when the thing you were addicted to existed inside your own thoughts?

Leland used a slotted spoon to scoop the sizzling bacon and shallot mixture onto a plate lined with paper towels, and
poured the bacon grease into a Pyrex measuring cup. Then he measured two tablespoons of the bacon fat back into the hot frying pan and dumped in the chopped cold red potatoes.

“That smells delicious,” Fran said. “And very fattening.”

“Nonsense. A little bacon grease never hurt anyone. And besides, you could use some fattening up. You look like you’ve lost weight.”

“I have,” Fran said proudly. “But on purpose. The last thing I want is to get fat again.”

“I’ve never understood why modern women are so obsessed with being thin. You all want to look like little boys, with no curves,” Leland said, stirring the potatoes as they browned to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the frying pan.

“Not quite,” Fran said. “We want to be stick thin, but with large breasts and round bums. That’s the ideal.”

“Your ideal is something that doesn’t occur in nature. At least not very often,” Leland said.

“And that’s what plastic surgery is for,” Fran said.

Leland shook his head and made a tutting sound. “In my day, women weren’t afraid to look like women. And men always prefer curves to bones.”

“Didn’t Scarlett O’Hara have a sixteen inch waist?” Fran teased.

Leland pointed his spatula at her. “I may be old, but Scarlett O’Hara was before my time, thank you very much,” he said.

Fran grinned back at him. She took another sip of her wine and felt herself relax for the first time in days. Leland finished browning the potatoes and moved them to a small serving dish. He salted and peppered the potatoes, and tossed them with a bit of white vinegar. He added more bacon
grease to the pan—“More grease?” Fran exclaimed—and, ignoring her, dropped diced garlic into the fat. After the garlic had sautéed for less than a minute, Leland tossed several large handfuls of baby spinach into the pan. Once the spinach had wilted, he divided it between two plates and then spooned the potatoes over it. Fran’s mouth was starting to water.

“That looks fantastic,” she said.

“One last step,” Leland said. He added yet another tablespoon of fat to the pan—Fran was starting to lose track of just how much grease was going into this dish—and then cracked two eggs into it. He fried the eggs and slid one on to each plate, settling them on top of the potatoes. Moving slowly and carefully, he set one plate in front of Fran and one on the counter next to her, and got out silverware, napkins, a bottle of hot sauce, and the wine bottle.

“This looks like a truly decadent lunch,” Fran said.

“My mother used to make a version of it to use up leftover potatoes,” Leland said, settling on the stool next to Fran’s. “The spinach is my own addition, though. I thought it would make the dish healthier.”

“Right. Because the addition of spinach cancels out the four gallons of bacon grease,” Fran teased.

They each doused their eggs with hot sauce, and then, following Leland’s lead, Fran cut into her egg so that the hot yolk ran into the potatoes. She took a forkful, making sure to get a bit of each ingredient in the bite, and tasted it.

“Wow. These are seriously the best fried potatoes I’ve ever had,” she said, pointing to the dish with the tines of her fork. “How is it that something so simple can taste so good?”

“It’s the bacon. I told you, it makes everything taste better,” Leland said.

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Fran said, taking another, larger bite. She glanced at Winston, who was still asleep in his basket. “Does Winston always snore like that?”

“Yes. He snores louder than my wife used to,” Leland said.

As if he’d been listening, Winston let out a particularly loud, snarfling sigh.

Fran laughed. “Your wife did not snore like that.”