Under the Table

by Stephanie Evanovich

  “Are you obsessive-compulsive when it comes to germs?” Zoey blurted. They had lapsed into relaxed conversation. That might have been a tad too personal. She was a cook, not a therapist. “I mean, the whole place is spotless. The floors look clean enough to eat off of.”

  He seemed to genuinely consider it. “I don’t think so. I just came from a very different upbringing. Moving to New York was one of those things I did jumping in with both feet. But here I am, almost two years later, and I still haven’t embraced the life.”

  “It’s a huge culture shock. I’m from Cleveland and I’m still trying to adjust to the difference.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “About ten months. I’m starting to get the feeling that you either love it or hate it immediately.”

  “You may be onto something there.”

  Zoey would’ve loved to engage him more, get the full backstory, and find out why his home was more like an art gallery. But they were interrupted by his intercom buzzing. His guests had begun to arrive.

  “It’s officially showtime. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got your back.”

  She gave him a reassuring smile and he gave her a nod of his head and left the kitchen. The next thing she heard was music beating softly out of the speakers above her head. Jazz. A little mood music.

  “Nice touch, Mr. Malloy,” she softly mused.

  The first thing Zoey did was taste the sauce and add a bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice to it to tame the pepper flavor before warming it. It did the trick. When she quietly slid into the living room to place the plated tray on the bar where the party of six other men and one woman were gathered, Tristan was the first to grab one of the appetizers by the toothpick she had inserted in each of the boudin balls, dunk it in the sauce, and eat it. His eyebrows rose and he gave her a covert wink. She had saved his balls, and he knew it. She snickered to herself when safely back in the kitchen.

  The men were all dressed in the usual corporate attire, suit and tie. The woman, a sleeveless navy-blue dress. Zoey gave a silent prayer of thanks for being able to break away from convention and having to wear the dreaded sleeveless dress, a garment that had to have been designed by men, to make sure that ladies worked overtime at the gym. Not only did it leave even the most secure woman running the risk of “bat wing” if she so much as extended her arm, but men got to wear jackets to hide their sweat stains, while women got to freeze in the winter to accommodate the style. At least Tristan was the grand equalizer, dressed casually enough to make any guest feel comfortable.

  They worked in unison the entire night. Zoey plated the salad and left it for him, taking the soup bowls back with her into the kitchen. Within minutes, Tristan was moving the party into the dining room.

  The evening would have been borderline as magical, save for one thing. As a professional, Zoey had to take into consideration the kind of event she was working and have her own behavior reflect that. The Turkish guys wanted to talk to her the entire time. A kid’s party was more her wisecracking while serving them. This particular situation called for her to remain as unobtrusive as possible. And she was.

  She wouldn’t admit to herself that she was trying to glean information about Tristan while she moved about the room, serving and cleaning. But she couldn’t get anything that she would define as helpful. Mostly because everyone else in the room would take note of her presence and promptly clam up. They seemed to resent her being there. Every glance she made in Tristan’s direction revealed little more than that he didn’t care if the rest of the party were uncomfortable. Whenever she entered to serve or quickly clear, the conversation would all but stop. The silence was strained, before someone would bring up the weather or where they had just been on vacation. Once she made eye contact with him and he gave her the smallest hint of a smirk. But the other times, he just let the members of his party sit there awkwardly fiddling with their forks or taking a sip of water and looked from one to the other, bemused. They seemed to tolerate it. None of the people acknowledged her when she cleared anything away from them. Tristan was the only one to thank her, and he did it for everything.

  Except for one time, while she was serving dessert. Zoey had already made up her mind that she would do the final cleanup after all the guests had left. They had made it abundantly clear she wasn’t welcome. She knew how to take a hint. There was plenty to keep her busy. She tried to wash things as she used them, but there was still plenty of suds-dunking to do after it was over, no matter how big a dishwasher. When she brought out the little dishes of bread pudding with a scoop of fresh whipped cream infused with vanilla, the only woman in the group was in the middle of a sentence. Something about encrypting fees. Innocuous really, she was quoting something in Forbes, so it couldn’t have been classified material.

  “I think what she’s trying to say is, she keeps up with current events. While on vacation. Where was it you went last month? Hawaii?” One of the men spoke up, shifting his eyes quickly to Zoey and then back to the woman, who stopped talking and now had pink tingeing her cheeks.

  Zoey could also feel the heat start to rise. The guy she had pegged as the ringleader of the group had completed the classic slam dunk. With only the condescending tone of his voice, he was trying to put the woman in her place. And he was trying to make every man at the table take a moment to picture the attractive young blonde in a bikini. Zoey tried to place the dishes as fast as she could before she misbehaved and ruined Tristan’s whole evening.

  “The truth of the matter is—” the man went on.

  Then she heard Tristan’s voice.

  “Doug, I’d like to let Kristin finish her thought. She makes a valid point. I read the article as well, and I agree with what she’s said so far.”

  Zoey finished placing the dishes in the much more familiar silence. She beat it out of there to the safety of the kitchen. But she had to give props to Tristan for having the woman’s back.

  She loaded the dishwasher, digging the jazz and thinking about how she was having way too much fun tonight. She played around a spectacular kitchen with all the freshest ingredients she didn’t have to buy. And the man footing the bill seemed like a genuinely nice guy. By midnight she’d be leaving the ball and her fairy tale would come to an end. And because she had been able to bite her tongue, maybe one of those bozos would want to throw a gig her way.

  The party broke up soon after. It wasn’t long before he was pushing through the swinging door to the kitchen and found her up to her elbows in sudsy water.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he began earnestly.

  “Sure, I do. It’s part of the service,” she replied. “I leave the place exactly as I found it.”

  “I’m certainly getting my money’s worth. And everything was delicious. You did a great job tonight, Zoey, thank you. And I see you didn’t bring a server.”

  “Don’t worry”—she gave a relaxed laugh—“you still got billed for one. And normally I wouldn’t be so candid, but it was the right call. I don’t think your guests appreciated me being there. One more person serving would’ve made conversation next to impossible.”

  Tristan pulled a dish towel out of a drawer before closing it with a hip check. He leaned against the counter, still keeping to his side of the room. His eyes were downcast so that she couldn’t see them. But his voice had a ring of boyish guilt.

  “Since we’re being honest, I have a confession to make. And an apology. I used you as a decoy of sorts.”

  Zoey wasn’t sure what her correct reaction should be.

  “You did?”

  “I’m the inventor of a computer software program that compiles data. Lots of it. It’s able to pull it out of multiple sources and combine them. I realized after I sold it, in the wrong hands, it’s capable of doing great harm. People who always want to meet in crowded restaurants have the ability to communicate with each other with their target unable to hear everything they say over the noise. I don’t want any distractions when I’m
conducting business. And who doesn’t like a home field advantage, right? I had a hunch that I could also use an extra pair of eyes and ears in the room. You can tell a lot about people by how they behave toward those that have nothing to offer them.”

  “Sort of like, you can tell a lot about a person’s character by how they treat the waitstaff?”

  He looked like he might apologize again. Zoey wasn’t referring to the rude indifference of the guests who had just left; that was nothing more than an uncomfortable annoyance. Turned out, he was angry on her behalf.

  “I really take offense to men disrespecting women. Women are the original multitaskers, and men know it. I think strong women make them nervous, so they resort to the only thing they can fall back on—brute force. Where is the honor in that?”

  “I’d be lying if I didn’t say how much I enjoyed you sticking it to that one guy.”

  “My grandfather used to say, ‘Being male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. Being a gentleman is a matter of choice.’”

  “That’s pretty profound.”

  “Isn’t that what all grandparents are supposed to be? Full of wisdom and life experience?”

  “Yes, but I think people forget that these days. Or just don’t care enough to take the time to listen. My grandmother spent her last years telling us to stick her on a block of ice and set her adrift.”

  “She wanted to die alone?”

  “Nah, we think she just had a thing for Eskimo folklore.”

  They shared a chuckle before his face got serious again. “In this particular instance though, I took their silence whenever you came into the room as them having to keep their guard up. Everyone who approaches me knows I can’t sell them the original program. It belongs to the government. And when you work with the government, they don’t take kindly to you working for anyone else. Corporate bigwigs get through the door under the guise of wanting something similar, but it usually ends up the same—they want me to do something that’s not only morally wrong, but also could get me sent to prison. I get when the government acts all secretive, but these people were from a pharmaceutical company. I seriously doubt they were worried about you finding out where they stash the erythromycin. My guess is that they wanted to find a way to circumvent HIPAA guidelines.”

  He had such great wit for someone with an expert poker face. The combination was most likely dangerous as hell, but he was too noble to utilize it.

  “I figured, if you were treated like an interloper, chances are the people that want the program had something to hide. You never said one word to them. For all they knew, you didn’t even know English.”

  “You’re right! I was quiet the whole night. Looks like your sketchy meter was spot-on.”

  His face clouded over with what she could only describe as melancholy. “I’m not always the best judge of character. I shouldn’t even be entertaining these requests.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “I’m a little too trusting. I do much better when I can observe as an outsider.”

  He had begun taking pots and pans to dry and put away as Zoey washed them. It reminded her of home when she was a kid. Ruth and Zoey would take turns washing when they were little. Once Ruth started painting her nails and bedazzling them with artwork, she only wanted to dry. Not long after that, the chore was handed down to their younger siblings and they were put on laundry detail.

  “Where are you from?” Zoey asked, enjoying the company and the conversation.

  “Born in Rhode Island, but did most of my growing up in the Virgin Islands.”

  “That’s a pretty big switch.”

  Tristan paused. “Okay, so this is the part where I’m going to make you unnecessarily uncomfortable. My parents died when I was three.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Zoey said.

  “It’s all right. Seriously. I barely remember them. Dense fog, drunk driver, they were together and it was quick, which is the best anyone can hope for when you think about it. My grandfather was retired military. Loved golf. My grandmother was a dedicated army wife who loved to entertain. Both hated the cold. They bought and ran a small resort right near a golf course in St. Croix. A glorified bed-and-breakfast, if you will. Most of our guests were cronies of my grandfather and their wives. It was quiet, peaceful. I spent my whole young life barefoot, learning golf, and helping maintain the property. My grandparents thought they had really made the leap into the twenty-first century when they got dial-up Internet. They would let me have access to it, but it’s not like I could do much. One time I tried to play a game online, I think it was Sonic the Hedgehog, and the thing froze for hours. My grandparents were so uninterested, they didn’t even notice.”

  His explanation solved the mystery of why he seemed stuck in a time warp of manners, courtesy, and pleated pants. “I can see why after two years in New York, you still feel like a deer getting caught in the headlights.”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  She couldn’t tell if his behavior was that noticeable or she was just tuned into him. She felt the same level of protective instinct that she felt for her younger siblings. What Tristan Malloy had in years, he lacked in experience.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t told me,” she answered honestly.

  They kept washing and drying the dishes together, quietly enjoying the smooth jazz still playing from the surround-sound speakers.

  “How did you end up here?” Zoey asked.

  Tristan put his dish towel down, crossing his arms over his chest, a faraway look taking over. He didn’t appear put off talking about it, but more like he wanted to get the chronological order of events correct.

  “One of the regulars at Paradise Cove was a retired lieutenant colonel who was working for a government contractor. He was a good guy, loved to talk about technology. By the time I was sixteen, my grandmother made the announcement that I was done with homeschooling. After that I spent all my spare time trying to figure out everything I could about that computer with its dial-up, how to make it work better, faster.”

  “Ambitious little cuss, weren’t you?”

  He preened a little. “I like to think so. Long story short, with some help from the colonel, I devised a program that links databases. The colonel took it to his former superiors and they bought it for what I consider an outrageous sum of money. The program renews every year with a few updates. Now I spend a half hour every year striking a few keys on the keyboard and collect my check.”

  In no way did it sound like he was bragging, merely answering the question. She was dying to know what he considered an outrageous sum of money but knew that was a question she didn’t deserve the answer to.

  “So you decided to take on the Big Apple?” Zoey asked instead.

  “Not originally. I would’ve been more than happy to stay on the island, totally remodel Paradise Cove, and hire a full staff so that my grandparents could retire in style, but I didn’t get that chance.”

  He sounded melancholy again, and Zoey bit into her lower lip in response to it.

  “They died, didn’t they?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “It’s okay, Zoey. Not talking about it doesn’t change anything. My grandmother died first, after a relatively short bout with Alzheimer’s. A blessing really, when you think about how long that agony can go on. My grandfather and I took care of her ourselves, with some help of course. He didn’t last six months after she was gone. It’s strange, when he was in the army, he would be gone for months at a time. I guess as long as he knew she was waiting for him to return, he could take it. After she was gone, he just gave up.”

  Zoey gave him a consoling pat on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Tristan.”

  He didn’t recoil from her touch, but within seconds, he was back on his side of the room, grabbing a beer out of the fridge.

  “Thanks, Zoey,” he said, before twisting off the top and taking a long swig. “After they
were gone, all I knew was I needed to get away. From the resort, from the island. I had heard, and overheard, so many stories about the mainland over the years. In a moment of grief and determination, I decided on New York.”

  He didn’t sound like he was proud of his accomplishment. He hadn’t embraced city life; he endured it. The evening was turning from a success to a downer, and that was the last thing she wanted. She turned off the water, squeezed the sponge one last time, and put it back in its hiding place.

  “What made you decide on Cajun tonight?” she asked to change the subject.

  He gave her a small grin. “I’ve never been to New Orleans.”

  Was he telling the truth or did he feel like he had exposed himself enough? Zoey took the dish towel he’d left on the counter and started wiping down the already clean counters, aware that he was watching her as she did so. She surveyed the room to make sure that everything was put away and clean, then added, “This is the most beautiful kitchen I’ve ever had the enjoyment of working in.”

  He smiled again, this time relaxed and real. “Thanks. You did a great job tonight. All the way around.”

  “It’s easy in a setup like this.”

  He reached into his pocket and handed her a wad of cash she didn’t bother to count. This man was not ripping her off. “Would you rather get paid by check?”

  “Heck no! Not only is cash king, but it’s virtually untraceable by the IRS. It’s called—getting paid under the table.”

  “What table is that?” he inquired.

  Zoey threw her hands up in the air with a shrug. “Beats me. Maybe the table you would write the check on?”

  “Can I call on you again?”

  “Certainly,” Zoey said quickly, already looking forward to the prospect of working for him again. “And if you don’t mind spreading the good word, I’d sure appreciate it. Word of mouth is great for advertising in this business.”

  He paused before picking up her faded doctor’s bag and handing it to her with a reluctant “Sure.”