by Elaine Fox
In a strong, slanted masculine hand was written:
I had to think: What is she afraid of…?
Steve’s writing, she thought, looking at the sharply crossed t’s and flourish-less loops. She should probably have it analyzed, figure out if this guy was all he seemed. And not all she feared.
Roxanne put the note down and eyed the boxes warily. Unless Steve was curled up inside one, she didn’t think any of her greatest fears could be contained in a cardboard box, or even two.
Just as she was about to slit the tape on one with a fingernail, the phone rang. She hunted for the portable, finally finding it wedged between two cushions on the couch.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly, catching it on the last ring before the answering machine would pick up.
Skip laughed in her ear. “Oh my, I didn’t interrupt anything good, did I?”
“I can’t even imagine what you mean by that,” she said primly.
He sighed. “I’m afraid that’s probably true these days.”
She put one hand on her hip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that a girl like you is not supposed to be burying herself in her work.”
“Oh no, not that old rant. So what’s a girl like me supposed to be doing, huh?” She walked back to the dining room and the boxes, giving one a little shake with one hand. It sounded like a bunch of wadded-up paper.
“If you have to ask…”
She laughed. “A lot you know, Skip. I am right now about to open a large, very curious gift from…hang onto your hat…a man.”
Silence greeted this announcement.
“Skip?”
“Oh no.” His voice was somber. “Tell me it’s not from Martin. Please tell me he’s not up to his old tricks. Or if he is, that you’re not going to fall for it again.”
“Oh, Skip.” She laughed ruefully. “Did I really put you through so much, talking about him all the time?”
“Me? It’s you I’m worried about. That guy’s given you emotional whiplash more times than I like to count. Don’t even open it, Rox. I mean it. Just write ‘Return to Sender’ on it and throw it right back in the mailbox.”
“Relax. It’s not from Martin.” She smiled again. “And it’s way too big to fit in the mailbox.”
“Not from Martin?” He perked up instantly. “Who’s it from?”
“Steve. Steve Serrano. You remember the guy—”
“Oh come off it, Rox. I remember the guy. Mr. Charming from dinner. Why’s he buying you a gift? You getting some on the side and not telling me about it?”
Roxanne actually blushed. Good thing she was on the phone. “Mr. Charming, eh? I’ll have to tell him you said so.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” Skip’s voice was increasingly intrigued.
“It’s not really a gift. That is, I doubt it’s…well…anyway, I bought him something last week because I was mad at him because…” She remembered the kiss he gave her that night in the restaurant. It had felt so…intimate. “Well, it’s too long a story to get into here, but I gave him a bunch of rubber snakes and I think this is his, uh, revenge.”
Skip paused. “You—what? You bought him rubber snakes?”
“He’s afraid of snakes.”
“Ah.”
“And he says in his note to me on these boxes that he had to think about what I was afraid of.”
“You guys are trying to scare each other?”
“Uh, kind of.” Maybe they already did scare each other. Maybe this was just some kind of weird, elaborate foreplay. Could it be foreplay if they’d already had sex?
“So, what is it?” Skip’s voice brought her back.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I haven’t opened the boxes yet.” “Boxes? There’s more than one?”
“There’re two.”
“Well, open them! I want to know how good this guy is. Let’s see, what’s Roxanne afraid of? Failure? Maybe it’s a box full of bad restaurant reviews.”
“Very funny. Don’t you have a class or something?”
“It’s lunchtime. Besides, I’m not missing this. Open them and tell me what’s in them.”
“Okay, I’m opening one.”
She pulled on the flaps of the top one and, with a cardboard squeak, they unwove themselves. Spotting what was inside, she laughed out loud.
“What?” Skip demanded. “What’s in it? Tell me!”
“Ch—ch—ch—” She couldn’t stop laughing.
“Roxanne.”
She pulled on the flaps of the other box and encountered more of the same.
“Cheetos!” she finally shrieked. “Oh my God. This is amazing. He got me a hundred dollars’ worth of Cheetos!”
14
Dessert Special of the Day
Chocolate Decadence—for people with no self-control
Chocolate bombe filled with chocolate mousse, topped with chocolate hazelnut cream and surrounded by mini chocolate truffles
“So what’s the shelf life on these things?” Skip asked, looking at the mound of Cheetos bags on her floor. There were thirty-eight of them. They’d counted.
Roxanne sat with her feet up on the table, an open bag in her lap and the fingers of her right hand completely orange.
She lifted the bag and looked. “The ‘Best By’ date is November of this year.” She looked at the pile, nodding. “That oughta be about right.”
Skip looked at her. “You are not going to eat all of these.” He picked up a bag. “Look at this—have you read the label? Ten grams of fat per ounce—”
“Skip, Skip, Skip,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t understand, I’m not one of your wrestlers. I’m a pastry chef. I’m supposed to be fat. If I’m not fat, people will think my food’s no good.”
He gave her a deadpan look. “Rox, you never leave the kitchen as it is. Who’s going to know you’re not fat enough?”
She popped another Cheeto into her mouth.
“Your tongue is orange,” Skip said, going into the kitchen. “Does beer go with Cheetos?”
“Everything goes with Cheetos. Bring me one, too, please.”
He came back into the dining room with two open beers and a roll of paper towels. He ran off about four of them and handed the wad to Roxanne. “Here, you’re going to need these. Or are you just planning to shower after your snack?”
She grinned. “Pull up a bag and sit down.” At his wince she laughed. “Are my teeth orange too?”
“This is sick.” Skip plucked a bag from the table and tore it open. “I’ve never seen you so happy.”
She finished a big swig from the beer and ran her tongue over her teeth. “It’s incredible. I’ve never felt so guiltless.” She grimaced at him. “Better?”
He examined her teeth. “All clean. Once again, beer solves the problem.”
She laughed. “I guess Steve got this wrong, huh?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, he was hoping to scare me with something. Do I look scared to you?” She placed a Cheeto between her teeth and closed her eyes, blissful.
Skip looked down at the bag in his hands. “He’s scared me with them. And I’m becoming a little afraid of you.” He looked at her sideways. “Are these things addictive? How many of these bags have you eaten?”
She waved a Cheeto in the air nonchalantly. “Five or six. So how do you think I should respond? Or should I respond at all? I mean, this is fun and all, but I don’t want this guy getting any ideas.”
Any more ideas, she amended silently.
Skip looked at her, his expression dry. “Trust me, after you eat all these, he won’t be getting any ideas.”
She laughed and popped another puff. “I’m serious. What should I do?”
He poked his nose in the bag and sniffed. “Send him your Jenny Craig bill.”
She smacked her lips.
Gingerly, he pulled out a cheese puff and, after studying it, put it in his mouth.
“Oh,” he sa
id, closing his eyes. “Oh my God. I’m back in Joey Fannini’s wood-paneled basement, listening to Cheap Trick.” He opened his eyes. “This is amazing. I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid. It’s like time travel in a bag.”
She nodded. “I know. Aren’t they good? I don’t think I’ve had more than one or two at a time for at least fifteen years.”
A knocked sounded on the door.
Skip and Roxanne looked at each other.
“Mr. Charming?” Skip mouthed, eyes wide, grin maniacal.
Roxanne chuckled and got up to answer the door. With two relatively un-orange fingers she turned the knob and pulled it open.
Steve’s face split immediately into a smile and he started laughing. “I see you got my gift.”
She put the bag behind her back. “What makes you say that?”
He lifted a hand and brushed gently at her cheek. Roxanne’s pulse jumped as if she’d been electrocuted.
“You’ve got an orange streak on your face,” he said, pulling his hand back and shoving it into his pocket.
“Is that the devil at the door?” Skip came out from the dining room and held out his hand to Steve. “Hey, good to see you.”
“Skip.” Steve shook his hand, then looked down at the orange crumbs on his palm.
Skip brushed his hand on his jeans. “Sorry about that. I hope you know you’re going to be personally responsible for the enormity of one formerly attractive pastry chef.”
Steve’s brows rose. “So I see.”
“Apparently she’s not afraid of Cheetos anymore. Not since she quit—”
“Skip!” Roxanne turned on him suddenly, knowing just where he was going with that statement. “Why don’t you go into the kitchen…” She searched for a task.
“And get Steve a beer?” Skip provided. “Can you come in for a beer, Steve? I think we’ve got a few munchies lying around.”
“No, I don’t want to interrupt.” Steve shook his head and backed up a step, one hand up. “I just wanted to be sure you got, the, uh…”—he gestured toward the bag in Roxanne’s hand—“…packages.”
“It’s no interruption,” Roxanne said. “Come on in.”
They heard the clink of glass against glass and then the thunk of a bottle landing on the counter.
“Besides,” Skip called from the kitchen, “the beer’s already open.”
Steve gave her an ironic look. “Skip wins again. One of these days you’re going to invite me over. I promise to decline, if that’s what it’ll take.”
She crunched the bag closed in one fist and cocked her head at him. “Maybe Skip’s are the only invitations you accept.”
Steve strolled through the door, leaning close to her as he passed, saying, “Try me.”
Their eyes met and Roxanne’s body temperature skyrocketed. Steve gave her a quick wink and continued on toward the kitchen, while Roxanne wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Lord, she thought, was the guy on fire? Every time she stood near him she heated up like bread in a toaster.
She was drunk on Cheetos, that was it. It wasn’t that she was unable to be within two feet of Steve Serrano without thinking about sex. She was just high on partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
She followed him into the kitchen, placing her bag of Cheetos carefully on the dining room table as she passed it.
“You didn’t get yourself a bag,” she said to Steve, who sat on the stool by the kitchen island as casually as if he lived there. “I’m afraid you can’t stay at this party without paying homage to the guest of honor.” She inclined her head back toward the pile of Cheeto bags.
Steve laughed. “Not me. I don’t touch that stuff. My body is a temple.”
“Oh please,” she said, “I saw you stuff that temple with a plate full of cheese fries not so very long ago.”
They all laughed and settled in with their beers. Before long, talk turned to the break-in.
“It seems to me they’re bent on destruction,” Skip said. “Maybe it’s somebody trying to scare you off, out of the business.”
“Someone like you?” she asked. “You’re the only one who’s been completely against it from the start.”
Skip’s expression was hurt. “No I haven’t. I’ve just wanted you to be happy. And we all know restaurateurs aren’t happy. They’re just crazy.”
“Oh Skip, I know.” She leaned across the couch—where they had migrated during the course of conversation—and squeezed his hand. “Of course I don’t think it’s you behind the break-ins. I’m thinking maybe it’s somebody who lived here before and left something behind.”
From the armchair, Steve gave her a dubious look. “Somebody who left something buried in the basement floor? Or behind a brick foundation that hasn’t been disturbed for centuries?”
Roxanne turned to him. “Can you tell that? Can you tell the brick hasn’t been disturbed?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Most of the time, yes. If the mortar’s different, the pattern is broken, the bricks are not all the same age, you can tell someone’s done some patchwork. But the wall where they were digging around…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on with that.”
“Maybe they think there’s some kind of buried treasure,” Skip volunteered, with a kidlike grin.
“There is!” Roxanne said excitedly. “We thought of that, didn’t we, Steve?” She looked over at Steve. “The Declaration of Independence, right?”
Skip scoffed. “The Declaration of Independence is in your basement?”
“Just a draft.” At Steve’s dark look she added, “Maybe. Steve, tell him the story.”
Steve related the short version, finishing with, “But that would be ridiculous. Anybody who knew enough to be looking for that draft wouldn’t just start digging around somebody else’s basement. They’re historians, academics. They’d have maps and documents and theories about where to search. They’d know the places that had already been searched. And they’d know to look for things like patterns in the brick.”
“So you really don’t think it has anything to do with that?” Roxanne asked, disappointed. She’d been hoping her intruder would turn out to be some nerdy guy in glasses with a history book in one hand and a shovel in the other. Not some drug-crazed former tenant as P.B. had suggested. Or Steve, as P.B. had ended up insisting.
The idea of Steve destroying her property in search of his theoretical draft was ludicrous, but like the circumstances of the bet between him and P.B., there was enough ambiguity in the facts to leave room for doubt.
And doubt about men was what Roxanne specialized in these days.
Still, would Steve be able to discuss this so casually now if he were the one looking around? Of course not.
Steve gave it another moment of thought. “It’s doubtful. But if it’s not that, I’ll be damned if I know what they are looking for.”
“It seems obvious they’re looking for something, though,” Roxanne mused, “doesn’t it? Remember how in the first break-in one of the kitchen floorboards had been pried up?”
“I thought the squirrel did that,” Skip said.
Steve laughed and Roxanne’s eyes shot to his.
“You didn’t believe that?” she asked.
“You did?” he countered.
She picked at the label of her beer with a fingernail. “It’s obvious now, of course, that the first was an actual break-in. But I have to confess, for a long time I was really hoping it was just that squirrel.”
“The one that hurled itself through the back window.” Steve was smiling at her but it was a gentle smile, a teasing one.
“That never made sense to me either,” Skip said.
“I chose to ignore that part of the equation,” Roxanne admitted. “Besides, I figured if it was good enough for the police…”
Steve’s expression darkened and Roxanne kicked herself for bringing up—even indirectly—P.B.
After a bit more discussion, Skip stood up. “All right, kids. Tonight,
I’m hitting the hay early. No more midnight Mondays for me.”
They all stood up and Skip said his good-nights, then he trotted down the stairs.
Roxanne and Steve stood at the door, silent until Skip’s footsteps stopped and the outside door slammed.
Roxanne was pretty sure Steve was going to leave too, but since he hadn’t said anything she pushed the door shut and turned her back against it, looking up at him.
“I guess I should go, too,” he said.
Roxanne nodded, one hand on the doorknob behind her without turning it. “Big day tomorrow?”
He laughed wryly and put his hands in his pockets. “Just the library. Again. That’s how I usually spend my days.”
“At the Library of Congress?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You’re that into the history thing, huh? Are you taking a class or something?”
He shook his head. “No, I just like investigating things. I’ve been interested in Portner for some time now. He’s kind of a fascinating character.”
“So you’re just doing it for fun?”
He shrugged. “Keeps the librarians busy and me off the streets.”
“They should start paying you,” she teased.
“I wish someone would.” Then, at her look, he added, “For the library work, I mean, the research. You pay me just fine, boss.”
He smiled and her stomach turned to jelly. Boss, she repeated to herself. Remember that.
“I knew what you meant.” Slowly, she pushed herself away from the door and pulled it open.
She had to let him leave, she told herself. But, maybe it was the beers on nothing but a Cheeto-laden stomach, she couldn’t quite remember just why this relationship was so wrong. So she owned the place—didn’t most people meet the people they dated at work? So what if she was the boss? It wasn’t like she would let the personal aspect get in the way of the professional.
Well, she thought, her reaction to news of that awful bet springing to mind, not again, anyway.
Remembering the bet only increased her resolve, however. She shouldn’t trust him. If they got involved and later he did something that hurt her she would kick herself for not paying attention to the signs. And what bigger red flags could there be than that he might have made a bet about getting her in bed and there was a chance he was behind a series of break-ins at her restaurant?