by Cleo Coyle
Men and women stepped forward to examine the cutting. “I don’t have to tell you what this breakthrough will mean. Without the intervening technological process, decaffeinated coffee will reach the market more quickly. For the consumer, that means decaffeinated coffee that is fresher, cheaper, and far superior to the products currently available.”
While Ric spoke, my staff pressed the coffee and began to pour it into the Village Blend cups.
“With approximately a two percent caffeine content— which is less than the amount of caffeine in average decaffeinated arabica, and far lower than decaffeinated robusta products—this hybrid bean already has been certified as a caffeine-free product.”
Thanks to Tucker’s able choreography, my baristas moved with theatrical precision, fanning out into the crowd with their trays of cups, just as Ric’s sales pitch ended. “As for the taste? Please savor it now and judge for yourself.”
The audience members accepted their samples, and I soon heard ohs, ahs, and a growing buzz of excitement. I wasn’t surprised. Ric had a superior product and most of the people in this room were discerning enough to appreciate it.
Matt placed the cutting on a table in the center of the room. Ric stepped up to stand right next to it and spoke again. “The sample is here. Please feel free to take photos. I’ll be here with it, to answer any questions you may have.”
And make damn sure it doesn’t disappear, I thought, especially since it didn’t take long for the first round of cups to disappear. With each new round, people seemed more impressed. I could tell by the astonished expression on the faces of many that Ric Gostwick’s hybrid was a genuine hit.
Since this wasn’t a traditional cuptasting (i.e. the noisy slurping of pure, steeped coffee grinds, which were then spit out), we made sugar and cream available at the bar. Few guests used either.
While the participants enjoyed their second or third cup, I sent Gardner back to the piano, then grabbed Esther to help me pass out the prepared press kits. They included photos and a history of the Gostwick Estate in Brazil, photographs of an actual shrub, the cultivated fields, rows of mature plants, along with close-ups of the cutting, the cherries, and contact information. I’d seen the package earlier and thought Ric and Matt had done a thorough job.
“I know you all want to sample more after you leave here,” Ric said. “The good news is—you can. The first batch of my hybrid bean has already been shipped. You can sample it at the Village Blend here in New York City, and any Village Blend kiosk in the United States, Europe, or Canada. A new world of decaffeination is coming to the premium market in the next few weeks.”
A smattering of applause greeted the news. I returned to the bar to continue helping with the coffee service. Tucker had transferred a third round of French pressed brew to insulated carafes, and I moved around the room with Esther, refilling cups.
Along the way, I spied Joy. She looked lovely tonight with her hair smoothed into a grown-up French twist. Her makeup was a little heavier than usual, and the décolleté on her aquamarine dress was way too daring for my comfort level, but I said nothing. Why? Because I decided to at least try following Matt’s advice and start treating Joy like a grown up. If she chose to wear a plunging, borderline indiscreet neckline, that was her business, and I would keep my mouth shut about it.
I was delighted that she’d come at all. And I wondered where Chef Tommy Keitel was. She’d told Matt that he was coming, but I didn’t see anyone close to her age around her, and I feared the new wunderkind chef had bowed out on my daughter at the last minute.
With the press kits distributed, and Ric handling the questions while watching the cutting, everything seemed to be under control. Except Matteo, who was back to romancing his cell phone. I couldn’t believe it, but I spotted him in a secluded, corner booth with the thing pressed to his ear as he scribbled notes on a tiny pad.
Too busy and weary to argue with him again, I returned to the bar to refill an empty carafe, and found Dante Silva standing behind Tucker.
“Dante,” I said, “shouldn’t you be serving?”
The young man ran his hand over his shaved scalp, like he was combing back hair that wasn’t there. “I can’t go out there, Ms. Cosi. He’ll see me.”
“Who’ll see you?”
“That guy, over there,” Dante said, suddenly looking trapped, hunted, desperate—a little like Java when I put the little fur ball in a cage for a trip to the vet. “He works for the Times. Last week I met him at a gallery show. He said really great things about my work in the past. I . . . I kind of left him with the impression I was more successful than I am—”
“You don’t want him to know you’re working as a barista?”
Dante shook his head. “Can’t I work here behind the bar? Or help with something downstairs in the kitchen?”
I sighed and looked at Tucker. “I hate to pull Gardner off the piano. The crowd’s responding well to him.”
Tucker grabbed a tray. “I’m going!” he sang.
Dante exhaled with relief. “Thanks Ms. Cosi—”
“Dante, once and for all, will you please call me Clare? And you better not stay up here if you don’t want to be seen by that Arts reporter. Just go down to the kitchen and start packing up the grinders, okay?”
“Sure, Ms. . . . Clare . . . thanks.”
Dante disappeared and I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Joy! She gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek.
“Looks like this new decaffeinated thing is a hit,” she gushed.
I nodded, my gaze drifting to a young man lurking behind my daughter. Tall and rather shy, he was handsome and seemed very sweet. Standing next to him was an older man, maybe early fifties. He was attractive in a different way. With arresting blue eyes, a jutting chin, and salt-and-pepper hair, the man radiated confidence. He was casually dressed in an open sport shirt that revealed wiry muscles, a silver chain, and curling chest hair.
“Mom, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Joy announced breathlessly.
I self-consciously wiped my damp hands on my apron, ready for a handshake from the young man at Joy’s side.
“This is Chef Tommy Keitel.”
I looked at the young man. He looked away. Then a strong hand wrapped around mine, pumped my arm.
“Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Cosi,” said the fiftysomething man.
Still clutching his hand, I blinked in surprise. Chef Tommy Keitel, my daughter’s new flame, had enough years on him to be her father’s older brother. Still smiling, his left hand covered mine.
That’s when I saw it—the wedding band. I’d been able to avoid my daughter’s plunging neckline, but I could not tear my eyes away from the gold circling the third finger of Tommy Keitel’s left hand. My gaze shifted to the shy young man at Joy’s side. He shuffled his feet, smiled tentatively, and looked away again.
Joy followed my confused stare. Noticed the young man. “Oh, god, how rude I’ve been. This is Vinny. He works at Tommy’s restaurant, too.”
Chef Keitel’s hands released mine. I smiled wanly, extended it to the young man.
“Vincent Buccelli, ma’am . . . I mean, Ms. Cosi.” His words were halting, and his eyes were downcast, but his handshake was firm.
“I tasted that coffee you’re shilling,” Chef Keitel announced with a superior smirk. “Good stuff. I like coffee, don’t love it, mind you. My thing’s wine, but I couldn’t tell the coffee was decaffeinated, and I think I have the palate to tell. Of course, you did use a French press. That’s sort of like cheating, right? Christ, I bet tinned coffee would taste good if you made it with a French press.”
When he ran out of gas (and I’m being kind), I watched Chef Keitel wrap his arm around my daughter’s young waist, pull her against his aging body. My reaction was similar to the one I had watching a snake devour a bunny rabbit on Animal Planet.
“Of course, caffeine has its uses. You don’t always want to sleep, right?” He looked at my daughter and winked. “Sometimes you want t
o stay up all night long.”
I decided that Chef Keitel’s lewd innuendo was reason enough to kill him right then and there, and I had to restrain myself from tightening that silver chain around his throat until he turned the color of a Japanese eggplant. Instead, I put my hands together and forced a smile.
“May I speak to you for a minute, Joy? It’s about your father . . .”
I shifted my gaze to Chef Keitel. “So nice to have met you.”
I maintained my rigid grin throughout the exchange, but I felt the time bomb ticking inside me. I walked behind the bar, not sure if Joy would follow. I think she hesitated, but I refused to turn around and look. Then I heard Chef Keitel cry out. He’d spotted Robbie Gray, and the two chefs loudly greeted one another. Locked in animated conversation, they wandered away. Vinny Buccelli lingered for a moment, then followed his boss.
Joy appeared at my side. “What about daddy?” she asked.
“Your friend, Chef Keitel—”
“Tommy?”
I nodded. “Didn’t you notice, Joy, that he’s older than your father.”
I expected an angry outburst—a none-too-gentle suggestion to mind my own business, though not put quite so tactfully. But Joy surprised me. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I knew you were going to do this,” Joy said in a voice that was dead calm.
“Do what?”
“This. Make a scene. Humiliate yourself.”
“I’m humiliating myself? I’m not the lovely, charming, sweet young girl who’s dating an octogenarian.”
Joy’s lips curled into a superior smirk—an expression that unsettlingly resembled Chef Keitel’s. “Oh, mother. Now you’re being ridiculous.”
Hands on hips, I stepped closer. “You’re young, Joy,” I quietly told her. “You haven’t accomplished much, so you’re using a smug, superior attitude as a way of elevating yourself. That’s fine. That’s what young people do. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know it all. You have a lot to learn, and I just don’t want to see you learn it the hard way.”
Joy stared into the distance. Since the moment I’d brought up her boyfriend’s inappropriate age, she’d refused to look me in the eye. That gave me hope that somewhere deep inside, Joy knew she was headed down the wrong path.
“I’ve heard this before,” she declared in a bored voice. Then she sighed theatrically. “I’m leaving.”
I held her shoulder. “He’s married, Joy. He’s wearing a wedding band. That means he has a wife—and, I assume, a family.”
“What do you know about anything, mom? When you were my age, you were married, too. Now you’re not. What does that tell you? That things change, that’s what.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No I’m not.” She shook off my hand. “I’m leaving.”
“Excuse me.” The voice belonged to Esther Best. I turned to face my barista. She appeared uncomfortable about stumbling upon a mother-daughter spat.
Who wouldn’t? I thought.
“Sorry, boss,” she said. “We’re about out of coffee again, and nobody looks like they’re leaving anytime soon. Should I go downstairs and grind more beans? I would have asked Ric, but I don’t see him.”
I glanced around the room. Esther was right. I didn’t see Ric by the cutting. Matt either.
“Take the cutting down to Dante in the kitchen,” I told Esther. “Tell him to keep an eye on it, and ask him to grind more beans, but only enough for one more go round.”
Esther nodded. I turned to face my daughter again, but Joy was gone.
I tore off my apron and dashed for the elevator. I made it in time to see Joy enter the car and the doors close. I slammed my finger against the button and the doors opened again. Joy frowned when she saw me.
“Joy—”
“Don’t talk to me.”
“But—”
“If we’re going to fight, let’s do it in the street,” she hissed.
There were six other people in the elevator, casting curious glances at us. I gritted my teeth, willing to wait until we got outside—but not a moment longer.
When we reached the lobby level, Joy slipped through the art deco elevator doors before they even opened all the way. I raced to catch up. The Beekman Hotel’s lobby was small, and we were across it and out the front door in seconds. Still Joy kept walking, her heels clicking on the wet sidewalk.
I shivered, wishing I’d brought my coat. The threatening downpour had not yet arrived. Instead, there was a misty precipitation that seemed to hover in the air, turning flesh clammy and clothes damp. The street was busy with Saturday night traffic. Headlights gleamed like halos in the haze as they raced uptown. A Gala tour bus rumbled out of the UN plaza. But the sidewalk was deserted save for a couple coming out of a brightly lit liquor store and a few teenagers across First Avenue, slamming their skateboards on a makeshift jump along the dark sidesteps of Trump World Tower.
“Joy, wait,” I pleaded, running after her.
She stopped dead and whirled to face me.
“Joy, please understand. I only have your best interests—”
“Blah, blah, blah.” She folded her arms. “I’ve heard this speech before. Try something original.”
“Okay. I know this guy makes you feel special. I know that because I know his type—”
“Right. You’ve exchanged, like, ten words with Tommy, but you already know he’s a ‘type’?”
“Listen, Joy. You’re special. Special to me. Special to your father. But not to this guy. He’s an operator.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “Tommy does think I’m special. He’s teaching me all sorts of new things—”
In the kitchen or the bedroom? I nearly shot back.
“He’s an amazing man,” Joy went on. “It’s you who can’t face reality. You don’t want to let me grow up. Well, you’re going to have to face it. I am grown up. I’m gone.”
She turned to walk away. I grabbed her arm.
“What tales does Tommy tell you?” I asked her. “That his marriage is in trouble? That he’s going to divorce real soon.” I used air quotes on the real soon part. “Does he tell you his wife doesn’t understand him?”
“It’s my life, Mom. Let me live it. What do you care if I mess up. How does that affect you?”
“Oh, Joy,” I said, looking for strength from the heavens. “How can I make you understand—”
That’s when I saw the free-falling body, the black silhouette blotting out the lights of the Beekman Tower like an instant eclipse.
I grabbed my daughter, dragged her backwards with me, up against the building. She squirmed in alarm. “Mom! What are you—”
The body hit the sidewalk with a sickening sound, like an overripe watermelon splattering on a slab of concrete. Joy turned her head, saw the blood, and screamed. I hugged her closer, shut my eyes, and bit down on my own lip so I wouldn’t. Someone in a passing car cried out. I heard the squeal of tires on wet pavement, then footsteps. A hand clutched my arm.
“Are you okay, lady?”
I opened one eye. A black teenager in a denim jacket with the words FREN Z CLUB emblazoned on its pocket stared at me with wide eyes. He had a red bandanna covering his head, a skateboard under his arm.
“I think so,” I stammered. Then I looked at my daughter. Her head was still tucked into my shoulder.
“Damn, that dude just fell out of the sky!” the kid cried. He stared at the corpse.
I could see the victim was male. He’d landed on his side and his head was turned, so I couldn’t see his face. The dead man wore a black dinner jacket, similar to the one Matt was wearing. I stopped breathing. He had hair like Matt’s, too, thick and black.
Joy slowly pulled away from me. Tears stained her cheeks. Her face was ghostly white. She saw the corpse and began to tremble.
“Mom . . . who is it?” she whispered in a little girl’s voice.
The teen crouched over the victim. “Dude’s dead,
man.”
His skateboarding friends rushed up to join him.
“Dang, Z! Did you see that?!”
“That’s messed up!”
I heard other voices.
“Call 911! Get an ambulance here!”
A gray-haired gentleman rushed toward us, Burberry raincoat billowing in the wind. He’d come from the direction of the United Nations building. I held Joy by her shoulders, fixed her with my eyes.
“Stay right here.”
I waited until she nodded in response, then I approached the body. It seemed to take forever to walk those few steps. I circled around, moving into the street. Traffic was at a standstill, so I didn’t have to watch for cars.
Finally I saw the dead man’s broken face. I recognized him. It wasn’t my ex-husband, thank god. The corpse was Carlos Hernandez of the Costa Gravas delegation to the United Nations—the man my ex-husband had threatened to throw out of the building a little over an hour ago, in front of one hundred and fifty witnesses.
TWENTY
In New York City, a dead man on the sidewalk always attracts a crowd, and one was forming now. Corpses attract sirens, too. I heard them wail in the distance.
Tearing my gaze away from the body, I hurried back to my daughter. Joy was hugging herself, shivering. I put my arm around her.
“Who is it?” Joy asked, her voice trembling. “It’s not . . . Dad—”
“No, no, honey. It’s no one you know.”
More people arrived. Soon it would be New York’s Finest, and the questions would begin. I took Joy’s arm.
“Come on.”
She resisted. “Where are we going?”
“Back upstairs, to the Top of the Tower. We’re going to find your father.”
Joy surrendered and I took the lead. We reentered the lobby, dodging a bellboy and the desk clerk; both were scrambling to join the mob outside. One of the elevator’s doors opened. The car was filled with faces I recognized from the party. They appeared serenely decaffeinated, all of them calmly chatting among themselves.
