Brewed Awakening

by Cleo Coyle

  I could nearly smell the goodness of those nut brown orbs baking, hear the crunch of the crust as I broke one open fresh from the oven and buttered its pillowy white interior, so tender and fluffy, the sweet butter dripping from my fingers and chin as I took my first bite—

  My stomach growled. “Matt, have you got any food in this jalopy?”

  “No. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “I could eat, too, but stopping is a bad idea. I don’t want us spotted.” He thought a minute. “We could hit a drive-through.”

  “Do you know of any in this part of Queens?”

  At the next red light, Matt consulted his prepaid phone.

  “Really?” I said. “Your phone will tell you where to find a drive-through?”

  “Convenient, isn’t it? And in more ways than one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Once again, he flashed that infuriating smile. “You’ll see.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “AN eight-piece bucket, please,” Matt informed the dented speaker.

  “Just the chicken?” the tinny voice asked. “Or the whole meal?”

  I grabbed my ex-husband’s still-hard biceps. “I’m literally starving.”

  “The meal.”

  “Sides?”

  I was about to recite a list when Matt held up his hand and shot me a familiar amused look—one I usually saw in the bedroom: Don’t worry, Clare. I know what you like.

  The food came out hot and fast. Matt handed me the paper sack. I hurriedly opened it, ready to shove my face inside with all the polite refinement of a horse greeting its feed bag.

  “Hold on,” Matt commanded as he returned the van to Queens Boulevard. “Don’t eat yet.”

  “Are you kidding me?!”

  “Look, this isn’t just dinner, okay?” Matt said, taking a quick right. “You could make a mental breakthrough with this food.”

  “A mental breakthrough? With Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

  Matt nodded vigorously as he made another right, lapping us around the crowded residential block. “Be patient, Clare. I need to find a legal spot for us to park and eat.”

  Easier said than done. Zero spaces were free here; both curbs were packed with cars and vans, all of their bumpers kissing.

  “Can’t you just double-park? We won’t be long.”

  “I don’t want to risk some drive-by flatfoot with a ticket quota getting suspicious.”

  My stomach growled again, and I groaned. The tempting smell of freshly fried chicken was cruelly taunting my saliva glands. “I’m dying here. Can I at least eat a biscuit?!”

  He grabbed the bag from my lap and dropped it into his. “Control yourself.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my last hospital meal!”

  A few minutes later, we were passing the KFC again. This time we crossed over the wide, busy boulevard and motored down a much quieter cross street. Seeing a shadowy shoulder, Matt pulled over.

  “We’re nice and secluded here . . .” He killed the engine with satisfaction. “Perfect, huh?”

  “Perfectly creepy.”

  On one side of the road, I saw nothing but dingy brick warehouses, their garages shuttered for the night with pull-down doors of accordion metal. On the other side, a stone wall stretched as far as I could see with tangled brush below and tree limbs hanging above.

  “What’s on the other side of that wall? A park?”

  “Sort of.”

  I tried to remember the last map of Queens I’d consulted out of boredom on a taxi ride to the airport. I recalled seeing a large green space adjacent to Queens Boulevard, but it wasn’t a park—

  “That’s a cemetery!”

  “It has a lawn. And trees.”

  “There are graves in there!”

  “You want me to find another spot?”

  By now I was drooling.

  “Forget it,” I said. “If I don’t eat soon, I’ll be giving up the ghost. Then instead of driving me to the South Fork, you can dig me a bed on the other side of that wall.”

  “You know, I forgot how overly dramatic you used to get.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re acting like you did right after we divorced. Impatient, argumentative, accusatory. You’re much more mature now.”

  “Are you trying to get slapped?”

  “That’s your hanger talking.”

  “My what?”

  “Hunger plus anger equals—”

  “I get it. But if you don’t hand over some sustenance pronto, I’m going to hang you.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  AT long last, Matt passed me the sack of food. My hand was barely in the bucket before he cried—

  “Wait!”

  Oh, for the love of—

  “I want you to close your eyes before you take a bite.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  The car was plenty dark already, but I humored my relentlessly annoying ex-husband and let the world go black. Then I clamped my salivating maw around the juicy, breaded meat and (finally!) ate.

  Matt obviously did the same because his next words sounded garbled, presumably around a mouth full of Original Recipe.

  “Now, listen,” he said. “I want you to think about those old Kentucky Fried TV commercials, and the colonel in the white suit, and the eleven secret herbs and spices. What do you remember about that?”

  “Just that you used to joke about them being secret and whether I could detect them . . .” As I finished chewing and swallowing, I realized this wasn’t a guess. It was something I knew.

  “Go on,” Matt coaxed.

  “All three of us joked about it. Me, you, and our daughter. Chef Sherlock, that’s what Joy called me.”

  “And how is that sharp palate of yours doing? Can you detect any of the chicken’s herbs and spices now?”

  I took another bite, chewing more slowly.

  “Thyme, black pepper, oregano . . .”

  “That’s three,” Matt confirmed.

  “Don’t be impressed,” I said. “Those are typical spices in brand-name poultry seasonings. Thyme, black pepper, and oregano along with sage and some other spices. But I’m not tasting the usual sage—or rosemary or nutmeg. This chicken breading has a different flavor profile.”

  “What else do you taste?”

  I lifted the chicken to my nose and inhaled. Took a few more bites, letting the warm morsels roll around every taste receptor in my head.

  “Garlic, basil . . . paprika . . . and celery, or more likely celery salt . . .”

  “Keep going.”

  “Dried mustard . . . a bit of ginger. I’m also getting a tinge of MSG, which I doubt was in the original Sanders’s recipe. But, hey, in fast food, MSG makes everything better.”

  “Anything else?”

  “White pepper. That’s the real secret ingredient here—one you wouldn’t expect—and it’s used to great effect.”

  “You did it, Clare. You named them all.”

  “Oh, please. How could you possibly know that? It’s a corporate secret.”

  “Open your eyes.”

  A bright light nearly blinded me. It was Matt’s phone, shining in the dark van like a small, flat searchlight. On the screen was an article from the Chicago Tribune.

  “A few years ago, a Trib reporter went down to Corbin, Kentucky, to do a report on the birthplace of KFC. Colonel Sanders’s nephew showed him an old family scrapbook. Inside, the reporter found this—” Matt scrolled down to the picture of a handwritten list of eleven herbs and spices. “The KFC company refused to confirm its authenticity, but copycat cooks say it’s the real deal.”

  “Okay, fine, but I still don’t understand why fast-food fried chicken has anything to do with my
situation.”

  “Like I said, you tell me. Close your eyes again. Try to picture where you were the last time you tried to guess those chicken seasonings. Can you see it?”

  “Yes . . .”

  The memory was there. Just like that. No revelation, shock, or surprise. It felt as if I’d walked into a room in my head and observed a painting on the wall. Nothing about the artwork was new. All along it had been there. I simply hadn’t noticed it for years.

  “Go on,” Matt said.

  THIRTY

  “WE were at a picnic in a park. You and I were there together . . .”

  I saw Matt in my memory as clearly as my nonna on those mornings we baked together in her kitchen. He had cleaned himself up for the visit with me and Joy: close shave, trim haircut, new shirt, a subtle cologne. He was deeply tanned from a sourcing trip, looking muscular and attractive.

  “Joy was there, too, a young teenager—thirteen. Oh, my God, Matt, that picnic was a few years after we divorced! Part of the years I can’t remember!”

  “You’re doing great. Do you know how we got to the park?”

  “You showed up at my Jersey house, unexpected. You got back early from a finca in Central America and you had some time on your hands. So you drove out to see us and bought a bucket of chicken on the way. You wanted to have a picnic with Joy and me. I remember how you finally persuaded me.”

  “How?”

  “You said something funny about fried chicken as a peace offering in one of the countries where you source coffee. That sounds crazy. Can that be right?”

  “It’s right. I made a friend in El Salvador who served as a gang mediator. He told me that before they start their peace talks, the rival leaders always sit down to a meal of fried chicken from Pollo Campero. I figured, Hey, why not bring the tradition north?”

  He laughed softly, and I felt something inside me soften.

  “Of course, back then,” he went on, “there were no Pollo Campero restaurants in Jersey, let alone the tristate area. But KFC was close enough.”

  “Close enough to pacify a hostile ex-wife, you mean?”

  “Like I said, you tell me. What else do you remember, after I showed up with the bucket?”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated.

  “You drove us out to a nearby park, and I spread a blanket. I brought a cooler with homemade lemonade . . .” The images were rolling out quickly now.

  “As we ate, you challenged me to name the eleven herbs and spices in the chicken. Joy thought that would be a great game, and she joined you in egging me on. I had fun doing it. For the next year or so, she called me Chef Sherlock and kept asking me to guess the ingredients whenever we ate out.”

  “What happened after the picnic? Do you remember?”

  “Joy begged you to drive us to the shore, and we went. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the beach, and when Joy was off shopping for souvenir T-shirts and seashell jewelry, you and I got ice-cream cones and talked. It was the first time, since we’d split, that we had a really long talk about Joy and our lives, and our little daily problems, and we watched the clouds change colors over the ocean as the sun set and . . .”

  When my voice trailed off, Matt knew why. “You remember the kiss?”

  “Kissing, you mean. Once we started, we didn’t stop. I’m surprised I let it happen.”

  “Why? At that point in our relationship—our divorce relationship—things were going well. I was doing everything you asked to help you and Joy, and you appreciated it. Not that you wanted to get back together, but you were starting to forgive me, and you admitted you were missing . . . you know.”

  “No. Missing what?”

  “The good things we had. Our friendship. Our love of the coffee business. Our chemistry.”

  “You mean our physical chemistry?”

  “You can’t deny history, Clare. We were good together, especially in bed.”

  “And? Did we ever . . . you know, make love again, after the divorce?”

  “Oh, yeah. We did that night, and several more times in the years that followed.”

  I shook my head (in lieu of smacking it). “I can’t believe I slept with you after we split. Why would I do that?!”

  “Why not? You might have hated me, but you still loved me.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Of course it does. Down deep, you know it does.”

  “Sorry, but sitting here now, I don’t feel it.”

  “Maybe not now. But you did . . .”

  He sat back, studying me in the shadowy van, his big brown bedroom eyes doing their best to remind me of a double ristretto—warm, sweet, and hard to resist.

  “You know what might help?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Since your memory responds well to sensory stimuli, what if we played out what happened that night?”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You want me to go to bed with you?”

  “We could start with a kiss?”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  “Just think about it. We have a long drive ahead. The house where we’re going is peaceful and secluded. We can take our time getting to know each other again—”

  A flashing red light cut Matt short. The pair of us sat in tense stillness, until the NYPD patrol car flew by our van, silent as the grave.

  “No siren,” I said absently. “Probably a 10-31, crime in progress . . .”

  I marveled at my own words, confused by this sharp, sure knowledge. I looked at Matt.

  “Where did I learn that?”

  “No idea,” he said.

  But I could tell he had some idea. His whole demeanor had changed. He was frosty now, less friendly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Then the engine turned over, and we were on our way.

  THIRTY-ONE

  MIKE

  “GOT a minute?”

  Lieutenant Michael Quinn looked up from a desk buried in paper to find Detective Anthony DeMarco loitering in his office doorway. A quick glance at the wall clock told him he’d been at it nonstop for five hours.

  “Come on in, Tony.”

  “Burning the eight-o’clock oil again?”

  “The work piles up . . .”

  That was Quinn’s response, not the whole story.

  He’d been stealing daylight hours away from his job with attempts to help the woman he loved. There were repeated face-to-face appeals to the Annette Brewster investigating officers (uptown), the DA’s office (downtown), the chief of detectives, and the deputy mayor—with little to show for his efforts.

  His colleagues still didn’t see Clare Cosi as a credible witness. Nor did they see her as a candidate for protective custody. With her written consent for treatment, she was legally in Dr. Dominic Lorca’s care, and that was safe enough, as far as the NYPD was concerned.

  Not as far as Quinn was concerned.

  After a barrage of inquiries, he had secured a consultation appointment with a well-respected (and extremely pricey) law firm. That meeting, in which he hoped to use legal pressure to set Clare free, wouldn’t happen until Monday. Tonight was Friday, which meant this weekend would be the longest of his life.

  Not that it mattered. There was no Clare to go home to.

  And, anyway, all that stolen time from the job meant hours of catch-up, primarily with paperwork. People were another matter. Quinn had command responsibilities. Despite his personal problems, he would always try to support his people. Now he sat back in his chair and loosened his tie.

  “What can I do for you, Tony?”

  DeMarco looked frayed around the edges. He was on cleanup detail after a batch of bad fentanyl-laced heroin hit the Tremont section of the Bronx. From the anxious expression on the young man’s face, Quinn guessed there was
more bad news.

  “The medical examiner confirmed an overdose death. It’s that teenage girl I found on Montgomery Street.”

  Despite near-numbing exhaustion, and the sad reality of what had become his OD Squad’s routine business, Quinn felt a stab of emotion. Five people in the hospital, one dead—and just a kid.

  His frustration had been building for days. Now Quinn just wanted to rage. But he checked himself, and made sure his reply was calm, measured, managerial.

  “It could have been worse. That was good work catching the dealers so quickly. Who knows how many lives you saved?”

  “I know one I didn’t,” Tony muttered.

  “You can’t save everyone . . .” It was a trite response. Quinn knew it, even as he said the words.

  He remembered Clare serving that same mush to him one night.

  “You can’t save everyone, Mike.”

  “That’s a trite expression,” he’d snapped back to her, regretting the words as soon as he’d said them. He’d been feeling bitter over a lost cause, taking it personally, like DeMarco was now.

  Before he could even begin his apology to her, Clare forgave him. Seeing the pain in his eyes, she put a hand on his cheek, brushed her lips across his, and whispered—

  “Just because it’s trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  Unlike his first disastrous relationship—with an immature woman who never understood, never forgave—Clare was relentless in her love and her belief in his goodness. Her steely faith in him never failed to keep him propped.

  He could still hear her soft voice in his ear; still see her smiling that unsinkable Clare smile, filled with a level of stubborn optimism that he’d never encountered before (not in this city).

  Well, trite or not, words wouldn’t change a thing. Not for the men in this office. He felt as helpless as DeMarco.