“I can give you my recipe,” Elena smiled. “Oh, actually. You might be able to help me.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m looking for an international market or maybe a specialty shop that might sell tvorog. It’s—”
“Russian farmer’s cheese,” Alexis said. “I’ve had it before.”
“I know I could try to make it myself, but it’s one thing I have never mastered. Do you know of anyplace around here?”
Alexis bit her lip. “Well, maybe.”
“Really? Where? I’ve tried everywhere I can think of.”
Alexis looked around as if making sure no one could hear them. Then she leaned forward. “I don’t know if I should tell you or not.”
“Um, why?”
“Vlad might not like it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Alexis looked around again. Her voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “Ask him about the Cheese Man.”
* * *
* * *
Vlad was grumpy.
The book club meeting left him eager to write but also annoyed for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. And even that made him grumpy. Colton drove him home and helped him inside. They both stopped short in the entryway. Something smelled amazing.
Tangy and rich, Vlad knew immediately what it was. Stewed cabbage. Another favorite. With one inhale, he was home. He smelled cold fingers wrapped around a bowl of hot soup. Aching muscles and a clean T-shirt. Howling wind and a crackling fire. His mother’s hug and his father’s laughter. Elena sitting at a table helping him with his math homework after practice.
“Whatever she’s making, I’m eating some,” Colton said, taking off down the hallway.
Vlad bristled. He didn’t want Colton to stay. He wanted a moment alone with his wife before heading upstairs to write. And that thought made him grumpier. He couldn’t think about Elena like that, as his wife. But when he entered the kitchen, he stopped short again at the scene that greeted him. Elena stood at the island with her hair coiled on top of her head, which was bent to study a piece of paper, a pen poised in her hand. Sometimes, her fresh-faced beauty caught him so off guard that he forgot to breathe. Like now.
A sudden memory hit him hard.
“Elena, are you staying for dinner?”
His mother stirred the sautéing bacon and onions. Elena looked up from the counter, where she’d been finishing an essay for her literature class. “No, thank you. My dad promised he’d be home tonight.”
Vlad met his mama’s eyes over Elena’s head. Her father’s promises were as reliable as a Soviet-era nuclear reactor.
Mama kept her tone even. “Why don’t you take some home, just in case?”
Elena returned the empty bowl the next day. Her father had broken his promise. Again.
Vlad cleared his throat. Elena looked up. Her eyes flashed with a welcoming warmth for a moment before withdrawing into cool distance again. It seemed forced, as if she’d reminded herself to do it.
“Hey,” she said. “I made stewed cabbage.”
“I know. It smells incredible.”
“It should be done by now. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Yo,” Colton whistled. “You guys are doing the Russian thing again.”
Elena switched to English as she looked at Colton. “Are you hungry?”
“Hell yes.”
“How come you never eat at home?” Vlad grumbled, crutching to a seat at the island.
“Because I don’t have an Elena.”
Neither did Vlad. Not for long, at least. And suddenly grumpy became downright cross.
“Will you fix a plate for Vlad?” Elena asked Colton. “I’m trying to finish this grocery list for the party.”
“Didn’t you buy out the entire store last time?” Colton joked from the stove. He raised the plate to his face. “Goddamn, this smells good.”
He carried it to Vlad and set it down. “You need a bib, little butt?”
Vlad muttered a Russian curse word. Elena looked up sharply. “Vlad, be nice.”
After Colton filled his own plate and sat down, Elena capped her pen and faced them with her hands on her hips.
“Vlad.”
He looked up from his plate. “What?”
“I really, really need some tvorog.”
“Um, okay. Maybe we can find a store.”
“Vlad.”
He gulped. “What?”
“Tell me about the Cheese Man.”
Vlad went cold, and he dropped his fork. “Where did you hear that name?”
“What is it? Is it a store?”
Vlad shook his head. “No. It’s nothing. Forget you ever heard that name.”
“What name? Cheese Man?”
Colton set down his fork. “Come on, man. What’s the harm?”
“You know the harm, Colton! It is a dark path. I cannot drag her down it. I will not.”
“I’m sorry,” Elena said, looking back and forth between them. “What dark path?”
Vlad and Colton locked gazes again for a moment before turning to look at her. “The path to the best cheese you’ll ever eat in your life,” Colton breathed.
“No. To an addiction you will never break,” Vlad warned. “The price is too high.”
Elena waved her hands in front of her chest. “Wait. I don’t understand. What are we talking about? Who exactly is the Cheese Man?”
“No one really knows,” Colton said. “He appeared last year. People started whispering about him. Have you tried the Cheese Man yet? Have you heard about the Cheese Man? We have a lot of connections, you know, and so I started asking around, and someone finally hooked us up.”
Elena crossed her arms. “Does he have store, or something?”
“God, no,” Colton said. “He basically runs a speakeasy. Like, like a speak cheesy.”
Laughter barked from her chest. Elena pressed a hand to her mouth to smother the sound, but it was no use. She sucked in a breath and bent over as if she hadn’t laughed in a year. The sound was so pure, so beautiful, that Vlad got lost in it for a moment. But only a moment, because the reality was ugly. “Cheese Man is no laughing matter, Elena. Once you start, you can’t stop. He will own you for life.”
Elena wiped her eyes and stood up. “Sorry. I just . . . this is absurd.”
“To get in, you have to show this,” Colton said, digging his membership coin from his wallet.
“This is a joke, yes?”
Vlad glowered at Colton. “Put that away. And no, Cheese Man is not a joke, Elena.”
“But will he have tvorog?”
“He has everything,” Colton said. “And if he doesn’t have it, he’ll know how to get it.”
Elena nodded. “Great. When can we go?”
“No,” Vlad said, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”
“Tomorrow?” Colton said.
Elena nodded. “Tomorrow.”
Vlad swore in Russian again.
Colton grinned. “Prepare to be amazed.”
CHAPTER TEN
Elena was not amazed.
This couldn’t actually be the place. The building where Vlad had directed her the next afternoon looked like the aftermath of a rabies outbreak. This was the cheese shop?
“Elena.” Vlad’s hand shot across the center console and grabbed hers. “There’s still time to back out.”
“I really need that cheese, Vlad.”
He closed his eyes. “God forgive me.”
He let go of her hand and opened his door. Elena ran around and helped him with his crutches. “Stay behind me,” he ordered her.
“You can’t be serious,” she said.
“Just do what I say, Elena. Please.”
She slid behind him and immedi
ately felt invisible. His massive shoulders dwarfed hers, hiding her from whatever bogeyman he feared as they approached the decrepit black door.
Vlad knocked three times in quick succession and then twice more.
A moment passed, and someone from inside knocked once.
Vlad knocked two more times.
“There’s a secret knock?” Elena whispered.
“Be quiet,” Vlad hissed. “And don’t laugh. He doesn’t like it when you laugh.”
“Sorry.” Elena cleared her throat.
A single window in the center had something covering it. The scrape of wood against it made her stand on tiptoe to peer over Vlad’s shoulder. A pair of eyes looked out through the previously blocked window. “Coin,” a dark voice said.
Elena slapped a hand over her mouth to cover the bark of laughter that threatened to ruin it all. Vlad held up the Swiss cheese coin like the one Colton had shown her. There was a sound of locks turning, and the door opened. A burst of cold air from inside rushed out.
Vlad crutched forward slowly, and Elena stayed as hidden as possible behind him. But when Vlad crossed the threshold, the mysterious man began to close the door. Elena shoved her foot in the door as Vlad whipped his head around.
“Wait—”
The man’s hand shot out and gripped her shoulder, holding her back. “Who is this?”
Vlad swiveled on his crutches, an ominous look turning his face into an intimidating mask, and Elena got the first glimpse of what he must look like to opposing players on the ice. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t sort of do things for her.
“Do not touch her,” Vlad warned.
Whether it was the tone or the expression, it worked. The man dropped his hand but shook his head. “You know the rules. No nonmembers.”
“It’s my wife,” Vlad said in that same menacing tone.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Where has she been? Why hasn’t she been here before?”
“She’s been away at school,” Vlad said. He balanced a crutch against his side so he could extend his hand to her. “Elena, come here.”
She skirted around the man and skidded toward Vlad. He pulled her against his side. “She knew nothing about this until now,” he said. “I’ve never told her about this place.”
Elena glanced around the tiny, dark space. It had probably once been the welcoming entryway to a small shop or pub but had long ago decayed into the kind of moldy, cramped staging area she always imagined for illegal organ-harvesting operations. Which wasn’t that far-fetched. Her father had uncovered just such an operation several years before his disappearance.
Behind them, a short hallway ended with a slight ramp, where a thick black tarp of some kind hung low to the ground and blocked her view of whatever was beyond.
“He’s not going to like this,” the man said.
Now that Elena’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could actually see him. He wore a red bandanna around his forehead, and a tight hairnet covered what appeared to be the smallest man bun ever attempted. The smudges on his black-rimmed glasses told her he spent too much time in the dark.
“Well, bring him out here,” Vlad said. “Let’s ask him directly.”
“No. I can’t do that. Only coin holders get to see him.”
Vlad shifted to pull Elena closer to him, but at the same time, the movement caused his crutch to dislodge from under his arm. It fell to the floor, and inside the small space, it was as loud as a gunshot and had nearly the same effect.
Man-bun Man jumped half a foot and whipped a short-handled prong knife from his pocket. The kind used for soft and medium-hard cheeses and, in this case, maybe their throats.
Vlad lunged forward on one leg, grabbed the man’s wrist, and simultaneously shoved him against the wall. “That’s a fancy cheese utensil you’ve got there,” Vlad said in a deceptive drawl. “I’d hate to have to break it.”
Elena muttered a Russian curse word and stepped forward. “Stop this! You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Vlad didn’t turn around. “Elena, stay back.”
She shoved his crutches at him. “For God’s sake, I just need some tvorog.”
The scuff of the tarp brought a collective gasp from all three of them. At once, they turned their heads in time to see a tall, dark figure emerge from behind the curtain. He wore a long apron and carried a towel on which he slowly wiped his hands.
“A woman who knows her cheese. Color me aroused.”
His voice was smooth, warm, like a melted raclette, soft and creamy and hot. Elena felt herself sink into it like a crust of bread in a fondue pot. She turned toward it and began to walk.
“Elena, no.” Vlad’s fingers skimmed her elbow, but it was no use. She was under a spell.
The man descended the ramp. When he finally stepped into the dim light, he spoke to the dude with the bandanna. “It’s okay, Byron. Let them in.”
To Elena, he extended his hand. “I am Roman. You are?”
“Elena,” she breathed.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He raised her knuckles to his lips. “It is a pleasure.”
“That’s my wife,” Vlad said behind them.
Roman lifted a perfectly formed brow. “A gorgeous woman who is also a turophile? You are a lucky man, my friend.” He cupped Elena’s elbow. “Please, let me show you to my fromagerie.”
The click-scruff of Vlad’s crutches behind them had an aggressive cadence to it as he followed. Roman lifted the black plastic curtain. When she walked through, bright lights automatically turned on, momentarily blinding her. But after blinking a couple of times, she slapped her hand to her chest. This was a cheese paradise.
Elena wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered.
“My apologies, love,” Roman said, brushing a fingertip down the goose bumps that had erupted along her triceps. “We must keep it cool in here. Your husband should have warned you to bring your coat.”
Vlad made an ugly noise.
“As you can see,” Roman said, bending seductively close to her ear, “we have everything you could want.”
“Tvorog?”
He turned and pointed with a long, slender finger. She followed with her eyes and . . . there it was. “You have it,” she whispered, her feet moving of their own accord toward her quarry. Her mouth watered.
“Ah yes,” Roman said, following closely. “Authentic farmer cheese. I use the original recipe of my great-grandmother.”
Elena looked over sharply. “You are Russian?”
“On my father’s side. My great-grandparents came over in 1911.”
“Do you speak any Russian?”
He winked and made a dirty proposition in their native language that made her cheeks flame.
Vlad squinted in suspicion. “You have never spoken Russian to me.”
“I only know enough to get me in trouble.” He laughed in Vlad’s direction.
“I don’t understand,” Elena said, shaking her head. “This is amazing. Why don’t you open a store to the public?”
The air seemed to escape the room. She glanced at Vlad, who was frozen in place, a slice of Havarti halfway to his mouth.
Roman chuckled quietly, but his laughter held a sinister undertone. “Big Cheese would never let it happen.”
“Big Cheese?”
“Corporate dairy farms. They lobby the government to pack the FDA with their friends who set regulations that make it impossible for a small cheesemaker to succeed. They set standards that strip away the joy, the artistry. They have sold their souls”—he pounded his fist into his other hand—“to factory-made cheese. And then they destroy the environment with their mass-production farms that milk their cows too often.”
Elena blinked. “How often do they milk their cows?”
“Three times a day, Elena. Th
ree times!”
“And how many times should they be milking them?”
“Two times, max.”
“I see.”
“Do you know how hard it is to get a real Brie in this country, Elena? American pasteurization laws make it impossible. What you buy in the stores is a watered-down version with none of the texture and seduction of the real thing.”
Elena didn’t know what those words meant in regards to cheese, but he was on a roll, so she didn’t want to interrupt him.
“That is why I must operate in the dark,” he said. “In the underground.”
“So you’re like a resistance fighter against a cheese conspiracy?”
“At the highest levels of government and dairy.”
“And you can make authentic cheeses that others cannot?”
“Yes. And anything I do not make, my network of underground fromagers can provide.”
“Cool. I’m in.” She fist-bumped him. “Because we are having a party on Saturday, and I’m going to need a lot.”
“A party, huh?”
“Yes. You should come.”
“It is a party for friends only,” Vlad growled.
“Then I am doubly honored to be invited.” He lifted Elena’s hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Elena might have swooned a little. “I’ll be sure to bring something extra special.”
* * *
* * *
“That’s the last time we’re going there.”
Vlad eased his leg into the car and slammed his door shut. Elena started the car, a dreamy look on her face that made him want to punch the dashboard and add broken fingers to his list of problems.
“All that cheese,” Elena breathed, pulling onto the road. “It was like a dream.”
“It is a nightmare, and I cannot believe you invited him to the party.”
“It seemed rude not to.”
“I don’t want him anywhere near our party.” Vlad glared out the window at the passing buildings as she drove. He suddenly hated those buildings and for no particular reason other than they happened to be in his line of vision at the time of his bad mood.
Isn't It Bromantic? Page 14