Page 15 of Wedding Contract
“This place seems nice.” I drape my coat over the back of the sofa. It looks warmer and brighter in person than it does on the grainy security cameras.
“It is pretty, isn’t it? But it’s big, and there’s only me here, so it feels empty. What’s your place like?” She casts a look over her shoulder.
I think of its white marble floor and even whiter walls and suppress a shiver. “Cold.”
“As in you should buy a rug or paint a wall?”
“Probably both.”
“Can you handle a potato peeler?”
I blink at the rapid change of subject. “Yeah.”
“Great. Peel these potatoes while I go change. I don’t want to get my dress dirty.”
“Good call. It’s a pretty dress.” I particularly like how it makes her look like an hourglass, all tiny waist and big hips. My big hands would be a nice accessory around her middle. I could also envision bending her over the kitchen counter, flipping up that skirt, and sinking deep between her legs. My groin tightens at that mental image. I force my eyes away from the candy infront of me to stare at a blank space over her head. Friends do not walk around each other’s apartments with a hard-on.
“Thanks.” The fabric rustles as she smooths her hands over her stomach, adding a little soundtrack to the dirty movie that’s playing in my head. Add a few moans and I’m toast. I walk over to the sink and open the glasses cupboard.
“Do you mind?” I pause in front of the cold water spout at the sink.
“No, help yourself. I’ll be right back.”
I take the time alone to drink three glasses of water and swallow an ice cube. Only when I start counting my grandmother’s moles in my head does my fevered want subside. When Belle returns dressed in a pair of shapeless sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, I have myself under control, peeling the last of the potatoes.
“Where’d you get the dress?” I ask. I want to go and buy some more for her. Maybe one in every color.
“I made it.” Her cheeks pinken as she confesses.
“No shit?” I stop peeling to stare at her in amazement.
“Yeah. It’s not as big of a deal as you think. I just followed a pattern. The bodice is the hardest part because it’s fitted, but the skirt is just a rectangle gathered at the waist.”
“What else have you sewn?” I’m fascinated. I wonder if she’d let me watch her put something like that together.
“Not much. When I was younger, in high school, I made all kinds of things like T-shirts and hoodies and skirts, but after I graduated, I didn’t have a lot of time because of work.” She moves around the kitchen like a pro, taking out steaks and green beans from the refrigerator, onions from a drawer in the center island, spices from a rack next to the stove. Her kitchen is kitted out well. I give myself a mental pat on the back even though all I did was provide the money for it.
“What kind of work did you do?” I’m curious about her entire life.
“Everything and anything. I waited tables, parked cars, delivered food, detasseled corn, cleaned hog pens.”
It makes sense why she took on the task of being my wife. I’d marry a stranger, too, to avoid those jobs. “By the way, Wick doesn’t have warts.” I wanted to clear the air about that before, but it slipped my mind.
She laughs a little and hands me a glove. “Here, put this on. It will protect your fingers from the mandoline blade. Run the peeled potatoes across the surface. It will make thin slices which I’ll blanch and then bake with cheese and bacon.”
My stomach rumbles. “At your service.”
“Is working for Wick your only job?”
I hesitate in answering her. I told her before I was the real deal, but she didn’t believe me. I don’t really have any way of proving it to her outside of commanding Rise to come to the apartment and vouch for me, which would be weird, and I’m probably already a very bizarre person in her head.
A guy who pays for a wife and then never meets her, someone known to be a recluse with big warts all over his body. Probably best if I just continue to be Wick’s stand-in—at least until I have dinner with her. Maybe over a post-meal port wine, I can find a way to break the news to her. That I concocted this whole scheme because I didn’t know how to woo a woman. That I’m not the loser that it seems I am. The least I can do is keep my lies to a minimum.
“Mmm. He’s not really a recluse either. He just never attends any events that he’s supposed to attend.”
“Like the luncheon?” she asks, chopping the onions effortlessly without a tear dropping.
“Like the luncheon, like charity things, like even business deals. He handles them all by phone or email. Doesn’t doface-to-face meetings, so everyone assumes he never leaves the house.”
