A Beautiful Taste

by Lilliana Anderson

  Placing the finishing touches on a salted caramel mousse, I hold my phone up and prepare to take another shot. Just as I'm applying a filter, there's a knock on my door.

  It causes my heart to jump up in my throat, as I remember the last time she knocked on my door. It was the day she gave me her innocence. It was the day we admitted how we felt. It was also the last time we saw each other until tonight…

  The knocking sounds again. “One minute.” I grab a tea towel to wipe my hands then head to the door, taking a deep breath before opening it. I gasp. “Holy shit! Are you alright?”

  Chapter 14

  Dakota

  “You know I was working tonight, right? It was kind of important,” I say to Riley, as I walk into the bedroom and sit on the side of the bed. I remove my earrings before I set them on the bedside table then pick up the copy of Gulliver’s Travels.

  “I know. But Nora is the worst babysitter ever. She sends me to bed at seven-thirty. Seven-thirty! I’m six and a half now, not four. I’m not even tired at seven-thirty.”

  I straighten up the blankets and tuck him in a little tighter. “OK. But is that really such an emergency that you needed to call me away from the fundraiser? I’ve just left nan and pop there to deal with it all by themselves.”

  He folds his arms. “You know, I think they can manage without you for one night. After all, it’s their club, not yours.”

  My mouth forms an O shape, and I try to fight my smile. My son has obviously overheard one too many arguments between my parents and me.

  “Well, my sweet boy, who acts way too old for his age, that’s not really something for a young boy to be worrying about, much less repeating. And you’re forgetting the rest of it–one day, the club will be mine to run, and I can make all the decisions myself if I want to.”

  “Yeah, if poppy doesn’t run it into the ground before then,” he scoffs, and I have to bite my lip. Where does this kid come up with this stuff?

  “I think we need to make sure these ears of yours aren’t turned on when we’re having grown up discussions.”

  “You can’t turn your hearing off, mum. It’s always on.”

  Reaching out, I run my hand lovingly over his sandy blond hair. “Did you read any of this?” I ask, holding up the book.

  He shakes his head. “Nora didn’t want to read it. She thinks it’s too old for me.”

  “Nonsense. I’m going to have to have a chat with her before she looks after you again.”

  “Or, you could just let me stay home on my own.”

  “Nice try. Now skooch over; I’ll read to you until you fall asleep.”

  I open the book and read until my throat feels hoarse. I’m not sure at what point Riley falls asleep, because I put all of my attention into the pages of the story, anything to stop myself from thinking about my altercation with Brad. And when I finally stop reading, I lay quietly for a while with my son, wondering if it’s a good thing that he called when he did. Telling Brad now wouldn’t make any difference. What’s done is done. I can’t change that.

  ***

  Brad

  “Oh god, Ruby. What happened?”

  “Can I come in?” She struggles to speak around her swollen lip. I’m horrified by the damage she seems to have sustained to her face and quickly move to the side, ushering her in and quickly checking the outside hall on my floor to make sure no one is there following her.

  “Do you need a doctor?”

  She shakes her head, moving toward my kitchen as though she’s aching. “I just need ice and some pain killers. Maybe something to drink.”

  I race to the freezer and pull out a tray of ice cubes then dump them into a tea towel before holding it up to her face. I pause, not sure whether I should place it at her eye or her mouth.

  “Thanks,” she says, taking it from me and placing it over her left eye. It’s completely swollen shut.

  “Who did this to you?” I ask, grabbing some paper towel and running it under the water to dab at the small trail of blood that’s coming from her split lip.

  “Tony,” she states, her one good eye looking up at me and filling with tears that spill down her cheek. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  Wiping away her tears with the soft damp paper towel, I furrow my brow at her response. “You haven’t done anything wrong. There is nothing in this world that can excuse this kind of behaviour.”

  Continuing to cry quietly, she nods and turns her head away from me. I give her a moment to collect herself and move to get her some Nurofen from the cupboard above my fridge, as well as a bottle of water.

  She takes them with thanks then holds up the water. “Do you have anything stronger than this?”

  “Of course I do,” I answer softly. “What would you like? I have wine. I have bourbon, whisky, vodka, brandy–pretty much anything you can think of really.”

  “Vodka would be perfect. With soda if you have it.”

  “Of course.” I move over to the bar between my kitchen and my living room, and I fix her a drink before returning it to where she stands in the kitchen, surveying the multitude of prepared dishes.

  “Are you expecting someone?”

  “No. Just experimenting.” I hand her the glass and she takes it, wincing a little when the sting of the alcohol touches her swollen lip.

  “It’ll kill the germs,” she comments, glancing at me with her good eye, as she continues to hold the ice against her other. I stand by quietly, as she spends a few moments, walking around my kitchen, surveying my many creations for the evening, while sipping her drink and wincing each time.

  She stops at one dish and leans down, inspecting it closely. “What’s this?”

  “Foie Gras Cassis.”

  “Foie Gras? You had Foie Gras in your kitchen?”

  “You don’t?” I respond with a smile.

  “What’s that under it?”

  “It’s apple. They’ve been caramelised, placed on toasted brioche, and the sauce is sour blackcurrants.”

  “Sour blackcurrants?” She looks back up at me. “May I?”

  “Of course,” I say, opening a drawer and giving her a fork. She places her drink on the benchtop and presses the fork into the neatly piled food to cut off a small mouthful. She struggles a little to get it in her mouth, but once it hits her tongue, I know, because she closes her eyes and just experiences the flavour.

  “Oh my god,” she moans. “That was amazing. Will you be putting it in the next menu?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying out flavours at the moment. Feel free to try anything out.”

  She moves around the kitchen, taste testing as many dishes as she can before she cups her hand to her mouth and shakes her head. I can tell she’s in pain from her lip.

  “We need to call the police about this, Ruby. You need to report it.”

  Taking another sip of her vodka soda, she shakes her head. “Can we not talk about it just yet? I kind of want to forget it ever happened and pretend that I’m not standing in your kitchen with a beat up face. Talk to me about the food. Tell me what inspired each dish.”

  Feeling uneasy about dropping the subject, I let it go, deciding that I’ll press her for more information later. Then I spend the next few hours explaining all that I’ve made, and the reasons for my choices. She listens intently, and eventually I offer to make up a bed for her so she has somewhere safe to stay.

  “Thanks for letting me stay,” she whispers, as I bring her a towel and one of my t-shirts so she can shower and change if she likes.

  I nod and point to the ensuite door off her room. “You can stay as long as you need to. It’s what friends are for.” I kiss her on the forehead. “Get some rest. I’ll be just across the hall if you need me.”

  She thanks me again, and I exit her room, promising myself that I’ll convince her to go to the police in the morning. That douchebag boyfriend of hers needs to go down for this. Real men don’t hit women. He can’t get away with this.

  Chapter 1
5

  Dakota

  Nervously, I approach Brad’s apartment the next morning. It’s taken an entire night of not sleeping to decide this, but I do feel as though it’s time to explain what happened, and why I suddenly disappeared from his life. I couldn’t stand the hurt look on his face when Stacey said Riley was on the phone for me. At the time, I hadn’t wanted him to know about Riley at all. But after going home to my son and spending a creepy amount of time watching him sleep, I knew that despite the circumstances surrounding his conception, he was my proudest achievement. I shouldn’t be hiding his existence. He’s far too important to me for that.

  Closing my eyes or a moment, I take a deep breath before raising my hand to knock. For a moment, I don’t think he’s home, because it’s too quiet. Then I hear the sounds of feet on the flooring, and the scraping of the deadbolt before the door opens.

  I frown, taken aback by the sight of a woman with a bruised face standing before me, peering at me questioningly with her one good eye. She's tiny, with flame red hair and a fine boned stature–kind of like if you crossed Ariel the mermaid with Audrey Hepburn, you'd get this woman. She's pretty, and I mean, really pretty–even with a swollen face, she's intimidatingly pretty.

  I take a step backward.

  “Can I help you?” she asks.

  My mouth opens and I shake my head. I must have the wrong place. “I, um… I’m looking for Brad. Are…are you OK?”

  “Oh,” she says. “My face.” She reaches up and touches it gingerly. “Don’t worry. Brad isn’t responsible. I’m actually a female cage fighter. I got these puppies in the fighting ring.”

  She holds up her fists and jabs at the air. It’s then that I take in her attire. A man’s shirt. I close my eyes, feeling as though I’m in an all too familiar situation. I feel like I’m fifteen all over again, interested in a man who is too busy with every other woman because he's too old for me.

  “I see. Listen, I’ve obviously come at a really bad time. I’ll…I’ll just…” I point over my shoulder and back away, ready to make my way back to the stairwell, before I see Brad walk into my line of sight wearing a pair of track pants and nothing else–well, besides a few tattoos I haven’t seen before. He’s towelling off his dark hair, looking as though he just stepped out of the shower.

  My eyes move between them, and all of a sudden I feel sick.

  I mumble something about being late then turn to walk away, thoroughly regretting thinking that maybe Brad was still interested in clearing the air, and maybe starting fresh with me after all these years. I’d obviously burned that bridge long ago, and I’m never going to get the chance to fix it.

  “Cody?” I hear, just as I reach the top of the stairs. I turn back and see Brad just outside his door, staring down the hall toward me.

  Hesitating, I move forward to leave then backward to stay, several times. Eventually deciding to stand and face him.

  I raise my hand and wave like a gimp.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Behind him, the girl from the door is looking on with interest.

  I shake my head. “I was…um…I was just dropping by to let you know that… um… that my dad really appreciated you donating to the auction. He wished he had the chance to talk to you, but you left so suddenly, and…um… yeah. That’s all.”

  He furrows his brow. “You came all the way into the city just to tell me that?”

  I shrug and place my hand on the wall, moving my finger as I focus on a small paint chip. “I was in the neighbourhood, so…”

  “I see. And how did you get my address?”

  “What is this? Twenty questions?” I attempt a laugh. But, when I look at him, he isn’t smiling. I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Elliot. He gave it to me.”

  “I see.”

  “But I’m leaving. You’re obviously busy here.” I point to the girl, and as he looks over his shoulder, she quickly withdraws from view. I take the opportunity to leave, rushing down the stairs as fast as I can, thoroughly regretting coming here.

  ***

  Brad

  “Who was that?” Ruby asks, as I head back inside. I move about the kitchen, setting up the coffee machine for a morning pick me up.

  “Just someone I used to know,” I say quietly, reaching up to take a couple of mugs down. I hold one out to her, and she nods.

  “An old girlfriend?”

  I shake my head. “No. We never got to that point.”

  “That’s a shame. She’s pretty.”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I dismiss the conversation by asking her about going to the police.

  “Do I have to? I mean, can’t I just end things with him and pretend none of this ever happened?”

  “Sure. If you think it’s all right for him to beat on some other girl or better still–stalk you and obsess over you until you give in and go back to him. I think that’s definitely the better plan of action.”

  She lets out a sigh. “OK. I get it. I’ll go to the cops then. I’ll report him.”

  I glance at her over my shoulder. “Good. And if you need it, the spare room is available for you until you feel safe going back to your place.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes I do. You can’t go back to your place on your own until we’re sure this guy is going to leave you alone.”

  “Won’t I be in your way? I mean, what if that pretty blast from your past wants to rekindle something? She seemed a little upset to see me here.”

  “She did? I don’t understand why. She’s got some guy called Riley in her life now. No. Things between Dakota, and me are well and truly in the past.”

  Chapter 16

  Dakota

  “You’re back early. Did you even go and see him?” Stacey asks, when I get back home, hanging my bag on the back of a dining room chair before I kiss Riley on the top of his blond head and go to sit next to her.

  I put my head in my hands. “I did. And he was with someone, so…” I shake my head, trying to ignore the stinging that’s threatening me behind my eyes.

  “Oh, Cody…” she says, placing her hand on the centre of my back.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine, really. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I was being stupid.”

  “Going after a guy you’ve loved for most of your life isn’t stupid. It’s brave as fuck. And if he’s not married, I think you should try again. Who cares if he has some fuck buddy?”

  “Stacey!” I say, cutting my eyes in the direction of my son.

  She covers her mouth and produces a muffled apology from behind her hand.

  I look at Riley who seems to be too engrossed in watching Adventure Time to have noticed Stacey’s slip up.

  “And who’s to say she’s his… friend with benefits?” I whisper, trying to keep my voice down.

  Stacey shrugs. “When have you ever known Brad to have a serious relationship?”

  “Things might be different now. Things could be serious between them.”

  “There’s nothing on his Facebook profile about a girlfriend.” She pulls out her phone and begins scrolling through.

  “You’re friends with him on Facebook?”

  I reach out and snatch her phone from her hands and begin looking for myself.

  “Of course I am. You probably would be too if you set up an account.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to be on Facebook. There’s too many voyeurs out there,” I say, as I greedily absorb every post he’s put up recently.

  Stacey chuckles at me. “Yes. There are, aren’t they.”

  I glance up, realising that she’s talking about me. “Oh, shoosh. It’s not like I do this all the time.”

  His feed is mainly pictures of food, and the people at the restaurant he works at. There are a few he’s been tagged in of some band he obviously went and saw called Matiari. I spot Elliot and his wife, Paige, in the group photos, and there’s one where he’s talking to a gorgeous blonde girl who is tagged as Sand
ra Haegan. Curious, I click on her name, but her profile is set to private. Although, there a couple of public pictures that show her standing with this really well known actor, Jonathan Masters.

  “Well, she’s no threat,” I mutter to myself, feeling kind of impressed that Brad knows people attached to someone as famous as that. When I go back to the photos on his timeline, I see that he’s also pictured with Marcus Bailey, who is one of my favourite musicians and his crazy wife, Leisel. “How the hell does he know all these people?”

  “Who?” Stacey asks, leaning forward to peer at the large screen on her iPhone 6+. I show her the photos of him standing with a group of beautiful people. “He probably cooked for them or something. Or maybe Elliot knows them. He’s there too. He might be their personal trainer or something. I don’t know.”

  Curious about how much his life has changed since he was mine for that brief moment, I continue to flick through his photos. Eventually I come across a picture of him standing with a girl, who I feel sure is the one who answered his door, although I can’t be positive because of the bruises and the swelling.

  “I think this is the girl he was with,” I tell her, and she studies the image, waving it off as unimportant.

  “Looks like she’s just some girl he works with.”

  I frown at their image; they’re standing with their arm around each other, smiling as they hold a plate with some fancy looking food on it between them.

  “She said she was a professional fighter. Her face was all bruised.”

  “Bruised? You don’t think… I mean, Brad would never–right?”

  “No. I couldn’t imagine he would.” The only time I’ve ever heard of him actually fighting was with another guy and from what I was told, it was because that guy was saying something really crude about me. “He’d fight a guy to protect a girl. But he’d never hurt one.”