by Nadia Gordon
“You don’t really think Andre is involved in something criminal?” said Rivka.
“How should I know? I hardly know the guy.”
“You know. And I think you also know that you’re freaking out. This is a textbook example of the power of the subconscious. Your well-documented fear of intimacy is manifesting itself as a literal fear of Andre. You need to get a grip. The best-looking guy in the Valley already thinks you hate him. You stood him up and didn’t even bother to phone to say why. McCoskey, you’re going to mess up a great thing before it even gets off the ground.”
Sunny frowned. “You think so?”
“Absolutely. Trust me on this one. Andre Morales may be a lot of things, but he is not a murderer or a scam artist. Why would he do something like that? He’s successful, his career is taking off. He’s not going to risk all that for a little extra cash. The guy has everything to lose.”
“Exactly,” said Sunny, frowning.
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“I mean that he has everything to lose, if someone found out about something he did. He has a motive.”
Rivka shook her head and went back to washing vegetables. Sunny sipped her cappuccino like it was medicine and watched Rivka work. She was wearing her standard back-of-house uniform: white tank top with a black camisole underneath for sauce, black studded belt, jeans generously cuffed at the bottom, black work stompers. On the backs of her slender arms were swallows tattooed in blue and red, one swooping back, the other forward, circling. It was impossible for Sunny to imagine her without her tattoos. It was equally impossible to tell her about her experience with Remy Castels that morning. Now that it was broad daylight and Rivka was standing in front of her looking perfectly sane and normal, none of it made sense. Bursting in on Remy, imagining he’d drugged her, suspecting he was lying about Nathan. But things she knew to be true didn’t always sound right either.
“You know what is happening,” Rivka said without turning around.
“What?”
“Your inner control freak is seizing up.”
Rivka looked back at Sunny, who raised her eyebrows dubiously.
“You know I’m right,” said Rivka. “You let down your guard for a little while on Sunday. You let the genie out of her bottle for the night and she went and had a great time, and now you’re vulnerable. You’re scared you’re going to get hurt because you like Andre Morales too much and you got in too deep, too fast. So the answer is to create a problem. There has to be a problem, because then you can fix it, thereby regaining control of your life. And if you can shove him away in the process, all the better. Competence is your security blanket, McCoskey, and you have to have a crisis in order to exhibit your competence, so you are manufacturing one.”
“Go on, doctor. Tell me what you think.”
“I’ve seen it for years now. When things get stressful, you work. It’s a decent coping mechanism professionally, but it doesn’t work so well when it comes to love. You can’t control love. No matter how meticulous and smart and diligent you are, love can still bite you in the ass. There is nothing you can do to make love a safe place.”
“Oy.” Rivka was sounding old for twenty-four, Sunny thought.
“That is the sound that says I’m right and you know it. Face it, you’re risk averse. You have your world set up the way you like it with your restaurant and your house and you’re not about to jeopardize any of that. Only there’s something missing in your life, and you’re going to have to let go of controlling everything in order to get it.”
“Are you seeing Doug again?” asked Sunny. Rivka’s therapist.
“Not professionally. We had a drink last week.”
“He gave you a freebie.”
“I said I would cater his kid’s birthday party.”
“A three-year-old needs a caterer for his birthday party?”
“Egg salad sandwiches, curly fries, and Jell-O parfait.”
“Reasonable. What does he say about you and Alex?”
“That we should take a few weeks apart.”
“Because?”
“Don’t change the subject. You should give Andre a chance. You’re perfect for each other. Did you happen to get a look at yourself Monday morning? I haven’t seen you that happy since Monty slipped on a banana peel coming out of Bismark’s.”
“That was such a beautiful sight. I love it when life imitates cliché. If I should die suddenly, I want you to commission a mural for downtown of Monty slipping on the banana peel. Do it for me.”
“Fine. No problem.”
“So why do you and Alex need a few weeks apart?”
“Cooling-off period before we restart negotiations. You know how I feel. I love him, but I’m not ready to sign up for a lifelong partnership and he is. It doesn’t matter how perfect Alex is, I can’t make that kind of commitment right now. We need a few weeks to come to terms with the inevitable.”
“Ouch.”
“I know. That’s why it’s more fun to think about you and Señor Morales. I have a really good feeling about it.”
“His body rocks the house,” said Sunny.
“It’s more than that and you know it.”
“His jacket smells like a campfire and he uses soap that smells like a lumberyard.”
“That’s good?”
“Very good.”
“You can take the girl out of the boondocks, but you can’t take the boondocks out of the girl.”
“Especially when she never left the boondocks.”
“Yeah, but the boondocks went upscale.”
“Les Boondocks.”
They fell silent and worked for a while without talking. It was one of those sublimely quiet winter mornings, when the whole world was happy to go dormant for a few weeks.
“Okay, how about this,” said Rivka finally. “What if Lenstrom is wrong and there’s nothing wrong with the wine?”
“No, he’s right.”
“How do you know?”
“I checked.”
Actually, she hadn’t checked. There wasn’t time. But Remy’s reaction to her accusation had proved the wine was fake. She took the caramelized onions off the heat and started a new batch.
“I was up really late last night,” Sunny said.
“Baking what?” said Rivka, smiling.
“Morning buns with noyau frosting.”
“Noyau frosting. How long did that take?”
“Not that long. I went to see Remy Castels this morning.”
Rivka looked at her. “The sommelier? Why?”
“I figured I would stop by to see what he knew about the two Marcelines.”
Rivka’s eyes widened. “And?”
“He wasn’t very happy to talk about it.”
“I’ll bet. The man thinks he runs the best cellar in the Western world and you come in and tell him his most expensive wine is a swindle.”
“More or less.”
The rest of Wildside’s staff was starting to arrive. Bertrand, the maître d’, had come in and was stocking the wine bar. The two servers came in soon after and started getting the floor ready. Sunny checked the kitchen clock. The lunch rush would start in two hours. She barely had time to get ready. It was time to stop talking and get serious. Besides, what she had to say even she didn’t believe. Rivka was sure to think it was paranoia. Still, she had to tell someone.
“Riv, call me crazy, but I think he may have tried to drug me,” she said softly.
“Who, Andre?”
“No, no, not Andre. I’m not that baked. Remy. This morning.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, really. I’ve never felt like that before, except maybe when I had the flu. You know how I am, I stay up all night all the time. It makes me a little loopy, but not like that. I passed out this morning.”
“Are you serious?”
“I only had a few sips of the tea he served, but I barely made it out of there before I fell asleep.”
“If y
ou really think that’s what happened, we should phone the police,” said Rivka.
Sunny put a hand up for her to lower her voice.
“And I can say that I stayed up half the night baking for no particular reason,” said Sunny in a whisper, “dropped in on a near stranger at the crack of dawn, then fell asleep for an hour afterward in my car and now I’d like them to arrest him because I think he drugged me. They’ll have me locked up in Napa State by noon.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t sound too good. So what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing, other than politely decline anything Remy Castels pours for me until I figure out what’s going on.”
“Is there something going on?” Rivka said skeptically.
“I think so. I’m beginning to think it’s something pretty bad, too. And I still don’t know where Andre got that bottle of wine.”
“Have you asked him?”
“No, not until I know more. I’ve been avoiding him. Besides, how can I ask him without admitting I think he might be involved in fraud or Nathan’s murder, or both?”
Rivka scowled. “Now you’re sure Nathan Osborne was murdered?”
“It’s just a theory. Not even a theory. It’s just a feeling.”
“And where Andre got the wine is important to your theory?” said Rivka.
“Very.”
“Listen, as your best friend, I can personally guarantee that Andre is innocent of any association with fraudulent wine.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
Sunny narrowed her eyes. “Rivka Marie Chavez, you’re holding out on me.”
“I swore I wouldn’t tell.”
“We’re not playing secrets. You might have a piece of the puzzle. I have to know.”
Rivka sighed and came closer so she could speak softly. “I want it on record that I disclose this information under protest. I wasn’t going to tell you, but you’re being so weird about Andre and murder that I’m going to do it for your own good.”
“Duly noted.”
“Okay, I went over to Dahlia Zimmerman’s house after work yesterday.”
“Who is Dahlia Zimmerman?”
“Dahlia. The waitress at Vinifera with the turquoise hair and the butterfly.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“She’s a painter and I wanted to see her work. It’s amazing, by the way. Pretty dark, but really interesting. I took some pictures. I’ll bring the camera in and show you tomorrow.”
Sunny nodded. “And?”
“And she told me some stuff about Nathan Osborne. How she dated him on and off for the last year. He sounded like an okay guy, just really bad in relationships and couldn’t make up his mind. He was always breaking up with her, then coming back and saying he loved her and couldn’t live without her, then breaking up with her again. Total bullshit. Anyway, recently they got back together and things seemed to be going pretty well. She was thinking they might really be falling in love and it’s all great. So he invites her to dinner at his house. He says he’s going to cook something special, because he has something important to talk with her about and he wants it to be just the two of them, not at a restaurant with everyone around. He says he’s picked out a very special bottle of wine and everything. So she’s thinking he’s going to ask her to marry him or move in or something. She gets all dressed up and excited and she goes over to his house, and before they even sit down to eat, she figures out that he’s not going to ask her to marry him, he’s actually breaking up with her so he can go back to his old girlfriend again. He thought that if he made a fancy dinner and opened a pricey bottle of wine she would take it better.”
“That’s awful. But where is this going?”
“She was completely crushed, as well as sizably pissed off. So she tells him to take his dinner and put it where the breeze don’t blow and stormed out. On her way out, she saw the bottle of wine he’d made such a big deal about and decided to take it with her. They were going to drink it that night, and she said she figured she was still entitled.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” said Sunny.
“Right. So, well, she was upset. And hurt. She’s crying and angry. She’s mad at herself for trusting him again, feels foolish, the whole deal. And it’s still early.”
Rivka paused, then went on. “She wanted to hurt Nathan any way she could.”
“And?” said Sunny.
“Right,” said Rivka cautiously. “So she calls up the one person she knows Nathan Osborne is jealous of and asks if she can come over.”
“Oh.”
“Should I stop?”
“No, bring it on. I can take it.”
“Well, there’s not much else to tell. I guess there had always been some chemistry there. She goes to his place with the wine, but they don’t drink it.”
“Because they’re so busy.”
“Or maybe they’re not thirsty,” said Rivka, generously. “You never know.”
“Maybe they just stayed up late talking it through,” said Sunny. “She had a nice cry on his shoulder and he sent her home.”
“You wish! She said they got it on in a huge way.”
“Riv!”
“You said you could take it! Now it’s all out. Besides, it didn’t mean anything to either of them.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make it better. When was this? It couldn’t have been that long ago.”
“Mm, it wasn’t.”
“Oh no. When?”
“Friday night before last.”
“As in a week before he got together with me?”
“A week and two days.”
Sunny shook her head and tried to go back to what she’d been doing, but the knife in her hand suddenly felt like a foreign object that she had no idea how to use. A loud noise seemed to fill her head, like aluminum siding being dragged across asphalt. She tried to think logically. Sure, she might have all kinds of feelings now, but a week ago she hardly knew Andre Morales. How could she be jealous about something that happened before she was even part of his life? Dahlia Zimmerman was a preexisting condition. Nothing to be upset about. So it was a little nauseating. Suggested some excessively flexible standards on Andre’s part. Other than that, what was the problem?
“Not that I really want to know, but what happened after that?” asked Sunny.
“Nothing. It was just a night and then it was over,” said Rivka, munching on a carrot.
“They’re not still seeing each other.”
“No, it’s over. They’re friends. She said they both think of it as an overstep brought about by traumatic circumstances. I wouldn’t have told you about it at all, except you kept going on about where that wine came from. Now you know. Andre never knew it was phony.”
“And she’s not interested in him? Or him in her?”
“Not at all. She’s still pretty shook up about Nathan. She was hardly over his last change of heart, then he died. That’s all she talked about the whole time I was there. She said there was a point when she actually hated him. Apparently he flip-flopped on her several times. Said he loved her, wanted to be with her, then broke up over some little thing and went back to his previous girlfriend. Then a couple of months later he’d come back saying that she was the one he really loved, yadda yadda. She still wasn’t talking to him the night he died. She said she felt horrible about it, that they never got a chance to make up. I think she still loved him. But she’s starting to deal with it all now. She made a shrine for him. She built a wooden box and painted little tableaux on each panel, inside and out, and filled it with things associated with him. It’s incredible looking. She’s really talented.”
“A shrine? She’s worshiping him?”
“No, it’s more like the shrines they make in Mexico when someone dies. You know, with candles and paper flowers and milagros. It’s to honor the person’s memory and wish them well on their spirit journey in the afterlife. She wants his soul to be at peace.”
“
Or so she says. Are you sure she hadn’t made her voodoo shrine before he died? The guy dumped her.”
“That’s jealousy talking. She can’t help that she knew Andre before you did.”
“Everyone I talk to paints a completely different picture of Nathan Osborne and has a whole other reason to hate him—at the same time they profess to love him.”
11
Something about the maître d’s tone of voice made Sunny look up just in time to see Andre Morales walking toward the counter where she was working at the end of Wildside’s lunch rush. It was a snapshot she would remember for years to come, him unwrapping a black scarf from around his neck, smiling at her as he approached. She finished firing a shot of espresso, set a tiny spoon on the saucer, and curled a strip of lemon zest on top, then put it up for the waiter to take. When she was done she wiped her hands on a towel and leaned across the zinc bar to give Andre a kiss on each cheek. Instead he touched her chin and brought her mouth to his for a real kiss.
“I called you last night,” he said, “but you must have been asleep already. Nick said you weren’t feeling well.”
He looked into her eyes and she felt her face begin to heat up.
“Or maybe you weren’t home yet,” he said, giving her a mischievous grin. “You look pretty healthy to me.”
“I must not have heard it ring,” said Sunny. She looked back at Rivka, who was giving more attention than necessary to the arrangement of a poached pear with chocolate sauce and trying not to look like she was listening. Sunny walked around the counter and gestured to an empty table.
A few stragglers dotted the room, lingering over coffee and dessert. Andre sat down and she took a seat opposite him, smoothing the sleeves of her jacket. He watched her, not in a hurry to say anything. He looked clean and rested, and she thought of her own appearance with regret. Her uniform was baggy and unflattering in the best of conditions, and now it was sticky with sweat and notably worse for the day’s wear. The rest of her was no more presentable. She was covered head to toe in a thin layer of oil atomized from the grill so that the smell of grilled salmon and halibut, duck breasts, and pork loin seemed to ooze from her pores. Her face was shiny with grease and her short hair was tied up in little bunches all over her head, except for the very back, which lay against her neck like she’d styled it with aioli. She had the urge to pull her jacket up over her head and slink away, but a twinge of irritation saved her. Andre knew what a cook looked and smelled and felt like at the end of a shift. He should have known better than to arrive unannounced at the close of a long day, after she’d had a hectic, sleepless night. The fact that he didn’t know she’d had a sleepless night or a harrowing morning at Remy Castels’ house was no excuse.