“Yes, that’s how they wanted it.”
“Good.” Amy slid the paper onto Darcy’s desk, looking at her curiously. “Candy called earlier this morning. She said having the next planning session for the Milwaukeedates party would work fine at your usual Women in Power meeting. She chose this menu preliminarily.”
“Good, thanks.” Darcy skimmed the menu. Mostly finger foods, nothing exotic or too complicated. They had most of the ingredients and could easily order the rest in time. “How are things with Colin? Is he behaving?”
“He is. I’m crazy about this guy.” She patted her heart. “And ridiculously hopeful. And ridiculously terrified.”
Darcy put the menu into her upright file. Yeah, she got that. All too well. “Things do work out. Maybe this guy is right for you.”
Amy narrowed her eyes over her mug. “They’re right.”
“Who?” Darcy looked up sharply. “About what?”
“You. You’re different.”
“Me?” Darcy put her hand to her chest, doing her best to sound incredulous. “Different?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Amy perched on the edge of Darcy’s desk. “There’s a rumor going around, both kitchen and dining-room staff.”
“Rumor? About what?”
“You.”
Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Okay, let’s have it.”
“Apparently big, tough, invincible Chef Darcy…” She broke off to examine her nails as if they were the most fascinating things in the room.
“What?”
Amy looked up, blinking in fake surprise. “Oh, did I not mention it? Silly me.”
Darcy growled. “A-my.”
She did a bad job suppressing her trademark waterfall of giggles and leaned forward conspiratorially. “They say Chef Darcy has fallen in love.”
DARCY OPENED HER FRONT DOOR, arms full, damp from the rain. On her way out that morning, she’d taken a look around her house through a stranger’s eyes, thinking of Troy there that evening, and had been dismayed by how bare-walled and sterile the place looked. Coming home, she’d passed by her favorite independent bookstore, which had been featuring an irresistible vibrantly colored series of framed food prints in the window: fruits, vegetables, cheeses, cakes, pastries—she’d ducked in and bought them all. At the supermarket where she’d gotten last-minute ingredients for Troy’s favorite meal, she’d added to her cart three generic but cheerful mixed bouquets of flowers.
Troy was coming over after his workout; she expected him about nine, which gave her an hour to cook and redecorate.
The meal was the easy part. She remembered exactly what he’d said were his favorites: burger, medium rare, on a sesame roll with a slice of tomato, sweet onion, lettuce, pickle, catsup and mustard, French fries, coleslaw and ice-cold beer. For dessert, chocolate milkshake. In the interest of time, she’d gotten the French fries from a burger joint, but the hamburgers would be made from beef raised at her favorite local farm, the sesame buns fresh from a nearby bakery, the coleslaw homemade and the chocolate to flavor the shake was from Ghana, sixty percent cacao.
Entice Your Man Burger, with Flirty Fries and a Shimmy Shake.
She bustled around the kitchen preparing the hamburgers, flavored with salt, porcini mushroom powder and plenty of pepper, slicing tomato, onion and pickle, tossing the French fries with herbed parmesan cheese to reheat later, shredding cabbage, mixing the dressing and adding cream to the melted chocolate for the milkshake flavoring.
After setting the dining table with her nice blue-rimmed plates and pilsner glasses for the beer, Darcy glanced at the clock. Half an hour. She took a lightning-speed shower, yanked on form-fitting black knit pants and a hot pink sweater, threw on makeup.
Now. Twenty minutes to transform the apartment. Please let him be late. Darcy dragged a chair over to the refrigerator and stood to reach into a cabinet above for vases. Holding three, she stepped down gingerly, hopping to maintain balance on the landing like an Olympic gymnast, ran water into each, yanked the plastic off the bouquets and stuffed them in.
One on the counter by the window. One on the table where they’d eat. One…she frowned, then ran into her living room and set them on one end of the coffee table, not in the center as was her instinct. She pulled a couple of books out of the bookshelf and scattered them next to the vase, then dashed into her room, grabbed her slippers, neatly stowed under the bed, and tossed them at the foot of the wingback chair by the fire.