WE WERE LATE FOR THE FIRST CLASS. JUST FOR THE record, it wasn’t my fault.
Like I did every day (except for Fridays when the bank was open until six), I arrived home at exactly five twenty-five. By five thirty, I’d sorted through the day’s mail. I filed the bills in their proper slots in the accordion folder I kept nearby, threw away the junk, and made a separate pile for the letters that were still arriving addressed to Peter. As usual, my plan was to rip them into tiny little pieces and toss them out but-as usual-I relented. I wrote “forward” on his mail along with the address of the school where he taught, and stuck the letters by my purse so I could drop them on the table in the front lobby as I was leaving.
I wasn’t sure what cooking students wore, but after a sweltering weekend that culminated in a Sunday afternoon thunderstorm, the temperature had cooled considerably. I changed out of my black pantsuit and into jeans, a green long-sleeved T-shirt, and sneakers. After a minute, my nervous energy got the better of me and I swapped the green T-shirt for a white one. Chefs wore white, didn’t they?
About a minute later, I switched back to the green.
Just before I walked out the door, I grabbed the groceries I’d picked up on my lunch break.
“Chicken stock. Broccoli. Cheddar cheese. Cream. Butter. Spanish onion.” Even though I’d checked and rechecked earlier, I peeked in my grocery bag and did an inventory, making sure that I had everything mentioned in the e-mail that arrived the night before from someone named Jim at Très Bonne Cuisine.
Thirty minutes later-twenty minutes after she promised-Eve careened into the parking lot on two wheels and slammed on the brakes right next to where I was pacing in front of the cement pad outside the lobby door.
“Forgot to shop,” she said breathlessly as I climbed into the car and fastened my seat belt. “Had to stop on the way. Had a heck of a time finding cauliflower. Did you get cauliflower?”
I had printed out the e-mail shopping list. I pulled it out of my bag and I pointed to a line on the ingredients list. “It was supposed to be broccoli.”
“Oh. You’re right. I always get those two mixed up.” Eve’s plucked-into-submission eyebrows dipped. “I thought-”
“That’s OK. I’ve got enough for both of us.”
Like all of the D.C. Metro area, Arlington traffic has a bad reputation, and for good reason. By the time Eve negotiated her way through the crush of commuters between my not-so-stylish neighborhood and Clarendon and found a parking place around the corner from Très Bonne Cuisine, we had exactly three and a half minutes to make it into the store. That meant getting to the shop, climbing the steps, getting ourselves and our supplies organized…
I pulled in a breath, forcing my heart rate to slow. Late was not the end of the world, I reminded myself. But even that bit of good advice wasn’t enough to stop me from snapping out of my seat belt the moment Eve put the car into park.
I jumped out and then grabbed my bag and my jacket. Eve calmly leaned over, checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, put on a little more lipstick, ran a brush through her hair. To make matters worse, when she finally did get out of the car, her cauliflower tumbled out of her bag, and we had to chase behind it as it rolled toward the street. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly cool, calm, and collected when we arrived at the shop.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear the man on the other side of the front door.
Just as I reached for the knob, the door flew open so hard and so fast, I had to jump back or risk getting my nose smashed.
The dark-haired man who stomped out of the shop was as broad as an I-beam and tall enough to fill the doorway. He was dressed in black pants, a black turtleneck, and a full-length black leather coat that was open and flapped around him like the wings of a bird of prey.
His eyes reminded me of a hawk’s, too. They were small and dark and so intense, they were narrowed to slits. His cheeks were an ugly color between red and purple, and he was breathing hard, as if he’d just gone a couple rounds in a prizefight.
The fact that he didn’t pay any attention to me wasn’t surprising. After all, I was pretty quick on my feet, and even after my initial surprise melted, I made sure I stayed as far out of his way as possible. But Eve was standing not six feet away, watching the whole thing, and he didn’t give her a second glance, either. And let’s face it, in her short, short khaki skirt, flamingo pink top, and hot pink stilettoes, Eve was hard to miss.
That more than anything told me the guy wasn’t thinking straight. Every step was fueled by the anger that shivered around him like the heat off a wildfire. He marched over to a black BMW double-parked at the curb, got in, and slammed his keys into the ignition. I swear he didn’t even look over his shoulder to check traffic before he rocketed away.
“Have a nice day!” Eve waved. After my close call with the front door, I was grateful for her irreverence. Something about the man in the black leather coat sent a chill up my spine and across my shoulders. Eve, on the other hand, wasn’t about to be intimidated. Not by anyone. It was one of the reasons I liked her so much, and I couldn’t help but smile.
Still grinning, I peeked into Très Bonne Cuisine. The coast was clear.
I’d been there before (remember the Vavoom!) so I was familiar with the store. Glossy hardwood floors. Sleek cabinetry. Gleaming chrome. The place was a kitchen-aholic’s dream come true, stocked floor to ceiling with the latest and greatest gadgets, the priciest of high-priced cookware, jars of mysterious spices, and books that taught special cooking techniques for every food I’d ever heard of and some that I hadn’t.
Of course, I am not a kitchen-aholic, or even a wannabee. I live on Lean Cuisine and wash it down with ice cream and the occasional peanut butter and banana sandwich. Grilled, of course. Here in the land of Proper Cooking Technique, I was nothing more than a once-in-a-while customer who spent as little as possible every time she did show up. Which I never did unless I needed a Vavoom! fix.
That’s probably why the shop owner didn’t recognize me when I walked in.
In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge me.
Jacques Lavoie was the genius behind Très Bonne Cuisine and the inventor (is that the right word for a chef?) of Vavoom! He was also a one-man publicity machine, at least if the billboards that advertised the man, the store, and his product on every city bus and at every Metro station meant anything. In fact, his face was on the Vavoom! package in the form of a black-and-white caricature that emphasized his round-as-apple cheeks and his sparkling eyes. His smile, as long as a baguette, pretty much jumped out and said, “Écoutez!You must buy this stuff,s’il vous plait. C’est magnifique!”
The success of Vavoom! had made him a legend in both cooking circles and among local entrepreneurs, a French immigrant who cashed in on the American dream. And folks in D.C. like nothing better than a Cinderella story.
Monsieur Lavoie was charming and talkative. At least he always had been every time I’d paid a visit to the shop. Even when I was only spending a measly twelve ninety-five for a two-ounce jar of Vavoom! (Like I said, I was addicted.) This time, though…
“Monsieur Lavoie?”
He stood behind the cash register, his hands clutching the counter in front of him so tight, his knuckles were white. His breaths came in short, shallow spurts. His face was as pale as the apron he wore over pressed-to-perfection Dockers and a crisp long-sleeved shirt. Whiter than the shock of salt-and-pepper hair that stood out around his head like a fuzzy halo.
Eve was right behind me when I took a step toward the front counter. She raised her voice to try to get through to him. “Monsieur Lavoie, are you-”
“Oh my! How you did startle me!” He jumped as if he’d touched a finger to an electrical line. He pressed one still-shaking hand to his heart and forced a smile. “I did not hear you come in,” he said, right before he bent and tucked something under the counter. He popped right back up. “I did not know anyone was here.”
“What about that rude man who just left?” Nobody ever said Eve was good at playing politics. She raised an eyebrow in an elegant little gesture that pretty much came right out and told the old guy that we weren’t buying his story. “You know, the one who nearly knocked my friend down when he rushed out of here?”
Monsieur waved one hand in a very Gallic gesture of dismissal. “Customers!” He rolled his eyes and laughed in one of those deep-throatedho-ho-ho s that sounds risqué even when nobody’s talking about sex. I’d always thought it was a stereotype-but I guess stereotypes have to come from somewhere.
“Some customers, they want to be treated so special. And that one…” Again, he laughed, and again, we didn’t believe him. For one thing, the man in the leather coat hadn’t been carrying one of Tres Bonne Cuisine’s trademark mint green shopping bags. For another, he was more than just a little annoyed.
“But you are not here to listen to my complaints. No! No!” Monsieur Lavoie looked at a list on the counter in front of him, made two broad check marks on it, and hurried over to where we stood. He gathered up Eve and me, one of us under each arm, and I couldn’t help but notice that he held Eve a little closer than he did me. That’s all right. I didn’t hold it against him. He was French, after all, and he did smell like Vavoom! I breathed in deep, comforted by the familiar aroma.
“You are Mademoiselles Annie Capshaw and Eve DeCateur, no? You are here for class, yes? You must hurry, or you will be late.” He ushered us toward the back of the store and a closed door tucked between a shelf of pastel-colored martini glasses and a display of color-coordinated, seasonal-themed kitchen linens. The towels were a pretty, summery green. The dishcloths were the color of cantaloupe. The pot holders…
The pot holders came in shades of pink, from magenta to blush. They were arranged on the wall like a rainbow. They were perfect, quilted squares, and the colors were breathtaking. Suddenly, I was glad I didn’t own any.
Until I saw the pricetag.
I gulped down my horror and promised myself a trip to WalMart.
Monsieur Lavoie brushed aside the pot holder at the bottom of the rainbow to reveal a security pad. “You are the last two. Everyone else is here. You do not wish to miss a thing, yes?”
“No. Yes. I mean…” While he punched in a security code for the door that led to the upstairs school, he explained that the school door was always kept locked so that customers who weren’t signed up for classes couldn’t wander up there. The lock clicked open and I tried to get my thoughts in order. “We just wanted to make sure that you were OK. That nothing was wrong. After the way that man-”
“Wrong?” He chuckled. “What could be wrong,cherie? The night is young, and you are about to have such a wonderful experience. Cooking,nes’t pas?” He kissed the tips of his fingers and winked. “Except for love, this is the greatest adventure of all!”
Monsieur Lavoie waved us up the stairway, and just before the door closed behind us, I saw him bow. After a quick climb, Eve and I stepped into an airy room every bit as stylish as the shop downstairs.
I know it sounds crazy, but suddenly, I knew exactly how Dorothy felt when she took that first Technicolor step into Oz.
Along one side of the room, a floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the street. Mellow evening light poured into the room like clarified butter. The whole scene reminded me of a photograph in a slick gourmet magazine, the golden light glancing against each two-person workstation with its state-of-the-art stainless steel stove, its charcoal-colored granite cutting surfaces, and cookware that gleamed the way my cookware at home had never gleamed, not even on the day it came out of the box.
Eager students sat side by side, their broccoli out and waiting, green and dewy. Their sticks of butter and globe-shaped Spanish onions added just the right warm touch of yellow to the picture.
In fact, the only false note in the room was the woman who stood looking out the front window. Against the backdrop of gilded light, she looked like she was cut from black paper. When Eve and I walked farther in, the woman spun around. She was pretty in an exotic sort of way, with pale skin and hair as black as a crow’s wing. Her eyes were dark, too, and right then, they were wide with horror.
For one mad moment, I thought word of my cooking prowess had preceded me, and she was about to announce that if Annie Capshaw was going anywhere near fire, she was outta there.
She didn’t, thank goodness. Instead, she took one look at us, and the worry in her eyes cleared. After just one more glance at the front window, she took her place at her cook station.
Eve and I found our place, too-at the last remaining stove in the far right corner. Back of the room. Out of the line of the instructor’s eye. Just fine with me.
“I told you this was going to be wonderful.” Eve’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. She dragged in a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring the moment and the rarified atmosphere. She pulled her assortment of ingredients-minus the cauliflower-out of her bag, and I took the opportunity to glance around the room. Out of a class of twelve, there were four men. Eve must have noticed them, too, because she elbowed me in the ribs. “What do you think, huh? Told you this would be a great place to meet somebody.”
“Except that I don’t want to meet somebody.” I made sure I kept my voice down.
“Which doesn’t mean somebody doesn’t want to meet you.” Eve’s eyebrows shot up, and I looked where she was looking-which was at each one of our male classmates.
Two of them were together, and since they were holding hands, it wasn’t much of a leap to figure they were gay. They didn’t spare me a look, but they did check out Eve’s outfit. No doubt they were critiquing her color choices. The other two I wasn’t so sure about. One of them was a nondescript guy with pleasantly bland features. When I looked his way, he pretended he didn’t notice. The last man was a middle-aged cross between a sumo wrestler and the Incredible Hulk. If he was cooking, whatever he was cooking, no way anyone was going to refuse to eat.
The wall over on the right side of the room was painted with a mural of a Parisian café. In the center of it, right under a sign that said it was the Café Jacques, there was a door. At that moment, it popped open, and the man who I assumed was the Jim who had sent our shopping list walked into the room.
This time when Eve elbowed me, I sat up and took notice.
I should explain that we have wildly different taste in men, Eve and I. She likes her guys big and hairy. Usually light-haired. Always with money to burn.
I, on the other hand, am a little more discriminating. The one and only time I filled out one of those online dating surveys (at Eve’s urging, and only because I knew she’d give me no peace until I did, and because I deleted the whole thing as soon as she left), I’d checked off all the things about a man that were important to me. Things like a good sense of humor, a steady job, a sense of self-worth that wasn’t tied to what kind of car he drove or how he made his living as much as it was to who he was way down deep inside.
I wasn’t shallow, and I was proud of it.
But, hey, I wasn’t dead, either.
I looked over Jim and nodded my approval. I smiled at Eve. Eve smiled back. For once, we were in total agreement.
Our cooking instructor was, to put it in the vernacular, one hot hunka hunka burning love.
Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who recognized a cooking Adonis when we saw one. A sort of hush fell over our little crowd as Jim made his way to the front of the room where he had a stove and work surface bigger than ours, and a mirror hanging over the whole thing so that we could watch his hands while he worked.
“Good evening! I’m Jim. Jim MacDonald. I’ll be your instructor.”
“Ohmygosh! A Scottish accent! My knees are weak.” The words hissed out of Eve, and she grabbed onto the edge of the granite countertop.
Though I was (as always) a little more circumspect, I knew exactly how she felt. Jim MacDonald was tall and rangy. Long legs. Long arms. Long, lean body. He had a crop of hair the color of mahogany, and though I couldn’t tell for certain from this distance, I thought his eyes were hazel. There was no mistaking the impact of his voice, though. Deep and edged with a bit of a burr, it was one of those voices that wraps itself around its listeners. It was soothing and exciting, all at the same time. It was sexy. Oh, yeah. It was sexy, all right. And there wasn’t a woman in the room (as well as those two gay guys) who wasn’t completely enthralled.
Jim took it all in stride, giving us a one-sided smile that revealed a dimple in his left cheek.
“Now you know me, so let’s meet all of you. Let’s go around the room,” he said, “and get to know each other. Tell me your name and why you’re here. What kind of cooking do you like to do? Then tell us something interesting about yourself.”
Interesting?
My mind glommed onto that one word and froze. I swear, as my fellow classmates introduced themselves one by one, I didn’t hear half of what they said. I knew the gay couple were Jared and Ben, that they loved to grill seafood, and that they spent their weekends when they weren’t rock climbing tending to the garden behind their eighteenth-century row house in Old Town Alexandria.
The young girl and older woman directly in front of us were mother and daughter. Their specialty was pastries, petit fours, and tortes. The bland man with the pleasant face was John. He was an accountant-no big surprise there-and a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.
The dark-haired woman was next.
“Beyla,” she said by way of introduction. Her voice was low and accented. Eastern European, I guessed. At the bank where I worked, we had a lot of customers from that part of the world. “I am here because cooking is… how do you say it… important to me. Important to my family. I am wanting to cook better.”
“And can you tell us something interesting about yourself?” Jim asked.
Beyla blushed from the tip of her chin to the tops of cheekbones I would have given my last pink pot holder to own. Her fingers were long and slim, and the gesture she made with them was as delicate as butterfly wings.
“I am good cook already,” she said. “In Romania, where I am from, my people say I am very good. But American food…” She shrugged the way women do when they’re walking that fine line between being modest and blowing their own horns. “I need practice,” she said. “I am wanting to learn to cook like an American.”
“That’s something I’ve been wanting, too,” Jim admitted, and the class laughed.
Just a few minutes later, it was Eve’s turn.
“Miss Arlington, Virginia,” she said with a little curtsy. “I won’t tell y’all how long ago that was. As for why I’m here…”
She looked my way, and I held my breath. She wasn’t going to tell, was she? About Peter? About me? About how I’d been feeling like a hamster on a wheel, going nowhere fast and not getting any younger and how she saw this class as my first step back into the world?
“Why, I’m here to meet all of you,” she said, looking around at the crowd with a smile. “Learnin’ to cook, why, that’s just a big ol’ bonus.”
Everyone laughed and smiled. Of course. Eve had a way of putting people at ease.
I don’t want to sound as if I hold that against her. I don’t. Honest. I’d spent the last thirty years wishing I could be more like Eve. More bubbly. Prettier. More outgoing. And every time I thought about it, I promised myself I was going to make it happen. Right then and there.
It was my turn.
This was my chance. I pulled in a breath for courage and reminded myself that this was the time and place of new beginnings. I was just the girl to do it. I was ready to leap off that wheel that was going nowhere and explore the new horizons spread out before me, awash in golden light and the heady smell of Vavoom!
Everyone in class was staring at me, including Jim, the hunkiest thing out of Scotland since Mel Gibson donned a kilt.
My throat went dry. A bead of sweat broke out on my forehead.
“Interesting?” I croaked out the word. “The most interesting thing about me is that I’m the world’s worst cook.”
Three
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES INTO CLASS AND COUNTING, and I hadn’t burned anything yet.
I congratulated myself as I checked the onion happily sputtering away in the saucepan in front of me. It was just starting to go limp and translucent, and following Jim’s instructions, I dumped in the carrots and celery I had chopped so carefully only moments before. Every little piece of every single veggie was exactly the right size, and there was enough space around them so that they didn’t sit on top of each other and steam but instead seared nicely. Just like Jim had explained they should.
I breathed a little easier. So far, so good.
Speaking of Jim, he’d spent the last few minutes going around from stove to stove, peering in saucepans, offering advice. It was our turn now, and he stood at my shoulder, right between me and Eve. “Do you remember what this is called?” he asked.
“What it’s called?” Eve assumed the question was for her, and that was just fine with me. I was keeping an eye on my carrots and celery. I didn’t have time for a pop quiz.
Eve’s veggies were anything but perfect. They weren’t chopped and diced, they were minced and mangled. She’d used too much butter, and her carrots (hunks, not neat little matchsticks) were drowning.
Still, when she looked from her pan to Jim, she smiled. She batted her eyelashes at him and fanned her face with one hand, eyeing him with what I called “the look,” which has been known to drop guys at twenty paces. “Why, it’s hard to know what to think. Especially when it’s so very warm in here.”
I was in awe of Eve’s flirting skills. Always had been, always would be. But even I knew when she was going too far. I could see that her tactics weren’t working on Jim. Instead of melting into a puddle of mush the way most guys did, Jim rocked back on his heels, his hands in the pockets of his just-tight-enough jeans and a knowing smile on his face.
I’d seen this game before. Eve and the flavor of the month. No way did I want to get in the middle of it.
Hoping to short-circuit the electricity that crackled in the air, I jumped right in and hoped my French pronunciation was right. “It’s called mirepoix,” I said. I admit it, maybe I wanted to show off a little, too, and prove I was paying attention when Jim told us what to do to get started on our broccoli and cheese soup. “It’s a mixture of sautéed vegetables and what you called aromatics, like bay leaves.”
Jim smiled and nodded his approval.
I stood a little taller and dared to smile back. Now that he was standing this close, I could see that I’d been right about his eyes. They were hazel, as clear as amber. As rich and as warm as the rolledr ’s in his voice. As attractive as his slightly squared chin, his thick hair, his-
“And how long do you cook it?”
His question snapped me out of my thoughts. Good thing. I was getting way too poetic. It must have had something to do with the evening light. Outside the big front window, the sky had gone from golden to a deep periwinkle, and the muted color crept into the room like a whisper. Or maybe it was the heady aromas that filled the air, the ones that made me imagine what it would be like to be sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris. A glass of wine in one hand, Jim’s hand in the other. I would smile across the table at him and-
I twitched away the notion and got back on track. “About five more minutes,” I told him, repeating back the advice he’d given when he first demonstrated the technique. I hoped he didn’t detect the dreamy note in my voice that betrayed the fact that I’d been thinking of anything but cooking.
“We cook the vegetables until the onion is just a little brown around the edges,” I continued. “When it is, we remove the vegetables from the skillet and then deglaze.” Since Jim didn’t say anything, I figured he was waiting for more. “That’s when we add a cup of stock…” I pointed to the can of chicken stock that sat ready next to my saucepan. “We swirl it around to get the bits of flavor out of the pan, and the whole thing becomes the base of our soup.”
He smiled again and walked over to the next station. “Very good,” he said over his shoulder.
And it was, in a warm and fuzzy way that nothing had been since Peter walked out on me.
Smiling like a lunatic, I watched Jim chat with John, the bland man. I saw him peer into the Romanian woman’s pan and nod his approval. I heard the low rumble of his voice as he spoke to the mother and daughter in front of us. My smile got wider when that rumble wormed its way deep down inside me and made me feel warm all over.
Not as warm, however, as my veggies.
When I finally realized something smelled funny, they were burnt to a crisp.
“DON’T LOOK SO DOWN AND OUT. IT’S NOT THE END of the world.”
It was good advice. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood.
In the passenger seat of Eve’s car, I hunkered down, my hands in my jacket pockets, and looked out the car window. “Not the end of the world for you,” I told Eve. “You didn’t look like a total loser in front of Jim. Plus your soup was great. You know what? I just don’t get it!” I slapped a hand against my thigh and turned to her. “Your veggies were lumpy. You bought the cheapest chicken stock you could find. You used stolen broccoli.”
“Not exactly stolen,” she reminded me. She smiled as she kept an eye on the traffic in front of us. “You did offer it.”
She was right. And because I needed to get rid of the first batch of burned mirepoix and start all over…
Because by that time I was so nervous and so embarrassed that I took way too long…
Because I’d screwed up royally, I never did get to the add-the-main-ingredient stage of tonight’s recipe. Eve ended up using all my broccoli.
“Jim said not to worry.”
“Jim.” I grumbled the name. “None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for Jim.”
Eve laughed. “Are you blaming him for being scrumptious?”
“I’m blaming myself for being stupid.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I should know better. If I wasn’t so easily distracted-”
“Oh, honey, guys like Jim are what easily distracted is all about! Don’t feel bad. You acted like any other woman would have acted.”
“I’m not every other woman.”
“Then maybe you should try to be. Lighten up. You’re too hard on yourself. Relax and just have fun. You were never like this until Peter the Jerk stomped all over your self-confidence. Stop thinking about him. Stop worrying about what other people think of you.”
“People like Jim? You were worried about what he thought of you, weren’t you?”
“Was I?” By the way she said it, I could tell that Eve hadn’t seriously considered this part of the equation at all. “I wasn’t making a play for him, if that’s what you think.”
“Which is why you practically hung out a Come-and-Get-It sign.”
She laughed so hard, she had to catch her breath before she could reply. “He’s not my type. You know that, Annie. A cooking instructor?” She wiped a tear from her eye. “So he’s cute. So he’s more than cute! I don’t have him in my sights, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Really!” I defended myself so vehemently that even I wondered if I was telling the truth. “Guys like Jim don’t look at women like me.”
“Because you’re cute.”
“Because I’m not…” I screeched my frustration. “Because he’s sexy and gorgeous and has that accent that makes my toes curl. That’s why. I’m not his type.”
“If you tell yourself it’s true, you will never be his type.”
I chewed over the thought, and I have to admit, I didn’t like the way it tasted. Mostly because I knew everything that Eve said was right on the money.
“Oh, rats!” She slammed on the brakes, effectively jarring me out of my thoughts.
“My watch is gone.” Eve fingered her bare left wrist. “It’s back at Très Bonne Cuisine. I took it off when we were washing up, and I know just where it is. On the counter next to the sink.”
I thought about Monsieur Lavoie and the way he kept the door between the shop and the cooking school locked. I shrugged. “It’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Well, yes, I know that.” Eve chewed on her lower lip. “If it was only that…”
The driver behind us laid on his horn, and Eve started up again. “I’m having lunch with Clint tomorrow,” she said by way of explanation.
Clint.
I did a quick shuffle through my mental Rolodex.
It wasn’t easy keeping Eve’s love life straight. Or the legion of guys who always seemed to be hovering, like bees around an especially beautiful flower.
There was Joe, the professional football player. Michael, the attorney. Scott, the architect. And Clint…
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking, and the pieces finally clunked into place.
“Oh, Clint. The jeweler,” I said. “He’s the one who gave you-”
“The watch. Exactly. If I don’t wear it, he’s going to notice. And if he notices, he’s going to ask why.”
“And you’re going to tell him that you left it at your cooking class.”
“Practical as always, Annie.” As ifpractical were a dirty word, she tsk-tsked away the very idea. “If I don’t wear it, Clint is going to think that I don’t care.”
I thought back to the conversation we’d had only a few days before, the one in which Eve complained about everything from Clint’s choice of aftershave to Clint’s decision to trade in his BMW roadster for a sedate and sensible Volvo.
“You don’t care,” I reminded her.
Eve squealed a laugh. “Of course I don’t! But there are better ways to deliver the news. No, no. I could never be that cruel. Not to Clint. After all, the shine may be off our relationship, but the boy does have exquisite taste in jewelry.”
Eve wheeled left at the next street, ducked into the nearest driveway, and turned around. Before I could protest further, we were headed back toward Clarendon.
Fortunately, it was a Monday night, and the streets weren’t as crowded as they can be later in the week. Between that and the fact that it was after nine and most of the stores in the area were closed, traffic was pretty light. We cruised past the Cheesecake Factory, where there was still a line outside waiting to get in, and the Whole Foods Market that sold the yogurt that I loved so much. We turned left at the cross street closest to the shop. It must have been our lucky day (or night), because we found a place to park within sight of Très Bonne Cuisine’s back door.
When we got out of the car, the first thing we heard was a woman’s voice raised in anger.
“No! I will not listen. I will not change my mind. You know what I want.”
“That’s Beyla.” I recognized the voice and the accent that belonged to the beautiful, dark-haired woman in our class. And in the glow of the security light near the shop’s back door, I saw her, too. She was facing off against a man. He was farther from the light, and all I could see was a hulking silhouette. Though he kept his voice down and I couldn’t make out what he said, there was no mistaking the anger in his voice when he replied.
“You say this? To me!” Beyla shot back. She raised her chin, and when she snarled, I could see her teeth glint in the light. “I’ll kill you, Drago. I swear it on the souls of my ancestors.”
Apparently, Drago wasn’t buying any of this, and just to prove it, he closed in on Beyla. He stepped into the circle of light, and for the first time, I saw his face.
Eve had come around to my side of the car, and I grabbed her arm, automatically drawing her into the protection of the shadow of a nearby tree. “It’s the big guy,” I hissed. “The one who almost knocked me out cold when we got to class!”
“Yeah, and he’s even more pissed than Beyla.” Eve leaned forward, trying to hear and see more. “What do you suppose they’re fighting about?”
“Something tells me it’s none of our business.” I tugged her toward the front of the shop. “I think we should get out of here.”
“And miss all the fun?” Eve shrugged out of my grasp. “I’ll bet they were lovers in the Old Country. You know, one of those family feud things. Forbidden pleasure and all that.”
I heard Drago’s voice again and saw him pull back his shoulders. He was a big guy. Call me a wimp but if I had I been in Beyla’s position, I would have been intimidated. She looked more defiant than ever. I could practically feel the bad blood between them all the way over where we were.
“That doesn’t look like love to me,” I told Eve. “Think we should call the police?”
“Don’t be silly! And tell them what? That a man we never met and a woman we barely know are having an argument about something we don’t know anything about? The police have better things to do.”
No doubt, they did. But I couldn’t help but worry. “She said she was going to kill him.”
“And you know she didn’t mean it. Not like that.”
“Then maybe we should go into the shop and tell Monsieur Lavoie what’s going on by his back door.” I latched onto Eve’s arm, and when she didn’t budge, I played my trump card. “If we don’t hurry, the store will be locked up, and you won’t be able to get your watch.”
She recognized the ploy for what it was and made a face. “Party pooper.”
“No, that would be you if you show up tomorrow at lunch with Clint without your watch,” I reminded her.
She knew I was right, even if she didn’t like it. Eve took one more look toward the verbal knock-down-drag-out going on by the back door and followed me to the shop.
There was a light on inside, and we could see Monsieur over near the front counter. But we had to knock twice before he looked our way, and another time to get him to open the door a crack.
“Yes, yes?” he asked. He peeked around the edge of the door. “What is wrong? What is it you want?”
I was all set to tell him about Drago and Beyla, but Eve didn’t give me a chance.
“Well, maybe I just wanted another look at your smiling face, sugar!” Eve slipped inside the store. I had no choice but to follow or end up standing out on the sidewalk by myself. “What we really want is just to pop upstairs.” She displayed her empty wrist. “My watch,” she said with a little pout. “And I was just devastated when I realized it was gone. You wouldn’t make a poor girl spend the whole night without her very favorite piece of jewelry, now would you?”
Something told me that Monsieur Lavoie was tempted to say he would do just that.
Except that he seemed to have something else on his mind. He glanced toward the front counter where he had a tall spice jar opened, along with a measuring cup, a funnel, and a few smaller jars.
“Yes, yes, you must get your watch.” One hand on each of our backs, he hurried us over to the door that led to the cooking school. “Jim is gone. Everything is cleaned up for the night. I must leave soon. But if you hurry…”
We did. A couple seconds later, we were at the top of the stairs.
With no light except for the glow of the streetlights outside, the room looked like a negative of itself. The stainless steel stoves still glinted, but all the golden warmth was lost in heavy shadows.
Automatically, I felt along the wall. “I don’t know where the light switch is.” Don’t ask me why, but I was whispering. Must have had something to do with the after-hours atmosphere and the dark. “How are we going to-”
“Don’t you worry. I told you I know exactly where I left the watch.” Eve stepped into the classroom. “I’ll just-ow!” I saw her stoop to rub her knee. “Forgot that bench was in the front of the room.”
“And I forgot this.” I felt around inside my purse for the pint-size flashlight I always carried with me. I flicked it on and arced the beam around the room. “Better?”
We had our bearings now, and flashlight in hand, I led the way toward the door in the mural of the Café Jacques. On the other side of it was a kitchen that included the sinks where we’d cleaned up our saucepans and soup bowls.
“You’re amazing, Annie. Honestly.” Eve’s voice came out of the dark behind me. “What else do you have in that purse of yours?”
“Antacids. Gum. Pain relievers-aspirin and ibuprofen.” I went through the list. I don’t know why. Even though we had Monsieur Lavoie’s permission, something about being in the school alone after closing made me nervous, and reciting the familiar litany calmed my nerves. “Paper and a pen. My address book. A roll of quarters, just in case.” I stopped at the door and Eve caught up.
Shaking her head, she pushed open the door. “Like I said, amazing. Have I ever mentioned that? Next time I need to pack for a long trip, you’re the first person I’m going to call.”
It was a threat, not a promise. Every time Eve went out of town-anywhere-she called me to help her pack. It was not a pretty thing, stuffing seven days’ worth of outfits into a bag she was taking for a two-day trip. Still, I always managed to make it work.
Eve headed into the kitchen. I aimed the light in the right direction, and soon after, I heard her satisfied purr. “Ah, here it is! Right where I thought I left it.” In the glow of the flashlight, I saw Eve slip the watch on her arm. She checked the time. “Nine twenty-five already. Can you believe it? The evening went so fast.”
One person’sfast is another’sinterminable. I tried not to think about it or the fact that I had to show up here tomorrow and risk embarrassing myself again. Jim had promised to send us an e-mail tonight for tomorrow’s class: appetizers. I wondered if chips and dip counted.
“Ready?” Eve was already back at the door, and we made our way across the classroom. “We can stop for coffee if you’re in the mood.”
I remembered what she’d said about the time and shook my head. “This late? I’ll never sleep. And I have to get to work early tomorrow.”
There was just enough light coming through the front window for me to see Eve grin. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
We weren’t upstairs that long, but when we got back downstairs to the shop, all but the front window lights were off, and there was no sign of Monsieur Lavoie. For one panicked moment, I thought we’d been locked in. I was already formulating what I’d say to my head teller the next morning to explain why I was late when we heard a noise near the back door.
I peeked outside. Beyla and the man she called Drago were gone. The only one around was Monsieur Lavoie. I was just in time to see him toss something in the Dumpster near the door.
He saw me and just about jumped out of his skin. “Oh! You are done. Already!” He tried for a smile that wasn’t exactly convincing, then waved us outside. “We will lock the door behind you, yes? You have what you were looking for?”
Eve held up her arm, displaying the watch.
“Very good. Then we are ready to say good night, no?” He backed away from the Dumpster, distancing himself from whatever he’d been doing. “I will see you both tomorrow, yes?”
Even before we had a chance to answer, he locked the door and scampered into the shadows.
“Well, that was odd.” I peered into the dark, but the chef had disappeared around the side of the building. In fact, the only sound I heard was that of a car door slamming and an engine starting up. I had no doubt it was Monsieur Lavoie hightailing it out of there.
“Maybe he’s got a hot date.” Eve laughed. “Wish I did. We could head over to that bar on Wilson and see who’s there tonight.”
“Or not.” We stepped out of the circle of light thrown by the security lamp near the back door and into the shadows, heading in the opposite direction from Monsieur Lavoie. “Early morning tomorrow, remember? We’re getting ready for the yearly audit and-”
The rest of my words dissolved in a little squeal of surprise when I tripped over something.
Something big.
I regained my footing and looked over to where Eve had stopped to see what was wrong. She’d been walking on my right, and whatever I stumbled over, she skirted without incident.
I spun around, squinting through the darkness to make out what I had run into. But all that I could see was something that look like a black garbage bag lying right in what had been my path.
“Except it’s too big to be a garbage bag,” I mumbled.
“Huh?” Eve came a couple steps closer. “What are you talking about, Annie? Of course it’s a garbage bag. What else could it-”
My flashlight was still at the top of my bag. I dragged it out and flicked it on.
I slid the beam along the hulking shape and saw that what I’d mistaken for a black trash bag was really a black coat. Leather.
Drago was still inside it. He was sprawled on the pavement, one hand clutching at his chest. His face was pale, covered with sweat, and contorted with pain.