Moonlight Over Manhattan(79)
Harriet stopped and hugged her. “I promise you a lifetime supply.”
“Have you cooked for that man of yours yet? Because if you have, he’s a goner. He’d soon give up all this ‘never getting married again’ nonsense if he knew the way you cooked.”
“I cooked a little when I was in his apartment, but everyday stuff. Nothing special.” After that painfully embarrassing incident on the first night, she’d kept the food simple. No one could read seduction into spaghetti with red sauce.
“What are you waiting for? Seduce his taste buds. Blow his mind.”
“Funny you should say that because tonight I’m really going all out to impress him.” She’d been planning the menu all week. It was ambitious and potentially full of things that could go wrong, but she wanted the evening to be special.
Ethan only had one more week in the city before he left for his ski trip and she wanted to make sure he went away thinking of her.
Back in her apartment she chopped, sautéed and did all the initial preparation for the meal.
Telling herself that she was just killing time, she went onto YouTube and watched an episode on life in the ER, with Ethan in the starring role. She could see why they’d decided to make a series. He was movie-star handsome, but not in an inaccessible movie-star way. He seemed human. Real. And he seemed cool and calm no matter what came through the doors of the ER. Drunks, knife wounds, gunshot wounds—he dealt with it all. It didn’t surprise her to discover he had a huge female fan base. Of course he did.
When the scenes on the screen became too graphic, she clicked off and then on impulse searched for the name of his ex-wife.
She clicked on a clip of Alison reporting from Africa. There she was in the dust and the heat looking cool and elegant in khaki and crisp white, her hair a sleek bob. Apparently neither the heat nor the pressure was allowed to affect her performance.
She spoke directly to the camera about the current political situation. She was poised and eloquent. Not a single um.
This woman had never stammered in her life. She spoke clearly and without pause, the words emerging with an almost musical fluency. Harriet watched, transfixed and dismayed. She wanted to switch it off, but she couldn’t stop watching. For her, the words, certain letters, could so easily be jammed. Trapped in her mouth. Sometimes she’d practice speaking in front of the mirror, but talking to herself didn’t present the same challenge as talking to a stranger. She’d learned that most people preferred to talk than to listen so she often stayed silent, even though she knew by doing so she’d be labeled quiet or shy. There had been so many times when Fliss and Daniel had leaped in, taking on the role of understudy when her brain and mouth had refused to perform as expected.
It made her feel vulnerable to know her tongue could still let her down. Speech was a fundamental part of a person. And maybe it was wrong, but people judged.
Having thoroughly depressed herself, she flipped her laptop shut and stood up.
Alison was lovely, and eloquent, but Ethan wasn’t with her anymore.
She wasn’t going to feel envy about a relationship that no longer existed.
If anything she felt sad for him. Because, personal feelings aside, anytime a marriage failed was sad.
She distracted herself by cooking the perfect meal.
Ethan had said he’d be home by seven, so she planned to eat at 7:30 to allow him time to be late.
She switched on the Christmas tree lights, lit two of her favorite cinnamon and orange scented candles.
Humming along to carols, she prepared the duck and slid it into the oven.
By seven thirty everything was ready but there was no sign of Ethan.
She stared at her phone. Should she call? No. If he wanted to call her, he’d call. He didn’t exactly have a nine to five job, did he?
She poured herself a glass of red wine and stood by the window.
It had finally stopped snowing but the city was bathed in an ethereal glow.
Her phone told her it was past eight, but still there was no sign of him.
What had possessed her to cook a soufflé?
Maybe she should ditch it and serve smoked salmon instead.
After an hour she poured herself another glass of wine.
After two hours she was starting to get seriously worried.
Maybe he’d had second thoughts. Maybe cooking dinner at home sent the wrong signals.
THERE WERE DAYS when he loved his job. Today wasn’t one of them.
“Remind me. Why do I spend my Saturday nights in this place?” Susan ripped off her gloves. “I could be at the theatre or having sex with a hot guy. I could be having a life instead of always being in on the worst moments of someone else’s.”
They’d lost the patient and it had been a harrowing few hours.
Ethan was exhausted. He knew the rest of the team was too.
Each member would go home and process the loss in the way that best suited them. Some might use counseling, some might reach for the bottle, some might just bury it deep and keep going. All of them would analyze. They’d go over every step of the care they’d given, looking for holes.
In this case there hadn’t been any.
He knew they’d done everything that they could have done and that the odds had been stacked against them.
The man had been drunk when the car he’d been driving had rammed into a wall. The car had caught fire, something that happened more in the movies than in real life but in this case the guy had been unlucky, as was the woman he’d hit with the car before he’d made contact with the wall. His passenger had crawled from the wreckage moments before the car had exploded. The driver had been brought in with most of his skin toasted and his aorta severed. His friend had walked away with nothing more than a cut finger.