Eggs, milk, and—why not?—cream. Stale croissants, which are not really good for anything except this. Where they are sublime. Ooh. I can feel the butter of the croissants on my fingers—that’s what’s going to make this so delicious. Fit for angels to eat on their clouds, though obviously they’d have to be very weight-bearing clouds, hahaha. Slips it into the oven. Here you go, my darling.
I watch the clip again, while chewing five sticks of Have Your Dessert and Chew It Too! gum at the same time. Apple Pie, Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, and Orange Crème Pop all at once. Mmm, Nigella says, pulling the pan out of the oven. At this point, she’s changed into a black silk kimono patterned with dragons. Dessert for dinner, she murmurs, dishing herself a bowlful to take into the bedroom. Everyone’s dream.
I watch it again and again, chewing until my eyes water and my vision gets blurry around the edges and a disconcerting throbbing begins above my left ear. I pick at my nails.
? ? ?
“You’re back soon,” Cassie says, taking my hands. The heat of them makes me feel slightly drunk on contact.
“I’m such a klutz,” I say, shaking my head. And I tell her how, believe it or not, I did end up banging my nails against a wall, hahaha. She hahahas along with me but she’s regarding me curiously, so I add, “Also, I have an event tonight.”
“Ooh, what’s the event?” Her blue eyes go very bright.
“Dinner?” But this doesn’t seem like enough. “And a musical.”
Her eyes say I’m going to have to tell her which musical.
“Phantom?”
“I love Phantom!” In fact, her husband took her to see it recently for her birthday. They made a whole night out of it—so fun oh my god. Well, she says, taking my hands more tightly in hers, we definitely have to get me into shape for that!
She runs her fingers over my cuticles and nail beds, debating whether she should use a buffer. I resist the urge to close my eyes.
“Tired?” she asks me.
“A little. Having a hard time sleeping lately.”
“Oh.” she looks up at me, the furrow deepening between her brows. “I’m sorry. Well, go ahead and close your eyes if you want to,” she smiles. “I won’t judge. Better here than at Phantom, right?”
“Right.”
She’s wearing a turquoise peasant blouse today that brings out her eyes, the peach in her skin. I see she’s gotten some sun since I saw her last. Her red curls are brushed up off her neck in one of those careless buns I can never pull off.
While she files, I say that it sounds like her husband really went all out for her birthday.
“Oh yeah, I got seriously spoiled the whole day. So fun.”
“Tell me.”
She tells me how he made her pancakes in the morning. Then he took her to the zoo, which was super fun. There’s a new polar bear exhibit—have I seen it? Oh my gosh, I have to. Then, oh! They went for cupcakes at Sweet Diva, that new cupcake place that just opened? She picks up the buffer, then puts it down. “I won’t buff these just ’cause we did them so recently? We don’t want your nail beds to get too thin on top of everything else.” She pats my hands, then drops them back into the salt water bowls.
“I’ve never been to Sweet Diva,” I tell Cassie.
“Oh! You should go. With all the baking you do, you’d so appreciate it,” she says. “They do this coconut cream that’s out of this world. Probably we had too many. Had to have a nap after.”
As she covers my arms with cold yogurt, I picture her and her non-freak husband napping. On a quilted bedspread. Cassie making a deep dent in the mattress. Maybe he’s got his arm around her.
“Then after the nap?” I prompt.
She smiles. “He gave me my presents.”
“What’d he get you?”
“This nail art kit I wanted,” she says, flashing her freshly coiffed nails at me. Each nail is embossed with a badly painted flower.
“Pretty.”
“Also these,” she says, wiggling her feet at me from under the table. I look down and see that her feet are encased in cheap, vaguely oriental-looking sandals stuccoed with small bits of brightly colored plastic. I see her husband kneeling before her, smilingly slipping them onto her small feet. She has disconcertingly tiny feet.
“Nice.”
We’re on to the massage portion. I close my eyes for a while.
“Where did he take you to dinner?”
“Oh, just this Italian place in the mall I really like. You know the one with the pretty waterfall?”
Cassie and her husband seated across from each other at a dinner table. He’s wearing a smart tie, beaming at her beaming at him over quivering candlelight. He takes her coiffed hand and kisses it. Maybe they’re talking about their favorite zoo animals.
“Oh, right. I love that place.” I hate that place. “What did you have?”
“This creamy pasta dish? With the little bowtie pasta. What are those called again?”
They’re in the half-dark of their bedroom, on their nap-rumpled bed. Would she want the lights off? Probably lowered. He’d have to be on top. Maybe not.
“Farfalle,” I say.