one of the ways he liked to amuse himself when he got bored. And Lou had obviously gotten into the toilet paper again, something he hadn’t done since the first week or two he’d moved in. Why he had to revert to such negative behavior today of all days, I couldn’t begin to imagine—unless he was picking up on my high level of stress over the impending in-law invasion.
“Guys,” I moaned, “how could you? Why did it have to be today? It’s going to take me forever to clean up this mess!”
Lou just wagged his tail, while Max picked up his pink rubber poodle hopefully, as if he sincerely believed that a few rounds of Slimytoy could smooth anything over. Cat, regally draped across the middle cushion of the couch—her favorite spot as of late—looked on from afar. Her disdainful expression said she wanted no part of such shenanigans.
Meanwhile, Prometheus squawked, “I’m gonna give you my love!” While I recognized how impressive it was that he was one of the few birds on the entire planet who knew all the lyrics to every Led Zeppelin song ever recorded, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a concert. Especially an X-rated one.
As for undoing the havoc my fun-loving animals had wreaked, I didn’t have time. At least not now. At the moment, I had more important things to do to make this place scream “Welcome” from the moment my future in-laws walked through the door. I also had to shower and change in order to make myself look like a solid, upstanding candidate for the job of Nick’s wife, instead of a hired hand who’d just come in from plowing the lower forty.
I headed straight for the kitchen, where I began by taking the assortment of expensive cheeses I’d bought out of the refrigerator so they could get warmer and putting a bottle of red wine into the spot that had just been vacated so it could get cooler. I’d splurged on that too, buying the best wine I could find from Thorndike Vineyards, one of Long Island’s most acclaimed wineries.
Part of me was disdainful of the way I was trying so hard to convince Nick’s parents that he was marrying someone who deserved him. Someone who knew her way around a cheese shop, someone whose pets were as well-behaved as our children, if we ever had any, would be—in short, someone who was capable of creating a good home.
But part of me knew that our first meeting could well define the relationship I had with Nick’s parents forever. In their eyes, the fact that I’d spent my life pursuing a meaningful career that made me feel both fulfilled and proud mattered a whole lot less than what kind of wife I’d be for their son. And that part of me was willing, even eager, to pull out all the stops.
With such thoughts in mind, I’d decided on the way home that I’d use the time I had before Dorothy and Henry Burby arrived to make brownies. True, it’s generally something I’m foolhardy enough to attempt only once or twice a year, usually when there’s a holiday lurking in the not-too-distant future. But I figured that if anything spelled homeyness, it was the smell of chocolate wafting through the air.
Which meant the first order of the day was locating my eight-inch-by-eight-inch square brownie pan, which was so rarely used that I tended to stick it in the most out-of-the-way place I could think of.
If I remembered correctly, that happened to be under the sink. I crouched down, opened the cabinet door, and peered inside. Sure enough, there it was, tucked away with a pie tin that had never seen the inside of an oven and a Bundt pan I’d gotten free with the purchase of some cake mix.
Before I could reach it, however, I had to pull out a gallon of paint Nick and I had bought a few weeks earlier after deciding that a fresh coat in a cheerful color was exactly what the kitchen needed. But as soon as we opened the can, we saw that that particular shade of orange, one that had looked so warm and inviting in the store, was much too bright. Instead of livening
“Guys,” I moaned, “how could you? Why did it have to be today? It’s going to take me forever to clean up this mess!”
Lou just wagged his tail, while Max picked up his pink rubber poodle hopefully, as if he sincerely believed that a few rounds of Slimytoy could smooth anything over. Cat, regally draped across the middle cushion of the couch—her favorite spot as of late—looked on from afar. Her disdainful expression said she wanted no part of such shenanigans.
Meanwhile, Prometheus squawked, “I’m gonna give you my love!” While I recognized how impressive it was that he was one of the few birds on the entire planet who knew all the lyrics to every Led Zeppelin song ever recorded, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a concert. Especially an X-rated one.
As for undoing the havoc my fun-loving animals had wreaked, I didn’t have time. At least not now. At the moment, I had more important things to do to make this place scream “Welcome” from the moment my future in-laws walked through the door. I also had to shower and change in order to make myself look like a solid, upstanding candidate for the job of Nick’s wife, instead of a hired hand who’d just come in from plowing the lower forty.
I headed straight for the kitchen, where I began by taking the assortment of expensive cheeses I’d bought out of the refrigerator so they could get warmer and putting a bottle of red wine into the spot that had just been vacated so it could get cooler. I’d splurged on that too, buying the best wine I could find from Thorndike Vineyards, one of Long Island’s most acclaimed wineries.
Part of me was disdainful of the way I was trying so hard to convince Nick’s parents that he was marrying someone who deserved him. Someone who knew her way around a cheese shop, someone whose pets were as well-behaved as our children, if we ever had any, would be—in short, someone who was capable of creating a good home.
But part of me knew that our first meeting could well define the relationship I had with Nick’s parents forever. In their eyes, the fact that I’d spent my life pursuing a meaningful career that made me feel both fulfilled and proud mattered a whole lot less than what kind of wife I’d be for their son. And that part of me was willing, even eager, to pull out all the stops.
With such thoughts in mind, I’d decided on the way home that I’d use the time I had before Dorothy and Henry Burby arrived to make brownies. True, it’s generally something I’m foolhardy enough to attempt only once or twice a year, usually when there’s a holiday lurking in the not-too-distant future. But I figured that if anything spelled homeyness, it was the smell of chocolate wafting through the air.
Which meant the first order of the day was locating my eight-inch-by-eight-inch square brownie pan, which was so rarely used that I tended to stick it in the most out-of-the-way place I could think of.
If I remembered correctly, that happened to be under the sink. I crouched down, opened the cabinet door, and peered inside. Sure enough, there it was, tucked away with a pie tin that had never seen the inside of an oven and a Bundt pan I’d gotten free with the purchase of some cake mix.
Before I could reach it, however, I had to pull out a gallon of paint Nick and I had bought a few weeks earlier after deciding that a fresh coat in a cheerful color was exactly what the kitchen needed. But as soon as we opened the can, we saw that that particular shade of orange, one that had looked so warm and inviting in the store, was much too bright. Instead of livening
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