“Well, at least I have something to protect,” Kate replied, a little smirk playing on her lips.
Beth shook her head and walked away. Her story wasn’t quite as dramatic as Kate’s, but there were similarities. She lived alone—except for her big dog, Bruno—in a little house in Westchester, a county just north of the city. She had few friends; she had been bookish as a child and had excelled in college when her classmates chose to do just okay and have some fun. Beth didn’t have a lot of fun, but she didn’t have the anger that Kate possessed.
As she left she heard Kate asking the installer a question that showed the depths of her paranoia.
“What if somebody tries to break in?” she asked. “Could that be done?”
He shook his head and laughed at the question. “Houdini himself couldn’t break into this baby, lady. If somebody starts guessing the code and punches in the wrong numbers, the whole system will freeze up for a full twelve hours. Even you won’t be able to get in until the time is up.”
Kate put her files into the safe, then punched her multidigit code into the keypad. Instantaneously, the readout came up on the LED screen: “System Locked.”
The safe installer looked around the lab and sort of mock-shivered in fright. “This is the first time I’ve ever done an installation in a place like this,” he said. “Mostly I do offices and jewelers.”
“Really,” said Kate, indicating that she did not have the slightest interest in the man’s conversational gambit, and even less interest in his profession.
The poor fellow didn’t know that, of course, so he sailed on. “So, whaddya got in there?” the workman continued, with a smile on his face. “One of those scary viruses that kill people in about two minutes flat?”
Kate did not have much of a sense of humor even at the best of times and, as one might expect, she never joked about her work. She did not respond directly to the weak little joke the workman made.
“Thank you for your help,” she said with a sour look on her face—a look that did not escape the workman. Now he knew all he needed to know about Dr. Calder. He shrugged, picked up his toolbox, and headed for the door. As he left the room he passed Andrew coming in. It took a moment for Kate to look up and notice him, but, when she did, she was not at all pleased to see him.
“Oh, really. This is too much,” Kate said wearily. “What on earth are you doing here? I really did not expect to see you again. You are persistent—I’ll give you that.”
The sudden appearance of the man Beth knew as Dr. Andrew Friend in the Nichols BioTech lab gave rise to a strange feeling again. It wasn’t as strong as love or longing—it was more like a sudden and bright happiness one feels when one unexpectedly runs into an old friend.
Kate noticed Beth’s interest in her visitor. She was aware that her fellow researcher could not take her eyes off Andrew, and that gave Kate a small frisson of pleasure. But beyond that she did not need to have this guy around, mooning over her and, worst of all, keeping her from her work.
“I know you said to forget about dinner,” he said, “but it just doesn’t seem fair. I mean, think about what you’re missing.”
Kate gave him a quick once-over look and Andrew knew that she wasn’t crazy about what she was seeing. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“You have got to be kidding,” she said acidly. “That’s a joke, right?” Kate might not have a great sense of humor, but she could at least identify a joke when she heard one.
“Well, I didn’t mean me,” said Andrew quickly. Modesty came naturally to him. “I mean . . . not necessarily.”
“You didn’t?” Kate snapped back. “Surely you aren’t thinking of bringing another eligible bachelor along?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.” Andrew smiled.
“What then?” Kate countered. “Explain to me what I might be missing.”
Andrew took a deep breath. “What I mean, Dr. Calder, is really quite simple.”
Kate couldn’t help but be intrigued. “How so?”
“Well,” said Andrew, “wouldn’t you like to have the satisfaction of coming into work tomorrow after a six-thousand-dollar date and letting everybody go crazy wondering if it was worth it?” He glanced around the room at the others working there and lowered his voice. He found that he enjoyed teasing her.
“And . . . it will be,” Andrew said. “But you don’t have to tell them that. You’d just keep ’em guessing. Which, I suspect, is something you like to do a lot.”
“You suspect?” Kate countered. “What do you mean?”
“Well, take that safe, for example. It’s a really impressive one, by the way.” His eyes swept the room. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of vaults, and that is by far the most sophisticated one I’ve ever seen. You must be the envy of your coworkers. They don’t seem to have safes as nice as that one.”
Kate half smiled—she knew that Andrew was needling her, and she was surprised at herself. Surprised to find that she actually liked it, or rather, almost liked it. She snuck a quick peek at the other scientists in the lab, all of whom were working away at their lab tables and giving the impression of purposefully not looking at Kate and her six-thousand-dollar date.
Kate found that Andrew’s words were already coming true. She discovered, to her surprise, that she was enjoying the curiosity that seemed to absolutely radiate from her diligently nonchalant coworkers. How much more intense would their interest be after her big night out with the date she had purchased? Kate sort of liked it already.
“Come on,” Andrew urged her. “It’ll be lots of fun. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you look like the kind of person who has a definite deficiency in the fun department.”
It wasn’t the first time Kate had been told that she was no fun, and she didn’t mind. What she did mind was being deceived. And she was pretty sure that Andrew was trying to trick her into a date. Men, Kate thought, just had no clue. And the male ego was unassailably stupid— something that had to be drilled through with industrial-strength tools. Kate had learned these lessons long ago.
“Is that it?” Kate countered hotly. “Or is it your insufferable male ego? You just can’t imagine, just can’t believe, that there’s a woman on earth who wouldn’t want to go out with you.”
“I can assure you,” said Andrew in mock solemnity, “that male vanity has absolutely nothing to do with my wanting to take you out on the date you paid so dearly for.”
Kate thought that he was lying. But, of course, he was telling the absolute truth.
“Yeah, right,” said Kate. “You further think that because of the price I paid I secretly want something from you—that I would be a pushover.”
Andrew’s face turned an embarrassed shade of pink. “I assure you that is not the case either,” he said earnestly.
This time, Kate believed him, though she would not have been able to say why. There and then, she decided that she would go out with Andrew—she would not have been able to explain that either. Something in this young man had melted at least the first layer of permafrost in Kate. But she was still Kate Calder and he would have to go a long way and work very hard to get her completely thawed out. Still, the thaw that had progressed this far would have astonished Beth and the rest of Kate’s coworkers.
What Andrew did not know was that if Kate was going to go out with him there were going to be some hard-and-fast conditions. Of course, it was perfectly in keeping with that no-nonsense character of hers that the date would take place on terms that she would lay down, or it would not happen at all.
“Okay,” she said firmly. “Here are my terms.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Terms?”
Kate nodded. “That’s right. Terms.”
“Fire away.”
“It’s got to be a nice place,” she said firmly. “Expensive and exclusive.” Kate rarely went out, and when she did she wanted to make it count. Furthermore, she had already laid out six thousand dollars for this date, and it was in her
nature to get value for her money.
Andrew nodded. “It will be very nice,” he said, knowing that Tess would be handling the details.
“And this is very important,” Kate said resolutely. “I get there myself. I go home alone. Don’t get any ideas that because I paid for this, you are entitled to anything else.”
“Of course not,” said Andrew with a nod. “You’re perfectly safe with me. I can assure you of that.”
“As long as that is understood,” said Kate. “So, where are we going? Chanterelle? Lespinasse? Gramercy Tavern? Some place like that? I assume you made reservations before the auction, because if you try to get something tonight you are out of luck.”
The names of the restaurants meant nothing to Andrew and he did not know how hard it was to get a table in one of the famous places. Getting a dinner reservation at one of New York City’s top restaurants was not something that could be procured at the last minute—not unless you had a lot of pull or a very famous name. Not that it was a problem.
“I had someplace else in mind. The address is 508 Madison. Top floor. And don’t worry about it—I made reservations.”
“Five hundred eight Madison,” Kate repeated, her brow furrowed. “That’s a new one to me.”
“You’ll like it,” Andrew said. “Trust me.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“Great,” Andrew said, turning to leave. “See you there.”
“Wait!” Kate almost shouted. Andrew stopped. “Is it true—do you really rumba?”
“I will by seven,” Andrew said with a wink.
In spite of herself, Kate smiled. She couldn’t help it.
Beth watched Andrew go. But she was not smiling. As he went she felt a strange twinge, a sharp jab of sorrow and loss.
Chapter Six
Five hundred eight Madison Avenue was a perfectly ordinary-looking office building at the corner of Fifty-fifth Street. It was, perhaps, the least interesting stretch of Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan; it came after the Palace Hotel and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, but well before the most chic part of the avenue, the blocks in the sixties and seventies—the part of Madison Avenue that rivaled the Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris and the Via della Spiga in Milan as a fashion center. Up there on Madison where the ladies who lunch shopped for clothes that they wore to the chic restaurants that were, oddly enough, in exactly the same neighborhood.
The building at 508 Madison Avenue was not the kind of place where one would expect to find a fine, four-star restaurant in New York City. While it was true that some New York City skyscrapers did boast superb restaurants on their top floors, those buildings tended to be glamorous or famous, and the restaurants just as well known: Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center, or the Rainbow Room, a fixture on the top floor of Rockefeller Center since the 1930s. Five hundred eight Madison Avenue simply did not compare.
When Andrew got to the top floor, there wasn’t even a restaurant. Just a torn-up, open space. It was a mess, a completely unfinished disaster with construction debris scattered in piles everywhere.
In the middle of all this chaos stood Monica and Tess. They did not look happy, either, but they did not look as if they were about to give in to madness or hysteria. Andrew, on the other hand, took but one glance around the place and was absolutely panic-stricken. His jaw dropped, and he gasped. This dump most emphatically did not fit the description of the “nice place” he had promised Kate.
“What is this?” he demanded. “What kind of joke are you trying to play on me?”
“No joke, Andrew,” said Monica brightly. “This is going to be your restaurant.” She spoke with such conviction that it seemed as if she believed that the restaurant was already there.
Tess was more down-to-earth about the situation. “This is not a restaurant, is what this is,” she said dryly. She didn’t seem upset at all by the state of the “restaurant.” She was just stating the facts.
“But she’s coming,” said Andrew. “She’s going to be here in three hours!”
“Well,” said Monica, “we have a problem.”
“A problem!” Andrew yelped. “I’d say we have a little more than a problem. We don’t even have any chairs!”
“First things first,” Monica replied. She seemed extremely calm about the whole thing. “Tess wants to go Italian, but there are so many Italian restaurants in New York, so I was thinking more along the lines of Pacific Rim—what do you think, Andrew?”
Andrew sighed heavily and sank down onto a big, wooden cable spool. “I think it’s going to be a very long night.” He hated to think what Kate would say when she showed up and got a look at this place. Doubtless, her tongue would be extra sharp.
“Don’t worry about it, Angel Boy,” said Tess. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
But Andrew was worried about it. He jumped to his feet and paced the bare room. “This is not happening,” he said. “This cannot be happening.”
“What are you so nervous about?” Tess asked him. Of course she knew the answer, but she got a little kick out of teasing Andrew. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“This is his first date,” said Monica with a little smirk. “Everyone is nervous before their first date.”
“First date.” said Andrew.
“This is not a date,” Tess growled. “It is an assignment, and I hope you two aren’t going to forget it.”
Andrew stopped pacing for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “But I’ve been assigned to go on a date. This is serious. Look at this place! I can’t bring her in here.”
“But this is where you were told to bring her,” Monica chimed in. Monica, like Tess, believed that the rules were the rules. If the assignment was to take place in this location, then there was a good reason for it, and they were not to question it.
“I believe it’s something called a controlled environment,” Monica went on. “Your doctor lady should appreciate that. Scientists like that sort of thing.”
Andrew was in no mood to have his leg pulled, not with the catastrophe that was looming before him. “She’s in a ‘controlled environment’ all day,” he responded sharply. “And I promised her I would take her someplace really nice. And no matter what you say about this place, ‘really nice’ is never going to come to mind. At least not to my mind.”
Tess’ backbone straightened, and she drew herself up to her considerable height. She looked down at Andrew, her eyes blazing with that “Oh ye of little faith” look that Andrew and more than a few other angels had found particularly intimidating over the centuries.
Andrew got a load of Tess’ look and felt a little tremor of fear. Somewhere inside his head, he heard a little voice say “Uh-oh.”
“Listen up,” Tess announced sternly. “God doesn’t do cheap, baby. And if I recall, we have been assigned as your backup. So if you will relax and hush up, you will be backed up. Have you got the picture now, Angel Boy?”
But Andrew didn’t get the picture—not right away, at least. “Wait a minute . . . You guys are gonna make this happen? You’re going to turn this mess into a restaurant by seven o’clock?”
“Yes.” Tess crossed her arms across her chest and stared at Andrew balefully. “You got a problem with that?”
Monica stepped up. “The menu is pretty much worked out. We were thinking about a little tower of salade nicoise with ahi tuna as an appetizer, then perhaps roasted pheasant over risotto with a lemon sage reduction and just a touch of Asiago cheese, and, let’s see, . . . for dessert, a strawberry tart with pistachio filling, topped with vanilla bean sauce and a mocha latte to finish it all off. That would be decaf, of course.”
Andrew opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, then closed it again.
“Any questions?” Tess asked.
Andrew nodded. This time he felt as if he could ask a question without getting his head bitten off. “I have just one question. What is this all for? Do either of you have any idea?”
Tess shook
her head slowly. “Baby, I don’t know. Some lady in Duluth lives a few extra minutes longer so she can watch TV, and she makes an Angel of Death late for an appointment. All of a sudden, I’m cooking dinner in New York and you’ve got a date with a lady doctor and Monica starts using words like Asiago. Now, something has clearly been messed up here, but you know and I know that God is able to straighten it out, which is exactly what I’m sure He’s gonna do in His own good time. In the meanwhile—” Tess pointed to something behind him, “Work! For the night is coming!”
Andrew turned to see a broom leaning against the wall. He took a deep breath, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and did what he was told.
In due course the night did come, and miraculously— in the literal sense of the word—the junk and rubble cluttering the top floor of 508 Madison Avenue were swept away.
A restaurant—and a luxurious one at that— appeared in its place. Tess and her angels had outdone themselves.
There were a main dining room, a bar, and a dance floor, as well as a state-of-the-art, fully equipped professional kitchen. The linens were creamy white and accented with small gold damask flowers; the china was delicately painted with wildflowers, the crystal seemed so delicate it might have been spun from sunlight, and old-fashioned cutlery was silver and heavy.
Chez Tess was the name that Monica had insisted on naming the restaurant, given that Tess would be doing the cooking, and any restaurant lived and died by the skill of the cook. And there was no doubt in Monica’s mind that Tess would produce meals that would be nothing short of delectable. It was a complicated way of carrying out an assignment, but the angels did not question it for a moment, as they had complete trust in their Boss. All of the energies of Monica and Tess were geared toward one end: all that had to be done was to produce one delicious meal for two diners, and then Chez Tess could safely go out of business forever.
Tess was ensconced in the kitchen and Monica presided over the “front of the house,” stationing herself at the maître d’s desk just inside the front door. She was dressed in a dramatic black sheath of silk that ran in a straight line from her shoulder to her ankle, and she wore her hair up for a change. She had never looked lovelier.
Dinner with Andrew Page 5