Elena rolled her eyes, coming down the stairs as if she were not carrying three claw hammers and an anvil in her lower back. “Yeah, yeah, Rasputin. You’re just jealous. You want him for yourself.”
He didn’t move from the doorway, using his tall body to block her way. Elena smelled lemons and almonds and cake. She tilted her head back to look at him, raising one eyebrow.
“Maybe I am jealous,” he rumbled, putting his hands on either side of the threshold to block the way. Their bodies were only inches apart, his hooded blue eyes traveling over her face, her shoulders, breasts. “But not because of the job.”
She put up one hand against his chest. “Don’t,” she said harshly, and shoved him.
With a crooked smile, he took a step backward, then another, and waved a hand to gesture her through into her kitchen. She yanked the paper out of his hand. “Start the tamales,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment at ten.”
FIFTEEN
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: dessert menu possibles
Here they are, sweetie, a roster of possible desserts. Still brainstorming, though I think this is a lot. I had fun playing with different ingredients:
Pears and apples poached in tequila and brown sugar, with piñon nuts
Chocolate layer cake (remember this one—I think you and Patrick just about ate the whole thing in two hours)
Almond cornmeal cake (I know this is one of your favorites, and it seems to go well with the theme)
Triple lemon layer cake (you have not had this one, but oh, my God, it’s great!)
Cheese plate with berries, peaches, apples, or cherries according to the season
Black cherry flan (it’s basically a clafoutis, but we’ll call it flan and everyone will be happy)
Mexican hot chocolate and shortbread cookies
Playing still with pinwheel tortillas, but thus far, they’ve been low rent. See you soon!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Mia
PS You look hot in the tabloid photo, but the boss looks like a total geek. Is he? Not really your type, is he?????
SIXTEEN
Julian sat on the deck, wrapped in a thick sweater, drinking a mug of coffee and watching the clouds move in over the mountains, silver gray and blue, moody and dramatic. He loved living here, finally, a place of myth when he was a boy—Colorado—the place to which rebels ran, where you could reinvent yourself. The most beautiful place on earth, he thought now, scrolling through the news on his laptop.
A flag popped up on the screen, an email from his assistant. Hillary lived in a Hollywood apartment and wore chunky shoes and chunky black glasses and her hair in chunky layers, maybe to give her tiny frame some weight. A film-studies graduate, she knew every film ever made, loved research, and was more organized than an office supply store. It was hard to remember what he’d done without her.
A second flag popped up before he had a chance to open the first. One was the details of the interview he’d granted the Denver Post; the second was the one he’d been waiting for. RE: accident, it read. Two paper clip icons showed in the corner. This is what I’ve found so far. More to come.
He lifted his cup, sipped. Thought about Elena sitting across from him last night warning him that she would not give him a story. That fierceness in her eyes, the unsteady gait of pain. He didn’t have any right to dig into her life this way.
And yet.
He punched the first paper clip icon. A copy of a police report had been scanned in. He read it quickly, still telling himself he would leave it alone, leave her in peace, that he just wanted the background to better understand her.
The details were horrific. Bodies in pieces. Elena lying undiscovered in a ditch for several hours through the night, the lone survivor. The only thing that saved her was the fact that she landed in an irrigation ditch. Cold water lowered the temperature of her body, and mud kept her from bleeding to death.
An unexpected wave of nausea rippled through him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, seeing another body, left in a field. Naked and battered.
A long time ago.
He closed the file. Opened the next one. A newspaper article about the funerals, with a photo of four caskets lined up in a small, old-fashioned Spanish church with an elaborate painted wooden altar in the background. Old. He wondered where it was.
Another flag popped up. This one from a business partner. Script? said the subject line. Julian rubbed his eyebrow, a spot that had a scar right through it from when he was twelve and took a dive from his bike into a rosebush right before his mother was killed. He’d still had the stitches at her funeral.
He opened the email, knowing what he would find.
Julian, my man, it read. David always talked like that, as if he were the moneyman in a bad movie.
Is there a problem? I expected a script last week and it’s still not here. I hope you’re just temporarily sidetracked by the new restaurant and not flaking out on me. I know you didn’t want to do the slasher flick, but the studio is breathing down our neck for another in the series. You know it’ll break records. Call me, man.
Behind him in the house, he could hear the cleaning crew vacuuming the already pristine floors, and he stood up abruptly. “Georgia?” he called.
She came around a corner, her bob curling nicely around her crisp scarf. He filed the image away automatically. “Yes, Mr. Liswood?”
“That’s enough for today.”
“Sorry, is this a bad time? Were we bothering you?”
“No. Yes.” A tangle of irritation bloomed in his throat and he had to take a breath to avoid snapping at her. “No, it’s not a bad time, but yes, the noise is bothering me today.”
“No problem,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”
He went back to the table. Took a sip of coffee. Looked at the clouds dropping into the valley. Opened a reply and typed:
David,
Come to dinner in Aspen next week. I’ll have the new chef make us a tasting menu and we’ll talk about the next projects. I’m not opposed to another slasher pic, but I have some other ideas, too. Next Thursday? Bring Jenny. She can see the new house.
Julian
As he sent the email, he thought, One down, four to go. He wrote all four—producers, business advisors, their partners and wives—and pressed Send. Done.
Now he just had to have a story to sell them next week.
Candy, a tall, athletic blonde in her forties, proved to have a great space in the attic of a restored Victorian downtown, and great hands to ease the agony in Elena’s hip. The music was simple and quiet, flutes with some underlying bells or something that helped ease her, too.
“What is this music?” Elena asked, groaning when Candy hit a tight spot in her neck.
“Alice Gomez.” She eased around Elena and pulled the sheet down, revealing her scarred and misshapen back. “Car accident?” she asked, matter-of-factly.
“Yes.”
Candy put her hands flat on Elena’s spine, side by side, and gently moved downward, strong fingers tracing the shape of bones, ribs, musculature. “Broken back,” she said quietly, “maybe three places?”
Elena felt a flicker of that night, so silent. So cold. “Four.”
“Lose a kidney? Spleen, maybe?”
“Both.”
Down the hands went, so hot Elena wanted to weep with the comfort of them. “Hip. Hmm. Lot of trouble here now. Are there pins? I’m not seeing this very clearly. Oh—” she said quietly, pressing a thumb into the bound muscles. “Lots of pain here, isn’t there? It’s a wonder you walked in here.”
“I’ve been on my feet a lot.”
“You have to rest more,” she said. “But I think you know that.” The hands moved, gentle and hot, pressure there, probe there, a lingering, circular centering on the spot over the back of her womb, a womb that was saved, but only the shell of it, not the contents. “It was a terrible accident, wasn’t
it?” she said gently. “You lost a lot. Other people?”
“Yes,” Elena said. The weight of tears pressed into her throat, and she swallowed them away. In the corner, Isobel sat on the floor with a little girl, playing with dolls.
Candy worked and worked, moving energy, easing tightness, shifting heat from tangled joints, pressing coolness into overheated spots.
When Elena got up, two hours later, she could move without wanting to double over every third step. She made an appointment for the same time and day every week.
The masseuse wrote Elena’s name down in her book, then stood up, tossing her heavy hair over one shoulder. “I can help you, and you can help by taking more days off—maybe every fourth day, if you possibly can.”
Elena raised an eyebrow. “I’m a chef.”
“Right. I figured you’d say that. But try to rest more when you’re out of there. Get in the hot tub, take long walks, do whatever you can to ease those muscles.” She turned and opened a file drawer, flipped through folders and drew out a piece of paper. “Try some of the hip exercises on this sheet, twice a day. You might loosen up a little in a hot shower or bath, then very gently try some of the stretches before you go to bed, and again when you wake up.”
“Okay.”
“Listen to your body. You must do that to some degree, or you wouldn’t be able to do the work you do.”
She tucked the card into her pocket. “It’s been a big push, getting the new place open, but once we’re up and running, it should get a bit easier.”
Candy nodded, inclined her head. “Even with the best stretches and a massage every day, you are going to need more surgery eventually.”
Elena shook her head. “I had a lot of surgery already, as you may have noticed.”
“But what was that, maybe fifteen years ago?”
“Twenty.”
“Back surgery has come a long way since then. It’s possible you’d have much better results now.”
With a slight smile, Elena said, “But even the best means I’d have to be off my feet for three or four months, right?”
“I’m not a doctor, but yeah.”
“I can’t leave the restaurant that long.”
Candy’s dark eyes were sober. “You know you’re going to be forced to, eventually.”
“I know.” Elena zipped her bag. She took a moment to consider her word choices. “I’ve been working a long time toward the goal of having my own kitchen. If I can get through a year here, get it going, maybe then I can turn it over to someone else for a few months.”
Candy smiled. “Well, I can help. My prescription is, hot tub every day and avoid being on your feet more than six hours a day.”
Elena laughed. “Right. I’ll get on that.”
Back at the restaurant, the crew was working on setting up stations and space. The music was loud, blaring out rap, too loud. Elena scowled at Ivan as she came in. “What’s this?”
He winked at her. “Thought you liked everything.”
“Turn it down. Are the tamales ready?”
“Going.” He reached over and turned the music up, not down. “I like rap.”
Elena narrowed her eyes. Behind him, the rest of the kitchen, not including Juan, eyed her curiously to see how she’d handle the challenge to her authority. The jocks—the ski bums—and the Mexicans were bright eyed, the scent of their hot testosterone filling the space with an orange glaze. The rapper blasted out a misogynistic rage poem, Bitch, bitch, suck my dick, you my ho, bitch.
She couldn’t work to this music. She’d be insane by the end of the day. But the way she managed his challenge would set the tone for this kitchen and this crew. A chef had to be a general, commanding absolute authority.
Ivan knew it, too. He smiled, very very faintly, and took a step closer. “Wanna dance, chica?” he growled. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth, sucking on it as he raked his eyes over her body, boldly.
He would, she knew, fuck her as a way to get over. She might even like it. He had that air about him, that air of a man who knew his way around nasty, hot, furious sex, “furious” being the operative word. Sex with him would be violent and edgy and angry.
And she would lose all respect in this kitchen. She would also lose if she complained about his objectification.
Without taking her eyes off Ivan’s face, Elena said in Spanish to the Mexican dishwasher, “Nando, go to my office and get a deck of cards.”
Rasputin grinned. “Oooh, kinky, boys.”
While she waited, she poked around the pots on the stove, took samples of the stews and sauces. “The mole is excellent,” she said to Peter. “Yours?”
He nodded, his cheeks bright red.
Frowning, she rolled the taste around in her mouth a minute. “Maybe a little something missing.” She gestured for him to take a taste, too, and he complied. “A little more cinnamon? Taste it.” She pointed and he took a fresh spoon from the tray, dipped, tasted.
He nodded, taking a step back as Nando hurried back into the room. Behind him came Juan, carrying a slab of meat from the freezer. He looked from Elena to Ivan with an impassive expression, and back to Elena. “Qué pasa?” he said, tilting his head. What’s going on?
Elena shook her head.
“Here’s the deal,” she said to Ivan. “We have work to do this afternoon, but at seven-thirty p.m., I’ll meet you back here for a game of poker. If you win, you can have your music. If I win, I pick.”
Juan raised a dark brow, shaking his head slightly. Elena met his gaze without fear. She had an ace in the hole. So to speak.
“What game?” Ivan asked.
Elena shrugged. “I don’t care. You choose.”
Ivan stroked his chin. “Not poker,” he said at last. “I challenge you to a cook-off.”
“Like what?”
“Whatever,” he rumbled.
“You could do, like, Iron Chef,” said one of the ski boys. “We could come up with a secret ingredient and we’ll be the judges.”
“Hmm.” Elena lifted one brow. “I’d go for that. But get some more judges. Not just you guys, but people from outside.”
“Cooks and servers from other restaurants,” Ivan said, arms crossed over his chest. His apron was slung low over his hips, and showed splatters of blood, a spray of something yellow, a mark where he’d scorched the cotton. “A lot of them will close by ten or so. We could serve at eleven.”
Elena considered. He would likely know many of them, if not most. No way around that, really. “Okay,” Elena said, and pursed her lips. “Each of you guys go out and bring back one item, enough for each of us to use in a dish. We’ll cook, what?—three courses?”
“I’m game.”
“What if we all bring back the same thing?”
Elena thought about it. “Bring back something that starts with the same letter as your name.”
“En español?” Nando asked.
“Whatever works,” Elena said, laughing. “Whoever wants to can come back by eight-thirty. We’ll start cooking at nine.” She looked at Ivan. “Good with you?”
“Fine.”
“All right then.” She pointed at the CD player and looked at Peter. “Turn that shit off.” He brought her the CD and she gave it to Ivan. “Aren’t you a little old for hip hop?”
“You’re only as old as you feel,” he said, and sauntered away.
“Back to work, everybody.” As they shuffled to their stations and a CD of sixties rock came on, Juan approached her.
“Be careful,” he said in Spanish. “You don’t want him too drunk.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” she said.
“He gets mean. And if he goes on a bender, he won’t be back to work for a few days.”
Elena thought of the poker games in her New Mexico garage. “I’ll be all right, Juan.” She touched his arm. “Thanks for worrying, but I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
His dark eyes were sober. “I’ll be here, if you need me.”
�
��Thank you.” She grinned. “I couldn’t run this kitchen without you, Juan, you know that.”
“No, it’s Ivan you need.”
Elena shook her head. “Ivan is the spice. You’re the meat.”
He gave her a sideways grin. “Thanks, Jefa.”
She headed to the back and found Ivan at his locker, putting the CD away. “If you don’t show up for work tomorrow, Rasputin,” she said, “I’ll fire you.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Nice move, Jefa. Better win, though.”
“I’m not kidding,” she said.
“I get that.” For one hot second, she saw the resentment, the fury, in his eyes, and then it was gone. “I’ll be here.” He slammed the locker closed with a bang. “I’m going to kick your pretty ass all the way to China.”
“We’ll see.”
From her office, with the door closed, she called Julian. “Hey,” she said when he answered. “I wonder if I could impose on you for the evening.”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“I’d like your daughter to babysit my dog for the night.”
“I’m betting that will not be a problem, but let me ask her.” He covered the phone and murmured something. “She says that would be so great.” He spoke the words in a falsetto, and laughed, “Ow! Ow. Quit it. She wants to know when you’ll bring him.”
Elena looked at the clock, calculated what she would have to do to prepare for the evening. “Say, five? I’ll bring supper if you like.”
“Hey, now that’s a great idea. What’s up?”
“Power play,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Portia flung open the door when Elena rang. “Hi!” she said. She wore a long-sleeved pink T-shirt and jeans, her hair swept into a ponytail. “I’m so happy you called me to babysit! Come in!”
The Lost Recipe for Happiness Page 13