Devil's Food at Dusk

by Anna Martin

  So basically he wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready to walk out to the dining room after his main server had closed for the night to find Joe waiting there. Of course nobody had told the waitstaff that Joe didn’t have the same status he’d had only a day before—that he could show up whether the restaurant was closed or not, hang out, be part of the Lumiere family. He wasn’t part of the Lumiere family. He was… he was getting the hell out.

  “I don’t want you here,” Remy said. “You need to go and not come back.”

  “Remy. I wasn’t doing it to hurt you.”

  “What are you talking about? You slept with me for weeks while you were dealing with my brother the entire time to take my restaurant away from me. What exactly would you call that?”

  “You were only sleeping with me to get me to pick a different restaurant.” Joe flinched after he said that, as though maybe he didn’t quite mean it. Remy didn’t care.

  “So Sunday morning. That was all total shit. The part about falling for me, about wanting to come here. That was nothing.”

  “It wasn’t,” Joe protested. “I was feeling all those things. I thought you had other prospects. I thought the best restaurants in town wanted to hire you.”

  “You knew I didn’t want to work somewhere like that.”

  “Not until after the papers were signed. I had no idea you’d never want to do that.”

  “Well, it looks like I’m going to get to. I have to have a job. Especially if I’m going to get my own place.”

  “You’re going to move out? I thought you liked having your whole family around.”

  Remy gritted his teeth. “Well, things aren’t going to be quite like they used to be, are they?”

  He was just so angry. Angry at his father, at Sal. Angry at Joe because no matter how much he didn’t want to feel it, Remy still knew there was something between them, and he fucking hated that fact.

  “I just wanted you to know that Pineapple Joe’s is continuing the lease on the apartment I rented as part of the signing agreement. We were going to offer it to Magnolia for six months at her current rent, but if you’d like to take it….” He looked at the ground.

  “You honestly think I could live there? Sleep in that bed alone, get up and take showers in that bathroom by myself?”

  He supposed he could. If he had to. But, no, if Magnolia had a place to go, then he wasn’t going to screw her out of that. Remy wouldn’t do that to her.

  “I just want what’s best for you.”

  Remy wanted to spew fire and ash and destruction. He took a deep breath. “You wanna know what’s best for me?” Joe nodded. “Take a long look around you—you’re looking right at it. Now get the fuck out. I don’t want to see your face ever again.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Joe felt numb. He hadn’t expected anything else, but still Remy’s words were a shock to his body somehow. He’d walked back to his apartment after that meeting as if he was some sort of zombie. It was moving but he didn’t really feel it, feel anything. He supposed he should stop and get some dinner, maybe a gallon of alcohol, but he couldn’t really do that.

  He’d left a million messages for Remy—Sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you… It was a mistake. How can I make it up to you?… I meant everything I said.

  Remy never replied to a single one.

  You asked for it. He’d known exactly what was going to happen when he signed those papers. He knew he’d never see Remy again and that losing him would be uglier than anything he’d ever felt in his life. He’d known all of those things. So why was it so hard? Why did he feel the need to send a million messages and try to make things work? It was fruitless and stupid. He resolved to forget about Remy and move on with his life. However that was possible.

  The next couple of days he did the typical setup he always did whenever he first acquired a new property—called the general contractor and agreed on a starting date, and got the ball rolling for another project coordinator to come in and organize staffing and run the non-construction aspects of the remodel. Joe knew Howard would want him to see to it personally, what with New Orleans being the jewel of their Southern string of locations, but Joe didn’t want to. He refused to. He’d stay back and do the legwork on the Vegas restaurant in the spring instead. It was just as important as New Orleans, if not more. Vegas also wouldn’t have an angry Remy. It would be better. After so many months of the South, Joe might appreciate the desert. At least he could tell himself he would.

  The day he left New Orleans, Joe kept looking over his shoulder. He almost expected to see Remy there, somewhere, in the crowd at the airport, buying coffee in the quarter, anywhere. He didn’t see a damn thing. So he downed two Dramamine pills for his nonstop flight and passed out. He woke up bleary-eyed as the rest of the cabin was emptying at LAX.

  Joe got off the plane and wandered to baggage claim to grab his bags, then went to long-term parking for his car. It felt weird to drive again—his car felt just as foreign as the Los Angeles air. The air was lighter, somehow, that breezy, clear night he’d missed for so long. It felt empty to him, though. Cold. He missed the way that the air in New Orleans felt like it was hugging him. He missed everything about the damn place. Joe wondered if he’d be back there, to deal with the renovation start up if nothing else. Probably. Nobody else on Howard’s team knew how to browbeat contractors like he did. The thought of being back there both made him want to smile with relief and panic at the same time.

  The drive to his condo in Venice felt a hell of a lot longer than it probably was—bone deep tiredness and his preflight drug dosing didn’t help—and included a pull through a burrito stand since he had absolutely nothing in his place to eat. He did it on autopilot, tired, a tiny bit drugged from the airsickness pills, and emotionally worn to shreds. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t want to be in LA, wasn’t sure if he could handle being back in New Orleans, sure as hell couldn’t think about being in a new city, anonymous and empty of love.

  His apartment felt weird too. It smelled musty from being closed up, and there was something horribly gaping about it, as though it was a model unit devoid of life or human breath. He’d never realized how impersonal his entire world was until that exact moment, after days and hours at the Babineaux house surrounded by their history. He ate his dinner and flopped into his bed. It didn’t smell right, with no Remy and no slight hint of bougainvillea and beignets in the air, so he didn’t sleep well. He didn’t have many hours to sleep, anyway. He had to be up and in the office early to finish out the paperwork.

  * * *

  Joe’s first day back at the LA office was… weird. He’d never really felt like he belonged at home, since he was gone so much. He had a few friends, some acquaintances at the office, but nobody he called or e-mailed every day when he got up. Nobody who’d been waiting to hear from him when he landed. He slid into a desk chair he hadn’t sat in for nearly a month, and even then it was only for a day or two between Mobile and New Orleans.

  “Hey, Joe. Awesome job closing the New Orleans property. Everyone’s been talking about how difficult those assholes were being. Glad you finally nailed them.” Joe looked up to see… Chris, he thought, grinning down at him. They’d met a few times—at office functions and other events. Chris seemed typical but harmless. Usually. Today, Joe felt himself wanting to rip the dickhead’s face off.

  “Yeah. It was great.” He couldn’t come out with a more pleasant answer. Not if his life depended on it.

  Chris’s smile faded, and he backed away from Joe’s desk.

  The whole morning went like that—congratulations, some more genuine than others, by people who did jobs a lot like his, although probably not as well. He’d always felt kind of like he had a target on his back when he was at the office. Like there was someone else, a little younger, a little more eager, ready to take him out and grab his place. It usually infuriated him and fired him up, made him want to get that next property, make that next deal.

  Joe didn
’t have the energy to give a shit anymore. Let them take it. Let someone else ruin people’s lives.

  His phone rang when it was close to lunch. Howard. Joe got into the elevator and rode up to Howard’s floor, where even the air felt a little different.

  “Hey, Howard.”

  “Fitzy. Glad to be back?” Howard asked.

  Joe nodded. He didn’t know if he could lie convincingly if he spoke.

  “I was looking over the deal you signed with the Babineaux people. There are some irregularities that I want to go over with you.”

  Here we go. Joe knew he wasn’t going to be happy about the apartment, or the fifty grand Sal had tacked on to the selling price. Howard was used to him arguing prospective sellers down to the last penny. He hadn’t wanted to do that to Tom. Or any of them.

  “What’s up?” Joe asked Howard. It was falsely casual, and they both knew it.

  “Can you explain the apartment clause? That’s not something we do.”

  “Well, it was this time if you wanted that property. The owner wasn’t willing to sell unless we took care of his tenant until she could find a new place to live.”

  “But she’s barely paying for the place,” Howard protested.

  “That’s what she was paying to live above Lumiere,” Joe said. “Howard, it was a breaker point. Either we gave them that or it wasn’t going to happen. What did you want me to do?”

  Howard gave a long sigh. “We’re going to have to cut some corners on the refit, then. That money isn’t going to come out of thin air. They already hiked up the price on the building too.”

  “You know damn well it’s worth twice what we paid.” Joe was tired of it. If Howard wanted to yell at someone, maybe he should call up one of the junior developers. Joe just wanted a long drink and an even longer nap. “It was a difficult situation, Howard. We needed that French Quarter location and so we had to do whatever was necessary to get it. That’s what I did.”

  “Next time the seller tries to pull something like that on you, come to me first, okay?”

  As if it would happen again. It wouldn’t have happened ever if it wasn’t… them. If it wasn’t for Remy and Stella and that family, the deal he’d signed off on would’ve been a lot better for him and not nearly as good for them. It was a fact, he wasn’t proud of it, but that’s the way things worked.

  * * *

  Joe tried to do all of his normal things over the next few days. Went to the gym, met some of his friends for drinks, went to work, back out for dinner and drinks with some colleagues. None of it felt right, like it used to. He remembered the thrill of feeling wanted, of being the one everyone in the office jockeyed to be around, the guy all his acquaintances were jealous of because of his money and his looks. He used to love how it felt, get drunk off the jealousy and ass-kissing. Not anymore. Fake. That was the only word Joe could come up with for it. Fake.

  He picked up the phone a million times to call Remy. Try to talk to him. Take it back.

  He never did.

  He still couldn’t sleep.

  It was hard, watching Lumiere close down. Kind of like watching a relative die, but maybe even worse. Remy went there every day, made food for the customers, who’d lined up outside each afternoon for hours to get the last of Remy’s cooking until he ended up… wherever it was that he was going. He had no idea. Days later and he didn’t know what he wanted to do other than exactly what he’d been doing since he’d come home from college—run Lumiere. He figured he’d better get some prospects together, and soon, because the ex-restaurant owner hanging around his parents’ house at thirty years old was not sexy, and it wasn’t who Remy wanted to be.

  He picked up some cards, listlessly made a few calls, didn’t really follow through. Remy was stuck.

  Tom kept trying to talk to him. He cornered him after Lumiere’s final night. Remy was half-drunk, although he’d been too tired and sad to go out and get fucked off bourbon and absinthe with Shawn. It had been a nice offer. He couldn’t take him up on it.

  “It was the best thing to do, son,” Tom said when Remy came into the kitchen for a bottle of water after he’d come home from Lumiere for the final time. “That building was falling apart around us, and it would’ve taken years to make it what it should’ve been. And money. More money than you could’ve ever made.”

  “Don’t you think you should’ve given me the chance to try?” Remy asked.

  “You would’ve never said yes,” Tom told him.

  “You’re right. I would’ve never in a million fucking years said yes. I poured everything into that place, all my extra cash, my heart. Never.”

  Tom gave his son a sad look. “But don’t you see, Remy? Maybe you weren’t in a place to make that choice even if it was the right one. Maybe you needed me to make it for you so you could move on instead of spending your life trying to plug the leaks on a sinking ship.”

  “It wasn’t sinking. I had it handled. Now I don’t have a damn thing.” Remy didn’t say anything else to his father. He just grabbed his bottle of water and turned for the stairs.

  * * *

  The next day Remy woke with a headache and a sore back. He hadn’t slept well in weeks. He wanted to say it was because he wasn’t happy about the restaurant. Of course it was that. But it was something else as well. It was the twenty texts on his phone he hadn’t been able to either read or delete, it was the lack of a warm body curled around his back where he’d gotten used to it. It was nobody to laugh with, it was how his family was so tense around each other. Andre was just as angry as he was, Grace was sullen and mostly off with Susannah instead of in the pressure cooker of their house, their mom spent a lot of time in her painting shed in the back garden, and Sal had disappeared with what Remy had found to be a broker’s fee. Asshole.

  Tom, well, other than the day before, there hadn’t been much talking going on there. Remy felt as if there were a wall of ice between him and his father. They’d been so close before. He wondered if they ever would be again.

  He padded downstairs, painfully aware that he had fuck all to do that day, or the next day, or the one after that, unless he managed to find a job that didn’t make him want to behead himself. He poured a cup of coffee and walked out to the back garden to drink it on his favorite bench. Remy was alone for a good ten minutes, eyes closed, soaking in the gentle autumn sun and trying to feel like himself. Eventually he felt the bench creak softly. He cracked his eyes open to see Estelle sitting next to him in a long nightgown.

  She’d been doing that lately, not getting dressed unless his mother asked her to.

  “Morning, darling,” Estelle said. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” he said. He’d barely noticed. Nothing felt beautiful with his life crumbling around him. He also supposed he should see the bright side. Whatever that might be. But Remy hadn’t gotten to that place yet. He wasn’t sure if he was going to for a long, long time.

  “You know,” she told him, “I come out and look at these flowers every day. I remember when Hugo planted them from tiny bulbs and seeds. I collect the seeds every fall so I can plant them in the same places and make sure they grow again. They make me remember him, and for a little while each day, I’m just a little bit happier.”

  Remy nodded. He knew the garden was his grandma’s way of staying with his grandpa.

  “But you know what?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I can replant the seeds and tend the bulbs and no matter how hard I try, they’re still going to be different flowers in the spring. They’re still not the same ones Hugo planted. It doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful, though.”

  Remy tilted his head. “What are you trying to say, Grandma?”

  “I’m saying that just because Lumiere is gone doesn’t mean you can’t remember it. Doesn’t mean you can’t do something new in its honor and love that just as much. Lumiere isn’t coming back. Hugo isn’t coming back. I might join your grandfather sooner rather than later, but y
ou’re too young to give up. Find something new to love, my dear.”

  “It’s not that easy to do, Grandma.”

  “It really is.” She leaned over and whispered, “You don’t have any choice, anyway.”

  She had a point. Remy stretched and wrapped his arm around his grandmother’s shoulders. He did have to find something else to love. The only problem was, he didn’t have a damn clue what that something else should be.

  * * *

  He knew he was torturing himself. It had been days since the restaurant closed, days of making half attempts to find himself a new job but not really caring if he actually spoke to someone. Instead he made masochistic daily trips past Lumiere, or “The future site of Pineapple Joe’s New Orleans!!” as the sign exclaimed. It felt like stabbing himself in the eyeballs every time. Or maybe the heart. He saw the workers in there yanking down drywall and windows, making everything look like some sort of alien place. It hurt.

  He thought of his grandmother’s advice. Find something else to love. Remy wanted to do it. He did. But he was watching that thing he loved get torn apart limb from limb. He wasn’t even in a place where he could start thinking of what else there was to love, let alone actually doing it. No, that was a lie. There was something.

  Joe.

  Stop. Thinking about him isn’t going to make a damn thing better.

  He’d finally broke down and read a few of Joe’s messages—about how he had regrets, how he missed Remy already, how he wanted another chance. He hadn’t replied. Of course he hadn’t replied, because what did he say to the guy who’d torn his goddamn life apart behind his back? But there were still feelings. Remy still reached for him at night.