Cookbook from Hell Reheated

by M. L. Buchman

  # # #

  The shower didn’t make Valerie feel any better, but at least she was clean. If only Eric would magically walk through the door and join her. She twisted the water off with a snap. Not much chance of that, she’d made it clear she thought he was a total jerk. He was just being a protective male, something hardwired into his DNA, and the last thing she’d done was yell at him. She’d seen how it hurt, how he took each word to heart. Like the good man he was.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Valerie had always dreamed of a relationship like her uncle’s. Her reflection smiled bitterly at her. Typical to want something instantly that must have taken Joshua and Anne years to achieve. People weren’t born comfortable together. It was wonderful being with Eric, but that had taken a year of building toward the beginning of a friendship.

  With her typically perfect timing, she hadn’t started to see the man that stood there until they were in some crisis. She managed not to scream into her towel.

  She finished drying off and slipped on her nightgown.

  On the way to the bedroom she saw her clothes scattered about.

  Michelle was right. In trying to get back to home, she was putting a value on what counted, on Eric. It was the future that mattered. Michelle had certainly grabbed for the future, even though it might be for only one more day. It was high time Valerie unwound a bit herself, worried less and tried living more. She hadn’t taken a break in years.

  She wanted time. That was it. To work on her own books, she’d almost forgotten that she’d started out as a writer. Once that damned cookbook went to press, she was on vacation and outta here. Maybe Eric would want to come along. What a sad joke that there might not be more than another day.

  Turning in at the bedroom door she froze. Someone was in her bed. About to run, she recognized Eric asleep under the pale blue sheets. On her pillow lay a flower. A single, glorious bloom of a deep red rose. It was so perfect it could only have come from Mary Magdalene’s garden.

  Valerie’s racing pulse slowed as she watched him sleep. A glance back at the front door, and she saw that the chain was still hooked. He must have come here earlier to wait for her to get home. To wait for her. New energy washed through her as if she’d finally awoken after a full night’s deep sleep.

  The full moon had snaked its way between the skyscrapers to wash Eric’s face in its light. He looked exhausted.

  She tried to step into the room, but couldn’t make her feet move. The urge to run swept through her again. This was not a time for fear. Mary had the courage to face her husband and help him decide when he should die, knowing that she might die herself from missing him. Yet Mary’s faith in Jesus had lifted her from whore to lifemate, and once in Heaven, to eternal partner. Mary loved him far more deeply than could be explained by his merely being the son of God.

  The flower and Eric’s presence said that they’d succeeded.

  Eric was here. It was odd to think it, but Eric Erikson probably knew her better than anyone in her life, except Joshua and Anne. And perhaps even them, for they didn’t see her daily in her office world.

  Yet here he was. He trusted the truth of his feelings for her enough to risk being unwelcome.

  Her feet still wouldn’t move. Gods, what a choice. Part of her wanted to roust him out, for his own sake. She didn’t want to hurt him again and knew she would. Another part was about to slide in beside him and take a chance.

  Eric opened one sleepy eye and looked at her.

  “What are you smiling at?” his voice had that wonderful sleepy quality to it.

  She hadn’t realized she was.

  She took a step across the threshold.

  Not even saying “I do” at the altar with Landau had felt like such a strong commitment.

  Nor had it felt so right.

  DAY SEVEN

  And he rested on the seventh day

  from all his work which he had made.

  Chapter 40

  Eric held the apartment door for her as they headed out to the deli for dinner.

  Valerie hesitated, reached into her little wicker key-basket. She held out a spare key. “Any time.”

  Eric took it, its metal warm against his palm. In exchange, he gave her a real toe-curler of a kiss that actually made her moan. He loved that he could make The Mac moan.

  He also liked how her knees didn’t appear to quite function and she had to hold the handrail tightly as they went down the steps.

  “Does it make any sense to you?”

  “What? That we both think the other is worth fighting for?”

  She stopped on the landing and gave him another one of those kisses until his head was spinning for lack of blood.

  “No, I think that makes perfect sense.”

  Now it was his knees that he didn’t trust enough to go without the handrail.

  “What I don’t understand is why there is a Heaven and Hell. You know about the software. Does it really run our lives? I don’t like that idea.”

  Eric tried to think of some way to explain it as he admired the shape of… He had to stop that in order to think.

  “The program is like this apartment. It provides a framework within which you live, but it doesn’t control your destiny. It may shape it by having four walls and a floor and ceiling. The fact that it is in an apartment building in Seattle also has an effect. But it is still you living here, the way you want to within those limits.”

  “You’re saying the software provides the reality in which we live, but doesn’t control our destiny.”

  “Right.”

  She held the front door and surprised the Hell out of him when she caressed his butt as he stepped through. Her smile was electric as she took his arm and they proceeded up the sidewalk.

  “But Heaven and Hell. I know they exist, but I still can’t grasp it somehow.”

  “That one is tough. Maybe the question is how will we live differently tomorrow knowing there is a Heaven and Hell compared to last week when we didn’t?”

  She remained quiet for almost half a block. The setting sun cast a brilliant double rainbow that swept multi-colored across the darkening sky.

  “You are a very wise man, Eric.”

  He was? “I am?”

  She laughed, a bright and merry sound. “Even when you don’t know it you are a very wise man. The answer is, no differently. It doesn’t matter whether there is life after death or not. The key either way is to live each day better than the one before.”

  Chapter 41

  The sign on the outside of the deli’s door read, “Closed for Family Celebration.”

  Valerie squeezed Eric’s hand tightly. He pulled their clasped hands to his lips and kissed the back of her hand. She did her best not to wonder why it had taken them so long, but she didn’t fight the soft and foolish sigh that filled her.

  Inside, Joshua and Anne had pulled together a couple of tables in the center of the room, and they were more heavily laden than a Passover table. Joshua bustled out from behind the counter bearing a large platter piled high with sliced roast beef and set it in the middle of the candlelit spread.

  “Sweetheart!” his voice practically shook the foundations of the building, then he enfolded them both in one, single great hug. She heard Eric’s laugh and her own sigh.

  “Uncle, you give the best hugs.”

  “Hey!” Eric protested with a laugh.

  “It is so good,” Joshua bubbled. “So good to see the two of you together. I had such hopes. Mazel tov! Mazel tov!” He shook both of their hands in turn. “So when is the wedding? We’ll have the reception here. Oh, it will be a wonderful time.”

  Valerie could feel the heat burning her cheeks. They’d been lovers less than a day, but somehow she had no problem imagining a family wedding if Eric were the groom. She couldn’t look up at him to see his reaction.

/>   Anne came up and laid a restraining hand on her husband’s shoulder. Her hug, while not as all-enveloping as Uncle Joshua’s, was a warm comfort.

  The door squeaked open behind them and Michelle and Plato walked in. He didn’t look quite right wearing modern clothes, but his smile was genuine. Michelle had her hand tucked in the crook of Plato’s bent arm.

  Companions still, lovers maybe later, was Valerie’s assessment.

  When Valerie introduced them, she hesitated on calling him Plato, but neither her aunt nor uncle so much as blinked. Her uncle had slid his glasses on, as if suddenly nearsighted.

  Before they could finish the introductions, the door opened again and Peter walked in.

  Halfway into a pleasant greeting he froze in place, shock rippling over him.

  “You!” he released it on a gasp.

  Valerie followed Peter’s pointing finger to the center of her uncle’s chest.

  Joshua shrugged, and slid off his glasses. “Me.”

  In the sudden silence, Michelle’s whisper could just be heard.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  # # #

  They sat around the table. Bowls of borscht, a half-eaten pan of kugel, plates with the remains of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, a bit of carrot cake… The bounty of a good meal had erased much of the initial confusion and left Valerie’s stomach aching in a good way.

  “But, why?” Peter protested. “Why did you leave Heaven?”

  “Oh, Peter,” Uncle Joshua patted his arm in a friendly way.

  Valerie still couldn’t bring herself to think of Uncle Joshua as God and Aunt Anne as Hera. Just as she found it far easier to think of Michelle as Michelle rather than the Devil Incarnate.

  “I always thought I knew what was good. What was right.” Uncle Joshua spooned up a bit more kugel. “Then I saw two thousand years of repression of women get launched by a group of self-important cardinals at Nicaea back in the fourth century. I decided I could be doing something better with my time.”

  “So, you opened a deli?”

  Joshua’s laugh warmed the room. “That was my Anne’s idea. She’d spent so long trying to fix the messes her ex had made.” He turned to Michelle and blushed a little.

  “I am sorry, my dear. It wasn’t until Anne told me about what a shmuck Zeus was to work with that I began to see my own shortcomings on your behalf. I truly would make amends if I could, but the past is past. Now all I can do is hope for a better future.”

  Michelle considered her glass of wine for a long moment. She glanced sideways at Valerie. They shared a smile, both clearly remembering the same moment.

  “Well,” Michelle dragged it out a bit. “As Mary Magdalene said while sitting on your throne, ‘there’s no such thing as perfect’.”

  God laughed and it stirred the candlelight making the room warmer with the glow. “Now there is a universal truth.”

  “But you have to come back to Heaven,” Peter’s voice was insistent.

  “Why?” Joshua made it a simple question.

  “You’re the Lord and Master of the Universe. I can’t run the whole thing.”

  “Good Me, my man. Is that what you’ve been doing all this time? Don’t. You can’t fix Heaven and Hell and Creation. It is a juggernaut forty-six billion lightyears across with even I don’t know how many civilizations. You can’t control that any more. Just let it go.”

  “But the software—”

  Joshua shuddered and the room dimmed, even the candles cowering back near their wicks. “Don’t mention the software around me. It still gives me the shivers.”

  “Me too,” Michelle chimed in. “And I know it bugs the Heaven out of Plato.”

  The philosopher nodded his emphatic agreement, as he wiped a bit of cream cheese frosting off his mouth.

  “Hey!” At Valerie’s exclamation, they all turned to her. “That explains why the software came to me. It was looking for you, Joshua. And somewhere in its data patterns it connected us together.”

  “That would make sense.”

  Hera’s confirming nod showed that, as usual, she was a couple steps ahead of her husband and anyone else around her. Valerie was definitely looking forward to a gal’s night out with her aunt, she’d bet her stories were spectacular.

  “What are you going to do about Mathilda’s cookbook?” Eric took one more slice of roast beef as if he were reluctant to do so, but couldn’t help himself.

  “Oh,” Valerie shrugged. “That was easy, once I let go of the need for perfection. I sent it back for a rewrite. That should keep her off my back for another six months. I just reslotted a romance series about Special Forces helicopter pilots onto all of those bookstore endcap displays and Christmas tables that I’d already paid for.”

  Eric nodded agreement.

  Valerie appreciated the confirmation from an industry pro that she had made a good choice.

  “Well, someone has to run the software!” Peter’s protest was half demand, half cry.

  There was a glum silence around the table.

  “Maybe not.”

  Everyone turned to face Eric. He turned to Peter.

  “Those recipes that the software printed out. Remember the one Sticky Keys of Heaven?”

  “No, but it reminds me of that keyboard on the ferry.” Peter grimaced at the memory and brushed his hands together. “My paws still feel sticky from that root beer.”

  Valerie hadn’t heard that story yet, she’d have to remember to ask. They’d had other things on their minds since Eric’s return. She slid a hand onto his thigh under the table, enjoying the sense of connection it gave her. There were so many new things in her life this week that having a friend, and an Uncle, who was actually God, seemed to fit right in.

  “I think it was a recipe for how to set the software on automatic.”

  “Really?” Joshua, Michelle, and Peter’s voices all sounded in unison.

  “I think so.” He started to stand up. “I can go back to the apartment and get it.”

  “No need. No need.” Joshua patted his hand until Eric returned to his seat. “There are easier ways to find out.”

  He leaned back and called out, “Henrietta!”

  The tiny angel popped into being and then fluttered her wings as she settled on an open spot beside the bowl of sliced pickle spears.

  “Hi Boss!”

  “Hello Henrietta.”

  “You knew he was here?” Peter’s voice was thick with shock, his finger aimed like a weapon at Henrietta’s chest.

  “And you didn’t tell me?” He was shifting over to rage. All of it aimed at the tiny angel.

  Henrietta rose to her feet and stalked across the table, kicking a napkin one way and knocking over a salt shaker the other, until she stood at the edge of Peter’s dinner plate like a boxer about to step into the ring.

  She leaned in, her face set in a fierce expression.

  Peter leaned back.

  “You. Didn’t. Ask.” Then she turned and stalked back to her place, tearing off a piece of Challah bread as she passed by the loaf.

  A soft, “Oh,” was all he was able to respond with.

  Valerie managed to cover her laugh with a napkin, but it was a close thing.

  “Henrietta?”

  “Yes, Joshua?”

  Valerie’s uncle leaned down so that he was closer to eye level with the little angel.

  “Is there a way to set the software into a self-maintaining, autonomous mode that will cut down how much those two…” He pointed to make it clear that the software was Peter and Michelle’s problem, not his own. “…have to hover over it?”

  “Sure!”

  Michelle and Peter fell back in their seats as if they’d been slapped.

  “Can you do that?”

  “Sure!”

  “Here?”r />
  “Sure!” The angel kept agreeing cheerfully.

  Valerie realized that this could go on for a while because while Henrietta might talk out of the box like there was no tomorrow, she didn’t always think out of the box.

  “Henrietta?”

  The tiny angel took a big bite from her piece of bread and turned to face Valerie.

  “Would you please go ahead and do whatever you need to and take care of it now?”

  “Sure!” at least that’s what Valerie conjectured she said around a mouthful of Challah bread.

  The angel set down her bread and clapped her hands together.

  At the sound of the small pop, a tiny computer console appeared in front of her, complete with a little table and a tiny vase holding a single, brilliantly yellow buttercup blossom.

  She tapped away and the room grew quieter and quieter until the rattling of the tiny keys seemed to bounce off the walls.

  Two white squares of plastic popped into existence, one hovering mid-air in front of Uncle Joshua, the other in front of Michelle.

  “No!” Michelle pulled her hands back and tucked them in her armpits. “No way! The last time I palmed into this system, it didn’t go so well.”

  “Sissy!” Valerie called out.

  Plato started making clucking chicken noises, which soon the entire table had taken up.

  Finally, with a groan of protest, Michelle slapped her palm on the plastic plate. “On your heads be it. To Heaven with all of you!”

  Joshua laid his palm on the plate with only a slight wince.

  Nothing happened.

  Valerie closed her eyes, then opened them again. Nothing different that she could spot.

  “Now,” Henrietta leaned in reading the instructions scrolling up the screen. “Do you both solemnly swear that you are sick near unto death of managing the software?”

  “Oh Me, YES!” Joshua and Michelle said in unison.

  Henrietta hit the enter key. “Okay, that’s done.” She clapped her hands and the two palm scanners and the tiny computer popped out of existence, though the vase with the buttercup bloom now sat beside Henrietta’s tea saucer.