Do or Di by Eileen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

office. Baking is my Zen activity. Something about all that measuring and mixing relaxes me. I like creating a controlled chemical reaction.
     
    My mental image of a mistress, before I joined the ranks, was that of a sultry creature who swanned about in sexy lingerie, long cigarette holder optional; a smoldering Betty Davis type. I didn’t picture someone like myself, all stained sweatpants and a ratty (favorite) T-shirt, which says: Don’t Make Me Break Out My Flying Monkey s with the outline of the Wicked Witch on the front. And I surely didn’t picture someone domestic enough to make their own buns. I’m not trying to say that because I’m domestic, I’m not a bad person. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t plan to be a bad person. I didn’t set out with the intention of taking another woman’s husband. If our affair was like homicide, then I saw myself more as accidental manslaughter versus first-degree murder type. There was no plan or intent. It just happened. And I feel bad about it; remorse should count for something in the parole hearings.
     
    I leveled off a cup of flour with the back of a knife before adding it to the bowl. I cracked the eggs, their shells splitting along invisible seams, and tucked the bowl under my arm for leverage. I walked around, mixing by hand, the muscles in my shoulder burning. Times like this a Kitchen Aid mixer looks pretty good.
     
    It’s not that I can’t afford a Kitchen Aid. It’s more the commitment. Kitchen Aid mixers are the Sherman tank of kitchen gadgets. They have a squat elegance married to utility. When I got my first real job I cashed my first paycheck and went down to Sears’ kitchen department. The mixers were lined up like tiny sumo wrestlers on the shelf, crouched and ready to do business. I just stopped at stared. Kitchen Aid had gone beyond the plain white one my mother had. There was silver, black, red, and an electric blue. I loved the blue; it was a friendly Cookie Monster color. I stroked the cool metal side of the mixer for a moment. Would I love the blue forever or should I play it safe and get the white? If I got the white, would I always secretly long for the blue? I decided to wait a bit longer and think on it. Then I discovered, Kitchen Aid was turning out new colors every year: green, copper, chrome, and a nifty pastel pink to mark the fight against breast cancer. I’m not typically a pink person, but how can you say no to a cancer-fighting mixer? How is a person to decide when every year they come out with something new? Soon they would have plaid or striped options. I would bring home the brochures and prop them up on the kitchen counter, trying to determine which one is my destiny. So far no clear decision.
     
    I slid the rolls in the over and shuffled toward the bathroom, dragging my giant pink fuzzy slippers. I cranked the shower up to boil and stepped in, thinking over what was planned for the day. I listened to my copy of the show after Jonathon left last night, lying in bed making notes of things I should have done better. Colin may be as slick as an oil smear on a duck after an industrial spill, but he’s good. He thinks on a dime, and he’s always two or three comments ahead of every caller. I’d never admit it publicly, but I was learning a lot from him.
     
    I juggled the rolls, my packed lunch, my briefcase, and my purse and tried to open my door with my foot with my keys in my mouth when Diana stepped out of the gloom in the hallway. I started to drop the pan with the rolls, but she was able to catch them before they hit the floor. There was a smear of melted icing on my freshly pressed shirt.
     
    “What the hell?” I yelled out. My heart was beating a thousand beats a second. She was like some kind of teen ninja jumping out at me. Who waits for someone outside their front door?
     
    “You told me not to let myself in so I was waiting out here,” Diana said. “I didn’t feel like going to school. We’ve got