A Field Guide to Deception (30 page)

Simon used both hands and the heaviest wooden spoon to stir the chocolate and butterscotch chips with the coconut and pecans in the bowl. His mother stood beside him, her hand on his back, and encouraged him. He had been the only one to touch the ingredients for seven-layer bars; he would make dessert by himself.

“OK, now we're going to layer everything from the bowl onto the baking pan, just like we did with the graham crackers and butter and sweetened condensed milk. Let me hold the bowl, and you can scoop everything out.”

He let her take the bowl, his arms stretched beside hers, as though he might be forced to snatch it back if she tried, instead, to pour the contents from the bowl.

“It smells yummy,” he said.

“Oh, it does. You've done a beautiful job.”

He rested his hand on her forearm, and then dug the mixture out, spreading it, as she advised, as evenly as possible over the previous layers. His first dessert, and he had made it for his mother and Liv, and Bailey and Drake, for their dinner party. A baker, officially, like Bailey. He'd have a chef's coat with his name in swirls above the pocket too.

“The oven's hot, honey, so I'll put the pan in.”

He stood back, sighed deeply, watched his dessert slide into the oven.

“The light on, please,” he said, pointing to the stove.

Claire turned the oven light on, and they peered in, warmed by the stove, by this accomplishment.

Liv made a shredded potato casserole, and a sweet potato soup to have with the crab. Claire was responsible for the crab, the seasonings for the table, and glazing the carrots.

It had snowed all day, thick and admirably suited to packing snowballs. Simon and Liv and Claire had had a war in the side yard to celebrate the snowman they'd spent an hour rolling, stacking, and dressing. Simon, adept at feigning injury to draw his victim close, and then whitewashing snow down the back of her shirt, had them all soggy, and hysterical.

In his hurry to let them in, when he heard Bailey and Drake stomping their boots on the deck, Simon slammed headlong into the door. Claire picked up the crying child, and ushered them in.

“Oh, Simon,” Bailey said, taking the boy from his mother, after she'd handed her coat, hat and gloves to Liv. “We've brought you something to cheer you right up. You'll love it. Do you want your present?”

“Yes,” he sobbed.

Drake set a handled Sesame Street bag that might well have been heavier than Simon on the kitchen table. His crying forgotten, he dropped from Bailey's arms, and stood before the bag, admiring it far too long for Bailey's taste.

“Chop-chop, open the present.”

“Chop-chop-chop,” he laughed. There were three boxes in the bag: the Collapsing Sodor Suspension Bridge; the docks set, complete with Cranky the Crane; and the Load and Sort Recycling Center. They'd spent something like $400.

“What have you done?” Claire said, looking over his shoulder. “Are you kidding me?”

“I'm leaving soon,” Drake said. “So I had to give my present before Christmas.”

“And the rest of it?” Claire asked.

“I refuse to make excuses,” Bailey said. “I meant to spoil him. Do you want to set them up, Simon? Preferably in the great room by the
fire, my toes are numb.”

“Yes,” he said, hefting the bag, “it's winter. It's cold.”

She smirked at Claire. “The great room OK, matron?”

“I'm going to buy your first child a drum kit—cymbals and everything.”

Drake handed Claire two bottles of wine. “Presents for the rest of us.”

“Drake,” Liv said, “those boots are mythic.”

The boots were black leather and reached to the hem of her fitted black skirt. She wore an emerald green sweater, and a silver choker. Arms crossed, she leaned against the kitchen counter, and winked at Liv. “This is a fabulous kitchen. Put me to work.”

“Simon and Bailey need engineering assistance,” Liv said.

“Then I'd better take your place at the stove.”

“Go play,” Liv instructed.

After Drake followed Bailey and Simon, Claire rounded on Liv. “You don't have anything to say about the gifts of the Magi? You approve, I suppose. What's next, a car and driver?”

“He's already got a couple of those,” Liv said. “Now a motorized scooter, that'd be a novelty.” She'd opened the wine bottles to facilitate breathing, and took a minute now to rub Claire's shoulders, before returning to the stove.

“I like your last argument, with the massaging,” Claire said. “You should develop it a little.”

“Hold that thought.”

Bailey and Drake studied the back of the box, to figure out exactly how the pieces fitted together. On the floor, skirts hiked up, they poured over the diagrams. Simon had memorized these sets from the catalogs months ago. While they conferred, he built the dock set, incorporating the suspension bridge and the recycling center into the track. Singing to himself, as he puzzled these bright, new pieces.

He'd run to his room and brought back Edward, Toby, and several
freight cars before they'd quite finished their debate.

“Look at you, Simon,” Liv said from the threshold. “All set for a tragedy on that collapsing bridge.”

He kept his head down, scooted around the track, narrating for the engines.

“I told you the bridge would fit,” Drake said, sliding her glasses back on and kneeling for a closer inspection.

“Show off,” Bailey said to Simon.

Claire called them all to dinner, and though Simon protested, declaring that he wasn't hungry, he was brought summarily to the table with tears on his cheeks, S.C.Ruffey stowed in one pocket, and the recycling truck in another.

“To opportunity,” Drake said, raising her glass.

“Cheers!” Simon hollered, startling her with his vigor, and his raised glass of milk. Drake toasted him, and the others followed.

“I love presents,” he told them. “I don't want to eat. I want to play.”

Bailey glanced at Claire. “Simon, do you want butter for your crab?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed.

“When do you leave for Rome?” Liv asked Drake, spooning soup from the tureen into each of their bowls.

“The redeye in ten days.”

“Are you excited?”

“Absolutely. Do you have requests?”

“Yes,” Bailey said. “I want to come too.”

“Could the café spare you?” Drake asked, looking pointedly at Claire.

“No,” Claire said.

“Then I want a photo of that lion's mouth that Gregory Peck stuck his hand into.”

“I loved
Roman Holiday
,” Claire said. “We should all go to Rome.”

“Next year,” Liv said.

“Next year,” Drake said, “I'm going to Vienna and Prague on summer
tours.”

“My god,” Bailey said, wiping Simon's hands with her napkin, “the way you live.”

“I want to play trains,” Simon told them. “I don't want to eat.”

“Simon,” Claire said.

He pushed his plate away, and scowled at her.

“Simon made the dessert,” Liv said.

“What are we having, Simon?” Drake asked.

He growled to the tablecloth, “Seven-layer bars.”

“I know they'll be delicious,” Drake said, “since you're Bailey's apprentice.”

He looked interested.

“Do you know what an apprentice is?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“You're my assistant,” Bailey said. “You're my go-to guy.”

“Go-to guy,” he whispered.

“I'm going to eat every bite of my dinner,” she said, “so that I can enjoy your dessert.”

He watched them for a while, and then, tentatively, soaked some of the crabmeat his mother had given him in butter, and devoured it. Before long, he was asking for more, and they helped him dig meat from the body, and pinched him with the warlike claws.

“This soup,” Claire said to Liv, “is delicious. Clearly, you should be cooking more.”

“It's all really tasty,” Drake said. “I've missed you, Liv, at the house. It's more house than it ever was, and that much emptier.”

“I miss you too. And your espresso machine.”

“Harsh,” Drake laughed. “Have you started your next project?”

“Monday.”

“What will you do, Liv?” Bailey asked.

“Kitchen cabinets for some apartments downtown, and then I'm finishing a basement for a pregnant couple on the hill.”

“All done,” Simon said. He knelt on his chair now, and had finished his own crab, and taken the rest of Bailey's as well.

“Have some potatoes,” Claire said.

“I don't want potatoes. I want to play trains.”

“Two bites,” she said.

He crammed two forkfuls into his mouth, slipped under the table, and away.

“I get it,” Bailey said, “lavish presents after dinner.”

“That's what you've learned?” Claire teased.

“I'm a quick study, Claire.”

“Oh,” Drake said, “that reminds me. I'm throwing a New Year's Eve party, and I'd like Fresh Baked to cater it. What do you two think?”

“Won't you be in Italy for New Year's?” Liv asked.

“No, we're back on the 30
^th
,” Drake said. She looked at Claire and Bailey. “What do you think?”

“We'd planned to close the café for New Year's Eve, and Day,” Claire said. “How about it, Bailey, are you interested?”

“We'd use your kitchen?” Bailey asked Drake.

“Whatever's easiest. And we'd put everything out on the dining room table, so we wouldn't need anyone to serve.”

“I like it,” Bailey said. “I'm all for it.”

Bailey and Liv cleared the table, and made coffee to have with dessert, while Claire showed Drake through the house. Drake, a professional appreciator, was a pleasure to guide.

“You've chosen startling colors,” Drake said, using her glasses as a pointer to emphasize the tour's particular pleasures. “Remarkable.”

She stood in the bathroom Liv had remodeled, and ran her hand over the tile reverently. “Doesn't he do the most marvelous work? Sometimes I stand in the attic bathroom and it's like looking at a fresco, I'm just mesmerized by the detail, and the depth. He's the most nondescript guy on the planet, but he can do this.”

“I fell in love with Liv because of the kitchen tile.”

“Do you know, I get that, I really do.”

When Bailey knelt beside Simon, her loose hair brushed against
his back and shoulder. “I want to be Gordon,” she said. “Where's Gordon?”