CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“I’m willing to consider pickles, but you don’t put lemon juice in macaroni salad.”
Nancy’s voice carried through the open kitchen archway into the living room, where May and Allie were sitting on the floor, surrounded by five hundred fake Gerbera daisies in various hues of pink, orange, and yellow. They were arranging them into metal buckets for centerpieces while the miniature dachshund nosed through the piles of supplies and generally made a nuisance of himself.
“It’ll make it zingy,” Ben said. May could hear the low thump of a bowl hitting the countertop. The fridge door opened.
“It’s already going to be zingy from the vinegar.”
“Vinegar is too harsh. Lemon juice is a better zing. Plus, with the pickles, you get this great harmony of zingy lemon and crunchy pickle and—look, you have to trust me on this.”
“May?” her mom called, her voice full of exasperated amusement. “He’s trying to tell me how to make macaroni salad.”
“Let him make it his way, Mom,” May shouted back. “He knows more about food than all of us put together.”
“I will not.” She sounded huffy now. “I thought you loved my macaroni salad.”
May’s father pushed his way through the front door with an arm full of plastic-wrapped pink and orange packages. Back with the linens.
“Hey, Scooter,” he said mildly.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Everything all right?”
“Sure.”
“Is that Bill?” Nancy called.
“The one and only.”
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Nancy said, appearing in the kitchen doorway. “Ben will make his, and I’ll make mine—just a small bowl of each—and then you can decide which kind is better. And then we’ll do that one with the whole big pot of macaroni.”
“Who’s Ben?”
“He came with May.”
“Oh. And I’ll decide what?” Dad looked cheerfully befuddled. It was his default expression when he wasn’t at the office.
“You’re going to judge a macaroni salad contest,” Allie reported. “Mom against Ben.”
“I like your mother’s macaroni salad.”
“That’s right,” Nancy said as Dad made his way into the kitchen. May could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m going to kick your tush, boyo. Don’t think I won’t.”
“We’ll see.” May heard a cupboard door close.
“What’s that? What are you getting out?”
“Never mind.”
“Is that honey? You can’t put honey in macaroni salad.”
“I can put whatever I want in my macaroni salad. Attend to your own macaroni, Mrs. Fredericks.”
May smiled, knowing exactly how they both would look if she could see them. The smug expression Ben wore when he knew he was right, and her mother’s pursed mouth, belied by the enjoyment in her voice.
Mom loved being teased this way, however much she protested. It surprised May that Ben seemed to know it—but then, he was always surprising her.
The fact that he was still here surprised her.
Not that he’d had much choice. Once Allie’s lie about his identity received his blessing, his fate had been sealed. He was May’s savior, the Good Samaritan who had taken her in at her darkest hour, so naturally he’d have to stay for lunch.
Now that Mom had drafted him for Team Dan, he’d be lucky if he ever managed to escape.
Maybe he’ll never leave.
The fantasy had been stalking her all morning, sneaking into her consciousness whenever she wasn’t vigilant about warding it off. The fantasy where she told Ben that she wanted him to stay in Manitowoc for a while—two weeks, two months, two years—and he smiled and said, Sure. And then he just up and moved into her house, and they shared the bathroom every morning while they got ready for work, the smells of brewed coffee and fresh-baked biscuits wafting from the kitchen. They shared the shower, the bed, the dinner table.
The fantasy was about forty percent sex and sixty percent How was your day, honey?—and it was the latter part that shook her out of it, every time. The realization that her dippy brain had cast Ben as a hotter modern-day Ward Cleaver, despite his complete lack of fitness for the part.
Even dumber, now she had New York fantasies, too. The way he’d talked about his honey earlier had made her imagination fire right up and start creating the ad campaign for the business he could start. Like one of those shops where you can buy fancy olive oil and imported crackers and capers, but with a honey-tasting counter and lots of different samples out. Worn floors with wide, scarred planks of reclaimed barn wood. Rustic shelves with his hand-lettered Ball jars labeled by neighborhood.