Devil's Food

by Janice Weber

“You’re probably searching for your father through all these husbands,” the interviewer offered.

  Ass, Philippa thought as she nodded sagely. “Very perceptive.” Suddenly bored with this stupid man, she glanced at her diamond-barnacled watch. “I’m afraid you must excuse me.” She walked to the door, knowing that her silken entrails floated enticingly behind. “Please phone whenever you’re in Paris.”

  The next journalist, a woman recently divorced, questioned Philippa incessantly about the ins and outs of marriage, Hollywood style. The interview ended abruptly when the lady turned her attention to the lack of good roles for middle-aged actresses.

  Finally a television crew arrived. Philippa’s boredom was mitigated by a handsome cameraman who was obviously fascinated with her; throughout the interview, she eyed him flirtatiously as she answered questions about the off-screen romance between herself and her Choke Hold costar, a liaison that everyone knew to be a fabrication of their press agents. As the crew was readying to leave, the cameraman quietly approached her with a gleam in his blue eyes. Her heart beat just a little bit faster.

  “This is strange,” he said, “but I know someone who looks exactly like you.”

  Philippa’s beckoning smile froze. “Is that so?”

  “Really. The lady behind the counter at Cafe Presto. I stop in every morning for coffee on the way to work.” He zipped his camera case shut. “But I haven’t seen her since the middle of the week. It really wrecks my day.”

  When the crew departed, Philippa finished the champagne. She tucked her gorgeous blond hair back under the brunette wig. Then she put on a tremendous white hat and Emily’s sunglasses, found a cab, and commanded the driver to take her to State Street. Using the key Dana had given her that morning, she went in the private entrance of Major & Forbes, Architects. Her lover was alone in his stupendous office. However, he was on the phone with his wife.

  “... dinner with an important client,” he was saying as he blew a kiss to Philippa. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, Ardith.” There was a short pause. “Eh—I don’t think you should join us, sweetheart. It would be a little awkward. No, that’s the whole problem. Ross can’t handle it. He’s out of town. It’s not my choice, believe me.” He smiled again at Philippa. “I’ll try to be home by eleven. Love you too.” He hung up.

  “You bastard,” Philippa snapped.

  Dana strode across the room and kissed her soundly. “She said she loved me. What am I supposed to say back, something like ’No kidding’? It doesn’t mean anything anyway. It’s like Please and Thank You. One phrase triggers the other. In polite society, that is.” To illustrate his point, he said, “I love you.”

  Philippa scowled. “No kidding.” She twisted out of his arms and went to a bronze bust on a pedestal in the corner. “Is this supposed to be the great you?”

  “Who else? How do you like it?”

  She ran a finger along its nose. “Beats a hat rack, I suppose.” After perching her frilly bonnet on it, Philippa walked to the window. Pouting, she watched the sailboats in Boston Harbor. For a few hours, she had actually been happy among them. “Where’s Ross?”

  “Who knows? Fishing with the Micmacs. All this preaching about needing me in the office on Monday, then he doesn’t even come in. The secretary says he’s in Canada on some hush-hush project she can’t divulge. It’s her way of punishing me for not writing my whereabouts in the appointment book like a good boy.” Catching up with Philippa at the window, Dana began nibbling the back of her neck. “I haven’t made love with you in almost four hours.” He slid a hand beneath her fluttery tunic. “Would you like to make up for lost time?”

  “Here? You’re an animal.” But she didn’t back away; the idea of misbehaving on the windowsill, in view of hundreds of strangers in the adjacent skyscraper, intrigued her.

  Their oral cavities were steeply countersunk when, after two short knocks, Marjorie walked into Dana’s office. “Excuse me!” she gasped, seeing them. “I thought you were alone.”

  “Thank you, Marjorie,” said Dana, smartly disengaging himself. “I’ll be right with you.” The distraught woman left.

  Philippa immediately pushed him away. “Damn you, I knew that was a bad idea. Did you see the way she looked at me? This fucking wig! She thinks I’m Emily.”

  A slow smile spread across Dana’s face. He straightened his tie. “Let’s have some fun,” he said. “Please, Phil. I’ll never get another chance to razz Marjorie like this.”

  “No way. Emily would kill me.”

  “Are you kidding? She’d love it. Marjorie has been sending Ross anonymous Valentines for ten years.”

  Philippa still hesitated. “She’ll be able to tell I’m not Emily.” Too many wrinkles.

  “I’ll bet you dinner tonight she can’t. Come on.” He patted her clothes back in place and, taking her hand, tiptoed to the door of his office.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Philippa whispered. “Really, Dana, this is so stupid!”

  “Shhh!” He ushered her to the front desk, where Marjorie was furiously pounding her electric typewriter. Across the foyer, waiting for her appointment, sat a dowager wearing a black hat. She probably hunched over due to the tonnage of her pearl necklaces. With considerable pleasure, Dana noticed that the woman recognized Philippa instantly: The magazine she was reading dropped to her lap as she stared at the famous actress. Quickly realizing that an autograph request could ruin his little joke, however, Dana became very businesslike. “Marjie,” he asked smoothly, “has Ross called in yet?”

  “No,” she snapped, glaring briefly at Philippa.

  “It would be helpful to know when he’s coming back. Where’s my appointment book?” The irate secretary shoved it toward Dana’s side of the desk. “Thank you. Nine-thirty tonight at Diavolina, darling?” he asked Philippa, writing the name of the restaurant in large block letters on the proper line. Dana was about to tell Marjorie that he’d be disappearing for a few hours when she slipped a small yellow note in front of him. Dagmar Pola, it said. An arrow pointed toward the woman in the black hat. Lunch at Locke Ober.

  Dana Forbes had not risen to the apex of his profession by lunching with girlfriends instead of moneyed clients; also, with the wisdom of middle age, he had finally come to realize that bedding a femme fatale would ultimately generate less bliss than would building a new museum. So he took Philippa’s arm and paraded her to the door. In the hallway, he laughed apologetically. “I completely forgot about that appointment.”

  Philippa stared at him a moment. “You’re not standing me up, are you?”

  “What can I say, tiger? Business before pleasure. Age before beauty.” He kissed her forehead. “Go to the hotel. I’ll be there naked in two hours.”

  “I won’t.” Philippa donned her sunglasses. Silks aquiver, she stalked toward the elevator and boarded without looking back, not because she wanted to cut Dana, but because she was afraid he might not still be standing forlornly in the hallway, watching her leave.

  And in fact, he wasn’t. “Madame Pola,” Dana cried effusively, reentering his office. “This is a rare pleasure.” He took her thin, cold hands, wondering why old ladies’diamond rings were always too large for their fingers, so that they clicked and slid like false teeth in a glass. “I’m afraid Ross was called to Washington this morning. State Department consultations. I’m delighted to have you all to myself. Come in, come in!” With a grandiose gesture, he swept her into his office. “Would you care for a drink before lunch?”

  “No thank you.” Dagmar peered at the bust in the corner. Its chin was barely visible beneath Philippa’s fluent millinery. “Works of art should not be used as hat racks, Mr. Forbes.”

  “I’ll scold the offending party. But I’m flattered that you would consider my likeness a work of art.” Dana went to the bar. As he was mixing himself a highball, Dagmar surveyed the array of pill bottles on his desktop.

  “Are you an architect or a pharmacist?” she asked.

 
“Ha-ha! You know the answer to that, I hope!” Where the hell was Ross, damn it? Dana hated trying to charm women who didn’t excite him sexually. It was a thankless endeavor, like pitting prunes. “Have you been to Locke Ober recently, Madame Pola?” he said, sitting beside her on his sofa.

  Dagmar wryly studied his face; after a lifetime with Joe Pola and his nonstop mistresses, she had no difficulty recognizing a male of the same ilk, “Perhaps we could lunch another day,” she answered, “I am suddenly feeling under the weather.”

  Dana could not believe his good fortune. However, he forced his brow to crinkle in concern. “What a shame! This heat is just abominable. Let me call a cab.”

  “Thank you, my driver is waiting downstairs.” Dagmar walked slowly to Marjorie’s desk. “Please tell Mr. Major that I was here.” Walking at a coronation pace, she left.

  “She doesn’t like me,” Dana murmured after a moment. “I wonder why not.”

  Marjorie returned to her typewriter. “Because you’re a schmuck.”

  “Ha-ha! Aren’t we cute today!” Dana strode into the hallway. “At least let me show you to your car, Madame Pola.” When the hell would this old bag tell him to call her Dagmar? They waited eons for an elevator. Finally, desperate to break the silence, he said, “I suppose you recognized that woman with me in the office just now.”

  “She looked somewhat familiar,” Dagmar answered dryly.

  “That was Philippa Banks, the actress. She wants me to build her a château on the Riviera.”

  “Is that so.”

  The elevator arrived and Dagmar inched aboard while Dana kept the Door Open button depressed. Slightly unnerved that his charm had failed on a veritable tortoise, Dana began to whistle nervously as the elevator plodded to the lobby. He regretted the little joke he had played on Marjorie; she might sue him for a deviant version of sexual harassment. He worried about Ross’s prolonged disappearance from the office. Nothing like that had happened in the forty years he had known him. Dana helped Dagmar into her car and looked helplessly up and down the teeming sidewalks. His chest hurt: Rejection, even by a harridan, disrupted his biosystem. Then he thought he glimpsed Philippa’s gossamer outfit wafting in the far-off breeze, and ran like a schoolboy after her.

  * * *

  It had been a bad Monday at Diavolina. Around dinnertime, when Mustapha’s oven died, the slow burn in Emily’s stomach began flaring into her abdomen. The chaos had begun this morning, when she had told Byron that Philippa would be coming to dinner. He had been useless as a yo-yo, and the kitchen off balance, ever since. Lunch had not gone well, thanks to a surge of diners and a dearth of serving staff. Still recovering from the unexpected depletion of their reserves, the cooks were frantically preparing for a second assault that evening. Later in the day, catching Emily completely off guard, Guy had called. Ross had not. Then Marjorie had hung up on her: disaster. Instinctively, Emily knew that her husband had returned, and she was afraid.

  Just before six o’clock, two replacement waiters arrived. Following a Mach-3 rundown of the menu, they were sent into the dining room, whence they often returned, looking confused. By seven, Diavolina was full, the bar besieged. There was an unbelievable run on oysters and smoked salmon, forcing Klepp into overdrive; he and Chess began scrimmaging over a bowl of lemons, which she insisted on saving for her salad dressings. Mustapha’s rising batch of yeast rolls verged on collapse when the stove repairman finally arrived. Placing his toolbox in the busiest corridor in the kitchen, the man began a thorough search of the lines, finally announcing that he would have to shut off all the gas before proceeding further. As Emily was protesting, Slavomir tripped over the toolbox. His face, and fifty clean dishes, hit the floor.

  For a second, out in the dining room, all conversation ceased. Then everyone laughed in appreciation of someone else’s ineptitude. At the bar, Ward shook her head and continued pouring beer. She turned the music and the air-conditioning up a notch. There were many new faces tonight, all ages, all types: Maybe Diavolina had been mentioned in some trendy magazine. A weird business, food. She called Zoltan to the bar. “It’s all yours,” she said. “I’ve got a date with my shrink.”

  Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Slavomir was bleeding. Porcelain shards lay everywhere, like shells on a beach. Mustapha, standing the closest, helped the dishwasher to his feet. “You’ve been drinking again, man,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I thought we talked about this.”

  Emily rushed over. “Are you hurt?” Slavomir burbled in Russian as the repairman gingerly exhumed his toolbox from the rubble. “What’s he saying, Klepp?” she called.

  “He’s reciting poetry. Sounds like Tolstoy.” Klepp glanced at a chit from one of the new waiters. “You stupid shit! One more oyster and I’ll put your gonads on the plate instead!”

  Byron had been standing near the kitchen doors, peering into the dining room. “Phil’s not here yet,” he worried. “Maybe the crowd scared her away.”

  “Would you do something useful?” Emily barked, binding Slavomir’s lacerated wrist with a napkin. “Klepp, ask Slavomir if he wants to go home.”

  “Then who the hell’s going to wash dishes?” he shouted back. “Look at him, Major. He’s perfectly all right.” Nevertheless, Klepp conferred with the injured party. “He’ll stay if you let him lie down in your office for a few minutes.”

  “Fine! Go!”

  Ward came into the kitchen just as Klepp and Slavomir were leaving. “What happened?” she demanded, seeing bandages and blood.

  “He kissed the floor again, ma’am,” Klepp replied. “No problem.”

  The dishwasher peeped through the little window in the kitchen door. Suddenly, with a shriek, he reeled into the dining room. Klepp managed to catch him after a few steps and drag him back into the kitchen.

  “Will you get that madman out of here?” Byron cried. “What is he carrying on about, Klepp?”

  “He says there’s a devil out there. Now he’s putting a curse on the whole kitchen.” Klepp wrapped an arm around Slavomir’s frail shoulders. “Let’s go lie down, Rasputin.”

  Ward looked at Emily. “I’ll be back in two hours. Try not to burn the place down.” She left.

  Lola, the waitress with the body of Jessica Rabbit, torpedoed in with two plates of pasta. “Rejects,” she said, shoving them toward Chess. “They say it’s undercooked.”

  Chess ate a strand. “This is perfectly done. Take it back out and explain what al dente is all about.”

  “Don’t give me any lip, Muffin,” Lola retorted. “They’re my best tippers.”

  “She’s here!” Byron suddenly screeched from the doorway. “Oh my God! She’s gorgeous!” He rushed to the stove and flamed a wide copper pan. “Everyone stay calm. Where did I put those mushrooms? Port. Where’s the port?” He finally located the bottle on a shelf near the dishwashing utensils. “Christ, it’s empty! That swine drank a half bottle of seventy-year-old port!” Byron stumbled into Mustapha, who was pulling a rack of very dark brown rolls from the oven. “Will you get out of my way? This is my workstation now! You had all day to bake!”

  Mustapha carefully removed the rolls to a cooling rack. “What is with you, man?” he asked. “You got Queen Elizabeth out there or something?”

  “I’ve got Philippa Banks,” Byron retorted. “If you don’t know who that is, you’ve joined the wrong religion.”

  “Philippa Banks,” Klepp murmured, returning to his station. “That’s the broad who always gets laid on beaches.” He joined Byron at the door. “Now that’s what I call cleavage. Who’s the gigolo with her?”

  “Get back to your oysters, Klepp!” Emily shouted. Her throat felt like the funnel of a blow torch. “Byron, sweep up these dishes at once. Before you start the mushrooms.”

  The sous-chef was fussily picking through Mustapha’s rolls, choosing the four most perfect specimens to send to Philippa’s table with a selection of cheeses. “Lola! Are you on Section C tonight?” he called.

  “Nope, one of
the new guys is. Step on it, will you, Chess? How long does it take to boil a little spaghetti?”

  Malcolm, one of the new waiters, came into the kitchen. “Hey, guess who just walked in!” he announced excitedly. “Dana Forbes!”

  “Who the hell’s that?” Klepp asked after a moment of silence.

  “One of the most famous architects in America,” Malcolm replied. “He’ s on a par with Frank Lloyd Wright and I. M. Pei.”

  “Oh for God’ s sake! Did you notice who he’ s sitting with?” Byron sputtered, rearranging four rolls for the fifth time in a bread basket.

  “His wife, I guess.” Picking up two plates of barbecued chicken, Malcolm left.

  Finally satisfied with his still life, Byron began helping Emily clean up the broken dishes. “Does she eat fast or slow, Maje?” he whispered. “I have to time my courses.”

  “Depends how much she’s drinking.”

  Eddy, the other new waiter, rushed into the kitchen. “Guess who’ s at my table!”

  “Elvis Presley,” Klepp roared.

  “Just stay calm, everyone,” Byron repeated yet again, placing an arm around Eddy’ s shoulder. “Have you brought their vodka and dried cherries yet?”

  “Huh? The guy ordered champagne.”

  “Aha. Look, here’s their bread. Serve it with this plate of cheese. Tell them dinner’s compliments of the chef. They’ ll know what that means.”

  “They don’ t have to pay for it?” Chess called indignantly. “I’d like to know why not. They should pay for it like everyone else.”

  “She’s my guest, you twit.” Byron lobbed a slab of butter into his pan. “Eddy, after you serve the bread, go to the bar and get me another bottle of port for my mushrooms. If Zoltan gives you any shit, tell him to take it out of my paycheck. Go!”

  The kitchen rattled into high gear as orders flew in, food flew out.

  Philippa felt all eyes on her as she gracefully followed the maître d’ to a table in the center of the crowded dining room. It was obvious that people either recognized her, or knew that they ought to recognize her, as she walked past. That evening, Philippa knew she looked better than any woman in sight. Having spent the afternoon with Dana in various postures of ecstasy, her skin glowed. She wore her favorite outfit, a floor-length tube of aqua spandex that made her feel like a mermaid. Her makeup was perfect. And she was hungry. Smiling at Zoltan, Philippa took her seat, innocently ignoring those gaping at her from adjoining tables. She was glad to see that Emily was finally working in a real restaurant with a real liquor license. Diavolina was a much larger, hipper place than that birdhouse at Quincy Market.