While I waited to know if she would risk a third meeting, Mr. Theo accelerated his social life, which kept me busy and I was not ungrateful. Ten days pass quickly when your skills are being challenged. This period began with a standing rib roast on an evening of gusty, dark March rains.
I opened the door to Mr. Theo and saw that he had a woman with him. Behind them, the limousine drove off. I took his umbrella, their raincoats, and her rain hat. She was an ash blonde, blue-eyed, with a rangy golfer’s build. He greeted me formally. “Good evening, Gregor.”
“Good evening, sir.”
“Will dinner stretch to one more? We don’t want to go out again, do you?”
“Not likely,” she said. “Not in this weather.”
“There’s a roast for dinner,” I told him. “More than enough.”
“Good. Let’s have a drink. How does that sound to you, Holly?”
“Absolutely great. It sounds absolutely perfect.”
He put a hand on the small of her back to guide her into the library. I hung up their rainwear, made the necessary alterations to the table, and opened a bottle of burgundy to accompany the standing rib roast.
Beef Stroganoff, its sour-creamy gravy shot through with fresh dill, was what I served the next night to Mr. Theo and a redhead. Molly, I named her, after Sweet Molly Malone, because of her easy laugh and her large, strong-looking hands. For breakfast she wanted juice, fresh-squeezed if I could manage that, and eggs, and scrapple if I had any but bacon would do, and toast, and fried potatoes if that was all right.
Cold beef in thin slices—the day was unseasonably warm—is what I set down before Mr. Theo and a curly-haired brunette I called Dolly, for her Kewpie mouth. Folly ate roast beef hash with a flash of rings—wedding ring, engagement ring, and the odd blockbuster sapphire—and gave me an occasional predatory glance as if to say that when she had finished with Mr. Theo…Polly, with her long honey-blonde hair and visible gladness, ate shepherd’s pie and talked about how incredibly lucky she was to have gotten the job she held, the apartment she shared with a cousin, an evening with Mr. Theo all to herself.
The beef went quickly. Turkey—tetrazzini, hash, capilotade, curry—lasted no longer. Time flies when you are working hard.
On the Saturday morning before the Sunday afternoon I was waiting for, a recently shaven Mr. Theo sat at the kitchen table, drinking his morning tomato juice, looking altogether fresh and pink and pleased. I had a pan of bacon frying.
“Will the young lady want breakfast?”
“I took the young lady home a few hours ago. Some young ladies, Gregor, feel compromised if they stay the night.”
“And how would you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled, I think. Yes, scrambled.”
“We have finished with the turkey, sir. Should I procure a leg of lamb?”
“Do I detect a note of disapproval?”
He wasn’t really inquiring. I didn’t really answer. I whisked eggs. “If anything, a note of admiration.”
Mr. Theo laughed, but I didn’t turn around. “You’re pure gold, Gregor. I have an impulse to give you a raise, but that would be the action of a man who felt guilty. And I don’t.”
“I don’t need a raise.”
“But you’re right about me. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Which isn’t to say I’m not having a fine time, because I am, I’m having a fine old time. And it’s not as if I’m not taking reasonable precautions…”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir. This is no time to be cavalier about sexually transmitted diseases.”
“You can say that again,” he said. I didn’t. “You know what I think? I think it’s the idea of marriage. That, and all the family weekends out at the Farm, it makes me…horny? No, incredibly randy, that’s what it is. I can’t pass anyone by, I can’t say no to anyone. I’m not saying it’s not fun, but—Does this make any sense to you?”
“Will you be getting married then?” I transferred the eggs to a plate and laid strips of bacon beside them. I added buttered toast to the plate.
“Good God, no. The parents are putting on the pressure, but I hold firm. All very civilized, of course, nothing actually stated, just family get-togethers—as if the Rawlings were their best friends or long-lost cousins or something. I don’t know what poor Pruny makes of it, although she doesn’t seem to care what goes on around her. I never know what she thinks. But I tell you what, Gregor. It’ll be a relief when the parents go off on vacation next week. Four weeks of peace, and privacy.” He munched on a slice of toast. “I don’t know what time tomorrow I’ll be able to get away. There’s always a big lunch on Sunday.”
“I’ll leave something cold for you, shall I?”
“Gregor?” He looked up from his breakfast. “What do you do on your days off? I suppose you must have a private life?”
I wasn’t going to tell him, and he didn’t want to know. Instead I asked, “Isn’t that the proper order of things? I’m supposed to know everything about you, and you’re supposed to know nothing about me.”
“I know you’re probably better educated than I am,” Mr. Theo agreed, “and we both know you’ve got better taste.”
“That also is the proper order of things, isn’t it?”
“You are a cynic.”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”