When in Doubt, Add Butter

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Book: When in Doubt, Add Butter Read Free
Author: Beth Harbison
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stain in the collar of a shirt.
    Nevertheless, assuming that wasn’t a cover for their actual work with the Russian mob, that was what they did.
    Viktor was the only one who was married. His wife was American and stood out in that family like a sore thumb—blond, big-lipped, brash, and boisterous. It was hard to imagine how she lived in such a traditional old-world atmosphere. I could picture her much more easily in a football jersey, tailgating with a bunch of burly blond lumberjack types, than with this dark, moody family.
    Fridays I had the Lemurras in Georgetown.
    What can I say about Marie Lemurra?
    For one thing, she was a social climber to the nth degree. In the three short months I’d worked for her, I’d watched her try to get in with politicians, a few former B-list movie stars who now lived in or outside D.C., and most recently, local famewhores on the D.C. True Wife Stories reality show.
    For another thing, she seemed to hate me, though that had to be impossible, given that she knew me only in a professional context and even that involved me doing her bidding and not arguing. Nevertheless, she was a woman who didn’t seem satisfied with acquiescence of any sort; she wanted it to include at least a small measure of pain. I think Marie Lemurra needed other people to be wrong so that she, herself, could feel right.
    It wasn’t an ideal work situation, believe me, but I don’t think very many people among us would say their work is always 100 percent awesome.
    Marie Lemurra, and those like her, was the price I had to pay for having a job I otherwise loved.
    So that was my week right now: the Van Houghtens, Mr. Tuesday, Lex, the Olekseis, and the Lemurras. They ran the gamut, in every way.
    With the banquet work added on the weekends, my life felt full and secure.
    Famous last words, huh?

 
    Chapter 2
    This time, it wasn’t my fault.
    I mean, seriously, who the hell owns a peacock in Georgetown ?
    I had worked for the Lemurras for three months, every Friday night, and had never encountered anything living on their property, though their premium lot in the middle of the city certainly had room for undetected livestock. I was surprised once by what I still contend was some kind of werewolf there.
    But that was ages ago, and when I pulled up to cater their biggest party of autumn, no one warned me to keep an eye out for the fucking peacock.
    I mean if you had just acquired an exotic pet that no one in their right mind would expect to see someplace so incongruous, wouldn’t you think to give everyone a heads-up? I’m sure the place that sold the peacock must have had some sort of PEACOCK AT PLAY signs to put by the driveway, like those green turtle things that warn drivers to slow down because of children running in the streets.
    On top of that, if the exotic pet in question had a tendency to be sexually attracted to blue cars, and you knew your private chef was going to show up, as she had every week for three months, in her blue Toyota, wouldn’t that be another thing you’d take into immediate consideration? Hey, let’s tell Gemma to watch out for the peacock.
    I would have.
    But there was not a word of warning. Just like that time they had a guest who was deathly allergic to onion and they didn’t mention it until her husband was frantically searching for the EpiPen as she turned red and struggled to breathe.
    All I know is that one minute I was maneuvering my car toward the kitchen door so I could carry the thirty Cornish game hens—and accoutrements—into the house, and the next thing I knew, there was a little scraping sound on the bumper that I took to be a bit of the bramble that littered the wooded property.
    Because frankly, you don’t immediately think, Wait a minute … I know that sound. That’s the sound of a peacock trying to mount and sexually dominate my bumper. Or even that a peacock might be territorially jealous of said car, viewing it as a romantic rival, which is something, I kid

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