*
COLLEEN'S THOUGHTS WERE muddled at work. She had the lunchtime shift today, and O'Rourke's was mobbed with tourists and locals alike. Rafe was in the kitchen, singing opera, serenading her whenever she came in. She went through the motions, joking with her staff, ruffling the hair of children, asking out-of-towners which vineyards they'd visited, suggesting places to go if the forecast for rain held up.
Around two, when the crowds had left for the vineyards or sails on the lake or a nap, Colleen was wiping down the bar as the blender screeched, pulverizing more watermelon for the cocktail of the day (watermelon mojitos, terribly delicious). The only customers were a family of Swedes at a booth in the back, Victor Iskin, who came in every afternoon for a little mental health break from his wife, and Prudence and Carl Vanderbeek, who were pretending to be strangers meeting over a game of pool, despite the fact that they'd been married almost twenty-five years.
The door opened, and in came her father.
That was a rarity. He usually only came here to pick up Savannah, and then he texted from the parking lot.
"Hi," she said.
"Hey. Is Connor here?"
"No. He's at the farmer's market."
"Oh." Dad stood there a second.
"Have a seat," she said. "Want something to drink? A menu?"
"No, Colleen, I'm not here for food. I ate already."
Yes, of course. He never did come in here, a fact that both relieved and irritated her. "Well, sit down. You're making me nervous," she said.
"I'm divorcing Gail."
Shit.
The Swedish father came over and handed Colleen the bill. "Thank you so much," he said.
"Bye!" the children chorused, beautiful little blonds all. The beautiful mother waved, as well.
"Bye, guys!" Colleen said. "Come again!"
She waited until they'd left, then turned to her father. "Wow."
"Things have cooled off between us--"
"Dad, who cares? What about Savannah?"
He gave her a frosty look. "What about her?"
"Does she know? Is she handling it okay?"
"We haven't told her yet. She'll be fine."
"She better be, I guess. God forbid her emotional state gets in your way. Do you have a younger mistress on the side?"
"Colleen, don't make everything about you, okay? I waited till you and Connor were grown to divorce your mother. I think you'd be over it by now." He paused. "I wanted you to know."
With that, he turned and left.
Colleen unclenched her jaw. Note how he didn't answer the question about a girlfriend, the ass.
Savannah was going to be wrecked. Colleen pulled out her phone and sent her sister a quick text: Thinking of you, Yogi! How's your day going? xoxox
A second later, the answer came. I miss you too! That party was fun! Guess what? I lost three pounds!
Colleen closed her eyes. A nine-year-old shouldn't have to worry about weight issues. Can't wait for Friday, she texted back. Love you!
The bar phone rang, waking up Victor. "O'Rourke's, home of the finest watermelon mojitos in the known universe."
"It's Lucas."
The rush of heat was fast and thrilling. "Hey."
"Dinner tonight?" There were hammers in the background; he must be at her mom's or the public safety building.
"Okay."
"Name the place."
"Mine."
"Got it. Seven?"
"Great."
She hung up. World's shortest phone convo, but hey. He never was good at talking in the first place. She was going to sleep with him tonight. Or, more likely, not sleep with him. It was time.
Connor came in through the back, his arms laden with whatever he'd picked up at the farmer's market for today's special. He took one look at her face and stopped. Scowled. "I don't want to hear about it," he said. "I warned you."
"Thanks for the brotherly concern. Dad and Gail are getting a divorce."
"Oh, shit," her brother said. "Poor Savannah."
"I know. Dad's being his prickish self."
"Why would today be any different?" He pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen, where Rafe was wiping down the counters.
"Ciggie break for the beautiful people," Rafe said, tossing the dishrag into the sink and grabbing his backpack. He zipped out the back door.
Colleen sat on the stainless steel counter. "Get off," Connor said. "Some people care about where their food is prepared, unlike you."
"I once ate a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup I found on the sidewalk," she said. "Yet here I am, still walking the earth."
"Doesn't make you less gross. Come on, off." He shoved her toward the stool and sprayed down the counter, full of martyrish zeal.
"I don't like Gail, God knows," Colleen said, "but I don't see Savannah being better off with them divorced."
"I imagine you asked Dad why they were splitting up."
"Yeah. He didn't answer. My money's on Hot Young Mistress 2.0." Poor Gail. Her whole identity was being hot young mistress/wife...and even if she wasn't quite as young as she used to be, she was still a helluva lot younger than Dad.
Poor Gail. That was a new thought.
"Con," she said, "you ever miss the old Dad?"
Her brother stopped his anal-retentive cleaning and looked up. "What old Dad? He's always been a prick, Coll." He gave her shoulder a squeeze as he passed to the sink and began rinsing cilantro.
"Not always."
"He was. He just liked you more, so you didn't notice."
"Doesn't seem that simple." She looked at her brother's face. He was in the Food Zone, hypnotized by the smells and textures of his work. "Why did you get all the Zen genes?" she asked.
"Also the smart genes, don't forget."
"Is that what your woman tells you? Oh, by the way, I figured out who it was."
"Did you?"
"Julianne from the library."
"Nope."
"Damn. Okay, I'm leaving. Monica and Hannah are both on tonight, and that dopey Annie. Have a good one."
He looked up. "Be careful," he said after a beat.
"Yep. No drinking and driving, no unprotected sex."
"And no tuna fish."
"Got it."
"Are you cooking, or is he?"
"I am."
"Poor Lucas."
"Hey, why don't you cook for us? I can come pick it up just before seven."
A jaundiced look. "No, Colleen. I'm not making you two your pre-sex meal."
"It might be a postsex meal."
"You disgust me."
"Fine," she said. "I don't need you. If you can read, you can cook. You don't need to go to the CIA." She stuck out her tongue and smacked him on the back of the head as she left.
"By the way, I won't be coming home tonight," he called. "Because I don't want to hear a damn thing."
"That's fine by me. Go to her, your ladylove." She paused in the doorway. "Is it Lorelei? Because I thought Gerard and she would be perfect together."
"Get out of my kitchen. And be careful."
"No tuna for anyone!" she called as she left.
*
THE PROMISED RAIN started to fall around six.
The apartment was quiet; Rufus and she had gone for a run earlier, and her dog seemed to be in a coma, out cold in front of the couch. No music because Colleen needed to concentrate. She didn't spend a lot of time cooking--what was the point of owning a chef-brother if you couldn't eat for free? But for this night, she wanted to make her man a meal.
"If you can read, you can cook," she repeated aloud, then surveyed the groceries she'd bought. Tonight's menu was meant to impress, yes. To start, beet, almond and goat cheese salad, followed by braised scallops in a white wine reduction over celery root and potato puree and topped with fresh dill; a roasted carrot and parsnip side dish topped with freshly grated Romano cheese; and vanilla bean creme fraiche pudding topped with fresh raspberries.
She may have overcommitted.<
br />
Frowning, she checked the recipes she'd pulled up online. Damn. The carrot thing had to cook for three hours. Really? Were carrots worth cooking that long? Honestly, that smacked of hubris, didn't it? I, the lowly carrot, formerly growing in the dirt, demand three hours in the oven.
Speaking of vegetables with attitude...the celery root was grotesque and vaguely homoerotic, somehow. The produce guy at the market had to show her where it was. Thirty-one years old, and Colleen had never seen a celery root before, despite having a twin who viewed cooking dinner on the same level as performing open-heart surgery on a child in the middle of a field after a plane crash.
Ah, well, time to get to work. Because raw seafood made her sick to her stomach, she figured she'd cook the scallops first. Melted the butter (not hard at all!), opened the container and dumped the nasty little creatures in. Speaking of nausea, she hadn't talked to Faith in eighteen entire hours.
She found her phone, wandered out on the little balcony and called her pal. Faith and Levi's house was on the next block, two houses down, so their backyards almost adjoined.
"Hey!" she said when Faith answered. "I'm looking at your house. If I get a telescope, I could totally spy on you two."
"The good stuff happened an hour ago, the second that man walked through the door," Faith said, a smile in her voice.
"Le sigh. How's my godchild?"
"It's official, by the way. We told my dad. There were tears."
"Oh! You Hollands! Please ask your father to adopt me, since he threw me over for that slutty housekeeper."
"I'm telling Mrs. J. you said that."
"Don't you dare." She could hear Levi's voice in the background.
"So what's going on with you and Lucas?" Faith asked. "Don't think I didn't notice that you two were missing for an hour at the picnic yesterday."
"Um...he's coming here for dinner."
"Is that code for sex?"
"Probably." There was no probably about it. "Am I being stupid, Faith?"
There was a pause. "I can't imagine you'd be stupid."
"That pause concerns me." She glimpsed Mr. Wong in the yard next door doing tai chi (or swatting a mosquito in slow motion). "I might be stupid. This isn't a sure thing at all, him and me."
"Is it ever? I mean, Jeremy and I were a sure thing."
"Extenuating circumstances, pal."
"And then, for a while, I thought Honor and Tom weren't going to make it, and look at them. Hey, are you bringing Lucas to the wedding next weekend?"
"I don't know. Should I?"
"Yes! So romantic! Levi, don't you think Colleen should bring Lucas to Honor's wedding? He does."
There was a funny smell out here...someone was burning leaves or trash. "I should probably go," Colleen said. "I have to do stuff. Food stuff. I also have to change into slutty underwear."
"Have fun," Faith said. "You're not stupid."
Colleen smiled. "Thanks, hon. Talk to you tomorrow."
She turned, froze, then bolted.
It wasn't leaves that were burning. It was scallops.
She yanked the frying pan off the burner. The smell was thick, but not quite acrid. More of a tarry, oily smell. "Sphincter," she muttered.
Well, great chefs were innovators, right? She dumped the scallops onto a paper towel, let them cool a bit...crap, the carrots and parsnips needed to get cooking, didn't they? She grabbed another pot, filled it with water, figuring she'd boil them a bit to soften, then roast them. Not to mention the stupid puree. Whose idea was this whole thing? Would it have been so hard to go to a restaurant?
She chopped the carrots and parsnips, figuring they'd cook faster that way, and threw them into the pot. Turned back to the scallops. She'd just trim off the burnt bottom edges. But wait, weren't blackened scallops kind of good?
Time to call for backup. "Hey, Con," she said.
"We're slammed. What's up?"
"Blackened scallops--delicious?"
"They're great. Bye."
Perfect! Necessity, the mother of invention.
Who said cooking was hard?
*
AN HOUR LATER, right on time, a knock came at the door.
Shit. "Don't come in!" she yelled. "Not yet, don't come in! And don't look through the window, either! I will gouge your eyes out if you do. Sorry! That sounded mean. I didn't intend it that way."
"Is there a nice way to say 'gouge your eyes out'?" Lucas asked, his voice full of laughter.
That voice was foreplay incarnate. She damn well better have the same effect on him, or life was just not fair.
But first, she had to feed the man. She wasn't ready to fall into bed (give her an hour). And before they could eat, she had to get rid of the, er, evidence. She resumed flapping the dish towel at the window, trying to dispel the thin veil of smoke layering the kitchen. Who knew roasting beets was so hard? How dare they be hard? It wasn't like they were the world's most popular vegetable.
Rufus wandered into the kitchen, started to snuff at the scallops, then hung his head and slunk away. Perhaps not a good sign.
It didn't smell so good in there. She dashed around, grabbing scented candles from various and sundry surfaces throughout the apartment.
Lucas knocked again. "Colleen? Everything all right?"
"Stop bugging me! I know you're here! Just...give me a sec."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yes! Why would you even ask that? It's fine. Just...I'm changing, that's all." And yes, she had to change because at the moment, she was wearing a now-filthy, beet-stained, scallop-stained, everything-stained O'Rourke's T-shirt with the sweatpants she'd stolen from Connor last month and hemmed by hacking off four inches at the bottom, and it wasn't as sexy as it sounded.
The smoke could dissipate on its own. She had to beautify. She yanked off her shirt, tripping over Rufus. "Sorry, baby."
"Did you say something?" Lucas asked. He may have been laughing.
"Shut up! Just wait for me!" The shirt caught on her hair clip, tugging painfully, and she whacked her knee on the door frame, then staggered into the door so that it slammed into the wall.
"Colleen?"
"I'm coming! Just keep your pants on."
Seven minutes later, she was slightly sweaty but totally gorgeous, please God. Tight black dress, hair down (if perhaps smelling of charred mollusks), some lip gloss, long silver earrings, barefoot because she'd spilled some boiling water on her foot and her slutty shoes were a bit painful to begin with.
Oh, crikey. She needed a nap. And possibly the fire department.
But no, no, Lucas was here. Her one and only love, etc., etc., and yes, she was excited about that. It would've been nice if she had time for a shower, but hey. What was a girl to do? She opened the door.
"Hi," she said, trying for dew-kissed and sultry, and her voice did sound huskier, thanks to the smoke inhalation from earlier. "Come on in." Rufus began his Serenade of the Visitor. Ah rah! Ah rah! Ah rooroo rah!
"It smells so good in here," Lucas said. "Were you burning feathers?"
"Hush, boy. It'll be delicious. I had a slight fire. It was nothing. Wine?"
"Sounds like I'll need some." He held out a bouquet of yellow roses.
"Thanks," she said.
They were her favorite. He remembered.
Le sigh.
Lucas surveyed the kitchen. "Wow. Look at all this. Did you just make dinner for China?"
"You want to eat tonight or not?" she asked. But yeah, okay, she was seeing the kitchen through his eyes. Plates, pots, bowls, spatulas, three frying pans, a Dutch oven, several whisks and three cookie sheets. Oh, and the baseball bat she used because she couldn't find a rolling pin.
"How many people are coming tonight?" he asked.
"You're it." She poured some wine and downed it, then refilled her glass and got him one. "So. What's new? Oh, shit, I forgot about those conceited beets! Go in the living room and stay out of my way. Sorry! I meant that in a nice way. Get. Go. Come on, I'm losing
the war here."
"Do you want help, Colleen?"
"No! Just get out. Scratch my dog's stomach."
He left, Rufus following, and Colleen yanked on an oven mitt, grabbed the beets out of the oven (they looked like charcoal briquettes, for the love of God, maybe jacking the heat to five hundred hadn't been wise). The Pyrex dish slipped from her hands and clattered against the oven door, spilling half the ashen vegetable.
"I'm fine!" she called. "Do not come in here."
Forty-five minutes later, feeling as if she'd just fought off an army of rabid mountain gorillas, she sat down at the table. "Beet salad with goat cheese and roasted almonds over a bed of arugula," she said.
Not that she was hungry, not after seeing all this food for the past eternity. But hey. Maybe she'd feel better after she started eating.
She tried to cut a beet. It was harder than perhaps it should've been. She had sawed off the burnt parts, and they were the requisite color of blood, but they weren't exactly tender. She kept trying. Nope, nothing. More pressure, perhaps? The knife snapped, her hand thunking down on the table, clattering the dishes.
Lucas raised an eyebrow--Prince of Darkness, Sardonic Edition--but said nothing.
Well, how about an almond? Harmless creatures, almonds. Except this one appeared to be petrified. Onto the goat cheese. That, at least, was delicious. A little clot of it fell off her fork and shot right down into her cleavage. Colleen opted to pretend that didn't happen.
Lucas smiled.
"And how was your day, dear?" she asked.
"Wonderful." He tried to cut a beet, failed and took a bite of arugula, chewed, winced and washed it down with a lot of water. Sue her. It wasn't arugula season, and yes, fine! It was bitter. "How's Paulie today?"
"Sad. Hungry." She tried another almond. Crikey, the thing was as hard as a pebble. Hopefully her molar hadn't just cracked. "How's Bryce?"
"Unemployed once again."
"Yeah, I heard about that." From the kitchen came a popping sound.
Damn it! She'd turned up the heat under the scallops to warm them up, as she maybe cooked them a tiny bit early (like, two hours too early). "Back in a flash."
Scallops, she learned, could be both leathery, burnt and yet still undercooked. The celery root and potato puree was the consistency of water; perhaps she shouldn't have boiled the ingredients quite so much, but she'd been trying to speed things up. The carrots and parsnips were okay, if you liked tasteless, rubbery vegetables.
Ah. Here was one small scallop that was only charred and not raw. She ate it, cringing at the carbon flavor, and heard the unmistakable crunch of sand.
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