Simmer Down (16 page)

Obligatory or not, my steak was phenomenal. The tangy taste of the Stilton potato cake worked beautifully with the peppery seared beef. The baby vegetables were still slightly crunchy and full of flavor. When Doug fed me a bite of the roasted vegetable Wellington, I nearly groaned with delight: the pastry was light and crisp, the vegetable filling was delectable, and the red pepper and balsamic sauces were heaven. Now I was really feeling better about Josh; this food was like make-up sex.

Another glass of wine later, and we had all cleaned our plates. I was totally stuffed, but had I been in the privacy of my own home, I’d have picked up my plate and licked it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cram a dessert into my stomach, but there was no way I was going to miss out on the banana creation, which I knew from Josh consisted of caramelized banana slices served with banana ice cream and topped with a rum sauce and banana chantilly.

Josh and a server brought out our desserts.

“I’m sorry,” my chef whispered in my ear. “I’ve been an asshole. I’m just really edgy tonight with the opening. Snacker talked me out of my mood, but I don’t like the thought of you with another guy.”

I looked up at him and smiled. Yay! He was over it!

“But,” he added, “what were you doing out with Sean last night?”

Okay, he wasn’t quite over it.

“Sean called me and asked me to meet him, so I did. And what about you? Were you at Hannah’s place last night cooking for her?”

“What are you talking about?” Josh looked at me, stunned. “I didn’t cook anything for Hannah. I was busting my ass here all night.”

My family was even more interested in this interchange than in the food being served. To the best of my recollection, this collective distraction from food was completely unprecedented. A family first! And an unwelcome one, of course. Josh and I needed to continue our discussion away from the table and, especially, away from my parents.

“Josh,” I said, “can you come talk to me for a few minutes? Somewhere else. Not here.”

He nodded. “Yeah, things are calming down in the kitchen. Snacker’s taking another break, but it’s mostly dessert orders that are in, and the rest of the guys can handle that. We can go to my office.” Heather’s face sank with disappointment that she wasn’t going to witness a fight between Josh and me.

Adrianna stood up with us to use the ladies’ room again. “That wine is just running through me,” she explained, although I was pretty sure I’d consumed most of her glass.

I followed Josh through the maze of full tables. At least he was holding my hand.

“Josh, it’s no use pretending nothing is up with Hannah, because I saw the shopping list you gave her. It wasn’t just that it was your kind of food—it was in
your
handwriting. She made me pick her up from the police station the other day and then forced me to chauffeur her around town to shop for the ingredients for the dinner
you
were making her.”

Josh stopped so abruptly that I nearly smashed into him. He turned around to face me. “Yes, I did write out a shopping list for her. The other night at the gallery, Hannah told me that she’d changed, that she was interested in food and cooking, and that she wanted to make a wonderful dinner for some guy. She asked me for suggestions, and then she had me write out everything she needed. So I did. If she told you I was cooking for her, she was just screwing with you. One of the many reasons she and I are no longer together. Okay?” He resumed walking, pulling me along and shaking his head in obvious disbelief at how gullible I was.

As we neared Barry, Sarka, and Dora’s table, Josh stopped to speak to a waitress. Standing there waiting for him, I couldn’t help eavesdropping. Dora was speaking rather loudly to Barry and Sarka. To my dismay, I overhead her describing how she’d gotten rid of Oliver’s pets. “If you can even call hermit crabs pets!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know why he fussed over them so much. He had an enormous fish tank filled with sand for four of those disgusting, slimy crabs! Can you imagine? I just flushed them down the toilet last night. Good riddance!”

I held Josh’s hand tightly. As unlovable as Ken had at first seemed, he was growing on me, and I was appalled that anyone would simply send a living animal off to the city sewer system. The same idea had admittedly occurred to me when I’d first seen Ken, but I wouldn’t actually have done it! How could Dora so easily have flushed away Oliver’s beloved pets? She must be totally heartless. Did her violence against small creatures mean that she was capable of violence on a larger, say Oliver-sized, scale?

I looked away from Dora, whom I now saw as a ruthless crab-killer…and maybe more. At another nearby table were Naomi and Eliot. The trendy owner of a trendy gallery, Eliot had obviously taken pity on Naomi. I felt touched by his kindness in giving my wallflower supervisor a night on the town, and not just any night, either, but New Year’s Eve. Because of Naomi’s granola-based social skills, it seemed particularly generous of him to put up with her on a holiday.

I hurried past them before they noticed me.

I looked away from the ill-matched couple only to catch a glimpse of Sean and Hannah, who were cozily seated at a table for two. Aha!
That’s
who Hannah was cooking for! Those two had met at the Food for Thought and must have hit it off. In other words, Hannah had somehow gotten her claws into poor, trusting Sean. Knowing Sean as I did, I suddenly realized that after telling me about the incident he’d witnessed at the gallery between Oliver and Hannah, he must have gone to Hannah and believed whatever self-serving explanation she’d given him. I couldn’t imagine, however, why Hannah had picked Simmer as the place the two of them would celebrate New Year’s Eve. It had been Hannah, I felt certain, who’d made the selection. What could she possibly have said?
Hey, Sean, let’s go to my ex-boyfriend’s new restaurant, where we can also see your ex-girlfriend and, with a little luck, her entire family!

There was something highly disturbing about our two exes hooking up, but as far as I was concerned, the two of them were welcome to each other, especially if my ex would keep Josh’s ex away from Josh from now on. As tempted as I was to stop at their table with Josh and spit out a witty, biting comment, I realized that it would be a mistake to give Hannah any kind of attention. Besides, although the general concept of spitting out a witty, biting remark felt wonderful, I wasn’t able to translate the idea into particular words.

We got to Josh’s office, which was no bigger than a closet but had two doors, one that opened inward from the kitchen, the other that opened inward from the dining room, both propped open to allow Josh to keep an eye on things. The combination of the two doors sticking into the tiny room, two chairs, and Josh’s desk left almost no room for the two of us. I crammed myself into one of the chairs and looked at Josh, who stood in the one square foot of floor space left.

I said, “Look, the only reason I went to Eclipse last night with Sean was because he called and said he really needed my advice on something, and I didn’t see any reason to say no to him. But more than that, I wanted the chance to poke around in one of the Full Moon Group’s restaurants.”

“Why? What do you care about that for?” Josh looked totally irritated with me.

“I found out that Oliver had been harassing female employees, and I wanted to see if I could find out if anyone else was doing the same thing. There’s such a thing as an atmosphere of harassment. I wanted to see whether there was any sign of that. But when I met Sean, he told me that he’d seen Oliver forcing himself on Hannah at the art gallery the other night.”

“What? That’s horrible.”

“The thing is, when Hannah was trying to fend off this creep, Oliver, she must have spilled her disgusting snap peas on him. That’s why the police questioned her all night. They must have found the green powder on his body and suspected her of killing him. Sean wanted to know if I thought he should tell the police about what he’d seen.”

“What did you tell him?” Josh asked.

“I told him no. And the reason I told him that is because Hannah didn’t kill Oliver. Naomi did.”

“N
O
, you’re wrong. Naomi wouldn’t kill anyone.” Josh let out a deep sigh and looked away from me. “Gavin did it.”

“Gavin? Josh, listen to me. Hannah had been calling the Boston Organization. She wanted help because Oliver had been harassing her on a regular basis, and Hannah was getting desperate. You know how overinvested Naomi gets in her work, so Naomi took it upon herself to solve the problem. She whacked him over the head with your poor Robocoupe. Then, like most criminals supposedly do, she even returned to the scene of the crime on the pretext of taking Eliot a thank-you present. And now she’s going to rot in prison!”

Josh stared at me confused. “I guess I could see why she’d give Eliot something, but it’s not as if a Full Moon partner needs anything. They’re all loaded,” he scoffed.

“Barry and Oliver are the partners. Were the partners.”

Josh sighed. “Chloe, a
group
is not just two people. Didn’t you just finish a class on group therapy? Wasn’t Doug out there the teaching assistant in that class?”

Like I needed yet someone else pointing out my terrible performance in school! “Hey, I tried very hard in that class, but the professor had the personality of a rock, and the textbook was about as scintillating as the fine print that came with my credit card.”

“Well, anyhow, the Full Moon Group is a
group
. Eliot stays out of the actual running of the business, but he’s a silent partner, meaning he contributes and makes money. It’s no secret. You just didn’t happen to know it. Probably a lot of people don’t know about it, actually, because he’s pretty low key about being a partner, but he and I were talking about it the other night at his gallery. I don’t think Gavin realizes it either, now that I think about it. Eliot was too polite to say anything when Gavin was bragging about beating them out for this location.” He paused. “Speak of the devil…” Josh waved at someone.

I looked out into the dining room to see Eliot and Naomi, who were passing by the office door, hand in hand.

“Oh, Josh. Nice to see you again.” Eliot stopped and stuck his head in the office. “Wonderful, wonderful meal. Everything was exceptional,” he said. “Gavin invited us in to take a peek at the kitchen. Hope you don’t mind? Naomi said she’s never seen a professional kitchen.”

“Sure, go ahead. Don’t mind the craziness going on,” Josh said, waving them into the office. “You can cut through here.”

Naomi beamed at me. “Hi, Chloe. Happy New Year’s!” She winked at me before sliding past us and through the open door to the kitchen.

“Josh, do you know what you just did?’ I whispered. “If it’s no secret that Eliot is a Full Moon partner, then Naomi must know about that from Hannah. Josh, she talked to Hannah all the time! And now Naomi is cozying up to Eliot with the intention of murdering him, too!”

Suddenly panicked, I stood up and spoke softly. “She’s going to kill Eliot. She killed Oliver at the back of the gallery with a heavy kitchen appliance, and now she’s going to kill Eliot at the back of this restaurant with a similar weapon. Josh, your kitchen is full of murder weapons! She’s got some sort of crazy repetition compulsion, and you’ve sent her into a room full of lethal appliances! Come on!” I grabbed a stunned Josh by the hand and pulled him into the kitchen.

“No, you’re acting crazy,” Josh informed me. “You need to listen to me!”

I scanned the kitchen, but Eliot and Naomi were nowhere to be seen. I did see Isabelle, though, in a corner of the room. The shy girl I’d met the other day looked positively radiant. She was sweaty and exhausted, but she had clearly found her calling in the kitchen.

I dragged Josh behind me. “Isabelle.”

“Oh, Chloe,” she gushed. “I love it here. You can’t believe how much work this is and how nuts it got in here, but I love it. And Chef has been taking care of me.” I was pretty sure I saw a slight blush creep up her cheeks. I couldn’t blame her for having a crush on Josh.

“Good, I’m so happy for you. Listen, have you seen a woman with crazy braids and a man with big eyes come through here?”

“Yeah, I did. They just went in there.” Isabelle pointed to one of the walk-ins, as Josh called them, meaning walk-in refrigerators and freezers the size of small rooms.

“Quick! Grab something!” I instructed Josh.

“Like what?”

“Anything! Here.” I handed him an oversized metal soup ladle. “I’ll open the door, and then you go in and hit her on the head with that.”

Josh started to laugh. “You want me to hit your supervisor on the head with a ladle?”

“She’s probably killing him right now. Go!” I reached for the handle of the walk-in, pulled open the heavy door, and pushed my brave chef in ahead of me.

The scene was just what I’d feared: she was killing again! Specifically, Naomi had Eliot pinned against a wall, and, vampire fashion, appeared to be biting him.

“Stop it!” I screamed.

Naomi spun around, saw the two of us, and screamed right back at us. Since Josh had failed to raise the ladle in a protective manner, I steadied myself on my feet in preparation for Naomi’s attack.

Eliot stumbled forward, his head hanging low. I looked him over for wounds, blood, or other signs of assault but saw none.

“This is so embarrassing,” he said. “We shouldn’t be using your storage area like it’s the backseat of a car. I really apologize.” Eliot adjusted his shirt, which had slipped out of his waistband.

Oh, my God. We’d walked in on Naomi mauling Eliot, all right! Just not mauling him in the manner I’d expected. Gross. It took me a few seconds to process the information that Naomi was not attempting to murder Eliot and was not a lesbian. I’m not sure which realization was more shocking.

“Eliot and I met in a yoga class a few months ago,” Naomi explained, brushing her braids back from her face. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, Chloe, but the relationship is sort of new and, well, anyhow…Chloe, I have something to share. Eliot is now the man in my life.” She put her arm around his waist and leaned into him.

Eliot cleared his throat. “When Food for Thought came around, obviously I suggested that Naomi and I pair up, but we were trying to keep up professional appearances.”

“Eliot’s gallery was a very desirable spot,” Naomi said. “We felt that the larger, more powerful agencies might be so resentful that there’d be accusations of favoritism.”

“So,” Eliot continued, “we didn’t mention our being together to anyone. Now that that’s behind us, I guess there’s no reason to keep this a secret anymore.” He and Naomi smiled at each other, clearly smitten. “Naomi was telling me over dinner that she’d never been behind the scenes at a restaurant, so Gavin said it wouldn’t be a problem if I showed her around. Sorry. I guess we got a little distracted.”

“No problem,” Josh tried to reassure them. “I’m very happy for you two. Since you’re here, why don’t I give you a personal tour?”

The horny couple followed Josh out of the walk-in and, still in a state of shock, I plodded after them. Huh. So either Naomi had committed a one-time murder and was going to give her new love, Eliot, a reprieve from death by small kitchen appliance, or she hadn’t killed Oliver at all.

Josh was showing off a still-new-looking gas stove, complete with eight burners and a flattop grill. When Eliot jumped in to explain the differences between professional and home stoves, Josh took the opportunity to step back and continue our previous conversation.

“See, I told you it wasn’t Naomi. She’s a lust-driven social worker, just like you!” He nudged me and gave an exaggerated wink. “I’m kidding! But seriously, I’m pretty sure Gavin was the one who killed Oliver.”

“Why do you think that? He got the location from the Full Moon Group. He had no reason.”

“As I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks, Gavin thinks God meant him to have this location. Chloe, you’ve probably heard him. He keeps saying that getting this place was
meant to be.
Like it’s fated or some bullshit like that.”

“Now that you mention it, Gavin said that tonight, when Doug and I got here. And something about thanking God.”

“And I don’t think he was talking about God in a true religious sense, since as far as I can tell, he’s not particularly devout in any other sense of the word. He’s more caught up in the idea of some vague higher power,” Josh explained, gesturing wildly into the air. “As nice a guy as Gavin seems, he’s a nut job, if you ask me. I bet he killed off Oliver because Oliver was the Full Moon partner with the most clout, and that group had tried to interfere with Gavin’s so-called destiny.”

To me, Gavin had seemed so normal. Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention at school; clearly, my diagnostic skills were weak. “When I talked to Isabelle today,” I said, “she tried to tell me that Gavin was talking about God, but I guess I wasn’t really listening. I’m going to be a crappy social worker,” I moaned.

“You’re going to be great. I didn’t say anything to you about Gavin having this weird side to him because I didn’t want you to worry. And selfishly, I thought Simmer could be a great restaurant, and good executive chef jobs are hard to come by. I really don’t want to get involved in this, and I don’t exactly have any proof that Gavin is a killer, so I’m just trying to stay out of this whole mess. I don’t want this to be happening,” Josh confessed.

I couldn’t fault him for feeling that way. Half of all restaurants close within the first six months. If Josh had found a professional home for himself, a place that could not only survive but become highly successful, he wouldn’t want to lose it.

“The thing I don’t understand,” I said, “is, why kill Oliver? Yeah, he seemed to be the leader of the Full Moon Group, but Barry is the one who’s been making jokes about buying Simmer from Gavin. Barry is the one who really appreciates great food and is nuts about the whole culinary industry. Oh, whatever.” I shrugged my shoulders. “We can’t figure this out. And as long as it’s not Naomi and as long as Hannah leaves you alone, I don’t want to be in this mess. So for now, since we know Eliot is no longer in any danger of losing his life at the hands of my supervisor, and since Hannah is otherwise engaged with Sean, do you want to come sit down with us for dessert?” If there was no reason to miss out on my Bananas Three Way, my stomach still had room.

Josh laughed. “Food always comes first with you. One of the many things I love about you.” He put both hands on my cheeks and turned my face up to his for a soft, slow kiss.

Was that Josh saying he loved me? We hadn’t actually said “I love you” to each other, although it was clear that’s how we felt. For some reason, we were both being cautious about saying it out loud, and it wasn’t something I needed to hear to be happy with Josh. Still, I couldn’t help thinking that it would be nice when it happened.

Eliot and Naomi had wandered off and were exploring the other side of the kitchen, where the vegetables and sauces sat lined up in stainless steel containers at the back of a long counter.

“Come on.” Josh took my hand. We were turning to leave the kitchen when Snacker hurried through the door from the dining room.

“Happy New Year everyone!” he shouted to no one in particular.

“Where have you been?” Josh looked exasperated. “Dude, stick around once in a while, will ya?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m all yours again. What do you need?”

“Just make sure all the desserts go out, okay? Things are going fine, and I don’t want that to change. Then head up the cleanup. Good thing Gavin only wanted one seating since you’ve been MIA most of the night.”

Snacker placed his hands on his chest. “I will handle everything from here on out. You have my word. That way, you and your lovely lady will have the rest of the evening to yourselves.”

“You got yourself a deal,” Josh happily agreed.

We ran into Adrianna in the middle of the dining room. Yet again, she was returning from the ladies’ room.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her, as we reached our table. “You’ve been to the bathroom, like, a hundred times tonight.”

“Yeah. I’m okay,” she said vaguely. “Nothing serious.”

Josh pulled over a stray chair for himself and scooted in next to me. Everyone else at the table had finished dessert, and Doug glowered at me for having left him stranded with my family for so long.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. But you owe me one. Your nephew spent ten minutes telling me more than I wanted to know about Thomas the Tank Engine and all of Thomas’s little train friends. Did you know that Thomas is a boy and has a penis?”

I glanced over at Walker, who was busy examining the underside of his train.

“I thought I might die of boredom. You better have worked things out with Josh.” Doug looked hopefully at me. “Don’t leave me again!”

“We have. I’ll go hang out with your right-wing parents as payback. Deal?”

Doug nodded, happy in the knowledge that my spending an evening with his less-than-liberal mother and father would more than compensate for having abandoned him at Simmer.

My banana ice cream had melted, and the caramelized bananas were now cold, but even so, my dessert was wonderful. Doug had saved me a bite of the rich chocolate torte and had even left me a couple of raspberries. One taste and I had yet more reasons to be head over heels for my chef!

“Is something going on with Owen?” Doug wondered aloud.

“What do you mean? He looks fine to me,” I said, licking my fork in a display of uncouth table manners. “Adrianna’s the one I’m a little worried about. She’s spent half the night in the ladies’ room. It’s not the food, obviously. Everyone else is fine, and Josh is a fiend about fresh ingredients and a sanitary kitchen. What do mean about Owen?”

“I don’t know. He’s all fidgety tonight, like he’s anxious or something.”

“I have no idea.”

As if on cue, Owen stood up from his chair. Unfortunately, he had tucked the tablecloth into his pants, so we all spent a few moments picking up spilled glasses and rearranging dinner plates.

“My apologies,” Owen said formally. “I’m a little nervous. But I have something to say.” He buttoned his jacket and ran a hand through his hair. “Adrianna—” he began with a loving look at my best friend.