Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  “Yes, you see I work at Le Gaulois, in Alexandria? I met your mother last week, when she came in for lunch with a group of her friends.” She paused and smiled with entirely too much warmth. “What a lovely woman, your mother. Just a lovely, lovely woman.”

  Truman, who’d been nodding at her though still not getting why she was here, said, “Yeah, lovely. And she asked you to…ah, surprise me?”

  “Well, the way it happened was”—she brushed her ample hair behind one shoulder with a hand and a model-style shake of her head—“during lunch she asked how the veal was prepared. So I told her about the braising and the sherry-morel sauce and just the barest kiss of raspberry the chef likes to include.” She made a little flicking motion with her thumb and forefinger on the word kiss. “He’s quite creative, our chef, and I went into quite some detail, actually…”

  Truman could imagine.

  “So she asked me if I knew how to cook. Since, I suppose, I seemed to be talking so knowledgeably about the process.” She looked bashfully at the floor. “At that point I had to confess that I don’t normally waitress. I was just helping out that day because one of the girls called in sick. I usually work in the kitchen. You see, I’m hoping to become a chef one day. I spent a year in Paris at L’École—”

  “So she asked you to come cook dinner for me?” Truman interrupted, cutting to the chase.

  He was starting to get an idea of what his mother had in mind. A very clear idea. His eyes swept the girl’s figure again and noted the fancy jewelry, the makeup, and the silk shirt she wore despite being here as a cook.

  “Yes, she said you were living here, undercover.” She said the last word in a whisper, with a covert look around, as if someone nearby might be spying on them. “And that you weren’t eating properly at all. She’s very worried about you, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard.” Truman ran a hand through his hair and leaned heavily against the wall. Worried he wouldn’t find a nice debutante with whom to insipidly spend the rest of his days.

  “She strikes me as quite a devoted mother,” the girl continued.

  “Hah!” he said mildly. Devoted, domineering…same thing.

  “She said that even though you were here, undercover”—again with the whispering—“that you needed to eat well and that a good, home-cooked meal once or twice a week would do you nothing but good. So she hired me!” She finished with a perky smile and her arms outstretched as if to show him the product.

  Not that he thought she was selling herself. No, no, it was nothing so crass as that. She was marketing herself. As suitable wife material to Truman Foster Fleming, son of Senator Baxter Fleming and his wife, who was one of the affluent Maryland Trumans.

  Marcy, at least, privileged girl that she was, had no idea he wasn’t Tru Fleming, impoverished laborer.

  Truman looked down the hall toward the living room. He didn’t want to think about Marcy. And he didn’t want to think about his disappointment that this girl hadn’t been Marcy futzing around in his kitchen. And he really didn’t want to think about the fact that his mother was hiring polished young women to come tempt him back to the fold.

  He sighed. “Listen, uh…” He looked at her, unable to remember her name.

  “Heather,” she supplied, with a coy tilt of her head.

  “Yeah, Heather. Listen, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here—”

  “Oh, it’s all your mother’s doing. She planned everything, even the menu.”

  “Then, okay, I guess I appreciate what she was trying to do.” He shook his head. Nothing could have been further from the truth. “But the fact is, you can’t stay here. I don’t need this…” He swept a hand out to encompass the abundance around them.

  His stomach growled, calling him a liar.

  She smiled, her blue eyes actually seeming to twinkle. “Everyone needs this.” She took off her oven mitts and reached back toward the stove for the carving knife.

  “Heather, no. Wait.”

  He stopped her by touching her arm and she looked up at him through her lashes.

  “The fact of the matter is…” He thought quickly, then lowered his voice. “You could be in danger here.”

  Her blue eyes widened almost comically.

  He nodded soberly. “Yes. You see, I couldn’t let on to my mother the extent of the…ah…operation here. But I’m involved in some very hazardous activities. And this is my home base. By coming here, being seen here even for a moment, you could put us both in the way of some real peril.”

  “You mean I’ve blown your cover?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.

  “Exactly. So why don’t we gather your things up here and I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “But—” She stopped, looking at him helplessly. For a second he thought she might cry. “Your mother’s driver dropped me off. He’s not coming back until nine o’clock.”

  Of course, Tru thought, rolling his eyes. He briefly considered asking A.M. or P.M.? But this girl didn’t deserve that.

  “That’s all right. I’ll drive you home.”

  She started toward him, then looked back at the kitchen. “But the pots and pans, even the knives, they all belong to your mother. Though I do have my own set of knives, you know, all good chefs do, that I usually—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Truman grinned grimly. “I’ll give it all to the driver when he comes back.”

  Heather stooped briefly by the kitchen door and picked up her purse. Coach leather, Tru noted. His mother sure had an eye.

  “What should I tell her?” Heather stopped close before him, looking up at him with concern etched on her features. “Your mother. I can’t tell her you’re in danger, can I? She’ll be so worried.”

  “I’ll talk to my mother. Don’t concern yourself with that.” He guided her by the elbow toward the front door.

  They passed the bag of dog food and Truman gave it a double take. This bag was unopened. The last bag he bought for Folly was almost half empty.

  His mother even sent food for the dog? Jesus, she was trying hard, he thought, and followed Heather the Cook out the door.

  Marcy stood by the Jell-O mold, miserably chewing on a celery stalk smeared with cream cheese. This had been the longest day of her life. It seemed like several years had passed since she’d woken up this morning beside Truman, and now here she was wishing she could melt along with the orange block of Velveeta at her Aunt Phyllis’s birthday party.

  It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny as Washington’s Indian summer days tended to be. But it didn’t help.

  She’d forgotten a salad. And a date, of course. Marcy thought she’d never have another date in her life—a sentiment that seemed to echo widely amongst her relatives as she’d walked onto the back patio alone.

  “There’s Marcy,” her aunt Phyl had squawked as she’d stepped out the patio door. “And where’s your young man, eh, missy? Your mother said you might be bringing someone and we’ve all been anxious to meet him. It’s been so long since you brought anyone here. How long’s it been, Joanie?”

  Aunt Phyl turned to Marcy’s mother. They were all perched around where Phyl lay corpulently on a chaise longue, like worshippers around a bad-tempered Buddha. They were all afraid of Aunt Phyl, who ruled every party like an evil dictator.

  “Well, now, I don’t know. Maybe it hasn’t been that long.” Marcy’s mother looked up at Marcy beseechingly, as if she could manufacture a memory for them all of some recent time she’d shown up at a family gathering with a date.

  “It was Christmas Eve two years ago, I think,” Aunt Phyl said, holding one hammy finger aloft and wagging it. “That fellow with the fancy shoes, remember?”

  “They were loafers,” Marcy protested.

  “Oh yes. I remember, but they were some special kind,” Aunt Verna contributed. “I remember he was quite proud of them. Told us all they were practically custom made.”

  Actually they had been custom made, Marcy thought. And he had been qu
ite proud of them.

  “I thought he was handsome as could be.” Verna smiled and nodded in her direction. “And he was very taken with you, Marcy, if I recall.”

  Marcy smiled at her. Verna was a peach. One of the few people who weren’t completely run over by Aunt Phyl. “Oh, I don’t know…”

  “I remember we all thought he was so stiff, remember?” Aunt Phyllis said, her frown like a black cloud over the entire patio. “He just stood there in the corner looking like he smelled something bad.”

  He was stiff all right, Marcy thought. He’d been mortified. Jonathan Brooks. A lawyer from the firm of Robinson, Rock & Knoll. Rock ’n’ Roll, as it was known around town.

  He’d hated her family. Had been aghast that she was related to such loud, tactless people. She didn’t realize the depth of his horror until she’d gone to his family’s house the next day and met his “refined” clan, the largest group of repressed stuffed shirts she’d ever seen in one place. No wonder he’d been appalled.

  She’d never appreciated her own family so much. They may be loud and tactless, she’d thought, but you don’t have to live in fear of saying something they don’t approve of. Mostly because they rarely approved of anything, but that was beside the point. Jonathan’s family all talked in whispers, as if in fear of being overheard and misunderstood. And God help you if you smiled. If you did, you were labeled frivolous and no one would have anything to do with you.

  Not that that was such a hardship.

  She and Jonathan had broken up by New Year’s, after only three months of dating.

  “He wasn’t stiff,” Uncle Roy objected. He was holding a Budweiser, and it was a pretty sure thing it wasn’t his first. He never contradicted anyone until he was drunk; then he contradicted everyone. “He was a perfectly nice guy with some really nice shoes. I thought you shoulda married him, Marcy. How come you didn’t marry him?”

  She sighed. “He didn’t ask, for one thing.” Which was when she’d sidled over to the plastic-covered picnic table and begun eating.

  Uncle Bruce was grilling burgers and hot dogs in the corner, trying not to converse with his wife. The smell reminded Marcy of summers long past, when the only grief she got from this crew was when she got grass stains on her little anklet socks or dress. Even then it was just a rueful shake of the head and a “kids will be kids” comment. Girls were really only free as children, she thought.

  Her cousin Celia—the one who’d come out as a lesbian at one of the summer cookouts—was standing next to Uncle Bruce, looking malevolently at the clutch of people around her mother. She was the smart one. Nobody wanted to hear about her dating experiences.

  Her other cousin, Byron, was so enormously fat everyone assumed he’d never get a date, so he was never harassed either. That, and no one wanted to initiate a conversation with him for fear of having to listen to an unending discourse on the life span of flies or the real reason light bulbs weren’t sold in wattages between sixty and seventy-five.

  Neither of Marcy’s brothers was here, but that wasn’t surprising. Neither was her father, who was apparently still at the track. They felt no familial obligation whatsoever. Marcy wondered how she’d ended up with any.

  She bit into another celery stalk and watched Uncle Les, Phyl’s brother, push himself off of his folding chair and come toward her. Les was a lean little man with a potbelly and some of the worst body odor Marcy had ever encountered. She stepped far left to make room for him to get at the Jell-O.

  “So,” he said, not quite looking at her. He was an awkward man who seemed shy but always managed to say things that were incredibly rude. “Not dating anyone still, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  She briefly considered pulling him aside and telling him she was a call girl, but requesting that he not tell anyone. Then she’d get to watch him squirm with the news the rest of the evening. By morning it would be all over the family and the dating questions would be over.

  Then the disease questions would start, she thought. And the morality speeches. And finally the prurient interest in how much money a call girl made these days.

  More trouble than it was worth, she concluded.

  “I’m surprised,” Uncle Les continued, spooning a great glob of Jell-O onto his paper plate. “You’re such a looker. You know, good legs, nice ass.”

  Marcy looked at him in apprehension. Good Lord, where was this going?

  “Don’t them other lawyers you work with got eyes?” he continued. “Maybe you oughta start wearing shorter skirts or something. Like that gal on TV. Ally something.”

  “MacDeal,” Uncle Roy offered from across the patio.

  “McBeal, you idiots,” Aunt Phyl corrected.

  “Yeah, her.” Les flipped a slab of Velveeta onto his plate. “She’s always got men wanting to date her, and she’s a lawyer.”

  “She’s a TV lawyer, Uncle Les,” Marcy said. “They’re different.”

  “But she ain’t nothing but skin and bones and she still gets the boys. She just dresses in them little tiny skirts. Maybe you just ain’t dressing to catch the guys’ eyes, ya know? Get some of them little tiny skirts. I’ll tell you what guys like—”

  “Okay. Yeah, thanks, Uncle Les. I’ll think about it.” She stepped away from him, down the table, and got a plate. She filled it with celery. It was the healthiest thing on the table, despite being covered with cheese.

  “I think Marcy dresses great,” Uncle Bruce said from the grill.

  She glanced over at him and he winked. She smiled warmly back at him. Uncle Bruce was her favorite, a big warm bear of a man. She often thought it was a shame he was so dominated by Aunt Phyl.

  “It’s a real shame you’re still not dating anyone,” Aunt Verna said, coming over to the table and getting a paper plate. Her green and orange polyester top seemed intentionally loud, as if she feared her birdlike body would otherwise disappear next to the enormous Aunt Phyl and cousin Byron. “Don’t you want kids, honey?”

  Marcy watched as Verna stacked her plate with potato chips, onion dip, saltines, and sagging Velveeta cheese slices. The woman must have a metabolism like a hummingbird’s.

  “I don’t know, Aunt Verna. I’m kind of busy now with work. I’ve got my own case, a pretty big one, that’ll probably be going to trial soon.”

  Aunt Verna shook her head. “You modern girls. So busy with your work, you’re gonna miss out on the joys of motherhood, you know.”

  All of Verna’s kids were in college now. Marcy remembered something about a big party being thrown when the third and last one left the house.

  “Besides, you gotta start looking now, honey,” Verna continued. “You don’t wanna just up and have babies the minute you meet someone, do you? Gotta get to know the man. Gotta give yourself some time.”

  “Time? What time? The girl’s already almost thirty,” Aunt Phyl bellowed from her chair. “You’re wasting your best years, girl. You better start looking or you’ll find yourself with nothing, you hear me? No man’s gonna want you once your ovaries have gone and shriveled up.”

  Marcy glanced at her mother, who nodded in agreement with Aunt Phyl. “That’s just what I been telling her.”

  “Of course you have.” Phyl patted her knee with a heavy hand. “You want grandkids, just like I do. But I ain’t never gonna get ’em, not with her being the way she is.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward Celia. “You ain’t one a them, are you, Marcy? One a them lesbians?” She glared at Marcy shrewdly.

  Marcy met her shrewd gaze, considering.

  “She might be, you never know,” Uncle Roy volunteered. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Nothin’ surprises me! Betcha it was that jerk with the shoes what turned her.”

  Marcy glanced at him, then back to Aunt Phyl and said, “Actually yes. Yes, I am a lesbian. I’ve been afraid to tell you, but yes. That’s why I don’t date.” She nodded definitively.

  They all looked at her, mouths agape. Roy belched and started laughing.

 
; Marcy smiled.

  “Oh, I’m sure she’s kidding,” her mother said, low, to Aunt Phyl.

  Aunt Verna looked at her askance. “You shouldn’t joke about such things, dear,” she said quietly. “People might take you seriously.” She crept away from the table and sat down again, as did Uncle Les.

  Uncle Bruce gave her a quick glance, then, with a chuckle, turned back to his hot dogs. They all went back to their conversations, leaving Marcy by the food feeling absurdly pleased with herself.

  After a minute she noticed Celia coming her way. Oh no, she thought. Please God, don’t let her try to fix me up with someone.

  Celia took a plate and moved close to Marcy, spooning a tiny bit of potato salad onto her plate. Her wild curls were held back by a rubber band and she wore no makeup, but she still looked pretty. Celia was the prettiest girl in the family by far, Marcy had always thought. She’d been shocked when she heard about her announcement last summer.

  “So, are you one, really?” Celia asked under her breath.

  Marcy turned to look at her. The question was asked so strangely Marcy was sure Celia knew she wasn’t. They must know somehow, she thought. Maybe that gay-dar thing isn’t just a joke.

  She turned her back on the crowd and rested her butt lightly on the edge of the picnic table.

  “No,” she admitted. “I’m just sick to death of them pestering me about dating.”

  Celia stifled a laugh, then turned her back to the patio, too. “Me neither,” she said out the side of her mouth.

  Marcy turned to her fully. “Really?”

  Celia nodded. “Really. I couldn’t take the pressure anymore either.”

  They both burst out laughing. It was the closest moment Marcy had ever had with her cousin.

  “Oh, and now the lesbians have found each other,” Aunt Phyl called from behind them. “Over there yucking it up while we sit here without any grandkids. Well, I got news for you, girls. It’s still wrong to date your own cousin, even if you are a homosexual.”

  “She’s not a homosexual,” Marcy heard her mother protest.

  And she and Celia burst into another fit of laughter.