Devil's Food

by Janice Weber

  “I told you. Worked.” Emily felt like crying: Suddenly, ferociously, she missed Guy.

  “When’s Ross coming home, poor thing?”

  “Tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Are you all right? You sound a little funny, Emily?”

  “Just tired.”

  Philippa knew better than that, even with Dana in her lap. “What is it, honey?”

  “Nothing. Just the heat.”

  They talked a little about Philippa’s latest movie, a little about maybe meeting next month in Paris. After hanging up, Philippa stared at the reflection of the moon upon the waves. Emily’s flat voice had disturbed her. “Something’s wrong there,” she said to Dana.

  He kissed her knees. “Maybe she needs a lover.”

  Philippa turned abruptly away; for the first time, he had irritated her. “Maybe she’s got one, you fool.” She continued to study the moon-dappled water, ignoring him, as his lips grazed her long legs.

  Guy Witten had had a rotten weekend. No Emily, no life: It was that simple. He had been in love with her for years, in bed with her for one glorious night, and now she was gone, pretending that Niagara could just evaporate. She was thinking too much, as usual, fanning her guilt until it charred their smallest bliss. Now the saint had returned to her husband, sacrificing Guy on the fatuous altar of fidelity: Did she really prefer Ross and his drawing pencils? Stupid woman! Her even stupider husband didn’t have the slightest clue what she had been feeling for the last few years. Husbands preferred to interpret a midlife surge in cosmetic, undergarment, and hairdresser bills as feminine pride rather than horrific desperation. Just because Emily didn’t complain, Ross probably thought she was content. But women were never content. When they were twenty, they wanted rich husbands and grand careers. When they were thirty, they wanted superb children. But when they were forty, ever so slightly beginning to fatigue as husbands and children and careers wandered away from them, that genetic discontent became a roaring blaze, melting sanity, gutting caution: Then they were quivering perfection. Emily was, anyway. Guy sighed, wanting her terribly. She was perfect in bed, all soft yawls and sighs, an exquisite mesh of perfumes. Why were the most provocative women always married? To bores? Deep down, did they really want to be left alone, resuscitated every so often by an eager, disposable lover? How insulting.

  Guy spent most of the weekend at Cafe Presto interviewing replacement chefs, all inferior in talent and pulchritude to Emily. He finally settled on a Swedish woman with the vivacity of a rolling pin. On Sunday, eviscerated, he went fishing. Early Monday he was back at Toto’s Gym working off half a case of beer. Guy’s chin was touching the mat for his ninety-eighth push-up when an instructor brought the phone over. “It’s your lady.”

  He grabbed the handset, relieved and overjoyed, bleeding to touch her again. “Good morning.”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Emily said.

  Only four words lasting one second, yet her voice had transmitted the necessary data: This was no kiss-and-make-up call. He clipped his voice accordingly. “No problem.”

  She crunched into business mode. “Have you been speaking to Ross lately?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Why?”

  “I think he knows.”

  “Acting strange, is he?” This time there was such a long silence that Guy knew he had made her cry: agony. “What happened, sweetie?”

  “He left without a word on Friday and hasn’t called since. He never does that.”

  “Where’dhego?Tokyo?”

  “Montreal. I don’t know which hotel. Neither does his secretary, or so she says.”

  “Is she covering for him?”

  “Oh come on!”

  He closed his eyes: Even her screeches balmed his soul. “We’ve been careful, Em. No one knows.” She didn’t hang up; maybe there was still hope. “What have you been doing all weekend, worrying about it?”

  “I’ve been working.”

  “You found a job already? Why you little weasel. Where?”

  She sniffled. “A place called Diavolina. In the South End. Ever hear of it?”

  “It’s awful.” They were lapsing into ambiguous, uninterpretable silences. He had to get off the phone before he totally lost control. “I miss you, baby,” Guy said. “Let me know if the old man doesn’t come home.” He hung up.

  During the night, the heat swelled and the electricity failed. Emily awoke in a sweat, glanced at her flashing clock radio, and swore: Monday was off to a tardy start. Hastily combing her hair back, hardly bothering with makeup, screw the power dressing, she arrived at Diavolina shortly after six o’clock, as the clouds began spitting raindrops on sunburned commuters. Byron was at the back of the kitchen already swallowing his third cup of coffee as he finished today’s crossword puzzle. Yesterday’s sun/surf had burnished his tan and bleached his hair; a few more days on the beach and he’d look like a negative of a scarecrow. “Good morning,” Emily said. “How was Provincetown?”

  “Great. I haven’t been to bed yet.” Byron turned to the arts section and read the caption beneath a large picture. “Hey! Phil’s new movie opens Friday! I’ve got to see that.” He held the paper up. “Your resemblance is quite remarkable, you know. Have you ever thought of being a body double?”

  Emily took the paper away from Byron. “Do you like her?”

  “Philippa Banks? I adore her! She’s made beach movies an art form!” Byron flexed his sagging biceps. “I used to be in beach movies myself. The muscle man in the bikini. Now I prefer doing the soaps. You don’t catch as many colds.”

  “Have you ever worked with her?”

  “Gad, no! Philippa’s big time! I’m just skin.”

  “She might be coming for dinner tonight around nine-thirty.” While Byron was still swallowing that ostrich egg, Emily casually added, “She’s dating my husband’s business partner.”

  “No! That’s incredible! I’ve got to make the dinner, Maje! Please!”

  Emily already regretted her moment of one-upmanship. “Only if you don’t tell anyone she’s coming. I don’t need a free-for-all back here. Understood?”

  “My lips are sealed.” Byron clanked his cup in the dishwasher. “This calls for a special menu. Everything she likes.”

  “Her boyfriend likes lobster.”

  “Forget the boyfriend!” Byron went to the pay phone near the kitchen door. “Jimmy, wake up! You’re not going to believe this. I’m making dinner for Philippa Banks tonight. Do you want the table next to hers? Get here at eight, then. Wear your blue Perry Ellis. And don’t tell anybody!” He hung up. “Egad! I’m not sure Ward stocks dried cherries!” He ran to the bar.

  The service doorbell rang. Scowling, Emily went to answer it.

  A man perhaps still in his sixties, strong of face, soft of eye, stood outside. White shirt and white hat gleamed in the sunlight, giving him the aura of a visiting angel. Seeing Emily, he stared for a long time; maybe his eyes were adjusting to the indoors. “Excuse me,” he said finally, “I was expecting Leo. I’m Brother Augustine, the mushroom man.” He held up his basket.

  “Emily Major, the new chef.” She led him to a sideboard.

  He lifted the napkin covering his large basket. As he spoke, the quaver gradually left his voice. “This was a good week. We found cèpes, morels, even some grisettes. Quite rare in these parts now. You should use them as soon as possible.”

  Byron returned from the bar. “Hey Augie! Any truffles in that basket?”

  “I brought you grisettes instead. Very special.”

  “I’ll use them tonight. A movie star is coming to dinner.”

  Emily interrupted before Byron could bore the monk with irrelevant details about an actress he had probably never seen and never would. “We won’t keep you, Brother Augustine,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got many stops to make today.”

  “Are you kidding?” Byron laughed. “We’re his only stop. He’s got to get back to his cubicle and pray. How do you do it, Augie? Fifteen hours a
day on your knees—just praying?!”

  “That’s what hope is all about, isn’t it?” the monk said. “I’ll see you next week, Byron.”

  Emily caught up with Augustine at the door. “You’ll send an invoice, then?”

  “No. Your predecessor and I had an arrangement.”

  “My predecessor is gone.”

  “The debt remains.” He got into his small, rusty car. “Eat those grisettes tonight. They’re best with port and thyme.” He backed onto Tremont Street and drove away.

  Emily returned to the kitchen. “Byron, one more slip of your tongue and dinner’s off. I said tell no one and I meant it.”

  “Sorry! I thought you meant don’t tell anyone who worked here!”

  A pickup truck veered into the driveway. Rock music bounced off the brick walls as it sped through the narrow passageway, halting sharply at the kitchen door.

  “That’s Bruna,” Byron announced.

  “Who?”

  “Your milk and cheese lady from the Peace Power Farm. If we’re lucky, she’s got some quail eggs.”

  Someone pounded on the door. Before Emily or Byron could get to it, a woman in a tank top broke in. Her body was a thicket of even more grotesque muscles and tattoos than Ward’s. Her recent journey in a pickup truck had distressed her coiffure; freed from the ribbon at the nape of her neck, mounds of screech-yellow hair frizzed into space. Cursing her burden, she staggered toward the refrigerator. “Open the door,” she snapped at Byron. “This had better not be curdled or you won’t be getting any more.”

  “You don’t have a refrigerated truck?” Emily asked.

  “I don’t release any more fluorocarbons into the atmosphere than I have to.” Done unpacking the milk bottles, she began stacking little logs of goat cheese on a shelf. “I made a batch with chives and lemon grass, like you wanted. Where’s Leo?”

  “Gone with the wind,” Byron replied. “This is Chef Major, his replacement. Maje, this is Bruna. Makes goat cheese and other smelly things.”

  Bruna returned to her truck, brought in another pair of crates, and continued loading the refrigerator. Suddenly she turned her electric blue eyes on Emily. “Who did the man say you were?”

  “Emily Major.” She offered her hand, at the risk of getting crushed. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Leo’s gone? Is he sick? Where’d he go?”

  “Who knows?” Byron exclaimed. “Did you bring any quail eggs for me today? I’m desperate for something special.”

  Bruna removed a small carton from her crate. “Black currants. Best of the season.” As Byron pounced on them, she added, “Six bucks a pint.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Bruna pulled the cartons out of Byron’s reach. “If you don’t buy them, my next customer will.”

  “We’ll take them then,” Emily said, trying not to stare at Bruna’s upper body. She had absolutely no breasts, just wartlike growths where the nipples ought to be. The last thing Emily would wear, if she had a bustline like Bruna’s, would be a tank top. “If you’ll come to my office, I’ll write you a check.”

  The woman’s face darkened. “I need to speak to Leo.”

  “You find him, you can speak to him,” Byron answered. “He didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

  Bruna hesitated a moment, then bowed toward Emily. “I’ll be back Thursday.”

  After the door had slammed, Emily turned to the sous-chef. “Where’d she come from? Same place as Ward?”

  “You’ll have to ask Leo. I’m sure it’s a colorful tale. He always preferred to do business with slightly irregular people. And the criminally insane, like Klepp. Said it kept him on his toes.”

  Emily carefully put the berries into a colander. “Where do you think Leo went?”

  “Went? He probably got himself murdered, Maje. Leo was a wild man.”

  “Didn’t he have a family?”

  “If he did, they left him a long time ago. He never mentioned any personal details.”

  “How long was he here?”

  “At this restaurant? Forever.”

  The doorbell rang again, Emily met a greengrocer, a butcher, and an old Italian woman who made the biscotti. She spoke little English, accepted no payment, and asked a dozen times for Leo, leaving only after Byron had convinced her that Leo was on vacation. Deliveries and introductions continued all morning; every single supplier was dismayed to see Emily instead of her predecessor. One by one, as the rest of the kitchen staff arrived, Byron announced that dinner that evening had better be very, very special. Since he would not explain why, everyone assumed that the restaurant critic would be coming and reacted accordingly. Klepp suggested poisoning the mashed potatoes. Chess and Byron almost came to blows over proprietorship of the new mushrooms. Mustapha began preparing an elaborate chocolate concoction, ignoring the cakes he already had in the oven, with sooty results. A hectic lunch was made even more so by two AWOL waitresses and no Slavomir. Around three, when the dining room finally emptied, Emily found Ward at the bar. “I thought Mondays were slow here,” Emily said.

  “Maybe there’s a convention.”

  Zoltan, the maître d’ stepped behind them. “I have forty reservations for dinner. The phone’s been ringing nonstop. Everybody wants to sit next to someone named Phil or Flip. What’s going on?”

  “Who knows,” Ward muttered. “But you’d better make sure you have enough staff tonight. I have to see my therapist at eight. Someone’s got to cover the bar for me.”

  The phone at Zoltan’s elbow rang. “Diavolina,” he announced testily, then listened a moment. “For you,” he told Emily. “A gentleman.”

  Ross! She tried to keep her voice regular, vernal, as if her husband had just returned from a brief road trip. “Hello?”

  “I have to see you,” said Guy Witten. “Now.”

  “Today is not good,” Emily replied innocently. “Could we reschedule for next week?” She hung up, blinking slowly; his voice still ruffled her stomach. “My hairdresser,” she explained to Zoltan.

  “Of course.” The maître d’smirked. By now, he could identify an affair in two syllables or less. Sometimes all the evidence he needed was the breathing on one end of the telephone.

  Klepp stuck his head through the kitchen doors. “Florist’s here, Major,” he called. “Want me to take care of him?”

  Emily left the bar. She met a few more suppliers, all asking for Leo. Just before five, she called her husband’s office. “Hi Marjorie. If Ross checks in, could you tell him I’ll be late tonight?”

  “Tell him yourself.” The line clicked; only after hearing the dial tone did Emily realize that Marjorie had hung up on her.

  Early Monday morning, Dana Forbes reluctantly skippered his boat, and Philippa, back to shore. At her hotel by eight, Philippa immediately fell asleep and did not call her sister until long after Emily had left for work. Philippa would have called the restaurant had she remembered its name. Something like Diabolica. The phone company couldn’t help so Philippa took a luxurious bath and prepared to meet a parade of journalists in her suite at the Four Seasons. She and Dana had arranged to meet downtown, at his office, when she finished.

  Ah, Dana! Her mood fluttered between ecstasy at striking—once again—sexual lightning, and depression at knowing that—once again—the affair had already flopped. Dana would never marry her. He already had several teenage children and a wife who didn’t care where he slept. He headed the Numero Uno architectural firm in a town with great restaurants. Why give that up for an over-the-hill actress who wanted a husband like Fred MacMurray? Moreover, an actress who happened to be his partner’s sister-in-law? Philippa chuckled to herself: It was tragedy to be born with both brain cells and estrogen. She got out of the bathtub, uncheered by the sight of her body in the mirror. It had accommodated, hastily and cheaply, far too many men. Where were they now? Gone, like her youth. Lately she had begun to dream about herself, toothless, mustachioed, and incontinent, in a nursing home. Strangers wo
uld stare at her and whisper, “That old hag used to be Philippa Banks.” Gad! She should have been a painter, a writer, a sculptress: In those professions, wrinkles connoted achievement. In hers, they meant the unemployment line. She was already beginning to feel like an out-of-print book. Philippa stared at her face in the mirror and suddenly became depressed at the thousands of dollars she had spent over the years on makeup, private exercise instructors, health spas, hairdressers, and dieticians. Even after a long bath she looked older than her twin sister, who had done nothing to preserve herself but slap on a little cold cream and an occasional pair of jogging shoes. And Emily had a husband: a license to decrepitate with dignity.

  Philippa ordered a bottle of champagne and dressed in a peach silk lounging ensemble. She threw her brunette wig into a suitcase and arranged her light blond hair, which over the years had cost her about a buck a strand, into a casual tumble. She was feeling somewhat better when her first interviewer arrived. They discussed Philippa’s new movie, Choke Hold, a romantic thriller about a woman and an acrobat. After much gossip about the movie industry, the journalist looked at his crib sheet. “And how is your husband?” he asked. “Is the Concorde still your preferred getaway for a few hours together?”

  Philippa stiffened. “I am no longer married. That must be a very old news release.”

  “Your manager just faxed it to me yesterday.” Flustered, the newsman looked for other items of human interest, found none, and said, “Well, I admire your courage, at least.”

  “Courage? Hardly.” Philippa lit a cigarette and blew curtly at the gods. “I am a poor judge of men. Just like my mother. She was seduced and abandoned.”

  “You’re illegitimate?”

  Philippa shrugged philosophically. “She died shortly after I was born. An uncle brought us up.”

  “Us?”

  “Brought me up, I mean,” Philippa smoothly corrected herself. Years ago, Emily and she had agreed to leave twins out of the PR scenario. It took attention away from Philippa and undermined Emily’s credibility as a normal human being. “I never knew my father. Maybe it was better that way.”