Read Too Many Cooks for Free Online

“Hello?” she called.
    â€œAngie!” Henry bent low so she could see him at the top of the stairs, his hand still on the lever that opened and shut the door. “Come on up. We’re waiting for you.”
    Her high heels clanged as she hurried up the stairs. Halfway, she slowed down, looked behind her, and nearly lost her balance. It was two stories, nearly straight up, except for a few right-angled steps at the very top.
    â€œI guess you don’t have to worry about exercise, do you?” She was gasping for breath.
    â€œEveryone says that. Keeps me young.” He gestured for her to follow him down the hall to a small living room in the front of the flat. “Here’s something else that keeps me young. I still call her my bride, even though we’ve been married almost five years. This is my wife, Lacy.”
    Angie stopped in the doorway. Seated on the sofa in front of the window, Lacy seemed to shimmer in a beam of sunlight like the stained glass of the young Virgin Mary being visited by the Angel Gabriel at Our Lady of Guadalupe church. Angie stepped into the room to see Lacy better, and immediately the image shattered. Her bouffant hair, about thirty years out of date, dyed bright auburn, was all swept toward the right ear, where it culminated in a wild upward-pointing fringe that must have been shellacked to stay in place. She wore a surprisingly tasteful (considering her hair), royal blue wool dress that must have cost plenty, and sported a diamond wedding ring that gave Liz Taylor’s a run for the money. Her cheekbones were high and silicon-implant round, her nose small and straight, with arching nostrils, and her eyes sported a wide space between her eyelids and her highly arched brows. In short, she had the kind of face usually associated with a plastic surgeon’s scalpel.
    She stood and walked around the coffee table, her hands outstretched in greeting. “Hello, Angie. So nice of you to come to our home.” Her face scarcely moved, although she probably thought she was smiling. Her voice was modulated and accentless—as if she’d gone to a speech coach. Angie wondered if she shouldn’t be on the radio program instead of Henry.
    Their hands clasped. Covering Lacy’s fingernails were three-inch-long acrylics with orange-red polish, so sharply curved she could have used them to climb a tree. Angie decided to rethink her own long nails. “Thank you, Mrs. LaTour. I’m happy to meet you.”
    â€œWon’t you sit down? We were just drinking some Aljuice. It’s a scrumptious algae mix, one of my littlethings to keep my Henry healthy. Would you like a glass?”
    â€œNo, thank you. I’m fine.”
    â€œHerb tea?”
    â€œNothing, really.”
    They all sat, Henry beside Lacy on the sofa, Angie in a chair facing them. Lacy folded her hands on her lap and primly crossed her ankles. “I’m very glad you were willing to come here to talk about the show, Angie,” she said. “It’s so convenient for us.”
    Henry reached over and patted his wife’s hand. “I told you she was special.”
    Angie wondered if they planned to give her a halo. “Well, the radio station doesn’t have much room for meetings anyway.”
    â€œLacy and I were discussing the structure of the show,” Henry said. “We thought it could use some improvement.”
    â€œOh, really?” Angie could think of about five hundred ways to improve it, the first being to let her say a few words on the air.
    â€œNot too many changes,” Lacy added, cocking her head toward Henry and batting her eyes at him. “Everything Henry does is nearly perfect.”
    Angie hoped this meeting would be short. She didn’t think her stomach could take much more. Besides, watching people drink green frothy stuff with black flecks in it reminded her of old monster movies—the ones where a mad scientist would drink a