spent so much time in the confines of the hot kitchen, it was healthy for him to have some release, and Siobhan was glad it was sports and not porn on the Internet. He was in a football pool, she knew that, but then the other night at dinner he announced that he had lost twelve hundred dollars on the Patriots game. Twelve hundred dollars! Siobhan nearly sprung a leak. She knew nothing about sports in this country and even less about the gambling that attended the sports, but she had assumed it entailed a bunch of guys throwing twenty bucks onto the bar. Twelve hundred dollars was six lovely dinners out; it was an entire weekend in Stowe or New York City.
Don’t overreact, Carter had said. It’s not exactly a fortune.
It damn well is so, Siobhan had countered. She was the one who counted the beans. When Carter decided to quit his job as head chef at the Galley Restaurant and start a catering business, it was because of the kids, because of the flexible scheduling, being his own boss. That was all well and good, but there would be no barter up in lifestyle if money kept flying out the door. For Siobhan, owning a business meant anguish and indigestion day in and day out.
They did one big job in November: the private Montessori school dinner auction. Siobhan liked doing this dinner. Because it was her only big job between wedding season and the holidays, she was able to give it time and careful attention, and each year, it was a masterpiece. This year the theme was the Far East. Siobhan dropped the boys at school and went straight to the catering kitchen, which was located in the back half of a commercial building out by the airport. It started to snow on her way there, which brightened her mood. Siobhan was a fan of layered sensory stimulation. She unlocked the door to the kitchen, made herself a cup of Irish breakfast, and put on a Chieftains CD, which Carter did not tolerate at home. The first snow of the year was falling in feathery bits out the window. Siobhan pulled her notebook out of her purse. She was in charge of the appetizers and dessert; Carter would do the entrée. Her appetizers were duck, mango, and scallion spring rolls for one hundred, sesame-crusted rare tuna on cucumber rounds with pickled ginger and wasabi for one hundred, and jumbo shrimp satay with peanut dipping sauce for one hundred. For dessert, she was making a complicated passion fruit and coconut cream parfait with macadamia nut brittle, which Carter called her crazy as Larry for even attempting. But hey, this was her masterpiece. Would he rather she was at home, picking up the boys’ disgusting excuse for a bedroom, or lamenting the many ways she might have spent the money that he had flushed down the loo with the disappointing Patriots? Siobhan loved Carter, and she had sworn on the altar that she would always love him, yes, but he was bringing her down.
The tea was steaming, the Irishmen keening, the snow piling up. Don’t think about a weekend in Stowe! Siobhan started with the peanut sauce. Technically, Siobhan’s mother had taught her to cook, though the porridge and cabbage and finnan haddie of Siobhan’s youth in no way resembled the delights that now came out of her kitchen. She was all about flavor and color and decadence; she was Liberace playing poolside, candelabra ablaze, while her mother’s cooking was like the parish organist, dutifully banging out another funeral dirge.
As Siobhan sautéed onions and garlic and ginger in peanut oil, the phone rang. She looked around the empty kitchen, confused. It was the kitchen phone and not her cell phone, which was unusual. On her way to answer the phone, she saw the machine held six messages. Six!
“Hello?” she said.
“Siobhan? Is that you?”
The voice. She laughed, not because she was amused, but because she was caught off guard.
“Edward?”
“Hi,” he said.
Well, he would be more nervous than she was. Edward Melior, her former fiancé. They lived on the same island, which was four miles wide, thirteen miles long, and yet she rarely saw him. Maybe once or twice a month they passed each other in their cars. Edward always waved, but Siobhan never realized it was him until he was in her rearview mirror. What was becoming more common was that Edward would attend an event Siobhan was catering—she had a