Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  But there could be chicken marsala.

  Min shoved her salad to one side, logged onto the net, and did a search for “chicken marsala” because doing a search for “Cal Morrisey” would not have been helpful to her damn plan.

  “Very popular dish,” she said when she got 48,300 matches. Even allowing for the weird randomness that more than 48,000 of them would demonstrate if she ever got that far, that was still a lot of recipes. There was one with artichokes, that was insane. One had lemon juice, which couldn’t be right, another peppers, another onions. It was amazing how many ways people had found to garbage up a plain recipe. She printed off two that sounded right and went to log off the net, but instead, on a random impulse, Googled for “dyslexia” instead. An hour later, she logged off with a new respect for what Calvin Morrisey had accomplished.

  When she got off work, she stopped by the grocery. There was something about having a plan for dinner, a recipe in hand, that made her feel much less hostile about food. Of course, she was going to have to adapt the recipe. It called for the chicken to be breaded in flour, which was just extra calories, and carb calories no less. Skip the breading. Salt and pepper she already had, and parsley had no calories, so she picked up a jar of that. Skinless, boneless chicken breasts she was familiar with, no problem there, but butter and olive oil? “It is to laugh,” she said and got spray olive oil in a can. Mushrooms were mostly water, so she could have those, and then there was the marsala. She found it in the cooking wine section. Resolutely passing by the bread section, she checked out feeling triumphant, went home and changed into her sweats, cranked up the CD player, and sang her head off to her Elvis 30 album as she cooked.

  An hour later, Elvis was starting all over again and she was staring at the mess in her only frying pan trying to figure out what had gone wrong. She’d browned the chicken in the non-stick skillet and then followed all the other directions but it looked funny and tasted like hell. She tapped her spatula on the edge of the stove for a few moments and thought, Okay, I’m not a cook. I still deserve great food, and dropped the spatula to pick up the phone.

  “Emilio?” she said when he answered. “Do you deliver?”

  The Parker seminar was turning into the worst mess Morrisey, Packard, Capa had ever seen, mostly because the idiot who was in charge of training kept changing the seminar information. “I’m faxing some information over,” she’d say when she called. “Just slot it in somewhere.”

  “That bitch must die,” Tony said when she called at ten till five on Tuesday. “I’ve got a date with Liza tonight.”

  “I’ll stay for the fax,” Roger said. “Bonnie will understand.”

  “You go, I’ll stay,” Cal said. “I’m dateless and too tired to move anyway.”

  Tony and Roger left, both heading for warm women, and Cal read the fax and tightened the seminar packet one more time, trying to feel grateful that there wasn’t any place he had to be, no woman demanding his time and attention. At seven, he turned off the computer with relief and realized he was starving.

  Emilio’s seemed like an excellent idea.

  “Don’t tell me,” Emilio said when Cal came through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “Chicken marsala.”

  “I’ve had enough chicken marsala for a while,” Cal said as the phone rang. Emilio turned to get it and Cal added, “Something simple. Tomato and basil on spaghetti—” No. Forty percent of all pasta sold was spaghetti. No imagination. “Make that fettuccine—”

  He stopped when Emilio held up his hand and said, “Emilio’s,” into the phone. Emilio listened and then looked back over his shoulder at Cal and said, “We usually don’t, but for such a special customer, we’ll make an exception. Chicken marsala, right? No, no, no trouble at all. You can overtip the delivery boy.”

  He hung up and smiled at Cal. “That was Min. She wants chicken marsala. You can deliver it to her.”

  “What?” Cal said, dumbfounded.

  “You know the way. It’s probably on your way home.”

  “It’s not on my way home, it’s not on anybody’s way home except God’s, the damn place is vertical. What gave you the idea I’d do this?”

  Emilio shrugged. “I don’t know. She called, you were here, you two are great together, it seemed like a good idea. Did you have a fight?”

  “No, we didn’t have a fight,” Cal said. “We’re not seeing each other because I’m all wrong for her and she’s waiting for Elvis. Call her back and tell her your delivery boy died.”

  “Then she won’t have anything for dinner,” Emilio said. “And you know Min. She’s one of those women who eats.”

  Cal thought about the look on Min’s face when she ate chicken marsala. It was almost as good as the look on her face when she ate doughnuts. Which wasn’t anywhere near as good as the look on her face when he’d kissed her, that had been—

  Emilio shrugged. “Fine. Brian can take it to her.”

  “No,” Cal said. “I’ll take it to her. Hurry up, will you? I’m hungry.”

  Chapter Six

  Forty-five minutes later, Cal was climbing the steps to Min’s place when something small and orange streaked past him and almost knocked him down the hill. He finished the climb cautiously, but when he looked around at the top, nothing was there. He rang the doorbell, and Bonnie came to let him in.

  “Hi,” he said. “Min ordered takeout.” He held up the bag, feeling stupid, his least favorite feeling in the world.

  “And you’re delivering?” Bonnie said as she stepped back.

  “Well, you can never have enough extra cash,” Cal said and hit the stairs, knowing she was watching him. When he got to the top, he heard Elvis Presley singing “Heartbreak Hotel” through Min’s door and sighed.

  Min looked surprised when she opened the door at his knock, and he felt pretty stunned himself: as far as he could see, all she was wearing was a very long, very old blue sweatshirt and lumpy sweatsocks. Her hair was down in frizzy waves, and she was wearing no makeup, so the only color on her face was the fading yellow bruise from where he’d clocked her.

  “What the hell?” she said. “How did you get in the front door?”

  “This is how you open the door to delivery guys?” Cal said, staring at the good strong legs he’d scoped out in the bar on Friday.

  “No, this is how I open the door to Bonnie,” Min said. “Stop ogling. I have shorts on under this.” She pulled up the edge of her shirt and he saw baggy plaid boxers that were only marginally less ugly than her shirt and socks. “Why did you get in the front door?”

  Then something orange streaked past both their legs and into the apartment.

  “What is that?” Min said, and Cal came in, leaving the door open behind him.

  “I don’t know.” Cal put Emilio’s bag down on an old cast iron sewing machine table beside a couch that looked like a moth-eaten, overstuffed pumpkin. “It ran past me on the steps—”

  “Oh, Lord,” Min said and Cal turned to look where she was looking.

  The mangiest-looking animal he’d ever seen was glaring at them from the end of the couch, its left eye closed and sinister. It was mottled all over in browns and oranges so that, in general, it matched the couch.

  “What is that?” Min said.

  “I think it’s a cat,” Cal said.

  “What kind?” Min said, an awful fascination in her voice.

  “Not a good kind,” Cal said. “Although you did say you wanted one.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Min said.

  “When I brought you home last week,” Cal said. “You said you were going to get a cat.”

  “That was a joke,” Min said, keeping an eye on the cat. “That’s what every woman in her thirties who’s been screwed over by men says. ‘I’m going to give up the bastards and get a cat.’ It’s a cliché.”

  “You know,” Cal said, watching the cat, too, “if you’re going to talk in code, you have to warn me.”

  The cat didn’t seem to be moving, so Cal look
ed around the rest of her apartment. It appeared to be the entire attic, its crazy angles punctuated by dormers, and it was furnished in ancient pieces, none of them antiques. He frowned and thought, This doesn’t look like her.

  Min tilted her head at the cat, nonplussed. “Why is its eye shut?”

  “My guess is, that one’s missing,” Cal said.

  “Hard life, huh, cat?” Min sighed. “I have extra chicken. I tried the marsala and screwed it up. Maybe the cat will be desperate enough to eat it.”

  “If you feed it, it’ll stay forever,” Cal said. “Yo, cat, the door’s open. Leave.”

  The cat curled up on the back of the couch and stared at him haughtily.

  “It looks very Cheshire,” Min said. “Like it could disappear a little bit at a time.”

  “And it’s already started with the eye,” Cal said. “Min, this cat probably has every disease in the Cat’s Book of Death.”

  “I can at least feed it,” Min said and went to get some chicken.

  “It does go with the couch.” Cal closed the door and moved Emilio’s bag from the sewing machine table to a battered old round oak table behind the couch. The cat watched his every move while pretending not to care.

  Min brought some chicken slivers on a paper towel. She put it under the cat’s nose and then stepped back. It sniffed at the chicken and then looked at her. “I know,” she said, despair in her voice. “It’s awful. You don’t have to eat it.”

  The cat lifted its nose and then nibbled at the closest piece.

  “That’s a very brave cat,” Min told Cal and went to the mantel to get her purse. “Let me pay you or Emilio or whoever.”

  “No,” Cal said, still looking around. The furniture was all comfortable, but none of it was interesting or attractive, nothing like Min. It was almost as if it were somebody else’s apartment. “Are you subletting?”

  “No,” Min said, fishing in her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing.” There were snow globes on the mantel, lined up on both sides of a kitschy old clock made from fake books, and he went over beside her to look at them, saying, “You didn’t pick out this furniture.”

  “It was my grandmother’s,” Min said. “Look, you’re not going to pay for my dinner. You did me a favor by bringing it, so—”

  “You collect these?” Cal said, picking up Rocky and Bullwinkle.

  “Cal,” Min said.

  “There’s enough food there for an army,” he said. “If you want company, I’m staying and eating half of it. If you don’t, I’ll take half with me, although I am reluctant to leave you alone with that animal.” Cal put Rocky down and looked at the next one. Chip and Dale. “Where did you get these?”

  “Friends,” Min said. “Family. Flea markets.” She paused. “You can stay.” She looked at the cat which, having wolfed down the chicken, now seemed to be considering sleep. “You I don’t know about,” she said, and it regarded her gravely, its right eye closed. “Wasn’t the other eye closed before?” Min said to Cal. “The left one?”

  “I can’t remember,” Cal said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a very shifty cat. You know, this furniture is not you, that clock is not you, and you don’t seem like the snow globe type.”

  “I know it’s not me,” Min said, looking around at it. “But it’s good furniture, so it doesn’t make sense to buy new. Besides, it reminds me of my grandmother. And the snow globe thing started by accident.” She turned back to him. “At least let me pay for half of dinner.”

  “No.” Cal picked up a massive piece that had a globe with Lady and the Tramp sitting on top of a detailed Italian restaurant. “What kind of accident?”

  “My Grandma Min had a Mickey and Minnie Mouse snow globe. They were dancing and Minnie was wearing a long pink dress and Mickey was dipping her.” Min’s voice softened as she spoke. “My grandpa gave it to her for a wedding anniversary, but I loved it so much that she gave it to me when I was twelve.”

  Cal scanned the mantel. Christine and the Phantom, Jessica and Roger Rabbit, Blondie and Dagwood, Sleeping Beauty and the Prince, Cinderella and her prince in front of a castle with white doves suspended in air, even Donald and Daisy were there, but no Mickey and Minnie. “Where is it?”

  “I lost it,” Min said. “In one of the moves when I was in college. You know how it is, you move every year and stuff disappears. I was upset about it so people started giving me other ones on my birthday and for Christmas to make up for it. I tried to tell them I didn’t want any more, you know, ‘Thank you, it’s lovely, but you shouldn’t have,’ but by then it had taken on a life of its own.” She looked at the mantel and sighed. “I have boxes of them in the basement. These are just my favorites. Never collect anything. People never let you quit.”

  Cal looked over the assortment again. There was one big, dark one at the end of the mantel that looked like monsters. “What’s this?” he said, picking it up.

  “Disney villains,” Min said. “Liza and Bonnie each got me one for Christmas two years ago.”

  “Liza got you that one,” Cal said, putting it back.

  “How do you know it wasn’t Bonnie?” Min said.

  “Because that’s not Bonnie.” He pointed to the Cinderella globe with the doves. “She got you that one.”

  “Yes,” Min said. “I still don’t see—”

  “Bonnie wants the fairy tale,” Cal said. “Liza’s a realist, she sees the bad guys. Also Bonnie wouldn’t have missed the important part. She got you a couple.”

  “A couple of what?” Min said.

  “A couple,” Cal said. “Twosome. These are all couples. Look. Lady and the Tramp, Christine and the Phantom, Jessica Rabbit and Roger . . . except for Liza’s, they’re all couples.”

  “I wouldn’t call Rocky and Bullwinkle a couple exactly,” Min said, looking at them doubtfully. “And Chip and Dale. I mean, I know there have been rumors, but—”

  “C’mon, Minnie,” Cal said. “You started with a couple.”

  “Don’t call me Minnie,” Min said, her eyes flashing at him.

  “You can call me Mickey,” Cal said, grinning at her, wanting that flash again.

  “I’m going to call you a cab if you don’t stop annoying me,” Min said. “Can we just eat?”

  Cal gave up and went back to the table to unpack Emilio’s bag, detouring around the cat in case it decided to go rogue and start on him. “That guy really did a number on you.”

  “What guy?”

  “The one who dumped you the night I picked you up. You must have loved him a lot.”

  “Oh.” Min blinked. “Him? No. Not at all.”

  Good, Cal thought, even though it didn’t make any difference. “Do you have plates?”

  She went around the table and into an alcove that anybody else would call a closet, but that her landlord evidently thought was a kitchen.

  “Get wineglasses, too,” Cal said as he opened the box with the bread in it.

  “What?” Min said, leaning out of the alcove.

  “Glasses,” Cal said. “For the wine.”

  Min came out of the alcove with two wineglasses and set the table while he pulled the cork from the wine and poured, trying not to look at her sweats. It was nice of her to dress so badly. If she’d been wearing that red sweater again, he might have had a problem. Then she opened the carton with the salad in it, and tried to plate it using a tablespoon. “Damn,” she said, as the dressing spilled onto the table.

  “You don’t cook, do you, Minerva?” Cal said.

  “Oh, and you do?” Min said.

  “Sure.” He took the spoon from her. “I worked in a restaurant while I was in college. You need a big spoon, Minnie. This one is for eating.”

  “Or I could just jab you with it,” Min said.

  He shook his head and went around her into the kitchenette to look for a larger spoon and instead found a frying pan with something horrible in it.

  “What is this?” he said when she came in for a pap
er towel.

  “None of your business,” Min said. He raised his eyebrows at her and she said, “I thought I could make it on my own. I got the recipe. But it didn’t—”

  Light dawned. “This is chicken marsala?”

  “No,” Min said. “That is a mess, which is why I called Emilio’s.”

  “What did you do?” Cal said.

  “Why?” Min said. “So you can make snarky comments?”

  “Do you want to know how to make chicken marsala or not?” Cal said, exasperated. She was such a pain in the ass.

  She scowled up at him. “Yes.”

  “What’s the first thing you did?” Cal said.

  “Sprayed the pan with olive oil,” Min said.

  “Sprayed?” Cal said. “No. Pour. A couple of tablespoons.”

  “Too much fat,” Min said.

  “It’s good fat,” Cal said. “Olive oil is good for you.”

  “Not for my waistline,” Min said.

  “You’re going to have to pour, Minnie,” Cal said. “It’s part of the flavor.”

  “Okay,” Min said, but she looked mutinous. “Then I browned the chicken.”

  “Too fast,” Cal said. “Pound the chicken breasts first. Use a can if you don’t have a mallet, put them in a plastic bag, and pound them thin. Then dredge them in flour mixed with ground black pepper and kosher salt.”

  “You’re kidding,” Min said. “Flour just adds calories.”

  “And seals the chicken,” Cal said. “So it doesn’t get . . .” He picked up a fork, jabbed one of the petrified slabs in the pan, and held it up. “. . . dry. Then what did you do?”

  Min folded her arms. “When they were browned, I put the mushrooms in and poured the wine over and let it reduce.”

  “No butter?”

  “No butter,” Min said. “Are you insane?”

  “No,” Cal said, dropping the chicken back in the pan. “But anybody who makes chicken marsala without olive oil, butter, or flour may be. If you wanted broiled chicken, you should have made broiled chicken.” He dipped his finger in the sauce and tasted it. It was so vile he lost his breath, and Min ran him a glass of water and handed it to him.