“What was that about?” Doug asked me.
“Long story,” I answered.
I sampled my shrimp and, as cranky as I now was, knew that it was one of Josh’s best dishes ever. The sweetness of the polenta and corn were a delectable match for the spiciness and saltiness of the shrimp. Josh had taught me that to make flavors balance out in a dish, you needed to combine opposites.
Our salads arrived. Long lengthwise slices of cucumber were wrapped about brightly colored greens to form low cylinders. Enoki mushrooms sprouted out of the tops of the salads, which were covered in a glistening sesame-honey dressing. I took a taste. My salad was as delicious as it was beautiful.
But until I’d straightened things out with Josh, I was going to be crabby and upset for the rest of the night. And where was Adrianna? She still hadn’t come back from the ladies’ room, and I needed her. In situations like this, I had a tendency to blow things out of proportion and act rashly, whereas Adrianna had a contrasting tendency to retain her sanity.
I excused myself from the table, but everyone was too occupied in savoring the food to notice. It’s amazing how quickly complete confidence in the solidity of a relationship can change to incredible fear that everything is about to collapse. I just hoped that Josh would believe me when I assured him that nothing nefarious had transpired between Sean and me. I also hoped, of course, that Hannah hadn’t taken advantage of Josh once she’d made him doubt my devotion.
As I hurried through the restaurant, I was so focused on finding Josh that I barely noticed any of the other diners. Reaching the doors to the kitchen, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t just barge in. This was opening night, the tension was high, meals were now being prepared and served, and, for all my sense of involvement with Simmer, I didn’t work here. For a moment, I stood there helplessly. Then one of the doors flew open, and I nearly collided with a server carrying an overloaded tray of food.
“Sorry,” I muttered apologetically and ran off to the bathroom to figure out what to do. I was such an idiot! Why hadn’t I just told Josh about meeting up with Sean? Now it just looked like I was hiding something.
I pushed open the bathroom door to find Adrianna in front of the mirror shaking her hair out and applying lipstick.
“Where have you been? I need your help,” I whined. “It’s Josh.”
“Sorry. Just preening, you know. What’s going on?” Ade leaned toward the mirror to get a close-up view of her perfectly applied makeup.
“Cheater.”
Ade stood bolt upright. “How do you know?” She stared at me in the mirror, disbelief running across her face.
“That’s what Josh thinks.” I explained Hannah’s dirty deed and went on to say that not only did I look like a cheater but that Hannah had probably tricked Josh into cheating on me.
“Oh.” Her face relaxed a little. “That’s ridiculous. You did nothing wrong, and we both know Josh wouldn’t touch that little rat girl again. You’re being silly. Go find him and straighten this mess out. Is our food there yet? I’m starved.”
“The appetizers came. And the salads. I’ll be back at the table in a minute.”
“See you then.” Adrianna left me alone.
Everything was going wrong! The last thing I wanted was to fight with Josh at Simmer’s opening. As I’d gathered from Isabelle when she’d called me, Josh had been in a foul mood all day. Poor Josh! Instead of being free to devote himself exclusively to the preparations for opening night, he’d been plagued by thoughts of my hooking up with Sean! Was it narcissistic to imagine that Josh would be so overwhelmed with misery over me that he wouldn’t be able to function? So what if it was narcissistic! I didn’t care. I had to fix everything right now.
Determined to clear up the misunderstanding, I pushed open the restroom door. As a server returned to the kitchen, I followed him into the madness. Josh and Snacker were moving at warp speed, finishing plates that were lined up across one of the counters. The two chefs garnished dishes with herbs, wiped drops of sauce off the edges of plates, and adjusted the positions of food to give the most artful effect. Snacker had a dish towel in one hand and was cleaning sauce off the edges of the dishes, and Josh was glaring at the plates as if daring them to be more outstanding than they already were.
“Okay, Chef. These are ready to go.” Snacker stood back proudly.
“And they would’ve been ready to go sooner if you hadn’t kept disappearing on me.” Josh didn’t even look at Snacker. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you tonight, but get it together.”
Snacker had the decency to look ashamed. “Gotcha. Orders are up!” he called out.
“Thank God. What took so long?” growled a waitress.
I slipped out the door. This was not, after all, the time to explain myself to Josh. I returned to our table at the front and sat down.
Our appetizer and salad plates had been cleared. Doug was raving about his lobster tail. “That was ridiculously good. You better watch yourself, Chloe, because if I get the chance, I’m going after Josh myself.”
I willed Heather not to applaud, but she was too busy chugging down a glass of water to celebrate the possibility that my gay friend would swoop in and steal my boyfriend. By the time my steak arrived, I felt significantly more positive about resolving this misunderstanding with Josh. He was under monumental stress today; his snapping at me probably had less to do with me than with the pressure to pull off opening night.
Obligatory or not, my steak was phenomenal. The tangy taste of the Stilton potato cake worked beautifully with the peppery seared beef. The baby vegetables were still slightly crunchy and full of flavor. When Doug fed me a bite of the roasted vegetable Wellington, I nearly groaned with delight: the pastry was light and crisp, the vegetable filling was delectable, and the red pepper and balsamic sauces were heaven. Now I was really feeling better about Josh; this food was like make-up sex.
Another glass of wine later, and we had all cleaned our plates. I was totally stuffed, but had I been in the privacy of my own home, I’d have picked up my plate and licked it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cram a dessert into my stomach, but there was no way I was going to miss out on the banana creation, which I knew from Josh consisted of caramelized banana slices served with banana ice cream and topped with a rum sauce and banana chantilly.
Josh and a server brought out our desserts.
“I’m sorry,” my chef whispered in my ear. “I’ve been an asshole. I’m just really edgy tonight with the opening. Snacker talked me out of my mood, but I don’t like the thought of you with another guy.”
I looked up at him and smiled. Yay! He was over it!
“But,” he added, “what were you doing out with Sean last night?”
Okay, he wasn’t quite over it.
“Sean called me and asked me to meet him, so I did. And what about you? Were you at Hannah’s place last night cooking for her?”
“What are you talking about?” Josh looked at me, stunned. “I didn’t cook anything for Hannah. I was busting my ass here all night.”
My family was even more interested in this interchange than in the food being served. To the best of my recollection, this collective distraction from food was completely unprecedented. A family first! And an unwelcome one, of course. Josh and I needed to continue our discussion away from the table and, especially, away from my parents.
“Josh,” I said, “can you come talk to me for a few minutes? Somewhere else. Not here.”
He nodded. “Yeah, things are calming down in the kitchen. Snacker’s taking another break, but it’s mostly dessert orders that are in, and the rest of the guys can handle that. We can go to my office.” Heather’s face sank with disappointment that she wasn’t going to witness a fight between Josh and me.
Adrianna stood up with us to use the ladies’ room again. “That wine is just running through me,” she explained, although I was pretty sure I’d consumed most of her glass.
I followed Josh through
the maze of full tables. At least he was holding my hand.
“Josh, it’s no use pretending nothing is up with Hannah, because I saw the shopping list you gave her. It wasn’t just that it was your kind of food—it was in your handwriting. She made me pick her up from the police station the other day and then forced me to chauffeur her around town to shop for the ingredients for the dinner you were making her.”
Josh stopped so abruptly that I nearly smashed into him. He turned around to face me. “Yes, I did write out a shopping list for her. The other night at the gallery, Hannah told me that she’d changed, that she was interested in food and cooking, and that she wanted to make a wonderful dinner for some guy. She asked me for suggestions, and then she had me write out everything she needed. So I did. If she told you I was cooking for her, she was just screwing with you. One of the many reasons she and I are no longer together. Okay?” He resumed walking, pulling me along and shaking his head in obvious disbelief at how gullible I was.
As we neared Barry, Sarka, and Dora’s table, Josh stopped to speak to a waitress. Standing there waiting for him, I couldn’t help eavesdropping. Dora was speaking rather loudly to Barry and Sarka. To my dismay, I overhead her describing how she’d gotten rid of Oliver’s pets. “If you can even call hermit crabs pets!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know why he fussed over them so much. He had an enormous fish tank filled with sand for four of those disgusting, slimy crabs! Can you imagine? I just flushed them down the toilet last night. Good riddance!”
I held Josh’s hand tightly. As unlovable as Ken had at first seemed, he was growing on me, and I was appalled that anyone would simply send a living animal off to the city sewer system. The same idea had admittedly occurred to me when I’d first seen Ken, but I wouldn’t actually have done it! How could Dora so easily have flushed away Oliver’s beloved pets? She must be totally heartless. Did her violence against small creatures mean that she was capable of violence on a larger, say Oliver-sized, scale?
I looked away from Dora, whom I now saw as a ruthless crab-killer…and maybe more. At another nearby table were Naomi and Eliot. The trendy owner of a trendy gallery, Eliot had obviously taken pity on Naomi. I felt touched by his kindness in giving my wallflower supervisor a night on the town, and not just any night, either, but New Year’s Eve. Because of Naomi’s granola-based social skills, it seemed particularly generous of him to put up with her on a holiday.
I hurried past them before they noticed me.
I looked away from the ill-matched couple only to catch a glimpse of Sean and Hannah, who were cozily seated at a table for two. Aha! That’s who Hannah was cooking for! Those two had met at the Food for Thought and must have hit it off. In other words, Hannah had somehow gotten her claws into poor, trusting Sean. Knowing Sean as I did, I suddenly realized that after telling me about the incident he’d witnessed at the gallery between Oliver and Hannah, he must have gone to Hannah and believed whatever self-serving explanation she’d given him. I couldn’t imagine, however, why Hannah had picked Simmer as the place the two of them would celebrate New Year’s Eve. It had been Hannah, I felt certain, who’d made the selection. What could she possibly have said? Hey, Sean, let’s go to my ex-boyfriend’s new restaurant, where we can also see your ex-girlfriend and, with a little luck, her entire family!
There was something highly disturbing about our two exes hooking up, but as far as I was concerned, the two of them were welcome to each other, especially if my ex would keep Josh’s ex away from Josh from now on. As tempted as I was to stop at their table with Josh and spit out a witty, biting comment, I realized that it would be a mistake to give Hannah any kind of attention. Besides, although the general concept of spitting out a witty, biting remark felt wonderful, I wasn’t able to translate the idea into particular words.
We got to Josh’s office, which was no bigger than a closet but had two doors, one that opened inward from the kitchen, the other that opened inward from the dining room, both propped open to allow Josh to keep an eye on things. The combination of the two doors sticking into the tiny room, two chairs, and Josh’s desk left almost no room for the two of us. I crammed myself into one of the chairs and looked at Josh, who stood in the one square foot of floor space left.
I said, “Look, the only reason I went to Eclipse last night with Sean was because he called and said he really needed my advice on something, and I didn’t see any reason to say no to him. But more than that, I wanted the chance to poke around in one of the Full Moon Group’s restaurants.”
“Why? What do you care about that for?” Josh looked totally irritated with me.
“I found out that Oliver had been harassing female employees, and I wanted to see if I could find out if anyone else was doing the same thing. There’s such a thing as an atmosphere of harassment. I wanted to see whether there was any sign of that. But when I met Sean, he told me that he’d seen Oliver forcing himself on Hannah at the art gallery the other night.”
“What? That’s horrible.”
“The thing is, when Hannah was trying to fend off this creep, Oliver, she must have spilled her disgusting snap peas on him. That’s why the police questioned her all night. They must have found the green powder on his body and suspected her of killing him. Sean wanted to know if I thought he should tell the police about what he’d seen.”
“What did you tell him?” Josh asked.
“I told him no. And the reason I told him that is because Hannah didn’t kill Oliver. Naomi did.”
SEVENTEEN
“NO , you’re wrong. Naomi wouldn’t kill anyone.” Josh let out a deep sigh and looked away from me. “Gavin did it.”
“Gavin? Josh, listen to me. Hannah had been calling the Boston Organization. She wanted help because Oliver had been harassing her on a regular basis, and Hannah was getting desperate. You know how overinvested Naomi gets in her work, so Naomi took it upon herself to solve the problem. She whacked him over the head with your poor Robocoupe. Then, like most criminals supposedly do, she even returned to the scene of the crime on the pretext of taking Eliot a thank-you present. And now she’s going to rot in prison!”
Josh stared at me confused. “I guess I could see why she’d give Eliot something, but it’s not as if a Full Moon partner needs anything. They’re all loaded,” he scoffed.
“Barry and Oliver are the partners. Were the partners.”
Josh sighed. “Chloe, a group is not just two people. Didn’t you just finish a class on group therapy? Wasn’t Doug out there the teaching assistant in that class?”
Like I needed yet someone else pointing out my terrible performance in school! “Hey, I tried very hard in that class, but the professor had the personality of a rock, and the textbook was about as scintillating as the fine print that came with my credit card.”
“Well, anyhow, the Full Moon Group is a group. Eliot stays out of the actual running of the business, but he’s a silent partner, meaning he contributes and makes money. It’s no secret. You just didn’t happen to know it. Probably a lot of people don’t know about it, actually, because he’s pretty low key about being a partner, but he and I were talking about it the other night at his gallery. I don’t think Gavin realizes it either, now that I think about it. Eliot was too polite to say anything when Gavin was bragging about beating them out for this location.” He paused. “Speak of the devil…” Josh waved at someone.
I looked out into the dining room to see Eliot and Naomi, who were passing by the office door, hand in hand.
“Oh, Josh. Nice to see you again.” Eliot stopped and stuck his head in the office. “Wonderful, wonderful meal. Everything was exceptional,” he said. “Gavin invited us in to take a peek at the kitchen. Hope you don’t mind? Naomi said she’s never seen a professional kitchen.”
“Sure, go ahead. Don’t mind the craziness going on,” Josh said, waving them into the office. “You can cut through here.”
Naomi beamed at me. “Hi, Chloe. Happy New Year’s!” She winked at me before slidin
g past us and through the open door to the kitchen.
“Josh, do you know what you just did?’ I whispered. “If it’s no secret that Eliot is a Full Moon partner, then Naomi must know about that from Hannah. Josh, she talked to Hannah all the time! And now Naomi is cozying up to Eliot with the intention of murdering him, too!”
Suddenly panicked, I stood up and spoke softly. “She’s going to kill Eliot. She killed Oliver at the back of the gallery with a heavy kitchen appliance, and now she’s going to kill Eliot at the back of this restaurant with a similar weapon. Josh, your kitchen is full of murder weapons! She’s got some sort of crazy repetition compulsion, and you’ve sent her into a room full of lethal appliances! Come on!” I grabbed a stunned Josh by the hand and pulled him into the kitchen.
“No, you’re acting crazy,” Josh informed me. “You need to listen to me!”
I scanned the kitchen, but Eliot and Naomi were nowhere to be seen. I did see Isabelle, though, in a corner of the room. The shy girl I’d met the other day looked positively radiant. She was sweaty and exhausted, but she had clearly found her calling in the kitchen.
I dragged Josh behind me. “Isabelle.”
“Oh, Chloe,” she gushed. “I love it here. You can’t believe how much work this is and how nuts it got in here, but I love it. And Chef has been taking care of me.” I was pretty sure I saw a slight blush creep up her cheeks. I couldn’t blame her for having a crush on Josh.
“Good, I’m so happy for you. Listen, have you seen a woman with crazy braids and a man with big eyes come through here?”
“Yeah, I did. They just went in there.” Isabelle pointed to one of the walk-ins, as Josh called them, meaning walk-in refrigerators and freezers the size of small rooms.
“Quick! Grab something!” I instructed Josh.
“Like what?”
“Anything! Here.” I handed him an oversized metal soup ladle. “I’ll open the door, and then you go in and hit her on the head with that.”
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