Read Online Fat Chance by Deborah Blumenthal - Free Book Online

involved in an underground makeover, the phone rings and it’s a call from a local gourmet store that asked me many months ago if I would help them taste-test a new line of pasta sauces from a famed Italian importer. Who was I to say no, especially since the free-lance change would help pay for the maintenance surcharge that my East-side co-op had just tacked on to cover waterproofing the aging bricks.
    But now, who needs this? As if it weren’t hard enough toresist temptation, I now have to deal with a team of white-clad Italian chefs who walk in promptly at eleven o’clock on the dot, bearing steaming pans of penne, rigatoni, linguini and farfalle, each covered with a mound of rich sauce. Instantly, the air is perfumed with the scents of garlic, onion, sun-dried tomatoes and olives, and my “friends” from the news department, who have noses as keen as bomb-sniffing dogs, come flocking to my door, ready to pounce.
    Tex, who is usually glued to the computer screen, leads the parade, working hard to pretend that he’s surprised to find food.
    â€œHey, what’s this?” he says, acting like it’s the first time he’s come upon Italian food.
    â€œPasta,” I answer dryly. “You know the starchy stuff they serve in Italian restaurants?”
    â€œYou wouldn’t happen to have an extra bowl for a man who’s had nothing the entire day except bacon and eggs for breakfast and a meager muffin and coffee, over an hour ago, would you?” he says, ignoring my sarcasm, and trying to get on my good side by coming up behind me and massaging my shoulders. I’m tempted to close my eyes and promise him anything if he continues since it’s been so long since I had a pair of hands working on me, but I snap to.
    â€œIt’s barely eleven-thirty, Tex.”
    â€œExactly my point,” he says, sliding the bowl out of my hand. “My blood-sugar level’s starting to go south.” He lifts a giant forkful to his mouth and tastes.
    â€œDefinitely respectable, if you don’t count the fact that it really needs a little more garlic and maybe some dill,” he says, continuing to eat.
    â€œBut that’s not stopping you.”
    He shakes his head and continues. “Not terrible. About equal to Ragu. Not close to Rao’s.”
    How would I know? I haven’t had a forkful yet. “If you’re going to eat my portion, you might as well fill out the questionnaire,” I say.
    â€œI’d love to, sugar, but I’ve got a mountain of work waiting for me,” he says. “I just came by looking for a stapler.” He waves a piece of paper in the air as if that explains it. Tex starts to leave and then comes back and hands me the bowl. He pivots only to face a stack of garlic bread. In a nanosecond, his hand clamps down over a piece.
    Tamara stares at him, saying nothing.
    â€œNow this is good,” Tex says, reaching for a second. As he turns, Larry makes his entrance and they nearly collide.
    â€œI knew I wasn’t crazy. I knew that I smelled garlic.” He laughs hysterically. “How ’bout sharing the wealth?”
    Tamara looks at me and shakes her head. “Are we running a soup kitchen here?”
    â€œWhat?” Larry says, holding his hands out helplessly. “We’re helping Maggie.”
    â€œDo you think you could find room in your heart to leave just a little behind so that I can get just a forkful and fill out the survey that they’re paying me thousands of dollars to complete?” I ask.
    â€œNobody can judge food after just one tasting,” Tex says. “Tell them to bring a new round of plates over the course of the next few days,” he says, trying to wipe a red spaghetti stain from the front of his shirt that resembles blood oozing from a chest wound.
    â€œI think you’d better get back to Metro,” I say softly. “I just heard that the stock market took a nosedive