Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [20]
“No taste,” Patti said.
Mark gave me a brotherly hug and said, “We brought doughnuts.”
“Yay. No carb left behind. Definitely my kind of breakfast,” I said.
“Listen, Cate,” Patti said, handing me a steamy cup of deliverance, “we don’t want you to worry. You’ve been through enough. When the kids leave today, you’re going to come and stay with us for a few days or for as long as you’d like to sleep on a sofa bed with a metal bar jamming your back.”
I giggled at that. Mark and Patti lived three blocks away in a picturesque house for normal, sensible people (not a crazy, over-designed, waste of money, brand spanking new, with a five-car garage, home theater, tennis court, swimming pool, fountain out front spewing water day and night, wireless McMansion like mine), whose greatest selling point was an elaborate gourmet chef’s kitchen with four ovens, two dishwashers, three sinks, and a huge marble slab for making Patti’s infamous featherweight pastry and gorgeous cakes. Most women, myself included, would love a kitchen like that, because it would inspire you to tie on an apron. My witty, irrepressible sister Patti was a classically trained, well-known pastry chef who baked like an angel but only when she felt like it. She had declined countless offers from the Food Network for her own show, because she wasn’t interested in becoming a celebrity. To put this in perspective, two years ago she made Martha Stewart’s birthday cake at Martha’s request and billed her. Martha’s people were aghast that Patti sent a bill and Patti just laughed.
“Pay the bill,” Patti said and they did. “Does Martha Stewart get up in the morning and go to work for free? I don’t think so.”
I greatly admired her sense of self-worth. Even Martha Stewart couldn’t take her somewhere, especially if Patti wasn’t interested in the trip. She charged so much money for wedding cakes it literally gave me hives to think about it. They had no children (their choice) and no pets (Mark is allergic to any and all creatures with dander), and as a result they had money to travel to all the exotic spots on the globe to sample and study their sweets, the one thing of which I was a little jealous.
“Well, I have to say. It’s good to see a smile on your face,” Mark said.
“Yeah, well, I think I’m pretty much out of tears, you know? They seem to have dried up.”
“Yesterday was a little rough,” he said.
“I’m married to the King of Understatement,” Patti said. “It was like the worst day ever. Like something out of a Stephen King novel.”
“Yeah, but you know what?” I said.
“What?” they said together.
“I’m gonna survive. Us Mahon women are built from pretty strong stuff, stronger than I would have thought. I mean, listen, who would believe what happened yesterday? It just doesn’t seem possible.”
“Cate?” Mark said. “These days, people are losing their houses and all their possessions right and left. What happened to you is not actually all that unusual, except for the baby pictures and the floosies in the office colliding in one spectacular graveside shit storm. Want a chocolate doughnut?”
“Like we already forgot the details?”
“Are you kidding?” I took the doughnut from him, ate it in two bites, and then I licked my fingers until all the sugar was gone. “Losing the house and everything we owned was bad enough but I agree, meeting Addison’s whore was a nice touch and learning about the secretary and the other women he . . . what? What are y’all thinking?”
Patti and Mark had the strangest expressions on their faces, as though they were hiding something from me.
“Come on,” I said, “what’s up with the weird faces? What’s going on?”
“You tell her,” Patti said.
“This