The Lost Recipe for Happiness (12 page)

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 sexy and lusty. Cooking, food, women, sex, 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 pricked her eyes. Why did she care about him, anyway? Why did it
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 bloody 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, damn 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 glassware 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 ass 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 password for her email account, she waited. “Dmitri’s being a bastard.”

“Now there’s a surprise. God, Elena, he’s always been so jealous of you! He wanted to seduce you to—” She broke off. “That’s mean. Never mind.”

“It’s also true. He wanted me to fall in love with him so he could exert some control,” Elena said, admitting it aloud. “And it worked. How stupid is that?”

“Not stupid, Elena, never that. You’re too good for him. Remember that.”

“Thanks. Hurry up and get your ass into Aspen.”

“Soon, sister.”

She clapped the phone closed and headed down the back stairs. Halfway down, the claw hammer dug into her hip joint without warning. Elena froze, gripping the handrail as the pain burrowed through her muscles and flesh and into the joint, drilling like a steel spiral. For one long moment pain stiffened her, head to toe. A soft voice, her sister’s voice—within? without? she never knew—said softly,
Breathe, Elena. Breathe.

Holding on to the wooden railing with a death grip to stay upright, she forced herself to inhale through her nose, slowly, imagining cool air moving through the fiery spots. She breathed out, just as slowly, a dragon letting the fire out. After a moment, she sank down on the step, the grip easing, and put her head in her hands, thinking,
I can’t do this.

Why had God even bothered to spare her? For this tawdry life where she’d moved from place to place to place, never settling, now just getting older and more crooked and still without the family she wanted?

Next to her, Isobel said, “Stand up. Stop whining.”

Elena closed her eyes, put her arms around her head. Visions of Edwin twined around her in the dream, the piercing perfection of his hands on her, the longing of both of them for a long-past time, for a love that should have been, and was ripped away—

“Get up!” A distinct shove between her shoulder blades made Elena jolt up and grab the handrail.

Ivan came to the foot of the stairs just as she stood. “There you are,” he said. “I brought you a present.” He waved a tabloid newspaper and made kissing noises. “You and big dick, up in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G—”

Elena rolled her eyes, coming down the stairs as if she were not carrying three claw hammers and an anvil in her lower back. “Yeah, yeah, Rasputin. You’re just jealous. You want him for yourself.”

He didn’t move from the doorway, using his tall body to block her way. Elena smelled lemons and almonds and cake. She tilted her head back to look at him, raising one eyebrow.

“Maybe I am jealous,” he rumbled, putting his hands on either side of the threshold to block the way. Their bodies were only inches apart, his hooded blue eyes traveling over her face, her shoulders, breasts. “But not because of the job.”

She put up one hand against his chest. “Don’t,” she said harshly, and shoved him.

With a crooked smile, he took a step backward, then another, and waved a hand to gesture her through into her kitchen. She yanked the paper out of his hand. “Start the tamales,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment at ten.”

FIFTEEN

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dessert menu possibles

Here they are, sweetie, a roster of possible desserts. Still brainstorming, though I think this is a lot. I had fun playing with different ingredients:

Pears and apples poached in tequila and brown sugar, with piñon nuts

Chocolate layer cake (remember this one—I think you and Patrick just about ate the whole thing in two hours)

Almond cornmeal cake (I know this is one of your favorites, and it seems to go well with the theme)

Triple lemon layer cake (you have not had this one, but oh, my God, it’s great!)

Cheese plate with berries, peaches, apples, or cherries according to the season

Black cherry flan (it’s basically a clafoutis, but we’ll call it flan and everyone will be happy)

Mexican hot chocolate and shortbread cookies

Playing still with pinwheel tortillas, but thus far, they’ve been low rent. See you soon!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Mia

PS You look hot in the tabloid photo, but the boss looks like a total geek. Is he? Not really your type, is he?????

SIXTEEN

J
ulian sat on the deck, wrapped in a thick sweater, drinking a mug of coffee and watching the clouds move in over the mountains, silver gray and blue, moody and dramatic. He loved living here, finally, a place of myth when he was a boy—Colorado—the place to which rebels ran, where you could reinvent yourself. The most beautiful place on earth, he thought now, scrolling through the news on his laptop.

A flag popped up on the screen, an email from his assistant. Hillary lived in a Hollywood apartment and wore chunky shoes and chunky black glasses and her hair in chunky layers, maybe to give her tiny frame some weight. A film-studies graduate, she knew every film ever made, loved research, and was more organized than an office supply store. It was hard to remember what he’d done without her.

A second flag popped up before he had a chance to open the first. One was the details of the interview he’d granted the
Denver Post;
the second was the one he’d been waiting for.
RE: accident,
it read. Two paper clip icons showed in the corner.
This is what I’ve found so far. More to come.

He lifted his cup, sipped. Thought about Elena sitting across from him last night warning him that she would not give him a story. That fierceness in her eyes, the unsteady gait of pain. He didn’t have any right to dig into her life this way.

And yet.

He punched the first paper clip icon. A copy of a police report had been scanned in. He read it quickly, still telling himself he would leave it alone, leave her in peace, that he just wanted the background to better understand her.

The details were horrific. Bodies in pieces. Elena lying undiscovered in a ditch for several hours through the night, the lone survivor. The only thing that saved her was the fact that she landed in an irrigation ditch. Cold water lowered the temperature of her body, and mud kept her from bleeding to death.

An unexpected wave of nausea rippled through him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, seeing another body, left in a field. Naked and battered.

A long time ago.

He closed the file. Opened the next one. A newspaper article about the funerals, with a photo of four caskets lined up in a small, old-fashioned Spanish church with an elaborate painted wooden altar in the background. Old. He wondered where it was.

Another flag popped up. This one from a business partner.
Script?
said the subject line. Julian rubbed his eyebrow, a spot that had a scar right through it from when he was twelve and took a dive from his bike into a rosebush right before his mother was killed. He’d still had the stitches at her funeral.

He opened the email, knowing what he would find.

Julian, my man,
it read. David always talked like that, as if he were the moneyman in a bad movie.

Is there a problem? I expected a script last week and it’s still not here. I hope you’re just temporarily sidetracked by the new restaurant and not flaking out on me. I know you didn’t want to do the slasher flick, but the studio is breathing down our neck for another in the series. You know it’ll break records. Call me, man.

Behind him in the house, he could hear the cleaning crew vacuuming the already pristine floors, and he stood up abruptly. “Georgia?” he called.

She came around a corner, her bob curling nicely around her crisp scarf. He filed the image away automatically. “Yes, Mr. Liswood?”

“That’s enough for today.”

“Sorry, is this a bad time? Were we bothering you?”

“No. Yes.” A tangle of irritation bloomed in his throat and he had to take a breath to avoid snapping at her. “No, it’s not a bad time, but yes, the noise is bothering me today.”

“No problem,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

He went back to the table. Took a sip of coffee. Looked at the clouds dropping into the valley. Opened a reply and typed:

David,

Come to dinner in Aspen next week. I’ll have the new chef make us a tasting menu and we’ll talk about the next projects. I’m not opposed to another slasher pic, but I have some other ideas, too. Next Thursday? Bring Jenny. She can see the new house.

Julian

As he sent the email, he thought,
One down, four to go.
He wrote all four—producers, business advisors, their partners and wives—and pressed Send. Done.

Now he just had to have a story to sell them next week.

Candy, a tall, athletic blonde in her forties, proved to have a great space in the attic of a restored Victorian downtown, and great hands to ease the agony in Elena’s hip. The music was simple and quiet, flutes with some underlying bells or something that helped ease her, too.

“What is this music?” Elena asked, groaning when Candy hit a tight spot in her neck.

“Alice Gomez.” She eased around Elena and pulled the sheet down, revealing her scarred and misshapen back. “Car accident?” she asked, matter-of-factly.

“Yes.”

Candy put her hands flat on Elena’s spine, side by side, and gently moved downward, strong fingers tracing the shape of bones, ribs, musculature. “Broken back,” she said quietly, “maybe three places?”

Elena felt a flicker of that night, so silent. So cold. “Four.”

“Lose a kidney? Spleen, maybe?”

“Both.”

Down the hands went, so hot Elena wanted to weep with the comfort of them. “Hip. Hmm. Lot of trouble here now. Are there pins? I’m not seeing this very clearly. Oh—” she said quietly, pressing a thumb into the bound muscles. “Lots of pain here, isn’t there? It’s a wonder you walked in here.”

“I’ve been on my feet a lot.”

“You have to rest more,” she said. “But I think you know that.” The hands moved, gentle and hot, pressure there, probe there, a lingering, circular centering on the spot over the back of her womb, a womb that was saved, but only the shell of it, not the contents. “It was a terrible accident, wasn’t it?” she said gently. “You lost a lot. Other people?”

“Yes,” Elena said. The weight of tears pressed into her throat, and she swallowed them away. In the corner, Isobel sat on the floor with a little girl, playing with dolls.

Candy worked and worked, moving energy, easing tightness, shifting heat from tangled joints, pressing coolness into overheated spots.

When Elena got up, two hours later, she could move without wanting to double over every third step. She made an appointment for the same time and day every week.

The masseuse wrote Elena’s name down in her book, then stood up, tossing her heavy hair over one shoulder. “I can help you, and you can help by taking more days off—maybe every fourth day, if you possibly can.”

Elena raised an eyebrow. “I’m a chef.”

“Right. I figured you’d say that. But try to rest more when you’re out of there. Get in the hot tub, take long walks, do whatever you can to ease those muscles.” She turned and opened a file drawer, flipped through folders and drew out a piece of paper. “Try some of the hip exercises on this sheet, twice a day. You might loosen up a little in a hot shower or bath, then very gently try some of the stretches before you go to bed, and again when you wake up.”

“Okay.”

“Listen to your body. You must do that to some degree, or you wouldn’t be able to do the work you do.”

She tucked the card into her pocket. “It’s been a big push, getting the new place open, but once we’re up and running, it should get a bit easier.”

Candy nodded, inclined her head. “Even with the best stretches and a massage every day, you are going to need more surgery eventually.”

Elena shook her head. “I had a lot of surgery already, as you may have noticed.”

“But what was that, maybe fifteen years ago?”

“Twenty.”

“Back surgery has come a long way since then. It’s possible you’d have much better results now.”

With a slight smile, Elena said, “But even the best means I’d have to be off my feet for three or four months, right?”

“I’m not a doctor, but yeah.”

“I can’t leave the restaurant that long.”

Candy’s dark eyes were sober. “You know you’re going to be forced to, eventually.”

“I know.” Elena zipped her bag. She took a moment to consider her word choices. “I’ve been working a long time toward the goal of having my own kitchen. If I can get through a year here, get it going, maybe then I can turn it over to someone else for a few months.”

Candy smiled. “Well, I can help. My prescription is, hot tub every day and avoid being on your feet more than six hours a day.”

Elena laughed. “Right. I’ll get on that.”

Back at the restaurant, the crew was working on setting up stations and space. The music was loud, blaring out rap, too loud. Elena scowled at Ivan as she came in. “What’s this?”

He winked at her. “Thought you liked everything.”

“Turn it down. Are the tamales ready?”

“Going.” He reached over and turned the music
up,
not down. “I like rap.”

Elena narrowed her eyes. Behind him, the rest of the kitchen, not including Juan, eyed her curiously to see how she’d handle the challenge to her authority. The jocks—the ski bums—and the Mexicans were bright eyed, the scent of their hot testosterone filling the space with an orange glaze. The rapper blasted out a misogynistic rage poem,
Bitch, bitch, suck my dick, you my ho, bitch.

She couldn’t work to this music. She’d be insane by the end of the day. But the way she managed his challenge would set the tone for this kitchen and this crew. A chef had to be a general, commanding absolute authority.

Ivan knew it, too. He smiled, very very faintly, and took a step closer. “Wanna dance,
chica
?” he growled. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth, sucking on it as he raked his eyes over her body, boldly.

He would, she knew, fuck her as a way to get over. She might even like it. He had that air about him, that air of a man who knew his way around nasty, hot, furious sex, “furious” being the operative word. Sex with him would be violent and edgy and angry.

And she would lose all respect in this kitchen. She would also lose if she complained about his objectification.

Without taking her eyes off Ivan’s face, Elena said in Spanish to the Mexican dishwasher, “Nando, go to my office and get a deck of cards.”

Rasputin grinned. “Oooh, kinky, boys.”

While she waited, she poked around the pots on the stove, took samples of the stews and sauces. “The mole is excellent,” she said to Peter. “Yours?”

He nodded, his cheeks bright red.

Frowning, she rolled the taste around in her mouth a minute. “Maybe a little something missing.” She gestured for him to take a taste, too, and he complied. “A little more cinnamon? Taste it.” She pointed and he took a fresh spoon from the tray, dipped, tasted.

He nodded, taking a step back as Nando hurried back into the room. Behind him came Juan, carrying a slab of meat from the freezer. He looked from Elena to Ivan with an impassive expression, and back to Elena.
“Qué pasa?”
he said, tilting his head.
What’s going on?

Elena shook her head.

“Here’s the deal,” she said to Ivan. “We have work to do this afternoon, but at seven-thirty p.m., I’ll meet you back here for a game of poker. If you win, you can have your music. If I win, I pick.”

Juan raised a dark brow, shaking his head slightly. Elena met his gaze without fear. She had an ace in the hole. So to speak.

“What game?” Ivan asked.

Elena shrugged. “I don’t care. You choose.”

Ivan stroked his chin. “Not poker,” he said at last. “I challenge you to a cook-off.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever,” he rumbled.

“You could do, like,
Iron Chef,”
said one of the ski boys. “We could come up with a secret ingredient and we’ll be the judges.”

“Hmm.” Elena lifted one brow. “I’d go for that. But get some more judges. Not just you guys, but people from outside.”

“Cooks and servers from other restaurants,” Ivan said, arms crossed over his chest. His apron was slung low over his hips, and showed splatters of blood, a spray of something yellow, a mark where he’d scorched the cotton. “A lot of them will close by ten or so. We could serve at eleven.”

Elena considered. He would likely know many of them, if not most. No way around that, really. “Okay,” Elena said, and pursed her lips. “Each of you guys go out and bring back one item, enough for each of us to use in a dish. We’ll cook, what?—three courses?”

“I’m game.”

“What if we all bring back the same thing?”

Elena thought about it. “Bring back something that starts with the same letter as your name.”

“En español?”
Nando asked.

“Whatever works,” Elena said, laughing. “Whoever wants to can come back by eight-thirty. We’ll start cooking at nine.” She looked at Ivan. “Good with you?”

“Fine.”

“All right then.” She pointed at the CD player and looked at Peter. “Turn that shit off.” He brought her the CD and she gave it to Ivan. “Aren’t you a little old for hip hop?”

“You’re only as old as you feel,” he said, and sauntered away.

“Back to work, everybody.” As they shuffled to their stations and a CD of sixties rock came on, Juan approached her.