Table for Seven (20 page)

“I’ll tell you what. You can consider me your lawn service. And for my payment, you can make me a sweet tea,” Will said, knowing full well that Leland always kept a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge.

Leland finally acquiesced, nodding. Will returned to his mowing, wondering why he felt so guilty.

Leland’s yard wasn’t large; it took Will only thirty minutes to mow it. He turned the mower off, and Leland reappeared, moving slowly without his cane and under the weight of a tray, which he set on a wicker table between two rocking chairs.

“Perfect,” Will said, joining Leland on the front porch. He sat in one of the rocking chairs and accepted a glass of cold tea. There was also a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies, which Will helped himself to. “I hope you didn’t bake just for me.”

“No, I whipped these up this morning,” Leland said. “I was going to bring some over to you-all after lunch.”

“I’ll just eat our share now. Save you the trip,” Will suggested. He patted his round stomach. “Although I’m supposed
to be cutting back. Fran’s been on my case ever since Christmas, when I was asked to take on the role of Santa at the girls’ school.”

“Never a good sign,” Leland agreed. “Fran’s gotten so thin. How much weight has she lost?”

“I’m not sure. I know she’s been buying a lot of new clothes lately,” Will said. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen his wife naked and couldn’t, which was actually a bit disturbing.

Leland looked sharply over at Will. That was the thing about Leland, Will thought. He seemed ancient, his body stooped and shrunken, his face as lined and veined as old leather. But it would be a mistake to suppose that old age had turned him dithery. His mind was as clear as ever.

“I had a very good marriage,” Leland began.

Will nodded. “I wish we could have met your wife.”

Leland continued, as though Will hadn’t interrupted. “But like any marriage, we had our ups and downs. When you’re with someone for such a long time, it’s easy to start taking them for granted. To stop seeing them when they’re right in front of you.”

In his surprise, Will swallowed the piece of cookie in his mouth before he’d finished chewing it. It caught in his throat, causing him to cough and his eyes to water. He reached for his iced tea, and took a few hasty gulps.

“How do you do that?” Will asked, once he’d regained his composure.

“Do what?” Leland asked.

“Sometimes it’s like you read my mind. Fran said you do it with her, too. Are you a witch doctor? Do you sacrifice goats in your backyard and stick pins in voodoo dolls?”

Leland laughed. “I’ve never sacrificed a goat, but I’ll take the Fifth on the voodoo dolls.”

“Seriously, what’s your secret?”

“I think it comes from my years on the bench. I got good at reading people,” Leland said. He shrugged modestly. “Sometimes what people don’t say is more important than what they do say. I had to be careful, though, to only make my judgments on what was on the record.”

“Yeesh,” Will said. “Makes me glad I’m a humble city planner. The most responsibility I have is to figure out where the next traffic light should go.”

“Every job has its upsides and its downsides,” Leland said.

“Unless you’re a crack whore. There’s no real upside there,” Will joked.

“Satisfaction in a job well done?” Leland suggested.

“I suppose there’s that.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, every marriage goes through lulls. Periods when you’re not as connected. The thing is, you can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. You have to deal with it before—” Leland stopped abruptly and cleared his throat.

“Before what?” Will asked.

“Before one of you does something stupid,” Leland said.

Will shook his head. “I would never cheat on Fran, if that’s where you’re going with this.”

“You never know what you might do. Or what Fran might do for that matter. Those feelings of loneliness, isolation, of being underappreciated can be powerful,” Leland said.

“Fran and I have been married for a long time. I’ve never come close to cheating on her. And I know her well enough to be sure that she wouldn’t do that to me,” Will said. The
whole conversation was making him uneasy. He liked Leland and was happy to help the older man out—to mow his lawn or move a bookshelf for him. But that didn’t mean Leland had an open invitation to probe into his marriage.

Leland shrugged. “I’ve been kicking around for a long time. The one thing I know for sure about people is that they have an infinite capacity to surprise you.”

“Sure, I can see that. But I know Franny,” Will said. He put down his drained glass and stood. “And speaking of Fran, I’d better get home. She has a whole list of chores she wants me to take care of this weekend.”

Leland’s smile was a little sad, Will thought. He felt another pinch of regret. Why was he rushing off like this? What would have been the harm in letting the old man dole out his marriage advice? It probably made him feel wise and still useful.

“Thanks for the iced tea,” Will said awkwardly.

“No, thank you for all your hard work,” Leland said. “It is very much appreciated.”

“We’re always happy to help out,” Will said. “And thank you for your advice. About not ignoring the lulls. I’ll keep it in mind.”

COOKING HAD ALWAYS SETTLED Audrey’s nerves. So much so that Ryan used to joke that he always knew that if he could smell freshly baking bread when he walked in the door, he was in trouble.

She’d baked a lot of bread during that last year of her marriage, Audrey thought. Baguettes, country loaves, tea breads. Her arms had gotten toned from punching down so
much dough. And when she’d gotten bored with bread, she’d baked dozens of cookies studded with chunks of chocolate, pans of brownies, towering cakes iced with swirls of cream cheese frosting.

But as soon as the memory had flickered into her consciousness, she pushed it away. Why was she thinking about that now? What was the point?

Standing barefoot in her kitchen, wearing her favorite striped men’s pajamas and her hair caught back in a barrette, Audrey tried to refocus her attention on the recipe for rack of lamb, which she would be serving the next night when she hosted the dinner party club. She’d made rack of lamb plenty of times before—it was always a safe, elegant option for dinner parties—but this was a new recipe. It required crusting the lamb with a mixture of mustard, panko, and herbs.

This will be the best main course we’ve had yet
, Audrey thought with satisfaction.

The dinner party club wasn’t a competition. At least, not officially. But everyone secretly wanted to outdo the others. Audrey could tell that Jaime had been annoyed that everyone had raved over Fran’s short ribs, more than they had over Jaime’s individual filets en croûte. And although Leland’s chicken had been perfectly cooked, there was a general sense of pleasure that his was not a hard dish to compete against. Fran was definitely winning so far, but Audrey was convinced that her lamb would top Fran’s ribs.

The only downside to preparing lamb was that there wasn’t much that could be done ahead of time. She had already diced the parsley and rosemary, and picked up the lamb from the butcher. She was pairing the lamb with a
heavy potato gratin—the sort of dish that made you gain weight just by looking at it, but that was always a big hit—and that, too, was something she had to do tomorrow.

I’ll make the strawberry-rhubarb pie
, Audrey decided. That’s a good Friday night project.

She retrieved the strawberries and rinsed them well in a colander before slicing off their green stems and cutting each berry in half. She dumped the cut strawberries in a large bowl, and then, after first cutting it into quarter-inch chunks, she added the rhubarb. Audrey measured out sugar, vanilla, and tapioca into the bowl, and, as a final touch, added some lemon zest, which the recipe didn’t call for, but which always made pie taste better.

Audrey left the filling to sit, while she turned her attention to the pastry. She pulled out the heavy base of her food processor and fitted it with its plastic bowl and metal blade. There were two rules when it came to making the perfect pie crust. First, you had to use the coldest possible ingredients. And second, you couldn’t overwork the pastry, which was always a danger when you used the food processor. Some pastry chefs insisted on using just butter or just shortening in their pie crusts, but Audrey had always found that a mixture of the two worked best, a one-to-three butter-to-shortening ratio.

She measured out first the dry ingredients, then the fat, into the bowl of the food processor, and pulsed it with quick on-off motions, until the mixture resembled coarse crumbs. Then, a few tablespoons at a time, she dribbled in chilled water, taking care to only pulse three times after each addition.

When the pastry was mixed, she turned half of it out
onto her special marble pastry slab and rolled it into an irregular circle with a French pin roller. She had to coax the pastry off the marble—it wanted to stick—but finally was able to transfer it whole into the waiting pie dish. She poured the strawberry-rhubarb mixture into the dish, and then began to roll the second round of dough. This time, she cut the pastry into quarter-inch lengths, which she braided lattice-style on top of the pie. Once it was done, and the edges were tucked under and crimped, Audrey brushed a little cream onto the top crust to ensure it would brown nicely.

Pies were particularly satisfying desserts to prepare, Audrey thought as she popped the pie into the oven. Unlike cakes, which sometimes fell for inexplicable reasons, pies mostly came out the same every time you made them. The only wild card was the fruit. If it was too bland or too ripe, the quality of the pie would suffer.

As the pie cooked, filling the house with its delicious hot fruit scent, Audrey poured herself a glass of wine and took it into her small living room. She sat cross-legged on the white couch and turned on the television. A few moments later, after scrolling through the four hundred channels and finding nothing to watch, she turned it off.

What was it going to be like seeing Coop tomorrow?
she wondered, and felt a now-familiar shiver that always seemed to pass over her when she thought of him. The last time she had seen him, he’d been naked. Well, not the very last time—not when he’d driven her back to her car—but right before that. He’d held himself over her, absorbing his weight with his arms, his long muscular torso stretched out over her.…

No
, she told herself.
No, no, no. I am not going to think about that. If I think about it now, I’ll end up thinking about it tomorrow night when I see him. Then he’ll know what I’m thinking. And what if everyone else senses the tension between us and figures out what happened? It would be nothing short of mortifying
.

Luckily, the phone rang at that moment.

“Hey, it’s me,” Fran said when Audrey answered.

“Hi,” Audrey said.

“Where have you been? I’ve left you a bunch of messages,” Fran said accusingly.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been busy,” Audrey lied. Well, the being busy part wasn’t a lie—work always kept her busy. But the truth was, she had been avoiding Fran. She didn’t want Fran to find out about her lunch date with Coop, and she was afraid that the whole debacle would somehow come out. Fran would want to know all the details—which Audrey was very much against sharing—and would give her all sorts of unsolicited advice.

Although that’s just silly
, Audrey thought.
I’m not sixteen years old. I’m perfectly capable of having a conversation with a friend without talking about a guy
.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you and Coop went out on a date!” Fran said.

Audrey winced.
Uh-oh
.

“How did you find out about that?” she asked.

“How do you think? Coop told me. Although,” Fran added, with what Audrey considered to be unnecessary belligerence, “I was really surprised that I had to hear about it from him instead of from you.”

Audrey bristled, both at Fran’s tone and implication. Just because she and Fran were friends, and Fran and Coop were friends, that didn’t mean she was obligated to tell
Fran every single detail of her relationship with Coop. Not that she had a relationship with Coop, Audrey quickly amended.

“I didn’t know I had to report in,” Audrey said coolly.

There was an awkward silence, broken by a long sigh from Fran.

“I guess I just came across like a total bitch, huh?” Fran asked.

“You were a bit aggressive,” Audrey agreed.

“I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been feeling a little hurt that you didn’t feel like you could confide in me,” Fran said.

Audrey took a sip of wine and considered this. Why hadn’t she wanted to tell Fran? She wasn’t entirely sure.

“We just had lunch together. It was fine. There weren’t any fireworks,” Audrey lied.

“That’s too bad. Was it awkward?” Fran said.

Audrey started to feel guilty for not being more forthcoming. During those bleak, gray days after Ryan died, Fran had been a godsend. She’d accompanied Audrey to the funeral parlor and made the decisions that, in her fog of grief, Audrey had been incapable of making on her own. And then later, after the funeral, when everyone but Audrey had been ready to move on with their lives, Fran had called every morning to make sure Audrey was getting up out of bed, showering, eating. That she was getting on with the minutiae of living her life.

“Honestly? Coop makes me nervous,” Audrey said, only just realizing at that moment that it was true. “I’m never sure how to act around him.”

“I know I’m going to sound like a mom when I say this—I can’t help it, I
am
a mom—but why do you need to act like anything? Just be yourself,” Fran said.

“That’s just it. When I’m around him, I start feeling unsure of myself.”

“You do? Really?”

“Yes, me. Why does that surprise you?”

“You’re the most self-assured person I know.”

Audrey laughed. “I am not. Just when it comes to work. In every other area of my life, I’m a mess.”