Cooking with Kandy

by Peggy Jaeger

  “I don’t understand,” she said, finishing off her omelet.

  Josh took a breath and then finished his juice. He rose and crossed to the sink, glass and plate in hand. “Sophie gave you a love for cooking. All the aspects of it, including the sense of accomplishment it brought.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  “Hannah, on the other hand, taught you how to be a survivor.”

  Scratching her head, Kandy asked, “Explain that.”

  “You were thirteen when your dad left?”

  She nodded and took her own dish to the sink, rinsed both sets and put them in the dishwasher while Josh continued.

  “Old enough to understand the implications. Old enough to see how it affected your mom. And old enough to appreciate how difficult it must have been to keep you all together.”

  Resting back against the counter, Kandy crossed her arms in front of her, making her breasts swell across the top of her skimpy, tantalizing dress.

  Josh’s heartbeat galloped when he saw the beautiful flesh pop up into his view.

  “Right. I remember some discussion about the younger ones going to live with Aunt Lucy or Aunt Trudi for a while. Mom refused to split us up.”

  “And worked two full-time jobs and a part-time weekend one to make sure you could all live together.”

  She nodded. “Mom was a sticker. She could have run out on us just as easily as Dad. Seven kids—and all girls—was a big responsibility. But she didn’t.”

  “No. She stayed and tried to make it as easy as she could on all of you..”

  They were silent for a moment as Kandy digested that. When her eyes found his again, she said, “So you think seeing how she stood her ground and went on with her life is what makes me the way I am?”

  “Pretty much. Gemma’s the one who still has some anger issues with your mother. Displaced anger, I think. But when I’ve seen you together with your mother, or heard you on the phone with her, I only hear and see love. And acceptance.”

  Kandy made her way back to her chair. Folding her hands in front of her on the table, she said, “Simple Psych 101 profile, aren’t I?”

  Josh sat down across from her, leaned his elbows on the counter, and said, “You’re anything but simple, Kandy.”

  “I feel simple lately. Simpleminded, anyway. I never saw Evan for who he was, how he was just using me.” She shook her head and sighed. “I actually thought he understood how important my career is to me. He acted like he did. When I found out he’d used me, I thought it was over once I kicked him out of my life. I never thought he’d steal from me.”

  “First of all, we don’t know for sure it is him in that video.”

  “Who else could it be? He’d already come by once. Maybe he really didn’t want to see me, just make sure I wasn’t home so he could slither back and rob me. You’ve told me how hard-up for cash he is.”

  “Those are valid points, but you had nothing to do with his behavior, so don’t think you’re simpleminded when it concerns him. Chandler, from everything I’ve found out about him, has always been a user and a loser. Everything about him is phony, every action, every word he ever said to you was done so you’d fall for him, trust him.”

  “He played me.”

  The sadness in her voice touched his heart. “You’re not the first, Kandy. You won’t be the last unless he’s stopped. Don’t think less of yourself because you thought his feelings for you were real. My bet is the only person he’s ever cared about is himself.”

  “Do you still think he could be behind all the things that have been happening to me?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”

  “He wasn’t invited to the birthday party,” she said, her smooth brow furrowing. “He knew about it because I’d been planning it for a few months. I’m not sure he could have snuck in without someone seeing him, though. The house was packed. Somebody was bound to have noticed him coming in, don’t you think?”

  “Possibly. But you had a lot of guests. Not everyone knew one another. Chandler might have been able to sneak in and then sneak out.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ in that sentence.”

  He nodded. “But…why would he? If he’d already planned on robbing you—and we still don’t know it was him—why would he drive three hours out and back to put that threat on your pillow? He could have just as easily left it here.”

  “I didn’t think of that. It’s doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  He shook his head. “Not much, like you’ve said, about any of this, does.”

  Her frown deepened and he had to physically restrain himself from reaching over to smooth the line between her eyes.

  She stared across the table at him for a moment. “You haven’t asked me about Alyssa.”

  “I figured you’d talk about it when you were ready.”

  “Did Gemma tell you anything?”

  He shook his head. “She wanted to let you do the honors, since she spent most of the time at the door, blocking anyone from entering.”

  Her mouth pulled into a wistful grin. “Like Cerberus guarding the entrance to hell.”

  Josh chuckled. “Ready to talk now?”

  “I guess so.”

  She gazed down at her hands, still folded and resting on the table. “You heard her accusation?”

  Josh nodded.

  “She honestly believes I’ve been having an affair with Cort. Cort! Quoted me chapter, book, and verse about how many times we’ve been together after hours at the studio. She even said she heard me call out to him to hang up once when he was on the phone with her. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “Of course I did. Numerous times. Didn’t do a bit of good. She’s convinced I’m trying to steal him away. That I want to be the only woman in his life. She must have said ten times how he’d promised he’d help with her acting career but I was in the way. That everything was ‘Kandy this’ and ‘Kandy that’ at home.”

  She stopped and looked across at him. He could read the hurt and ache on her tired features from Alyssa’s allegations.

  “None of it’s true. Cort is a friend. One of the closest, most dependable, trustworthy people I’ve ever known. I’ve never even looked at him as anything but that. Certainly never as a lover. How come she can’t believe it? How needy can she be? And how can he put up with her?”

  “Did she say anything other than just her suspicions? Give you any facts?”

  “How can she have facts? I’m not having an affair with him.”

  “Calm down, I know you’re not. I was just wondering if she had anything tangible to back it up.”

  Taking a deep breath, she unfolded her hands and ran them down her arms. “I’m sorry for yelling, but I just can’t understand any of this. She said he’s been meeting with me after work hours almost every night. I told her it wasn’t true. Cort has been leaving around the same time as everyone else since we started production this season.”

  He debated whether or not to tell her. To find out Cort had been keeping something so monumental a secret would hurt. And Josh knew she’d been hurt almost more than she could stand of late.

  “Oh,” she said, “there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

  He waited.

  “Gemma believes Alyssa’s behind the phone calls.”

  Josh nodded. “She told me before we left the banquet. Said Alyssa called you the names you’ve been hearing on your answering machine.”

  Frowning again, Kandy said, “Yeah, she did. And we’ve both thought all along the voice was a woman’s. Also,” she said, sitting upright in the chair, “she was at the beach house this weekend. She could have easily left the note for me.”

  “I thought about it after I heard her at dinner. But would she really know how to rig a light so that it would fall on you? And she was nowhere near LA when you had your accident.”

  “How do you know?”

&nbs
p; When he started to tell her, she put her hand up and said, “No, don’t. I already know. Background research.”

  He nodded.

  She thought for a moment. “So she didn’t rig the car to crash. She still could have had a hand in the lighting accident, or the rat in the herb garden. She has access to the studio.”

  “How?”

  “Through Cort. She could have swiped his passkey at any time to set those things up, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a possibility, yes.”

  “I can tell by the look on your face you don’t think she’s the one, do you?”

  “I’m not ruling anyone out. I’ve told you that before.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve changed my mind about Evan.”

  “How so?”

  “I fully believe he could be behind all this now. Jumping out at me the other day, stealing my jewelry—”

  “We don’t know for sure it was him, Kandy.”

  “I’m sure. He needs money and knows I keep my jewelry here. It makes sense.”

  “I’m not ruling anyone out,” he repeated.

  “Well, you can’t think it’s Cort. I mean, he’s being persecuted by his wife, for pity’s sake. It can’t be him. There’s no reason for it.”

  The inner debate about whether or not to tell her finally came to a head. “There’s something you don’t know,” Carefully, he told her about Cort’s desire to leave the show.

  Her expression changed from disbelief to sorrow and then to anger as his words washed over her.

  Before he was done, she shot up from the table and bolted out of the room before he could tell her why.

  * * *

  She ran into her bedroom and came to a full stop in front of the windows, physically barred from going any farther. The drapes were open, the nighttime Manhattan skyline lit and shining into the room.

  “Why?” she asked the empty room, her body rigid and taut. Why, when everything is going so well? Why does he want to leave?

  She stared at the glass, imagining Cort’s face reflected back at her. His kind eyes and poet’s mouth pulled into the chronic grin she hadn’t see him wear for a while. When had it disappeared?

  She’d thought they had a great working relationship, thought they were friends. She’d trusted him, had put her professional faith and judgment in him.

  They’d clicked from day one, and now he wanted out and hadn’t given her the courtesy of telling her. Had he even considered her feelings or how his leaving would impact the show?

  Kandy closed her eyes.

  When Josh had told her about Mark Begman’s desire to leave the production, she’d been surprised, but had understood his longing to branch out, move up in the industry. She even silently applauded him. In her mind, it was a strategic career move and when the day eventually arrived, knew she’d wish him good luck and much future success.

  But Mark wasn’t a friend. Cort was. Or at least she’d thought he was.

  Heated anger ran through her system.

  Some friend. Friends don’t sneak around behind your back, betray your trust for their own gain, and dismiss your loyalty.

  Betrayal. It was, apparently, a running theme in her relationships with men. Kandy shook her head and scrubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands.

  First, her father had claimed to love his wife and his daughters—his girls, he’d called them, always with a bright smile. After he’d left, she’d remembered noticing how his smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes when he asserted that love. She hadn’t understood why at the time. Looking back at her childhood, her father had never done things with them like take them to the park, play, or read with them, leaving the bulk of the parenting to Hannah. There wasn’t a time in her memory that she could recall her parents not yelling and arguing, despite her father’s words that he loved them all. Too young to recognize this dichotomy, she’d nonetheless learned a valuable lesson when he decamped. Namely, words and actions don’t always go hand in hand. Her father had claimed to love them but had never really demonstrated it.

  His defection from their family was her first experience with betrayal and pain caused by a man.

  Evan Chandler had been the second big one.

  Clicking her tongue in disgust at the thought of him, she crossed her bedroom rug and flung open her closet door. She’d told Josh there was no doubt in her mind Chandler was the one who had stolen from her, and there wasn’t. She knew he was fully capable of it. She’d dropped her guard, let him into her protected heart, and, once again had been deceived by untrue words. If she’d looked at him with open and assessing eyes as she did now, she would have seen a carbon copy of her father. A smile a little too tense around the edges, laughter a tad too forced, even a way of looking at her when she was speaking, giving the impression he was totally engaged, but a subtle glassy shift in his gaze telling her he wasn’t, that his attention had been wandering.

  Evan Chandler was a phony through and through, and even though she now knew him for the man he was, his deception still stung. With hindsight, though, she realized it was her pride and not her heart that had taken the brunt of the damage.

  Two men who’d been important to her at different times in her life, and both of them had betrayed her.

  And now she could add Cort Mason to the list.

  Yanking at the chain around her neck, she gave vent to all the resentment boiling in her while she wrestled the clasp open.

  How could she have been so stupid? So naïve? He’d pretended to be her partner, and then conspired with a lawyer, attempting to slither out of his contract.

  She stopped, the unclasped necklace dangling from her fingers.

  Again, why? Why did he want out? He’d always seemed so happy at work, so eager to be there. Well, until recently. She tried to think back to when she’d started noticing his nervous tic of jiggling his keys. It appeared when they’d started filming the new season, she was sure of it. She’d thought the unconscious movement had been related to problems with Alyssa. Lord knew the woman was a bitch in stilettos and the most emotionally needy woman she’d ever met.

  Stacy agreed with her that Alyssa’s continual interruptions during the day were annoying, but she was Cort’s problem, not theirs.

  Was that the reason he wanted to leave? To appease Alyssa in some way?

  Kandy played with the chain, running it through her fingers. It couldn’t be about money, could it? As the director of such a popular show, he must have been making more than enough to support his lifestyle. And even if he did want more, all he had to do was ask. The network made a bundle from her show through their sponsors. There wouldn’t have been an issue in raising his salary.

  If not money, then…what?

  Had he, like Mark, been approached to do something else? Another show? Possibly a movie? Cort had mentioned at the beginning of their working relationship that his ultimate goal was to direct a major film. Maybe he’d been given the opportunity to do so and was too worried about how she’d react if he wanted to leave.

  Her old insecurities suddenly reared up. Or is it me? Am I the reason he wants to leave?

  What had she done or said, or even not said, to force him to stab her in the back this way?

  Scenes of the two of them in editing, easily bantering back and forth a point about a shot, or the way something was lit sprang into her mind. The scene morphed into a verbal showdown about a recent camera angle and how she’d forced her opinion on him, making him edit out the part she didn’t want, even though he’d wanted it left in.

  Several times during filming she’d demanded more than one take during a scene, even though Cort had assured her the first was perfect. She’d fought him every time, and every time he’d given in.

  At the beach house, Josh had accused her of being demanding, of assuming total control in every aspect of her life, especially her show.

  She closed her eyes again.

  He’s right
. Good God, he’s right.

  She’d acted like a dictator. All her talk about the staff working with her not for her, all of them being a well-connected team, was nothing more than pompous chatter. It meant nothing.

  Had Cort finally had enough?

  Okay, so his ego was probably sore, but he still could have told her he wanted out.

  Kandy sighed, loud and deep. Men and their egos were such a mystery.

  Cort’s betrayal cut to the bone. He was one of the few people she felt she could trust implicitly, and now that trust was shattered.

  He should have come to her, told her what he wanted. She would have understood.

  Kandy bit down on her lip. But would she have? Really? Could she understand why he wanted to leave? Given him her blessing and sent him on his way?

  No. She wouldn’t have. She would have been as mad and as hurt as when Josh told her, no argument there.

  She tossed the necklace into the cabinet, took the earrings from her ears, and dropped them carelessly into a drawer.

  She concentrated on opening the clasp on her watch, but for some reason couldn’t quite undo it.

  After several failed attempts, she grew frustrated, shook her hand back and forth, and then punched the top of the jewelry cabinet a few times with the flat of her hand.

  A stream of curses exploded from her, and like a chained animal she scratched at her wrist in a vain attempt to remove the annoying piece of jewelry.

  “Kandy?” Josh appeared behind her. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”

  His voice was low and calm and all she wanted to do was scream.

  “Nothing.”

  He glanced down at her wrist. She did as well, realizing she’d scratched herself raw. Jagged red lines had sprouted up her forearm and around her wrist.

  “Here, let me help,” he said and reached for her hand.

  “I don’t need any help.” She snatched her wrist back.

  He didn’t respond, just simply waited her out. After a few tense moments, all the fight oozed out of her.

  “Oh okay. Fine. Here.” She thrust her hand back at him. “It’s stuck. Probably broken, like everything else in my life,” she muttered.