Steamed

poisoning. So what if Josh has been fired? Life is not neat and orderly with everyone behaving in exemplary fashion at all times. Christ, Owen has been fired from zillions of jobs. Before he got the blimp job, he was the personal assistant to a comedian, then he cleaned the shark tank at the Aquarium, and then he was the golf ball marshal at that country club.”
    “A golf ball marshal?” Heather shrieked. “What kind of job is that?”
    “He was very important. Who do you think picks up all the stray golf balls off the course? But the manager found him swimming in the lily pond and asked him not to come back. See? So, Owen got fired from all those jobs, and he’s perfectly normal.” Ade paused. “Okay, he may be a little unusual , but it’s just taken him a while to settle in to something. Same thing for Josh. He had to work out some issues at those other restaurants, but he’s doing great at Magellan, right? And who cares if he freaks out once in a while? He’s passionate about his work, which is probably one of the reasons the restaurant is doing so well.”
    “I guess,” I said.
    “He sounds dangerous,” Heather warned.
    “Heather, Josh is no more dangerous than you or I,” Adrianna said. “Seriously, do you think I’d let Chloe go out with someone I thought had even the slightest chance of being a killer? Really. I met him, and he’s totally into your sister and totally harmless. I know she rushes into every relationship, but that’s because she’s passionate, just like Josh. Which is why they’re such a good match.”
    “And I think passionate is great. I do. But she also needs to display some sense of caution, guarded optimism, self-control, or whatever you want to call it,” Heather elaborated.
    “Hi. I’m still here. I’d wave, but I can’t move. I know you can’t see me behind the wraps, but I can hear you.” I felt as if I were in my Group Therapy class again. How had I become everyone’s favorite subject of analysis? “Josh did not set out to poison me, okay? And now he’s never going to talk to me again.”
    “Okay, well, if Josh didn’t kill Eric Rafferty, who did?” asked Heather.
    “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
    When we’d finally been released from our “spa” treatments, I had to admit I did feel pretty good. I said good-bye to Heather and Adrianna and headed to Home Depot. Instead of taking responsibility for my own behavior in the manner advocated at social work school, I’d begun to suspect that it was the unfinished and crooked stripe of paint in my bedroom that was the reason Josh and I hadn’t slept together and were now fighting. Who wanted to have sex in that horrid environment? Just to prove how dedicated I was to reforming my unlucky bedroom, I was going to pay full price for Ralph Lauren paint. Choosing a color would be easy; my friend Ralph, as I thought of him, limited himself to attractive hues.
    I kept the car windows down as I drove; the putrid liquid the evil spa-keepers had poured on my wrappings to detoxify my body was making me queasy. Also, my stomach was empty. I was sorry I’d eaten all of the cookies I’d taken with me last night.
    The cookie batter! Made from scratch: with flour, butter, sugar, chocolate chips... and fresh eggs. Fresh raw eggs.
    I was a complete idiot. Josh hadn’t poisoned me; I had poisoned myself. Frantic, I yanked my cell phone out of my purse. Josh didn’t pick up his cell, and I couldn’t blame him. Like an obsessed stalker, I tried back six times in a row but didn’t leave any messages. I didn’t know what to say or how to apologize for being such a jerk; I just hoped I could make it up to him.
    I took a break from my desperate calling to run into Home Depot. It was crowded, as it always was on Sundays, and to get to the paint aisle, I had to fight my way past a crowd inspecting leaf blowers. I’d almost made it to Ralph’s paint chip display when the Oops paint cart loomed before me, and I succumbed to my usual sympathetic sense of obligation. I was putting a gallon of what I hoped was a sexy blue with aphrodisiac powers into my cart when someone started loading even more cans of rejected paint onto the shelf. I looked up to see Brian standing before me. He was now clad in an orange store apron instead of the white coat he wore at Magellan.
    “Hey, Brian. I didn’t know you worked here,” I said, completely caught off guard. It was like seeing your math teacher at the mall: teachers