When in Doubt, Add Butter (26 page)

“Everyone has
something
they’re insecure about.”

“Come on. Not many people get like this.” She swept her hand across her hips and thighs. “I’m fat, not stupid, not blind, not unaware, and not bulletproof.” Her voice cracked over the word
bulletproof,
and I knew this pain must be close to the surface for her all the time, even as she struggled against the cruelty of judgment or outright mockery from strangers.

I went and put my arm on her shoulder and looked earnestly into her eyes. “But
everyone
who has a goal starts somewhere and then moves toward it incrementally. Always incrementally. No matter who you are or what your goal is.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course. How many people can decide on some lofty aspiration and then just jump right into it?
No one
. No one can just lose weight instantly because they decide to. You can’t just
be
a great tennis player immediately because you decide to. It takes work and small steps. Don’t give up now!”

There was a long silence before she said, “Sometimes that seems easier.”

“It probably is,” I agreed carefully. “But do you want easier or better?”

She looked at me. “I’m just not sure. This is my last-ditch effort to lose weight. Strict portioning, exercising, though that’s pretty limited so far, and trying to be patient while I wait for time to pass and results to show. But like I said, I’m scared it won’t work. That I’ll be like this forever, and I can’t endure that. I just can’t. I can’t live like this.”

“Worst-case scenario, and I don’t believe you will fail, but
worst-case scenario,
you don’t lose much weight.… Is that
really
unendurable? You’ve been this weight for some time now, haven’t you?”

“A long, long time. It’s a nightmare. It’s hard, it’s embarrassing, and maybe worst of all, it’s”—she bit her lip just as I saw it start to quiver—“it’s like slowly turning to stone.”

“What do you mean?”

She nodded. “This isn’t who I am. This isn’t who I want to be. I want to walk—no, hell, I want to
run
and jump and climb and …
whatever
. I want to be able to move and do whatever I want, just like anyone else. Instead I feel trapped in this body like you’d feel trapped in a straitjacket.”

“I don’t want to be cliché, but in this case it seems like the most appropriate response: You need to look at this one day at a time. If you look at the whole, you’ll go crazy. But one day at a time, you will reach a day where you find you’ve done it. And, yeah, sometimes you’ll fall.” I gestured toward the chip bag. “But you just have to get back up again.”

I’d learned so much from Willa, so much about what she was going through, what an unhealthy relationship with food looked and felt like, and how unfair my own conclusions about grossly overweight people had been in the past.

Obviously, hers was not a condition that looked like
fun,
but I had a feeling it was a more hellish battle than I could even imagine.

“I’ll try. That’s all I can say, I will keep trying.” She shook her head and stopped talking. A tear slid down her cheek.

I gave her a hug. “Listen to me. You’re not in this alone. I’m with you every step of the way. We’re going to do this side by side, and we’re going to do it
slowly,
okay?”

“No miracles?”

“There are a million miracles here!” I thought of the baby inside me. “We have our friendship to do this together, we have our brains to figure out how to do it, and we have our determination to get there.
Both
of us. Right?”

“You’d call me a friend?”

“Of course! Wouldn’t you?”

She considered me, then nodded. “Yes.”

“So would you bet on us or against us?”

“On,” she said. “Definitely on.”

“Excellent.” I put my hand out. “We have a pact, then. We’re going to get through this, even when it’s hard.”

“Yes.” She shook my hand.

“And listen, Willa, seriously, if you ever need to talk, I don’t care what time it is, you can call me.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled. “How
did
your weigh-in go, by the way?”

“This week I only lost two pounds.”

I was surprised. Given her level of discouragement, I’d been half afraid she’d gained. “Two pounds is a lot.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Think about a pound of butter,” I pointed out. “Seriously, think about how it feels in your hand, so much bigger than your palm. You can’t wrap your hand around it. Then consider one of those in each hand. If you stuck them to your hips, you’d notice a huge difference. But you didn’t, you lost that much fat. That’s something to consider!”

“I guess you’re right.” She nodded. “I wished it was more, but I guess that’s not realistic.”

“Listen, if the rest of the world thought it was realistic to lose five pounds in one week, I think there would be a lot more motivated dieters out there.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I am. And that’s what we’re going with.” I didn’t ask her why she’d felt afraid it wouldn’t work, because I knew very well that fears weren’t always logical or reasonable. When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t always see the two pounds down; she also saw the two hundred, or whatever it was, to go. “You see that this is progress, right? That this is exactly what we were just talking about.”

“I guess so.” She brightened a tiny bit. “Plus I do have a bit more energy as well. Not a lot. Like I said, I’m not going out to any big social events any time soon, but maybe—just
maybe
—I can imagine reaching that point in the future. The metabolism is firing up, albeit slowly.”

“Wow, that’s really exciting! Way to go!”

“Thanks, but so much of this relies on my willpower and”—she gestured at herself—“as we’ve discussed, that has been a challenge for me in the past.”

I shook my head. “You’re doing great. You’re determined, and you’re already succeeding in leaps and bounds!”

“Okay, okay.” This was clearly making her uncomfortable. “I’ll try, like I said. Now, tell me about you instead.”

I knew the conversation was over. She’d opened up in a way she didn’t usually, and now she seemed a bit self-conscious about it. I had to take small steps with her, too. So I went ahead and regaled her with my own sob story. “I lost another party at the country club today.”

Willa gasped. “How is that
possible
? You are truly an amazing cook.”

“Well. Thanks. Something is going on, and I don’t quite understand what it is.”

She eyed me keenly. She sure could read people. “But you think it’s—?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, please, Gemma. Don’t kid a kidder. You just got me to spill my guts, so to speak. Now it’s your turn.”

She was right. “I think that woman I work for is sabotaging my business.” I explained about Angela’s connection to the country club.

“Could this be about her wanting to have you work for her on weekends? Something simple like that?” Willa asked.

I shook my head. “She’s never asked me for any other days.”

“Has she asked you to cut down on the days you work for her?”

“Never.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“Does she have something against you personally?”

“Not as far as I know. Yes, her husband made that pass at me a few weeks ago, like I told you, but she wasn’t there and you can be damn sure he didn’t tell her—or she would be on the other side of the country and would have taken half his fortune with her.”

“Is this that TV guy?”

No point in playing coy. “Yes.”

“Why would his admitting anything give her more of an advantage over his money?”

“Adultery is frowned upon in divorce court in Maryland.”

“Unlike all those other places where it’s applauded?”

I laughed. “Okay, true, but especially here. If she knew he’d done something untoward, she’d have him by the balls.”

“But there’s probably a burden of proof.”

“An admission would be proof,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying. I’m sure he didn’t admit anything, so that can’t be it.”

She nodded. “Unless they have a kid and you were caught on the nanny cam.”

Oh my God.

How had this not occurred to me before?

I’d been changing my shirt in Stephen’s room, in front of that row of stuffed animals. That is
exactly
where a nanny cam would be hidden. Angela wouldn’t even have been looking for me, so what a shock it must have been, if this was really what had happened, for her to see me waltz in and take my shirt off, followed shortly by her husband coming in and planting one on me.

“That’s what it was!” I gasped.

“What?”

“Nanny cam. She saw it on the nanny cam. But it wasn’t incriminating enough.” I remembered the steak she wanted me to make for Peter. “Good Lord, so she started to try to set him up to make another pass at me. She got him a steak and left the house so I could prepare it.”

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

“Exactly. Especially since he’d already made a pass at me, so she might have felt his interest was established.”

Willa nodded. “That makes sense. So she wanted to catch him in the act, preferably on film, so she could skewer him in court.”

“
But
she didn’t get anything incriminating on him, because he hasn’t tried anything since.”

“Which means you have job security as long as she’s trying to nail you and her husband.”

I had to laugh. “Except for the fact that she’s blacklisting me at the club and who knows where else.”

“From a sociological standpoint, it’s really pretty interesting.”

“Maybe, but from a practical standpoint, I’m panicked.” Instinctively my hand went to my stomach.

She noticed. “Are you sick?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Pregnant.”

She gave a low whistle. “Wow. How far along?”

“A couple of months. I’m not even sure. I have my first doctor’s appointment next week.”

“Do you have money saved?”

“I hate that question.”

She nodded, understanding. “I used to as well. If you need help—”

“Oh, thanks. No, I’ll be okay.” My voice didn’t hold the conviction I wished it did. But how could it? I wasn’t convinced at all. “I just need more work, that’s all. If you hear of anyone looking, let me know. Especially for events.”

“Absolutely. But Gemma?”

“Yes?”

“I mean it,” she said.

And even though I would never, ever take her up on it—I would never put a friend in a position to feel like our relationship was anything other than 50–50 equitable—her offer was so heartfelt that it almost made me burst into tears.

She said, “Not just now or never, but if you find yourself in a bind and need a loan, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

Chapter 22

I had to confront Angela.

Didn’t I?

I went to the Van Houghten house two hours earlier than usual with the idea that I could get all the cooking done and be ready to talk to her without distraction when she got home. That way I could leave afterwards, rather than having the potentially awkward problem of a tense conversation followed by an even more tense silence while I cooked her dinner.

But there was no question that it had to be done.

If she was blacklisting me with potential clients in the relatively small D.C. social scene, I had to stop her if at all possible.

So why wasn’t I more relieved when I pulled up to the house and saw her car out front?

Better still, Peter’s wasn’t there. We could, theoretically, have this out without added complications.

I walked in with my bags from Whole Foods and called out, “Hello?”

No answer.

Good. That gave me a little time to investigate.

I went into the kitchen and looked around. There had to be a camera in here somewhere. That would prove my theory was correct. Or at least it would go some way toward proving my theory was correct. There was no way she would expect her husband to have a dalliance in her son’s room or in the playroom—that he had made a pass at me in Stephen’s room was just a strange coincidence—so if she really wanted to catch him at it, she’d have to put the camera where she thought he’d make his move.

And if she thought he’d make it on me, that would be the kitchen.

The kitchen was so sparse and clean that there weren’t very many hiding places. The drawers were smooth and solid, as well as the cabinets, and the countertops had nothing on them at all until I opened my bag of tricks and started cooking.

That left décor.

If she expected me to be by the counter where I usually worked, that meant the west wall was probably the best place to get a good view. I went over to three framed black-and-white family photos on the wall, and found the small camera strategically placed so the lens was in the iris of Angela’s own eye.

It was a nice touch.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I whirled around to find Angela standing there, scrutinizing me, her hands on her hips.

I’ve never been fast on my feet when it comes to lying. Especially when there wasn’t even a semi-reasonable lie to come up with, as in this case.

“I have a question for you,” I countered.

Interestingly, that seemed to take her off guard. “Do you?”

I made an effort not to sound combative. I’d seen enough horror movies where incensing the bad guy only led to worse things. If Angela was my Bad Guy, I had to play this as smart as possible.

“I’ve learned from several sources that you are recommending people replace me as their events caterer at the club,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong and even. “Why is that?”

She raised her chin. “I can’t control who people choose to cater their parties.”

“But you can influence them.”

“Why would I?”

Now, if I had been 100 percent sure that she had seen the nanny cam video of Peter making a pass at me, I might have called her on the carpet right there, but I was aware that there was still a small chance that my theory was wrong—kitchen cam notwithstanding—and telling her about Peter would have just incensed her and made her fire me on the spot.