I am convinced that I should feel her here. Like a water douser near a spring.
But while all of the blondes are beautiful and seemingly kind and very good at their jobs, none of them are her. I study the brunettes, the redheads. One woman with bright pink hair. None of them are her.
Which means if she is a part of the hotel’s management, she is higher up the food chain than the men and women on the floor.
I find the staircase leading upstairs to the rooms and I walk down each hallway, looking for rooms marked Private. I find two. Both of them locked.
There are a few more staff who all ask if they can help me and I politely tell them I’m fine.
Downstairs I follow the stream of denim-aproned servers towards the kitchen, not making eye-contact, exuding my-fake-it-till-you-make-it vibe until I get to the swinging door of the kitchen.
I get a glimpse inside the steamy, chaotic space and hear a woman shout, “Jeff, are you fucking kidding me with that lamb chop?”
Man, I love chefs. They remind me of reporters a little. Night creatures, who keep weird hours and have a strange insight into the human condition.
And swear like motherfuckers.
I wonder if the woman swearing is dull, farmer Penny.
“Mr. Quadir?”
It’s Megan, coming up behind me, her face so concerned by my obvious stroke. Otherwise, why would I be standing outside the kitchen in a steady stream of staff? “Can I help you?” she asks, clearly puzzled.
“Megan!” I cry like she’s a lifesaver. “I thought the bathrooms were this way.”
“No! No.” She smiles like I’m such a sweet fool. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten that exact same smile. It is universal. Cuts through every language and cultural barrier.
Oh, you dummy. Let me help you.
“Follow me.’
She leads me back to the party and I thank her like she led me out of the wilderness.
It starts to feel like Simpson’s daughter isn’t here. That this is just another dead end. I turn to the bartender with the hand squeezed orange juice and order a scotch.
“A double,” I say.
And he nods like he understands that only a double will do.
Megan opens the sliding barn doors between the bar area and the dining room. Behind her is a garden of California wildflowers placed down a stretch of tables in one long line, stunningly lit by candles and fairy lights.
The entire crowd gasps and spontaneously applauds.
Even my jaded heart is moved.
And then it occurs to me that this kind of opulence costs money.
Is Simpson’s daughter an investor? Using her father’s money?
For a moment, I feel sick thinking about Simpson’s money paying for my drinks. The dinner I’m about to eat.
And I know I won’t be able to choke down a bite of it.
Megan beams and her eyes dart to edge of the bar opposite me and I follow her gaze to find a woman in chef whites, her blonde hair hidden in a blue bandana, another one is tied around her neck. She has dark eyebrows and a nose that’s been broken. Lips for days. For. Days.
The girl at the garbage can had those lips and my brain is buzzing again. Hope is back.
She is short. And thin. Like she is made of wire. And her face is covered with a sheen of sweat, but her body is completely covered up. The chef jacket sleeves buttoned at her wrist. The scarf around her neck. I see none of her skin but her face.
She stands out and not just because she is sweaty and dressed wrong. She stands out because she’d stand out anywhere.
She glows like the wire in a light bulb.
Megan says something and the ball-gowned and tuxedoed crowd stream forward through the doors, finding their name cards in front of the china plates at the table.
But I don’t move.
I don’t look away. Not from the woman at the end of the bar. She has the right features — that mouth with its pouty upper lip. So lush on the sparseness of her frame. But we were kids then, and my memories of that day are smeared with adrenaline and fear so I can’t be sure.
Not without seeing the birthmark.
The bartender places a drink in front of her. Amber liquid and a square ice cube. She smiles at the bartender and my breath stalls in my throat.
Objectively, she is not beautiful, not in a fashionable way. Not in any predictable way. She is too thin. Too short. That broken nose. But…she radiates. She exudes. She is bigger than her body. A force more powerful than her flesh.
And some people might find that too intense. But I am drawn like a magnet.
It could be her. It FEELS like her.
But I can’t see her neck. Why would she wear a scarf like that unless she is trying to hide her neck? Highly suspicious that scarf.
She catches me staring and I smile at her, a real smile. I feel it reach my eyes and stretch my cheeks. I feel the corresponding joy in my body as I lift my glass.
Close, I think. I am getting closer.
She blinks as if stunned, either by my attention or this wildly happy smile I’m giving her. It’s out of balance but I can’t quite stop it.
And then she smiles back, lifting her glass at me, her eyebrow quirked in a dare.
My body sizzles with sudden chemistry. The right eye contact with the right person is a powerful thing and something arcs between us. A fundamental knowledge, not because I might have met her eight years ago, but because I know her.
And then, as if we’d counted it out, we both down our too-expensive-to-be-shot glasses of booze.
Fuck you, Simpson, I think. Just in case he did buy me that booze.
On the breast of her chef whites, Executive Chef is embroidered in red. Under the name Penny McConnell.
The co-owner.
The boring farm girl from Iowa.
According to that Food and Wine interview she came from a big, Iowa family. A bunch of brothers, a father who taught her to hunt, a mother who taught her how to cook. She said that food was how you told people you cared.
Penny, across the bar, looks like that story. It rang of a certain kind of truth.
But it also smelled like bullshit. My gut says a little pressing and that story will pop like a bubble.
My gut says Penny is Tina Andreas, raised not by a farmer and his wife, but by a scheming mother who is currently serving twenty-five years for tax evasion and collusion.
“Another?” she asks on a gasp.
“It’s your party.”
“You’re right about that,” she says with a laugh. “And it’s a pretty great party.”
“Yes, it is.”
And she lets me in. She lets me into her joy and it’s too fucking bright. It’s too real. But I don’t look away. I don’t flinch or blink. I stare right back at her and smile.
“Bobby?” she says to the bartender who, in record time, pours each of us another drink, and we shoot that back, too.
I gasp, wincing. “I don’t think the good people at Lagavulin meant for that to be a shot.’
“Neither did the good people at Maker’s Mark.”
“Maybe we should downgrade,” I say, looking into her sparkling eyes. I can feel her excitement and it makes my blood hot. The connection between us is lucky and problematic.
Lucky because I can use it.
Problematic because I have to control it.
“Tequila?” she asks, an eyebrow quirked.
“If that’s what the lady wants,” I say with a shrug. “But aren’t you in the middle of throwing a giant party?”
“I suppose you’re right,” she says looking into the dining room. But I don’t follow her gaze. I’m looking for any sign of that birthmark over the top of that bandana. “I can’t believe it’s all worked.”
She says it like she’d been expecting it not to work.
Suddenly there’s a herd of waiters and waitresses wearing denim aprons with dishes in their hands descending on the table in the dining room.
�
��You’re missing the scallop crudo with shaved radish, grapefruit and caviar.”
“That sounds good.”
“It is. The only thing better you’ll ever taste is the main course.”
“Which is?”
“Oh, sweetie.” It’s patronizing, the way she says it. The slight drawl she puts on her words, channeling her farmer’s daughter persona while, at the same time, just slightly busting my balls. I laugh, unable to help myself. I do love a self-confident woman. “You need to go in and try it.”
“I like it out here at the moment.”
She blushes. She, honest to God, blushes.
“Mr. Quadir.” Megan, at my elbow, has to repeat the name two times before I remember that’s my name.
“Yes!” I say, after her tone is stern the second time around. “Megan!” I greet her like an old friend, which makes her smile, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Dinner is being served.”
“I understand that. I was just congratulating —” I turn towards the chef at the end of the bar, but no one’s there. A square ice cube melting into the bottom of a rocks glass the only indication that anyone was.
“Care to follow me?” Megan says, and I recognize the tone in her voice. It’s the same one senior reporters give me when I’m getting my hopes up about a by-line. It’s a cool-your-jets kind of tone.
A she’s-not-for-you tone.
I push my empty glass towards Bobby, the bartender. “Thank you,” I say and he nods, accepting my glass like it’s some kind of surrender.
“Lead the way,” I say to Megan and I follow her through the stunning dining room to an empty chair halfway down the long table.
I sit, smiling at the people near me while putting my napkin in my lap. Trying to figure out how I will get back into that kitchen.
The scallop on my plate, pale pink and dotted with glistening black caviar and garnished with razor-thin slices of radish, is stunning in its simplicity. It looks like art.
And by the looks on the faces around me, it tastes amazing. The woman across the table has her eyes closed and is moaning in her throat like it’s downright orgasmic.
I don’t even pick up my fork.
I want to. But I can’t.
Not if Simpson paid for this.
Not if his daughter made it.
And my gut is telling me if Tina Andreas is involved, so is her father’s filthy money.
“Is there a problem?” the server says as he takes my plate. His face is crumpled in near horror that I didn’t eat the scallop.
“Not at all,” I say, but don’t elaborate.
The next plate is grilled tri-tip, a California classic. Served with chimichurri, heirloom tomato salad and fondant potatoes and the smell of it makes my stomach growl.
But still, I don’t pick up my fork.
“Is everything all right?” the woman next to me asks.
“Just fine,” I say.
“It’s really good,” she says, like I need encouragement. And I realize all I’m doing is drawing attention to myself. And I don’t need that. I don’t need anyone remembering the weird guy who didn’t eat his pricy dinner. So, I pick up my knife and fork and take a bite of the steak and it’s… Well, it’s fucking perfection. So are the potatoes. Everything explodes with flavor and I don’t want to be impressed or even care.
But Penny McConnell killed it.
“Will we be able to meet the chef?” I ask the server as he puts down my honeyed fig and mascarpone dessert.
“No.” The server smiles at me. “Chef McConnell won’t be greeting the guests. But I will extend any compliments or concerns you might have.”
“Compliments,” I tell him. “All compliments and a thousand of them.”
He smiles, like I complimented him. Like he’s just a happy member of the team and my jaded heart wonders if that’s real. Or manufactured. “I’ll let her know.”
I don’t want to eat the dessert, having done my part on the steak.
But my mother loved figs. Dad brought them into her life, but Mom took it next level. I might have been the only kid who went to school with fig jam sandwiches. At Thanksgiving she made a dessert a lot like this one, with thick yogurt and honey. Pistachios.
And when everyone was gone, the kitchen still a mess, she would sit down with whatever was left and eat it all herself while Dad and I did the dishes and we would all gossip about our family.
I take the edge of the spoon and dip it in the creamy cheese, just a tiny bit against my tongue and it’s not enough and too much all at the same time.
The spoon clatters against the bowl and I stand up from the table, smiling briefly at the people with whom I didn’t even bother to make painful small talk and leave the room.
I have one goal. The kitchens.
Penny McConnell.
Instead of heading through the building, I step out onto the verandah and turn left until I’m out of sight of the diners. The moon is full in a crystal-clear sky, accompanied by splashes of stars and I use their light to hop the stone balustrade of the verandah. I land in the lavender plants the circle most of the building, making everything smell like soap.
No matter what, there’s a kitchen entrance. There’s always a kitchen entrance and I mean to use it.
After walking along the west wing of the house, I turn the corner to the rear portion of the building and there’s an open door, a back parking lot and a Dumpster in the distance.
The open door cuts a giant square out of the shadows and the smells of dinner linger out here, sugar and smoke. Two people are fighting. Like, for real fighting.
“Let’s not do this now,” a guy says, sounding petulant.
“No, Jeff,” a woman says and I realize it’s her. Penny. I recognize the smoothness of her voice, like that fig and mascarpone dessert and my dick stirs. There’s something dangerous in the air and my dick has always liked that. Early imprinting from the courthouse maybe.
The writer in me likes the full circle nature of this.
The shadows are thick and dark and I use them to stay out of sight.
SEVEN
Simon
“WE’RE DOING THIS NOW,” Penny says. “How dare you show up like you did tonight?”
“Don’t,” the man — I’m assuming it’s Jeff — sneers. “Don’t fucking pretend you haven’t gone to work a little high about a million times.”
“A little?” Out of the square light of the kitchen two people are belched out. A man walking backwards and a woman giving him no space. She’s chasing him out of the kitchen. Her white chef jacket is buttoned up and that blue scarf is still around her neck. Jeff towers over her, but she doesn’t seem to care. She’s in full attack mode. “Buddy, you weren’t a little anything tonight. I had Mia babysit your ass on the grill —”
“Fuck that. Mia doesn’t do shit.”
Penny sighs, hangs her head and I recognize the sight of a person gathering the fraying edges of their control.
“We’ve been together a long time, Jeff. And all of us here, we’re family —”
“Jesus, Penny,” he explodes with disdain. “It’s a job. You’re a boss. We’re not family. You’re so fucking needy, you know that?”
The words hurt her. I watch them slide right through her. She actually gasps.
“I never thought you’d sabotage me like this,” she says, more sad than angry.
“It’s not sabotage,” the guy says, like she’s crazy. Like she’s imagining things. I hate that. I hate that a lot.
“Then what is it?” she asks, putting her hands out like she’s imploring him. “Give me the reason why you showed up here high and acted like a first-year line cook. Is it because I broke it off with you? I can’t have an affair with an employee. Megan would kill me.”
“It was a casual thing,” Jeff says. “You’re the one who made a big deal about it.”
“So what?” the woman finally asks, her voice hard. Her tone harder. The joyful woman from the bar is not joy
ful anymore. Her sharp edges are out and they’re dangerous.
This, I think, is how she got her nose broken.
“Is it jealousy?”
Jeff jumps on it, snaps, leans into Penny until their noses are a breath apart. “Bitch, I’m not jealous —”
“Back off her.” I step from the shadows into the light of the kitchen doorway.
“Who the hell are you?” Jeff looks at me over Penny’s shoulder.
“Go away,” she says, hard as stone and it takes me a second to realize it’s me she’s talking to. It’s me she’s pissed at. “This isn’t any of your business.”
“I’m just backup,” I say. Because Jeff is a big dude. And her presence is gigantic, larger than life, but her body is small.
“I don’t need your help.” Her spine is rigid, her hands in fists at her side. “Jeff,” she says. “You’re gone.”
“What?” he yells. “That’s some bullshit right there, Penny.”
“Get your knives and go.”
“Fuck you, Penny. I’ve been with you since the beginning. Since you were fucking up poached eggs.”
“It’s Chef McConnell and when I needed you, you showed up high and pissed off and you jeopardized the whole family.”
“Listen to yourself. These people aren’t family. They’re never going to be what you need.”
“Just go,” she sighs, a disappointed mother, worn out by her truculent child.
He steps back like he’s about to go then before either of us can do anything he’s back in Penny’s face, his hands curled in her chef whites. He’s got her on her toes, his face in hers.
“You’re a shitty fucking lay,” he says.
I’m off my flat feet and about to get myself between them when she hauls back and punches Jeff in the nose.
“Ow!” he screams holding his hand over his face. Blood trickling out between his fingers.
“Get out,” Penny says, biting off every word and when he doesn’t leave right away, I just step forward into the light again, making sure every inch of my six-foot, four-inch body is visible.
“Fuck you, Penny,” Jeff says and steps back, away into the shadows, then he’s gone.
And I stay there, behind her, waiting for her to indicate something. To tell me what she needs and I’m not thinking of how I can manipulate this moment.
Ruin You Page 6