needs a creative outlet. Since she hacked up Mom’s best cocktail dress to make a ball gown for her Barbie when she was five, it’s always been fashion design, but the opportunities for that are pretty limited right now. It still tears me apart that I took that from her.
She mistakes the self-loathing on my face for distrust of her cooking skills, apparently. “It may not be as good as Mom’s, but I promise it will be edible.” Her curious eyes flick to me. “I saw you guys head down to the beach. Thought one or the other of you might not come back.”
I tug open the fridge, twist the top off a bottle of water. “We’ve come to an understanding.”
“Not to kill each other?”
“Something like that.”
“Hey, Sherm,” she says, holding doughy hands up for him to see. “Want to help?”
He comes over and looks at the mess in front of Ulie.
She tears off a hunk of dough and starts rolling it between her palms and the counter. “Wash your hands, then roll all this dough into a bunch of long snakes, like this,” she says, showing him the one she’s rolling. “I need to finish the marinara.”
“Anything I can do?” I ask as he goes to the sink to wash.
She huffs out a laugh. “If I knew what I was doing, the answer would probably be yes, but since I’m flying by the seat of my pants, I wouldn’t even know what to tell you to do.”
When I don’t say anything, she looks up from her work. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and they tell the real story. She’s miserable. I haven’t asked if there was anyone special in New York. Knowing I’m responsible for forcing her to give up her dream is hard enough. I couldn’t stand to know she’d given up even more than that because of me. Ulie’s never been one to let herself get tied down, but if she had someone, I don’t want to know.
“Where’s Lee?” I ask, just realizing the Beetle was gone from the driveway when we came up from the beach.
“She had an interview, she said.”
“Where?”
Ulie shrugs. “Didn’t ask.”
“How long till dinner?”
She surveys the mess. “I have no clue. Maybe an hour? You really need a shower,” she adds, pinching her nose. “Sherm and I have things under control. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
I take my time in the shower, letting all the crap that is my life wash down the drain with the last of the hot water. It’s an hour later when I come downstairs.
“Smells good,” I tell Ulie, my stomach growling.
“Where’s the switch for the garbage disposal?” she asks, searching the wall under the kitchen window.
“There is no garbage disposal,” Lee says, just coming through the door.
Ulie’s eyes widen as she dumps gnocchi into the pot of boiling water on the stove. “Oh, shit.”
Lee peers into the murky water. “What happened?”
“Julia Child,” I say, gesturing to Ulie.
She shrugs and brushes a lock of dark hair out of her face. “I didn’t know.”
“I’ve got to change, but there’s a plunger in the laundry room,” Lee says, heading for the stairs.
I retrieve it, then stick my hand into the water and sweep it over the drain. I come out with a handful of white glop. “What did you put in here?”
“The extra dough,” she says, fishing the first batch of gnocchi out of the pot. She dumps the rest in as I start on the drain, and after five minutes of hard plunging, the clog finally gives way.
“Next time,” I say shaking the plunger off, “you get the honors.”
“Then I’ll leave the cooking to you,” Ulie shoots back, dumping the sauce from the stockpot onto the steaming mound of gnocchi on the bowl on the counter.
“Oh, God, no,” Lee mutters with a roll of her eyes, stepping off the last stair. She tugs me over to the table. “I want to check your wound.”
I sit. She hikes up the leg of my jeans.
“Looks good. I can pull these stitches if you want,” she says, prodding at them. She gets up and grabs scissors from the drawer. She snips each stitch and tugs it loose from my leg. “Okay?” she asks after the first few.
“It’s fine.”
“Fine,” she repeats with a roll of her eyes. “Everything is fine.”
“Dinner’s ready,” Ulie says. “Don’t bleed on the table.”
Lee corrals Grant and we slide into seats.
“How was the interview?” Ulie asks Lee as we serve ourselves.
Lee shrugs. “It was with a small tax