Cook the Books (17 page)

At first, Georgie seemed to be heading directly toward me, but her actual destination was the serving station, where she began fussing with plates and silverware. I figured I’d be able to slip past the potted palm and scoot back to the table without running into her, but just as I began to move, Ellie and her lipsticked mouth showed up, and she began berating her supposed friend.

“You’re such a bitch, do you know that?” Ellie was making no effort to keep her voice down.

Georgie ran a finger over a perfectly waxed eyebrow and stared pointedly at Ellie. “People who read other people’s e-mail have only themselves to blame if they don’t like what they find out. Excuse me. I have guests to attend to.”

Whoa, this was getting interesting.

“Hey, missy!” Ellie blocked Georgie’s path. “I only read Digger’s e- mail after he was dead. I wanted to get in touch with people who cared about him and let them know what had happened to him,” she seethed.

“Yeah, right!” Georgie scoffed. “You were probably reading his e-mail and scanning his text messages even before he died. I bet you’ve been sneaky all along, and you killed Digger yourself out of jealousy! You should’ve known what chefs are like, dummy.”

“Well, I know what you’re like. You’re a slut, Georgie. A total slut!”

“Hey, watch your mouth. I am a very loving and caring person.”

Ellie crossed her arms and glared at her ex-friend. “Loving person? You have some nerve describing yourself like that after what you’ve done. Murderous person is more like it!”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that you’re the one who killed Digger. You were probably hoping that by getting him out of the way, Snacker would get this chef job. Well, congratulations, you stupid bitch! You did it! Happy now?”

“Okay, little Miss Self-Righteous, listen here—”

Before Georgie had time to sling her next insult, a neatly dressed man with a pale purple tie stepped firmly between the two girls. He looked beyond furious but managed a threatening whisper behind a false smile. “Not one more word out of either of you. If we weren’t hopelessly understaffed right now, I’d fire you on the spot! This sort of scene is totally inexcusable. Get back to work immediately!”

Georgie and Ellie both hurried off, appropriately chagrined.

Well, well! So not only was perfect, skinny Georgie doing whatever she was doing with Josh and Snacker, but she’d been fooling around with Digger, too! I usually didn’t mind a little juicy gossip, but I felt sorry for Ellie, who had seemed so committed to her chef. She’d been driven in her determination to help him succeed professionally, and when I’d broken the news of Digger’s death, she’d gone to pieces. But this new information did explain her sudden change in demeanor on the phone the other day. One possibility was that she’d taken Digger’s computer from his apartment and found out about the affair only when she’d read his e- mail. Or, I reasoned, Georgie could be right that Ellie had in fact known about the relationship earlier and had taken the computer to destroy the evidence of her possible motive. Could either of these young women really have killed Digger? I shuddered.

I left the all-too-familiar potted-plant area and returned to the table. My prolonged absence had again gone so totally unnoticed that I was beginning to develop a third- wheel complex. Adrianna and Kyle, who were discussing the writer’s relationship with his father, barely acknowledged me when I sat down.

“Look, Kyle,” Ade was saying, “your father is a very accomplished and, frankly, awe- inspiring person, so it’s no wonder you feel such pressure to succeed. But this cookbook sounds like it’s coming along wonderfully, and you’re bound to impress him with how hard you’ve worked. You need to look at your accomplishments for what they are, though. Yours. Take pride in what you’ve done.”

Kyle grinned sheepishly. “I guess you’re right. I’ve put my heart and soul into this book. And I’ll admit that I think I’ve really got a knack for this kind of project.”

I refrained from laughing. The truth was that I was the one who had been doing all of the work on this goddamn book! God, what a crap night.

“Exactly.” Adrianna nodded and then touched his arm. “Kyle, even if your father can’t see how talented you are, you can still feel good about yourself.”

As I watched Adrianna put her hand on Kyle, I had to remind myself that she was deeply committed to Owen and that I was seeing nothing more than harmless flirting. In fact, now that I looked at her again, I realized that she really wasn’t flirting at all; rather, she was being motherly.
Awww!
This new side to Adrianna was one that I really loved. Up until the minute Patrick was born, Adrianna had been the least maternal person I’d ever met. But things had changed.

“Oh, good. Dessert!” Ade sat up tall in her chair to get a glimpse of the plates that Georgie was bringing our way.

“I can’t wait to taste that layered chocolate thing I ordered. What was it called, Ade?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t remember, but it did sound good.”

“You’ll have to try some.”

Georgie silently distributed desserts. I held absolutely still as she placed my plate in front of me, lest I involuntarily reach up and scratch her eyes out. When Kyle ordered coffee for the table, Georgie gave a perfunctory nod.

“Chloe, I ordered you a dessert, too,” Kyle said. “Pumpkin cheesecake tarts. Is that okay?”

“Thank you. That sounds delicious.” The three small cheesecakes on my plate had gingersnap crusts and were garnished with melted chocolate. One bite of the pumpkin delights took the edge off my depressed spirit.

Although Ade and Kyle traded bites of his chocolate dish and her chestnut- and-banana-bread pudding, no one asked for a taste of my yummy pumpkin tarts. I wasn’t exactly jealous, but I wasn’t thrilled.

Kyle excused himself to go to the men’s room.

“The guest-of-honor table, I see!” Snacker surprised me from behind by clapping his hands down onto my shoulders.

“Snacker!” It was so good to see him. Although I’d missed Snacker, he was one of the people I’d lost touch with after Josh and I had broken up; it hadn’t felt right to call Josh’s best friend on my own. So, despite tonight’s crummy events, I was glad I’d come just for the chance to see Snacker. His white chef’s coat acted as a foil for his olive skin and dark curly hair. He’d obviously put on a clean coat to make his rounds in the dining room; this coat had no stains at all. He was doing his best to hide his fatigue and stress behind a broad grin and an air of high energy.

“It’s so nice to see you,” I said honestly as I stood and gave him a big hug. “Congratulations.”

He squeezed me tightly and lifted me off my feet. “Hello, Adrianna,” he said politely. Snacker and Adrianna maintained a cordial relationship for my sake, but because of their ill-timed smooch sessions, each tried to stay out of the other’s way.

“Hello, Snacker,” Ade said with as much warmth as she could muster.

Snacker lowered me to the floor, put his hands on his hips, and checked out our desserts. “How was everything? I know we’ve still got some kinks to work out.”

“Everything was outstanding,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course, but I’d never have told Snacker about the snags in the service or the wavering quality of the food.

“Christ, I hardly had any notice about coming on as the executive chef. Damn shame about Digger. I still can’t believe it. I probably wouldn’t even have taken the job, but my girlfriend really wanted me to accept. Have you met Georgie?”

I nodded. “Um, yes. She seems . . . very . . . very nice.” If by
very nice
I meant that she was sleeping with most of the city.

“Yeah, well, she wants us to move in together, and I need the money, so I went ahead and took the job. Thank God for Josh, though. Tonight would’ve been a royal disaster if he hadn’t stepped in and helped out in the kitchen.”

“You’d never know there’d been problems. Honestly, it was a great meal,” Ade said.

“I hate to run, but I’m supposed to walk around the dining room and schmooze everyone.” Snacker leaned down to give me another hug and whispered in my ear. “Chloe, have you and Josh talked?”

I nodded weakly. “Sort of. There’s no point.”

“Yes, there is. Don’t give up yet.” He squeezed my arm and then left to finish his executive-chef table duties.

“Chloe? Are you okay?” Ade asked, concerned.

I shrugged. “I guess so.” I quickly filled her in on what I’d seen and overheard.

Ade’s jaw dropped open. “Josh and Georgie?”

“It seems so,” I said morosely.

“And Digger and Georgie.”

“It seems so, too.”

“God, what a whore.”

“That’s about what Ellie said.”

“Good for her. She should be pissed!”

“Maybe she was too pissed. Maybe Ellie offed her boyfriend for cheating on her with her best friend. Or maybe Georgie killed Digger to get Snacker the job. She got close to Digger so she could talk him out of the job or have access to his house and burn it down.”

“Good God. What the hell is going on with everybody? It seems like everyone is going crazy.”

“I know,” I said, now halfheartedly eating my dessert. “At the rate things are going, I could be next.”

SATURDAY
morning found me nursing a restaurant-opening hangover, not from alcohol, but from emotional overload. To avoid dealing with anything that had happened the previous night, I pumped myself full of coffee and got deliberately lost in the cookbook. It was much easier to focus on page-number styles, recipe formats, and chapter titles than on Josh’s fling with Georgie. I plowed through my notes, wrote speedily, and by mid-afternoon had e-mailed Kyle an outline of the book, a draft of the chapter about appetizers, and a handful of recipes. I recorded the number of hours I’d worked and submitted those, too.

I took a long steaming-hot bath and distractedly pumiced my feet so overzealously that I doubted whether I’d be able to walk comfortably for a week; I had removed most of the skin from the soles and heels. I was a wrinkled prune when I finally I got out, wrapped myself in a thick robe, and put on heavy socks. Kyle called as I was running a comb through my knotted hair.

“I just read through everything you sent, Chloe, and it’s fabulous. Really good work,” he complimented me.

“Thank you,” I said, pleased that he could see how hard I had worked.

“Did you have a good time last night?”

“Yes,” I lied. “Restaurant openings are always so intense. You can feel the energy in the air.”

“I thought that the food was fantastic and the company even better.”

“You and Adrianna get along well, huh?”

“She’s obviously a good friend. I can see why you two are so close. It was helpful to talk to her about my father. She really seemed to get how demanding he is.”

So much for the thousands of dollars being spent on my social work degree! Maybe I just needed to have a baby, and then I’d magically become a better listener. But truthfully, I was glad that Kyle appreciated Adrianna. Typically, women envied her looks and didn’t see beyond her beauty, and men were so dazzled by her appearance that they couldn’t see her as a friend.

“Anyway,” Kyle continued, “my father is here again, and he’d like to go over what there is of the book so far, mostly so that he can write his introduction. You know, ‘I’m Hank Boucher, famous chef, everyone loves me, blah, blah, blah.’ I’ll give him what I have so far. That should be enough to get him going.”

While I understood that the effort I was putting into the cookbook was simply considered “work for hire,” it was increasingly clear to me that I was the only one actually writing anything! Yes, work for hire meant that I was paid for my time and owned no legal rights to the book. Still, if the Boucher boys wanted to be fair, they might consider giving me coauthor status. Kyle, however, probably had no power to make decisions about the book; I’d have to go straight to the top.

“Kyle, I have a thought,” I said casually. “Why don’t you bring your father by for dinner tomorrow evening? I can make some of the dishes from the book. I’d love to spend some time with him. Maybe it would help to give me a better feel for the book as a whole.”

“Chloe, I really don’t want to subject you to an entire evening with my father. Besides, you don’t want to cook for the man. Trust me.”

The more I thought about the possibility of being a coauthor, the more determined I was to lure Chef Boucher to my condo. “We’ll compromise. How about just appetizers and drinks? I’ll have everything ready when you get here. It’ll just be a quick pop-in visit.”

Kyle paused. “Okay. If you insist.”

“Besides, he should taste what’s going to be in the book, don’t you think?”

“You’re probably right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s picky. He’ll tear apart anything he doesn’t love, so I hope you’re thick-skinned.”

“I’ll wear a suit of armor,” I said. “Don’t worry about anything.”

I hung up and began making a shopping list. I was happy to keep busy, and busy I’d be: preparing appetizers for Hank Boucher would be a challenge, but if I wanted a shot at co-authorship, I’d better not screw up.

When the list was done, I called Adrianna in the hope of finding yet another way to occupy myself, but she didn’t pick up, and I figured she might be squeezing in a nap. I hopped online and tried to waste some time. Perez Hilton’s gossip blog featured shots of Daniel Craig emerging from the ocean, Miley Cyrus giving her usual stupid peace sign, and Brad Pitt surrounded by his eight million children. I clicked on my bookmarks and went to the Desperate Chefs’ Wives blog. I loved the site, which I’d visited regularly until Josh had ditched me for the Hawaii sun. The young woman who ran the blog was married to a chef and posted all sorts of funny stories about life with him. She wrote about watching
Top Chef
with her husband, she complained about how crummy his schedule was, she posted restaurant reviews, and she dropped lots of general tidbits about life with a chef. I especially enjoyed the blogs that she titled Chef Mumbles, which were about her husband’s habit of talking in his sleep. Even when he was zonked out, his mind stayed on his work: “It’s for the tasting menu. For Neil Patrick Harris,” he’d say in his sleep, and “I need dill and salsify.” He liked to engage his sleeping wife in conversation, too. “Is your station ready?” he once asked, to which his awakened wife begrudgingly replied that, yes, it was. “No. It’s not,” the chef responded before retreating back into silent sleep. In addition to mumbling, her husband sometimes hopped out of bed in the middle of the night, put on his chef pants, got back under the covers, and slept for another three hours.