Simmer Down (14 page)

“Did they fight a lot?” Ade spoke with clips held between her lips. “He was almost never around anytime I’ve been to their house.”

Sarka shook her head slightly. “No, they didn’t really fight, but I think Oliver met and fell in love with Dora before he should have. Not to badmouth him now that he’s gone, but he probably needed a few more years to date other women before he settled down, if you know what I mean. He had a bit of a wandering eye,” she explained.

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that based on the way Dora speaks about him.” Adrianna was very good at eliciting gossip from people.

“Don’t mention this to Dora, but Oliver was quite a flirt. Over the years he made a number of suggestions to me. You know, suggestions that we be more than just friends. I was never really sure if he was kidding or not, and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

I perked up. “Did he ever try anything with you?”

“Not really. But he would touch me all the time, you know, put his hand around my waist, hug me a little too long, that sort of thing. I think it bothered Barry a lot, but I asked him not to say anything to Oliver. There was no point, and I didn’t want to start a fight. Oliver never really crossed the line with me. It was more about the idea of crossing the line.”

“Chloe, can you hand me the dryer?” Ade asked me. “Okay, Sarka. I’m done cutting, and now I’m just going to blow it out smooth and rounded under at the bottom. But you think Oliver was coming on to other women besides you?”

“I don’t know for sure. Dora might have had her suspicions, for all I know, but it’s not the kind of thing we talk about. Dora is too proud to discuss anything like that with me. We spend a lot of time together, but we’re not really very close friends. She did seem jealous of that new girl that they hired to do publicity. Hannah something?”

“Hannah Hicks.” I snarled and handed Ade the blow dryer.

Adrianna rubbed a smoothing serum through Sarka’s hair and began pulling long sections through the brush as she aimed the dryer at them.

“Yes, that’s her,” Sarka yelled above the din of the blow dryer. “They were spending a lot of time together working on new ways to promote the clubs. And I know Dora didn’t approve that the Full Moon Group was paying for that girl’s apartment downtown. As opposite as we are, I do have a certain loyalty to Dora, and I’d hate to find out that Oliver was cheating on her. But maybe Dora just resented the money it was costing. The fact is that she can be quite a cheapskate.”

“Dora?” I blurted out. “I thought she…uh, I had the impression that she…” I just couldn’t finish the sentence, or I couldn’t have finished it without calling Dora an outright liar.

“Not that she’s stingy, really,” Sarka said. “Not with her friends. Or with the people who work for her. But that’s where her generosity ends.”

No time ago, she had unambiguously stated her intention of donating tons of her newly acquired money to charity. Someone was lying. I thought it was Dora.

Adrianna finished styling Sarka’s hair and pulled the hand mirror from her bag. “Tell me what you think.” She positioned the mirror in front of Sarka.

“Oh, my God,” Sarka turned her head back and forth. “I really like it. I do! I never would have thought to put in these layers like you did, but it does soften it out. What did you put in it before you dried it?”

Adrianna showed her the product she’d put in, and while they discussed a new hair-care regime for Sarka, I started packing up. Sarka paid Adrianna well and continued to gush over the subtle change in her hair.

“It was so, so nice to meet you both. Thanks for listening to me talk on and on about myself. Things have been so weird with Oliver’s death, it was nice to just talk about things.”

“Call me anytime. It was wonderful to meet you, too.” Adrianna handed her one of the business cards that I’d done for her on my computer. Adrianna had the typing and computer skills of a turkey, so she’d enlisted my help to create more professional cards than the ones she’d attempted on her own.

We stepped back outside, which felt even chillier than before after the warmth of Sarka and Barry’s cozy house. We drove back toward Brighton and talked about Sarka.

“God, she is so much better than Dora!” Adrianna said with relief. “I was afraid we were heading into another house of the dull.”

“She was friendly. But there are a few…problems.”

“What kinds of problems? That she didn’t pay you, too?”

“No! Now, please keep your eyes on the road when I say this, but she could have killed Oliver.”

Adrianna nearly choked laughing. “Sarka killed Oliver? Why?”

“I don’t like the idea very much either, but she did have a reason to want him gone. First, she did say he’d been after her, and it might have been more than she let on. What if Oliver was really pressuring her to have an affair? She might’ve been protecting herself. Or protecting Dora from a philandering husband. Second, she obviously doesn’t care how much money Barry is making, and she’s sick to death of him working so much for the clubs. She even said she wanted him to sell out now and open a restaurant with higher-quality food. With Oliver gone, it’d be easy for Barry to get out of the Full Moon Group. He’d have enough money to hire people to oversee a new restaurant, and he’d have more time with her. Like she said, with the way she grew up, she wants stability, and Oliver’s work demands were making a normal life with her husband pretty difficult.”

Adrianna shook her head. “She is too nice to have killed somebody.”

“Nice has nothing to do with it. She is nice, but there’s something off about her, too. Something creepy. Not just that she’s borderline anorexic, either. It’s that, plus talking about having a baby. How could she deal with being pregnant? If she could even get pregnant. And then there’s how thin she is and how fat all her furniture is.”

“I liked her furniture.”

“I did, too. I loved it. It’s just that the contrast is rather noticeable. Also, there’s how warm and open she was just now and what she was like at the gallery. She was two different people. And that’s creepy.”

Ade dropped me off at my place. “You’re taking social work too seriously,” she said.

“Probably. I’ll see you and Owen tonight at Simmer, right?”

“Sure. If he’s not too busy pulling strings on those damn puppets.” She looked down at her watch. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got another two appointments.”

“Hey, are you two okay?” I asked. “I know you’re not a big fan of Owen’s new job, but it’ll be all right. Think of how creative it is.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Cooking is creative. Being a chef is creative. This is bullshit, and we both know it. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.” I shut her car door. Adrianna was right about Owen. As much as I loved him, his constant job switching was beginning to look aimless. I mean, was he really going to become a professional puppeteer and handle marionettes until he retired? I highly doubted it. Every job Owen had was as an
assistant
fill-in-the-captivating-blank; whenever the chance of promotion presented itself, he quit and moved on. Granted, we were all still in our twenties and had some leeway before we settled our lives, but Owen was pushing it, and I couldn’t fault Ade for getting frustrated with her boyfriend. They’d been together long enough for her to have a right to worry about stability.

At least Josh had an actual career and a regular job. His work meant horrible hours, but it was a good step above Owen’s slew of odd vocations. What’s more, Josh was clear and realistic about the downside of his vocation. A chef was lucky to have Christmas off. At hotels, chefs worked on all or almost all holidays. On Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, restaurants were swamped. Chefs not only worked on weekends but were fortunate ever to have two days off in a row. When I thought about the long term—not that Josh and I were there yet—if we got married and had a bunch of kids, I’d be alone on all those holidays and alone on most nights. Anniversary dinners? Josh would probably be working. I’d grown up watching
Friends
and, as far as I could remember, Monica the chef had never missed any important coffee-house chitchat and had definitely never had to work on holidays. Some weeks, Josh had practically no time to sleep. A lot of doctors, of course, worked nights and weekends and holidays, too, but they made five times what Josh did, and the high incomes probably eased the scheduling difficulties. As to the vision of Josh off feeding and tending to other people while our kids and I were home alone, well, it rubbed me the wrong way. The nerve! There he was, out creating romantic experiences for loving couples, and here I was, stuck in the house dealing with domestic chaos.

Realizing that I was seriously jumping the gun and, even worse, starting to sound like Heather, I shook our imaginary bratty children out of my head and, avoiding the back stairs, where I felt doomed to run into stupid Noah, headed up the front steps. As I struggled with my keys and fought with the ancient lock on my condo door, the phone inside began to ring. I won the battle with the lock in time to answer it.

“Um, Chloe? This is Isabelle.” The clatter in the background announced that she was calling from the restaurant.

“Hi. Sounds like you’re at work. How’s it going?” I asked excitedly.

“Oh, um, well…it’s good. Really. I wanted to thank you for getting me this job. It only took me twenty-five minutes to get here, which is so much better than that other job I was going to interview for. And everybody has been really nice to me here.”

I sensed a “but” coming.

“Isabelle, is anything wrong? Did something happen?”

“Oh, no,” she tried to assure me over the din of shouting. “It’s just…is it always this crazy at a restaurant?”

My stomach dropped. I glanced at the clock and saw it was just after one o’clock. If things were bad now, Isabelle was in for a long day ahead. “What do you mean by crazy?”

“Josh and Gavin are fighting, and Gavin keeps talking about God and stuff. Is this a religious restaurant of some sort? Because I haven’t been to church in years. And Josh got mad because someone burned the bottom of a skillet, and so Josh slammed it into the trash can, and then Gavin said that if he was just going to throw new equipment away, why not get rid of everything, and so Josh threw out a blender and a serving tray and then—”

“Isabelle, take a breath, okay? I’m sorry it’s so wild there right now, but you have to remember that this is their opening day, and Josh and Gavin are both really nervous about tonight. It won’t always be like this. You guys will find a routine and a rhythm after a couple of weeks, I’m sure. Just hang in there and lie low for now. I’m sorry they’re freaking you out,” I apologized. “No matter what Josh or Gavin, or anyone else for that matter, does today, don’t take it personally. If they’re being idiots, it has nothing to do with you. Why don’t you see if you can trail Snacker today,” I suggested. “He might be less worked up than Josh.”

“Who’s Snacker?” she asked.

What the hell was his real name again? Josh always called him Snacker. Oh, yeah. “His name is Jason. He’s Josh’s sous chef.”

“Oh,” she giggled. “The really cute guy? Tall with dark hair?”

“Yes.” I laughed. “That’s him. Tell him I asked him to take care of you today, okay?”

“All right,” she promised. “Thanks again, Chloe.”

It was midafternoon, and I was tired and hungry again. I started a pot of coffee and put the kielbasa on the stove to simmer for a bit so that the kale would cook through. As I waited, I checked on Ken and decided to give him a bath, as the Web site had advised. I found an old plastic bowl that would have to become Ken’s, since I wasn’t about to use the same container as a food-storage bowl
and
as a hermit crab’s spa. I filled it a third of the way full with water and carried the bowl over to his cage.

I hadn’t counted on my inability to reach inside the cage, touch Ken, and—terrifying prospect—actually pick him up in my bare hands. I was overcome by visions of an irate crab sticking his claws out of his shell and gouging my hands. So what if his pincers were only a few millimeters long? I still put on winter gloves. After that, by squealing and stomping my feet in disgust, I worked up the courage to lift the little monster and plop him into the bowl. Just as the Web had promised, Ken emerged from his shell and made grotesque scratching noises in his effort to find traction on the smooth curves of the bowl. Thirty seconds of that revolting nonsense was all I could endure. I went to pluck Ken out of his bath only to face the challenge of grabbing him without touching his actual body, which was now halfway out of his shell. Stupid pet. With one eye shut, I mustered enough bravado to return Ken to his cage. There wouldn’t be another bath any time soon for that crustacean.

The phone rang. I yanked off my Ken-handling gloves and picked up.

“Happy New Year, Chloe!” Naomi greeted me.

“You, too. What’s up?”

“I called to talk about the list you’ve been working on.”

Uh-oh.

T
HE
list, which I had e-mailed to Naomi, had evidently left her speechless. I waited out her long pause until the fear overcame me that she’d get me kicked out of social work school for my lack of aptitude for self-exploration.

“Why don’t I pull up my copy on the computer?” I sat down in front of the monitor, opened the document I’d entitled crp.doc, and cleared my throat. “Okay. I’m ready to be analyzed!” I said cheerily. Last night I’d added a few last-minute items in an attempt to beef up my list. I scanned the computer screen to make sure I’d deleted the phrase
psychotic supervisor.

“First of all,” Naomi began, “why is the file called ‘crp’?”

What had possessed me? Why hadn’t I changed the file name before e-mailing it to her? “Well…” I cleared my throat. “That stands for Chloe’s Real Problems.”

“Hm. Okay.” Another long pause.

I said nothing.

“As I’m reviewing your list, I’m finding a general theme of irritation with daily life, and, um, I wonder if you could speak about why things like putting duvet covers on comforters cause you anger. And your intense hatred of shower-curtain hooks?”

“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” I lied. “I’ve discovered that I tend to become angry with daily challenges that are
preventable
. There is enough needless red tape in the world, and with all the incredible technology and resources available in this country, I cannot accept the idea that no one has invented shower hooks that stay on the rod, or easier ways to make the bed, or some sort of little tool that would remove leaves from oregano stems. I mean, it’s the overwhelming number of seemingly small challenges that we face each day that add up to create hour after hour of frustrating experiences. So, at the end of a twenty-four-hour period, we have each come across a multitude of annoying hindrances that roll themselves up into a giant ball of anger. So, at first glance, my list may
look
like it’s made up of trivial things, but, really, it’s the effect of such a large number of preventable frustrations that lead me to a state of anger.”

“Chloe, I’m sure that all the people waiting in long lines at food banks would sympathize with your being forced to endure Jessica Simpson’s rendition of ‘Let It Snow’ throughout the entire month of December.” Perhaps I should have left that one off the list? “Why don’t I forward you a copy of my list of things that cause me anger? And then we can compare.”

I heard the clicking of her keyboard, and, thanks to high-speed Internet access, I got her e-mail almost immediately. “Great,” I said. “Here it is.”

I skimmed Naomi’s lengthy list:
“Lack of resources allotted to social services agencies. Continued tolerance of chauvinistic/abusive behavior in the workplace. Inequality in…”
Okay, I got the message. I was a terrible human being.

I said, “This is quite an extensive list. Perhaps you could share your insights into yourself with me, and I could use you as a role model for future self-exploration.”

Thirty minutes later, which is to say, after thirty minutes of listening to Naomi express her passionate intolerance for social injustice, I hung up the phone feeling like a heartless moron. While I was infuriated by things like the reappearance of Josh’s ex-girlfriend and the ubiquity of sidewalks that hadn’t been shoveled, Naomi was driven to action by the unfairness of the world.

Driven to action
. More than ever, I was shaken by the fear that it was Naomi who had murdered Oliver. If I believed that Naomi was guilty, didn’t I have an obligation to turn her over to the police? I still had Detective Hurley’s business card. But if I called him, what could I report? I had no proof that Naomi had done anything wrong. Furthermore, I highly doubted that Naomi was in the midst of some crazed killing spree, so it wasn’t as if my silence were putting other lives in danger. At least I hoped not. For all I knew, though, she was so incensed at my frivolously subpar performance as an intern that she was loading a gun right now. And if I told Detective Hurley about my suspicions of Naomi, I’d have to share my suspicions about Hannah, Dora, and Sarka, too, wouldn’t I? And I had no evidence to implicate any of them, either. For the first time, however, as I mulled over the possibility of talking to Detective Hurley, it occurred to me that my suspicions fell mainly on women and that the murder weapon had been a Robocoupe. According to pop culture, poison was one kind of woman’s weapon. What about a food processor, even a gigantic one? Was it a woman’s weapon, too?