The Merchant of Venice Beach (9 page)

Eric took his eyes off the girl’s ass and turned to Suzanna.

“Hey!” he said. “Are you OK?”

Suzanna could feel tears welling up inside her. Damn Rio! She thought perhaps she was being too hard on her old friends and that maybe she’d confide in Eric. They used to share all their secrets. Maybe it was better that way after all.

Suzanna noticed that Eric was wearing a new T-shirt. It read THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB MIGHT BE A WOMAN. She wiped at her eye.

“Nice T-shirt.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It helps me get laid.”

Suzanna bounded into the hallway between the tea shop and the bookstore and ran upstairs to the Huge Apartment. She could hear Eric calling up the stairs, “That was a joke!” as she slammed the door.

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

She cried so hard that she couldn’t breathe. After an hour or so of self-inflicted misery she got up, washed her face, and headed down to the office to input the day’s receipts—her goal before she was sideswiped by Rio and Lauren. She wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed with Lauren and Rio or with Eric for insisting on all this financial planning and updating that was taking up more and more of her time. Hell, she wasn’t getting the business degree!

She clomped down the stairs and passed Fernando and Eric in the kitchen. She pretended she didn’t see them and, mercifully, they pretended they didn’t see her.

Putting aside her irritation at having to follow yet another of Eric’s computer programs, she threw herself into the project with complete concentration. Drowning herself in work had always been a lifesaver for Suzanna and she could feel her feeling of hopelessness lifting. She somehow managed to toss all her emotions aside when there was a stack of bills to be paid or major decisions to be made. Hours could go by without her even realizing it—a merciful skill, she had to say. It had saved her time and time again.

Once all the receipts were entered, bills were paid, and food and supplies orders placed, Suzanna stretched. She looked at the clock. She had been at it for almost three hours. She smiled. Three hours when she didn’t think about men! She shut off the computer and headed back up the stairs. As soon as she hit the first step, she could smell the aroma of gingerbread coming from the kitchen. Suzanna inhaled deeply. Her mouth watering, she headed up to the kitchen.

Maybe this is a peace offering?

Suzanna thought back to Fernando’s lavender loaves.

This gingerbread had better be brown!

As Suzanna climbed the stairs, it occurred to her that everything Eric worked on—books and computers—was quiet. Everything Fernando did, on the other hand, was noisy. He was always banging around either the tea shop kitchen or the Huge Apartment kitchen, whipping up new things

Suzanna followed the wonderful aroma into the kitchen, where Fernando stuck a warm confection under her nose. Suzanna inhaled. Heaven! But mysterious. Suzanna examined the tray in Fernando’s hands. Mercifully, it was the right color, but it didn’t really look like gingerbread . . . it looked like fudge.

From the look on his face, Suzanna could tell this was exactly the response he was looking for.

“OK, I give up!”Suzanna said.

“It’s medieval gingerbread,” he said, plunking the tray on the counter and sprawling on the large upholstered chair that sat incongruously in the corner of the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with regular gingerbread?” Suzanna asked, poking at the medieval-thing-on-a-plate.

“Boring . . . I know you think we have to stick with the tried and true Englishness of our tea shop, and I am looking for something interesting to do, you know, so that I don’t blow my brains out, and I found this recipe on the Internet. It’s from The Canterbury Tales. You don’t get much more English than that!”

Suzanna ignored his tirade and took a bite.

It did not taste like gingerbread, but it was amazing. Fernando and Suzanna had been tasting recipes together for so long that he didn’t even need to ask. By the rapt look on her face, he knew he had a winner. He jumped up and down on the chair like a gay Tom Cruise and told Suzanna that he had had to translate a recipe from the fifteenth century, which was full of terms he didn’t know, such as “throw thereon and strew thereon,” but he finally figured it out and came up with his recipe.

“I’ve tried making it with several different honeys,” he said, “because the honey really flavors the gingerbread, and I think jasmine honey will work the best for the shop . . . it will taste great with tea.”

Suzanna readily agreed that they should add this astounding new item to the menu, but she remained braced. She knew that the gingerbread sample was just a bribe. These late-night chats always came with an agenda and she waited until he decided to let her in on the latest inner workings of his brain.

“I have a new idea for the tearoom,” he said.

“You’ve already served purple bread and now you’re introducing medieval gingerbread, for God’s sake. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said.

“Fernando, how many times do I have to tell you: tearooms, by their very nature, don’t constantly need new ideas. The whole point is to be stodgy. Our tearoom is a haven.”

“For the stodgy.”

“No . . . it’s comfort for the huddled masses.”

God, I sound pretentious. I sound like Erinn!

Luckily for Suzanna, Fernando was quite used to her pretensions, and the preposterous vision of Los Angeles’s huddled masses lining up for afternoon tea didn’t cause him to even bat an eye. She knew that Fernando would just keep throwing ideas at her until she caved in out of exhaustion. The gingerbread had weakened her resolve, but she tried to remain strong.

“Okay,” she said, “what’s your idea?”

Fernando jumped up and started pulling paperwork from under the dinner plates. The sales pitch was ON!

CHAPTER 7

“Eric!” Fernando called out as he started laying his papers on the kitchen table. Suzanna’s eyes widened in alarm.

Eric is in on this?

“I thought we’d redecorate,” Fernando said. “We’ll paint the tearoom cream—no more of that pastel we’ve got going on. The room is just too damn twee.”

Suzanna felt stung.

“It is not twee. That’s a horrible thing to say.”

They had known each other so long, their negotiating skills were well honed. When Suzanna started to whine, Fernando became a disdainful adult.

“May I continue?” Fernando asked.

Suzanna gripped the edge of the table and nodded.

“Think, Suzanna—the walls will be cream! Cream, get it? Cream in a tearoom? It’s so obvious, I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before.”

“We never thought of it before because we probably thought cream walls would look. . . white.”

“Cream is not white, Suzanna.”

“OK, beige, then.”

Fernando ignored her and called for Eric again. Clearly, he wasn’t going to go into this without backup. Eric stuck his head in the room and Fernando nodded him in. As he sat, Suzanna looked at Eric, who was wearing his glasses instead of his contacts. This look always surprised Suzanna. With his glasses on, and the first hint of gray showing in his five o’clock shadow, Suzanna thought again about how long they had all known each other and how intricately their lives had been linked.

And clearly we can’t make a decision about redecorating without a group vote.

Fernando started spreading out paint chips on the table—chips in various shades of white and beige. He threw a stack to Eric, who also started laying them out. So they were in this together! The paint chips seemed to take over the entire surface of the kitchen table, looking like a monochromatic game of solitaire.

Apparently, we’re talking every conceivable hue of cream and Cremora known to man.

Fernando looked at the paint chips lovingly and glanced at Suzanna.

“What do you think so far?” he asked.

“I don’t see why you’re so hot for a white or beige . . . if you’re going the theme route, why don’t we just paint the walls a ‘tea’ variable.”

“Such as?”

Suzanna took a deep breath. Fernando was just being obstinate. How many conversations had they had over the years about the fascinating variety of colors tea came in? Tea came in all sorts of colors, from black to brown to green to red to orange.

“I’m just saying that we could do the tea theme and still have some color,” Suzanna said.

Fernando glowered. Suzanna pinched off another piece of gingerbread, which, she hated to admit, was working its magic.

“OK, so, cream walls . . .” she said between mouthfuls.

She met Eric’s eyes when she said it, and Eric gave her one of his killer smiles. She waited for that feeling in the pit of her stomach when he gave her that look, but for some reason, it didn’t materialize. Why not?

Rio!

They both returned their attention to Fernando, who was rolling out a blueprint sort of thing that had been done on some fancy computer program. Since Suzanna knew that Fernando had next to no computer skills, she gave Eric an accusatory glare. He raised his hands in surrender, a gesture that said “I had nothing to do with this.”

Suzanna tried to take in all the details. It wasn’t easy, because Fernando was talking a mile a minute, pointing out feature after feature before Suzanna could get scared and say no. According to the plan, besides the walls being cream, the tea shop would feature an entirely neutral color scheme. She thought about Rio and Lauren ordering Earl Grey and Fernando—the traitor—offering their precious white, and she pictured the different shades and tones of tea. There had to be a way to sneak in some color. No need to fight that particular battle now.

Tea really was endlessly fascinating.

But so was Rio.

Suzanna had stopped listening, but when the room went silent, she tried to recall where they were and vaguely remembered Fernando mentioning tablecloths. Taking a stab in the dark, Suzanna said:

“Maybe the tablecloths could be a nice café au lait.”

Fernando looked as if Suzanna had stabbed him.

“That’s a coffee color,” he sniffed. “The tablecloths will be Darjeeling.”

All in all, Suzanna liked the design. She had to admit this new layout had a very interesting look to it, and while it was very different in tone from her sweet little tea shop, the new look was very clean, elegant, and comfortable all at the same time.

Plus, this will distract the boys and I can spend more time dancing without getting caught.

“I like it,” Suzanna said. “I really do . . . but do you think it might put off our regulars? I mean, this new look is very . . . sophisticated.”

“Our clientele is very loyal to us,” Fernando said.

Suzanna had to agree. Their customers had stuck with them through faddish coffee houses and martini bars. Fernando assured Suzanna that this new version of the shop would retain the interest of the loyals—it would still be very warm and accessible while appealing to a whole new audience.

“Well, it’s intriguing, Fernando,” Suzanna said. “But I’m not sure we can afford it.”

Suzanna caught the boys exchanging a look.

Aha! So Eric was not as innocent as he pretended!

Suzanna waited. Eric cleared his throat and pulled a sheet of paper from the stack on the table. It was full of graphs that looked to Suzanna like a mountain climber’s route.

“We can afford it,” Eric said. “I’ve run the numbers. The kitchen is fine and can keep running throughout the remodel. We only need to close the dining room for two months.”

Two months! That’s forever!

“I know you’re thinking two months is forever.” Eric looked at Suzanna. “But if we transfer everything from the back office up here to the apartment, consolidate some of the book sections and use the side yard, we can keep the tearoom going in the book nook. It will be smaller and we probably won’t be able to accommodate walk-ins, but it’s a workable plan.”

“I’ll want to run these numbers myself,” Suzanna said.

The boys nodded, but all of them knew that Suzanna couldn’t crunch numbers any better than Fernando. That was Eric’s department.

Suzanna looked over the elaborate blueprint asking questions about detailed design and finance. They had an answer for everything. Suzanna wasn’t sure if she was just predictable and they had anticipated all her questions, or if they had really thought this thing through as thoroughly as it appeared they had. Suzanna hated to admit that it looked like they had researched every possible angle before approaching her.

In the old days, if any one of them had even the hint of an idea, the three of them would be dissecting it together. Their relationship was changing—and it was probably all her doing. After all, wasn’t she the one pulling away?