Basil Instinct

by Shelley Costa

  3

  “Eve!” came a voice from very far away. “Eve! Snap out of it already!” It was Paulette and she clamped a hand around the pastry tube I was apparently using to squeeze Kahlúa cream over a veal chop. Which was pretty much how the rest of the evening went in the Miracolo kitchen after the revelation of Anna T.’s hysterical blog post. Landon wasn’t doing much better, ladling pomodoro sauce over an order of tiramisu. There are truly limits to what you can reasonably expect from heavenly San Marzano tomatoes.

  The customer actually liked what Paulette explained as vitello alla Kahlúa.

  All I could think of was the “poison guessing game” Anna T. had mentioned. Nonna had a pretty good nose, but it was, after all, a seventy-six-year-old schnoz and maybe not quite up to the deadly task, flared nostrils aside. And if you could tell poison just by looks and smell, you really have to wonder what accounts for so many murder-by-poison victims over the centuries. No, Belfiere wasn’t just dangerous—there was something downright, oh, nihilistic about them. They set up life-threatening outcomes (the delights of death) out of some conviction that nothing means anything. Not even beautiful food. So, in Belfiere World, bring it on. Guess the poison. No? Wrong? Thrill to the dire pleasures of your fatal mistake.

  These are people I do not understand.

  When Paulette wiped her feverish brow with a white linen napkin and announced the last of the dinner crowd, I sank quivering against my Vulcan stove and pulled off my toque. Dragging my sorry legs through air that felt strangely like wet concrete, I found my way over to Landon, who was collapsed at the waist over the stainless steel prep table. Worn out, we clung to each other and whimpered just a little. I told him I was going to call Joe Beck for advice. And Landon told me he’d have Paulette close up for the night. Neither of us could bear the thought of getting through an evening of Dana Cahill and Grief Week.

  I grabbed my hemp bag from the hook and found my way along the south side of Market Square to my Volvo. I felt strangely aware of my hips and totally unaware of my legs—the way you usually do when you’re trying to ambulate on the wrong side of four drinks—and I made it to the car, falling into the front seat. No drinks, but no dinner, either. I tugged open the glove compartment, figuring on downing my emergency stash of pico de gallo chips. Empty. Empty. The universe is just that cruel.

  Driving home was a slow and pathetic process as my eyes strayed to what seemed like every circle of streetlights hazy and swollen from the humidity. I was never so happy to see my Tumbleweed Tiny House, and the peaceful rasp of the crickets was all the welcome I needed. It wasn’t until I locked the door behind me and climbed up to my sleeping loft in the dark that I called Joe Beck. I needed another head on this whole Belfiere thing. Not just another head—I needed Joe Beck’s. What could we do to keep Maria Pia out of the sick clutches of these homicidal cooks?

  Answer, answer, I willed him, flat out on my mattress, my eyes crinkled against the shadowy sight of the slowly rotating ceiling fan.

  No Joe.

  No Joe.

  I was unreasonably disappointed. Then I got his voice mail, which made me wonder what he was doing at 10:45 p.m. that he couldn’t answer his phone. I refused to let the image of my flaky cousin Kayla wave like seaweed into my consciousness. “Joe,” I said, going for a got-my-act-together voice I hoped would entice him to call me back, “It’s Eve. Got a problem”—damn, my voice broke at that understatement—“and I need your advice ASAP.” Sound breezy, no big deal, tomorrow, day after, whenever, bro. “Joe, I really need the help,” I squeezed out before my throat tightened right up and the “thanks” that came out was just a pathetic squeak. I’m pretty sure I managed to hang up. And then the unthinkable happened . . .

  I fell asleep.

  * * *

  Day One of summer session at the Quaker Hills Career Center. After a restless night—and no return call from my erstwhile lawyer—I stood with my eyes closed in my tiny shower and just let the hot spray rain all over me. It was definitely a day when that shiny red polished apple was needed. Anything for the sake of distraction from the problem of Belfiere and my brainwashed nonna. Come on, Mitchell Terranova, make me laugh. Okay, little Corabeth, don’t be afraid, I bite only shiny red polished apples. And Renay, honey, strictly between us, all you’re missing with Will is him as a fat forty-year-old who yells from the bleachers at your kid’s coach.

  I had much to share beyond knife skills and basic sauces.

  For my first day’s outfit I chose a teal blouse with a decent V-neck and a white skirt that had some nice flow to it, and I threw my white chef jacket and toque into the car. Munching a rice cake slathered with peanut butter, I backed out of my gravel parking spot and headed out Highway 8, thinking how best to handle the likes of Courtney Harrington should I run into her. The Belfiere poison guessing game came to mind. I figured I had an edge over Courtney. And I have to say, it was a bit of a kick to see a full parking lot at QHCC and realize I had a part in it.

  Clutching my pricey portfolio—which held my syllabus and my personal set of knives—I struggled into my jacket and headed for the front door. As a couple of others dashed by me, I flung around my slumming-aristocrat smile, then I found my way through a maze of hallways, wondering why nobody seemed to be around. Finally, I stood outside the closed door of Room 12, labeled Kitchen Classroom.

  “Angelotta!” barked someone.

  Let me guess.

  I turned. Courtney Harrington came power-walking toward me. Was there more to my new faculty orientation than she remembered yesterday?

  “You’re twenty minutes late! What’ve you got, Cookie Girl, a PhD? Think this gang will wait around for you?”

  I jerked my wrist up to my face: Ten-twenty a.m. “But class starts at ten-thirty!” Was she going to give me a detention? Could she do that?

  “Half an hour earlier on day one. Didn’t you read the employee handbook? Very nice,” she said in an oily way and breezed right past me.

  “What employee handbook?” I called after her.

  Strega.

  She disappeared around a corner.

  I squared my shoulders, held my portfolio in what could only be considered a professional way, and with my hand gripping the doorknob, took that moment to consider my opening remarks. Good morning, I’m Chef Eve Angelotta of Miracolo Italian Restaurant, and I’ll be teaching you Basic Cooking Skills. Reliable, informative, maybe a little predictable. Or I could go with ’Sup, dudes, and the name is Eve— we’re gonna chop till we drop, you better believe. That one was younger and hipper than I ever was. But maybe Renay Bassett and the others didn’t need to know that.

  Maybe there was a third alternative . . .

  Undecided, I took a big breath and swung open the door to the Kitchen Classroom.

  Which was when a bunch of lighted matches, arcing through the air, damn near hit me.

  * * *

  Over the next ten seconds I hooted and yelped as half the class fell out laughing. Landon would be so proud: I did a whole routine of Fosse sidesteps just trying to keep my clothes from catching on fire. I felt wild-eyed, watching the final match burn itself out and fall to the floor. With one hand I slammed my portfolio down on the prep table and clapped the other to my chest. Someone whistled. After a second of catching my breath, I ditched my first two choices for opening remarks and went with a third alternative.

  I don’t know what I was saying, but it was mostly in Italian, which I discovered wasn’t as rusty as I had thought, and partly in some Mandarin dialect. Apparently everyone in Room 12 had had at least two semesters of both languages at Quaker Hills Career Center because they seemed to understand everything. I do think it helped that I punctuated my remarks with repeatedly slamming my portfolio on the prep table with both hands and gritted teeth. When teaching on the postsecondary level, it’s very important to use visual aids whenever possible.

 
A series of knocks at the door was followed by the visage of Courtney Harrington, who—much to my satisfaction—looked a little pale. She asked if everything was all right. I shot her the dazzling smile I usually reserve for third dates that are going exceptionally well and explained that we were just going over the ground rules—good group, good group—and that my first impression was that my pupils were afire with a desire for knowledge. (Behind me, nervous laughter.) Muttering, she disappeared, and when I was absolutely sure she had power-walked her way out of earshot, I turned on them.

  There were enough face piercings in that room to melt down and fashion into everyday flatware for the White House. In addition, there were a couple of studded collars and at least one leather corset. Wordlessly, I opened the box of my personal knives, chose one, held it up to the light, and then plunged it into the butcher block. There were a few gasps. Mine included.

  Then I handed the class list to a small blonde who looked a little older than the others and seemed to have some self-control. Which was more than I could say for myself at that moment. “Read it, please.” My eyes slid over the others. “When you hear your name called”—here I flicked the knife just enough to keep it swaying, then crossed my arms—“tell me who’s responsible for the matches.”

  You could have heard a burning match drop, the place got so silent.

  The blonde started down the list. Renay Bassett, she read out nice and loud. Like she was bringing charges against Marie Antoinette. It was as far as we’d get. My fantasy girl with the crush on the quarterback turned out to have heavy red bangs, blue hair, a nose ring, a tongue stud, and a tattoo of a python around her neck. Her orange T-shirt said Girls Do It Better, which seemed to lay to rest the whole quarterback thing.

  She stared at me and said she didn’t do it. I was about to have the blonde move on, when Renay added that she was sick of the crap from Mitchell and Slash and when were they going to grow the fuck up anyhow. At that, she yanked a toaster out of its socket and hurled it at a smirker with dreadlocks down to his scrawny ass who was perched three seats over from her—presumably Mitchell or Slash.

  In the next ten minutes, certain things became clear. Frederick Faust, Georgia Payne (the little blonde), Will Jaworski, and L’Shondra Washington were actual students at the Quaker Hills Career Center. Aspiring chefs, even, announced L’Shondra in her white caftan and bright blue headband, not like these CRIBS nut-job slackers. At which Frederick, Will, and L’Shondra all glared at the nut-job slackers.

  Georgia just stroked her neck ruminatively and gave me a look that said, Cribs will be Cribs. Which was when the fourth girl, a six-foot tall, 225-pound monument to late adolescence, what with her short dyed red hair separated into about a dozen ponytails sporting rubber bands with little grinning skulls, got to her size-12 feet.

  This was Corabeth Potts, and she was wearing a silver tube top that could gift-wrap a Michelin man, and short plaid shorts. As she turned to head over to the fallen toaster, it became clear the shorts were not doing the job, assuming the job was to cover the flesh. With high-cut legs, a good deal of Cora was open to inspection.

  And what was on view was a tattoo across her entire backside that looked like a very detailed inking of an action scene featuring Death Eaters from one of the later Harry Potter books. Only Corabeth must have had it done when she weighed considerably less, because now the Death Eaters and wizard kids all seemed to be sloping off the mountain of flesh in a kind of group disaster and disappearing toward the thighs.

  When I questioned Mitchell (dreadlocked smirker) and Slash (frighteningly normal-looking lad with buzzed brown hair and a T-shirt that declared I’m a Mess), we settled the matter of the flung and fiery matches—them—and the definition of CRIBS, which apparently my cousin Choo Choo already knew. CRIBS stood for the Callowhill Residential Institute for Behavioral Success. Which obviously meant the Callowhill Residential Institute for Behavior Problems. Only the acronym for that wasn’t as good. The place had an “understanding” with Quaker Hills Career Center that resulted in the oldest CRIBS students being able to take some classes in exchange, I’d guess, for not burning the building down. Oh, they were going to burn the building down anyway; now, at least, maybe they’d land jobs in the prison kitchens.

  While I pondered punishment, while I pondered consequences, I tossed beautiful red, ripe tomatoes—the best of Kayla—to each of them and discovered a new problem. How would I ever teach this wild and sketchy group to slice a tomato properly if I wasn’t going to let them use knives?

  * * *

  When Landon had said in a sepulchral voice that No good can come of it, he might as well have been talking about my Basic Cooking Skills gig. But in just the first session with these seventeen-year-old sociopaths, I actually discovered the solution to the problem of additional help for Nonna’s big spread for the other set of maniacs presently in our lives.

  Georgia Payne actually knew how to wield a knife in no way that involved a felony in fifty states, and Corabeth Potts was surprisingly quick and graceful and seemed to pick up the rhythm of the kitchen. Slash and Mitchell failed tomato slicing—granted they were handicapped by the cheap plastic knives I dug out of a drawer for the two of them. I didn’t care.

  I was undecided on my approach to these two.

  I could Mother Teresa them. It might be the high road, but the high road was as littered with saps as the low road was littered with less likable saps.

  I could outtough them. I’m not quite sure what that would entail, but I think it would have to include weapons more impressive than my cheese grater.

  I could scare them. I would hint at consequences that might imply the loss of body parts. I would conveniently let slip the indebtedness of Don Lolo Dinardo to me for performing the Heimlich maneuver on him when his scungilli appetizer was literally taking his breath away. As I yanked open my car door when the first class meeting ended without that strega Courtney Harrington having to call the fire department, I found I was liking this total fiction about a mythical goodfella named Don Lolo. Mitchell Terranova and Slash Kipperman (who informed me that he was to be called Slash the K, the little brat—I silently added the brat part myself) may be seventeen-year-old sociopaths, but they were still just seventeen-year-olds.

  I could most definitely play with their heads.

  So, when class ended, I kept Georgia Payne and Corabeth Potts around. Corabeth let me know she was anxious about missing the bus back to CRIBS. I thought this concern showed some good stuff in the big girl. She was actually sweating a little. Narrowing my eyes, I had a moment wondering whether she was either high or snowing me, but thought not. Narrowing my eyes again—this time, trying to picture her dressed in the Miracolo look—I thought I could work with this girl.

  So, I brought on the temporary help.

  I hired Georgia—who mentioned she was hoping to get back into kitchen work after being away for a while— to be a second sous chef for the next few days. She seemed pleased, ready to show up at Miracolo the next day, and reasonably well dressed, without any part of her backside telling whole chapters of, say, the Tolkien trilogy. Corabeth I would turf to Paulette and Vera for a nuclear makeover that would find her waiting on customers before she could say Callowhill Residential Institute for Behavioral Success. I’d call the stalwart folks at CRIBS and square it with them. Georgia even offered to pick her up on the way to Miracolo later that afternoon.

  On a mission, I swung by Target and shopped for the Corabeth makeover. A size-16 pair of black pants with elasticized waistband. A white Oxford button-down shirt in XXL. And a box of Nice ’n Easy hair color in black, but then I thought the effect would be a little too Lily Munster, so I exchanged it for ash blonde. If Corabeth kicked up rough at the changes, Paulette would have to make it clear these were, well, conditions of employment. She needed to conform to the Miracolo “look.” Which I secretly believed was tiresome, but while Maria Pia Angelotta was in c
harge, what are you going to do? Black pants, white shirt.

  In just forty-eight hours, the Miracolo “look” would also include murder, but for now, as I slung the Target bag into my car, we were keeping it down to nothing more than pants and shirts. When life was still simple.

  Halfway back to my place, my phone sang out some Scott Joplin ragtime at me, and I picked up. “Hey, Eve,” said the caller. “It’s Joe Beck.” He always tells me his whole name, like I’m not going to recognize his voice, or he’s distinguishing the Joe he is from all the other Joes I must know, or he’s not quite comfortable being on just a first-name basis with me.

  “Hi, Joe Beck. I’ve got a problem.”

  “You mentioned.”

  He didn’t sound nasty about it, so I forged ahead. “It’s my nonna.”

  “I figured.”

  In an acquaintance of just one month, already he got the picture of life in the Angelotta brood. Life happens to Maria Pia, and all the rest of us scramble around trying to push it back or just jump out of its way. In a sense, I suppose, life was not unlike lighted matches being flicked at you. “It’s a long story,” I told him, which is when I discovered that I thought it was.

  “Highlights?”

  “Oh, possible homicide, reckless endangerment, abuse of a recipe . . .” Was there no end to the stuff I was inventing that day?

  Silence. “Just tell me now,” he said finally. “Any withholding of evidence?” Ah, Joe Beck. He of the long memory when it comes to my more problematic moves. But then, it had been only three weeks since the infamous bracelet incident during my last murder investigation.

  “Not as of this time,” I hedged, reserving the right to withhold. Evidence, information, taxes, affection.