…was sitting at the head of our pristine, candlelit dining table in my thickest, most obnoxious hot-pink fleece bathrobe, a thermometer jutting from my mouth, and a family-sized box of antiviral tissues acting as the grand centerpiece.
“Arthur!” I croaked, offering a weak, feverish wave as I coughed wetly into a crumpled tissue. “You’re right on time. The lavish dinner is getting cold.”
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. Behind him, his boss, Richard, and two senior partners bumped into him like a cartoon train crash. Their eyes darted from my terrifyingly pale, sweaty face to my ratty slippers resting on the antique Persian rug.
“Darling, what… what is this?” Arthur stammered, the color draining completely from his face. His eyes were wide with a silent, frantic plea.
“I’m performing, just like you asked!” I offered a warm, heavily congested smile to the bewildered executives standing in our foyer. “Welcome, gentlemen. I apologize for my attire, but Arthur insisted we simply must host you tonight, even after my fever spiked to 102 this morning. I told him I was highly contagious, but he was adamant. ‘Take a pill and perform,’ he told me. ‘Don’t embarrass me.’ So, here I am! The show must go on.”
Richard, a man who notoriously used hand sanitizer after shaking hands, instinctively took a massive step back toward the front door. “Arthur, you made your wife host a dinner party while she has a severe fever?”
“N-no! I mean, I didn’t realize it was this bad,” Arthur sputtered, furiously trying to usher them into the dining room to salvage the evening. “She’s exaggerating. And look, she set the table beautifully! What smells so good, honey? Roast?”
“Oh, I didn’t cook,” I said cheerfully, pulling my robe tighter around myself. “I didn’t want to sweat into the bisque. But I did follow your timeline perfectly.”
I stood up—wobbling just a bit for dramatic effect—and walked over to the fine silver serving cloches I had rented specifically for this evening. With a grand, sweeping gesture, I lifted the center dome.
Underneath sat a towering, glorious mountain of crumpled, grease-stained McDonald’s bags.
I lifted the smaller side cloches. On the left: a magnificent pyramid of twenty-four cheeseburgers, still wrapped. On the right: a silver gravy boat filled to the brim with Sweet ‘N Sour sauce.
“I spared no expense,” I sniffled, gesturing to Arthur’s empty plate, where a single, solitary ibuprofen pill rested perfectly in the center. “I even laid out the pill you recommended, darling. Now, who wants a McDouble? I can cough on it first to warm it up.”
The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the sound of my nose whistling as I breathed.
“I think,” Richard said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register as he glared at my husband, “we are going to be leaving now. Arthur, we will be having a very serious discussion about your judgment and your character in my office at 8 AM sharp tomorrow. If you aren’t busy forcing sick women to work, that is.”
“Richard, please, let me explain—”
“Feel better, Mrs. Hayes,” Richard said, completely ignoring Arthur. He tipped an imaginary hat to me. “Get some rest.”
Within ten seconds, the front door clicked shut. Arthur slowly turned to look at me, his jaw practically on the floor, his career flashing before his eyes.
I popped a cold French fry into my mouth, grabbed my box of tissues, and smiled. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I thought that was a stellar performance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve booked myself a suite at the Four Seasons on your corporate card to quarantine. Please have this mess cleaned up before I get back.”
