Losing Penny

by Kristy Tate

  “Okay,” Trevor said. He walked slightly behind her with his hand on the small of her back. “You are not a glutton, and if you keep insisting that you are, then you are definitely a liar. And while that might not be in the deadly category, it has less redeeming value than curiosity, which some consider a virtue.”

  Penny laughed again, grateful that the nervous edge had disappeared from her voice. She glanced around at the sawdust-strewn grounds with white tents that housed food vendors with fresh fruits, vegetables, and a multitude of fish. Penny inhaled the scents and sounds of the market and felt at home. She loved markets.

  Trevor looked bored as girls with trays of food samples approached him. He must be used to girls offering him things, Penny decided. She watched him bite into a slice of mango.

  “Hmm, fresh fruit.” He grinned at her.

  She laughed and snagged a piece of mango for herself. “Not so fresh.”

  “What are you talking about? This mango was locally grown!”

  She shook her head.

  “It must be—it’s at the greenmarket, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Washington had a bumper crop of mangos and bananas this year.”

  “But ultra-fresh produce is why we’re here, right?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m here for the free samples. Gluttony, remember?” Penny looked over the eggplants. They were giant with deep purple skin and dark green stems—as beautiful as any work of art. She needed two for her trip to Italy which included eggplant parmesan. She reached for her purse then turned to Trevor with a stricken look.

  “Want one, Glutton Girl?” he asked, holding out a cube of pepper jack on a toothpick to her.

  She shook her head and held up an eggplant. “I left my purse in the car.”

  “Eggplant?” He looked disappointed in her. “You want me to go back to the car for an eggplant?”

  “I’ll go, but I’ll need your key.”

  He sighed. “Don’t be silly. You can barely walk. It’s just if I’m going to make that sacrifice you have to get something better than an eggplant.”

  “How about basil, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheese? Is that worth your sacrifice?”

  Trevor shook his head. “I need baked goods.”

  She held out her hand for his key.

  He turned as if disgusted. “And you call yourself a glutton,” he said over his shoulder.

  Penny watched him walk away. A woman, slightly younger than Penny, caught her eye. She stood in front of a tent selling home-baked crackers. She was petite with dark, curly hair, and her large, silver hoop earrings made her look like a gypsy. She also looked like she was battling tears while trying to decide on a cracker purchase.

  Penny edged closer.

  “Samples, Miss?” a girl in a red paisley top asked, holding out a try with a dozen bite size crackers in a variety of shapes and sizes. Penny wondered if crackers counted as baked goods by Trevor’s standards.

  “What kind of crackers are there?” the gypsy woman asked.

  The girl pointed out the different types. “Cracked wheat, rosemary, olive and garlic, and graham.”

  The gypsy burst into tears.

  The girl with the tray looked horrified as the gypsy mumbled an apology and searched her purse for a tissue.

  Penny took a cracker and bit into it. “They’re really not that bad.” She picked up a cracked wheat and held it out to the gypsy. “You should try one. It might make you feel better.”

  The gypsy sniffed into her tissue and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m such a boob.”

  “Not really,” Penny said, cracker still extended. She leaned close and whispered, “Boobs hang out in bras, not at farmers’ markets.”

  The gypsy smiled, and wiped away her tears. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Stop apologizing,” Penny said. “It’s not your fault you’re sentimental about crackers. Isn’t everyone?”

  The gypsy shook her head, her dark curls bouncing. “It’s not the crackers. It’s everything else.”

  “Everything?” Penny asked.

  The gypsy studied the sawdust as if trying to find something in the shredded bark. “Everything. My café is going down the toilet. My boyfriend, whose name is Graham, by the way—”

  “Ah, the hateful cracker.”

  The gypsy raised her watery green eyes to meet Penny’s. “Yes, that’s exactly what he is. He’s a hateful cracker. Although he’s not really my boyfriend anymore.” Her eyes welled with fresh tears.

  Penny put her arms around the gypsy and held on tight while she cried. “Shh,” Penny said, patting the gypsy’s head the way she patted Wolfgang. “If he’s not a friend then he can’t hurt you.”

  The gypsy sniffed and tried to compose herself. “We were best friends since kindergarten.”

  Penny didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. Instead, she held this near stranger and felt her pain.

  The gypsy pulled away and wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not like this.” Her lip quivered.

  “Trouble always comes in packs of threes,” Penny said quickly, trying to stem the oncoming emotional spill. “There are so many of these crackers that they put you over your limit.”

  The gypsy looked up at her surprised. “My friend always says that, too. Trouble comes in a pack of three and I’m not including crackers in my three.”

  “I would, otherwise something else will walk in the door.”

  The gypsy shook her head. “My parents are talking about getting a divorce, and I think that’s the worst. My café can go down the toilet. Graham can run away and join the Marines, but I can’t imagine my life without my parents. They’re like the fence that keeps my world safe. Do you know what I mean?”

  Penny nodded, even though she didn’t know what that meant. Her fence had been knocked down a long time ago. Penny took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t help you with your Marine—I have zero skills when it comes to men—or with your parents, but I can help with your café.”

  “I doubt that,” the gypsy said.

  “Why won’t anyone believe that I’m a food master? I’m a graduate from the Haute Cuisine cooking school!”

  The gypsy gave her a wavering, half smile. “Maybe you’re good with food—although you honestly don’t look like someone who has a relationship with food.”

  “Thank you,” Penny sniffed.

  “But that whole zero skills with men is impossible to believe, because you’re gorgeous and you’re with him.” The girl nodded her head and Penny turned to see Trevor standing behind her, holding her purse.

  Penny flushed. Trevor out-gorgeoused her a hundred times over. “Oh, I’m not with him.”

  Trevor gave an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh. “I just hang around for purse-holding and eggplant-carrying privileges. I’m hoping that maybe later she’ll let me buy her some mushrooms.”

  Penny placed her hand on his chest. “If you’re good, I’ll get you a treat.”

  “There’s no bigger treat than fetching your stuff,” Trevor said with mock sincerity.

  The gypsy watched, her lip caught between her teeth. “Wow, you really have him trained.”

  “Actually, I didn’t train him. He came this way. We just met yesterday. Would you like to borrow him?”

  Trevor backed away. “I’m sorry, I’m taken. I’m a strictly monogamous purse holder.”

  Penny rolled her eyes, but the gypsy smiled. Penny’s heart warmed toward Trevor. She liked that he could be sensitive and funny enough to make a sad girl smile.

  “I am a really good cook,” Penny said.

  “She’s also extremely humble and modest,” Trevor said.

  Penny hit his shin with her cane. “I’m serious. Haute Cuisine is the Ivy League of cooking schools! Maybe I could come with some ideas on revamping your menu. What kind of food do you serve?”

  “Why would you help me?” the gypsy asked. “You do
n’t even know my name.”

  “My name is P—” Penny corrected herself. “Maggie.”

  “Short for Magdalena,” Trevor added, raising his eyebrows as if to say, “Isn’t that ridiculous name for a ginger?”

  Penny paused again. Supposedly she and Drake were divorced, but how stupid that she didn’t even know, or remember his last name! She didn’t want to give her real last name, so she added, “And this is Trevor Marx.”

  “I can see why you’re not with him. It would be too silly to be named Maggie Marx.”

  Trevor gave another long, sad, sigh, but both women ignored him.

  “I’m Andrea Grayson of the failing Bluebird Café. I did not go to a prestigious cooking school.” The gypsy’s face blanched. “I only sell traditional American fare—hamburgers, French fries, and milk shakes.”

  Penny waited for Andrea to continue, but when she didn’t Penny said, “Well, maybe that’s an easy fix. A lot of people are more health conscious now. What if you added a few healthier choices to your menu?”

  “I think healthy choices are my problem. There’s a new restaurant in town and she’s taking all my business! Maybe Rose Arbor can’t handle two cafes.”

  Penny scratched her head. “What does that have to do with healthy choices?”

  “That’s the asinine part. The owner claims she can diagnosis and—” she brought both of hands up to make air quotation marks “heal people with her food.” Andrea snorted.

  “Oh yeah!” Trevor exclaimed. “I heard about her. She got rave reviews in the Seattle Times.”

  “Please don’t underestimate the power of food,” Penny said, frowning at Trevor. “I know food,” Penny said. “I can help.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Why not?” Penny asked. “It’ll be fun.”

  Chapter 25

  Ingrid’s goats grazed upon the hill, their eyes wandering to their mistress. Hans knew they distrusted him. He did not care. He paid the creatures little heed as he led the fair Ingrid to the softness of the long, tall grass. One of his father’s men interrupted what surely would have been the world’s finest kiss.

  From Hans and the Sunstone

  After a long and boring bout in a boat with crab cages, followed an even longer and more boring round of golf, Drake returned to the beach and found Penny sitting on the sofa, cradling the phone receiver. The cord hung to the floor looking like an unused jump rope. The phone line hummed.

  “Are you making or taking a call?” Drake said, standing in the doorway.

  Penny started and came out of her trance. “Neither,” she said. Replacing the receiver in the cradle, she said, “I’m making eggplant parmesan.”

  “Huh. Your lies become more skilled every day. I could swear that you’re sitting on the sofa.”

  Drake headed for the kitchen and a snack. He always needed a reward after spending time with Don Marx and Melinda. He frowned at the bags of groceries on the counter.

  Penny twisted around to watch him empty the bags of groceries into the fridge. “You don’t need to put those away. I’m going to use them.”

  Drake heard his mother’s voice in his ear, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

  “Benjamin Franklin said that, right?” Penny asked.

  He didn’t think he had he spoken out loud. He looked at Penny and wondered how she felt. Her hair was a curly mess, and her face looked especially pale. Then he considered the eggplant in his hand. “Did you go to the market?”

  She nodded. “Trevor took me.”

  A flash of sudden and irrational frustration tingled through him that had nothing to do with the loss of his golf game. It made sense to let Don Marx win. Winning made Marx happy and losing made him cranky. Crankiness led to swearing and embarrassing golf behavior including hacking up divots, marring greens, and riding the cart off the paths. Drake’s dad hadn’t taught him very much, but he had instilled in him a rigid sense of golf etiquette, and it irked him that Don Marx’s golf course rants always ramped-up in equal proportions to his score. “I thought we were going to go to the market,” Drake said through tight lips.

  “Oh, did you want to? I should have asked if you wanted me to pick up anything.”

  Drake didn’t reply, but looked at the mozzarella ball on the counter. “This should be refrigerated.” Every moment his situation with Penny became more and more difficult. She was too…he couldn’t put his finger on what set him on edge.

  Drake stifled his frustration and put the cheese in the fridge.

  “My neighbor from Laguna called,” Penny said, easing off the sofa and stabilizing on the rhinestone studded cane. Where did that come from? Drake would bet that she hadn’t bought it. It was garish and Penny was casual chic.

  “Someone had been in my apartment.”

  Damn. Drake stopped rearranging the produce drawer, stood up straight, and frowned at Penny. She had her face turned from him, but he saw her quivering lip.

  “Eggplant parmesan, huh?” He laid the eggplant on the cutting board and selected a knife from the block.

  “Careful, that’s a thousand dollar knife,” Penny told him.

  Drake held it up if front of him. How many textbooks would he have to sell to buy a thousand dollar knife? Five hundred. A five hundred textbook knife. He gently laid it down on the counter and began rummaging through the fridge, removing the items he’d just put away.

  “How did your neighbor know that someone was in your apartment?”

  “The other day my friend Kayla was checking on my apartment, you know, watering my plants and getting the mail. She said my apartment smelled of coffee. I don’t even own a coffeemaker.” Penny stopped in the kitchen doorway. “So Kayla laid a trap.”

  Penny pointed at the eggplant in his hand—he didn’t remember picking it up, and yet there it was, a symbol of the confusion he felt when he was around Penny. He wanted her stay. He needed her to go. “Are you going to cut that or put it away?” Penny asked.

  Drake stared at the large, purple eggplant in his hand, as foreign to him as a hedgehog. “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Cut it into about a quarter inch slices.”

  Drake picked up the thousand-dollar knife and sliced into the eggplant. “So, did your friend plant a video camera?”

  “That would have been smart.” Penny retrieved the mozzarella ball and a cheese grater. After settling down at the kitchen table, she asked, “Although, would it have to run all the time?”

  “I bet you could buy a surveillance camera.”

  Penny looked deflated and held the cheese in the air. “I should have thought of that. You’re smart. It probably came with your PhD.”

  “No, there are plenty of stupid PhDs.” He stepped away from his pile of eggplant slices. “So, what did Kayla find in her trap, the Lurk?”

  “His footsteps.” She told him about the flour booby trap.

  “So, you really know nothing more about your Lurk except for his shoe size.”

  “And that he has access to my apartment.”

  Drake nodded. “Only a food junkie would think to use flour for surveillance. Now what?”

  She didn’t know if he was talking about her summer or eggplant plans. She swallowed hard and blinked back a tear. “Arrange a single layer of eggplant slices in the bottom of the large colander and sprinkle it with salt.”

  “Where’s the colander? What’s a colander?”

  She pointed at a cupboard, watching him. “Good. Now, weigh down the slices with a couple of plates. It needs to drain for two hours.”

  “Two hours? Are you serious?” He wanted to eat now.

  “This is a crucial step. We need get rid of most of the eggplant juice before we bake it.”

  Drake shook his head. “It’s not juicy.”

  “Believe me, it is.”

  “Two hours?” Drake frowned at the colander.

  “Now we make the sauce.” Penny scooted around him and pulled open the fridge. “I like it when it
has simmered for a while, and the best way to do that is in the Crock-Pot. We also need the food processor.” She pointed at the cupboard that had previously held the colander. “And tomatoes, garlic, and a third of a cup of olive oil.”

  “Seriously? Two hours?”

  She nodded. “While we wait, do you want to go into town? If you’re hungry, there’s a restaurant I want to try.”

  Chapter 26

  Foods that heal include cruciferous vegetables; berries; apples; spinach and other dark green, leafy vegetables; cold, wild-caught fish; olive oil and other healthy oils; whole grain bread; beans and lentils; tomatoes; mushrooms; garlic and onions; lean meats and poultry; red wine; green tea; nuts; and water.

  There are also foods that can kill.

  From Losing Penny and Pounds

  They stood outside Helene’s Place, looking in the windows at the distressed wood floors, pine tables, and benches. Rows of apothecary jars, filled with a variety of herbs and spices, sat on the open shelves. Penny itched to examine every single jar—to touch the ginger root, smell the basil, and taste the dried mushrooms. Drake hung behind her, less enthusiastic. He stalled when Penny took his hand and tried to pull him in through the door.

  With one last sad glance at the Bluebird Café, he followed her into Helene’s. Maybe bringing Drake had been a bad idea. Although, glancing around the empty room, Penny decided that Helene could use all the customers she could get. How could Andrea worry about Helene putting her out of business? Helene had zero—well, now two—customers.

  Penny loved the rustic baskets and heavy pewter décor. Sitting down in ladder-back chair, she looked around for a menu. Drake settled beside her and pointed at the chalkboard above the counter. She hoped the food wouldn’t be as disappointing as her dining companion.

  “Mostly soups,” he said.

  “No, that’s not true.” A large woman in a black apron appeared in the doorway. “I have a varied and complicated menu—strictly catered to the needs of my patrons.” She squinted at Drake before turning a pity smile on Penny.