Free Sweet Love by Sarah Strohmeyer Page B

what they used to be.
    From the back porch, I watch Mom, flanked by Teenie and Lois, place the box on the fire in our rusted suburban grill with its caked-on hamburger grease and spilled barbecue sauce. In seconds, it bursts into flames and the last symbol of the scourge that threatened to take my mother from us shrivels and turns to ash at the hands of three old crones and two vestal virgins.
    The power of women united, I am again reminded, is an invincible thing.

Chapter Six
    Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none
    —ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, ACT I, SCENE 2
    On my way to work Monday, I grab a New York Times , a Washington Post , this week’s Economist , and the Wall Street Journal —enough boring, stuffy reading material to knock out the most hyper insomniac. As a precaution, I pick up a triple-shot espresso to counter the effects. As if.
    I’ve got no other choice. Kirk told me to start reading all the major newspapers every morning in preparation for the national election team, and that doesn’t include the mounds of background material I’ll have to consume in order to catch up, the voting records and lobbying reports. Oh, God. The lobbying reports.
    Still, there could be worse situations, like finding the national election post was given to someone else—a panicky possibility that crosses my mind as I walk into the newsroom and see Valerie being interviewed by Kirk in Arnie’s glass-walled office.
    Uh-oh.
    Dolores Poultney, Arnie’s rotund secretary, lifts her gaze from this morning’s sudoku lying next to a heaping quart of pick-your-own strawberries. Seems like I wasn’t the only one with the bright idea. “Take a number, Julie. Arnie told me not to disturb those two unless it’s an emergency.”
    “I have a great recipe for those,” I say, pointing to the berries. “Freeze them on a cookie sheet maybe with some raspberries and blueberries. Then melt a good quality white chocolate in cream.” Dolores makes me hold off until she gets a slip of paper so she can write it down. We agree that it’s ideal for warm days like this one. No one wants to heat up the kitchen in summer by baking shortbread.
    We go on and on about wild berries versus cultivated ones, about what constitutes good white chocolate and if it matters what kind of butter you use. According to Dolores, butter with low moisture and high butterfat makes all the difference. She suggests Amish block butter or something called Plugrá, a bastardization of the French phrase plus gras , meaning “more fat.”
    Only the French, I think, would add fat to their butter.
    I can’t believe I care about butter. Before cooking class I wouldn’t have given a tinker’s dam, yet here I am wondering whether I can sneak over to Whole Foods to buy some for tonight. Dolores says it’s fantastic on French bread, with a good Pinot Noir.
    “Ooh,” I hiss, licking my lip. Then the awful truth hits me.
    I have become a foodie!
    “What am I doing? I can’t stand around here talking about butter, not when I’m up to my eyeballs in work.” Not when I’m in the running for my dream job.
    Dolores slumps her shoulders and goes back to her sudoku. “I should have known. All anyone wants from me is gossip about what’s going on in Arnie’s office, why Kirk Bledsoe brought in Raldo, then Valerie. Who’s going to get sent to the election team.”
    Raldo?
    “Reporters are so hopeless. Can’t have a conversation with you people without you always angling.”
    This is so not true. I want her to know that I didn’t go off on the butter tangent simply to eke out information about why Valerie’s in with Kirk. But how do you tell a person something like that? Because you like to eat, Dolores, and eat a lot, so I thought I’d tell you about the berries.
    Instead, I say, “I can’t wait to try the Plugrá.”
    “Uh-huh.” And she writes down a 9 in the upper-right quadrant.
    Raldo?
    I dump the papers on my desk and get Michael’s card from my purse.