Tantalize

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  As Uncle D and Ruby worked the room, I tried to blend, which wasn’t so difficult. Shadows abounded, and partygoers became absorbed in the experience. They grimaced and giggled and gloried at the descriptions of predator dishes, yet both hunters and hunted devoured every bite. The dance floor — center stage for seduction.

  Not that I could just watch. I restocked wait stations, supplied an extra corkscrew, refolded napkins, wasted a minute on a custom order for some skinny woman bitching about carbs, removed a dining chair to make room for a guest in a wheelchair, politely explained there was no freaking way any of the servers would be merrily crooning “Happy Birthday to You” in either Italian or English, and chatted with one of Vaggio’s exes, Celeste, who was at table five with her daughter. I was fetching a stray spoon from the floor when Sergio tapped my shoulder.

  “Sorry, lamb chop,” he said, holding a tray topped by a bowl of tomato and wild mushroom stew and a plate of pig’s feet. “But I’ve gotta keep running food, and there’s a woman with a problem in the hall. Something about the restrooms.”

  I tossed the spoon in a catchall at the wait station. “On it.”

  In the dim hallway, I saw her before she saw me. Plump, grandmotherly, sporting fang marks on her neck — a temporary tattoo. A lady who’d never let on to her bridge set how much she enjoyed erotic horror novels, but then again, wasn’t worried about running into any of them tonight.

  What now? I wondered. No toilet paper? I’d checked the supply half an hour earlier. The condom machines? This might be a place for role-playing lovers, but you had to give reality its due. I prayed she hadn’t slipped, thrown up, or had some kind of bowel eruption. The last thing we needed was food poisoning rumors, a trumped-up lawsuit, or heaven forbid, a cockroach. “May I help you, ma’am?”

  “Oh!” She straightened, clasping hands. “Yes, dear, it’s about the peeing.”

  “The peeing?”

  In reply, the lady gestured to the two restroom doors, which earlier today had been marked “M” and “W,” but now “Predator” and “Prey.” The “Prey” door had a cross on it. The “Predator” door didn’t. Unisexy. Nobody had warned me.

  “I don’t mean to be a prude. The food is fantastic, and I, well . . .” She lowered her voice. “I have certain fantasies, you know.”

  Falling under the category of too much information.

  Waving her hands, she continued, “But I just can’t go with men —”

  “I’ll guard the door.” As emergencies went, I’d seen worse.

  An hour later, I dropped off a tray of dirty dishes, and the kitchen was chaos.

  “Where’s Travis?” Uncle D yelled in the crowd. “Clyde, where’s Travis?”

  “Didn’t show,” Clyde replied, water spraying dishes. “But no sweat. I’m cool.”

  My uncle threw his hands into the air and stormed out of the room, muttering.

  “Quincie,” Bradley called from the stove. “A homeless guy stopped by the back door a while ago, asking for a handout. Said his name was Mitch and to tell you howdy.”

  “Did you feed him?”

  Bradley nodded, stirring. “He looked hungry and harmless. I’d given him some leftovers a few weeks back, too. Was that bad?”

  “No,” I said, relieved. “Not bad at all.”

  Big picture, things were going as planned, though Uncle D — in head-to-toe black mesh and massive amounts of hair gel (I nearly died laughing) — did have to step in when the intoxicated date of a city council member made a grab for a waiter’s ass, thus causing said waiter to dump a plate of sautéed porcini and veal kidneys on the mayor’s lap. And at the hostess stand Yanira did suggest Uncle D install a sign in the foyer to read:

  I refilled water and wine glasses, helped the busers clear tables, and conferred in the hall with the lead singer from Luminous Placenta about placing a ruby-and-diamond engagement ring on her girlfriend Amber’s blood cakes.

  A number of guests, in tones both hushed and boisterous, were discussing the two bodies found at the hike-and-bike trail, one last night and another the previous Friday. I overheard a few rumors. One gruesome, one hysterical, one that made me cringe.

  I tried not to listen whenever someone mentioned Vaggio.

  Once I realized the servers were clearing dinner plates, I ducked into Uncle D’s office to check the digital clock. Two minutes until midnight. Bradley was to make his grand entry during the dessert service. It wasn’t like he needed me for the midnight toast, but I wanted to be there. As I turned to leave, a shadow flexed on the wall. “Kieren?”

  “I was looking for —”

  “I’ve been in the dining room or kitchen all night. It’s been crazy, but, hey, thanks for coming.” I’d never considered myself a babbler, but I was so euphoric the words just tumbled out of my mouth. “Did you sneak out? Oh, we’ve got to get back. Wait until —”

  “Quince, stop, stop. I’m here to —”

  “Later,” I said, slightly tipsy.

  “Now.” In the shadows, Kieren’s eyes reflected like mirrors. “Listen, I think it’s Ruby. I think she’s the vampire. I think she killed Vaggio, or at least, she was in on it. Quince, I think she’s using the restaurant as a beacon to her kind, a hunting ground. I’m not quite sure what. Maybe Vaggio saw something. Maybe . . .”

  Giddy mood fading, I couldn’t believe he’d used the phrase “beacon to her kind.”

  Kieren, not being a mind reader, kept talking. “She’s been seeing your uncle since about the time the whole vampire remodel came up. She’s never at your house. She’s hardly ever let me within a hundred feet of her, up or downwind. Coincidence?”

  I thought back to what Uncle D had said about Ruby wanting to turn vampire for real but then remembered. The night of Vaggio’s murder, she’d been swimming au naturel with Uncle D at Hippie Hollow. “Ruby has an alibi. She —”

  Kieren growled at me, and I shrank back. He’d never growled at me before.

  One moment he was haunting the shadows, I realized, the next he was in my face.

  Detective Sanchez had said the killer had been someone, a shifter that Vaggio had probably known. Kieren had known Vaggio. Kieren was half Wolf. Kieren had discovered Vaggio’s body. Kieren had been covered in blood. Kieren also had been acting weird, really weird, and I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the wereworld wasn’t all puppy-dog eyes and man’s best friend. I couldn’t stay in denial forever. Even the police suspected him.

  I inched backward till my hand hit the brass doorknob.

  “Maybe I was wrong about Ruby,” he admitted, “but my instincts are screaming. Something about you seems wrong, smells wrong.”

  And now I was insulted, too.

  “Quince, you’re . . . When’s the last time you showed at school? Did you know that five students are missing? Eight or nine people in the neighborhood?”

  I’d heard the waitstaff talking, but they’d always hushed when I walked into a room. I hadn’t realized how high the number had climbed. “The cops —”

  “Don’t understand what they’re up against.”

  “They know Vaggio’s murderer is out there.”

  “Out there,” he repeated. “Do you realize he could be in here, in this very building at this very moment.”

  That did it. “I have to leave.”

  I took off down the long hall, past the doors marked “predator” and “prey,” walking fast, running when I heard him closing in behind me.

  We burst, me first, Kieren on my boot heels, through the velvet curtains leading to the dining room. Everyone stared — guests, wait and bar and hostess staff, Ruby and Uncle D — then returned their attention to the main event.

  Everyone except Bradley, who was dressed as he had been before the party began, only more flushed, more vibrant. He stood once again in the center of the dance floor, a glass of red wine perched in his right hand. Making a speech about the foolishness of those who’d entered freely and of their own will.

  Bradley waited until finishing his
thought to turn and address Kieren. “You,” he roared. “You are not welcome among the blessed.”

  Kieren laid rough palms and finger pads on my forearms, and I goose-pimpled beside the air-conditioning duct. “You know me, Quince.” He let go before I could shrug him off. “Nobody knows me like you.”

  All eyes watched him exit with a dignity humanity lost long ago. Unbeatable, that’s what his body language said. There was just somewhere else he’d rather be.

  As the door closed behind Kieren, the vampire chef raised his glass in a toast, leading all those gathered in doing the same. “I dedicate this drink to the countess of this fine establishment, she whose destiny is this dream.”

  Bradley Sanguini raised his glass to me.

  Tonight, Saturday night, would be our first of regular business. Not a handpicked guest list, just whoever had called to reserve a table, including probably a reviewer or two who was miffed at not having been invited to the debut. Tonight, the tables would turn over. Higher volume. Higher stress. Higher stakes.

  This afternoon, I was indulging in a glass of Chianti with Uncle D in his office when Clyde appeared at the door with news of Travis’s death and to give notice.

  “Travis died?” I turned the idea over in my mind and felt nothing. Shock, I supposed. Like with Mama and Daddy. Vaggio. But no, this felt somehow more numb. Empty. Maybe because I’d only liked Travis, rather than loved him. “What happened?”

  Clyde glared at me like I should already know.

  “You’re quitting?” my uncle exclaimed as if that was the only part he’d heard. “But it’s opening night.”

  I glanced at the clock. Two P.M. At that very moment, Clyde was supposed to be starting in on the dishes from the pastry and prep.

  “If you quit now,” my uncle added, “do you think you’re going to walk out of here with a good recommendation?”

  Clyde’s nose twitched.

  “I can wash dishes,” I told my uncle.

  “You shouldn’t have to do that, honey.”

  Uncle D made out one check for Clyde and another for him to give to Travis’s family. As Clyde reached to take the money, though, my uncle jerked back his hand. “Stay for dinner tonight and there’s another hundred in it for you.”

  Clyde smiled down at us, revealing sharp, tiny teeth. “I don’t think so.”

  “One fifty,” my uncle countered.

  “No.”

  “Three.”

  My eyes widened.

  “Just tonight,” Clyde said.

  “Deal.”

  “I won’t close,” he added. “I’m leaving with the last guests.”

  About a half-hour before opening, Sebastian took a break from bar inventory to drop by the office and relay that Bradley had a surprise for me in the private dining room.

  It was small compared to the main one, but with matching décor — the faux painted “castle” rock walls, candlelike wall sconces, crystal chandelier — and big enough to hold a six-top, which, with leaves, could seat twelve. Overwhelmed, Uncle D had held off on booking it until Halloween.

  When I walked in, Bradley offered me a single red calla lily. “For you.”

  I loved lilies. They reminded me of champagne flutes, weddings, and funerals.

  “I’m sorry that boy tainted last night.”

  “It wasn’t horrible,” I said, mostly trying to convince myself.

  “Yes,” Bradley argued, “it was. You deserve so much more, someone who’ll offer a real, long-term commitment. Someone you can trust. Promise me that if he comes back you’ll be more careful. You’ll ask for help.”

  When did Kieren become someone I sought protection from? When had Bradley become that protection? My life was changing so much, so fast. My life, and for that matter, my restaurant.

  I briefly closed my eyes. “I promise.”

  Then Bradley showed me a handwritten sheet. “Now then, I’m going to run this by your uncle, but I’d appreciate your thoughts first.”

  Flattered, I took a moment to adjust my neckline. That night, I wore a midnight blue lace gown — it matched the carpeting — of my own choosing over a light beige thong. The lace had seemed like a bang-up idea when I went out shopping that morning, but now my nipples were starting to chafe.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d upped the wardrobe a notch, though. Bradley planned to augment tonight’s toasting ensemble with a full-length black cape.

  Catching myself staring, I lowered my gaze to read. It was a proposed bio for the menu insert. Somehow, that project had slipped my mind. Already a wash for the debut party . . . I swear, my brain was a colander these days.

  Thank God for Bradley!

  “Do you think that’s sufficiently diabolical?” he asked. “Only one bride when Dracula himself took three?”

  Did he mean me? I wondered, or was he just flirting again? I pretended to give the matter serious consideration. “One seems like enough for anybody.”

  On her way back from seating a couple with waist-long dreadlocks and wearing head-to-heel silver spandex, Yanira tapped my elbow. “Some people are asking to say hi to you at the hostess stand,” she said.

  “What people?”

  But she didn’t hear me. The crowd created a steady hum, punctuated now and then by uproarious laughter. A large man wrapped in chains had stepped between us on his way to the restroom. Then I found myself trapped between two servers in front of a couple of tables pushed together to accommodate a large party. They’d all dressed as historical figures commonly rumored in the supermarket tabloids to be vampires. I was able to ID a King Tut, a Janis Joplin, a Ulysses S. Grant, and a Mary, Queen of Scots.

  Trying to circle around, I found myself blocked again, this time by a quartet of midfortyish six-foot-tall women — at least I thought they were women — standing arm in arm chatting about our chandeliers. All had been body-painted — as in hair, skin, lots of skin, no clothes whatsoever — in a sparkly twilight violet. Matching nail polish, spiky heels, and . . . yes! Matching sparkly twilight violet bikini panties. Whew. Otherwise naked except for the paint and belly rings all featuring the same charm: a skull and crossbones. Bully for them. In this town, it was legal for women to go topless so long as they didn’t cause a riot. Besides, Uncle D had ditched the NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SCAMPI sign with the remodel.

  Reaching the hostess stand, I saw them. The reason Yani had summoned me.

  Looking at little Nathaniel, you’d think “cherubic.” Huge blue eyes, red curls. His wardrobe: Baby Gap meets Buster Brown. His folks, Bobby Dale and Jeannie Fredericks, both taught Sunday School at my church. He was an assistant vice president at the downtown bank where my family had our accounts. She made a mean potato salad. “So,” I cooed, “what brings y’all in?”

  “Dinner,” Jeannie said, looking at me like I’d done something questionable. “We wanted to show our support. No matter what people may say —”

  “Congratulations,” Bobby Dale blustered. “The place looks interesting. It’s Nate’s birthday, so we said he could stay up late today, though he may —”

  “I’m five!” Nathaniel shouted, holding up a handful of fingers.

  The entire restaurant got the message.

  “Five!” he continued. “Five! Five! Five! FIVE!”

  Experience informed me that this chant could go on through dessert. Not that I was ever a babysitter type, but most kids are fine. Give ’em crayons and a chocolate sugar bomb of a dessert, and call it done. I adored Kieren’s little sister, Meghan.

  “Five!”

  But Sanguini’s wasn’t a family-fare establishment.

  “Five!”

  Word of mouth mattered, and it was opening night for regular business.

  “Five!”

  Jeannie exclaimed, “That’s my big boy!”

  “Five!”

  Bobby Dale asked, “Can you believe he’s five already?”

  “Five!”

  Yani returned from seating the body-painted.

  “Five!�
��

  Where was Uncle D?

  “Five!”

  And just when I couldn’t take it a second longer, my hero swept onto the scene in his midnight toast ensemble. “Why, I believe someone is five today.”

  Slack-jawed, Nathaniel gazed at the vampire chef.

  Bradley didn’t squat like a lot of people do when talking to little kids. “Life,” he declared instead, “merits celebration. Do walk this way.”

  Escorting the Frederickses through the dining room, not bothering to make eye contact with any of the guests, he’d already established himself as their savior. No one would mind the break in suspense before midnight.

  Bradley led the family into the private party room. It was unoccupied and soundproofed.

  “I love you,” I whispered, only half kidding, as he shut the door on them.

  “Tell Yani that I recommend Mercedes take the table. She has infinite patience and, better yet, a brown belt.”

  Kieren was seated alone at table nineteen, a two-top along the south wall, his back to the front door. Chianti and eggplant parmesan untouched. A manila folder in front of him on the satiny black tablecloth. A small turquoise-and-silver crucifix dangled between his collarbones from a thin silver chain.

  I circled the dining room. Uncle D and Ruby were busy chatting up Mercedes’s dads. Sergio had his hands full running food. Sebastian was in the weeds at the bar. I’d thought off and on all day about Kieren. Now here he was again.