Burning Down the Spouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

the only reason she’d been given the job in the first place was due to her nagging Mitch. She’d wanted to be more involved—to be more productive.
    Whoever the hell said idle hands were the devil’s playground was full of horse puckey.
    “My employment agency helps train women just like you. Trophy and even some non-trophy wives who’ve been sedentary in the workplace for long periods of time, and you do have a skill or two, Frankie. You just don’t know it yet.”
    Yeah. She could work the shit out of a Magic Bullet. Definitely employers all over the globe would trip over themselves to hire her because of that priceless skill.
    Yet Maxine’s smile was infuriatingly serene. “Tell me what you did when you worked for the Bon Appetit Channel.”
    “I did the food prep for Mitch’s show. I chopped and organized, made sure everything was at his disposal. I’m good with color, size, and texture for a camera, and that’s it. Seeing as I pitched a nationwide fit, I don’t think there’s a television station from here to the remotest regions of Siberia that would hire me. I guess my camera-worthy food prep days are over. Now McDonald’s might find me appealing, but I don’t suppose I can earn a living there as head Big Mac maker.” And she didn’t want a job anyway. She just wanted to go back to bed because that whole slew of sentences had taken way more energy and focus than she had to give.
    “But you probably learned a lot about cooking because you were exposed to so much of it, right?”
    Oh, she’d learned. In fact, she was responsible for many of the recipes Mitch featured on his show. But she’d also learned early on—shortly before Mitch proposed to her—she hated to cook. Like really hated it. Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “I know enough.”
    “Those are valuable skills, Frankie. How could you not see that?”
    Gail waved a cheese Danish at her. “Tell her where you went to school, Frankie,” her aunt prompted, a hint of the pride she’d earlier shown for Maxine in her words.
    Her voice lowered in more ugly shame. If this kept up, she’d have to hyphenate her name with the word. “I dropped out of the Culinary Institute of America.”
    “Because of Mitch?” Maxine asked, folding her hands on the table, staring directly at her.
    Her eyes began to feel heavy, every word an effort. “Not just because of him, no. He made for a good excuse, though. The truth is I really hated cooking school. It wasn’t nearly the fun my mother made it while I was growing up.”
    “Frannie was a good cook. The best of the best, my sister was,” Gail chirped, her eyes glassy from unshed tears.
    Yes. Her mother, the woman she’d been named after, had been the best of the best. Frankie would give up a major organ just to be able to talk to her right now.
    Her throat tightened, but she pressed onward, hoping to speed up Maxine’s departure. “There’s a lot of pressure in a professional kitchen versus the one you grew up in where no one flipped if you did something wrong. I just didn’t love the process the way I thought I would. I kept thinking, ‘It’s just food, not the cure for erectile dysfunction.’ I could never buy into the big deal a chef would make if someone screwed up an order, but to them, it’s like an offense of the highest order. Anyway, I was waiting tables and going to school when I met Mitch. At the time, he was the sous chef at the restaurant I waited tables for. He loved food enough for the both of us. I used to really love to watch . . . to watch him . . . cook.” Frankie gulped.
    Maxine pressed a hand to hers in comfort. It felt strange and reassuring all in one touch. “And then he changed, I take it?”
    Had he—or was he always the self-absorbed, callous prick she’d born witness to the night she’d caught Mitch and Bamby? She couldn’t remember if he was always so domineering or if at that time in her life, his dictatorial behavior was the kind of guidance