The Battered Body (7 page)

Milla slid the baking dish into the oven. “How lovely, dear. And Willow tells me that you’re going to be on one of our local shows on Thursday. That’s very exciting.”

Paulette took a slug of her drink and shrugged. “It’s only a Virginia morning show with a few thousand viewers, but I’ve got a new cake recipe I’d like to try out before I film it for
my
show. I was going to make it anyway for you and Jackson to sample, so why not prepare it on air?”

“Yummy.” Milla poured herself a glass of merlot and then filled a second glass and handed it to James. “You’re still going to help us taste all the wedding cake candidates, aren’t you, dear?” She clinked the rim of her glass against his and sighed contentedly. “I’m so glad to have y’all gathered here together. My old family and my new family. Perfect.”

Settling regally into one of the kitchen chairs, Paulette picked up the knife and fork laid out on the table and began cleaning spots from their surfaces with a paper napkin covered with rotund snowmen. “You were always disgustingly sentimental, Milla. I’m surprised you managed to muster up enough gumption to run your own business.”

“You’re not the only one who knows their way ’round pots and pans,” Milla retorted sharply. “And my classes have been quite successful, thank you kindly.” She sat down opposite her sister, but her posture was much less rigid than Paulette’s stiff-backed carriage. “I gotta say, though, I’m getting a bit tired of teaching all those classes up in New Market and then driving down here to be with my future spouse. Jackson and I have decided to live in this house after we’re married. My place is too small for the both of us, and I know Sir Charles will be tickled to death to run footloose and free around this yard.”

“I still cannot believe you named a dog after that two-timing future king of England.” Paulette eyed her sister curiously. “So what
are
you going to do? Please tell me that you’re not going to revert to being a cloistered housewife.” Paulette cast a judgmental stare at Jackson.

“Don’t give
me
the hairy eyeball, woman,” Jackson grumbled at Paulette. “Milla’s the boss of her own mind.”

Milla reached over and covered her fiancé’s weathered hand with her own. “Jackson is always supportive of everything I do, and I’ve decided to open a gourmet gift shop right here in Quincy’s Gap. We get a lot of tourists passing through, and the local folks are always complaining about having to drive to the big malls to buy anything unique, so I figure I’ll get plenty of business.”

James leaned over Milla’s shoulder and refilled her wine glass. “That sounds great. What kind of things will you carry?”

“
Quincy’s Whimsies
will be filled with all kinds of gourmet food. I plan to make things that neither the bakery nor our grocery stores carry.” Milla pointed at Paulette. “And I’ll stock all of your cookbooks, of course. Plus, I thought I’d feature products by some of our area craftsmen and women. I’ve already talked to a woman who makes the most gorgeous pottery, a gentleman who can fix me up with beeswax candles and fresh jars of honey, and a young man who makes goat’s milk soaps and lotions. I took a goat’s milk bubble bath the other night, and my skin felt
just
like a twenty-year-old’s! Lord, the stuff is pure magic, I tell you!”

Paulette perked up fractionally at this pronouncement. “Really? I’d like to sample some of this
person’s
products.”

“We can visit his farm tomorrow. I’m thinking of using this young man’s products for wedding favors.” Milla got up, reduced the temperature of the oven, and turned on the front stove burner. She poured beef stock and some red wine into the meat drippings collected in a frying pan and began to stir the concoction.

“I doubt I have the appropriate attire for mucking through fields of goat droppings.” Paulette’s expression quickly turned sour.

“Relax, sister.” Milla giggled. “You won’t be forced to rough it too much. The boy’s got a shed next to the house where he sells his wares.”

“Just don’t go displayin’ that fur coat of yours ’round this town anymore,” Jackson ordered. “If James’s redhead friend doesn’t spray it with red paint, then you might just get attacked by a huntin’ dog.”

Paulette paled. “Oh, my. I guess I’ll have to settle for my cashmere overcoat. Your hunting dogs won’t go after that, will they? I could spray it with my Chanel Number Five. My
parfum
costs two hundred and sixty dollars an ounce, but I brought two bottles along, as I fully expected to encounter foul odors here in the
country
.”

“The dogs’ll only jump up on you if you’ve got dead animals draped across your collar or raw liver stuffed in your pockets. No need to go wastin’ your fancy scent on our local mongrels,” Jackson answered with a twinkle in his eye.

James couldn’t help but smile over how much Jackson seemed to be enjoying Paulette’s company. It was as if having someone around with a similar acerbic personality influenced the old man to adopt an attitude of playfulness and good humor. “Just keep things simple while you’re here, Diva. It’ll ease your way. Folks are friendly as church mice ’til you get their backs up. Then they’re slow to forgive,” he added, gesturing at James. “There’s no call for you to be pickin’ fights with my boy’s friends. They’re good people. All of ’em. Ya hear?” He turned to Milla and winked. “I’m done speech-makin’. We ’bout ready to eat?”

“Yes, dear heart. I just had to reduce this sauce until it was ready to pour over the beef. And now it is. Voilà!” Milla set a plate filled with a serving of Paulette’s beef Wellington in front of Jackson. “See? I know French too.”

James eyed the golden-brown pastry and inhaled the scents of wine, meat, mushrooms, onion, and cooked butter. He spread his snowman napkin onto his lap in anticipation. “This entrée isn’t low-calorie is it?” he asked Milla as she handed him his plate.

“Not even the teeniest bit,” she answered happily, placing a dish of steamed asparagus in the center of the table.

“
None
of the world’s finest prepared foods are completely low-calorie,” Paulette added, and she opened her napkin with a flourish as she stared at James’s paunch. “Are you concerned about the caloric content for a specific reason?”

Nodding, James speared a piece of succulent meat with his fork and admired its pink center as he swirled it around in the fragrant drippings coating the bottom of his plate. “Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be keeping track of everything I eat, so tonight, I feel a bit like a man going to the gallows. This is the last meal I can eat without paying attention to the food’s nutritional content.” He put the meat in his mouth, reveling in its flavor.

“Well, if this is your final supper,” Milla paused to pour James more wine, “then it’s mighty lucky my sister’s made the dessert.”

The next morning, James turned on the shower and, while waiting the three full minutes it took for the water to turn from piercingly cold to marginally hot, he reluctantly took off his flannel pajamas, tube socks, and leather slippers and prepared to weigh himself. Shivering, he paused for a second to consider how much he had eaten the night before.

Three glasses of wine, a serving of beef Wellington, steamed asparagus, and two pieces of Paulette’s Ten-Layer Fudge Cake. I wonder if the scale can even compute all this poundage
, he thought anxiously and then stepped onto the chilly surface of the metal scale.

When the numbers surfaced in their silver window, James groaned. His weight was higher than he had expected by a whopping eleven pounds.

“I probably gained five of these last night.” He got off the scale and then, after waiting for the screen to return to zero, stepped back on, hoping that there might have been an error in the previous reading. The scale added another three tenths of a pound for his efforts.

“Damn it,” he muttered, snatching the shower curtain aside and hustling into the stream of hot water. The heat immediately eased some of his tension, and as he lathered his hair with shampoo, he gave himself a pep talk. “It’s okay. Today is a fresh start.” After rinsing his head, he opened his eyes and stuck his tongue out at the scale, which seemed to be mocking him on the other side of the clear shower curtain. “This isn’t over, buddy.”

After getting dressed, James packed his lunch, poured coffee into a travel mug, and tried to ignore the covered cake plate resting in the middle of the kitchen table.

“I don’t see you. I do not see you,” James spoke to the white ceramic dome that seemed to call to him from across the room. “I’m not even thinking of all those layers of sweet, buttery, and incredibly smooth chocolate icing or about how moist and springy the cake—” he cut himself off. “Nope. Not interested.”

After shoving an apple into his lunch bag, James shrugged his coat on and cast a second glance at the cake plate.
I wonder how much is left
, he thought.

Unable to stop himself, he lifted up the cover several inches, revealing the remaining wedge of fudge layer cake. A whiff of chocolate scent floated beneath his eager nostrils.

“I’m not even going to eat one of the chocolate curls sitting there in that bed of chocolate frosting. That’s how much willpower I’ve got.” He inhaled deeply, and his mouth filled with saliva in anticipation of receiving an exquisite morsel of Paulette’s dessert. “Well, maybe just a few crumbs …” James heard the weakness in his voice, but could not tear his eyes away from the hunk of cake.

“Who you talkin’ to, boy?” Jackson asked gruffly as he entered the kitchen in an old bathrobe.

James slammed the lid back on the cake plate and stood up guiltily. “No one. I’m … I’m off to the library. Are you planning to work on a painting of Paulette’s hands today?”

“Yep. Soon as I polish off that leftover cake for breakfast.” He patted his flat stomach as James watched on with envy. “I reckon it’ll help inspire me, ’cause I’m gonna show her frostin’ this very cake in the paintin’. I liked how she angled her wrist just so to get it on there all nice and smooth.”

James wished his father luck, and after gazing longingly once more at the cake plate, he headed off to work. Instead of driving to the library, however, he swung into a parking spot in front of the Sweet Tooth, the town’s bakery.

Megan and Amelia Flowers, the mother/daughter team who kept the townsfolks’ bellies filled with homemade breads, cookies, and pastries, were bent over the display window, smoothing a sheet of red velvet fabric across the bottom ledge.

“Good morning, Professor,” Megan greeted James briefly, and then she stood erect and put her hands on her narrow hips. “I had the
pleasure
of meeting your newest family member yesterday.”

“Uh-oh,” James moaned softly, and then he frowned. “Why would Paulette come in here? She does her own baking.”

“For a croissant to go with her
latte
,” Amelia answered, her full lips turning into a practiced pout. “But she told my mom that our croissant wasn’t flaky enough and bought a baguette instead. She didn’t like that much either. Said it was only supposed to be crusty on the
outside
, not inside
and
out.”

“I’m sorry.” James tugged on his scarf, which suddenly felt too tight. “Paulette can be really impolite, and she seems determined to offend everyone in Quincy’s Gap.”

Megan picked up a large box wrapped in red and green foil and stuffed with wax paper, and she began to fill it with candy-cane-shaped loaves of egg bread. Megan had ingeniously dyed half of the dough red and left the other its natural shade of whitish-yellow, so that when braided, the bread looked striped, just like the sugary version of a candy cane.

“She didn’t stop her criticism with my breads either.” Megan continued crossly. “She made her shrinking violet of an assistant buy three of my cakes—whole ones, mind you—and then they left, no doubt so that our visiting
celebrity
could hold that girl down and force-feed her slices of my cake. I thought I was rid of them, but twenty minutes later they were back! That
TV
cake baker was chock full of
suggestions
on how to improve my recipes!” Megan furiously sifted powdered sugar over the candy-cane bread.

“They weren’t suggestions.” Amelia placed another gift box filled with iced gingerbread animals in the window. “That witch came in here lookin’ to pick a fight. She told my mom that her cakes were dry and her icing was crunchy as kitty litter! I’d have liked to pull her white hair out strand by strand when she said that.”

Megan shot a proud look at her daughter, and her tone immediately softened. “Honey, you go on and get to your studying now. I know you’ve got exams tomorrow, and I can handle things for the rest of the day.” She watched her daughter leave. “I can’t believe she’ll be done with college soon. Where does the time go? She’s dying to move to New York, but how could I let her go there if the city is populated by people like Paulette Martine?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t judge all of Manhattan based on her,” James cautioned. “In fact, I hear New Yorkers are pretty friendly. They just seem intimidating because they wear black so much.”

Megan looked unconvinced. “I’ll really miss Amelia’s artistic touch when she leaves me to pursue her fashion design career. I mean, look at this candy house she made for the window.” The baker gestured at an enormous gingerbread house built in the style of a southern plantation.