eyebrows and Marie’s fingers twitched. “Something,” Van continued, “I can provide.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She resorted back to sarcasm. “Maybe you do have something I need for the show.” Marie would bet a new dishwasher on the fact that Van had no idea what he would be doing on TV, because his was not a face for television. “Do you have lots of experience with live TV? Hmmm?”
“No,” he said in a low voice.
“No, not lots, or no, not any?” she asked, tilting her head and waiting patiently.
“Simon,” Van put his hand on top of a pile of papers on Simon’s desk, “you said that she wasn’t going to have a problem with this.” He jerked his thumb back at Marie. “I call this a problem.”
Marie’s jaw fell to the floor. Such treason from a man she considered a friend.
“Simon?” she asked, dropping the sarcasm for a moment, and feeling marginally naked in front of Van. “Did you really think that I would be okay with this? That I didn’t have any pride in what I had built? In what we had built?”
“I understand that there are—” Simon swallowed audibly “—challenges.” He shook his head at Marie like she was a child who had disappointed him. She knew her behavior wasn’t exactly sterling, but she had nothing to apologize for. Simon suddenly looked small and wary. “You don’t really have a choice.”
For the first time since Simon had brought this up, the changes in her show became real. Van was in the room sucking up far too much air and taking up way too much space—imagine what he would do to her show! This was just like France. Men thinking they knew what was best for her. Underestimating her, brushing her aside. Well, she had learned her lesson two years ago and it wasn’t going to happen again.
“What happens if I say no?” Marie asked.
“You lose half your airtime, the other half goes to Van.”
She could only blink and try to breathe one small mouthful of air at a time. “Wow,” she finally said, which was an awful summation of what she was feeling. She looked down at her feet, at the lovely black boots she had paid far too much for. She had to fight the tears that suddenly sprang up. She laughed ruefully. “Just when you start to feel on top of things…”
“Marie…?” There was something different in Van’s face, a softness around his hard eyes that wasn’t there before.
“Save it, Van. I’ve got to get back to work at my ‘little coffee shop.’” He sucked in a breath and Marie felt the cool victory that comes with saying exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.
The urge to walk out the door, get in her car and drive away from all of this came over her, but that would have been something the old Marie would have done.
“You have twenty-four hours, Marie,” Simon cut in, ruining her exit. “Twenty-four hours to make up your mind and do the smart thing. The way the world is making chefs into celebrities you could write your own ticket.”
Marie bit her tongue. It was a nice dream. With probably some nice money attached to it. But it wasn’t worth it if she had to share it with Van.
“I’ll call you, Simon,” she said.
She didn’t look at Van, so unsure of what she would do or say to him. But as she left, she walked through the smell of him, rosemary and anger, and her body reacted.
She put her right hand over all five of the bracelets on her left wrist, curling her fingers around the silver.
What the hell am I going to do now?
3
MARIE RAN SOME ERRANDS, trying to strike a new deal with the organic dairy guy, but to no avail, and made it back to the restaurant just in time for the late-afternoon rush.
“I need four caps to go,” Marie called back to Pete, her mostly silent and dreadlocked part-time employee. As long as Pete didn’t have to talk to anybody, he was a fantastic barista. He put together coffee orders almost before they were placed. He nodded at Marie, cranked the steam up on the espresso machine and began steaming milk.
“And a tomato-and-bocconcini salad to go,” she told Jodi, her assistant manager, who stood at Marie’s elbow putting together salad orders and packaging some of the leftover daily lunch specials.
It all seemed very normal. Susan and Margaret from the accounting office next door were having their late-afternoon coffee break and bitch session. Mr. Malone sat in the far back corner nursing his extra-hot milk chocolate over the newspaper.
Marie was her usual smiley and chatty self, but inside she seethed.
Van MacAllister has a small penis was a constant drumbeat in her head.
“Hello, Mrs. Peters.” Marie smiled at the older woman who came in religiously on Tuesdays. Tuesday was clam chowder day and Mrs. Peters, as she frequently told Marie, had been searching for a good clam chowder for years.
Marie was happy to oblige with the best clam chowder in the city, according to Where magazine.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Mrs. Peters smiled and Marie had to bite her tongue from laughing. The diminutive white-haired woman consistently had orange lipstick all over her teeth. “You were lovely this morning on the television.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Peters,” Marie said, but waited for the other half of her compliment. The sharp half.
“But you look tired.” And there it is. “You need to get more rest.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
“You need to find a nice man to help you do all this work.”
“Aww…” Marie wrinkled her nose and resisted screaming Men are ruining my life! at the eighty-year-old woman. “Men just get in my way.”
“Well, if I remember it right, sometimes that’s not such a bad thing.” Mrs. Peters winked, and Marie hoped she still wanted to have a man get in her way in that way, when she was eighty.
No, it isn’t a bad thing, Marie thought as she wrapped up the clam chowder and whole-grain rolls. She slipped a few small chocolate-chip cookies in the bag because Marie knew Mrs. Peters liked them and frankly, Marie liked Mrs. Peters.
Men had a purpose that Marie loved. She loved their bodies and their mouths and the things they could do with their hands. She loved monogamous sex in casual relationships, but these days she barely had time to brush her teeth much less find a guy she was attracted to, date a few times, sleep with, and explain why nothing serious would ever come of it.
I like you guys, she would say, but I just don’t trust you. Not with my life or my heart.
Case in point, Simon and Van. Two men thinking they had her best interests in mind.
She spent the next few hours replaying the scene in Simon’s office, but editing in wittier and sharper things to say to Van. The game was ultimately frustrating, but so very satisfying right now.
“Hey,
