Chapter 3 - Domestic Theater
Odette summoned me to the breakfast room as though I were a junior employee about to be disciplined for poor table-linen alignment.
She wore cream silk. I wore flannel pajamas with raccoons on them.
The contrast offended her immediately.
“You are Kellan’s wife now,” she said, stirring her tea. “Your background may be ordinary, but your conduct cannot be.”
I yawned.
She continued anyway.
“Kellan has a sensitive stomach. Tomorrow morning, you will rise at four and prepare his breakfast yourself. Oatmeal, poached eggs, fresh bread, and ginger tea. No staff.”
“Four in the morning?”
“A devoted wife makes sacrifices.”
I considered the demand carefully.
Cooking was dangerous. Eggs were unpredictable. Yeast seemed spiritual. Also, if I poisoned the chief executive of a publicly traded company, the market might react poorly.
“I understand,” I said. “Kellan will receive the finest breakfast of his life.”
Odette smiled as if she had arranged my execution.
I returned upstairs, climbed into bed, and called the executive chef of Seattle’s most exclusive hotel.
The chef answered after three transfers and one woman whispering that they did not do private residences without notice.
I explained that Bellweather Dynamics might remember kindness during future hospitality partnerships.
They arrived at five in the morning with steel carts, linen covers, and the sort of calm competence I admired in other people.
By seven, the kitchen smelled like cinnamon, butter, citrus, and victory.
I had contributed nothing except payment authorization and moral support from bed.
Odette expected to find me sweating in humiliation.
Instead, she found a five-star breakfast.
That was the thing Odette never understood.
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I was not too lazy to solve problems.
I was too lazy to solve them badly.
