That made Daisy feel a little bit better, even though she suspected that Diana was probably lying, or that if the event she’d described had happened, it had occurred only once, years ago, and Diana had related the anecdote for the sole purpose of putting Daisy at ease. Daisy felt grateful for the effort, even though she couldn’t imagine this elegant, composed, confident woman with mustard on her blouse or dog crap on her shoes or walking into a PTA meeting with the back of her skirt tucked into her tights, which had happened to Daisy just three weeks ago.
They agreed to share the cheese plate and the calamari. When the drinks arrived, Diana lifted her tall glass of horseradish-flecked tomato juice and vodka. “To Dianas,” she said.
“To new friends.” Daisy clinked Diana’s glass with her own, and gave her drink a stir with the celery stalk, before taking a sip, relishing the heat of the spices, the slower burn of the booze. “It’s such a weird coincidence. And honestly, nobody’s called me Diana in years. My husband renamed me.”
The other woman tilted her head. And you let him? Daisy imagined her thinking, but what she said was, “Daisy’s a lovely name.”
Daisy thought her name was sweet more than lovely, and she wasn’t sure how the notion of a man renaming an adult woman was resonating with her new friend. “So what are you doing for work, right now?” she asked Diana. “I know you’re a consultant, but…”
“I know, I know,” Diana said, with a good-natured shake of her head. “A word that means nothing. In my case, businesses—mostly pharmaceutical firms these days—bring me in to spend a few months looking around, to find the deadwood and the soft spots. And then do the cutting.” She shrugged, smoothing a glossy lock of hair. “I’m the angel of death, more or less. I bring the axe down, and I leave while the blood’s still on the floor.”
“That must be hard,” Daisy ventured. She could picture it: this assured, competent woman inviting underlings into her office, saying, Close the door and have a seat, then telling them that they were no longer needed. “Do people ever—you know—react badly?”
Diana’s lips turned up slightly. “Some of them cry. Some of them call me names. I’ve had a trash can thrown at me.”
“You must be good at talking people through it.”
Diana shrugged. “Actually, I’ve just got good reflexes.” She mimed ducking out of the way of a projectile, making Daisy laugh.
The waiter arrived and set down the plates with a flourish, arranging them just so, handing around cheese knives and small plates. Diana spread warm goat cheese on a round of baguette, gold cuff flashing in the candlelight, and took a bite with evident enjoyment. Daisy got another whiff of Diana’s perfume, and could see that her eyes were hazel. They seemed to glow, cat-like, in the candlelight. Or maybe that was just the effects of the Bloody Mary, which, somehow, was already half-empty.
“Yum,” Diana said after her first bite of bread and cheese. Daisy nibbled a calamari ring, watching Diana eat. She wondered if, in another life, she herself could have been a businesswoman, in black suits, causing waiters to scurry and hustle to make her happy, and not the kind of woman who’d gotten married before she turned twenty-one, who’d dropped out of college and had spent her life cooking and keeping other people happy. With a sigh, she thought, Probably not.
“I want to hear more about what you do,” Diana said. “How’d you get to be a chef?”
“Oh, I’m not a chef. I haven’t had professional training. I’m just your basic home cook.” A home cook with pretensions, as she’d once overheard Hal describe her, and when she’d told him how that made her feel, how diminished and belittled she’d felt, he’d looked puzzled before he’d said, You’re right, Daze. I should have said ambitions, and not pretensions. She’d accepted his apology, but felt like the incident had given her a window into Hal’s mind. She’d seen his true feelings, and they were not flattering.
“I always loved cooking. And my mom didn’t.” Daisy felt a pang, remembering her mother’s gardens. “She liked growing food, but she really didn’t like to cook it. And I have two brothers who are twelve and thirteen years older than I am. I think that, after feeding two teenage boys, my mom would’ve been happy if she’d never had to see the inside of the kitchen again. And then my father died when I was fourteen.”
“Wow. I’m sorry,” Diana murmured.