"I"m not asking you to." He skimmed a spray of bread crumbs from the bare wood of the table. "My mother died violently. I think I know a little about prurient interest."
She gazed at him impa.s.sively, mask still glittering and cold. "I"m sorry," she said without emotion.
Around her there was a disturbance, a bending of the air like the fine bands of heat waves that rose from a fire. For a moment, Julian thought it seemed there was fire flickering out from her very skin, like the pictures of saints, but there was no mistaking the cold on her face.
Abruptly, she leaned forward, pushing her plate away so she could put her forearms over the table. Her eyes, fierce and sapphire, burned in her face. "Do you know how many times men have wanted to sleep with me because I survived such a gruesome accident?"
"Elena-"
"Do you know how often some reporter has come in to do a story on a restaurant and heard the rumors of my past and tried to get it out of me? I"m like a priest who gave up the calling-everyone wants to know the story." Her eyes narrowed. "I will not give you a story, Mr. Director."
Heat touched his cheeks. Shame. Quietly, he said, "Touche."
"The thing is," she said, "it"s so ordinary. How many people die in a car accident every day?"
"A lot," he agreed. "I"m more interested in the fact that you lived, Elena."
For a moment, she stared at him, her hands folded in her lap. Again he had that sense of the bending of the air around her, shimmering heat waves rising around her, but her face was like a painting of a Spanish Madonna, composed and blue-eyed and too sensual for the mother of G.o.d.
Abruptly, she seemed to come to a softening. "Look, Julian, I just don"t like to talk about it."
"Okay."
The strangeness around her broke, and again he was only looking at the woman he"d hired to run his kitchen, beautiful and broken and strange, but just a woman. "Shall we go?"
Julian nodded. The terrible thing was, her warning only ratcheted up his curiosity even more.
Elena tossed and turned after her meal with Julian, restless in so many ways. She lay in the dark thinking of the menu-was it full enough? Was there enough variety? Too much? Was it too ordinary? Too pretentious?
Not now, she told herself. But then flashes of Julian"s face rose in her mind, the knowing light in his eyes. The way he had of holding her gaze, then sweeping his eyelids down, as if pressing a secret into his mind. She thought of the way his hands- No, not that, either.
Rolling over to her side, she reached for images of food. Recipes, ingredients. She deliberately visualized a farmer"s market bursting with fresh produce-calabacitas and big round watermelons and potatoes. A cat sitting in the dust by the striped tent. Ah, she thought, getting sleepy. The county fair. Her Uncle George, who grew the biggest pumpkins in the valley. Well, at least before his son died. Donnie.
Donnie"s funeral. Settling in more easily to the fat pillows, Elena felt her tensions slide away. Yes, Donnie"s funeral. That had been a good day indeed.
Elena was twelve years old when Donnie killed himself skidding into the Big O Tires sign just south of the highway. He was racing, of course. There wasn"t much else to do in Espanola in those days. Or these either, really.
There were aunts and uncles and cousins Elena had never seen, and everybody was dressed up, shaking out clothes they never wore except to weddings and funerals and high school graduations. Some definitely seventies stuff in the mix, she noticed with scorn, polyester and even a pair of platforms. She and Isobel snorted, heads together. Kill me now. Kill me now.
Donnie"s father was devastated. Elena watched her uncle warily as everyone milled around the tiny, hot house and spilled into the bare dirt backyard, where folding chairs and picnic tables had been set up. A skinny dog wandered around, alternately whining and begging, weaving his way through the legs of the funeral-goers crowded around the keg beneath the tree. George sat down next to it, drank down his beer in a single gulp, and silently held out the plastic cup for more.
Always so easily distracted, Isobel disappeared with some older cousins. They were smoking behind the shed, telling dirty jokes in Spanish, trying to shock Isobel. Elena didn"t like the cigarettes or the jokes, and she stayed behind.
It was July. Elena was bored and hot, and her dress stuck to her back. She"d begged and pleaded to be allowed to wear nylons, but then had to peel them off as soon as they got out of ma.s.s, leaving them in a taupe-colored ball in the trash of the church ladies" room. As she stood to one side of the backyard, a big black fly kept landing on her knee, coming back to sniff and p.r.i.c.kle, and she slapped at him. When he circled back and bit the back of her neck, Elena went into the house.
She had to blink to clear her vision after the white hot sun, and found herself staring at an enormous spread of food in the dun-colored dining room. Acres of food, in all kinds of colors and textures, their scents mingling in the air like wicked perfume-chocolate and chile and browning onions and slow-stewed pork. Beneath a black wooden cross covered with tiny silver milagros milagros-tiny hands and eyes and legs and hearts flying across the bottom-the food overflowed Tupperware and gla.s.s and thin paper plates stuck together in threes to make them more st.u.r.dy.
Elena watched the women swirling around, arranging, putting things out. Most of it was the usual, a cake iced in white and polka-dotted with halved maraschino cherries; a pile of unidentifiable meat, charred and dry; a lumpy stack of flour tortillas; plain white dinner rolls, the kind that came on trays from the supermarket; and chicken, fried and in barbecue sauce.
It was the tomatoes that drew Elena, and the sliced red and green and yellow sweet peppers; the fresh sprays of scallions stuck in a gla.s.s bowl with their tails sticking out like fans; zucchinis and yellow squashes in sticks; bowls of hot pickled cherry peppers and fresh, gleaming salsas with tiny wheels of scallions bobbing up through the red sea; and a dark green salad dressed with tiny oranges. Things that were ripe and fresh in everyone"s backyard gardens. Maybe not the oranges, which she thought came from a can, but everything else.
"Are you hungry, m"ija?" m"ija?" Auntie Gloria was carrying a pile of tamales to the table. "You can make a plate if you want." Auntie Gloria was carrying a pile of tamales to the table. "You can make a plate if you want."
When Elena continued to eye her without speaking, giving only a single twitch of her shoulder, Gloria put the dish down and grabbed a paper plate, then put another one under it. She plucked a tamale out of the bowl, and a little stack of tiny chicken drumsticks and some shredded meat she piled quickly and with expertise into a waiting corn tortilla she took from a lidded ca.s.serole with a cow painted on the outside. "Try this," she said, and pa.s.sed it to Elena. "You ever want to grow some chi chis" chi chis"-she patted her own considerable b.r.e.a.s.t.s-"you better eat more."
"Some tomatoes, too," Elena said, "please."
"Good year for tomatoes," she said, nodding.
Elena"s mouth watered over the scents rising into the air-spice and some heavy meat she couldn"t identify that must have been the dark shreds nestled into the tortilla. She bit into it and closed her eyes at the hefty explosion of flavor. "Oh, what is is that?" that?"
"Duck. Your uncle shot some last week up at the lake."
For one long moment, Elena paused, wondering if she should mind. "Like those green-neck ducks?"
"I dunno. If you don"t like it, don"t eat it."
She shook her head, jealously guarding the plate with the shield of her body, and found a skinny bar of shade resting against the side of the house. In the distance were the mountains, a zigzag of dark blue against the heat-pale blue of the sky. In the air was the smell of weeds and smoke from a distant forest fire.
In her mouth was the first taste of duck she"d ever had, duck fat and salty and seasoned with the special sweet fire of local red chile powders. It tasted of the deepest moments of summer, of swimming in a lake at dusk, of things she"d only begun to think about.
Into the corner of her vision came a black-haired boy. He wore a gray shirt with long sleeves that was a little too tight for him, and dark gray slacks that skimmed his ankles. She didn"t speak to him, but she was suddenly more aware of her skinny shins sticking out from her dress without the covering of stockings.
He stopped and looked down. "Hi."
Elena didn"t look at him directly. Instead of dress shoes, he had on high-topped Converse sneakers, yellow. His cheekbones were angled harshly, making him look dangerous.
"Hi," she said back.
"What"s your name?"
She told him.
His name was Edwin. He didn"t like his brother, who tortured him with pinching and punches whenever they were alone, and kicked their dog. He wasn"t her cousin, and by the end of the day, he taught Elena to kiss with those lips as red as tomatoes and a tongue that tasted of chiles and summertime. Before they were finished, on a night five years later, he would teach her much, much more.
In her apartment in Aspen, Elena fell asleep. And into her dream, Edwin arrived, as he sometimes did. They were dancing a two-step at somebody"s wedding. She was seventeen, and also thirty-eight. Her crinkly taffeta skirts and satin bodice slid over his crisply ironed cotton shirt. He smelled faintly of cinnamon, which he loved, in every variety, in chocolate and cinnamon rolls and tea and even in stew. He hummed under his breath to the ranchero song being belted out by Elena"s sister Isobel, who had a voice everybody said might take her to LA one of these days. A cousin played the guitar, and there was even an old man on trumpet whose eyes were the teary red of the eternal alcoholic, but his horn was fine.
Edwin smoothed his hand over Elena"s hair, slow and easy, and she was captured in a shifting sense of time, filled with a faraway sense of herself as an old woman, and Edwin as an old man, dancing at the wedding of a great-grandchild, to this song.
She saw her babies, new and mewling, and saw their strong sons. She saw the weddings at which she and Edwin would dance, in blue satin and black suits, in square-necked bodices and pressed trousers. It made her feel light and whole and exactly where she was meant to be. He would be her husband and she would be his wife, all of their days.
A lot of girls she knew worried about their boyfriends cheating when they drank too much, or running around behind their backs, or falling under the spell of another woman, or beating them. Elena did not worry. From that first day at Donnie"s funeral, he had loved her. They would be married when she graduated from high school, because they wanted to make a better life for themselves, move to Albuquerque, maybe, where she could have a catering shop. He was a modern guy. He wanted her to work, both of them to work, so they could give their children more than they had themselves. Swaying with him, though, she clasped her secret to herself, the new life growing in her. It would be born before they married, but that was all right.
In her dream, he crawled into her bed in Aspen, Colorado. He curled around her and pressed his lips to her hair and whispered, I missed you. I missed you. His body was naked beneath the covers, and he pushed his hands beneath her old, paper-thin T-shirt, curving his strong palms to her ribs. His bare leg moved over her thigh, and Elena turned to him, tears wetting her face. His body was naked beneath the covers, and he pushed his hands beneath her old, paper-thin T-shirt, curving his strong palms to her ribs. His bare leg moved over her thigh, and Elena turned to him, tears wetting her face.
It"s been so long, she whispered, letting him take her into his arms. she whispered, letting him take her into his arms. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you.
It"s true, he rumbled into her hair, his hot breath on her neck, he rumbled into her hair, his hot breath on her neck, you and I, the truest thing in our lives. I love you. you and I, the truest thing in our lives. I love you. His hands drifted over her body, lifting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and putting his mouth down to kiss her chest and her neck. His member nudged her thigh, damp and hungry, and his hands drifted down, sliding between her legs, finding the ready wet heat, and he made love to her with hands and mouth and member, and she wept, knowing even in her dream that it was a dream. His hands drifted over her body, lifting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and putting his mouth down to kiss her chest and her neck. His member nudged her thigh, damp and hungry, and his hands drifted down, sliding between her legs, finding the ready wet heat, and he made love to her with hands and mouth and member, and she wept, knowing even in her dream that it was a dream.
A dream, a dream-Edwin"s hands and his long-lashed black eyes that made her think of Julian, and the taste of his lips, things she should have forgotten in twenty years, but never seemed to lose. He came to her in dreams when she needed him, needed release or comfort. He made love to her, just as he was, moving, moving, kissing and touching her until she was- She jerked awake to an empty bed and her own hands squeezing out a ma.s.sive o.r.g.a.s.m between her legs, and tears streaming from her eyes from a fresh, hot, renewed sense of grief. When it was done, she turned her face into the pillow and let the ripples ease.
Alone, alone.
Always alone.
It was a bad morning for more than the dream. She had them every now and then. Edwin explained that he could only visit for the day, just long enough for them to go on a picnic or dance one dance or- The dreams left her depressed and aching, and this morning, she was very stiff, as well. Limping into the kitchen to make coffee, she fired up the laptop and shook out her shoulders, tried to stretch her arms overhead.
Everything in her lower back exploded, and she bent over with a gasp. Her legs burned, and something fiery hot and purple burned in her left hip.
Jesus.
The days were too long. She needed more straight walking. A good ma.s.sage therapist. More resting. In a few weeks, the restaurant would be open and she could get back to a regular schedule, but for today, she"d have to get a ma.s.sage. Find a hot tub. She typed in her search parameters for ma.s.sage in Aspen, fighting tears as her lower back spasmed.
The email function on her laptop dinged. Hoping to hear from Mia, she clicked the icon.
To: [email protected]: [email protected]: oh i get ithe just wants to f.u.c.k youwww.tabloid photo link 950343h1h932/oapher/
Elena clicked the link and groaned. It was a photo of her and Julian at dinner the night before, when she"d offered him a vegetable to taste. He was leaning in, and she was smiling slightly, and the effect was very intimate. Liswood"s Latest Dish? Liswood"s Latest Dish? the headline read. A blurb beneath it continued in the same lurid vein. the headline read. A blurb beneath it continued in the same lurid vein.
The phone rang and she turned, too abruptly. A slashing sword crossed her spine, nape to tailbone, and she froze, letting it ripple through. Taking a breath, she barked into the phone, "h.e.l.lo!"
"Good morning, Elena," said Julian. "Bad time?"
"Not really. Do you know a good ma.s.sage therapist?"
"I do, as a matter of fact. I can call her for you as soon as we"re done here."
"Is this about the photo?"
"The tabloids? Yes. How did you hear about it?"
"An email from a friend who saw it," she said mildly.
"I"m calling to warn you that you"ll probably have to deal with paparazzi over the next few days, but maybe we can use it to the advantage of the restaurant."
"Huh. Okay. Never thought of that angle." A claw hammer slammed itself up her left thighbone, into the depths of her hip, and her leg abruptly gave out. She sank onto a stool, making the smallest possible oomph. oomph. "How?" "How?"
"I had a call for an interview with a Denver paper. We"ll just give it."
"I"m game." She tamped down the irritation over Dmitri"s email. "The ma.s.sage therapist-is she therapeutically oriented?"
"She"s one of the best, Elena. Get off the phone. I"ll call her right now and have her call you."
"That would be great."
The woman, called not rea.s.suringly Candy, called back within minutes and Elena arranged to have a ma.s.sage at ten. In the meantime, she could get in a walk to see if that would loosen things up, and go into work, get things going at the restaurant. She gathered Alvin"s leash, put on her walking shoes, and realized within a few steps that the weather was changing, the colors turning from the canvas of vivid blue and yellow to the subtler shades of coming winter. Over the blue mountains, clouds hung low like pale gray angora. She had to go back in for a coat and made a note to buy a scarf and hat and mittens in the next few days.
Alvin and she headed down to the river path, where she met the odd runner, hands gloved, legs in Lycra, earphones blocking out the world. Piles of heart-shaped leaves rattled underfoot, and the river rushed by, cold rising from it like a portent.
The tabloid photo didn"t bother her. A famous director was bound to be stalked by photographers, and what did she care about what they said about them?
But the email from Dmitri rankled. b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Couldn"t stand to see her succeed, even though he was doing very well himself. His jealousy irked her-because it was not the jealousy of a man who wanted a woman, but that of one chef trying to take another down. Specifically a man who wanted to bring a woman down.
Walking briskly with Alvin at her side, her cheeks getting cold, she perversely felt again the piercing loss of him-her lover, friend, absolute ally. They had taken such pleasure creating the Blue Turtle together. He was so zesty, so full of life, so s.e.xy and l.u.s.ty. Cooking, food, women, s.e.x, music, dancing, travel-Dmitri scooped it all up with two hands, gulped it down. He smoked too much and drank too much and could not be faithful to anyone for more than a few months, but the world felt twelve times brighter in his company.
Tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes. Why did she care about him, anyway? Why did it hurt hurt? Why couldn"t she, like women she"d known, just walk away from relationships that didn"t work out? They"d had a good time. They"d created a restaurant and made lots of love and shared a good solid couple of years. That was more love than many people got.
But this wasn"t about Dmitri, was it? She was just getting so b.l.o.o.d.y tired. Tired of starting over and starting over and starting over. Before Dmitri, it was Andrew; before Andrew, a long stretch when she left men alone except for casual things, when she fell in love with her work in a big way, and studied and cooked and moved up through the ranks. Before that, Timothy, an Englishman she met in Paris. Before Timothy- Oh, it didn"t matter. She was depressed over the dream, that was all. A long-ago love. Of course Edwin seemed perfect-he had lived so long ago. She sniffed.
And she wanted Mia to get here, d.a.m.n it! She needed another woman in this kitchen. Desperately. Patrick was a great ally, but he was not a female. He wasn"t around today, anyway. He"d driven into Denver to check some details of decoration.
The walk loosened her up a bit, so by the time she got to the restaurant, she was at least able to function. Alvin happily curled up on the porch on his blanket, but once the storms came, he wouldn"t be able to stay out all day, even if he did have a warm coat. She"d look into the doggie day care Julian"s daughter had mentioned.
She had the kitchen to herself for the first hour, and made lists and accepted deliveries. The head bartender was in, setting up gla.s.sware and the back bar, and Elena talked with her for a while about drink specials. A burly man in a dark blue work shirt came in wheeling a dolly loaded with cases of various Mexican beers-Dos Equis and Tecate and Negros Modelo. "Getting cold out there," he said. "Might snow."
"So soon?"
"Sooner the better," he said.
Elena nodded, and headed back to the kitchen. The upstairs kitchen had been set up as a serving station and a pastry kitchen. Seeing the empty waiting area, Elena grabbed her cell phone and punched in Mia"s number. "Hey, honey," Mia answered. "You"re mad at me, aren"t you? I can tell by the way the phone rang."
"Not mad, Mia, but I need you to get your a.s.s over here."
"Well, here"s the good new, baby-I"m leaving now, Heathrow to Denver. We can cook up a storm all weekend if you like."
A wave of relief washed away about a thousand pounds of tension from Elena"s shoulders. "Good. Patrick is going to Denver this afternoon. What if he meets you somewhere and you guys drive back together?"
"I would love that. I"ve got his cell-I"ll call him right now."
"Let me know."
"Did you get my recipe list?"
"No. How did you send it?"
"Email. A couple of days ago. I"ll check and send again."
Elena carried the phone to her office. "No, let me check my spam folder first." Sometimes it misread emails and filed away things that should have been sent through. Punching in the pa.s.sword for her email account, she waited. "Dmitri"s being a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."