The Lost Recipe for Happiness (33 page)

“How sweet,” said a voice nearby. Dag, as clean and tucked as a new shirt, leaned on the jukebox. “Choosing songs for your sweetheart?”

A ripple of irritation crawled up the back of Ivan’s neck, but he twitched his nose, blew it off. He was here with Patrick to relax and have a good time after a long night at work. He didn’t look up again. “Get lost, Dag. I have to put up with your shit at work, but not on my own time.” He pressed a set of numbers gently with great control, and flipped the cards inside the jukebox, looking for something lively. Cheerful, like Cyndi Lauper. Hard to get too pissed off when she was singing. He spied the Bangles and put in “Walks Like an Egyptian,” too, for good measure.

Dag leaned in close. “He’s too young for you.”

A sizzle, like too much electricity, buzzed over his ear, but Ivan ignored him. There was the Lauper. He punched it in.

“Look at that ass,” Dag said. “I keep thinking of those sweet cheeks, that pretty mouth. It’s ti—”

Before he knew he was swinging, Ivan had connected with that foul mouth. He saw it almost in slow motion, the arc of his fist, large and knotty and strong, fueled by the anger of nearly forty years of assholes like this, starting with his mother’s boyfriends, hurting him and teasing him, then kids at school because he was too thin, later because he was gay, always taunting him, for one thing and another and another, always putting him down, making him feel like he didn’t measure up; he saw it flying and Dag noting too slowly that it was coming, and then the flesh of his left knuckle and Dag’s mouth collided. Ivan felt something give, in his hand and in Dag’s mouth, a tooth, and then there was blood, and he had time enough to think,
Fuck, I never even had a chance to get drunk,
before Dag roared and tackled him, a bull. He slammed his fist into Ivan’s face, and he felt the crunch against his cheekbone—Jesus, it was like getting hit by an anvil. Then Ivan’s street sense kicked in and he managed to get a few punches in, and then people were hauling them apart, and the bouncer was dragging Ivan outside, while the patrons—all fucking punkass skiers—were crowding around Dag, who spit on the floor.

“Stay the fuck out of my bar, Santino!” said the bouncer, and Ivan was flung to the sidewalk outside, stumbling in this sudden rejection, shivering in the cold. He sat there for one long minute, humiliated and stinging as tourists in expensive boots and thick coats steered around him, looking down in disdain at his sweat-stained shirt and his bloody mouth.

He was expecting Patrick to come out, waiting for him to step outside and help him to his feet and gingerly tend his wounds. But he didn’t come. Ivan stood up, feeling the punch to his eye more than he wanted to. Through the window, he saw the commotion had already died down, and the music Ivan had chosen was already starting to play. “When Doves Cry” came through the windows faintly.

He didn’t have his coat. His lip was bleeding pretty fucking bad. Patrick was sitting in the booth, drinking his wine. Didn’t he know what happened? Dag sauntered over to the booth and Ivan saw him pointing toward the door. Patrick nodded.

And didn’t move.

Ivan stood there, blinking. How was that fa—

Fair.

Pierced to the bone, he headed back to the Orange Bear, where his car was parked. What the fuck. He’d get drunk somewhere else.

Because what had toeing the line got him? Same fucking life he had all along. What was the point?

What was even the fucking point?

Julian watched Elena moving around the bedroom and took her arm. “I’m worried about you.”

As she always did, she made a conscious effort to straighten her spine. “I’m just tired.” She sank to the ottoman and took off her shoes. Her skin was pale.

“You’re not fine, Elena. You need to see a doctor.”

“So they can tell me how bad it is, Julian? So they can show me the intolerable choices left to me?”

Alvin jumped up and came over, his tail swinging nervously.

“You’re worrying him,” Julian said.

She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I did see a doctor. Last week.” She swallowed. “They want to do more surgery.”

He sank down beside her, took her hands, even though she was trying to pull them away. “Elena. Stop resisting me.”

She smiled a little, let her hands still. Took in a breath. “So much for your chef, huh?” she said, and couldn’t quite cover the despair she felt. The blue of her irises seemed to bleed right down her face.

He cupped her face, touched her hair. “What kind of surgery?”

“A lot. Pins and cages and braces and things.”

“And what’s the prognosis?”

“I didn’t get that far. It would mean being in a brace for maybe six months. I can’t run the kitchen that way.”

“Do you think we—”

Her cell phone rang. In the quiet, the late hour, the sound seemed ominous. She shot him a glance and grabbed it from the table. “Hello?” Through the line, she heard a voice, rushing and urgent. “Slow down, Patrick. I can’t understand you.” She put a finger against her opposing ear. “What happened? Who is—”

The color bled from her face. “When? How did that happen? I thought he’d been on the wagon.” She listened a little longer, made soothing noises. “I’ll be there soon. Don’t freak out. It’s not your fault.”

She clapped the phone closed. “Ivan got into a fight with Dag at the bar, then got in his car and drove it into a tree.” She stood up. A white line edged her mouth, and she swung her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve gotta go to the hospital. Patrick’s losing it.”

“How’s Ivan?”

Her shoulders twitched. “He’s in surgery. They don’t know.”

“I’ll drive.”

She shook her head. “That’s not necessary. Why should both of us be sleep deprived?” As she spoke, she moved stiffly around the room, picking up bits and pieces, a blouse, her socks, a bracelet she wore on her left wrist where most people wore a watch. Her defenses were so thin and tattered they were like an ancient negligee. He could see right through them.

He went to her, pulled her into his arms, and held her against his chest. “Elena, let go for once in your life, let go before you shatter.”

She only allowed his comfort for the blink of an eye before she pushed him away. “I can’t.”

“Be hugged or let go?”

“One leads to the other, and I can’t afford them. Not right now, Julian, okay?”

And suddenly he realized that she might
never
let him in, that this might be an entirely one-sided relationship, with Elena offering tidbits here and there, while Julian poured himself, all of his heart and soul and longings and dreams, into it. He thought of her friend Mia, whom she’d cut out of her life so coldly, after how many years of friendship?

As he stood there, he felt the distance between them widen, or perhaps it was that he was only now seeing the truth of it, the truth of the dynamic, that Elena stood aloofly at the top of an icy mountain, and he—her swain, her supplicant—tried to scale the slippery summit to no avail. He saw that the events of her life had stranded her there, alone, that she had not gone willingly. And yet…

“I’ll drive you to the hospital and drop you off. If you need to get back, Patrick can bring you.”

She looked at him, and he could tell she sensed the distance, too. “Thank you. Don’t wait up. I’ll probably stay with Patrick. He’s a mess.”

Julian nodded.

Alvin whined softly.

Ivan awakened slowly to a sensation of gagging and a headache that was like bombs going off. In his body were aches and pains and one dead zone around his ankle, which felt muffled or smothered.

A voice said, “He’s coming around,” and Ivan coughed as something slid out of his throat. There was rawness in his throat, a blast of pain in his face, his mouth. He opened his eyes a crack, gathering details, trying to piece together what he remembered, but there was a buzz in his brain and he couldn’t really think, and this room was lit with a cold bluish fluorescent light. He could hear the buzz of it. Someone took his hand.

Patrick said, “Ivan?”

He opened his eyes. There was Patrick, peering at him, his face ravaged with tears. “What happened?” Ivan rasped, and the words barely came out around the rawness.

“You wrecked your car. Ran into a tree three blocks from the Orange Bear.” Patrick glared at him. “You must have been going sixty to wreck the car that badly, they think.”

Ivan slowly shook his head. “I can’t remember anything.” There was a wisp of something, some faint unpleasant memory, and his bruised head skittered away.

“It’s all right, don’t worry. It will come back.” Patrick took a breath. “I thought you died, Ivan.” Tears spilled down his face. “I thought you died.” He kissed him, and Ivan tasted the salt and tears and there was something wrong, but he couldn’t remember what it was. As Patrick kissed him, he just let the light of that fill him up, and he fell asleep.

Around 3 a.m., Elena sent Patrick home for a nap and a change of clothes. He was upset in ways she’d never seen, pacing and weeping. “I should have gone outside, made sure he was all right. It was humiliating for me, but how much more for Ivan? That wasn’t fair. I’m not usually so mean. But I was tired of him fighting and being jealous and I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

Elena nodded, rubbed his back, listened and listened and listened as he covered the same ground, over and over. “I’ll sit with him,” she said. “Then I’ll go home when you get back.”

Alone in the room with Ivan sound asleep, Elena dozed. When she awakened, Isobel was there, sitting on the end of the bed, her legs teenager skinny, her neck looped with a dozen cheap necklaces. Her trademark. “He almost killed himself,” she said, putting her hand on Ivan’s knee. He didn’t stir. “He’s got so much love in him, poor guy.”

Elena nodded, feeling hollow as she listened to the blips and bleeps and gurgles, the faraway sound of pages—why did hospitals still use such noisy technology anyway, when every nurse and doctor could wear a cell and be paged via text? Then patients could sleep.

“Is there anything more depressing in the world than a hospital room in the middle of the night?” Elena said.

“You were there a long time,” Isobel said. She was still looking at Ivan with a slight frown.

Elena nodded. It made her feel hollow to sit there, looking at Ivan’s ravaged face. His lower lip, always so sensual anyway, was swollen twice the normal size and had a split through the middle of it, angry and moist. One eye was swollen shut, and there was an odd mark on his cheek, a fabric imprint. He’d broken a few ribs, and his left ankle, but it was cleanly broken and after a week he’d be able to stand on the cast. They thought he had a concussion, and he was covered with assorted cuts and bruises and stitches, but considering the impact, he’d been very lucky.

The chef computer in her was running scenarios of how to make the kitchen work without him for a few days. At least he hadn’t broken anything critical, like a wrist or a shoulder or—

Isobel touched his brow, his hair. “He doesn’t say how bad it was,” she whispered. “When he was a child.”

“How bad?”

“Bad,” Isobel said. She kissed his forehead. “Now he has you. You have him.”

He made a sound and moved restlessly. “Hey,
Jefa,”
he said. His voice was ragged.

A swell of emotion burst in Elena, and she jumped up, feeling tangled and hot and relieved and furious and grateful. So many emotions charged through her throat that she couldn’t find words. “Don’t you ever do something like that again, Ivan, do you hear me?”

He looked stricken, and that wasn’t her goal. She didn’t know what her goal was. She picked up his scarred, tattooed hand, feeling tears well up in her eyes and cascade over her face and pour out in such waves that she couldn’t speak. She put her hand on his face, lightly, gently, and shook her head. “I need you, Ivan. I need you to live, okay?”

He raised a hand and pulled her head down to his chest and she wept and so did he. “Thank you,” he growled.

Isobel put her hand on Elena’s head. Then she was gone.

When Patrick returned, Elena called Julian. “I need a favor,” she said. “I need to do something today. I need to go to the airport.”

When he picked her up, he was aloof and quiet. Which she deserved. “When will you be back?” he asked finally, when they stopped at the curb at the airport.

“This afternoon. I’m just going to see my mama.”

He reached out and turned off the ignition. “I need to get something off my chest before you go, Elena.”

“I don’t really have a lot of time, Julian,” she said, putting her hand on the door, ready to bolt.

“You have enough time.” He pulled off his sunglasses. “We’re at a crossroads, Elena. I’m not the kind of man who can settle for a little bit of you, here and there, whenever you feel like letting me in.”

Enormously uncomfortable, she looked away, watched a woman in an expensive parka cross the street. “Julian, this is not the time for—”

“There’s never a good time.” He reached into the back seat and pulled out a notebook. “Before I give you this, I want to tell you that I am in love with you.” He took a breath. “Not a little bit. I love you like you were made for me. I think you love me, too, but you have to get over your fears and let me in, or it will never work.”

“Julian, don’t do this right now! It’s been a really long night and I’m feeling very emotional and I just want to go see my mom, okay? I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“There’s one more thing.” He held the notebook in his hands. “I have a confession to make. The movie we’re going to start filming in June is a ghost story. About a woman who lost her soul mate in a car accident and is haunted by him.”

Elena stared at him.

He took her hand and put the notebook into it. “This is the script,” he said, his rich dark eyes direct. “Take it and read it. If you hate it and you don’t want me to make the movie, I’ll pull it.”

She started to shove it back at him. He pushed back, patiently, quietly, that same stillness that had so captured her the first time they sat together over a meal in Vancouver rippling from him and touching her.