Sugaring Ben

Chapter 1: Frazzled-2

Sleep came to the west garden. The narrow beds of roses, daises, and tulips were covered in ice and two inches of snow. The maples surrounding the area looked like claws reaching up and out of the earth. The bronze birdbath was covered with thick plastic and duct tape, protected from the cold and biting winter ahead. I personally despised the garden when it was asleep, relishing its beauty in the springtime and summer months. Although I loved the winter months, particularly snow, ice, and the wind, I didn’t enjoy the season for taking things away from me, breaking me somewhat, and causing a disturbance within me of its peculiar greediness.

Although the calendar told me that it was the beginning of March, a thin crust of ice lay around Lake Erie. Wind from Canada blew turrets of waves toward the shore; white angry water broaching the rocky bank. Most would have agreed that nothing about the day was beautiful. I was in a league of my own, relishing the prickly cold with a smile spread across my face, ready for its havoc and remaining days of winter ugliness.

Beginnings twirled around my ankles, purred, and mewed. She, too, just happened to be a member of my Meteorologists Who Enjoy Winter group. Or maybe she just wanted milk from the refrigerator, which would only give her a mediocre stomachache.

Because I had been with WRDR for years, I had earned my weekends off. My assistant, Kent Karson, forecasted the weather on Saturday and Sunday. To wake on a Saturday and enjoy a cup of lemon-flavored tea with honey and Beginnings could not have been a better gift. I relished both with the icy and chilly view, satisfied with my position in life, thanking the good Lord in heaven that I was safe, healthy, and happy.

Not two minutes into my lake-watching, my cellphone buzzed on the kitchen table. I spun around, snatched it up, and saw that Catherine “Kat” Shaw interrupted my enjoyable task.

Having been my friend for the last decade, a true fag hag if there ever was one, I loved the woman with all my heart and soul. Had I not enjoyed the company of men, Kat would have certainly filled the “wifely” position in my life. Unfortunately, our body parts didn’t mix. Also, she currently had an older dentist in her life, a Dr. Brent Lumley, whom she was quite affectionate with and planned on marrying in the future, some two or three years away.

Kat and I had gone way back in our lives together. She was the same age as me, prettier, and attended Temple at my side. Thereafter, we separated as adults often do following college. She moved to Miami for a few years, and I discovered Lake Erie. Eventually, she grew weary of Miami and a lying and cheating Hispanic businessman named Edwardo Padilla, and moved north, residing next to Lake Erie in a two-bedroom Tudor on Walnut Line Drive some three miles from my saltbox. Happy as a freelance editor for a small publishing house called Dessner, we talked regularly, were the best pals, and always in each other’s business.

“Kat,” I said after pushing the green button on the phone’s flat screen and holding the device up to my left ear.

“Are you up and dressed, Sand?”

Sandford Phillip Oliver—me—had never slept in, not even when I was a child. Sleep barely became my friend throughout the years, let alone a lover.

“I’ve been up. Watered and fed, and let out to pee.”

“Good.” She coughed, clearing her throat, and then cut to the chase of why she had called. “I want you to meet Ben Cutter this morning for brunch. You can drink orange juice or something if you already ate. We’re gathering at eleven at Estuary.”

“The pastry chef Ben Cutter?”

“The one and only.”

Ben had his own baked goods show on WDEN, which was syndicated to seven other stations. His show, Sugaring Ben, brought in a lot of viewers. Women over thirty had fallen in love with his ginger looks. And gay guys all around wanted to sprinkle sugar on the guy’s muscular chest and lick it off.

“Why do you want me to meet him?”

“Because you’re single, and he’s single. You’re both professionals, and I’m thinking the two of you need to start a romance.”

I laughed. “You’re out of your mind, Kat. Are you drunk?”

“I haven’t had a single Bloody Mary this morning. But I can’t promise you that I won’t stay sober during brunch.”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble of playing hook-up artist, but I had to. I couldn’t and wouldn’t go to brunch to meet Ben Cutter, who was totally out of my league: wealthy, famous, a celebrity of all things. The guy was so much better than me. He had millions in the bank and drove a Jaguar around Radar. The owner of Marshdale Estate, some two miles north of my saltbox, had recently showcased his Colonial in an uppity magazine called Lakeside Architecture. Plus, he appeared on a variety of cooking shows, Good Morning America, and currently held a position of being one of the hundred most beautiful men by People.

Truth told, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to learn that he had seven cars, three other estates on the East Coast, and a prized chateau in France for skiing. He probably had investments all over the world with billion dollar-making corporations, gaining more millions in his bank accounts.

No, I couldn’t go to brunch and embarrass myself. Not with Ben Cutter. Never.

I wouldn’t.

Even if Kat had wanted me to.