Second thing Mary said to him, she said from up close. She said it after they had placed the round into the roasting pan, completed the setup for it with mirepoix and slid the roasting pan into the oven. That’s when she took a moment to begin unbuttoning his shirt from the top so as to make sure he actually went downstairs to change. As she did the first two buttons, she whispered, “I want some this afternoon.”
Bill kissed Mary. He did not take her close to him because of the bloodstained shirt, but he leaned in and kissed her several times.
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “Long, slow and sweet for you,” he said.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Bill said.
“Don’t forget to bring up a rib,” Mary said.
“I won’t. What else you need?”
“I’m making up a list. We have a lot of cooking to do, but I’m not sure we’re going to be busy. We need rice pudding, chocolate pudding and cocktail shrimp for over by Bea. We need Bordelaise sauce for over here as well as everything else we normally make. And we could probably bread some fish and shrimp today too. This way we will be well ahead for the weekend.”
“Be up as soon as I change my shirt,” Bill said.
But he did not come up right away. Even before he changed his shirt he went into the meat room and took a drink of bourbon. Actually he took a second drink after the first so that it was enough to get him buzzed. Then he went into the walk-in to pull out a prime rib. He got a boning knife from his knife drawer and cut away the Cryovac from the rib. Then he put the rib onto a tray and with his shirt mostly unbuttoned, he carried it upstairs.
After he dropped off the rib, he went back down. Bea followed him down this time. She winked at Mary on her way out of the kitchen. Mary turned her back on Bea.
Being the key lady, Bea opened up the linen room for Bill. She went in first and tossed Bill a clean shirt.
“Don’t get any blood on it,” she said. “We can’t be issuing three or four shirt a day, you know.”
Bill smiled at Bea and gave her the finger. Not one to be shocked by this or by anything, Bea grabbed his finger, slid it between her lips and sucked it.
“Wrong thing,” Bill said.
“Wouldn’t want to get it wrong,” Bea said. She stepped around Bill and closed the linen room door with them inside. She locked the door so they were assured being left alone unless Tommy came for something. The likelihood of that was just about nil.
“It’s put up or shut up time,” Bea said.
Mary didn’t want to talk to him when Bill returned upstairs. Maybe, he thought, she wanted him to be sheepish, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t ashamed. He was speeding on black beauties, high on bourbon and happy to be at work where at least for the rest of the day he did not have to think about anything but doing his job. And that was by rote now.
That was one of the beauties of working with his hands. For so long, for so much time, he’d been worried about going to jail, about being expelled from the University, about what was going to happen to him in jail. His head had done a number on him so bad that he wanted to bury himself in the sand and never come out. Now, here, he could put his head away and not think about anything. He could get high, stay high, have fun, mess around and not think about anything.
He liked that.
