by Mia Caldwell
“Mind if I watch you work your magic?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, suddenly a frenzy of activity. What kind of magic was he working? It was like if he was within five feet of me, I couldn’t remember who I was. I needed a restraining order.
I fixed the plates for Mrs. Alexander and took them upstairs.
“Did I hear Walker come in?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, he’s downstairs. I promised I’d feed him, too.”
She fixed me with one of her looks again and then seemed to soften a bit. “Good, he could use it, he works too hard.” She looked at the plate. “Any avocado in here?”
“No, ma’am. You’ve got shredded pork on a bed of spaghetti squash with caramelized onions, kale, and roasted potatoes. Side of sauteed apples, new in the market this week.” I smiled, “September is the best month for fresh food!”
She gave me a look that made it clear she did not give a fig about what was fresh when. “Go on back and see to my son,” she said, but she was tucking into her food before I even left the room.
When I came back into the kitchen, Walker had poured some of the rich golden wine into a pair of narrow goblets.
“Ordinarily, it’s more of a dessert wine or paired with appetizers, but since you insist on having only one glass, we can have it with dinner.” He handed me a glass and lifted his. “To new friendships!” His eyes were locked on mine in a way that really infused “friend” with heavier meaning. I dropped my lashes and sipped from the glass.
“Wow, it’s sweet. But nice, I like it. I do think I want it with food, though, it feels like it will go straight to my head if I don’t.”
“I think that that would be okay,” Walker said, giving me this smoldering look. These Alexanders know how to use their eyes.
I pretended not to have heard him and plated some food for us. I’d like to say it was to avoid flirting, but I know that feeding a man can be as effective as unbuttoning the top buttons of your blouse.
“This is amazing. And it’s all local?” Walker asked between bites.
“Mostly. This time of year is great, it’s so easy to eat good food.”
He put down his fork at last and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “What makes you passionate about your food?” He made it sound so sexy, like I was making bikinis out of whipped cream or something. The truth wasn’t all that sexy, though.
“My mom. She wanted to go to culinary school, but got pregnant with me before she could go. Then she had to work instead. But she always made sure we had good food, as fresh as she could get it on our budget. We were broke, but we ate well. I’d see other people around us with health problems partly caused by their diets. It takes a lot more work to eat healthy on a budget and most people don’t even know how. So I want to make enough money that I can open my own cooking school for poor folk. Go back to Anacostia and help people break out of their ramen noodles and snack cake diets.”
Walker flinched visibly. “Ouch.”
“What?”
He cocked his head to one side, “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Um, I thought so? But clearly ‘Walker Alexander’ should mean more to me.”
He laughed. “I guess you didn’t read that 30 Under 30 Article.”
Oops. I grinned sheepishly. “Just the part about me.”
“Fair enough. I was technically 30 by the time it came out, but they put me in there, too. CEO of Rossi Brands, Inc, Heir to the Tiny Tina Snack Cake fortune? If you’d have come to the gala, you’d have met me.”
I’m afraid a recoiled a bit. Those Tiny Tina Cakes are nasty. Mostly artificial ingredients and priced so low they’re nearly irresistible. Of course, in school, it felt like everyone had them in their lunchboxes except my brother and I. Man, I wanted Mama to buy Oatmeal Fudge Pies so bad, but she said they were poison and for that dollar, we could have two pounds of pinto beans. Not what a kid wants to hear of course, but she was right.
“You don’t approve,” said Walker. I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze.
“Uh, no, not really. I think Tiny Tina cakes are, um,” don’t say poison, “not part of a healthy diet.” My voice sounded tight. I forced myself to lighten up a little and waved my hand around the room. “Clearly it’s done okay for you though,” I smiled, but I knew it probably looked more like a grimace.
“It has. But I happen to agree with you, mostly. While I think a healthy diet can include…rewards, I would like to find a way to both make our current snack cakes a little less, um, objectionable to some and to launch a healthier snack line.”
I picked up our plates and rinsed them in the sink. “Mmm,” I said, making the same non-committal noise my mother used to make whenever David or I carried on about some teacher treating us unfairly or some notion we had for better dividing our bedroom.
“That’s why I sought you out to cook for Mother, Andrea. I was hoping you could help.”
I turned to look at him, “What do you mean?”
Rising to come stand closer to me–I think he must have known he had a physical effect on my ability to think–he said, “Help me develop the new line. You make healthy and delicious food every day.”
It was hard to keep my thoughts straight with him so near. The desire to jump at a chance to spend more time around him was at war with what I knew to be true. “But there’s no way to make fresh, local food in a factory.”
Walker smiled. “I think you can help us figure out how to come close.”
He was watching me so intently. I wished I’d read that article in the paper so I’d know anything at all about him. “Looks like a movie star” isn’t enough to go on. I sat back down in the kitchen chair to give myself at least a little space. “Why me?” I asked him. “There are lots of chefs with chemistry degrees and chemists who like to cook. Why me?”
Drinking the last of his wine and refilling the glass, he paused. When he looked up at me, there was mischief in his eyes. My mom would have said “I see the devil in you, boy.”
“It’s pretty shallow. I saw your photo and wanted an excuse to meet you. So I researched a bit and could see that you have big dreams. Dreams it will be hard to achieve just by cooking for invalids and busy families.”
“So… you thought I was hot and then figured out what you could offer me to draw me in? Selling yourself a little short, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “Oh I know how to catch women using looks and money. Believe me.” His voice sobered up and he gave me that soul-searching Alexander look. “But there was something about your photo that really grabbed me. And when I started reading about you, it just made it clear that I needed to meet you.” He sat back down, too, and smiled, releasing me from that laser-stare. “But even I know looks are deceiving and the internet is full of lies, so when Mother needed a chef for a few days, I thought it would be a good chance to…”
“Audition me?”
“Yes, perfect!” He was so relaxed, so at ease with the idea that he could just see a thing–in this case a person (and in this case, me)–decide he wants it, and find a way to get it. No doubt at all that it would work. It was definitely a perk of being born rich and powerful.
“Really,” he added, “Mother needs a chef for a full week, but I thought I’d be sure you could get along with her first.”
“That’s flattering, but I can’t. I’m going on a trip with my best friend. We leave on Friday.”
He stopped grinning, but the smile didn’t leave his eyes. “Oh, somewhere fun?”
“Aruba.” I stifled my impulse to add “She’s a lawyer, she’s paying.” I could never have afforded a vacation if Kiera wasn’t funding it, but I didn’t need to tell Walker that. No need to appear utterly destitute and at his mercy.
“Good for you, but too bad for me. I was hoping to perfect my help-flirting technique. You know, get in shape for the Christmas party season.” He grinned that devilish grin. “I do want to talk to you some more about my business idea, though. Could you meet with me when y
ou get back?”
“Sure,” I said. I mean, what could it hurt, right? It has nothing at all to do with making sure I get to see those green eyes again.
Walker lifted the bottle of Sauternes my way. “Are you sure you won’t have another?”
“No, I need to tidy up and go. I have another family to cook for tomorrow morning before I come make your mother’s lunch.”
“Okay, as much as I’d like to detain you, I suppose I should be off as well. I’ll go up and say goodnight to Mother. I have to be on-site tomorrow, so I may not see you until Thursday.”
He seemed genuinely disappointed. And, I had to admit, I was too. It wouldn’t be quite as fun tomorrow, without that schoolgirl anticipation, that wondering if he’s going to turn up.
“Well, good night, Andrea,” Walker grasped my upper arm and leaned in for a kiss on the cheek. It was one of those weird semi-European air-kiss things, but at the last moment, he made sure his lips just brushed my cheek. A jolt of electricity ran through my body. A jagged line of light from that cheek to my toes, lighting up all the dirty parts on the way. Embarrassing.
I didn’t trust myself to really talk, so I just smiled and gave a nod and said, “Night.” I did look up to watch him go, though. That ass was fine.
Chapter Three
Cooking for the Weavers ran long, so I was feeling rushed and cranky by the time I got to Christina Alexander’s townhouse. Parking, as always, was a nightmare, and I ended up carrying bags of groceries two blocks in the hot September sun. I was suddenly glad that there was no chance of Walker being around, I knew I looked frazzled. When it’s humid, there is nothing I can do with my hair but pull it into a ponytail and even then, I ended up with a mane of little fuzzies around my face.
I’d just started to cool off in the a/c, but I still felt damp and wilted when I heard the front door open. I kept slicing salmon and praying it wasn’t Walker.
“Helloooo, Pookie! Miss me?”
I was mid-chop, so I didn’t turn around right away. I heard the same voice, now just behind me, say, “Oh, it’s just Rosa.”
I placed my knife on the cutting board and wiped my hands on my towel as I turned around to see a tall blonde woman and a petite redhead. The annoyance on the blonde woman’s face changed to surprise bordering on horror when she saw my face.
“Oh!” she said, her perfectly manicured hand flying up to her suspiciously plump lips, “I thought you were someone else!”
“Rosa, I’m guessing,” I replied with a professional smile. Oh, I knew her. And she knew me. I’d catered a “book club” meeting for this nasty piece of work. I use the quotes because I doubt any of those women so much as bought the book they claimed to be discussing. I’d heard them all claiming to have gotten it on their Kindles. Uh-huh. Never heard a word about plot or character development coming out of the great room–lots of words about spas and personal trainers and the burden that is finding a good gardener that will accept pay under the table–but no words about the actual book.
Anyway. She’d hired several months ago, asking for a selection of passed apps–you know, things in puff pastry or on toothpicks. I had been afraid that she’d be a micromanaging sort, that she’d want to tell me exactly what brands to use, exactly which cut of meat from exactly which butcher, but she’d been really hands-off. She just told me how many guests, a list of food intolerances (likely both real and imagined), and left me to it. At the time I felt bad, thinking I’d judged her wrong. Just because she had one percent body fat and tennis clothes that cost more than my whole wardrobe combined, that didn’t make her bad, right? Well something did. When I started walking among her guests with my tray she said, “I knew I’d be exhausted today after my workout, so I got a girl to help me serve.”
And I thought "Girl? Are you kidding me?" And then, when one of the guests popped one of the creme fraiche-topped blini into her mouth (and of course only after going on and on about how she “shouldn’t, really”) and said, "Oh, Celia, these are sinful, is there anything you can’t do?" that bitch just smiled and said, “I’m so glad you like them, it was my first time making them.”
Like a liar.
But I’m a professional and I kept my mouth shut. I put my business cards out in the kitchen, in case one of them wandered in, looking for more wine. Celia, however, just scooped them up when she thought I wasn’t looking and slipped them into her pocket.
Like a thief.
So to see her standing there, off-balance because she can’t tell the Honduran housecleaner from the black caterer (hey, a black ponytail’s a black ponytail, right?)…well, it was a little delicious. I hoped that she also was feeling a little guilty about me knowing she was a thieving liar, but I doubt my opinion mattered that much to her.
Her companion was looking blankly from one of us to the other so I just extended my hand to my old customer, saying, “Andrea Wilson, I believe we’ve met.”
As she took my hand in hers, with that weak, limp grip (girl, you lift weights all day, can’t you even shake hands?), I hoped I still had salmon-smell on my fingers.
“Oh, yes, of course! How nice to see you again.” She placed a hand at her chest. “Celia Bradford.”
I couldn’t resist just a little barb. “Oh, I remember,” I said with a smile. Let her wonder.
“Has Mr. Alexander been in?” she asked, before I could shake hands with her friend.
“No, are you expecting him here?” “Mr. Alexander” had better not be coming in…
“I was hoping to steal him for lunch. I’ll just pop up to say hello to Mother Alexander and if he’s still not here, I may go check at the office. Nice seeing you!” she said, breezing out of the kitchen without a look back. The anonymous friend trailed her, weakly lifting a hand to wave at me as she went, no expression on her face–as if she were afraid any movement of the mouth would give her wrinkles.
Mother Alexander? What did that mean? She’d called “pookie” when she came in. If Walker is Pookie and his mom is Mother Alexander, then this Celia…well obviously she was his girlfriend. Maybe more, given the “Mother” thing.
My face was flushed as I went over the previous night in my head. Clearly I’d misread some signals, right? Or was he just a dog? He has his rich blonde girlfriend and he flirts with the help. God knows he wouldn’t be the first. I guess at least he was honest about it.
I kept working on the lunch, waiting for the sounds of the women leaving. I did not want to go up there while they were there. Rosa came in to refill her water bottle.
“Hey Rosa, are those two women still up there with Mrs. Alexander?”
She rolled her eyes just a little. “Yes, they think Mr. Walker will be back, but his mother says no. At least not before dinner time.”
“So, um, the blonde one, Celia? Is she Mr. Walker’s girlfriend?” May as well stop speculating, right?
Rosa took a swig of water and shrugged. “Right now? I think so. Maybe? She come and go.” She stepped in closer and lowered her voice, her eyes darting to the doorway. “He’s too good for her. But he don’t have time to date. Where’s a rich businessman going to find a good wife? He works all the time and she just spends money.” She made a dismissive gesture.
Ugh. My stomach was clenched up tight. “Rosa, I know this is asking a lot, but I, um, have a history with Celia and I’d rather not go up there. Could you take Mrs. Alexander her lunch?” I tried for a winning smile. “I’ll make you a plate, too.”
She smiled and gave me the side-eye, “I don’t want an avocado smoothie.”
“Honeyed salmon on fresh greens with goat cheese fritters.”
“Sold.” She picked up the tray and marched out.
I fixed her a plate and tidied up so I could leave. I had a dozen calls I needed to make before I came back here to make dinner, but my head was just swirling. And I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
I texted Kiera and she agreed to skip a meeting and meet me for coffee. That’s a best friend.
“I
don’t know,” she said, sipping on her iced cappuccino. I’d told her everything, from “would the help flirt back” to “Pookie.” I’d hoped talking about it would make it all clear to me and then I’d know what to do, but not this time. I needed advice.
“Okay, but does it sound like he was actually interested or just doing that careless flirting thing that hot guys do?”
"I wasn’t there, Dre, so I can’t really know. But from what you’re saying it sounds like yeah, he’s into you. I mean, the google-stalking and the business proposal sound real enough. And god knows if he was just interested in business, this town is thick with MBAs that take gourmet classes."
“I know, right? That’s what I told him. But he was all ‘There was something about you’ or something. So I’m not reading into it? I’m telling you, there’s like weird electricity between us.”
“I’ve never known you to think a guy is into you when he isn’t. I mean, it’s usually the opposite, right? I’m saying, ‘Girl, that guy is checking you out!’ and you’re sure he just has gas or can’t quite read the menu-board.”
I laughed; she was right. I know I’m cute, but so are a lot of women, so it’s hard to stand in a bar full of people that look like Calvin Klein models and assume a guy is looking at you. Now where grew up, where Mama lives? They don’t go for subtle. There it’s “Hey girl, why don’t you come over here?” and far cruder offers followed by “Stuck up bitch.” I mean, I’m sure there are nice guys–they just aren’t hanging out on the steps of my mom’s building.
“But if he has a girlfriend, I don’t want to be flirting with him. She’s a monster, but I’m not going to steal away someone’s man.”
Kiera rolled her eyes at me. “Honey, you cannot steal a man like a pack of gum. If you make the offer and he goes along with it, that’s his choice. You’re pretty, but you are not magic.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Maybe he’s tired of all that vanilla.”
“Pft, she’s not even vanilla. She’s the carton it came in. Or rum raisin. Who likes that?”