She sat at her desk.
Her desk sat back at her.
Well well well. Another impasse.
Her phone rang, hidden somewhere behind a forest of bottles. She ignored it. Again.
“Maybe not the mayonnaise,” she said. “I know it’s the foundation of the sauce, but like…fuck it. Vinegar instead. Go for a drizzled dressing.” She felt sharp today, not rich – and in more than one way.
Her phone rang again and her reflexes encroached on the turf of her best senses and answered it.
“’lo.”
“Finally! What the HELL have you been doing?!”
“Writing.”
“News to me! Your first draft is overdue by three fucking weeks! I can’t contact you, I can’t contact your agent – hell, I can’t even contact your husband! This is the first chance I’ve had to even proximally reach you in almost two months!”
“Uh-huh,” she said, muffled a bit by the cork between her teeth. She spat it out and took a belt. “Who are you again?”
The room filled with thick, clammy silence.
“’lo?”
“It’s Marge. Your editor. Who you’ve worked with for twenty-six years.”
“Huh?”
“I made your career out of floss and hope you goddamned washed-up half-assed paint-stripper-drinking canape-baking cabana-chef-ass piece of UNGRATEFUL-“
“Listen,” she said, “it’s been a long day and I’m really struggling with this page. Tell me about crabs.”
“About WHAT?”
“Crabs. I’m working on crab cakes. With crabs. The cakes are set but I can’t decide if I should switch from a mayonnaise sauce to a vinaigrette.”
“Christie. This is a cocktail book.”
“What? No it isn’t. Talk to me. Talk to me about crabs.”
*click*
“’lo? Hello?”
She put down the phone, took another three quick swigs, then used the vinaigrette. A choice made without thinking was always the best one.
***
It was a bright and stormy morning. Sunlight sparkled on the ocean at the horizon as surely as the rain punched into the windowpanes. She looked at the curdling clouds, then looked at her curdling stewpot, then looked at the clouds, then looked at the stewpot, then upended an entire carton of cream into it.
The phone rang. Her hand slapped it to the floor.
“Hello? Hello? Hello?”
“Wrong number.”
“Is that you, Christine? Hello?”
“Who?”
“That IS you. What in the blazes do you think you’re playing at?”
“Emulsification.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to get this stupid chowder to thicken.”
“Christine Julianne Aquifer Sanderson, this is your father speaking to you: why in god’s name have you dropped off the face of the earth?! Your mother’s been worried sick, your aunt’s got an ulcer, your sister won’t return my calls, and your editor has been at me for weeks and weeks and weeks. Don’t you care about other people?”
“Yes.” She sniffed the pot gently, then tasted it. “Ugh. Tell me, do you think chives would help?”
“EXCUSE me?”
“Chives. With the chowder.”
“Are you cooking right now while I’m talking to you?”
“Yes. I’m making a crab chowder. With crabs.”
“Christine you turn off that damned stove and pay attention to me this second young lady I knew encouraging you to do these damn foolhardy things would cause no end of grief no wonder it took you so long to find a husband why if your grandmother were alive she’d die of shame and another-”
The phone’s battery died.
“Chives?” she asked. She nodded. “Chives.”
***
The doorbell went off.
This was a problem she solved by ignoring it.
The smoke alarm went off.
This was a problem she solved by laboriously dragging a chair underneath it and then smashing it with a hammer.
“Let me help you with that.”
“No thanks I’ve got it it’s fine.” She blinked. “Who are you?”
“Constable Thomas,” said the stranger, who was tall dark and geekish.
“Oh. That explains the uniform.” She rubbed the smoke from her eyes. “Well, can you help me with some firewood? The smoking is going a bit harder than I thought it’d be.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Smoking. A crabsmoke. For crabs.”
“Working on a new cookbook?”
“Sort of.” She lugged the chair back into position with a grunt.
“So you’re Christine Sanderson?”
“Sort of.”
“Your family have filed a notice with us about your mental state.”
“Sort of.”
“Pardon me?”
“Yeah, I think they might have done that.” She rummaged through the drawers of her kitchen. “Listen, can you give me a hand here? Just pass me that seasoning jar on your left.”
Constable Thomas looked to his left, looked back, and caught a fork to the jaw and through important bits of his neck.
“Thanks,” she said.
***
It was a cool, moonlight night, but the firepit was warm and the crabsmoke was ready.
“Come on and get it,” she said, as the first guests arrived, skittering low and fast over the sands. “I think it’s a real winner. Got some new meat in. Nice and lean.”
Just in time too. She’d never have been able to finish the book in time on just Joshua and her agent.
“I think we might be in for trouble soon,” she confided as the meal was consumed. “Going to have to leave the country, I reckon.”
The thoughtful click-click-clack and snickety-snip of thousands of tiny claws answered her.
“Yeah, it’s a land thing. Stupid, I know.” She sighed and kicked back in her chair, looking up without noticing the stars. “Just drop me off somewhere with a word processor and I’ll keep up the work, yeah?”
An agreeable click, and then the swarm rolled over her and around her and off to sea and over it, all the long, rattling, carapaced way.
It was an awfully uncomfortable way to travel, but that was the sort of thing you had to learn to put up with, when you were cooking with crabs.