Just Desserts
Chapter 2
In blessedly awkward silence they disengaged their bodies from each other’s. Perhaps a more romantic description would be to say they untangled their bodies, thus giving the perception of wild, erotic abandon having set the mood of some clandestine encounter. Such was not the case. Their coupling, such that it was, had not been a deliberately planned act; one discussed over absently sipped drinks in between furtive glances around a darkened, implausibly out of the way restaurant. Were she not so busy shaking herself from her stupor of disappointment, the mere thought of the adulterous act having been conceived in such a setting would have been the cause for unbridled hilarity. And if there was one thing missing from Monica’s life more than sex, it was laughter.
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As it had most of her life, it was humor that sustained her these days. How did the line from that song by the guy who sang Cheeseburgers in Paradise go? If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane. Strangely enough, if given a choice between insanity and boredom, for Monica, the prospect of lunacy seemed to at the very least hold the promise of something that remotely resembled a thrill. She had long since abandoned thoughts of exhilaration or even challenge; nothing resembling either had ever taken place in her life.
Granted, such activity had a tendency to be rare when one hailed from a small rural town like Cranstonville where the peak of excitement had been the local Postmaster—who also moonlighted as the town librarian every summer—falling off the roof of the church.
(Actually, that part had been kind of funny; at least Monica had thought so. The “excitement” came when the nearly 200 year-old bell housed within the church’s long-overdue to be condemned bell tower followed him off the roof. Thankfully, the less than sturdy ladder received the brunt of the damage the bell would have inflicted on the petrified Postmaster.)
Then again, she had a really perverse sense of humor; next to cooking, the laughter that ensued as she watched someone tangle with gravity and lose was not only worth its weight in gold but it had also been her only means of escape—at least mentally—from her surroundings. A life of crime was not a solution; mostly because she had the misfortune of living in a community so small and close-knit everyone really did know each other.
Of course, there were other ways to secure enough money to see Cranstonville in her rear-view mirror... Unfortunately, the majority of them were either: a) collecting Social Security b) had even less money than she did or none at all or c) not an option (The only threesome she was interested in that involved Jack & Jill had better also include Hot Tamales). For as much as she loved to cook and on a rare, good day even work at The Tasty Skillet Café (or The Skillet, as the locals called it), Monica knew even if she had offered to blow the owner of The Skillet for life, Frank Jessup, that slick, pot-bellied, Newport chain smoking bastard—who was also the town’s Mayor and on the bank’s board of trustees—would never let her take over the restaurant. Frank was a firm believer a woman’s place in his eatery was, “Behind a pot, a cash register, or the counter!” When it came to the latter, his preference was that she be kneeling. Lest he be accused of favoritism to the staff out front, it was known he had no problem “extending promotions” to the kitchen staff either—which explained why after three years Monica still had remained “unofficially” the assistant Head Cook and not in charge of the organized chaos of the kitchen, even if everyone in town knew it was her cooking that made the place such a success.
But even if she by some miracle managed to obtain ownership of The Skillet, she knew there was no way she’d ever be able to transform it into the kind of establishment she had in mind; it was hard to bring cuisine to the masses when they viewed a croissant as a “twisted biscuit full of air.” Which was why on graduation day, she vowed if it took being well into her 40’s to do so, she would one day leave Cranstonville and never come back. Her reasoning was unflinchingly unapologetic: she had tastes and aspirations that far exceeded what her environment could or ever would offer. Still, as badly as she wanted out of Cranstonville, she swore if she ever had to plant her face in a man’s lap to make it happen—and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Frank’s—she was gonna get a lot more out of it than a mouthful of, as Frank so eloquently coined it, “dick snot.”
And so it was, gripped by what had surpassed desire and had now turned into a need to know an existence other than the only one all those who surrounded her had ever known she resolved it was possible “You don’t marry the one you love...you love the one you marry,” 22 year-old Monica Archer said yes when after only their third date in as many months, 28 year-old Tyrell Karson—the newest associate to join the law firm of Bender, Lowe, & Fine—asked for her hand in marriage.
