“You have goose bumps on your arms.”
“Pardon?” He looked down. Little bumps covered his arms, but he didn’t feel cold. Warmth came off Tilly, a light from the way she embraced life.
“We should get out of the fridge. I’m sure you want to go home, shower, go to bed and get some sleep.”
Shower? Yes. Bed? Yes. Sleep? No, he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to take Tilly home with him, to bring color into his stark, white house. Instead, Tilly walked past him out of the fridge. The moment was broken.
She was packing take-out food containers into a paper bag when he found her again.
“Here.” She thrust the bag at him.
“What is this?”
“Leftovers for your lunch tomorrow. There’s even dessert.”
He took the bulging brown bag. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“You didn’t have to fix my sink, and you did.”
“It was my pleasure.”
The brown paper crinkled as he tightened his grip. He’d never noticed what a chiding noise paper made when clutched in nervous desperation.
They faced each other awkwardly. Tilly shifted her weight from one foot to another while Dan wished he had kissed her in his town house. Or in the walk-in fridge, before his conscience reminded him that she didn’t know he had written the review.
If he wanted to kiss her, if he wanted to see her again, he had to tell her who he was. She would be hurt, understandably, but he could make her see that they could get past all of this. He could make her see that the review was business, but their relationship could be pleasure. She was interested. He’d seen the heat in her eyes and he hadn’t been mistaken about what it meant.
Pans clanked together and someone in the kitchen cursed. There was no audience in the fridge. You should’ve kissed her there.
Tilly was staring at his lips and Dan cursed his alter ego.
“I should walk you to the front door,” she said. “I’ll need to lock up behind you.”
He followed her out of the kitchen, past Candace wiping down the bar with smooth, even strokes. In the dimness of the closing restaurant, the bartender’s dark eyes disappeared into damning, empty holes. Which was ridiculous. When he blinked, she turned back into the polished bartender of earlier that night.
At Babka’s front door the bag crinkled again, scolding him. He had to tell Tilly the truth. Even if their relationship went no further than this front door, he couldn’t let her look at him so openly, pack him lunch for God’s sake, without knowing what he’d done.
“Tilly—” he put his tool kit on the floor and rested his hand on her shoulder “—I have something I have to confess to you.”
“Yes?” She cocked her head in response, her eyes wide and her expression unguarded. He needed to enjoy that unsuspecting look on her now, as he might never see it again.
“I’m Dan Meier, the food writer, as you may have guessed.... No, don’t interrupt,” he said when she opened her mouth. “I also write reviews for CarpeChicago under the name ‘The Eater.’”
* * *
SHE SLAPPED HIM. Hard enough that her palm buzzed with pain and the vibration radiated down her arm to tingle in her elbow. Her whole body shook. Not from the slap, though every cell in her body itched to slap him again and again until the sound of his brain being battered against the inside of his skull reverberated through the restaurant. Betrayal shook her.
But she didn’t give in. Babka was her restaurant and Dan—The Eater—was an important person in the food business. Personally, she could justify slapping him once. Unfortunately for her business, she couldn’t give him the same punch to the gut he’d given her.
“Thank you for fixing my pot sink.” That was polite, professional, and she wasn’t doubled up with pain. She could do this. “I would appreciate your not returning to Babka.” She opened her mouth to speak again, to say something else as if he hadn’t just crushed her with his foot and scraped the remains on the stoop, but nothing came out. Something solid was lodged in her throat, blocking all access to breath. Before it could escape through tears, she turned and walked back through the dining room.
“Candace.” She swallowed and the lump moved enough to get out another sentence. “Please make sure the door locks behind Dan.”
She didn’t go back into the kitchen. Instead, she turned past the bar and headed to the closet with the cleaning supplies. Despite the cleaning service that came in every night, Tilly was going to scrub the bathrooms. The bleach would sting her eyes and burn her nostrils, but it might also cleanse her heart of any remaining soft feelings for Dan. The chemicals would give her something to blame when Karen bounded in behind her and wondered why her eyes were red. If her cat wouldn’t go near her tonight because of the fumes, she could add Imbir to the list of male creatures who had betrayed her.
CHAPTER TEN
“HELLO, BETH,” Dan said into his phone.
“Beth took my phone and won’t answer my calls,” the gravelly, disappointed voice replied.
“Oh. Hello, Dad.” Caller ID was wonderful, until it was wrong. He’d only answered because he thought it was his sister.
“Have you heard from your sister?”
“Not recently.” Not since you offered me a job while Beth was offering you a child. He didn’t say that, though. Even if Beth would tell him some nonsense about not seeking Dad’s approval or that the desperate attempt to get a child was for the good of the company, he wanted her side of the story before he heard his father’s. He needed preparation—and ammunition—against his dad’s sugarcoated lies and cloying tone as Dan Sr. explained how Beth was wrong.
If the story Dan had heard was true, Beth was in the wrong, but not for the reasons Dan Sr. thought she was. Beth needed to get out of Wisconsin and away from their father if she was going to have any life of her own. Dan would like his mom to move away, too, but that was like wishing for the end of all wars, hunger and disease. Possible, sure, but completely improbable.
“It’s not like her to run off,” his dad said.
Having trouble running the company by yourself? Dan didn’t say that, either. He could pretend not to care, but he still hoped every interaction with his father would be different. Better. That age would hit the old man and he’d stop trying to manipulate his children into submission, stop thinking of them as reflections of his self-worth and start seeing them as people. Dan was hoping gray hair was enough to change a leopard’s spots. “If she calls, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”
“I don’t understand you two. I give you everything and you constantly disappoint. Like you and your worthless job. Did you hear about that reporter who faked his story?”
Being blamed for a stranger’s mistake was new. “That wasn’t me.”
His father either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. “Imagine the embarrassment his family must feel.”
“Dad, that wasn’t...”
But Dan Sr. was on his favorite subject, the burden of children to their parents. “I don’t think I could face walking down the street if one of my children did that to me.”
Dan didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times his father had expressed a shame-driven fear of walking down the street.
“And now your sister is probably off doing something even worse.”
“Goodbye, Dad. I’ll tell Beth you wanted to speak to her.”
Dan put down his phone and contemplated his lunch. He wouldn’t let a conversation with his father put him off his appetite. One white-and-red take-out box held a roast chicken thigh, seasoned with juniper berries, salt pork and garlic. The other box bulged with roast potatoes and perfectly cooked green beans that snapped when he bit into them. As Tilly had promised, there was also dessert. A piece of flaky butter pastry spread with raspberry jam and a thick poppy-seed filling had been wrapped in tinfoil. Even the little details had been given painstaking attention. All the food would be equally delicious eaten cold at a desk or warm at home.
Tilly took time to think of the needs of those eating her food, not just what they ate but how and when they might eat it.
He smiled at the image of Tilly in her restaurant kitchen packing his food. He imagined her surveying the food in her kitchen, a contemplative look on her face as she selected each piece with care. The love she had for the culture of her food would be shining in her eyes, even though she wasn’t preparing anything new.
Tilly was a marvelous cook because her food was part of her soul. She was a first-rate chef because she paid attention to every detail in the experience of eating.
Dan sighed at the problem she posed. If she were a bad cook, or a terrible manager, he could have ignored how much he liked her. Her sparkling eyes and expressive face would be another memory he could pack away. Mike would have to accept he had lost a bet and camp out at the Cubs game with a smile on his face.
If Tilly had lived down to his review, he wouldn’t like her quite so much. The memory of her vividness wouldn’t haunt his austere dining room and he wouldn’t want her sitting beside him, telling him the unpronounceable Polish name of the chicken dish. He’d told her he was The Eater because he would’ve been a bastard if he hadn’t. So why did he still feel like horse’s ass?
Dan picked up the thigh and took a bite. The chicken was, as Julia Child would say, “chickeny.” Tilly didn’t overdo the spices. She wasn’t trying to hide inferior ingredients with salt or butter. All the flavors came together to make Tilly’s roast chicken taste perfect, with the juniper berries hinting at a medieval hunt, exotic and powerful. One bite, and his mind traveled across the ocean and through time until he stopped at a small homestead in Poland where a family waited for the next invading army to bring new spices that would be integrated into the cuisine. The best food took the eater on a journey, exploring the history and culture steeped in the dish. Tilly’s chicken was that kind of chicken. The kind a Polish grandmother made, that sang out with her heritage.
“Shit.” The weight of his mistake was a ton of chicken poop piled on his back.
He had two things in common with Tilly. Neither of them could fully separate food from life, and his review had screwed up both their lives. He couldn’t separate himself from food any more than he could cut off his right arm. He was a food writer. He ate and wrote about his experiences. When he was writing about food, he was also writing about culture.
Tilly was a chef. She made her living from giving people pleasure with the meals she cooked. Her customers depended on her feeding them flavorful, delicious food. Food they wanted to come back for, that they didn’t think they could make at home. He was a betting man and he’d bet the customers who’d stayed in Tilly’s restaurant after the cat disaster had enjoyed her food.
Even worse, Dan had screwed up their lives. They’d had an undeniable connection, the kind of connection the characters had in the romantic comedies his sister pretended she didn’t watch. He’d felt the interlinking of their strengths and known she was a woman worth pursuing. Then she’d slapped him and told him never to come back. Standing in the way of their relationship was his job. He’d written a negative review and she might not ever be able to get past it.
Are you sure it’s not your pride that’s in the way? a needling voice at the back of his head asked. Dan shook his head to dislodge the thought. Bad reviews were part of the business and he’d given Tilly a bad review. Either she was mature enough to look past it, or she wasn’t. He couldn’t control her reactions; he could only control his own.
His doorbell rang. Dan rose to answer it, the chicken thigh still in his hand. Mike stood at the door.
“Shit.” Dan wanted to luxuriate in his lunch and problems alone. He didn’t need Mike here to harass him.
“If you’re going to swear at your food, you should at least look like you’re not enjoying it.” Mike pushed past Dan into his house.
What did he want? “Who says I’m enjoying it?”
“You’re a food writer. You don’t eat food you don’t enjoy. Plus, most men don’t get that look on their face unless a naked woman is involved.” Mike pulled a chair up to the table and sat. “Where’s lunch from?”
Dan considered lying. It would be much easier than to tell Mike the truth. The truth would mean harassment, teasing and another lecture or fifteen on journalistic ethics. Mike might even think he’d won the bet if Dan told him the truth. On the other hand, Mike would find out eventually. He always did. Getting caught later would extend the harassment, teasing and add lectures. In the interest of getting the pain over with, Dan was honest.
“Babka.” He could be honest without elaborating.
“You didn’t tell her.” Mike leaned back in the chair. He was making himself comfortable, preparing for a long lecture.
Dan took another bite of his chicken. If he was going to get lectured by his friend about the meal, he should at least get to eat all of it.
Mike kept talking. “Babka isn’t open for lunch and those are leftovers. If Tilly was nice enough to pack you lunch, she doesn’t know who she packed lunch for.”
“The food is a thank-you for fixing her sink.”
“Ah, avoiding my question and stalling for time.” Mike nodded. Perceptive and an asshole. “Perhaps you hope I have somewhere I need to be and if you avoid my questions, I’ll leave you alone.” Mike smiled. “My friend, that is not the case. I’m settling in for the long haul.”
Dan snorted. “Her sink was broken and I fixed it. She gave me a thank-you dinner and lunch. Hell, you even got Tilly’s delicious food to eat at home, while sitting on your butt in front of a White Sox game. There is nothing more to the story.”
“Bull. You’re eating roast chicken. You never order chicken from a menu until at least the third meal. It’s how you judge a chef’s ability to produce something—what’s the phrase you use?—‘simply delicious.’ You don’t want to let your thoughts on their roast chicken ruin your opinion of the rest of their menu. Even if you hadn’t written the stupid review yet, it’s not time to order roast chicken.”
Dan took another bite of his chicken and enjoyed its simple deliciousness. Mike could continue this conversation without his help.
“Man, that look on your face. You really are a bastard.”
“What the hell? You come to my house, interrupt my lunch and call me a bastard?”
“You go to a restaurant, eat a little of one meal, write a scathing review, finagle a date with the chef, go to her restaurant, eat her food, don’t tell her who you are and you expect not to be called a bastard. Are you temporarily crazy or do I need to call a doctor?”
“I told her who I was.” He regretted the words before they were even out of his mouth. Distracted by the chicken.
“Now you’re a bastard and a liar. No woman packs a man a lunch like that after hearing ‘Hi, my name is Dan and I ruined your career.’”
“I didn’t ruin her career.” Whether or not he wanted to admit it, once the people of Chicago tasted Tilly’s food, they would forget his review. He had made her career more difficult, but he hadn’t killed Babka. He was a respected food writer, but even he couldn’t compete with this roast chicken. “And she packed the lunch before I told her.”
Mike was stunned into silence. His lips were compressed into a thin line, ready to pronounce judgment on Dan for being an asshole and not telling Tilly the truth, but Dan’s admission stalled him.
Dan kept eating, not offering Mike a bite. Finally his friend humphed, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “You’re right. You didn’t ruin her career. You made a mistake with your review and haven’t admitted it to yourself yet. Or to her. Or to your reading public. She’ll probably come out of the review singed but otherwise unharmed. You may need to buy stock in bandage companies.”
Dan’s cheek throbbed at the memory of Tilly’s slap. “I didn’t make a mistake.” He took a bite of potato and chewed. Where did she get her produce? Her potatoes were fresh enough he could taste the soil they were grown in. “The n
ight was a disaster and should never have happened.”
“Meiers don’t make mistakes. Meiers make cheese,” Mike said with barely controlled sarcasm.
Dan choked on his potatoes as Mike echoed the conversation Dan had just had with his father. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’ve met your father. I know the unofficial family motto. Face up to the facts, Dan. You. Made. A. Mistake. You. Should. Correct. It.”
“She’s got blue hair. Doesn’t that say something about her sanity?”
“You think her blue hair is hot. I think that says something about yours.”
Dan stared at Mike. Mike stared back. It wasn’t even a fair contest. Dan wanted Tilly, but he couldn’t change the past and didn’t know how to reconcile those two facts. He put down his fork. “I know.” His sanity was questionable because he believed he could figure out how to see Tilly again and make their relationship happen—a bit like believing in aliens. The connection he felt with her was too powerful to be ignored, even if a restaurant critic pursuing a chef was beyond stupid.
“Why I am sitting here lecturing you? I have better things to do than play moral authority with a grown man.”
“I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Write another review. Isn’t that your job?”
“Another review would ruin my credibility as a critic.” This wasn’t about pride; this was about credibility. Dan could throw his pride to the wolves, but he lived off his credibility.
“Sucks to be you, then. You meet a cute woman who is also a fantastic cook and you screw it up before you even shake hands.”
“Chef.”
“Pardon?”
“She’s a chef. Nigella Lawson is a cook. A very hot cook, but still a cook. Tilly is a chef. They are both hot, but besides making food she has to be chief of the kitchen. It’s an entirely different level of responsibility, even if they both are delicious to look at and make delicious food.”
“Fantastic chef, then. Still doesn’t get you out of writing another review.”
Dan may be interested in Tilly, but it would have to snow someplace really hot before he’d write another review. Mike may be playing moral authority, but Dan was a restaurant authority. He hadn’t gotten to his position by writing reviews that started with, “Remember the other review I wrote? Well, don’t, because it was a mistake.” Dan had gotten where he was by having an opinion and sticking to it. He was paid for his opinion and he was going to keep it.
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