by Elaine Fox
He could hear Dana doing something in the background. No doubt cleaning or cooking or doing something for one of the kids. She had a husband and three children and never seemed to stop moving.
“I’m getting over one of the stupidest nights of my life,” he said, with probably too much honesty. But what the heck, Dana almost always got his secrets out of him anyway, and he usually felt better after the swift shot upside the head she gave him for them.
“Oh no. What have you done now?” She was stern, but he could hear the grim smile in her voice.
“Hell, I don’t know. I was stupid, that’s all. There’s something wrong with me. If there’s something I shouldn’t do, I do it.”
“Oh good God, you didn’t get back with Lia, did you? If you ask me, that girl is the reason you’ve never had a decent relationship.”
Steve turned over onto his side and looked at the digital clock—11:57. “Well, I didn’t ask you, but now that it’s out there, why do you say that?”
Dana sighed. “Because she’s there for you. You need sex, she’s there. You need some kind of female companionship, she’s there. She’s not perfect, but she’s there. And that satisfies you enough that you never look for anything different.”
He scoffed. “That shows how much you know. If that were true I wouldn’t have done the stupid thing last night.”
“Which was…?” She sounded intrigued.
It was his turn to sigh. He almost didn’t know how to describe what had happened. On the one hand, it was simple. He’d kissed her. But on the other, it made absolutely no sense at all. For no earthly reason, without any anticipation of doing it beforehand, he’d kissed her.
What the hell had he been thinking?
From the headboard, the pillow dropped back onto his head and he let it stay. “I think I hit on my new boss.”
Dana let out a burst of air. “What? The one P.B.’s going out with?”
Steve frowned and put his hand over his eyes. “He just has a date with her, that’s all. It’s not like she’s his girlfriend or anything.”
Still, the feeling burning his skin was shame. As unintentional as it was, he’d undercut his buddy. P.B. may be a lot of things, but he’d been a friend of Steve’s for a lot of years.
Dana was still sputtering on the phone. “Oh yeah, he just has a date with her. Nothing to keep you from hitting on her. So, what—how—what did you do? How in the world did it happen?”
Steve chuckled wryly. “Well, she looked good, better than usual.”
Dana inhaled sharply, in preparation for, he could tell, giving him hell.
“Just kidding,” he said quickly, laughing. “She always looks fabulous, it’s one of her biggest flaws. But last night she looked…accessible. Or something. Smiling. She has this great smile. Real first rate, when she decides to trot it out. And last night for the first time it seemed really, I don’t know, easy. Uncalculated.”
“So, you, what? Asked her out? Pinched her ass? What?”
“I kissed her.”
“You kissed her,” Dana repeated, dry as dust.
“And her friend was there,” Steve continued, needing to explain, if only to make himself understand, “not when I kissed her. Before. This guy Skip. And he was funny and kind of laid back. Made us all laugh. Got rid of some of Roxanne’s usual edginess.”
“So, you kissed her.”
“I guess I was lulled into a sense of security. Yeah, that’s what it was. She made this incredible meal, we had a lot of wine.”
“So…”
“I kissed her.”
Dana laughed. “How’d she take it?”
Steve thought, remembering the moment at the door, when Roxanne had stood so close to him that he could smell her perfume, or maybe it was just her shampoo. In any case, she was close, with that little knowing smile. She had done it on purpose. Hadn’t she?
He simply could not fathom why she would.
But, she had turned her head for his kiss, hadn’t she? Turned her head at the last minute to capture his lips as he went for her cheek.
It just didn’t make sense. She wouldn’t do that. She was control personified. Coolness incarnate. She had the world by the balls. Didn’t she?
Who knew? He sure couldn’t figure her out when he was having a hard time understanding himself.
“She didn’t slap me or anything, so I guess she took it okay. Hard to say. I was so surprised by it myself, I can’t imagine what she was thinking.” He scratched the side of his face and pushed the pillow back again. “Honestly Dana, for the life of me I can’t figure out why I did it. I was leaning in to kiss her cheek as I was leaving, which was weird in itself, and then it just…happened.”
“But, you were there for dinner? She invited you to dinner? That must have meant she was interested.” She paused. “Except she’s your boss. That’s not good.”
He grimaced. “Her friend invited me, really.”
“The guy? Is he gay?”
“No. He’s just one of those guys. We ran into each other at the grocery store. They were buying stuff for dinner and he said I should come. It was obviously a whim. And she didn’t look too into it. I tried to get out of it but this guy Skip was pretty relentless. But then, we…I guess we had a good time.”
Good enough that she would need—or expect—a kiss good night? No. What had he been thinking? But there it was. He’d accidentally kissed her, and he wasn’t even a kiss-on-the-cheek kind of guy.
It was a damn fine kiss, though. Damn fine.
“I have to say, Steve,”—Dana’s voice was matter-of-fact—“I think you might have taken something the wrong way. From what you’ve said about this woman, it doesn’t sound like she’d want to carry on with someone she works with.”
“We’re not carrying on, Dana. It was a moment. A really strange moment.” He pushed himself up in bed and leaned back on the headboard.
“You sure it wasn’t just a forbidden moment? You know how you are, Steve. You always want what you think you can’t have.”
“Thanks for the pop psychology, Sis. Really clarifying.”
“Glad you liked it.”
“I’m serious. Something weird happened right at the door, as I was leaving. She was standing really close and, I don’t know, I think she went for the kiss. I can’t imagine why, but she did. It was like there was some kind of weird, gravitational pull or…or…”
“Destiny,” Dana said dramatically.
“Yeah right. That’s the word I was looking for,” Steve said dryly. “And now I’m destined to get fired.”
The Call Waiting beeped.
“Steve—”
“Wait. That’s my other line. Hang on a sec, can you, Dana?”
“Actually no. As riveted as I am by this turn of events, I have to go get Jamie. Call me later, though, okay? I’m going to mull this over and come up with the answer.”
“You do that.” He pushed the flash button on the phone, finally awake and realizing it was nearly noon. He had work to do. He couldn’t lie in bed all day lamenting the most stupid thing he’d done in years.
“Yeah,” he said into the receiver.
“Where the hell are you?” P.B., too loud and sounding annoyed, spoke from what sounded like an echo chamber.
“Where the hell are you?” Steve rubbed a hand through his hair, massaging his scalp.
“I’m at the gym, where you’re supposed to be. Remember you said you’d fill in for Larry?”
Steve closed his eyes, remembering some vague conversation about a handball game.
“Today?” Steve rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t see P.B. today. P.B., who would want to talk about his date this week, with Roxanne Rayeaux.
“Yes, today, genius. Right now. Jesus, what the hell have you been doing?” The sound of tennis shoes on a wooden gym floor squeaked through the receiver.
“I, uh, overslept. Sorry, Peeb. Can’t we just do it another—?”
“Oh come on, you’re five minutes away. Drag your
ass outa bed and get over here. It’ll do you good. What’d you do last night, see Lia again?”
Steve sighed. “No, nothing like that. I’m just tired. All right, let me get my stuff together. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Great, I’ll reserve the court for another hour, if I can.”
Steve hung up the phone, trying several times to set it straight in the cradle.
So now he had to go face P.B.
He wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t going to tell him what happened with Roxanne—especially since he was absolutely certain it wouldn’t happen again. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if Roxanne didn’t want him to work there now.
Not that she’d fire him, he thought. No, she’d just pull him aside and talk to him in that low, sultry voice, making him understand that it would be better for both of them if he didn’t take the job after all. Surely he could see that, couldn’t he?
For some reason, he could picture the scene perfectly.
He got out of bed, his bare feet hitting the cold wood floor. He wondered if the wood floor in Roxanne’s bedroom was as cold and doubted it. She probably had rugs. And comforters on the bed. Pillows, lots of pillows. Maybe a canopy. He pictured her hair spread long and lacy on a white pillowcase, those dark eyes half closed and catlike…
Steve swore. This was nuts. He opened a dresser drawer, pulled out gym shorts and slammed the drawer shut. Opened another, pulled out socks and slammed it. Opened a third, grabbed a T-shirt and slammed it, just as the phone rang again.
It was Dana, from her cell phone. “I just thought of an important question.”
“What’s that?” He sat on the side of the bed, pushed the receiver between his cheek and shoulder, and un-balled the socks with both hands.
“When you kissed her, your boss, you randy dog, did she kiss you back?”
Steve stopped, one sock in each hand, and let his arms drop to his sides. “Yeah,” he said slowly. He took the receiver in his left hand and straightened his neck, remembering the way her lips had opened under his, the way her hands had taken the front of his shirt in a tight, unequivocal grip. “Yeah, actually, she did.”
He frowned. His body had responded so powerfully, so instantly, he’d been shocked at himself. Which is when—and why—he’d stopped, as if awakened from some truly bizarre dream. One you had no idea where it came from.
And at the end—it was coming back to him now—had she really said “Thank you”? Or had he just dreamed that too? At that point his mind was so blown he couldn’t trust himself to remember any of it right.
“Huh,” Dana said, road noise washing white in the background.
“Yeah,” Steve said, “huh.”
Roxanne was thrilled Monsieur Girmond was finally arriving. Ever since she’d met him—eight years ago in his restaurant in New York—he’d been like a father to her. She had been fairly close to her own father when he was alive—the whole family, she, her sister, brother and father, had united to deal with her mother, their feared and fearless leader—but her father had never been as protective and nurturing as M. Girmond.
When she met him, she’d been lunching at La Finesse with her agent, a fast-talking, know-it-all deal-maker named Derek Gold, picking through a dressing-less salad when the chef had come to their table. Apparently he knew Derek—as all of New York City seemed to—and wanted to know why he was lunching with a beautiful girl and only buying her a salad. Roxanne explained that she was a model and had to watch what she ate, though she eyed the food around her covetously.
M. Girmond immediately declared this a crime, and vowed that the next time she came in he would prepare for her a feast fit for a queen but that would add not an ounce of weight to her peerless frame.
She’d laughed, embarrassed, and had not taken him seriously. But the next time she’d gone in, as it happened about two weeks later, again with Derek, M. Girmond prepared a salad with a light vinegar dressing, followed by sole on watercress, followed by a tiny scoop of fresh homemade sorbet. When she’d gone back to the kitchen to thank him, he’d insisted she come in at least once a week so he could keep her healthy. It was one thing to be skinny, he said, but another to be sick. He would keep her thin and glowing, he promised, if she promised to come “take his light offerings off his hands.”
They had become fast friends. Roxanne had often thought it lucky that she’d met M. Girmond when she had, before she’d been in New York too long. Before her modeling career had taken off and she’d stopped trusting anyone. If she had met him after five years instead of two, for example, she would never have gone back to the restaurant, figuring he wanted something from her she would not want to give.
Then, years later, when she told him she was giving up modeling to go to the CIA for a year, he confided that he was thinking of retiring. La Finesse was too big, New York too busy, and he missed his daughters, who now lived in D.C. Roxanne said she was thinking of going back to D.C., too, and would love to open a pastry shop. After much discussion they realized that together they could start a French restaurant that would accommodate both of their desires while remaining small enough to keep them both sane.
If she had gotten nothing else from her years in New York—and she had, of course—she was glad to have met M. Girmond.
He was coming to the restaurant at noon and they were to discuss the kitchen, the menu and the staff. She had been consulting him all along on the renovations and equipment purchasing via email and fax, and now it was time for him to put his stamp on things.
Roxanne was relieved. So much of running a restaurant lay on the chef’s shoulders, and M. Girmond was experienced enough to handle this with ease. Shifting some of the burden onto him would be a welcome relief now.
She unlocked the restaurant door from the street and entered the small front foyer. It smelled like fresh paint and new varnish. She inhaled it deeply, thinking, I’ve still done this right, whatever else I might have screwed up.
She pushed the image of Steve behind the now-empty bar from her head. She had to focus. She didn’t have time for adolescent hormonal reactions to men. Particularly not men on her staff.
The decorators had done a wonderful job on the small space, successfully transforming it from a gritty college-style pub to a quaint, warm restaurant. The bar gleamed in the unlit room, ambient light from the windows glancing off its surface and making the copper on the lamps hanging from the ceiling glow.
The exposed brick walls gave the place a close feeling that was warmed by the rich wood of the bar and tables and the light French country fabrics on the chairs and window treatments. Individual lamps hung over each table, and plants, low screens and a few carefully chosen metal sculptures broke the room up into separate areas where diners could eat and converse in relative privacy.
Roxanne was extremely pleased with the look.
She moved into the dining room and sat in a chair near the fireplace. It was cold, of course, but she imagined the roaring fire she would ensure was tended nightly in the winter months. She stared into its imaginary depths and thought about what she’d done last night.
Her impulse was to believe she’d made a fool of herself. For a stupid, stupid reason. But she fought that. No, she understood why she’d done what she’d done, and it certainly wasn’t a crime. She was a woman nearing thirty, no longer a green girl with illusions of romance, and she had, well, needs. Physical hungers. She’d been without a man for over a year—though Martin had shown up at the CIA one night and very nearly convinced her he was ready to commit to her—and she wanted one. It was as simple as that.
Her stupidity lay in choosing Steve. He was her employee, and getting involved with him, even just sexually, would be a distraction on the job she could not afford.
She needed to be careful. If she wanted a convenient relationship, she needed it to be separate from her job, separate from the place she’d created here. Restaurants were a small, small world when it came to relationships. Not to mention that she didn’t want a relatio
nship with Steve. She wanted someone with class and stability, someone who’d be interested in the symphony, plays at the Kennedy Center, dinner at the Willard. Someone who knew what he wanted from life and how to get it.
The bottom line was, she wanted someone who liked the same things she did, wanted to do what she liked to do. She had no idea what she and Steve would find to do together.
Other than the obvious.
A hot flash of hunger seared her as she remembered last night’s kiss. They both had enjoyed doing that, she thought wryly.
The question was, what did she do now that she’d cracked open that can of worms? Talk to him about it? He wasn’t exactly the easiest person to talk to. Most of the time he seemed to deliberately misunderstand her. But then, subtlety wasn’t likely to work either.
“Bonjour, mon ange!” M. Girmond’s voice rolled into the room like a warm breeze on a cool day.
Roxanne turned to the door and smiled, rising to her feet. “Monsieur Girmond.”
He was a tall man but he gave more an impression of roundness, with a round balding head, round glasses, a wide girth and thick, sausage-fingered hands. The next most noticeable thing about him was that he was always smiling. When he ran La Finesse, people were constantly calling looking for work with him because not only was he one of the best chefs in town, he was also one of the most liked.
She walked toward him, her hands outstretched. He took them in his callused ones and they kissed both cheeks, European style.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she said, unable to dim the smile on her face. “How is the move going? Are you all here?”
“Ah, oui. It goes very well, very well, mon trésor. And you, how are you living here back home? You feel good, oui? You look magnifique.” He held one of her hands out and stepped back, as if they’d just performed a dance move, to survey her from head to foot.
“Merci beaucoup.” She inclined her head. “The move has gone fine. I’m still adjusting, I think, to being here, but I’m all unpacked. And I’m glad I did it. It’s been good to see old friends again.”
She thought about last night’s dinner, how relaxed she’d felt, but the memory was ruined by its ending. Would she feel so bad, she wondered, if she’d impulsively kissed someone who did not work for her?