Simmer Down

by Jessica Conant-Park

  The police entered the restaurant, pushed their way to Josh’s office, relieved Gavin of the gun, and took Barry into custody.

  Sarka whimpered next to me. “Oh, God, Barry. What have you done?”

  EIGHTEEN

  “NEW Year’s Eve was not what I expected.” I lay snugly in bed with Josh spooning me.

  “You’re not kidding.” He let out a roaring yawn. “Barry seemed completely harmless. I cannot believe he’s the one who killed Oliver.”

  In spite of what he’d just said, Josh seemed more insulted than surprised by the revelation that Barry was the murderer. It was, I thought, a deep and personal offense to Josh that a fellow food devotee, someone who shared Josh’s own passion for fine cuisine, had twisted and even perverted that zealous love as Barry had done. As I mulled over the murder, I could see that years of Oliver’s dismissive attitude toward Barry and toward his dreams had finally provoked Barry beyond endurance. Had Barry also been enraged by Oliver’s interest in Sarka? I didn’t know. But Barry’s principal motivation had certainly been his ardent desire to make his fantasy restaurant become a reality. He must have realized that with Oliver alive, the Full Moon Group would never take the financial risk of opening a fine-dining establishment but would continue to limit itself to glorified and lucrative bars. On the night of Food for Thought, Oliver had poked fun at what he’d viewed as Barry’s pretensions about art and food—or so it must have seemed to Oliver. Barry, however, must have felt that his most profound dreams and passions, together with his most cherished images of himself, were being ridiculed and dismissed. In my view, Oliver’s taunting had been only one trigger for the murder. What had inflamed Barry, I suspected, and what had incited him to kill Oliver at the earliest moment, had been hearing Oliver’s mockery at Simmer’s booth. At the booth, Barry had been confronted with the reality of a man, Gavin, who was realizing the dream stolen by Oliver. Furthermore, Barry had tasted and loved Josh’s delectable medallions of beef. I hoped that Josh would never realize that his culinary genius had helped to provoke a murder. Indeed, when Barry killed Oliver, the taste of Josh’s food must still have been lingering on his palate. Last night, on New Year’s Eve, when Barry had tried to make Gavin an offer he couldn’t refuse, the scene had almost replayed itself: savoring Josh’s food at Simmer itself, not merely at the booth, Barry had lashed out at the man who was denying him access to his unrealized fantasy of owning a fine restaurant with Josh’s marvelous food.

  I was admittedly disappointed that Hannah had nothing to do with Oliver’s murder, but it was comforting to realize that having sunk her claws into Sean, she’d probably leave Josh alone. Furthermore, with Eliot the only partner in the Full Moon Group left alive or out of jail, the future of the group’s establishments was uncertain, and Hannah’s PR work in Boston was over. I prayed that she’d move back to New York and disappear permanently from our lives. Sean was a decent person who deserved a healthy relationship with someone who adored him. That relationship wouldn’t be with me, and I hoped it wouldn’t be with Hannah, who, besides everything else, is a manipulative liar.

  When the police arrived at Simmer last night, Detective Hurley was among them. When he questioned me, I happened to mention that I’d picked up Hannah after he’d held her all night at the station. And he’d done no such thing! Detective Hurley got defensive: Hannah was nothing more than a witness, and the police certainly did not subject her to any kind of all-night interrogation. With typical self-dramatization, Hannah had set up a phony crisis from which she intended to have Josh rescue her. On the night of Oliver’s murder, she’d slept in her own bed, or maybe in someone else’s; and in the morning, she’d gone to the police station, stood outside, and pretended to have been inside all night. I probably won’t tell Sean. He wouldn’t believe me. He’ll have to figure out Hannah for himself.

  The great news was Naomi’s innocence. After the police took Barry into custody and removed him from Simmer, I spent some time with Naomi. As I’d guessed, she had recognized Hannah’s voice at Food for Thought and had realized that Hannah was the hotline caller in need of help. Even though Naomi had known that Hannah was being harassed, she hadn’t taken violent action. In quintessential Naomi style, she’d been trying to convince Hannah to file a complaint against Oliver and had been in the process of locating a good lawyer to represent Hannah in her lawsuit. Naomi told me last night that the toughest part of helping Hannah had been keeping the secret from Eliot, who she knew was a silent partner in Oliver’s business and who was oblivious to the way Oliver treated women. Eliot’s relationship with Barry and Oliver had been strictly business. Nonetheless, it had been a struggle for Naomi to find herself plotting a nasty lawsuit against one of her new love’s partners.

  With Oliver dead and Barry in jail, Dora and Sarka were now both without husbands. I had no sympathy for Dora, but I felt sorry for Sarka. I couldn’t help wondering whether her longing for what seemed to me a stereotyped version of a normal, stable home life, together with what I guessed was a mild eating disorder, hinted at some perception of her husband’s disturbance and his potential for violence. No matter what, I could only begin to imagine how hurt and betrayed she felt by Barry’s actions.

  Even though it was eleven thirty in the morning, I’d had only a few hours of sleep and was totally bleary eyed. The sleep I did get was restless and filled with bad dreams. I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes, thinking a good hit of caffeine might help. Josh looked as exhausted and drained as I was.

  “Why don’t I start a pot of coffee and then go downstairs and take someone’s paper, okay?” I hoped Noah hadn’t picked up his, since it gave me a sick sense of satisfaction to steal his newspaper whenever I could.

  When I’d successfully returned with Noah’s paper, and we both had steaming cups of coffee, we curled up on the couch together. I flipped through the pages to see if Mishti Patil had reviewed Simmer.

  “Here it is!” I cried excitedly.

  “Stop, Chloe. I don’t want to see it if she did. It’ll be a fake review that she was paid off to do.” Josh tried fervently to grab the newspaper out of my hands, but I stood up, spilling coffee all over myself, ran across the room, and locked myself in the bathroom.

  I skimmed the review while Josh rattled the door, saying, “It doesn’t count! I don’t want to hear it!”

  “Listen, listen! ‘Although there are issues to be addressed at Simmer, I am happy to report that Simmer is a welcome addition to Newbury Street.’ Blah, blah, ‘beautiful decor…the wait staff struggled to keep up at times…’”

  Josh was now pounding on the door. “Stop reading!” he begged.

  I paid no attention. “‘The food was worth the wait…outstanding lobster tail…lentils still had a bite to them…best salad dressing in Boston…salmon was overcooked but had potential…average chocolate torte…’”

  Josh stopped banging. “‘Average chocolate torte’? Average? Who does she think she is?”

  “Do you know what this means?” I said excitedly.

  “It means she doesn’t know the first thing about chocolate,” Josh said angrily.

  “Yes, but it also means that she wrote a real review. Gavin didn’t pay her off! Or, if he tried, she didn’t accept his offer. No one bribes someone to write a mediocre review. And for Mishti, this review is pretty good. She doesn’t give out compliments easily. And, God, she said you have the best salad dressing in all of Boston!”

  After a long pause, Josh said, “I guess that’s pretty good.”

  “It’s more than pretty good. Can I come out now?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, let me read the whole thing.”

  I unlocked the bathroom door and handed him the paper. When he was done, I was going to clip out the review and make copies of it. I took the crossword out of the paper and left Josh alone for a few minutes to read Simmer’s first review in its entirety.

  “I’m going to call Adrianna and see how she’s doing.”

  “Do you think she got any sl
eep?” Josh asked with concern.

  “I hope so,” I said doubtfully and went and sat down in the kitchen.

  Learning that Barry was the murderer would have been enough shock for one night without the preceding revelation about Adrianna’s messing around with Snacker. When I reached her on the phone, practically the first thing she said was that she was pregnant.

  “I suspected I might be,” she said, “but I didn’t use the test kit until after I got back from doing hair yesterday.” The positive result had thrown her into a total tizzy. She’d freaked out, she said, because as much as she loved Owen, she hadn’t planned on getting pregnant and settling down with a puppeteer’s assistant any time soon.

  “So what were you doing running around having clandestine meetings with Snacker in the bathroom last night?” I did my best not to yell at her since she’d been talking to me through sobs.

  “God, Chloe, I don’t know! I just was freaking out and trying to pretend I didn’t know I was pregnant and trying not to feel like my life was set in stone and that I would be with Owen who can’t figure out what the hell to do in life, and…I don’t know. I just wanted to feel free one last time. I don’t have a good reason. Owen was being all weird with his marionette bullshit that night at your parents’ house, and Snacker seemed so cute and funny, and I was feeling frustrated with Owen. I went to Simmer the other night to see Snacker,” she confessed. “Nothing happened then, but I was flirting and he was hot and…and then when Owen started to propose, I thought I would die.” She blew her nose loudly into the phone.

  I could not believe this. “How is Owen taking everything?”

  “It could be worse. He’s not mad I’m pregnant, but he is pretty furious about the whole Snacker thing. I mean, of course he is. I’m pissed at myself. But I think he understands that I was having some sort of panic attack last night and wasn’t really myself. Not that that excuses me making out with someone else while he’s gearing up to ask me to marry him!” She started wailing and choking on her tears. “And why was I attracted to Snacker in the first place? What is wrong with me?”

  My heart just broke for her. I hated to hear my best friend so miserable. “Honey, look. You and Owen will get through this. Maybe you weren’t planning on this happening, but you guys love each other very much. Owen is crazy about you, and he’ll understand that he’s going to have to stop jumping from job to job if you two are going to be parents.” I had to ask: “Ade, you are going to keep the baby, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, it’s not a question. Maybe under other circumstances, if it wasn’t with Owen. You know, if we hadn’t been together so long. Of course I love him. But, Chloe, I don’t even like kids! I never thought I’d have kids, and now I am! What if I don’t like my own baby? Then what? This just all feels so hard right now. I don’t know what to do. This wasn’t the plan, and I’m scared.” I thought the poor girl might hyperventilate from crying so much. Her distress made me worry about her and the baby. She pulled herself together enough to tell me that after she and Owen had a huge blow-up fight, they’d spent two hours talking and crying before Owen had gone home. Owen was supposed to go to her apartment this afternoon. I hoped that by then she’d have had some rest. She was going to need it.

  After I’d told Josh everything, I asked, “Are you going to talk to Snacker?”

  Josh ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. What an ass. He knew Adrianna had a boyfriend. For Christ’s sake, he had dinner with Owen. He’s not usually such a pig, I promise. It sounds to me like she was throwing herself at him, so it’s not entirely his fault. Who wouldn’t want Adrianna all over him?” I raised my eyebrows, and Josh quickly defended himself. “Well, not me, but you know what I mean.”

  “I know. This whole thing is crazy. As much as I love Adrianna, I can’t see her as a mother. She can barely stand to be in the same room with Walker and Lucy. I don’t know how she’s going to parent her own child.”

  Josh kissed the top of my head. “She’ll have Owen and you to help her. And me. I’ll make her homemade baby food. She and Owen will be all right. I really think so.”

  “Okay,” I said, although I was doubtful that homemade baby food would do much to ease Ade and Owen’s stress. “I guess there’s nothing I can do right this minute. So, tell me what you thought of the review.”

  “It’s okay,” Josh said with unusual modesty.

  “Give it to me.” I held out my hand and took the review from him. “I’m going to cut it out and frame it, and one day you’ll acknowledge that having Mishti Patil write anything positive about you is an amazing feat.”

  We spent the next couple of hours snuggled on the couch, reading the paper and watching football, until my stomach started rumbling.

  “Josh, I’m hungry,” I complained. “And there’s nothing to eat here. Do you want to order something in?”

  He rubbed my feet and smiled. “On my new budget? Not really. I’m sure we can find something.”

  “Seriously, there’s nothing. We finished off the kielbasa at three last night, so there’s like, potatoes and spices and weird frozen meat samples. I’m not in the mood for venison steaks right now.”

  Josh pulled me up from the couch. “Come on, we’ll find something good.”

  I followed him into the kitchen.

  After discovering four frozen pork chops and rooting through my cabinets, Josh announced that he’d come up with something. “Curry. It’s freezing cold and snowing outside, so we’re hunkering down for the day with a steaming pork curry on rice.”

  “I have curry powder?” I asked. So far as I could remember, I’d never made curry in this kitchen.

  “No, but that’s okay. I’m going to make my own version.”

  Despite my confidence in Josh’s culinary abilities, I was a little uncertain about the idea. Josh heated a deep skillet and began sautéeing chopped onions and garlic in a little olive oil. After a few minutes he started shaking cumin, coriander, nutmeg, ground ginger, cayenne, and red pepper flakes into the dish, and, within moments, my kitchen magically started smelling like curry. Soon, he added carrots, potatoes, coconut milk, butter, and chicken broth and brought the whole thing to a lovely simmer.

  “There you go, baby. Let’s let that develop some more flavor.” He put a lid on top and turned the heat down. “In a few minutes, I’ll start the rice and then sear off the pork chops.”

  “You are a genius!” I hugged him. Nothing made me happier than spending the day with both Josh and delicious food.

  “And you doubted me!” Josh teased.

  Forty-five minutes later, we were back on the couch with steaming bowls of pork curry over yellow rice balanced on our laps. One of the good things about living alone was that no one made you sit down and eat every meal at a table.

  The dish had just the right amount of saltiness, sweetness, and spicy heat but, as comforting as the curry was, I was worried about not hearing from Adrianna. I tried her phone, but she wasn’t picking up.

  “She’ll call when she’s ready, Chloe,” Josh tried to reassure me.

  “All right,” I agreed, scooping up a mound of rice.

  An unpleasant scratching noise made me look up from my food. “What was that?”

  Josh looked around the room. “Is it Gato?”

  “No, he’s asleep on the chair.” The sound continued, and I prayed that I didn’t have strange animals crawling behind the walls.

  Josh pointed to the cage across the room. “I think it’s Ken.”

  He was right. Ken, who had finally chosen to emerge on his own from his shell, had one crabby claw stuck out and was scratching the side of his glass house.

  Josh said, “Hey! He’s alive! And sort of cute!”

  I put down my bowl and went to peer at Ken. He wasn’t nearly as disgusting looking as I’d previously thought. He had a red body and claws, two big black eyes, and funny antennae that projected from his head in a manner that I tried to see as whimsical. I’d learned from my online research that he must
be a strawberry hermit crab and thus much more interesting than the typical brown crabs. “I like him! He’s not so gross!” I felt sorry for the little guy, just left to crawl around on boring sand with nothing to do. I would go to Petco tomorrow and buy him special snacks, tunnels, climbing branches, and decorated shells.

  Ken had made it through New Year’s. Now I could look back and say, “Last year, Ken slept most of the time, but this year, Ken has become comfortable enough in his environment to explore new activities.” So, Ken had come out of his shell, but I would stay nestled in mine with Josh.

  Josh interrupted my Ken daydreams. “I almost forgot. I have something for you.” He disappeared into the bedroom and emerged with a blue candy box in his hands. “I hid these under your bed, so once you wipe off the dust bunnies, I think you’ll be happy.”

  Josh held out a ten-piece box of Baci chocolates. “Open one.”

  I didn’t need another invitation before tearing into the treats. The rest of my curry could wait. I unwrapped a chocolate, but before I could pop it into my mouth, Josh stopped me. “Wait, Chloe. Look, each one is wrapped in a little note. Read it.”

  Why speak? The entirety of love can be said in a kiss.

  And so Josh kissed me.

  RECIPES

  Trying to get a chef to write out a recipe for fewer than sixty people is trickier than you might think. When we asked Jessica’s husband, Bill, for the recipe for the Sesame-Honey Vinaigrette, it began with two pints of salad oil and one pint of rice vinegar. The entire recipe would have made enough to last the average household a year. After much nagging and complaining, we finally convinced him to write out all the recipes in traditional serving sizes. The vinaigrette still makes more than you’ll need for four salads, but Bill swears that when you start breaking down a recipe too much, you risk losing the integrity of the dressing. The extra will keep nicely in the refrigerator.

  Each of these recipes makes enough for roughly four servings, and all were created by chef Bill Park, with the exception of the kielbasa dish, which is Jessica’s own recipe and her favorite winter dish.