by Janice Weber
“I don’t believe you,” Ross said. How could Dagmar have gotten it so wrong?
“No? Go to the morgue and run a DNA test. Make it quick, though. I’m burying him tomorrow.”
Emily slowly swallowed the last scrambled eggs. That sot of a dishwasher was her father? That amoral wildcat was her mother? Perhaps Philippa had been right to insist they were born in an upper East Side hospital. “Why did the priest keep this all to himself?”
“Because I made sure that Joe sent a large gift to the monastery. All Dagmar’s money, of course. It was a small step toward expiating her original sin with Slavomir.”
Who had done nothing but fall in love with an inconstant woman. Ross stood up. “Thanks for dropping by. We love guests for breakfast.”
“Wait,” Emily called to Leo. “If you hated your brother so much, why did you take such good care of his mistress?”
After a long look, as if he were about to cast Emily in bronze, Leo replied, “Because that was as close as I’d ever get.” He turned quickly and left.
Soon Ross returned to the kitchen. “Do you believe him?”
“Yes.”
He stared at Dagmar’s egg-smeared obituary. “All that fuss for nothing.”
Nothing? Fall in love, take your chances. Everyone knew it was Russian roulette with not one but six loaded chambers, and everyone played anyway, seizing the opportunity to die smiling, laughing even, as their brains hit the wall. Emily kissed Ross’s ear. “Do you have time to come to the travel agent with me today, sweetheart? Let’s take that trip we’ve been talking about.”
He folded the newspaper and followed her to the bedroom.
We’re leaving tonight for Italy. Emily’s never looked happier. I know that some great weight has been lifted from her shoulders, but I’m not sure Leo did the lifting. He didn’t tell her particularly good newsy after all. He just threw stones in a few old holes. No it was something else. I’m not going to ask; she’ll tell me if she needs to. Until then I’m going to accept her silence. Bless it rather.
Today I was sitting on the bed watching her pack all sorts of vitamins and little baby books for the trip. “I think we can throw these away,” Emily said handing me a stack of ovulation graphs that have been enslaving our sex life for years. Then she went to get the laundry. I was tossing them out when I noticed the uppermost page. It was for last August. We should save that one, I thought, put it in the baby scrapbooky just for laughs. Dana always used to joke that his eldest son had been conceived at thirty thousand feet somewhere between London and Milan and said he had the charts and the plane tickets to prove it. So I looked at the chart, following the temperature line up and down. It hit a high point on August thirtieth. Bingo, I thought, then stopped: I know I was in Dayton Ohio, then. In fact, I had been there that whole week. Marjorie had been drilling the dates into my mind for months. She wanted to make sure I didn’t schedule any vacations in the middle of a national builders’ conference.
I just stood therefore a few moments, wondering whether these charts were fubar or Emily’s cycle was. Then the truth washed over me like a warm, tropical wave: Guy had fathered this child. You just know these things, you feel them in your blood. I began to quiver, not out of anger this time, but out of awe at the mercy.the divine architecture, of it all. How often I’ve thought of him lying alone on my porch, in the dark, the rain, whimpering Emily’s name as he bled to death. Maybe, as I watch his child grow, that ghastly image will fade, leave me in peace.
How fitting that he should give my wife something that I, in fifteen years, never could. Maybe that was his destiny, to fecundate her and die. Maybe the two of them were a superior melding of yin and yang, of acidic and alkaline; and maybe I was only meant to be the caretaker, never the possessor, of my wife’s heart. It’s not the worst of fates. Besides, I’ve lost my taste for absolute possession. Like a severe drug habit, it shortens the life span: Look at Dana and that poor waif Rita. Look at Guy. Even if you outlast your obsession, beat it down to a dull ache that haunts your days, you’re still left with only a speck of conscience separating you from a beast. Look at Dagmar and Ward. Leo. Did they really even the score? Get what they wanted? I don’t think that’s humanly possible: Justice, particularly in love, is a delusion. I’m going to abandon that pursuit. Now that I have another mouth to feed, I’d rather live longer, but less madly; see more seasons change, read more books, watch Emily’s hair turn slowly white. Die a quiet old man, humbled by maternal tolerance.
I think she knows that I put an end to Guy, and has forgiven me; she wouldn’t have given me this stack of charts otherwise. I’ll never learn how she found out. Did Ward crack? Did Philippa? Has Emily forgiven that worthless sister of hers, too? I can’t comprehend such love. But that’s why she remains the enigma, the vortex, of my life. She’s my one small window to God.
Rest in peace, Guy. I’ll remember you whenever I see her smile.
I am such a lucky man.
In the tradition of the delightfully wisecracking yet touching style of Susan Isaacs, Janice Weber creates a picaresque romp through marriage, infidelity a woman’s sensual appefites-and murder. It’s an intelligent, rousinyly funny, suspenseful, and sexy new novel: a sumptuous four-star feast garnished with wit and meant to be consumed with relish…
DEVIL’S FOOD
Emily is a master chef at a trendy Boston restaurant. Her passions are food and her husband, Ross, a straight-arrow architect. Her twin sister, Philippa, is a campy Hollywood film star. Philippa’s passion is men, and she’s having a top-secret affair with Ross’s partner and man-about-town, Dana. When Ross spots Philippa with Dana and thinks she’s Emily, the zany mix-ups begin. And so do the murders.
First to die is Dana, keeling over after a gourmet meal at Emily’s restaurant—right into his black currants and cream. But the killer may have been after Philippa, and now she’s running scared. As she and her sister take to the streets of Boston, New York, and Hollywood to find the murderer, they begin checking off an intriguing menu of suspects.
Who’s on it? Ross, of course, the now homicidally jealous husband. A mysterious monk who grows mushrooms. A wealthy widow with an erotic art collection. A weightlifting woman bartender. Dana’s bitter, bitter wife. A goat-cheese maker who runs a fitness camp for battered women. Philippa’s slimy Hollywood agent. And yes, there’s even more.
Now to save their own lives, these two smart cookies cook up a brilliant scheme of juggling husbands, lovers, kitchen help, the Hollywood media, and their own identities. But when dead bodies turn up everywhere and bullets start flying, they may go off half-baked… and it’s only a matter of time before the final course, which is, naturally, a real killer.
Unabashedly naughty, redolent with wit, sinfully sybaritic, DEVIL’S FOOD is great fun to read, and it explores to full measure a woman’s pleasures, be they food, sex… or revenge.
JANICE WEBER is the author of three previous highly acclaimed novels: The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway, Customs Violation, and Frost the Fiddler, which was a New York Times notable book for 1992. A renowned concert pianist, she lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
PRAISE TOR THE “WITTY,”* “SEXY”* NOVELS OF JANICE WEBER
The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway
“A bawdy and hilarious comedy…also a moving love story
and a social satire.”
—Library Journal
“Dazzling…hilariously sexy.”
—UPI
Customs Violation
“Sexual rancor can be extremely amusing, and luckily a few writers
know it. Harold Pinter is one and another is Janice Weber.”
—New york Times Book Review
’Almost every line, scene, and situation has you laughing. So
why does Weber leave you with a lump in the throat?”
—Los Angela Times Book Review
Frost the Fiddler
A New York Times NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
“An American concert pianist
who writes as well as she plays…
(with) a lively writing style that is spiced with naughty comments.”
—New york Times Book Review
“A brash spy novel…witty, and sexier than I dare to say.”
—Beaton Globe*
