Just a Taste

by Deirdre Martin

  Fuck! Why did he say that?

  “I heard about your wife,” Lorraine droned. “You have my sympathy.”

  “Thank you. I was sorry to hear about your dad.”

  “What can you do? When it’s your time, it’s your time.”

  Anthony didn’t agree, but he held his tongue. “Whatcha been up to, Lorraine? You kind of…just disappeared after high school, you know?”

  Lorraine shrugged, looking down at her raggedy nails, bitten down to the quick. “This and that. You know.”

  No, I don’t know, thought Anthony, nor do I really want to. I’m just trying to be nice and make conversation.

  Lorraine twisted her hands in her lap. “Look, Anthony, I need to talk to you about something.”

  Shit, Anthony thought, bracing himself. Here comes the part where she confesses there are five bodies buried beneath an old house upstate.

  “Ma and I would love it if you could come over for dinner one night. Nothing formal, just a nice way to thank you for hiring me.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Lorraine. Your mother must have a lot on her plate right now with, uh, her grieving and all.”

  “Not really. All she does is light novena candles and watch Judge Judy.”

  Sounds like a great time. “It’s tough for me to get away from the restaurant, you know?”

  “It’s just one night,” Lorraine said accusingly.

  Anthony sighed. He looked at her sitting there, thought of the courage it must have taken her to ask him, and felt more pity than annoyance. Would it kill him to break bread with her and her mother one night, just to get her off his back?

  “Let me see what I can do,” Anthony said.

  Lorraine’s expression turned eager. “How about Sunday?”

  “I gotta cook on Sunday, remember? The restaurant’s open.”

  “Sunday lunch, maybe.”

  “I can’t,” Anthony said gently but firmly.

  “What, you got a brunch date or something?” Lorraine snapped.

  Perhaps compassion was something Anthony needed to work up to, since his first instinct was to bark, “It’s none of your business.” But that sounded like he was covering something up, so he just said, “No, family stuff, that’s all.”

  This seemed to pacify Lorraine, who abruptly stood up. “I need a ride home,” she announced.

  “Of course you do,” Anthony muttered under his breath. He rattled the keys in his pocket. “C’mon, I’ll run you home.”

  “You always were sweet, Ant.”

  “Yeah, I’m a living doll. Let’s go.”

  “I thought we were going to a restaurant, Natalie.”

  “They serve food here.”

  Vivi smiled tersely as Natalie gulped down the remainder of her third cocktail, a sky blue concoction that looked like glass cleaner. After their positive dining experience at Dante’s a few nights before, the sisters agreed it was Vivi’s turn to come into the city to eat. Knowing Natalie to have refined tastes, Vivi assumed they’d be dining at a fine restaurant recommended via word of mouth or through the trusted Zagat guide. Instead, Vivi found herself in a futuristic-looking bar called Plutonium.

  The warehouse-sized space was illuminated entirely by dim blue neon, the white plastic furniture inflatable and squishy. The spacey music being pumped through the sound system made Vivi feel like nodding off—an impossible feat since their waitress, a young woman clad in a silver cat suit, kept stopping by their table every two minutes to ask if Natalie needed another refill on her “Jupiter Juice.” If she came by one more time, Vivi was prepared to politely ask her to find another solar system to inhabit.

  “Let’s pay the bill and find somewhere real to eat,” Vivi urged.

  “Nooo,” Natalie whined. “We can eat here. C’mon, Vivi! Don’t be such a bore.”

  “Fine,” Vivi capitulated with a sigh. There seemed little point in reminding Natalie that their agreement was to get together to dine, not drink themselves into oblivion. Vivi, always careful about alcohol consumption, had ordered one glass of chardonnay that she’d been nursing for the past hour, despite Natalie’s exhortations to do otherwise.

  Vivi looked around at the studiedly bored faces of her fellow patrons. Never in a million years would she come to a place like this on her own. It was all surface, no substance; a place where people yearned to be seen. She opened up her rocket-shaped menu and perused the food offerings. In the end she decided on a cheese platter, the only item that didn’t have a space name attached to it.

  “So,” said Natalie, swaying slightly, “when are you going to admit your crush on Chef Dante?”

  “Never,” said Vivi. She checked her watch; it was close to eleven. Her plan had been to have a nice meal with Natalie, then head back out to Bensonhurst to get a good night’s sleep. She wanted to be at her absolute best when she cooked for Anthony tomorrow. But judging from Natalie’s motioning to the waitress for another drink, it was going to take a crane to lift her out of her seat.

  “I know you like him,” Natalie continued, not seeming to acknowledge Vivi’s answer. “And I know he likes you, too. I just wish someone liked me,” Natalie said, the last word transforming itself into a sob.

  “Oh, cherie.” Vivi put her arm around her sister. “You’ll find love again. You will.”

  “Will I?” Natalie wept. “Here? In America?”

  “Of course, of course,” Vivi soothed. “Didn’t you see the way that journalist we met the other night was looking at you?”

  “Yes, like I was a bitch!”

  “Well, you weren’t very polite to him,” Vivi pointed out.

  “I know!” Natalie lamented. “But I don’t mean to be like that! It just happens. I wish you’d known me before, when we were girls.” Natalie sniffled. “You would have really liked me. I was nice.”

  “I like you now,” Vivi said.

  “Men are such brutes, aren’t they?”

  “Some can be, yes.”

  “Thierry was,” Natalie continued bitterly. She put her head in her hands. “God, the idiocy…” Her purse fell to the floor, spilling its contents. “Damn!”

  “I’ll get it.” Vivi crouched down to pick up Natalie’s bag. That’s when she saw the credit card receipt from Saks for three thousand dollars. Stifling a gasp, she shoved the receipt back into Natalie’s purse, along with her keys, a tube of lipstick, and a crumpled wad of one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “Here you go.” Vivi’s voice was brittle as she handed Natalie her bag. Any sympathy she’d felt mere seconds ago for Natalie and her wounded heart was rapidly being swallowed up by anxiety. What on earth was Natalie doing, spending that kind of money? What on earth was Natalie doing, period?

  “Natalie, what do you do all day?”

  “What do you mean?” Natalie wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “I mean, what do you do all day?” Vivi prodded. “Tell me. I’m curious.”

  Natalie seemed perplexed by the question, so much so that it took her a while to speak. “I shop. Sometimes I meet old friends from Paris who are here on business. I oversee the cleaning woman who comes to the apartment because, really, she does an awful job. I watch TV. I go out at night and—”

  “Go to horrible places like this and drink too much?”

  Tears began seeping from Natalie’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Vivi. It wasn’t only my heart that was destroyed by Thierry, it was my career, as well. I’m trying to do what I can to pull myself back together, but it’s very, very hard.”

  “Well, drowning your sorrows in drink and shopping isn’t going to help. If anything, it’s making things worse. You need to work, Natalie.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes. You need a purpose, something to give shape to your days,” Vivi said firmly. “Why don’t you help me? We could work together on getting everything ready for the restaurant. I need to start finding out about publicity. Maybe that’s something you could take care of.”

  “Hmm.” Natalie seemed take
n by the idea. “Maybe I could.” She appeared to cheer up a bit. “What if I come out tomorrow and we sit down and make up a plan?”

  “I can’t tomorrow,” Vivi said evasively.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going to be busy.”

  “Cooking?”

  “Yes.”

  “For yourself, or for whats his name?”

  “As it so happens,” Vivi said, trying not not to sound defensive, “when I went into the kitchen to speak with him after our meal, I took the liberty of giving him some advice on how he might improve his pork and rosemary stuffed chicken.”

  “And…?”

  “And in typical, arrogant male chef fashion, he dared me to do better. So tomorrow, I’m going to do just that.”

  Natalie snorted. “In your poky little kitchen?”

  “No,” said Vivi, ignoring her jibe, “in the kitchen at his restaurant.”

  Natalie’s mouth fell open. “You’re not serious.”

  “I am.”

  Natalie’s face arranged itself into a scowl. “I don’t understand how you can insist there’s nothing going on when, clearly, there is.”

  “Yes, a shared passion for food,” said Vivi, tired at having to once again explain the obvious.

  “Yes, and what if that passion spills over from the stove to the two of you lying on top of one of the tables in the dining room? What then?”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” Vivi scoffed, though that very image flashed in her mind, bringing an unanticipated rush of heat to her body.

  Natalie wagged a warning finger in Vivi’s face. “He’s damaged goods, Vivi.”

  “We’re all damaged goods!” said Vivi, pushing her sister’s hand away. “You, me, Anthony, Thierry—anyone who has ever loved and lost is damaged goods!”

  Natalie considered this. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I am right, but that’s beside the point. I just want to cook,” said Vivi, struck by the yearning in her own voice. “And until my own place opens, I have to grab my chances when and where I can find them. Tomorrow’s chance just happens to be in Anthony Dante’s kitchen, and I’m taking it. Now finish up your Jupiter Juice so we can find a proper place to eat.”

  Chapter 11

  Prepare to be dazzled.

  Anthony’s expectation echoed in Vivi’s head as she followed him through the Dante’s dining room into the silent, silver kitchen. Though she’d barely slept a wink thanks to Natalie, adrenaline was beginning to pump inside her, giving her more than enough energy for the culinary challenge ahead. Dazzling Anthony Dante would be easy; the hard part would be making sure he didn’t interfere.

  “Coffee?” Anthony proffered a foam cup, which Vivi accepted gratefully. She would have brought her own thermos, but she didn’t want to be teased.

  “Where do you get coffee so early in the morning?” asked Vivi.

  “There’s a deli up the street. They open at five.”

  Vivi shook her head in silent amazement. No one could ever accuse Americans of being lazy. Open for business at five a.m. on a Sunday morning? Only the occasional boulangerie did that in France.

  “Have you been up since five?” she asked.

  Anthony nodded.

  “To be here for the deliveries?” That was the one aspect of owning her own place Vivi was not looking forward to: the pre-dawn deliveries from suppliers.

  “Something like that,” Anthony mumbled.

  Vivi gave him a puzzled look. How he spent his Sunday mornings was certainly none of her business, though her curiosity was piqued.

  Vivi moved to one of the kitchen’s long stainless steel tables and began unpacking her groceries. She wasn’t surprised when Anthony came to stand right beside her, rubbing his hands together like an eager child. “What are you making?”

  “Poulet Basquaise, or chicken with onions, ham, tomatoes, and peppers. The famous French gourmet Brillat-Savarin once said, ‘Poultry is for the cook what the canvas is for the painter,’ so prepare for the culinary equivalent of a Picasso, my friend.”

  “Mmm, nothing like eating dinner first thing in the morning.”

  Vivi laughed. “Tell me you’ve never eaten your own leftovers the next day.”

  “You don’t want to know how many times I’ve had lasagna for breakfast, okay?”

  “Exactly.”

  Vivi could feel the pull the recipe’s ingredients were exerting over Anthony as he casually asked, “Need help with the prep work?”

  Vivi looked at him stonily.

  “Well, you have to give me something to do. I can’t just stand here in my own kitchen and watch you cook.”

  Vivi brusquely rolled two heads of garlic toward him. “I need twelve cloves, cut paper thin.” She knew this was going to happen; she should have made him come over to her place. Her kitchen might be “poky” as Natalie so bluntly put it, but at least it was hers.

  Anthony began working on the garlic, while Vivi reached for a large stockpot, filling it with water before setting it atop a high flame on one of the burners.

  “What’s that for?” Anthony asked.

  “To prep the two pounds of tomatoes that need to be peeled.” She took hold of the apron he handed her, tying the strings briskly around her waist. “Listen to me: If you’re going to question every little thing I do, I’m going to go mad, do you hear?”

  Anthony looked offended. “Pardon moi, but it’s just curiosity, not criticism.”

  Vivi stood her ground. “Just let me cook, all right?”

  “Fine,” said Anthony with displeasure. “I’ll chop the garlic and keep my lip buttoned.”

  “Yes, please.” His dramatic streak amused Vivi. All chefs had a penchant for the melodramatic—herself included, according to her mother.

  Anthony brooded silently over the garlic while Vivi set about slicing the onions. As she and Anthony worked side by side, she thought she felt a certain sense of camaraderie. They weren’t adversaries, they were two soldiers together in the trenches, united toward a common goal: culinary perfection.

  “I never minded doing prep work,” Vivi confided.

  “Me either, though sometimes my old man could be a pain in the neck about it.”

  Vivi glanced sideways at him with interest. “I forgot you’ve been in this kitchen since you were a small boy.”

  “Yup.” Anthony’s fingers flew, slicing the first clove of garlic in seconds. “You grow up in the biz?”

  Vivi shook her head. “My mother ran a small grocery store. But she always loved to cook.”

  “She still alive?”

  Vivi nodded.

  “Your dad?”

  Vivi swallowed hard. “He passed away a little over a year and a half ago.” Even now, just saying it made her feel as if there were sand in her blood, dragging her down. Did grief feel that way for everyone?

  “So, you grew up with your mom and Natalie grew up with your dad?”

  “Mmm,” said Vivi noncommittally, reaching for another onion. To her surprise, Anthony’s hand shot out to still hers.

  “Why so mysterious?” he asked, his expression serious as he studied her face.

  Vivi gently pushed his hand away. “It’s complicated.” She began chopping the next onion, grateful for the busy-work.

  “We’ve got time.”

  Vivi chopped faster. “You’re very pushy.”

  “In some things. C’mon, Vivi. Spill.”

  Vivi put down her knife, wiping her hands on the front of her apron. The truth was, she wanted to tell him. She’d been longing to tell someone about it for a long time.

  “I’m my father’s illegimate child,” she said softly. “Natalie is the child of his marriage.”

  Anthony looked like he didn’t know what to say. “And you—the two of you—you’re friends? I mean—”

  “I’ll explain,” said Vivi, picking up her knife to briskly resume her chopping. It would be so much easier to talk about if she could concentrate on work as she spoke and didn
’t have to see Anthony’s face. She was afraid she would see pity there. Or worse, disapproval.

  “I grew up in Avignon with my mother. Ever since I could remember, my father would only be with us intermittently. I didn’t understand why he was always coming and going, until one day my mother explained that he worked in Paris, and it was easier for him to stay there for work, coming to see us on the occasional weekend. I accepted this.

  “Then one day, I turned on the TV and there was my father on the news, accompanied by another woman and a little girl.” Vivi’s face felt hot. “Needless to say, I was very confused.”

  “No shit,” Anthony blurted. Vivi scowled at him. “Let me rephrase that: wow.”

  “That’s when my mother explained to me—she was my father’s mistress, and the woman and the girl on the TV were his wife and daughter.”

  Anthony’s mouth fell open. “Your mother knew about them?”

  “Oh, yes,” Vivi replied matter-of-factly. “At first, I was upset. I remember asking my maman, ‘Why doesn’t Papa divorce that woman and come marry you?’ But my mother just laughed. She liked her freedom! Besides, my father was a very well-respected politician. Breaking up his family for his mistress would have been frowned upon.”

  “And having an illegitimate kid wasn’t?”

  Vivi’s brows knitted in frustration. “You don’t understand. In my country, extramarital affairs are considered private. It’s no one’s business how someone conducts their personal life; it has nothing to do with the professional sphere unless it affects work somehow, like in Natalie’s case. The nuclear family is considered sacred, which is why a divorce would have been frowned upon, but I wasn’t. When my father died, my mother and I were both at the funeral, and no one blinked an eye.”

  Anthony’s gaze shifted uneasily. “What about Natalie’s mother?”

  “She knew about my mother.”

  “Did her mother know about you?”

  Vivi hesitated. “Not at first. But when I was accepted at Le Cordon Bleu and went to Paris, I made contact with Natalie.” She smiled sadly. “I’d always wanted a sister, so I reached out. My father was furious; at that time, Natalie and her mother hadn’t known about me, and they were quite shocked. But once things settled down, Natalie and I slowly got to know one another.