Jennifer grasped the sleek handle of the meat cleaver and lifted it above her head. In one swift, clean motion she brought it down, slicing through sinew and splattering the whiteness of her apron with blood.
"What a mess!" Dee Dee exclaimed. "Don't put so much strength into the blow. You need to keep most of the motion in the wrist. If you do, you won't get blood all over my kitchen."
She took the cleaver from Jennifer, picked up a large knife, and carefully sliced the boneless beef roast, placing each piece in a large baking pan.
"I told you I wasn't any good at this," Jennifer complained, wiping her hands on a paper towel.
"You're acting like a three-year-old. I bet you used to break the dishes to get out of washing them."
"I only tried it once. I didn't get an allowance for two months, and I still had to do the dishes. But I never signed on to do beef. Our agreement was clear—I do most of the vegetables and appetizers; you take care of the meat and the potatoes. You can't expect a vegetarian to warm up to roasted flesh."
Dee Dee threw her a soapy dish rag. "We've only got four hours to get this order done. I'll throw the sauce on the beef, and you start on the vegetable tray. Our clients aren't vegetarians. They don't want any of your tofu or soy substitutes."
"Then they're barbarians."
"That's Mr. and Mrs. Big Bucks Barbarians to you, my dear friend. So get with it!"
Jennifer carefully blotted the blood with the wet rag. Was human blood so easy to clean up? A simple wipe and all evidence disappeared into the warm cloth, leaving a perfectly clean counter. If she could only catch Penney Richmond reclining on Formica.
"Are you doing the parsley wreath with carrot and radish roses and turnip daisies?" Dee Dee asked.
"You don't use both kinds of roses on the same wreath. It leads to sensory confusion. Roses have to taste the same. You give each vegetable the shape of a different flower."
"Fine. Whatever. Create and be done with it. I'll put the potatoes on to boil."
Jennifer took a twelve-inch foam ring, covered it in plastic wrap, and placed it atop a bed of lettuce on a silver tray. Deftly, she transformed the circle into a parsley wreath. She could make a larger one and drape it with a sash: REST IN PEACE, PENNEY. She could send it to the viewing and leave her card under the doily. The police would find it amusing, clever. They'd talk about her down at the precinct. That would be just the beginning of her fame.
But first, she had to devise a plan to rid the world of Penney Richmond—a plan that would lead the police straight to her door and to her arrest. The hard part would be creating an alibi that would clear her of the crime.
She would be arrested, her name and face splashed across every newspaper in the city. The wire services would pick it up. Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, and Katie Couric would utter her name in disbelief. An aspiring novelist, a victim of the system, had temporarily lost her mind. And then a week later—two, tops—the police would uncover irrefutable evidence that Jennifer Marsh could not have committed the crime. Unjustly accused, martyred for her cause, she'd be the hottest topic in the media. Her books would be published and sell wildly. She would be famous and all would be right with the world.
"You're plotting again, aren't you?" Dee Dee said. "Every time you start a new book, your eyes glaze over, you go deaf, and you fade into slow motion like one of those action heroes in a movie. Three o'clock—that's when the reception is. Three o'clock. Today. In four hours. You and me in those cute little white tuxedo shirts and black ties and black skirts. Got it?"
"I've got it. I've got it, already. I'm curling carrots, see? I'm putting them in ice water, see?"
"Come on, Jennifer. You've always got to make me out the bad guy. We need the work. Business has been really slow this winter."
"I don't mind it when business is slow."
"Of course, you don't. You don't have a husband in a dead-end job or a daughter who takes piano and dance lessons. No clients mean you have more time to write. But the books aren't bringing in any money, Jen, money for trivial things like rent, food, electric."
"I do all right."
"Jen, it's time to take a look at yourself. Writing is fine, but it can't be your whole life." Dee Dee spoke quietly, like a sage calling down to her from some high mountain.
Get off it, Jennifer thought. Dee Dee was only two years older than she.
"You owe it to yourself. You owe it…" Here it comes, Jennifer thought—Dee Dee's about to play her trump card. "…you owe it to Jaimie."
"Don't bring Jaimie into this!"
"Jaimie needs a father."
"Jaimie doesn't exist."
"You talk like it does."
"Don't call Jaimie an it."
"Just how do you expect me to deal with Jaimie's gender ambiguity? Jaimie needs a pronoun, and the only way for him, her, whatever, to get one is a process we call conception and birth, and that's one process you can't intellectualize. If that egg of yours doesn't meet the right sperm before it shrivels up, there will never be a Jaimie. You don't even date. You're always going to your critique group or off to some writer's conference—that is, when you're not holed up in that depressing little apartment of yours typing away. The only time you get out is when you go on a job with me."
"Writing is something I've got to do. I don't know any other way to explain it."
"Then do it—just do something else, too. And keep yourself open to possibilities."
"What possibilities?"
"This wedding we're going to this afternoon. Weddings always have lots of eligible men. Promise me—just keep your options open."
Jennifer rolled her eyes. It'd be a cold day in hell before she picked up some man at a wedding.