Tantalize

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  I buried my face in my hands, defeated. My uncle had his heart set on Countess Ruby Sanguini.

  Brad slipped the hat back into the bag. “How about I give it a shot?” He rapped his knuckles on the top of my head. “Quincie?”

  I set my chin on my palms. “Hm?”

  “Your uncle is paying a lot of attention to Ruby, but we’re a team, right?”

  We had been spending a lot of time together.

  “You’ve already laid the groundwork,” he said. “Let me do my part.”

  What was left to lose? Ruby would show up tomorrow looking her usual vampish self anyway, and I was out of ideas. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  At least someone in my life was cooperative.

  “It’s settled then. Hungry?”

  “Thirsty, but I can eat.” And I was curious.

  Brad excused himself and returned carrying two menus. Two.

  I tried to imagine. Tomorrow morning, the tables would be rearranged. Tomorrow afternoon, staff would arrive to rehearse and the dance floor would be installed. Tomorrow night, Sanguini’s guests would be seated and served . . . something.

  “Prey or predator?” Brad asked at the table.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  His smile had a confidence I hadn’t seen since that first night with the police. “Have you yet been blessed into a vampiric being?”

  “No,” I said, amused. “Not yet.”

  He handed me the prey menu. “It’s about the dance. Predator and prey. That’s what seduction is, dancing.”

  Was that sexy? I’d give it a C-/D+, like the ones I was getting in all my classes back when I bothered to regularly attend. Borderline sexy. “Can I see both?”

  He handed me the predator menu, brushing his long fingers against mine. “I’ve prepared a tasting for you, a sampling of everything we’ll serve.”

  Setting the menus side by side on the table, I ran my fingertips over the white, pressed leather, traced the gothic-style crimson lettering, and toyed a moment with each of the gold tassels. Opened both menus.

  Oh my God! To think Brad had talked for hours about banal issues like northern versus southern versus pan-Italian and nixing heavy cream sauces because of the climate.

  He touched the tip of his tongue to each of his fangs, then started showing off.

  It wasn’t like being served dinner so much as being offered tribute. Each petite selection — two or three bites only — perched on a bone-white china plate.

  Time and wine to clean the palate between.

  We didn’t talk, Brad and I, alone in the dining room. He made offering after offering, and I accepted. He strolled between my table and the kitchen, my wine glass — Chianti with the prey dishes, Cab with the predator — never less than half full.

  “These will make up the whole wine list,” Brad mentioned in passing. “Nothing else will be offered — no coffee, no tea. We’ll serve water only upon request.”

  The prey menu first, few surprises, a sampling of the best dishes I’d vetted already. The predator menu, more daring, designed to titillate. Amazing for someone who wasn’t even Italian. Even Vaggio would’ve been wowed.

  I refused to be intimidated, though. The veal tartare was exquisitely raw, the foie gras terrine predictable, the main courses — from pig’s feet to boar’s head pie — a toe-to-top invitation for the eager carnivore, the sides obligatory, but the desserts . . . The desserts were something else and something else, at least one of them was. I lingered over the last bite of rice pudding blood cakes. “You’re brilliant!” I declared. “Bravo!”

  “Ready for the grand finale?” he asked.

  I met Brad’s eyes, realizing how used to the red contacts I’d become. To me, that’s what he looked like. Otherworldly, but rooted in khakis and oxfords. Saucy, but safe. “Bring it on.”

  Big talk. When the culinary virtuoso returned with the chilled baby squirrel, simmered in orange brandy, bathed in honey cream sauce, I . . .

  “Problem?” Brad asked.

  It wouldn’t taste bad. Everything had been delicious, decadent, and on the predator menu, devilish. The other dishes had been tiny, but on this one, he’d gone all out. Problem was, it still looked like a squirrel. A darling squirrel, skinned and naked, curled like it was trying to keep warm. It was enough to turn a cattle rancher vegan.

  “I’m pretty full.”

  That had sounded neutral enough, I hoped. Not like someone with bile pooling at the base of her throat.

  “It’s not about volume, not this particular dish. It’s about the drama. A certain type of predator will order the squirrels to show that despite the hokey restaurant —”

  “Hey!” Though he had a point.

  “And clichéd counterculture staff, it’s just possible —”

  “He’s a vampire,” I finished, impressed. “I get it.”

  “Or she’s a vampire,” Brad put in.

  I gave him a wry look.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Ruby, I guess. She’s such a freak.”

  The fingertip tracing a blue vein in my wrist was light, cool, attentive. It made me wonder how it might feel somewhere else.

  “But we’re in the freak business,” he replied. “Aren’t you dressing up?”

  Uncle D had mentioned that vamp duds and accessories would be available tomorrow in the break room in case anyone needed to augment their wardrobe. He’d looked at me in my typical blah denim and cotton T as he’d said it, though he wasn’t pushing. “I have to, I guess. It’s a huge deal, the party, and we have so many new hires. My uncle’s going to need my help.”

  Brad was still touching me. “You’ve had to grow up fast.”

  This was a date, I realized, Brad and me, sitting together in the black leather booth in my otherwise empty restaurant. This time, I didn’t feel guilty.

  On impulse, I threaded my fingers between Brad’s, squeezed, and let go. Unscathed. I wasn’t Vaggio’s buddy anymore, I realized. Wasn’t Uncle D’s sidekick. Wasn’t Kieren’s girl. The honor-roll nobody, little orphan Quincie.

  I felt adult. In control. Tantalized.

  That in mind, I picked up my fork, picked up my knife, swallowed my revulsion, and ate the squirrel.

  Delicious.

  The afternoon before the debut party, Clyde found me in the break room. I had been quizzing three of the waiters, Xio, Jamal, and Mercedes, on the new menus and explaining to Xio that Brad hadn’t seemed inclined to add a whole-wheat pasta dish.

  “I’ve got a delivery for you,” the Opossum said, jiggling a bag. “From Kieren.”

  It was impossible to look at Clyde and not remember him clutching my pink panties. But I took the bag, peeked inside, and smiled in spite of myself.

  It was a plastic container filled with habanera-stuffed olives, like Vaggio used to make. I guessed Kieren had turned to his mama’s favorite caterer. I slipped into the chaotic kitchen, stashed the olives in the fridge. Brad wasn’t in there at the moment, which was unusual, but he was around somewhere.

  After much internal debate, I decided it was only polite to call. Taking a glass of Cabernet with me, I went back into the break room, where the servers were doing the happy dance over their mental brilliance. Then I went into Uncle D’s office instead.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Kieren answered, his phone voice cautious.

  When did this become so hard? “I wanted to say thanks for the olives.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I took a sip. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Kieren replied. “I just got back from the police station. More questions. The same questions over and over.”

  The police hadn’t called me back in. I remembered what Brad had said about a pending arrest. “Detective Sanchez?”

  “Who?” He paused. “No, it was Bartok and Matthews, the ones who came to Vaggio’s memorial service. You know, who questioned us the night he died.”

  “What do they want?” I asked.

&nbs
p; “I don’t know. Matthews said something about running my DNA —”

  “Can they do that?”

  “My lawyer says he’ll try to fight it, but that’s our worst-case scenario.”

  When did Kieren get a lawyer? I wondered, putting down my glass.

  “They don’t want me hanging around the restaurant,” he added, “what with the cops and everything.”

  Who were “they”? His parents?

  “But I’m going to try to sneak out later tonight, okay?”

  His parents. Jesus. What should I say? “Okay. Um, is there anything else you want to tell me?” I wasn’t about to use the word “confess.”

  “Like what?” Kieren asked.

  I closed my eyes. “Nothing.”

  He hung up, and so did I.

  It was then that I remembered the hang-up phone call on the night of Vaggio’s death. I guessed I’d been so traumatized it had slipped my mind before now. I realized that anyone familiar with the restaurant redesign would know the phones were in the foyer, the break room, and the office. They’d know that at least for the moment of the call I hadn’t been in the kitchen. If it was Vaggio’s murderer, maybe he’d seen an opening, taken a chance on entering through the back door while I was elsewhere in the building.

  It might be nothing, I realized, but I should probably tell the police.

  I decided to talk to Uncle D first, though, when we had a moment. After all, if Kieren needed a lawyer, maybe I did, too. The list of people who’d seen the inside of Sanguini’s up to that point was a short one. Outside of my family, just Kieren, the renovation folks, and some delivery people. I lifted my glass and drank deeply.

  Speaking of deliveries, as if life didn’t suck enough, a beefy guy — the name sewn onto his shirt read “Sid” — appeared at the office door looking for a manager to accept responsibility for a fortune in wine. “He’s not here.” Uncle D had left a few minutes ago to pick up more napkins. “But Davidson Morris is my uncle. I can sign.”

  “There’s nothing here about leaving all this with some underage . . . niece.”

  He’d said it as though my familial claim was suspicious, eyeing my drink.

  “Whatever you say,” I replied. “Go ask for Sebastian at the bar.”

  “I don’t know,” Sid said. Like he was going to leave and take the wine with him.

  I stood, slamming my glass onto the desk, breaking it at the stem. “Damn!” The top rolled off, exploding as it hit stained concrete. “Damn it!”

  “Quincie?” Brad asked, hurrying through the door to my side. “Are you hurt?”

  “I . . . no, I’m . . . He won’t leave the wine.”

  Brad introduced himself to Sid as the head chef and signed on the clipboard.

  “Babes in Toyland,” Sid muttered, wandering out.

  Ignoring him, Brad led me around the less perilous side of the desk. “I’ll ask a server to clean up in here.”

  “I, I’m stupid and clumsy.”

  “Compared to you, Garbo herself was an ox. With the party hours away, it’s only natural for you to be nervous. I am, and it’s not my mom’s legacy on the line.”

  It was a relief having someone who understood.

  “And that boy?” the chef asked. “Is he still upsetting you?”

  “I guess.”

  Brad adopted a movie vampire accent. “Don’t vorry. You can count on me.”

  “I feel like an idiot,” I said. Maybe it was because I was wearing fishnet stockings, black leather hot pants, and a black leather bustier. Maybe it was the makeup — black lip and eyeliner, alabaster base and powder that covered my freckles. As for the four-inch heels? God, I could barely walk.

  I didn’t have a moral objection to dressing provocatively. It just wasn’t my style. But for Sanguini’s sake, I could try it. I was open-minded. Sort of. And as a little kid, I’d always loved Halloween. Tonight, I’d refused any jewelry, though, skipped nail polish, and rejected dye, pulling my hair into a face-lift bun. “I’m sure I look like an idiot, too.”

  Ruby, even more appallingly appareled and drenched in musk, pushed to sit, slim legs crossed, on the office desk. She’s the one who’d needled me into trying on the bustier in the first place. “You look better than you ever have before.”

  I wished I could check myself out in a mirror, but the restaurant didn’t have any, not even in the restrooms. If something got stuck in someone’s teeth, it was supposed to be considered thematic. Maybe it was good, though, that I couldn’t see myself. I might go full-barrel chicken if I did.

  “It’s the four-inch heels,” I said. Don’t get me wrong. We were selling sex, at least metaphorically, along with the ambiance, food, and liquor. I was even grudgingly grateful to Ruby for her help. But I couldn’t function up so high, and the soles were so slick that I’d be sure to wipe out by close. I kicked off the shoes and tugged on my new red cowboy boots instead.

  Yanking up my bustier, I sighed. “Let’s focus on the restaurant.”

  “Your precious family restaurant, your uncle’s precious family restaurant,” Ruby chanted. “You’d think it was Tara. ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never’ blah, blah, blah.”

  I wasn’t certain if she and my uncle had had a spat or if she was looking long-term to cash in on the place as community property. Now that I thought about it, though, the misconception that Uncle Davidson owned Sanguini’s could go a long way to explaining how he’d managed to land her in the first place. I mean, paunchy, thirtyish guy, going nowhere, with barely twentysomething, budding dominatrix, likewise going nowhere. So, I clarified. “My grandma and grandpa Crimi’s restaurant, my mother’s, mine. My uncle is just managing it for me until I hit twenty-one.”

  Not that I wasn’t planning on Uncle D staying as long as he wanted. Not that he’d ever bail on a family obligation. Not that it was any of her business anyway. But I was weary of Ruby trying to make me doubt myself. She was such a drain.

  Uncle D popped his head into the office, still sporting his aloha shirt with Levis and Birkenstocks. “Chop, chop, ladies. It’s almost sunset. Quincie, honey, double-check the waitress station.”

  “The one behind the hostess stand or the one behind the bar?”

  “Both!” he replied as I ducked out. “Ruby, double-check the kitchen for hairnets.”

  “Ball caps okay?” I heard her ask.

  Was she on the payroll now?

  A couple of the servers, Simone and Mercedes, both leggy goddess brunettes, looked up when I passed the break room. They were folding crimson napkins into bats. Their mascara-laden eyes blinked at my appearance — not drastically distinct from theirs, but before tonight my idea of a fashion risk had been wearing a jewel-tone instead of a black or white T-shirt.

  “Quincie!” Simone exclaimed. “You look —”

  “Wicked!” Mercedes finished.

  I laughed, blushing. “Gotta run.”

  It’d meant a lot to me and Uncle D, how many of the old timers had returned, quitting the jobs they’d taken while we were shut down for renovations, saving him tons of little-to-spare angst and training time. Acts of faith. The handful of newbies on the wait staff had each been assigned a vet to follow, and they’d rotate that way for the next couple of weeks. Everything would be fine, I told myself. It had to be.

  Sergio, the expeditor, caught me to avoid a full-on collision. “Easy,” he said. “Remember, no matter how much you’re in the weeds —”

  “Never show it,” I finished. “Walk the same pace. Remain calm.”

  Sergio’s job was to hurry the food on the line and run it to the tables. Another veteran returned to the fold. “You’re holding up like a champ,” he told me.

  “Holding up?”

  “It’s hard on all of us, getting through tonight without Vaggio, but the show must go on, right?”

  “Uh, right.” I needed another drink.

  “Your mama would’ve been so proud of you, lamb chop.”

  I kissed his cheek. “Thanks.”


  At the end of the hall, I parted the crimson velvet curtains, revealing the dining room. The mood lighting had been turned on. Subtle, shadowy. Jazz played through hidden speakers. Tables and booths had been preset as had a small dance floor.

  Tick, tock, I thought. Almost time.

  That’s when I heard the chef’s voice. “You look good enough to eat.”

  In the center of the dance floor waited Bradley Sanguini, vampire. His suit was a dark gray, accentuating his height and slender build. I could see only one dress watch gleaming beneath the cuff, but I’d bet the twin above it was just as fancy. No makeup or other affectations, at least not beyond his trademark fangs and red contacts. Maybe a touch of base. Wait, yep, and eyeliner and lip liner, both smudged to blend. It worked for him. As did the hint of blue blush to accentuate the cheek bones, make the face seem more defined. Even his widow’s peak juxtaposed against the twentysomething face hinted at a vampire’s classic immortality while evoking history, experience. He looked confident, at ease, standing in the middle of the dance floor as if he owned it, every inch the latter-day undead Fred Astaire.

  “Nice suit,” I said.

  His smile showed tooth, and we had a Count Sanguini after all. One so striking, so awe-inspiring I couldn’t think of what my uncle had sent me in to check.

  “Sunset,” Bradley whispered, slipping on a skullcap. “I can feel it.” He breathed the words like he could almost see the ash violet, candy cotton clouds against a pale blue and apricot sky. But the truth was, with its windows bricked, Sanguini’s seemed to exist totally separate from the natural world. He couldn’t see jack.

  “A little more Jedi than Lugosi,” I replied. “But color me enthralled.”

  Bradley smiled. “I should change to cook,” he said, strolling past.

  He smelled like olive oil and paradise.

  “Incoming victims,” Yanira called from the hostess stand.

  This was it. I grabbed a fresh glass of the house Cab from Sebastian. Carpe noctem! I thought. Seize the night!

  Sanguini’s sparked, then sparkled, moving as if in a waltz. Guests, many dressed for the occasion, were greeted by Yani and escorted to their two- or four-tops, where a server asked each if they considered themselves “predator” or “prey” and then presented them appropriate menus. One guy walked in with a spiderweb tattoo covering his entire face, a woman with porcupine quills threaded through her nostrils. A tall, very tall, and solid-looking red-haired man, neatly trimmed beard, dressed to the nines circa 1912, introduced himself in a pronounced Irish accent, “Mr. Stoker, party of one.” We had no fewer than four Mr. Stokers that night, one of which was a leather-jacket-sporting miniature Pomeranian, carried in a matching purse, whose owner acted heartbroken that we weren’t “Pom-friendly.” And they weren’t the most extreme or the most innovative. I’d never seen so much leather and feathers and fishnet and lace.