Table for Seven: A Novel by Gaskell Whitney

Author:Gaskell, Whitney [Gaskell, Whitney]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345535771
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

AUDREY KEPT HER COOL until her guests had left, including Kenny, who had seemed reluctant to leave with the others. But she insisted that she didn’t need help with the dishes and accepted his invitation to lunch the next week, mostly because she couldn’t think of a way to say no without hurting his feelings. It didn’t escape her attention that she hadn’t had any similar problem with hurting Coop’s feelings. But Coop was different, she decided. He needed to be taken down a few pegs.

Coop. Audrey scrubbed at the roasting pan—the meat juices were caked on the bottom, forming a substance so hard and resistant, NASA could use it to patch space shuttles—and wondered what the hell his problem had been. Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t have liked it if he had been the one to show up to the dinner party club with a date. But she couldn’t believe that her having done so would really affect him. It wasn’t like he was in love with her. If anything, his ego was probably bruised.

The phone rang. Audrey checked the caller ID, which flashed a local number without giving a name. Probably a cellphone, she thought, and considered not answering it. But then she wondered if it was someone who had been at the dinner party calling, looking for belongings accidentally left behind.

“Hello,” Audrey said.

“He’s not the guy for you,” Coop said, his voice deep and warm in her ear.

Audrey leaned back against her kitchen counter and wrapped one arm around herself.

“And how would you know that?” Audrey asked.

“He has a cat. That’s all I need to know,” Coop said.

“What is it with you and cats?”

“I don’t trust single guys with cats. It’s not normal. Do you know what sort of guys have cats?”

“Do tell.”

“The kind who buy pre-distressed jeans and call themselves metrosexuals,” Coop said.

Audrey laughed. “I thought you were going to say the kind of guy who murders his mother and buries her body under the floorboards of his house.”

“You got that kind of a vibe off Kenny, too?”

“No. I did not get the feeling that Kenny’s a sociopathic killer. He seems like a perfectly nice man.”

“And what sort of a grown man goes around being called Kenny?” Coop countered.

“He can’t help what his name is,” Audrey said.

“He could go by Ken. But Kenny? I never get when grown men want to be called Kenny, or Bobby, or Billy. Why not just have everyone call you Pee Wee and be done with it?” Coop asked.

“Pee Wee?” Audrey felt guilty laughing at this—Kenny had been a perfectly nice man—but couldn’t help herself. “Come on. Pee Wee is much worse than Kenny. And maybe he didn’t want people making Ken doll jokes.”

“I don’t think he’s in any danger of being confused with a Ken doll. For one thing, Ken doesn’t have ears like that,” Coop said. Then, his voice growing softer, he said, “Do you want me to come back over and help you with the dishes?”

“I’ve already done them,” Audrey said.

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