Normally Evangeline would have made it thick and filling, but since they were having so many courses, they had decided a lighter version would be more appropriate. Naturally, the influencers got out their phones and began to snap pictures before they tucked in. Lily Vashchenko even arranged the napkin and cutlery in a delicate arrangement next to her bowl and angled the picture so that she got some of the lounge décors in the frame. Roxy was sure it would look impressive and made a mental note to check the post on Instagram later.
After the flurry of clicking and updating of statuses had been completed, the influencers settled down to eat, all of them seeming to enjoy the gumbo a great deal. They made the right noises, even Ada, and they all complimented Evangeline. After that, they moved on to the crawfish and cheese pie course where the frenzy of picture composition and status updating started all over again.
Roxy watched them, fascinated, and wondered how animated and raucous the night was going to get. Dash, in particular, seemed to be enjoying himself. There was plenty of wine on the table, and she noticed how he repeatedly filled up his glass with one of the reds from a local Louisiana winery.
“You really should drink white wine, you know,” Ada said, sniffing, “since we’re having so much fish.”
“Meh,” Dash said with a shrug. “I don’t really like white, to be honest. I’m more of a red-blooded man,” he winked, “if you know what I mean.”
Ada looked down her nose at him.
“You go ahead with your red,” Sylvia said kindly, then chuckled. “Live on the wild side!” She had barely touched her glass of white, and her champagne flute from earlier sat next to it, still half full.
“Wine messes with my palate.” Ada sipped her water with pursed lips. “I wouldn’t drink such cheap wine anyway.” At that, Roxy had to hold her tongue. It wasn’t a cheap wine! She’d taken a deep breath and splurged out on bottles that cost over $100 each. They were drinking some of the best wine produced in Louisiana. But Roxy guessed Ada was used to everything being super high-end luxury. Roxy had heard Ada mention her father’s private jet as she chatted to Lily when they were drinking their champagne before the meal.
Roxy had grown up with her single mother in a poor, rural area in Ohio. She had never met her father. She didn’t even know his name. So while drinking $100 bottles of wine in a boutique hotel might be a step down for Ada, it was an entire staircase up for Roxy, a life which, when she was younger, she never imagined living. People in the neighborhood where she was raised were doing well if they had a steady job, even if it was bagging at the local grocery store for minimum wage. As long as they could buy their own food and they had roofs over their heads, even if it was a trailer roof, they were relieved if not exactly content. Roxy imagined Ada walking through her old neighborhood, sniffing at the trailers and the children who played outside, some of whom had holes in their shoes. Their separate experiences of the world were completely different. But that didn’t matter now. Roxy was aware of her responsibility to her guests, her staff, and the wider community. They all depended upon the Funky Cat being a success. Roxy shook her head to bring herself back to the present.
Next came the main course, Shrimp Creole with rice and jalapeño cornbread. It was Roxy’s absolute favorite. Lily Vashchenko languidly snapped pictures of the “cute little ramekins,” taking a flower from one of the vases on the table to place it in her picture while everyone raved about the shrimp.
“Fabulous food, Nat, Roxy!” Sylvia said.
Even though Evangeline had done most of the work, the elderly woman kept quiet with a secret smile on her face, knowing that she was passing the glory of Creole and Cajun cooking onto the next generation. Roxy was extremely proud and glad that she was keeping this grand old tradition alive and was inordinately grateful to Evangeline for taking the time to teach them her recipes.
“Credit where it’s due. This is all thanks to Evangeline,” Nat said modestly.
Dash paused, his fork loaded. “Evangeline is a lovely name,” he said. “Where does it come from?”
“It’s Greek, right?” Michael began before Evangeline could even open her mouth.
Evangeline winked and said, “You’re right about that, cher. You’ve done your research. It means ‘bearer of good news’ so your luck might be in.” She looked at Dash and smiled. “Your name’s not that common. What does it mean? Apart from the obvious, of course.”
“It’s short for Dashiell,” he said. “It’s Scottish. Apparently, my ancestors came from the highest Highlands of Scotland, which probably means they were raving mad murderous warriors back in the thirteenth century or something. The name doesn’t mean anything as far as I am aware, at least nothing exciting.”
Nat laughed. “It does suit you, though! You’re always dashing around the place. You’re going to India one day, Canada the next! You dash all around the world. I’d love to do that!”
Dash leaned forward, his eyes bright with excitement. “So why don’t you?” he said in an encouraging voice. “I love experiencing different cultures, different types of people. And when I make a load more money from this Instagram and YouTube business, I want to help people. Build schools and hospitals. I can’t wait!” He breathed out, his eyes gleaming with visions of his dreams. “I think you should travel the world, Nat. It would give you a totally new perspective.”
Nat looked a little awkward and mumbled something about New Orleans feeling like home before dashing from the table to serve dessert.
“This is a lot of food,” Lily said, exhaling discreetly through full, pouting lips. “I can barely take another bite.” Lily had only been nibbling at her food, a bite here, a taste there. Roxy supposed that was how she maintained her lithe figure.
“It’s certainly very filling,” Michael agreed, as Dash snapped away, taking a picture of the warm bread pudding soaked with caramel and whiskey. Soft, slightly melted vanilla ice cream made waves through the brown sauce making it look delicious and lush. It smelled heavenly, and Roxy knew from experience it tasted even better.
Nevertheless, after all the snapping and posing and updating and submitting was over, they all, perhaps with the exception of Lily, fell on the pudding, silence pervading the room as they focused on the delicious dessert.
“Mmmm, this is slipping down a treat,” Sylvia said.
“We have cheese next,” Nat reminded them.
Michael took the camera from Dash and pointed it at him.
“Cheese? This is CRAZY,” Dash said into the camera. “Five courses…five! That’s how you know this is a real luxury place. You know, the local wine is really great too.” He raised his wine glass a little wildly and then lowered it to take a sip as he leaned into the camera. But as he did so, he knocked his chin against the glass.
“Dash!” Michael said, but it was too late. The damage was done. Dash’s red wine had launched itself all over Ada Okafor’s pristine white gown.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“OH, MY GOODNESS!” Ada shrieked, jumping to her feet. The front of her white dress was stained with so much red wine it looked like she’d been stabbed.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Roxy said, rushing over to her.
“Noooooo!” Dash said, his eyes bulging with horror. “I’m so, so sorry, Ada!”
Elijah leaned over, “Never fear, Elijah is here.” He started patting the stain with his napkin.
“Get your hands off me!” Ada screamed. Elijah snapped his hand back like a slapped child.
Sage didn’t make a move, but closed her eyes and placed her hands, palms upwards, her fingertips touching. She was an oasis of calm in an uproarious sea.
“Dash! You fool!” said Michael. He was still recording.
Evangeline, shaking her head like a disapproving grandmother, put her arm around Ada. “Come on, cher, no real harm done, let’s get you cleaned up.”
But Ada wriggled away. “You get off of me too!” She radiated fury. “How dare you! This is a Versace!” she shouted at Dash. “Do you know who I a
m? My father…”
“Sorry to interrupt!” Sam hollered over her. “But trust me, you need to act fast on that stain. I’m a laundry guy, and I know what I’m talking about.” They all swiveled their horrified gazes from Ada to Sam. “You’ll have to take your dress off and pour white wine over it fast. I’ll run to the laundry and get some proper stain remover. We can save your dress, but only if we move very quickly.” Sam dashed to the door and disappeared.
“Finally, someone who speaks sense,” Ada said, recovering some of her composure. She stood and began to strip down to her underwear in the middle of the dining room.
Roxy’s eyes widened. “Let me get you a robe!” she called over and rushed to her bedroom to fetch one.
Dash still looked horrified at what he’d done. He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped across the top of his head. His partner, Michael, was deadpan as he recorded surreptitiously, the camera resting on the table, the shining red “record” button the only sign that it was on.
When Roxy hurried back, Nat, her eyes transfixed by the sight of Ada standing in the middle of the dining room in her underwear, was pressing her lips together so tightly they were white. Her throat was bobbing up and down. She was clearly trying not to laugh.
“Oh, so it’s funny, is it?” Ada said to Nat.
“The Universe has its little jokes with us sometimes, in this realm of chaos,” Sage said. Her low, soft voice could make any words sound soothing, but Ada looked at her like she had two heads.
Roxy offered her robe to the Nigerian woman who immediately swiped it from her, handing Roxy her red-stained dress in exchange. Roxy took it and glared at Nat, “Come with me into the kitchen to fix this up.” Nat didn’t respond immediately. “Nat!”
But Nat didn’t move fast enough, so Roxy grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her into the kitchen. She shut the door behind them. “What are you playing at?” she hissed while finding some white wine to douse the dress with. “Don’t you know this is all going on the Internet? This could ruin us! Why are you grinning?”
“What?” said Nat, smiling. Roxy couldn’t remember the last time she felt so angry. Then Nat sighed. “Oh…okay, I see what you mean. Sorry, it was just a teentsy-weentsy bit funny. She just stood in the mid…” Nat looked like she was about to burst into a fit of giggles again.
“Stop it! You’re jeopardizing everything!” Roxy hissed, still furious, and, if she were honest, scared to death at what this debacle might mean for her business. “It’s bad enough that this has happened, but you’re staff! You can’t laugh at her!”
“I didn’t actually laugh!” Nat protested.
“Near enough. Look, pull yourself together. I know you don’t like her, but still.”
Nat stifled her giggles, “You’re right. I’m sorry. How can I help?”
Just then, Ada burst through the kitchen door. She was quite a sight. Her eyes were wild and her shiny high heels and Roxy’s robe made an unconventional fashion statement. “How’s it going?” she growled, her arms outstretched, her hands curled like claws in front of her. She dropped them the moment she noticed Nat, folded her arms and pursed her lips. “Not that you care.”
“I’ll just go clean the wine from the floor,” Nat mumbled. She left the kitchen, avoiding Ada’s withering look.
“I think your dress is doing okay so far,” Roxy said to Ada. The white wine was spreading over the red stain and seemed to be neutralizing it. There was still some discoloration though, a light pink. “I just hope Sam comes back quickly.”
“He’d better,” Ada said. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, bringing that Dash prankster person here. Who does he think he is? You need to ask him to leave. In fact, my whole visit here has been a poor one. No one to greet me, no personal service. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
A lump formed in Roxy’s throat while butterflies chaotically danced in her belly. At that moment she felt she was in over her head, just like she’d feared in her least confident moments. And now she was in a bind. If she asked Dash to leave per Ada’s request, surely it would be some huge scandal that Michael & Dash would milk for all they were worth, probably for months, on their social media accounts. It might ruin her business. But if she let him stay, what would Ada do? Ada had huge influence among affluent tourists—especially in the African and Middle Eastern markets—who were looking for luxury experiences and Roxy was quite sure Ada had the power to generate a negative buzz. Perhaps they would all turn on her and destroy everything she’d worked for. She blew out her cheeks. At least it would be over quickly.
She didn’t know what to say to Ada. She was in a no-win situation. So she smiled brightly. “Let’s hope Sam hurries up; we need to save this dress!” she said. “It must have cost a ton.”
“It’s not about the cost. It’s never about the cost,” Ada snapped. She even stamped her foot on the tiled kitchen floor. “This is a Versace limited edition.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“OH,” ROXY SAID. She didn’t even know it was possible to have a limited edition Versace dress. She looked up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Her thoughts started to run, and they followed a familiar theme. Had there been a time in her life when she felt more inadequate? Her owning and running a business had happened so quickly. It had skyrocketed out of nowhere, in fact. And now she wondered how she’d gotten here. It had been too easy. She didn’t deserve it. Evangeline and Sam must have made a mistake. The universe itself had made a mistake, surely. And now it was self-correcting. Good things like running the Funky Cat didn’t happen to people like her.
“When is that big buffoon going to return?” Ada said impatiently, her eyebrows knitted together, her eyes cold and hard.
“He’s not a buffoon,” Roxy shot back without thinking. “He’s a very kind, capable, strong man, and one of our dearest friends.”
Ada’s expression didn’t change.
“And he drives a Rolls Royce Phantom.” Roxy didn’t particularly care about that, but she knew Ada would. It wasn’t her finest moment, but she hated to hear Ada talk badly and without reason about Sam. It made her feel a little better to defend him.
“Really?” Ada said, perking up before relaxing and looking nonchalant. “I rode around in one before I was five. It was my father’s driver’s favorite car in our fleet.”
“Sam’s is a limited edition with maroon paint. So, you see, you two have something in common—limited editions.”
“Oh.” Ada nodded. “Well, that sounds nice.” She offered Roxy a small smile.
Roxy smiled back, bemused at how something so inconsequential to her made such a difference to Ada. “Oh, look,” she said, pointing at the dress, “it’s looking pretty good now.”
Ada ran her perfectly-manicured hands over the surface. “I can still see some staining.”
Sam came through the door then, panting, clutching a stain-remover pen and a spray can. “I’ve got what I need. Let’s get this fixed.”
There was a rapt silence as the two women watched him work. They both looked on intently. For obvious but different reasons, Roxy and Ada really wanted the stain remover to work and as if by magic, it did. After a few minutes of application, the stain completely disappeared.
Ada burst into a grin and threw her arms around Sam’s neck. “Oh, thank you! You are the only decent person here!”
Roxy felt an unexpected pang of jealousy course through her, closely followed by anger laced with relief. Heat rushed to her cheeks. When she’d taken on the Funky Cat, she’d decided that, despite feeling something for Sam, she was going to keep their friendship strictly platonic. She didn’t want to mix business with pleasure. She wanted to keep things just as they were, one big, happy Funky Cat family. But she still didn’t like this over-familiarity Ada was showing Sam. It ruffled her. And she didn’t appreciate her comment about him being the sole arbiter of decency. They were all bending over backward to help her if only she’d notice.
Sam gave Ada an awkward pa
t on the back and extricated himself from her hug. “You’re welcome.”
“So,” Ada said, smiling up at him. “I hear you have a limited edition Rolls Royce Phantom?”
“Oh, that?” he said quickly. “That’s just my guilty pleasure. Shall we go back into the dining room and finish our meal?”
“So what do you do?” Ada asked, taking his arm and leaning into him. “It’s so good to finally meet someone of my standing here. I’m medically trained, at Oxford University in England, but I don’t practice. My father persuaded me that I was more suited for the limelight.”
“Oh, right,” Sam said. He sounded genuinely interested. “I took the opposite route. I studied business at Stanford. My dad wanted me to become an investment banker in New York, but I preferred the idea of a lower profile life and came back here, my home town, to start my laundry business.”
Ada laughed. “And the rest. A hometown boy with a Rolls Royce? My, what did you do? Rob a bank?”
Sam laughed and got that awkward look he always did when the subject of his money came up. “Absolutely! Don’t hand me in, now, Ms. Okafor!” He clapped his hands and looked at Roxy. “Right! What’s next on the menu?”
Roxy’s head was all awhirl, what with the red wine mishap, the complicated emotions that she was trying not to feel, and the new information about Sam she was learning. “Um…”
Evangeline rescued her by coming into the kitchen. “Time for the cheese course now,” she said. “Come on, Nat.”
Nat came in after her. She wouldn’t make eye contact with Roxy or Ada. As Evangeline, carrying the cheese boards, followed Sam, Roxy, and Ada back out into the dining room, Nat took Elijah’s personalized cupcakes from the fridge and quietly began to boil some milk.
Roxy Reinhardt Mysteries Box Set Page 18