I acknowledged her request with a curt nod, not trusting myself to comment just yet. I hid my dislike with a brief glance across the dining room.
Memo to self, the one repeated on a daily basis: do not make enemies lightly. Save your scorn for the assholes who really matter.
“I’m with a student, Marilyn. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, as if assaulted by a plume of cigarette smoke. “I suggest you end your conference immediately. Dean Benson would like to see you. Now.” She pitched her voice even lower.
Coolie was nothing if not bright. Standing up, she pushed the glasses more firmly onto her face and said in my direction before scooting off, “Um, have something in the oven.”
Marilyn winged a nasty little victory smile my way. “I see you’re free.” She turned around and marched away, the heels of her spectator pumps grinding sharp little points into the pile of the carpet.
I debated putting on a clean jacket; I had a smear of chocolate buttercream down the front of my jacket. As I walked to the elevator, I flipped one side to the other side (this is why chefs wear double breasted jackets) and turned my apron to the clean side. If you didn’t look too closely, I appeared more or less professional. If Benson needed to see me right away, I’d better not chance the five minutes it’d take to get clean clothes from the locker room.
Marilyn hadn’t bothered to hold the elevator for me. Bitch. I took the stairs two at a time and arrived in Benson’s office a little breathless. On the top floor of the building, the walls were covered in that cold, photo-shopped artwork that screams interior decorator, only relieved by requisite plate glass window framing a view of the water. Or it would have been if it hadn’t been January. As it was, swirls of moving fog being buffeted by strong winds coming in through the Golden Gate beat against the glass. With Benson’s exaggerated sense of his own importance, he’d furnished the room in Asian antiques. But as befitting a man whom I suspect licks his plates clean when in the privacy of his own home, there were too many antiques, a little too much gilt. It had the feel of a high-class Singapore brothel.
Seated at a table near the window was Benson, in his favorite suit of choice, navy pinstripes with a white shirt and red power tie, and an older gentleman I didn’t know.
But I knew the type well. My uncle is the lawyer to the movers and shakers in San Francisco. I’ve attended a number of parties at his home, filled to the rafters with the likes of the gentleman in front of me. Power and privilege. It wasn’t the clothes, although his suit made Benson’s Hong Kong tailored job look cheap—no small feat—nor the tan in the dead of winter, suggesting Christmas holidays in either of the Palms, Springs or Beach. It was the whole package. The fit and trim body broadcasting that five-mile-a-day run; the suit that hugged perfectly the cut of his shoulders, the swell of his chest. Lightly graying temples and a shave so close and tight he wouldn’t have raised the nap on velvet if he’d roughed his cheek against it. It all spoke of someone who knew when to push. How to push. A lifetime of figuratively snapping fingers and watching people jump to attention.
Benson was pouring wine into the two wine glasses resting on top of a tonsu. The wine stained their wine glasses, the incomparable ruby color unique to a bottle of Robert Mondavi 1976 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. The bouquet of the wine as it caressed the bottom of their glasses was so intense, so full, I smelled it from two feet away.
“Mary,” Benson stood up and gestured to the man still sitting. “This is William Martin. An old family friend from Chicago and on the Board of Directors of the school.”
In my haste, I hadn’t washed my hands. Were they clean? Not wanting to appear rude, I held out my hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Martin. You’ll enjoy that wine. I know that particular vintage well.”
He half-stood and gave my hand the briefest shake possible. Did our palms even touch? It was like the mere touch of my hand would cause the garters holding up his eighty-dollar-a-pair socks to disintegrate, resulting in unsightly puddling around his ankles. I didn’t even merit a hello.
“Pardon me for interrupting, Dean Benson. Marilyn told me you wished to see me.”
Benson’s eyes didn’t meet mine, but stared at the blob of buttercream on the edge of my lapel. I cursed myself for not changing my jacket.
“Uh, yes, M…M…Mary. It’s about one of your students.”
I regarded the chair in front of me, then Benson. He had the grace to blush and then moved his eyes to a jade Buddha just behind me, refusing to make eye contact. Only a complete social troglodyte wouldn’t have offered me a seat. Or someone with an agenda. And Benson had the nervous stutters and twitches of someone who knew that what was about to come down was going to be ugly.
“Oh, which one?” I asked, casually bringing up a thumb and forefinger to hide the stain.
“My daughter, Melissa.” Martin spoke for the first time. His voice possessed the casual, classic American, easy-mannered, friendly, how’s the golf game going, kind of bonhomie. I’d been given a short and succinct lesson on exactly how unreliable that manufactured friendliness could be when at a Christmas party one year at my uncle’s house one of his business partners had asked in an identical manner, “Want to suck me off, young lady?” He could have been saying, “Shot an eighty at Spyglass yesterday, how’d you do?” It was that nonchalant.
Martin picked up his glass and swirled it around, letting the wine climb up the sides of the glass. Before taking a sip, he smiled. Not a nice smile, but one that had sized me in the one minute I’d been standing there and had determined that he didn’t like me. His eyes roamed slowly over the not-so-clean jacket, the scuffed up kitchen clogs, the bags under my eyes. The ghost of a smirk appeared and then smoothed away as if I weren’t even worthy of the effort it took to openly sneer at me. And to hammer home his dislike, he tasted the wine and pronounced, “Delicious, Bob. Don’t let your wine sit there gathering dust.”
Benson grabbed the wine and gave it a perfunctory sip. “Yes, wonderful, William. One of my favorite wines,” he gushed. It could have been cat piss and Benson would have still been tripping over his Bruno Maglis in his effort to stroke Martin’s ego.
“I don’t have a Melissa in my class.” I flicked my eyes from Martin’s glass to his eyes and back again. I wanted him to know that I knew he disliked me and that whatever he wanted, he could kiss my ass. Benson was only a handmaiden in this exchange. It was down to Martin and me, and both of us knew it.
“You know her by a bizarre nickname. Coolie?” Martin leaned back in his chair in a casual motion and took another sip of his wine. Focusing intently on the smear of chocolate on the right front of my jacket, he curled into his chair with the ease of a man who smelled a fight was brewing and knew he was going to win. He twirled the stem of the wineglass in his well-manicured hands; his right hand sported two slightly split knuckles.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Coolie’s in my class.”
I slouched a little and wrapped my arms around myself in a defensive posture, just to let him think I’d cave in, a couple of snaps of the fingers away from capitulating.
“I have a request. There’s a space for her at my alma mater. She’s exceptionally bright. Speak to her. Suggest she leave.”
Another thing I’d learned about these types. They spoke in code, the passive quality of the verbs masking the true nature of the demand. Suggest really meant order. Persuade really meant demand. Request really meant, “Do what I want and no one will get hurt. Your bank loan won’t come due. Your car won’t be stolen. Your house won’t go up in flames. Just a simple request.”
“It would be better coming from you.” He took another sip of his wine and smiled to let me know exactly how delicious it was.
The smile did it.
“I understand she’s of age—”
“—she’s little more than a child—”
“—and has the funds to do what she wants—”
“—her mother is
a fool—”
“—she was born to hold a spatula in her hand—”
“—I won’t have my daughter be a goddamned cook!” he shouted, all his cards now on the table.
“And I won’t have my students being beaten up. How did it feel to smash your fist into that beautiful face, Martin?”
Benson gasped. I turned to him. He’d spent most of this heated exchange downing his wine and was quickly filling up his glass with a shaking hand when my comment about Martin hitting Coolie stopped him mid-pour. Not bothering to look where he was putting it, he banged the wine bottle down on the table and shrank into his chair with that horrified air of someone who’d found himself too close to a flame and knew he was going to get burned.
“Dean, she’s got it.” Benson knew what I meant. That pipeline, that groove, that ESP about food all great chefs have. I didn’t have it. I looked on colleagues who did and envied them. Not that they didn’t work just as hard, but they had an intuitive sense of what worked, what didn’t. I earned that knowledge through reading cookbooks, trial and error, watching other chefs, inhaling every bit, and working my ass off. My punishing drive and love for food masqueraded as greatness, but it was, literally, pie in the sky. Coolie? I knew.
“You know me. I’m not bullshitting you. She’s the sort of alumni who will make this school famous one day.” Benson squeaked something, not a word really. Trapped between wanting the glory for the school and acquiescing to Martin’s demands, unable or unwilling to choose sides, his eyes danced frantically back and forth between me and Martin.
I turned back to face Martin. We locked eyes. I had a momentary internal shudder when I realized his eyes were the same color green as mine. “Such a gift shouldn’t be thrown away.”
Martin abandoned his false bonhomie. Sitting stiff and straight in his chair, he re-buttoned his jacket and cinched tighter the knot of his tie with a short, sharp jerk. In the corporate world, this is tantamount to shoving a clip in your 9mm Glock and aiming for the head.
His eyes never leaving my face, he growled out of the side of his mouth at Benson, “Fire her, Bob. Then tell Melissa to clean out her locker. She’s through here.” The gloves were most definitely off.
Well, time to peel off a few gloves of my own. Normally I don’t throw my uncle’s name around, more to protect my own reputation as a flaming liberal, but clearly the big guns were in order. I turned and faced Martin. Eye to eye.
“Dean Benson, if either of these actions were to happen, I’d have to call my lawyer.” I grinned. “You remember my uncle, don’t you, Bob? Dominique Porcella?” My uncle’s name rolled out of my mouth in slow, honeyed tones. Flicking a quick glance at Benson, the wrenching paper-white rictus contorting his face was proof positive he hadn’t forgotten.
My uncle was a silent member of that clique of older men who actually run this country; the CEOs, the members of the boards of corporations who wielded the real power, politicians be damned. Judging by all that Florida tan draining away, only to be replaced by the ugly flush of pure fury, William Martin knew exactly who he was.
“Just so we understand each other, I want you to know he’s been retained by your daughter.” A little lie, but what the hell. “He’s drafting up a restraining order as we speak.” Okay, a couple of lies. I swung around and faced Benson. “I suggest you rethink any thoughts you’ve entertained about bouncing her or me out of here. You want the weight of Winston, White, Howe and Porcella on your back, keep pushing on me.”
“This isn’t over,” Martin threatened, menace punctuating every word. He coiled his fists, the shoulders of his suit jacket straining as he reared his arms back, his chair scraping against the hardwood floor from the force of his rage.
I faced him, fighting the urge to droop my shoulders, the adrenaline that had been carrying me through this exchange suddenly deserting me. “No,” I stated. “I don’t imagine it is. Call my lawyer.”
Chapter Twenty-one
It was only eleven o’clock. Clutching the banister with one hand, I slowly wound my way down the staircase to the basement. Although I’d won the first battle of the culinary equivalent of the Hundred Year’s War, I knew my threats needed teeth to them. Verbal bravado meant nothing to a man like Martin. The students would be back in the kitchen by now, but I had to make my phone call.
Standing on a bench with my head and ear pressed against the glass in an attempt to get a signal, I called my aunt.
“Aunt Mary, it’s Baby Mary,” I announced.
It’s a very bad idea to name your child after living relatives. If you choose to give honor by naming your child after them, please make sure that they are dead as doornails, or you will be subjecting your child to embarrassing nicknames and monikers that will, trust me on this one, torture them for the rest of their born days.
I was named after my aunt. My exceptionally hale and hearty aunt, who will, no doubt, outlive me. To differentiate me from my aunt, my uncle started to call me Baby Mary. It stuck. Granted, at the age of four, it made sense. Less sense, but not that annoying, at age eight. By sixteen, it was supremely mortifying. The nadir was at my wedding, my uncle mock-admonishing Jim to take care of his beloved niece, Baby Mary. Fortunately, fully one-fourth of the guests were homicide cops, because it stopped me from stabbing my uncle with the broken end of a champagne flute.
But now, at thirty-five, I’d given up. I likened it to those people who get tattoos as teenagers and six decades later will still have sex kitten inked onto a wrinkly shoulder; of course, by then it will look like “sex kitten,” relegating you to wearing turtlenecks for your entire retirement. Short of going into a witness protection program and changing my name, I would be Baby Mary with certain members of my family until the day I died.
“Mary!” My aunt sounded very pleased.
In another century, while her liege was off fighting Infidels and squandering the family fortune on ill-conceived crusades, my aunt would have paid the tithes, planted the fields, fed the serfs, and had her children fluent in four languages by the time they were six. Like some secular abbess, albeit with five children and a husband who was one of the most powerful men in the United States, she was the right-hand “man” of the bishop of San Francisco, a fund-raiser extraordinaire, and the behind-the-scenes liaison between the mayor and the church—in old Irish Catholic cities like Boston and San Francisco, the church is still tremendously powerful. Graced with faith bone-marrow deep, my aunt’s and uncle’s greatest joy was seeing their eldest son, my cousin Joe, join the priesthood. To give a son to God; there was no greater blessing in their eyes. The rest of the family, with the exception of Joe, naturally, saw this as an act of madness, although all of us grudgingly admitted that Joe was supremely happy as a priest.
My lack of faith irritated my uncle and distressed my aunt. As I grew older, I conceded that their horror for my mortal soul was a sign of love, not knee-jerk nagging. Now, I acknowledged the spirit in which it was given and sloughed off good naturedly the constant arm-twisting about returning to the church. A sort of détente had been reached. At some point in our conversation, my aunt would whisper in my ear that she’d lit a candle for me that morning, and several times a year my uncle asked me wasn’t it time to stop this rebellious nonsense and return to the church? I’d kiss my aunt for her prayers and tell my uncle, “Apparently not.”
After missing half the family gossip due to big trucks roaring by and blocking my signal, I got down to why I called. “Is Uncle Dom in town?”
“Yes, he is. The new bishop is coming over for lunch. He should be home any…Ah, there he is. Would you like to talk with him?”
A loaded question at best. My father’s abysmal lack of parenting skills prompted Uncle Dom to micromanage my life in as many annoying and completely overbearing ways possible. That he did this to no one else in the family, not my sister, nor his own children, seemed not to matter. The rest of the family accepted this as our “special” dynamic. Like it was an honor to l
ock horns with Dom Porcella on a thrice-yearly basis. I mean, there are five-star generals that go out of their way to avoid him in the hallways of the Pentagon, and I was supposed to accept this officious, irritating, nosy, and pushy interference into my affairs with grace and aplomb—two things I’m short on at the best of times?
My choice of profession met with complete scorn: “A cook? With your mind? I hope you’re joking.” My choice of husband: “Him? You’ll be bored in five years.” My first house: “Are you mad? In the Sunset? Fog three hundred days a year. You’ll be itching to re-pack all your boxes no sooner than you unpack them.” The fact that he was right two out of the three irritated me all the more.
“Baby Mary. How is teaching?”
The job at École was a step up in his eyes. At least I was out of the kitchen. Sort of. Despite growing up in a large Italian family where attendance at meals was nearly as sacrosanct as attending mass on Sunday, he’d never appreciated the physical and emotional satisfaction I gleaned from cooking. Why the food at his mother’s table tasted so delicious was because it was served with love and not just a little kitchen savvy. That I’d parlayed that into a career seemed completely inexplicable to him.
“Okay,” I lied, leaving out the bit where I thought Allison had been murdered and someone who had access to the changing rooms was attacking lockers with a crowbar. “Um…,” I stammered. Now that I had him on the line, I didn’t really knowing what I was going to ask for.
“The bishop will be here in ten minutes,” he reminded me.
“Do you know a man named William Martin? Out of Chicago. High-class attorney. Has money based on his manner and tan. He has an Aspen, Palm Beach, or Palm Springs over Christmas kind of tan.” I paused. “Expensive suit. Two thousand minimum.”
Roux Morgue Page 15