Free The Ladies' Man by Elinor Lipman Page A

which means we won’t see it again.”
    Nash seizes on this conversational gambit. “B-minus,” he repeats. “You mean, a grade?”
    â€œWe grade new recipes—Kathleen insists—and she only introduces it into her repertoire if it gets an A.”
    â€œFascinating.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t. It’s mildly interesting. We find it endearing because it’s so Kathleen.”
    â€œIs she the only one who cooks?”
    â€œI can cook, but I don’t like to, and Lois is hopeless, except for one pot roast made with dehydrated onion soup.”
    Nash has been holding the casserole by its two handles. “Can I zap this?” he asks.
    â€œI think so.”
    He doesn’t move. Adele says, “I’m going to change. Just put it in and give it a couple of minutes.” When he doesn’t move, she opens the microwave door. Nash puts the casserole inside, and Adele hits “4-0-0” and “start.”
    â€œI appreciate it,” he says.
    â€œYou might want to rotate it halfway through the cooking.”
    â€œYou’re very kind,” he says.
    Adele says, “I certainly don’t mean to be.”
    Nash laughs.
    â€œRichard would be appalled if I didn’t feed you.”
    Nash tries a half smile. “I think it’s an old Indian custom—feeding the person who saved your life.”
    Adele takes an oval straw place mat and a sunflower cloth napkin from a kitchen drawer, and sets one place.
    Nash tries again. “Not that someone else in the room wouldn’t have known the Heimlich maneuver. You were probably never in any real danger of dying unattended.”
    â€œI wonder,” Adele murmurs.
    Nash says, sensing an opportunity, “What
I
wonder is what exactly made me come back at this exact moment in time? I mean, all these years, and suddenly I have to come back to Boston. Do youbelieve in stuff like that—fate or karma or some larger force moving us around on a big board?”
    â€œI find that kind of thinking idiotic,” says Adele. She raises her voice. “Was it some larger force that made you run away and humiliate me all those years ago? Was it karma that made me choke on a piece of steak today? In front of you, of all people?” To Adele’s horror, her voice cracks. “I hate you,” she says. “I always have and I’m not going to stop now.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Always’?” he repeats. “You agreed to marry someone you hated? That can’t be true.”
    â€œI can’t remember ever feeling”—she considers employing the word
love
, but can’t in front of him—“anything but hate.”
    Nash shakes his head throughout her speech, then says woefully, “You loved me.”
    â€œIf I did, I stopped in one night, and every single member of my family feels the same way.”
    â€œYou loved me,” he repeats.
    The microwave beeps. Neither moves toward it. Nash thinks, This is hard; harder than usual. In most cases, such anger can be soothed by holding the subject in his arms until she gives up the fight. But Adele looks icy, not disposed to thawing, and has a broken rib. Besides, under fluorescent light, without lipstick, she looks her age. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks.
    She nods.
    â€œLove and hate,” he muses. “It sounds a little childish, doesn’t it? To be using such extremes about something that happened a lifetime ago?”
    â€œGet out,” says Adele. “Take the whole goddamn thing with you. I hope you choke on it. And I hope no one’s around who knows the Heimlich maneuver.”
    He accepts the casserole dish and walks past her to the front door, looking wounded but dignified like the better man he has become over the intervening thirty years. The earthenware casserole is a nice prop, he thinks: He will have to return it, and Adele will have to explain to her outraged sisters why