The Lost Recipe for Happiness (30 page)

Her face in the mirror showed the mottled, swollen remains of her crying fit. Furious, she turned on the taps. Water exploded from the wide, high-pressure showerhead, and she stepped into the hot spray, letting it wash away her foolish emotional storm and her weakness and her indulgence. After a few minutes in the heat, she found she could stand straighter, and breathed in as her physical therapist had taught her, imagining a cord straightening her body, aligning hips and shoulders.

It didn’t always work, but it did this morning. She had a lot to do. Not the least of which was getting out from under Julian’s roof. Staying here would be a disaster. A thread of bright pink sharpness moved in her chest as she thought of him holding her last night.

No, no, no. She could not want this, want him. She didn’t think there were any more broken hearts in her.

And yet, what was she doing with the restaurant? That would break her heart, too. Losing it, failing there.

At least there, she had some control. Before Julian awakened, she was dressed and out the door with Alvin, and letting herself into the kitchen at the Orange Bear. Alvin ate his breakfast in the sunshine of the porch, crunching kibble as a breeze ruffled his fur.

There was no one else about, and she went to the server station to start a pot of coffee. Across the room, thin as gauze, was Isobel, sitting on the bar, swinging her legs, her hands loose in her lap. She said nothing. Elena measured coffee grounds into the pot and pressed the auto button. When she headed up the stairs to see if there were any pastries left, Isobel was gone.

But there, in the kitchen, were Hector and Nando, one of the dishwashers. They looked haggard and a little grimy, but they were happily eating eggs and tortillas smothered in chili. The savory scent of pork and chili made her stomach growl.

“Qué pasa,”
Hector said, lifting his chin.

A sense of relief burst in her. “Hey! Where were you guys?”

In Spanish, Hector said, “There was a lot of confusion, so we got away. We were afraid to come in last night.”

Elena nodded, her legs so rubbery she sank down on the chair. Nando passed her a tortilla, and she tore it into strips. “Juan?”

Hector lowered his eyes. Shook his head.

“Damn it.”

The walk-in door opened and Hector’s sister emerged, all limbs and big eyes, wearing a flowered dress that was too thin for the weather. Elena said, “Can you do anything in the kitchen?”

“Sí,” she said, then in English, “I can cook. Wash dishes.” She lifted a shoulder. “I told you I would come work when you needed me.”

Elena measured her. Nodded. “You’re hired.” Against her hip, her cell phone buzzed, and distractedly, Elena answered. “Hello?”

“Ha! She lives!” said the voice on the other end of the line. Mia.

A bolt of anger, orange and molten, surged through her, and she turned away from the group at the table. “Look,” she said, “I’ve had a rotten, rotten weekend and I really don’t need more bullshit.”

“Sweetie!” Mia said in her liquid voice. “I’m never your enemy. Are you ever going to give me a chance to explain?”

“I don’t know.” Something ached, an empty place, and into the unguarded moment, she spoke a single truth. “It’s not like I let a lot of people in.”

“I know, Elena. Neither do I. But I fell in love. That’s been easy for you, but not for me.”

She stood in the blue north light of the upstairs kitchen and felt the cell phone get hot against her ear. She couldn’t think of what to say. “This is not a good day to have this conversation, Mia. It was a terrible weekend, all right?”

“Okay. But promise you’ll give me some time. Soon, okay?”

After a moment, Elena said, “I’ll try.”

Mia was quiet. “Fair enough, I guess. Listen, though, I called with something you might not hear about in time—a friend of mine is a secretary at the Travel Channel and they’ve just slated a special on Aspen restaurants. You might want to see what you can do.”

The first breath of hope she’d had in twenty-four hours lightened Elena’s heart. “Oh, that’s great news. Do you know when?”

“It’s supposed to run on Valentine’s Day, so they have to start choosing restaurants soon.”

“Thank you, Mia. Seriously.”

“Try to forgive me, will you?”

“I’m working on it.”

Julian was disappointed, but not surprised to find Elena gone when he awakened. His habit was to run long on Sunday mornings, and it had taken some adjustments to figure out how to work in six miles on snowy roads, but he had the gear and had learned which roads would likely be plowed first and regularly. Most days, he was on straight pavement or mud. This morning, there was a fresh layer of snow, but he had found some netting to fit over his shoes to give a better grip, and in all but the worst conditions it provided the traction he needed. The day was sharp and bright, very still under the blanket of snow. There were footprints ahead of his—one of the things he most liked about Colorado was the way people surged outside, hungry for the snow and sun and fresh air in a way he rarely saw elsewhere. Southern Californians loved plenty of exercise, too, but the weather quality couldn’t hope to compete.

The run shook a lot of darkness out of his pores, and he headed back feeling clearer. He showered and went down to the kitchen, finding that Elena had put a covered plate of churros and tortillas, leftovers from service last night, on the counter. He skipped them, knowing Portia would gobble them up, and made himself some peanut butter toast, his usual post-run breakfast, along with a pot of coffee.

As the coffee brewed, he fired up the laptop he’d left on the counter, and settled in, pushing up his sleeves to run his daily rounds. He started with email, of course, which had little of interest on a Sunday morning, and then waded out into the industry sites—
Variety
and the
Los Angeles Times
—for anything of notice. Nothing much. The coffee finished, and he poured himself a big mugful and then tried to see what he could find out about last night’s grand opening. Somebody somewhere would have written about it, he was sure.

Julian loved the Internet for instant feedback. He had not expected any reviews to show up in the major Colorado papers after last night—it was too soon—but he could find information and reaction in several other ways. First he simply Googled
Orange Bear
and found mention of the restaurant—the announcement of the opening and the good review from the
Aspen Daily.
Next, he moved to a few restaurant review sites he knew and checked to see if anyone had posted yet—these were often nasty rather than nice, because it was more fun to be witty and evil than to write about great service and great food.

Not that the Orange Bear had delivered that last night. He didn’t blame anyone except bureaucracy, and he assumed theirs was not the only restaurant in town that had been hit last night, but the other restaurants were already established, with whatever reputations they’d earned to this point. The Orange Bear was not, and he wanted to get a handle on what might have been said.

Not even anything there, though he did see a positive mention on one site, just a couple of lines praising the food and décor. “Great remodel!”

Then he searched blogs from several places. Still not much, but one chilled him: a
Food and Wine
reviewer had been there last night, and savaged the food, the long wait, the “inept” vision of chef Elena Alvarez. It was a blog piece now, but Julian feared it would show up elsewhere, and the weight of the reviewer was substantial enough that the review could cause real damage.

Damn. What were the alternatives? Invite the man back? Ignore it? Explain? No, never that.

Something, though. Something.

THIRTY-SIX

T
HE
U
LTIMATE
R
ESTORATIVE
C
HICKEN
S
OUP

Because there are those poor souls who will never like chiles

Olive oil

1 high-quality, whole stewing chicken, cut into pieces

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, sliced

2 big carrots, sliced

Salt and pepper

Water

If desired, noodles or rice

Wash and dry the chicken, and tuck gizzards, liver, and neck into cheesecloth tied with string or a cooking bag. Cover the bottom of a big heavy pot with olive oil and let the onions and garlic warm. Add the chicken pieces, vegetables, salt and pepper, and water to cover. Add the bag with gizzards, etc., and bring soup to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for several hours, adding water if it gets too low. When the broth is a deep, velvety yellow, remove the pan from the burner and discard the bag of gizzards, etc. With a slotted spoon, fish out chicken pieces to a plate, and let cool until they can be easily handled. Remove the skins and bones and discard, then shred or chop chicken into small pieces. Put them back in the broth and correct seasonings. Add 1–2 cups of rice or pasta if desired, cook until done and very hot. Serve with milk and saltines.

THIRTY-SEVEN

E
xcited by the possibility of making up for last night’s debacle, Elena went downstairs to her office and dialed Julian’s number while she opened the computer to the Internet. “Hey, Elena,” he said smoothly when he answered. “How are things over there this morning?”

“Not bad. Couple of our guys showed up again, and I’ve got Ivan working on getting their papers straight.” She typed in a search with the words
Aspen, restaurants, Travel Channel,
and
Valentine’s Day.
“I told everybody here that we need bodies desperately, and we’ll pay more to get them. We may eat the profits until we’re up and moving, but that raid hit every restaurant in town. They’re all hurting this morning.”

“I’m sure. Do what you have to do.”

He sounded a little standoffish, and Elena thought about apologizing for last night, for this morning, for her aloofness. But if she didn’t reestablish some distance between them, she was going to be lost. “The reason I’m calling is to let you know that my friend Mia called to let me know there’s going to be a Travel Network special on Aspen for Valentine’s Day.” As she talked, she clicked links on the search page. “Might be a good chance to—” She started reading a blog from Jenna Bok, a notoriously difficult critic. “—revenge this fucking review! Have you seen the Jenna Bok?”

“Not that one,” Julian said, and she could hear him typing in the background.

“There’s more?”

“Elena, don’t go around looking for bad press. It’s just going to make you crazy.”

Taking a breath, she clicked the icon to close the Internet. “You’re right. Focus on the positive.”

“Exactly. Prepare and execute.”

“I’ve got everybody out there combing the restaurant underworld for bodies, and if we can get some good press from this special, it would really help mitigate last night’s disaster.” Her neck felt tight and she squeezed the muscles. “I’m sorry, Julian. I let you down.”

“It was one bad night. It’s gonna be okay.” He cleared his throat. “Will you be coming here tonight?”

A hard pinch on her esophagus made it hard to breathe for a minute. “I hate imposing, Julian. It feels so awkward. But there’s absolutely nothing available. I thought about crashing with Patrick but—”

“Now
that
would be awkward.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m sorry you feel uncomfortable at my house,” Julian said in a slightly formal tone. “What if I make the tower room yours for now? Would that make it easier?”

Elena closed her eyes.
No,
she wanted to say.
I need to sleep with you. I want to breathe in your skin and dream with you and curl a toe around your ankle in the middle of the night.
“Don’t you think we should be kind of careful, Julian? Just keep a little distance? That way nobody gets hurt.”

“Very smart,” he said briskly. “I’ll make sure you have what you need when you arrive. I can take Portia out for dinner and you’ll have the house to yourself for a while this evening.”

“Julian, I don’t mean to—”

“Never apologize, never explain,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

By midafternoon, Elena could not do one more thing. Lifting her arms took such effort it left her sweating. Putting one foot in front of the other required extreme concentration.

Ivan found her in the walk-in, where she was standing on her toes as if to lift herself up and away from the claws in her hip and lower back. “Go home, Chef. I can handle it from here.”

“I’m fine.”

“I can see that,” he said, and abruptly grabbed her arm, put a fist against the knot in her back, and rolled his big knuckles over the spot.

She groaned at the burst of both relief and pain. “Oh, ow, good!”

“Yeah. Go home, call Mindy or Candy or whatever her name is, and get some rest. We start over tomorrow.”

In the frosty cubicle, she let Rasputin knead the agonizing place in her lower back, letting go enough that she leaned in and rested her forehead against her hands. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. But we need to—”

“Nothin’ we need that bad today,
Jefa.
We’ve cut the reservations to a manageable level, and with Hector and Peter, I’ll handle this shift.” He raised his brows. “You’re not going to be any help anyway. You need some rest. Eat some chicken soup.”

She took a breath. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Monday is your day off. You need to take it.”

Elena straightened, and headed out of the walk-in. “No. I have too much to do.”

“You keep up like this, you’ll hit the wall.”

She scowled at him. “You know the rules, Rasputin. A chef is never sick.”

He made a face. “I know a lot of burned-out, drunken cooks, too.”

“Right.”

“I mean it,” he said. “Go sleep and I’m going to send somebody over with my auntie’s chicken soup.”

She nodded. “I’m going.”

Outside in the bright, sparkling day, Elena felt better. Everything hurt still, but just being outdoors eased some of the tight places, and when she thought of the Valentine’s Day special, it gave her a sense of possibility. As she headed toward the car, Alvin tagging behind her, people swished by in nylon ski gear and laughed with vacation fever and tossed brightly colored scarves around their necks. Weekend lunches would be a boon.

But not this minute.

Then, as she climbed into the car, her back screamed and she remembered she didn’t have a home to go to, and she put her head down on the steering wheel in despair. What was this about? Why had the heavens bothered to spare her if she was just going to fail, over and over? If, just as she started to make her dream come true, her broken body betrayed her?

A knock on the window startled her, and she looked up to see Hector’s sister shivering beside the car. In Spanish she said, “I am supposed to tell you to call your mother.”

Alarmed, Elena started to open the door. “What? Did my family call? Is she sick?”

Alma shrugged. “Nobody called,” she said, and patted the hood of Elena’s car, then drifted away, putting her arms into the sleeves of a dark blue sweater. For a long moment, Elena watched her, wearing those odd clothes and the too-tall shoes and swinging her skinny arms, and wondered if she was a ghost, another vision of something Elena had conjured up.

But apparently, everyone else could see her, too. A man slid sideways as she passed, and turned to admire the swish of her tiny bottom beneath the skirts. A girl shook her head at the strange clothes. No, Hector’s sister wasn’t a ghost. She was just an eccentric.

Elena started the car. She would call her mother later. First, she had to get somewhere warm, call the massage person, get some sleep. She thought she would keel over from exhaustion if she didn’t sleep.

She had no choice but to return to Julian’s, but there was no one there when she rang the bell, so she punched in the security code he’d given her and went in through a side door. Alvin found his crocodile and carried it downstairs, looking for Portia, and he didn’t come back up. Elena climbed the stairs, one excruciating stair at a time, focusing not on the pain but on the sound of the water falling from the upper level, on the silver-ribbon beauty of it, and the tremendous effort it took to raise one foot, then the other.

In one part of her brain or heart or soul, she recognized that these issues were getting worse. She’d always had days when cold or overwork or a bout of the flu made everything hurt. Or rather, hurt more, since she pretty much had some pain nearly every day. The walking helped keep her in motion, and she’d had plenty of that here. Aspen proper was not a large place, and both her condo and the restaurant were centrally located, so she walked several miles every day. In the past, that would have been enough.

It wasn’t now.

One step. One more. One more. She leaned on the railing and focused, just as she had long ago when she’d first tried to move around again, nearly eight months after the accident. They had not been entirely sure she
would
walk. Then they hadn’t thought she would walk without limping. She’d proved them wrong.

At the top of the stairs, she had to make a decision—her tower room with the loft, where she would be alone? Or Julian’s bed, which was closer, bigger, and didn’t require climbing any more? It was an easy choice.

There was also a television in there. Elena clicked it on, stripped off her clothes, and staggered into the shower, where she let the heat and steam ease away some of the trouble. Afterward, she realized it was impossible for her to bend far enough to pick up her bag, stuffed with clean underwear and other things, and simply found a pair of Julian’s running pants and a T-shirt to put on.

Then she climbed into his big, comfortable bed, pulled the quilt around her neck, and collapsed.

Julian and Portia went to Elena’s house to gather her clothes, but the police wouldn’t let them in, citing the instability of the structure. “Do you think you could figure out her sizes?” Julian asked his daughter.

She shrugged. “Pretty close.”

“Let’s go shopping, then.”

Portia brightened. “How fun! I love to shop for people! Don’t you think she would look good in pink?”

Julian inclined his head. “I haven’t seen her in many clothes except the chef’s whites. Pink might be nice. Do you think she’d like it, though?”

“Yeah,” Portia said. “Trust me, Dad. If there’s one thing I get, it’s women’s clothes.”

So, as much to give his daughter the obvious pleasure of shopping as to bring Elena something to give her comfort, they headed to the main drag to buy overpriced silk T-shirts from the boutiques. In one such shop, Portia rummaged through the shirts on hangers, fast, and said, “You like her, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I mean,
like
her like her, as in kissy kissy.”

He chuckled. “Kissy kissy?”

“You know what I mean!” She pulled out a diaphanous pink and green paisley print with long sleeves. “Ooh, this is good.” She put it in his hands.

For a moment, Julian didn’t know how to answer her.

And then he fell back on his vow to be real and honest with her as much as he could. “I do like her. She’s real.”

Portia nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I like her, too.”

She tugged him over to a new area, and flipped through blouses and shirts and skirts. Pulled out a blue T-shirt, silky and simple, and Julian imagined how gorgeous Elena’s breasts would look beneath it. He took it from her. “I choose this one.”

She laughed. “You do like her!”

The airlessness in his chest, his sadness, swirled up. “Yeah.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again?”

He quirked his lips mockingly. “Five times the charm?”

“Why doesn’t anyone stay married? I’m scarred for life, being a Hollywood child, you know.” Her voice was unconcerned and she held a shimmery gold top against her chest. “I think you should buy me this to make up for it.”

Julian snorted. “I’ll buy you something, cupcake, but not that. It’s way too old for you.”

She grinned, looking suddenly like her eight-year-old self. “I’d really like some new jeans. And maybe you could buy me sushi?”

“Will you see the ski instructor on Tuesday?”

Portia smiled faintly, and pulled out a red shirt with a square neckline and floaty sleeves. “I already called him,” she said, and put the blouse in his hands. “That one for Elena. She’ll look hot, trust me.”

“You called the ski instructor?”

“Yep.”

Standing there in the boutique with the smell of expensive fabrics and signature perfumes in the air, with natural light pouring over his daughter’s faintly freckled nose, Julian was overcome with love. On some level, he knew this was a minute he would remember, this very one, standing with her, and took the time to press all the golden pleasure of it into his pores, his heart, the gray folds of his memory.

“I’m glad” was all he said.

After dinner, they returned to the house. On the stoop was a big bag with a big plastic container inside. A note in a mannered hand said,
Chicken Soup, for Elena. From Ivan.
Julian carried it inside. It was still warm.

Alvin greeted them cheerfully, but without the crocodile. “Hey, honey,” Portia said, bending down to kiss him, her packages forgotten in her rush to hug the dog, “whatcha doing? Where’s your toy?”

Alvin backed up, still smiling, his tail still wagging, and wuffed softly.

“Go get it,” Portia said.

Alvin didn’t move, just inclined his head, turned away, turned back.

“What’s wrong, honey? Where’s Elena? Where’s your mom?”

The first soft ripple of worry moved through Julian’s throat. “What’s up, Alvin? What do you need? Show me.”

The dog turned around and trotted down the hall, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were following. Not to the kitchen, but up the stairs. “I’ll go, Portia. You can take your stuff to your room.”

“Can I get on the Internet?”

“In the great room, yeah.”

Julian followed Alvin upstairs and into his bedroom, where Elena was buried beneath the covers in his bed. She looked about six, with her mussed hair and the covers up to her chin. The television was on, the sound muted, and the blue light touched her cheekbone.