Cook the Books

by Jessica

  “Chloe?” Ade looked at me with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, sorry. Everything is fine. Just trying to decide what to order.”

  I was fuming. It seemed to me that as the executive chef, Snacker should be coming up with his own dishes and not stealing from other chefs. Snacker had done more than learn from Josh; he’d copied Josh’s recipes. Snacker was a decent chef, but he was no Josh. Or Digger. I hated to think it, but if Snacker was filching Josh’s dishes, just how ambitious was he? Maybe more than I’d thought. Maybe he’d been willing to do whatever it took to get Digger’s job.

  SIXTEEN

  “GOOD evening. Can I take your drink orders? Oh, Chloe! Hi.” Ellie stood by our table.

  “Ellie, it’s good to see you,” I said tentatively. I hadn’t forgotten that she was capable of launching into four-letter-word tirades with no notice.

  “Wonderful!” She beamed too broadly and flipped her full head of hair to the side. She’d clearly just reapplied her bright lipstick. I couldn’t help staring at the thick paste on her lips. “I’m glad you could make it. So, would you like some wine to start with while you go over the menu?”

  “Actually, I’m ready to order,” Kyle said. “Are you ladies ready, too?”

  Adrianna nodded, and I shrugged. “Sure,” I said. My mood was going downhill by the minute. At the moment, I didn’t particularly care about the food. “Why don’t you start?”

  “We seem to be missing some silverware,” said Kyle, pointing to the table. “When you have a chance, maybe we could get some more?”

  “Absolutely!” Ellie said enthusiastically.

  I paid almost no attention to what my dinner companions ordered or even to my own choices. I watched Ellie as she walked away. She seemed to be trying too hard tonight. Her chipper attitude struck me as a front. Adrianna and Kyle were too engaged in nonstop conversation with each other to notice either Ellie’s hyped-up state or my own odd mood. Although I was happy that Ade was enjoying her rare night out, I was so distracted by hoping for—or dreading?—a Josh sighting that I limited myself to meaningless nods and smiles.

  Our appetizers arrived and proved to be mediocre at best, or so I thought. When Kyle declared the cold potato cakes delightful, I refrained from pointing out that they were supposed to be hot; I was once again less than impressed with the cookbook writer’s palate. With a knowing look, Adrianna gave me a taste of her tuna carpaccio with wasabi cream, a dish that should have been really hard to screw up but was somehow flavorless. My Mediterranean shrimp were not tremendously Mediterranean, but they were edible.

  “How’s the shrimp, Chloe? Should we try for this recipe for the book?” Kyle lifted his eyebrows in question.

  “Um, maybe. Let’s see what else we try tonight, and then we can decide,” I said. Ade and Kyle seemed to be having such a good time that I avoided pointing out obvious flaws. Besides, I was still wondering where Josh was. I had on this damn dress, and I intended to have him see me in it! He just had to be here, if not at a table, maybe at the bar? In the kitchen? Having run out of patience, I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. Ladies’ room trip or covert spy mission to locate a hot ex—same thing, right?

  A supposed search for the ladies’ room gave me a good excuse to wander around. A thorough search for Josh in the main dining room and the separate bar area toward the front of the restaurant yielded no cute chefs. I strolled casually to the back of the dining room and ended up near the kitchen. I obviously couldn’t just barge in there, but maybe I could snag a glance inside when a server opened the door.

  “Chloe, can I help you with something?” Ellie stopped me and gave me a suspicious look.

  “Oh, Ellie. Ahem. I was trying to find the ladies’ room.”

  “It is sort of hidden. Right there.” She pointed to a cluster of the leafy palms that sat in elaborate ceramic planters near the kitchen entrance. In front of the plants was a mobile service station with extra dishes, glasses, napkins, and silverware. “The owners didn’t want a glaring sign for the bathroom, so they created a plant wall to disguise the area.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled and made my way around the plants and into the luxurious ladies’ room. The front section was set up as a plush lounge area. Three white vanity tables had matching stools with cushions. Samples of body lotions, soaps, and hair sprays nestled in small baskets, and soft hand towels were stacked in perfect piles on a narrow table. I sank into a flowered armchair and waited a few minutes. I was feeling much more comfortable in here than I’d been while skulking around the restaurant. Curiosity soon got the best of me, though. I left the bathroom only to walk straight into one of the large palm leaves that dangled across my path.

  “Stupid plant,” I muttered, swatting the leaf away. I took a step and then froze as I heard Josh’s voice coming from nearby, presumably from the service station. Still hidden behind the palm, I leaned in. He was speaking so softly that I could barely make out what he was saying.

  “. . . really hot . . . more than Snacker can handle . . .”

  I thrust my head into the foliage and frowned. Peering past the greenery, I saw that Josh was whispering into Georgie’s ear. Stupid, willowy blonde with magnificent hair! She was “really hot,” of course. But was she more than Snacker could handle? But not more than my Josh could handle? Could Georgie be the real reason that Josh had come back to Boston? I winced as he brushed her hair back and continued whispering. God, he was messing around with Snacker’s girlfriend! He and Snacker were friends. They’d worked together, they were former roommates, and Josh was temporarily staying with Snacker at their old apartment—where Georgie undoubtedly spent plenty of time, too.

  This new and unwelcome knowledge about Josh was what I deserved for spying on people. I pulled away. I wanted nothing more than to flee, to go home, and never to have to see Josh in the vicinity of another woman again. I felt sick. And here I was stuck behind these plants! What was up with all these palms? It’s not like this was Florida! My leg bounced nervously, and I opened and closed my hands repeatedly as I tried to figure out how to escape without running into anyone. Failing to come up with an imaginative plan, I settled for tucking my head down and making a break for it. Simple was best, I decided. I’d just walk straight back to the table and behave normally.

  Having started to do exactly that, I got about six feet before I crashed into Josh.

  “Whoa, Chloe. Slow down.” Josh put his hands on my arms, forcing me to stop.

  I looked up at him slowly, taking in his white chef’s coat and bright blue eyes. That damn tan was still there, too. Bastard. “Hello, Josh. Excuse me.” I made a move to leave, but he held me in place.

  “How . . . how are you?” he asked gently.

  “Fine. I’m here with a date. I should go.” I cast my eyes down and refused to look at him.

  “You take Adrianna along on all your dates?” he asked. “Or only on the ones with assholes like that?”

  “What?” I met his eyes now. “Kyle and I are writing a book together.” Fine, it was a bit of an exaggeration. “We invited Adrianna and Owen to come out with us tonight. Owen had to stay at home with Patrick. But the point is, I’m getting on with my life.”

  “Chloe, you don’t know the first thing about that guy. Hey, wait!” He tried to stop me, but I pulled away. “You’ve got to hear about . . . Please talk to me, Chloe,” he begged as I stormed off.

  I returned to my table, where Adrianna and Kyle were deep in conversation and didn’t appear to have noticed my absence. Our entrées had arrived. I started to pick at my pork with Gorgonzola risotto. It could have been cat food and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  “Owen would love to have another baby right away, but I’m mixed about it,” Adrianna was saying. “I wouldn’t mind getting the whole diaper business over with as soon as possible, while Patrick is still a baby, but it just seems like so much work, you know? And we really can’t afford to have another kid right now, anyhow.”

  “But
you’d like to have more?” Kyle rested his arms on the table.

  “Sure, I’d love to someday, but probably not right now. Owen loves, loves, loves being a father, and he can be really insistent when he gets his mind set on something.” She shrugged. “We’ll see who wins this argument.”

  “I didn’t know you were talking about having more babies,” I said, perking up. “You guys seem to make great kids, so I’m all for it. Besides, you already have all the baby gear you’ll need.”

  Adrianna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, you can talk to Owen about waking his ass up to feed the next one, because so far I’m the only food machine in the house. Oh my God, Chloe, you have to taste this beef tenderloin.”

  Ade stuck a forkful of perfectly cooked beef at me. Okay, this dish was outstanding. The cream and horseradish sauce went perfectly with the pepper-encrusted beef. Somebody in the kitchen was doing something right, even though most of the food was disappointing.

  After our plates had been cleared, Georgie appeared at our table. “Would you all like dessert tonight?” she asked.

  I stared at my wineglass, unable even to look at the tramp! God, how dare she ask if I’d like dessert while she was fooling around with Josh! I wanted to stand up and slap the girl, shout that she wasn’t allowed near my Josh, that I hated her. I exerted self- control, refusing to make a tableside spectacle of myself. “Excuse me.” I hurriedly got up from my chair and rushed back toward the ladies’ room. Once again hovering behind the potted palms outside the entrance, I parted the leaves, peered through, watched my table, and waited until Georgie had left.

  At first, Georgie seemed to be heading directly toward me, but her actual destination was the serving station, where she began fussing with plates and silverware. I figured I’d be able to slip past the potted palm and scoot back to the table without running into her, but just as I began to move, Ellie and her lipsticked mouth showed up, and she began berating her supposed friend.

  “You’re such a bitch, do you know that?” Ellie was making no effort to keep her voice down.

  Georgie ran a finger over a perfectly waxed eyebrow and stared pointedly at Ellie. “People who read other people’s e-mail have only themselves to blame if they don’t like what they find out. Excuse me. I have guests to attend to.”

  Whoa, this was getting interesting.

  “Hey, missy!” Ellie blocked Georgie’s path. “I only read Digger’s e- mail after he was dead. I wanted to get in touch with people who cared about him and let them know what had happened to him,” she seethed.

  “Yeah, right!” Georgie scoffed. “You were probably reading his e-mail and scanning his text messages even before he died. I bet you’ve been sneaky all along, and you killed Digger yourself out of jealousy! You should’ve known what chefs are like, dummy.”

  “Well, I know what you’re like. You’re a slut, Georgie. A total slut!”

  “Hey, watch your mouth. I am a very loving and caring person.”

  Ellie crossed her arms and glared at her ex-friend. “Loving person? You have some nerve describing yourself like that after what you’ve done. Murderous person is more like it!”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to think that you’re the one who killed Digger. You were probably hoping that by getting him out of the way, Snacker would get this chef job. Well, congratulations, you stupid bitch! You did it! Happy now?”

  “Okay, little Miss Self-Righteous, listen here—”

  Before Georgie had time to sling her next insult, a neatly dressed man with a pale purple tie stepped firmly between the two girls. He looked beyond furious but managed a threatening whisper behind a false smile. “Not one more word out of either of you. If we weren’t hopelessly understaffed right now, I’d fire you on the spot! This sort of scene is totally inexcusable. Get back to work immediately!”

  Georgie and Ellie both hurried off, appropriately chagrined.

  Well, well! So not only was perfect, skinny Georgie doing whatever she was doing with Josh and Snacker, but she’d been fooling around with Digger, too! I usually didn’t mind a little juicy gossip, but I felt sorry for Ellie, who had seemed so committed to her chef. She’d been driven in her determination to help him succeed professionally, and when I’d broken the news of Digger’s death, she’d gone to pieces. But this new information did explain her sudden change in demeanor on the phone the other day. One possibility was that she’d taken Digger’s computer from his apartment and found out about the affair only when she’d read his e- mail. Or, I reasoned, Georgie could be right that Ellie had in fact known about the relationship earlier and had taken the computer to destroy the evidence of her possible motive. Could either of these young women really have killed Digger? I shuddered.

  I left the all-too-familiar potted-plant area and returned to the table. My prolonged absence had again gone so totally unnoticed that I was beginning to develop a third- wheel complex. Adrianna and Kyle, who were discussing the writer’s relationship with his father, barely acknowledged me when I sat down.

  “Look, Kyle,” Ade was saying, “your father is a very accomplished and, frankly, awe- inspiring person, so it’s no wonder you feel such pressure to succeed. But this cookbook sounds like it’s coming along wonderfully, and you’re bound to impress him with how hard you’ve worked. You need to look at your accomplishments for what they are, though. Yours. Take pride in what you’ve done.”

  Kyle grinned sheepishly. “I guess you’re right. I’ve put my heart and soul into this book. And I’ll admit that I think I’ve really got a knack for this kind of project.”

  I refrained from laughing. The truth was that I was the one who had been doing all of the work on this goddamn book! God, what a crap night.

  “Exactly.” Adrianna nodded and then touched his arm. “Kyle, even if your father can’t see how talented you are, you can still feel good about yourself.”

  As I watched Adrianna put her hand on Kyle, I had to remind myself that she was deeply committed to Owen and that I was seeing nothing more than harmless flirting. In fact, now that I looked at her again, I realized that she really wasn’t flirting at all; rather, she was being motherly. Awww! This new side to Adrianna was one that I really loved. Up until the minute Patrick was born, Adrianna had been the least maternal person I’d ever met. But things had changed.

  “Oh, good. Dessert!” Ade sat up tall in her chair to get a glimpse of the plates that Georgie was bringing our way.

  “I can’t wait to taste that layered chocolate thing I ordered. What was it called, Ade?” Kyle asked.

  “I don’t remember, but it did sound good.”

  “You’ll have to try some.”

  Georgie silently distributed desserts. I held absolutely still as she placed my plate in front of me, lest I involuntarily reach up and scratch her eyes out. When Kyle ordered coffee for the table, Georgie gave a perfunctory nod.

  “Chloe, I ordered you a dessert, too,” Kyle said. “Pumpkin cheesecake tarts. Is that okay?”

  “Thank you. That sounds delicious.” The three small cheesecakes on my plate had gingersnap crusts and were garnished with melted chocolate. One bite of the pumpkin delights took the edge off my depressed spirit.

  Although Ade and Kyle traded bites of his chocolate dish and her chestnut- and-banana-bread pudding, no one asked for a taste of my yummy pumpkin tarts. I wasn’t exactly jealous, but I wasn’t thrilled.

  Kyle excused himself to go to the men’s room.

  “The guest-of-honor table, I see!” Snacker surprised me from behind by clapping his hands down onto my shoulders.

  “Snacker!” It was so good to see him. Although I’d missed Snacker, he was one of the people I’d lost touch with after Josh and I had broken up; it hadn’t felt right to call Josh’s best friend on my own. So, despite tonight’s crummy events, I was glad I’d come just for the chance to see Snacker. His white chef’s coat acted as a foil for his olive skin and dark curly hair. He’d obviously put on a clean coat to make h
is rounds in the dining room; this coat had no stains at all. He was doing his best to hide his fatigue and stress behind a broad grin and an air of high energy.

  “It’s so nice to see you,” I said honestly as I stood and gave him a big hug. “Congratulations.”

  He squeezed me tightly and lifted me off my feet. “Hello, Adrianna,” he said politely. Snacker and Adrianna maintained a cordial relationship for my sake, but because of their ill-timed smooch sessions, each tried to stay out of the other’s way.

  “Hello, Snacker,” Ade said with as much warmth as she could muster.

  Snacker lowered me to the floor, put his hands on his hips, and checked out our desserts. “How was everything? I know we’ve still got some kinks to work out.”

  “Everything was outstanding,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course, but I’d never have told Snacker about the snags in the service or the wavering quality of the food.

  “Christ, I hardly had any notice about coming on as the executive chef. Damn shame about Digger. I still can’t believe it. I probably wouldn’t even have taken the job, but my girlfriend really wanted me to accept. Have you met Georgie?”

  I nodded. “Um, yes. She seems . . . very . . . very nice.” If by very nice I meant that she was sleeping with most of the city.

  “Yeah, well, she wants us to move in together, and I need the money, so I went ahead and took the job. Thank God for Josh, though. Tonight would’ve been a royal disaster if he hadn’t stepped in and helped out in the kitchen.”

  “You’d never know there’d been problems. Honestly, it was a great meal,” Ade said.

  “I hate to run, but I’m supposed to walk around the dining room and schmooze everyone.” Snacker leaned down to give me another hug and whispered in my ear. “Chloe, have you and Josh talked?”

  I nodded weakly. “Sort of. There’s no point.”

  “Yes, there is. Don’t give up yet.” He squeezed my arm and then left to finish his executive-chef table duties.