She’d done a good job on it, as usual. Tia was a fabulous cook. “Perfecto,” he said, making noises of appreciation as he swallowed. “Esta fabuloso.”
Tia preened. “Yes? It doesn’t need nothing? Salt? Pepper? Spice?”
“No, no. Nothing. It is full of amor, Tia, that is enough.”
She swatted him on the arm. “You make fun of an old woman, Alejo.”
“I don’t,” he protested. “It’s your love, the secret ingredient, that makes it so delicious.”
She flapped a dismissive hand at him, but her bosom swelled and she stood taller. He grinned inwardly. Women. You complimented their beauty when they were young, and their cooking when they got old. It was a simple formula to keep them happy.
“You like this outfit, mi corazon?”
And sometimes you compliment both. “It’s very pretty. Slimming, too. You look beautiful, Tia.” He moved on to a more serious subject. “The palm tree in the front yard—I think it’s much too close to the house, and I’m worried it will fall on your roof in the next storm. I want to get a quote for removing it.”
She frowned. “God put the tree there. It’s not for us to take it out. If He wants it to fall, then it will be so.”
“Yes, but, Tia, I don’t want it to fall on your head one night when you’re asleep.” Alejandro put a hand on her arm. “Isn’t it God who gave us the power-saw and the backhoe, too? Why would He have done that, if He didn’t mean for us to use them? You’ve said so yourself—God helps those who help themselves.”
“Hmph.”
“And God brought me here to look after you. You wouldn’t want to stand in the way of my doing that, would you?”
She eyed him suspiciously, hands on her hips.
He blinked, all innocence, his own hands spread and palm up in supplication.
“Bueno. Take out the tree.”
“Thank you, Tia. We can go to the nursery when I have a free day and find something nice to replace it.”
They chatted some more as she loaded up all the food in disposable aluminum containers. She gave him rapid-fire instructions for how to heat it again, and asked him about a couple of investments. Then she said, “You are still serving liquor at the salon?”
“Not liquor. Just wine and beer.”
She shook her head and clucked. “I never hear of such a thing.”
“That’s because it’s new. A fresh marketing angle. We stay open late and serve drinks. It’s been very popular so far, Tia. Come on, wipe the frown off your face.”
“A salon should be a salon, and not a bar!”
“People like it. It’s getting busier and busier.”
“Soon you will have a massage parlor in back.”
“Well, Peggy does give massages, but—”
“You know what I mean, Alejo. You serve drinks, people tocar por aqui, tocar por alla, soon you have goings-on in the closet, the powder room, God only knows where.”
He laughed. “I can promise you, mi corazon, there are no goings-on in closets. Absolutely not.” He kissed her cheek. “Please don’t worry, Tia. We have everything under control.”
Alejandro thanked her for the food, stowed it in his Porsche and got on his way, trying not to think about having a naked Kate under his control in a closet or a powder room. He couldn’t wait to see her, even clothed and around her awful cousin.
7
KATE HAD ACTUALLY acquired a small kitchen table and four chairs from a furniture warehouse by the next day. They were streamlined, modern blond wood, some assembly required. The store had delivered them on the same day and they fit her needs perfectly, even if they weren’t up to Wendell’s standards. “Cheap and pedestrian,” he pronounced them.
Just like a Spinney. She rolled her eyes.
Her mother had pronounced perms “cheap and pedestrian” back in their heyday, and when Kate had snuck out and gotten one anyway, she’d marched her by the ear back to the salon and made them straighten it again, then smooth it down with wax.
“Why did you invite this Eric Estrada person to dinner, again?” Wendell asked, disturbing her fond memories. “You don’t have a thing for him, do you?”
“Stop calling him Eric Estrada!” said Kate. “And we’re just classmates working on a project. Of course I don’t have a thing for him.” Especially not if he’s after my money.
“Good. Because you can only imagine what the family would say.”
Kate froze in the act of rinsing some lettuce and tomatoes—she figured the least she could do was make a salad. Alejandro was bringing everything else. “You know, Wendell, if I did choose to have a ‘thing’ for him, I really wouldn’t give a hoot what the bloody family said.”
“Riiiiight. You think they’d just ignore the fact that some low-life Spic—”
Kate gasped.
“—was moving in on a Spinney?” Wendell laughed. “Because I can assure you, they wouldn’t.”
Shaking with anger, Kate said evenly, “Wendell, call him a Spic again and you can get the hell out of my condo and never contact me again, you racist son of a bitch.”
Her cousin leaned back in the kitchen chair he occupied, causing it to creak. He raised an eyebrow. “Touchy, touchy. Maybe you doooo have a thing for Al, or why would you care what I call him?”
“Because he’s my friend,” Kate said, furious despite her own uncertainty about Alejandro’s motives for getting to know her. “And because with your expensive education, you should be a little more enlightened.”
This time, Wendell rolled his eyes and she wished passionately that they would just fall right out of his head and Gracious would snuffle them up as an afternoon snack. But the pig was sacked out on a couch pillow, snoozing.
Her cousin cast Gracious a glance of dislike. “Really, Kate. You probably have all kinds of vermin in here, now, because of that creature.”
Yup. There’s one kind sitting right there, and it’s about five foot ten with pale blue eyes and an obnoxious personality.
“You should seriously think about a goat and some chickens, just so the place will smell fab. Throw down some straw, too. Paint the door red. Sing ‘Old MacDonald’ when you get up in the morning….”
The phone rang before Kate gutted him with a paring knife or twisted a corkscrew into his skull. It was Kevin, the clerk from the reception desk downstairs, announcing that Alejandro had arrived.
She opened the door minutes later to find him on the other side with a large shopping bag, laden with containers of food. “Hi. Come on in. Can I take that from you?”
“Hi, Kate.” He bent and kissed her cheek, Peruvian style. Her cousin looked on with a smirk.
“Wendell wants a kiss, too,” she said provocatively.
Alejandro looked alarmed. “Sorry, but I just ran out. That was my last one.” He grinned and shrugged, while behind her Wendell breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m so glad to hear that,” he drawled, “because Spinney men don’t kiss men.” He looked at Kate. “Well, unless they’re her brother, Marcus.”
“Let’s leave Marcus out of this, shall we?” Kate said as pleasantly as possible.
“Whatever you say. Hey, something smells pretty good. I hear we’re having a Third World feast.”
Kate closed her eyes.
“No, we’re having a Peruvian feast,” Alejandro corrected him, a glint in his eye. “We’ll start with choritos, or baked mussels with fresh salsa. Then we’ll move on to the cau-cau, a type of…stew. And then there’s the escabeche de pescado, a pan-fried fish with vegetables on top. I brought flan for dessert.”
“Sounds delish,” said Wendell. “Katy, shall I open a bottle of wine? Do you even have any decent wine?”
“There are two bottles of rioja in the pantry over there.”
Wendell pulled them out and sniffed. “Table wine? 2003? Really, Kate.”
She considered stoning him to death with canned goods she had in the hurricane-preparedness stash. But instead, she took a deep breath. “Sorry
, Wendie—I’m fresh out of vintage Lafite Rothschild.”
Alejandro’s eyes danced. “What a shame.”
Kate pulled three glasses from a cabinet and set them on the counter. “Do you want to just serve everything in here, Alejandro? The table’s rather small.”
“Perfecto.” He began unloading aluminum containers from the shopping bag and setting them on the kitchen counter. “We’ll need to warm the escabeche and the cau-cau.”
They put them into the oven and sat around the new table with their wine and some cheese. Kate tried not to look at Alejandro’s sexy, exotic mouth or the triangle of lickable brown skin bared by the open top button of his shirt.
Her nerves were jangling, both because of Wendell’s sniping and because of her unfortunate attraction to Alejandro. She might as well admit it—she thought the man was hot. In no way did he fit the stereotype of an accountant.
Kate tipped back a healthy amount of wine to (a) calm down, (b) keep from killing her cousin and (c) stop herself from jumping onto Alejandro’s lap and shouting, “Do me, do me, baby!”
She’d go to jail if she killed her cousin, and Wendell was so not worth spending one’s life in jail for. As for option c, she’d be demonstrating serious lack of control, something quite alien to a Spinney.
She was spacing out. Kate checked into the conversation again only to find Wendell pontificating about Rembrandt—Rembrandt?—a subject that he knew nothing about but had undoubtedly chosen because he didn’t think Alejandro knew anything about the artist, either.
Alejo exchanged an amused glance with her and smothered a yawn, before he got up ostensibly to check on the food. Kate drained the rest of her wine and poured everyone some more. Then she, too, abandoned her cousin and fled for the kitchen to get out her best china: paper plates. She did have real cutlery, cheap stuff she’d bought by the dozen at a restaurant supply store. And she tore them each a paper towel to use as a napkin.
Alejandro brought out the pan of choritos and set it in the middle of the table. “You just pick these up and eat them. They’re a little tricky, but you can use your teeth to scrape the mussel off if necessary.” He demonstrated while Wendell watched, aghast.
Kate handed him a paper towel and grabbed a chorito, inserting it inelegantly into her mouth and gobbling down the contents of the shell. It tasted fresh and delicious, the shellfish flavor mingling with lime juice, onion, tomato and cilantro. “Yum!”
Gracious emerged from Kate’s bedroom with a yawn, stretching her short legs. She made a beeline for the table, saw Wendell sitting there, and drew back her lips in a funny porcine snarl.
“Get away from me,” he said, and finally picked up a chorito. Kate laughed as it stretched his mouth wide, making him look like an outraged Mr. Potato Head. Not that she and Alejandro looked any better.
“This isn’t half-bad,” Wendell admitted. “Of course, I’ve had better in Rio.”
“Really.” Alejandro went to Gracious and scratched her head and neck while she wiggled her nose in appreciation of the food smells. She began to drool and edged toward the kitchen. But to enter the room, she had to squeeze past Wendell. She looked at him again and snarled.
“You’re not being very gracious, Gracious,” Kate said. She gave her a dried apricot.
Wendell glared at the pig. “You like dining with farm animals, Eric?” he asked. “Er, Alejandro?”
“It doesn’t bother me. She’s a very nice pig.”
Wendell smirked. “Well, I guess you’re used to eating in barnyards, since your family hails from a Third World village, right?”
Alejandro’s face remained impassive.
“Don’t be a boor, Wendell,” Kate said as pleasantly as she could. “And Lima is not a village. It’s a bustling, modern city, like Rio.”
“I’ve traveled all over the world,” Wendell announced in pompous tones. “I know Lima.”
“Ah. Then you must have had cau-cau, one of our popular dishes.” Alejandro slopped a large ladleful onto a plate.
“Of course I have,” lied Wendell. “It’s delicious.”
Alejandro added another ladleful. “Here you are.” He passed the plate to Wendell, then turned to Kate. “Would you care for some?”
“You know, I think I’ll wait for the escabeche de pescado—I won’t have room for both.” Alejandro nodded and helped himself to the cau-cau. They all sat down.
“I know you people are religious,” Wendell sniped. “Should we say grace?”
Kate cringed, while Alejandro fought with a murderous expression and finally won. “No, that won’t be necessary, but thank you for your, ah, cultural sensitivity.”
“Please start,” Kate urged them, raising her glass to her lips.
Wendell took a large bite of the cau-cau.
Alejandro did, too.
Wendell froze mid-chew.
Alejandro swallowed. “Wonderful,” he said, beaming at her cousin. “One of my Tia Carlotta’s best batches ever. But as a man of international cuisine, of course you recognize that.”
Wendell’s eyes had begun to bulge, but he nodded.
“Only sophisticated, well-traveled types such as yourself can appreciate the subtle flavors of a world-class cau-cau.”
Wendell’s face assumed a greenish hue, and beads of sweat formed at his temples and along his sparse hairline. With a mighty effort, he swallowed what was in his mouth. “Delish,” he managed.
Alejandro nodded and kept eating heartily.
Kate watched with glee as Wendell’s pride demanded that he eat what was on his plate, just to prove how cosmopolitan he was. He forked up another mouthful of cau-cau and inserted it into his pie-hole.
“You know,” Alejo told him, “I’m impressed. A lot of gringos won’t eat tripe, but you’re clearly above that.”
“Tripe,” Wendell repeated weakly, after he barely managed to swallow his second bite.
“Parts are parts, my Tia always says. And we people don’t like to waste anything. Sometimes her local butcher will throw in more than the stomach lining, just for her. You know, bits of other things that will add flavor—that’s the secret of her cau-cau. Maybe the tail end of the small intestine, if you know what I mean. Or a bit of the bollocks…. Is something the matter?”
Wendell clutched his stomach and ran from the room as fast as his stubby legs would carry him.
“Was it something I said?” Alejandro asked, the barest twinkle in his eye.
WENDELL CLAIMED A twenty-four-hour stomach flu when he returned, still looking green. Kate offered, just a shade too earnestly, to make him chamomile tea, and he eyed the two of them suspiciously while Alejandro looked utterly bland and Kate did her best to be sweet. This only made Wendell’s behavior worse.
He turned down the escobeche de pescado and the salad, glowering down the table at Kate, who ignored him. She got up and put together a plate of dried fruit and goodies for Gracious and set it down in the kitchen.
Again, the pig snarled as she approached Wendell and had to pass him to get to her food.
Already cranky, Wendell drew back a leg as if to kick her, only to stop as Alejandro got up and loomed over him. All traces of social nicety had vanished from Alejo’s expression. In fact, he looked downright menacing.
“Touch that animal, hombre, and you will sincerely regret it.”
Wendell sneered at him. “Don’t you threaten me, you lowlife Spi—” He stopped as Kate whirled on him.
“It’s not a threat, I assure you.” Alejandro’s voice was quiet. “It’s a promise.” He bent down and picked up Gracious, who looked as if she wanted to charge Wendell again.
“Put her in my bedroom,” Kate told him quickly.
“I’ll take her plate in there.” She did so then returned to Wendell again. “How dare you kick a defenseless animal?”
“I didn’t actually kick it,” Wendell retorted, getting up and throwing his crumpled napkin onto the table. “Not to mention that barnyard animals do not belong in a civilized
home. But then, neither do savages from the back of beyond—”
Alejandro re-entered the room and stared him down, his gaze black.
“I never claimed to keep a civilized home,” declared Kate. “Look, everyone, let’s just calm down and have dessert, okay?” She reached for her wineglass.
“I don’t think so,” Wendell said. “I’m not eating any more of his Third World peasant food.”
Alejandro took two long strides towards him, his fist drawn back.
Kate leaped towards him and planted a palm on his chest while her cousin scurried for the door, yanked it open and scrambled through. She slammed it behind him.
“Alejandro, I’m so sorry. He didn’t mean that.”
“Oh, yes, he did.”
She made a helpless gesture. “Please—I know he’s an ass. But he’s gone for the time being. Let’s just try to salvage the evening and enjoy dessert. What do you say?”
His face softened and he hesitated. Finally he nodded. While the coffee brewed, they sat down again with their wine, this time on the floor by the sliding glass door where they could take in the view of the ocean.
“So, do you have any horrifying relatives?” Kate asked him.
Alejandro shook his head. “I have an uncle in Peru who tells tall tales. And a shoplifting cousin. But other than that, they’re really not that bad. Of course, Tia Carlotta can be a handful when she wants to be….”
“Oh. Lucky you.” Kate swirled her wine. “So what do you do when you’re not balancing people’s books?”
A funny, discomfited look crossed his face. “I, uh, play futbol—soccer—for a local league. Most of us are Peruvians, but we also have a couple of Columbians and a Bolivian on the team. And I help out at Tia’s house with repairs and projects. Other than that, business school takes all my time these days.”
There was something he wasn’t telling her. She said so. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“A boyfriend?”
“No!”
“Then what is it?”
He spread his hands. “Nothing. What would I be hiding?”
“I don’t know.” She pursed her lips. “You don’t look like a serial killer.”
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