came over to my house for dinner on Sunday. He can cook circles around me, but he seems to be appreciative, or at least amused, by my efforts and I was determined to show him that I knew my way around a kitchen. After all, I’d made dinner for my family every night for more than twenty-four years before I met Charlie and no one had died of ptomaine yet. I wasn’t exactly a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, but I was perfectly capable of making a nice Sunday dinner for two.
Charlie leaned against the kitchen counter, picking at a bowl of Kalamata olives I’d put out as an appetizer while we waited for the salmon to finish poaching and I told him about what had happened on Friday.
“It was so strange,” I said as I leaned down, peering at the flame while I fiddled with the stove, trying to find the exact height of flame needed to induce the ‘slow but steady simmer’ my recipe called for. “She just said, ‘I can’t.’ No more explanation than that. Well, not quite. When Abigail pushed her, asking if she meant can’t or won’t, Ivy said ‘won’t.’ It was a very uncomfortable moment.”
Charlie made an impatient, clucking sound as he sucked the pit out of an olive and put it on a nearby cocktail napkin. “Well, why did Abigail do that? Isn’t her motto ‘never complain, never explain’?”
“Hmmm. I think that’s her personal motto. She doesn’t mean for it to apply to other people.”
“Convenient for her.”
“Yep.” I lifted the lid on the poacher. It seemed to be simmering nicely, so I put the lid back down and started chopping vegetables for the stir-fry I planned to serve alongside the salmon.
“Do you want some help with that?” Charlie asked, looking over my shoulder. “The peppers will cook more evenly if you cut them into strips.”
I turned around and gave him a look, still holding the vegetable knife in my hand.
“All right! All right!” he said, backing away with his hands in the air as if begging for surrender. “I was just trying to help.”
“You just stay over on your side of the kitchen. I can do this myself. Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to be a guest?”
“No,” he said and popped another olive into his mouth before continuing.
“So what’s the big problem? It was nice of you to want to include Ivy in your quilting club…”
“Circle,” I corrected. “Quilt circle.”
“Okay. Your quilt circle, but she doesn’t want to join. Why is that so terrible?”
“It isn’t that it’s so terrible, not exactly. I mean, at first my feelings were a little hurt. It was like we tried to give her a present and she just handed it back without even bothering to open it, but the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more it worries me.”
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t add up.” I picked up a slice of green pepper and ate it. “Ivy likes all of us, I’m sure she does. She’s quiet, keeps to herself, but it isn’t like she’s unfriendly.”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe she’s not all that crazy about quilting. Just because she works for you doesn’t mean she is. I’ve got people chopping vegetables in the kitchen of my restaurant, and doing it a lot faster and neater than you are, I might add, who don’t like cooking. For me, cooking is a passion, but to them it’s just a way to pay the rent. Maybe it’s the same for Ivy. By the way, are you sure you don’t want me to…” He took a tentative step in my direction.
I glared at him.
“Never mind. I’ll just stay over here and eat my olives.”
“Good plan,” I said and went back to chopping.
“No, that’s not it. I know Ivy enjoys quilting. I knew that when I first met her, in my beginners’ class. She was really excited about her quilt. And just a couple of weeks ago, she said she’d like to try an Ohio Star pattern, but she just doesn’t have time. So, now she’s offered a chance to do something she enjoys, with free babysitting thrown in, and she says no? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, you’re right, it doesn’t, but what can you do about it? Let it go. If she won’t join your group, she won’t.”
“Yeah, but that’s just it,” I said, scooping up a pile of vegetables and tossing them into the wok I’d had heating on a burner and listening to them sizzle. “Abigail pushed Ivy to say she won’t, but I don’t think that’s it. I think she meant what she said the first time. She can’t. Or at least she thinks she can’t. Something is holding her back. It’s almost like she’s afraid of being friends with us. But why?”
“You really need to quit stewing about this.”
“I know. I know, but what am I supposed to do now? Ivy doesn’t normally work weekends, not unless we have a big sale like we will on Saturday, so I’ve had all weekend to worry about exactly how awkward it will be when she comes in on Monday. Do I talk to her about it? Do I not talk to her about it? Do I ignore the elephant in the room? And do I invite her to come to the Grill on Saturday night or not? Maybe I should just assume she doesn’t want to see any of us outside of work hours.” I sighed. “Monday is going to be awful. I don’t know how I should handle this.”
Charlie shook his head and sighed deeply. “Women. You make everything so complicated.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“No, I mean it. You’d never find a man wringing his hands and worrying over something like this. Look. This is simple. Just handle this like a man would. Go to work on Monday, do what you normally do and pretend nothing happened on Friday. Do your job and let Ivy do hers. Later, you can invite her to the dinner on Saturday. If she says yes, fine. If not, that’s fine too. It’s as simple as that.”
“But it’s not. What if she’d really like to come, but feels awkward about accepting the invitation after saying she didn’t want to join the circle? Or what if she really doesn’t want to come, but feels like she has to because she said no before? It’s a complicated situation.”
“Arrggh!” Charlie rubbed his face with his hands, as if scrubbing at his frustration. “No, it’s not! It’s only complicated if you make it complicated!
“Why is it that women, even women who are only bound together by the fact that they happen to work in the same place, aren’t happy unless everyone becomes everybody else’s best friend?”
I sprinkled the vegetables with salt, pulled a pepper out, and bit into it. Almost ready.
“Because we’re social animals, that’s why. It’s how we evolved. Strength in numbers. Or something like that.” I shrugged. “It’s just the way we are. Women need the friendship of other women. At least most of them do. Maybe Ivy’s different, but I’m not convinced.”
Charlie snorted and spit out another olive pit. “Well, maybe she just doesn’t want to be friends with the people she works with. Can’t blame her for that. You’re a pretty scary bunch. Margot’s a sweetheart, but Liza looks like she’s ready to pose for a biker chick photo op. Empress Abigail refers to herself in the third person. And you? Sure. You may look like a mild-mannered quilt shop owner, but maybe Ivy has caught wind of your dark side. Maybe she’s heard the rumors about how you threaten your boyfriend with kitchen knives just because he’s trying to help you keep from ruining dinner.”
I put the spatula down and turned to face Charlie, my hands on my hips. “I am not ruining dinner.”
Behind me, the sound of sizzling vegetables reached a crescendo but was suddenly overcome by a loud, long hiss, followed by repetitious staccato clicks—the noise my gas stove makes when something boils over and extinguishes the cooking flame.
Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Actually, you might be wrong about that.”
“Oh no!” I