Cooking Up Murder

by Miranda Bliss

  I, on the other hand, am a little more discriminating. The one and only time I filled out one of those online dating surveys (at Eve’s urging, and only because I knew she’d give me no peace until I did, and because I deleted the whole thing as soon as she left), I’d checked off all the things about a man that were important to me. Things like a good sense of humor, a steady job, a sense of self-worth that wasn’t tied to what kind of car he drove or how he made his living as much as it was to who he was way down deep inside.

  I wasn’t shallow, and I was proud of it.

  But, hey, I wasn’t dead, either.

  I looked over Jim and nodded my approval. I smiled at Eve. Eve smiled back. For once, we were in total agreement.

  Our cooking instructor was, to put it in the vernacular, one hot hunka hunka burning love.

  Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who recognized a cooking Adonis when we saw one. A sort of hush fell over our little crowd as Jim made his way to the front of the room where he had a stove and work surface bigger than ours, and a mirror hanging over the whole thing so that we could watch his hands while he worked.

  “Good evening! I’m Jim. Jim MacDonald. I’ll be your instructor.”

  “Ohmygosh! A Scottish accent! My knees are weak.” The words hissed out of Eve, and she grabbed onto the edge of the granite countertop.

  Though I was (as always) a little more circumspect, I knew exactly how she felt. Jim MacDonald was tall and rangy. Long legs. Long arms. Long, lean body. He had a crop of hair the color of mahogany, and though I couldn’t tell for certain from this distance, I thought his eyes were hazel. There was no mistaking the impact of his voice, though. Deep and edged with a bit of a burr, it was one of those voices that wraps itself around its listeners. It was soothing and exciting, all at the same time. It was sexy. Oh, yeah. It was sexy, all right. And there wasn’t a woman in the room (as well as those two gay guys) who wasn’t completely enthralled.

  Jim took it all in stride, giving us a one-sided smile that revealed a dimple in his left cheek.

  “Now you know me, so let’s meet all of you. Let’s go around the room,” he said, “and get to know each other. Tell me your name and why you’re here. What kind of cooking do you like to do? Then tell us something interesting about yourself.”

  Interesting?

  My mind glommed onto that one word and froze. I swear, as my fellow classmates introduced themselves one by one, I didn’t hear half of what they said. I knew the gay couple were Jared and Ben, that they loved to grill seafood, and that they spent their weekends when they weren’t rock climbing tending to the garden behind their eighteenth-century row house in Old Town Alexandria.

  The young girl and older woman directly in front of us were mother and daughter. Their specialty was pastries, petit fours, and tortes. The bland man with the pleasant face was John. He was an accountant-no big surprise there-and a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.

  The dark-haired woman was next.

  “Beyla,” she said by way of introduction. Her voice was low and accented. Eastern European, I guessed. At the bank where I worked, we had a lot of customers from that part of the world. “I am here because cooking is… how do you say it… important to me. Important to my family. I am wanting to cook better.”

  “And can you tell us something interesting about yourself?” Jim asked.

  Beyla blushed from the tip of her chin to the tops of cheekbones I would have given my last pink pot holder to own. Her fingers were long and slim, and the gesture she made with them was as delicate as butterfly wings.

  “I am good cook already,” she said. “In Romania, where I am from, my people say I am very good. But American food…” She shrugged the way women do when they’re walking that fine line between being modest and blowing their own horns. “I need practice,” she said. “I am wanting to learn to cook like an American.”

  “That’s something I’ve been wanting, too,” Jim admitted, and the class laughed.

  Just a few minutes later, it was Eve’s turn.

  “Miss Arlington, Virginia,” she said with a little curtsy. “I won’t tell y’all how long ago that was. As for why I’m here…”

  She looked my way, and I held my breath. She wasn’t going to tell, was she? About Peter? About me? About how I’d been feeling like a hamster on a wheel, going nowhere fast and not getting any younger and how she saw this class as my first step back into the world?

  “Why, I’m here to meet all of you,” she said, looking around at the crowd with a smile. “Learnin’ to cook, why, that’s just a big ol’ bonus.”

  Everyone laughed and smiled. Of course. Eve had a way of putting people at ease.

  I don’t want to sound as if I hold that against her. I don’t. Honest. I’d spent the last thirty years wishing I could be more like Eve. More bubbly. Prettier. More outgoing. And every time I thought about it, I promised myself I was going to make it happen. Right then and there.

  It was my turn.

  This was my chance. I pulled in a breath for courage and reminded myself that this was the time and place of new beginnings. I was just the girl to do it. I was ready to leap off that wheel that was going nowhere and explore the new horizons spread out before me, awash in golden light and the heady smell of Vavoom!

  Everyone in class was staring at me, including Jim, the hunkiest thing out of Scotland since Mel Gibson donned a kilt.

  My throat went dry. A bead of sweat broke out on my forehead.

  “Interesting?” I croaked out the word. “The most interesting thing about me is that I’m the world’s worst cook.”

  Three

  FORTY-FIVE MINUTES INTO CLASS AND COUNTING, and I hadn’t burned anything yet.

  I congratulated myself as I checked the onion happily sputtering away in the saucepan in front of me. It was just starting to go limp and translucent, and following Jim’s instructions, I dumped in the carrots and celery I had chopped so carefully only moments before. Every little piece of every single veggie was exactly the right size, and there was enough space around them so that they didn’t sit on top of each other and steam but instead seared nicely. Just like Jim had explained they should.

  I breathed a little easier. So far, so good.

  Speaking of Jim, he’d spent the last few minutes going around from stove to stove, peering in saucepans, offering advice. It was our turn now, and he stood at my shoulder, right between me and Eve. “Do you remember what this is called?” he asked.

  “What it’s called?” Eve assumed the question was for her, and that was just fine with me. I was keeping an eye on my carrots and celery. I didn’t have time for a pop quiz.

  Eve’s veggies were anything but perfect. They weren’t chopped and diced, they were minced and mangled. She’d used too much butter, and her carrots (hunks, not neat little matchsticks) were drowning.

  Still, when she looked from her pan to Jim, she smiled. She batted her eyelashes at him and fanned her face with one hand, eyeing him with what I called “the look,” which has been known to drop guys at twenty paces. “Why, it’s hard to know what to think. Especially when it’s so very warm in here.”

  I was in awe of Eve’s flirting skills. Always had been, always would be. But even I knew when she was going too far. I could see that her tactics weren’t working on Jim. Instead of melting into a puddle of mush the way most guys did, Jim rocked back on his heels, his hands in the pockets of his just-tight-enough jeans and a knowing smile on his face.

  I’d seen this game before. Eve and the flavor of the month. No way did I want to get in the middle of it.

  Hoping to short-circuit the electricity that crackled in the air, I jumped right in and hoped my French pronunciation was right. “It’s called mirepoix,” I said. I admit it, maybe I wanted to show off a little, too, and prove I was paying attention when Jim told us what to do to get started on our broccoli and cheese soup. “It’s a mixture of sautéed vegetables and what you called aromatics, like bay leaves.”

 
; Jim smiled and nodded his approval.

  I stood a little taller and dared to smile back. Now that he was standing this close, I could see that I’d been right about his eyes. They were hazel, as clear as amber. As rich and as warm as the rolledr ’s in his voice. As attractive as his slightly squared chin, his thick hair, his-

  “And how long do you cook it?”

  His question snapped me out of my thoughts. Good thing. I was getting way too poetic. It must have had something to do with the evening light. Outside the big front window, the sky had gone from golden to a deep periwinkle, and the muted color crept into the room like a whisper. Or maybe it was the heady aromas that filled the air, the ones that made me imagine what it would be like to be sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris. A glass of wine in one hand, Jim’s hand in the other. I would smile across the table at him and-

  I twitched away the notion and got back on track. “About five more minutes,” I told him, repeating back the advice he’d given when he first demonstrated the technique. I hoped he didn’t detect the dreamy note in my voice that betrayed the fact that I’d been thinking of anything but cooking.

  “We cook the vegetables until the onion is just a little brown around the edges,” I continued. “When it is, we remove the vegetables from the skillet and then deglaze.” Since Jim didn’t say anything, I figured he was waiting for more. “That’s when we add a cup of stock…” I pointed to the can of chicken stock that sat ready next to my saucepan. “We swirl it around to get the bits of flavor out of the pan, and the whole thing becomes the base of our soup.”

  He smiled again and walked over to the next station. “Very good,” he said over his shoulder.

  And it was, in a warm and fuzzy way that nothing had been since Peter walked out on me.

  Smiling like a lunatic, I watched Jim chat with John, the bland man. I saw him peer into the Romanian woman’s pan and nod his approval. I heard the low rumble of his voice as he spoke to the mother and daughter in front of us. My smile got wider when that rumble wormed its way deep down inside me and made me feel warm all over.

  Not as warm, however, as my veggies.

  When I finally realized something smelled funny, they were burnt to a crisp.

  “DON’T LOOK SO DOWN AND OUT. IT’S NOT THE END of the world.”

  It was good advice. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood.

  In the passenger seat of Eve’s car, I hunkered down, my hands in my jacket pockets, and looked out the car window. “Not the end of the world for you,” I told Eve. “You didn’t look like a total loser in front of Jim. Plus your soup was great. You know what? I just don’t get it!” I slapped a hand against my thigh and turned to her. “Your veggies were lumpy. You bought the cheapest chicken stock you could find. You used stolen broccoli.”

  “Not exactly stolen,” she reminded me. She smiled as she kept an eye on the traffic in front of us. “You did offer it.”

  She was right. And because I needed to get rid of the first batch of burned mirepoix and start all over…

  Because by that time I was so nervous and so embarrassed that I took way too long…

  Because I’d screwed up royally, I never did get to the add-the-main-ingredient stage of tonight’s recipe. Eve ended up using all my broccoli.

  “Jim said not to worry.”

  “Jim.” I grumbled the name. “None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for Jim.”

  Eve laughed. “Are you blaming him for being scrumptious?”

  “I’m blaming myself for being stupid.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I should know better. If I wasn’t so easily distracted-”

  “Oh, honey, guys like Jim are what easily distracted is all about! Don’t feel bad. You acted like any other woman would have acted.”

  “I’m not every other woman.”

  “Then maybe you should try to be. Lighten up. You’re too hard on yourself. Relax and just have fun. You were never like this until Peter the Jerk stomped all over your self-confidence. Stop thinking about him. Stop worrying about what other people think of you.”

  “People like Jim? You were worried about what he thought of you, weren’t you?”

  “Was I?” By the way she said it, I could tell that Eve hadn’t seriously considered this part of the equation at all. “I wasn’t making a play for him, if that’s what you think.”

  “Which is why you practically hung out a Come-and-Get-It sign.”

  She laughed so hard, she had to catch her breath before she could reply. “He’s not my type. You know that, Annie. A cooking instructor?” She wiped a tear from her eye. “So he’s cute. So he’s more than cute! I don’t have him in my sights, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Really!” I defended myself so vehemently that even I wondered if I was telling the truth. “Guys like Jim don’t look at women like me.”

  “Because you’re cute.”

  “Because I’m not…” I screeched my frustration. “Because he’s sexy and gorgeous and has that accent that makes my toes curl. That’s why. I’m not his type.”

  “If you tell yourself it’s true, you will never be his type.”

  I chewed over the thought, and I have to admit, I didn’t like the way it tasted. Mostly because I knew everything that Eve said was right on the money.

  “Oh, rats!” She slammed on the brakes, effectively jarring me out of my thoughts.

  “My watch is gone.” Eve fingered her bare left wrist. “It’s back at Très Bonne Cuisine. I took it off when we were washing up, and I know just where it is. On the counter next to the sink.”

  I thought about Monsieur Lavoie and the way he kept the door between the shop and the cooking school locked. I shrugged. “It’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “Well, yes, I know that.” Eve chewed on her lower lip. “If it was only that…”

  The driver behind us laid on his horn, and Eve started up again. “I’m having lunch with Clint tomorrow,” she said by way of explanation.

  Clint.

  I did a quick shuffle through my mental Rolodex.

  It wasn’t easy keeping Eve’s love life straight. Or the legion of guys who always seemed to be hovering, like bees around an especially beautiful flower.

  There was Joe, the professional football player. Michael, the attorney. Scott, the architect. And Clint…

  I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking, and the pieces finally clunked into place.

  “Oh, Clint. The jeweler,” I said. “He’s the one who gave you-”

  “The watch. Exactly. If I don’t wear it, he’s going to notice. And if he notices, he’s going to ask why.”

  “And you’re going to tell him that you left it at your cooking class.”

  “Practical as always, Annie.” As ifpractical were a dirty word, she tsk-tsked away the very idea. “If I don’t wear it, Clint is going to think that I don’t care.”

  I thought back to the conversation we’d had only a few days before, the one in which Eve complained about everything from Clint’s choice of aftershave to Clint’s decision to trade in his BMW roadster for a sedate and sensible Volvo.

  “You don’t care,” I reminded her.

  Eve squealed a laugh. “Of course I don’t! But there are better ways to deliver the news. No, no. I could never be that cruel. Not to Clint. After all, the shine may be off our relationship, but the boy does have exquisite taste in jewelry.”

  Eve wheeled left at the next street, ducked into the nearest driveway, and turned around. Before I could protest further, we were headed back toward Clarendon.

  Fortunately, it was a Monday night, and the streets weren’t as crowded as they can be later in the week. Between that and the fact that it was after nine and most of the stores in the area were closed, traffic was pretty light. We cruised past the Cheesecake Factory, where there was still a line outside waiting to get in, and the Whole Foods Market that sold the yogurt that I loved so much. We turned left at
the cross street closest to the shop. It must have been our lucky day (or night), because we found a place to park within sight of Très Bonne Cuisine’s back door.

  When we got out of the car, the first thing we heard was a woman’s voice raised in anger.

  “No! I will not listen. I will not change my mind. You know what I want.”

  “That’s Beyla.” I recognized the voice and the accent that belonged to the beautiful, dark-haired woman in our class. And in the glow of the security light near the shop’s back door, I saw her, too. She was facing off against a man. He was farther from the light, and all I could see was a hulking silhouette. Though he kept his voice down and I couldn’t make out what he said, there was no mistaking the anger in his voice when he replied.

  “You say this? To me!” Beyla shot back. She raised her chin, and when she snarled, I could see her teeth glint in the light. “I’ll kill you, Drago. I swear it on the souls of my ancestors.”

  Apparently, Drago wasn’t buying any of this, and just to prove it, he closed in on Beyla. He stepped into the circle of light, and for the first time, I saw his face.

  Eve had come around to my side of the car, and I grabbed her arm, automatically drawing her into the protection of the shadow of a nearby tree. “It’s the big guy,” I hissed. “The one who almost knocked me out cold when we got to class!”

  “Yeah, and he’s even more pissed than Beyla.” Eve leaned forward, trying to hear and see more. “What do you suppose they’re fighting about?”

  “Something tells me it’s none of our business.” I tugged her toward the front of the shop. “I think we should get out of here.”

  “And miss all the fun?” Eve shrugged out of my grasp. “I’ll bet they were lovers in the Old Country. You know, one of those family feud things. Forbidden pleasure and all that.”

  I heard Drago’s voice again and saw him pull back his shoulders. He was a big guy. Call me a wimp but if I had I been in Beyla’s position, I would have been intimidated. She looked more defiant than ever. I could practically feel the bad blood between them all the way over where we were.