Free When in Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison Page B

serving spoon next to it all, and did a quick cleanup so I could get the hell out of there.
    This was not a good situation, and not just for Peter and Stephen. Angela had become increasingly … difficult (unhappy? hormonal? unbalanced? I had no idea) over the past few months. She’d always been sharp with her husband and son, but the worst she used to be with the nannies or me was condescending. Lately, she’d gotten downright snotty with me, and I wasn’t at all confident about my place on their staff.
    My days here felt numbered.
    It was time to write an ad for the Washingtonian classifieds and start marketing myself again. Self-promotion was never my forte, but there was no choice. I needed to replace Fridays quick, before I needed to replace Mondays as well.
    *   *   *
    I was buzzing on my way home that night.
    Irritation kept rising in my chest about Angela, and regret kept washing through me when I remembered the events of Friday night. I had to keep taking deep breaths to calm both emotions. I needed to do something to distract myself. I took a hard left, on an impulse, and decided to get my groceries for the next couple of days. It’s not like I’d be able to sleep when I got home, anyway.
    Privately rationalizing that I was going this way for convenience and not for any other reason, I drove down Connecticut Avenue and passed No Plans on my left. As soon as I passed it, I shook my head, feeling stupid. What had I expected, just to see him hanging out outside, waiting for me to drive by? And if so, that’d be weird.
    I turned up the radio, trying to drown out my thoughts, and pulled up a few minutes later in front of Giant.
    I grabbed a shopping cart and let my purse sling into the top compartment. I laughed as I thought of what Angela would do if she saw her cook touching a grocery cart handle without Purelling it first.
    My cell phone rang, and I answered when I saw it was Lynn.
    “Hey, Lynn—ugh, I’ve had the worst day.”
    “Oh, no, really?” She sounded genuinely disappointed. “What happened?”
    I let loose, venting about all the frustrations of my evening. She listened carefully, agreeing in all the right spots. I finished with “She’s just so … eergh, you know?”
    “God, she sounds like it.” She sighed. “You should just quit.”
    “Ha!” I said, resting the phone on my shoulder as I picked out a few cloves of garlic. “As if it were that easy.”
    “Once you get Fridays covered, you can just put out another ad for Mondays. Maybe someone will even need both nights!” She gasped at the convenience in her dream scenario.
    I smiled at her support and interest in my personal dramas.
    “So,” she went on, “have you heard from him?”
    “How would I have heard from him? He still doesn’t have my number. And I still don’t know what the note said. It could very well have said, ‘Ehh, it was all right. Thanks, though.’”
    She laughed appreciatively. “I don’t know, I thought maybe he might have tried to track you down. It’s like Serendipity. ”
    “Uh-huh, except with slimmer odds. By the way”—I lowered my voice—“I owe you condoms. I should pick them up now.”
    She laughed. “Um, did we make a bet I don’t remember?”
    “No, I dug them out of your bedside table on Friday night. It was kind of an emergency.”
    “Good Lord, I don’t even remember having any there. Don’t worry about it.”
    “Well, still, I rifled through your drawer like a truffle-sniffing pig and helped myself to your stuff, so I really should replace—” I turned down an aisle. I almost dropped my phone. I backed out of the aisle again. “Shit, shit, shit. ”
    “What?”
    “It’s him!” I whispered. “The guy from the bar is here!”
    “Go talk to him!”
    “I—what do I say?”
    “You might start by getting his last name.”
    “Very funny. I’m serious, what can I say? I’ve never had a one-night stand before. This is very awkward.”
    “Play your cards right,