Death of an Italian Chef

by Lee Hollis

  “Heart attacks? You mean you’ve had more than one?”

  “Three, I think. Wait—no, four. I forgot about the one I had when I was in Sicily visiting relatives two summers ago.”

  “Romeo, you really should listen to your doctor. This mild attack could be a warning for a much bigger one ahead if you don’t take care of yourself,” Hayley said solemnly.

  Romeo shrugged, unconcerned. Suddenly his face flushed red and he slammed a meaty fist down on his over bed table. “Oh no! You have got to be kidding me!”

  “What?” Hayley asked, staring up at the TV.

  “Savannah’s off today. I hate when she’s not there. We might as well turn back to Gayle King!”

  “Calm down. I can literally see your blood pressure rising on the monitor over there.”

  Fredy returned with Randy’s breakfast tray. Soupy scrambled eggs. A packaged plain bagel. A box of Rice Krispies and a carton of low-fat milk. Of course, Randy acted as if Fredy was presenting him with a meal personally prepared by Chef Bobby Flay.

  Once Fredy took the muffin Hayley had brought him and left, Romeo reached over and pulled back the dividing curtain just as Randy scooped up a generous forkful of eggs and took a bite.

  “Don’t bother eating that crap, it’ll just make you sicker,” Romeo cautioned. Then he grabbed the phone next to his bed and called the operator. “How the hell do I get an outside line? This is an emergency!”

  Hayley, Liddy, Mona, and a loopy Randy all stared at him, curious to know what he was planning to do.

  “I have muffins from Jordan’s,” Hayley offered, pointing to the bag on the side table.

  “That won’t cut it!” Chef Romeo scoffed as someone came on the line. “Betty, it’s me. I want you to cook up some menu items: spaghetti and meatballs, some eggplant parm, a couple of pizzas. Make sure you include lots of garlic bread and get it over here to the hospital just as soon as you can!”

  Mona perked up.

  “I don’t know, a lot! There are one, two, three, four, five of us—wait, bring enough food for the hospital staff too. Hell, bring enough for the whole floor. There are a lot of starving people in dire need of some decent food around here! Okay, hurry!”

  Romeo slammed down the phone.

  “I’m not sure that’s going to go over well with the hospital administrators. They have certain rules,” Hayley reminded him.

  “Rules are made to broken,” Romeo roared. “Trust me, they won’t be complaining once they taste it!”

  “Well, we should be going,” Hayley said. “I have to get to the office.”

  “We’ll be back later, Randy,” Liddy said.

  “Thank you for stopping by,” Randy said softly.

  As they walked toward the door, Hayley noticed that Mona had remained behind, still standing next to Randy’s bed.

  “You coming, Mona?”

  “I think I’ll stick around for a few more minutes,” Mona said.

  Liddy threw her hands up in the air. “But you hate hospitals. You just said—”

  “I’m staying until the eggplant parm gets here. I love eggplant parm. You got a problem with that?” Mona growled.

  Liddy turned to Hayley. “She has a point. Chef Romeo’s meatballs are to die for.”

  Hayley sighed, then rummaged through her bag for her phone and made a quick call. “Hi, Sal, I’m going to be a little late this morning.”

  Chapter 9

  Mona moaned with blissful pleasure as she scarfed down Chef Romeo’s eggplant Parmesan, eating out of a Styrofoam container with a plastic fork. Hayley enjoyed a couple of large, tasty meatballs on top of a pile of spaghetti and Romeo sat up in his bed with a folded-up slice of pizza in his hand and some tomato sauce dripping down his beard. Liddy had left to go pick up some beverages for them in the cafeteria and Randy, the only one not to partake in the feast, was having trouble keeping his eyes open as his morning dose of morphine pumped through his veins, sending him into a state of heavy sedation. Hayley thought that it was just as well. He shouldn’t be eating Italian food in his condition anyway, and neither should Romeo, but there was no talking him out of it.

  Liddy suddenly scooted back into the room with a tray of coffees in her hand and a plastic bag with a few cans of soda looped around her wrist. “Quick, hide the food! The doctor’s coming right behind me!”

  They all hurriedly closed the containers and shoved them back into the grocery bags that Romeo’s head waitress Betty had delivered to them in, and looked around for some place to hide them.

  “What do we do with them?” Hayley asked, panicked.

  “Under the bed!” Romeo suggested.

  Hayley and Mona dropped to their knees, sliding the bags of food under Chef Romeo’s hospital bed, then sprang back up to their feet just as Dr. Cormack entered the room wearing a white coat and reading some numbers on his iPad. He was followed closely behind by Nurse Fredy.

  The doctor stopped, looked up, surprised, and sniffed the air. “Why am I suddenly reminded of the time my wife and I took a second honeymoon to Italy and were enjoying an espresso in a charming piazza in Florence?”

  No one dared to answer.

  Nurse Fredy glanced around the room suspiciously. “I don’t remember Italian being on today’s lunch menu. I thought we were serving meat loaf.”

  Again, everyone kept their mouths firmly shut.

  Dr. Cormack seemed to decide to let it go, and turned to address Randy. “I have some good news. Your inflammation of the pancreas has come down enough so we can prep you for surgery tomorrow morning.”

  Randy attempted a smile, which drooped, and nodded his head. He was still clearly out of it.

  “Oh, what a relief,” Hayley sighed.

  “I suggest your visitors leave so you can get plenty of rest before tomorrow,” Dr. Cormack said.

  “Of course, Dr. Cormack, thank you,” Hayley gushed, so happy that they were finally moving ahead after such a touch-and-go period of helplessness.

  “Don’t you worry, Randy, I’ll be leaving soon so I won’t be here blathering on and keeping you awake,” Romeo said. “You’ll have the whole place to yourself.”

  Dr. Cormack turned to Romeo. “Where are you going?”

  “I got a restaurant to run, doc,” Romeo explained. “I’m just waiting for some tests to come back so you can release me and I can get on with my day.”

  “The tests did come back, and I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Oh come on, doc, it was a mild heart attack!” Romeo roared.

  “There was nothing mild about it. Your coronary artery was almost completely blocked. We’re still assessing the damage to your heart, but it’s already quite significant given your past history. I’m consulting with Dr. Grant, our heart surgeon, later on how to proceed, but you’re probably looking at triple bypass surgery.”

  “You must be joking!” Romeo gasped, eyes bulging. “How long is that going to take?”

  “We can operate in the next day or two, but you’re looking at a week’s recovery at a minimum, and even that may be overly optimistic.”

  “I just had my grand opening! This is a very critical time for any new business! I can’t be out of commission for that long!” Romeo roared.

  Dr. Cormack gave Romeo a stern look. “You can, if you want to live. You need to take this seriously, otherwise you may not be around to run your restaurant at all.”

  Dr. Cormack stepped forward to Randy’s bed and smiled down at him. Randy drowsily smiled back. “Dr. Kendall will be performing your laparoscopic surgery, Randy. He is going to stop by this afternoon to see you, okay?”

  Randy nodded again, still grinning.

  Hayley noticed her brother was looking past the doctor and his droopy eyes were more focused on the handsome Nurse Fredy hovering behind him.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be leaving now, Dr. Cormack,” Hayley promised. “We’re just going to say goodbye.”

  “Fine,” Dr. Cormack said brusquely before turning
around and marching out the door.

  Nurse Fredy waited for him to be gone before turning and practically panting, “I smell garlic bread. That’s my biggest weakness. Where is it?”

  “Under the bed.” Liddy pointed.

  “Do you mind if I have a piece?” Fredy asked.

  “No, no, help yourself,” Romeo groaned, his mood souring. “This is a disaster. What am I going to do?”

  “Don’t worry, Romeo,” Hayley said. “Your restaurant will survive. The important thing is for you to follow the doctor’s orders and get better so you’ll be as good as new.”

  “But you heard him. It might be weeks before I can go back to work. Who’s going to run the place while I’m laid up? I’d put Betty in charge—she can handle the reservations and take care of the books and pop open a wine bottle—but she’s a lousy cook! The poor girl can barely boil water!”

  Fredy was foraging underneath Romeo’s bed, finally locating the bag stuffed with buttery garlic bread. He grabbed a hunk and took a bite, closing his eyes and happily chewing.

  “Hey, can you find the eggplant parm under there? I want to take it with me and finish it later,” Mona said, leaning down.

  “Sure,” Nurse Fredy answered as he pulled bags of food out.

  Chef Romeo suddenly bolted up in his bed and pointed at Hayley. “How about you?”

  “How about me what?”

  “You can run the restaurant!”

  Hayley burst out laughing.

  “I’m dead serious, Hayley! You proved to me yesterday you’re an excellent chef with your spaghetti carbonara. You can do this! I have complete faith in you!”

  Hayley paused. “What do I know about running a restaurant?”

  “Betty can help you. She can deal with the staff and the customers. You just oversee the orders in the kitchen.”

  “But I have a full-time job at the Island Times,” Hayley said.

  “Which you can do in your sleep!” Liddy piped in.

  Hayley threw her an irritated look.

  “I’ll have Betty do all the shopping and ordering and prepping. You just have to show up right before we open and make sure the food gets out to the tables.”

  “I’m sorry, Romeo, I would really like to help you out, but I just don’t have any experience—”

  “You do, you just don’t know it. This isn’t rocket science. You know your way around a kitchen and can read a recipe. I’m begging you, Hayley, please, help me out here—”

  “Oh, Hayley, I always thought you would be so good at something like this,” Liddy cooed. “And you were just saying you were searching for a new challenge.”

  Hayley wanted to resist some more, but she knew the larger-than-life Chef Romeo would not stop putting pressure on her until she finally agreed.

  “We can keep the restaurant closed a few days, just to give you a chance to get up to speed with Betty, and then you can reopen on Friday for the weekend rush.”

  They were all staring expectantly at Hayley, even Fredy, who was still devouring his big hunk of garlic bread.

  A slight, almost inadvertent nod of her head sent Romeo whooping and hollering with relief and joy. He followed up with heartfelt thanks and promises that she would enjoy her new stint as his head chef, albeit temporarily.

  And at least now she would not be spending the weekend at home feeling lonely without Bruce. That was a plus. Still, there was a nervous, gnawing feeling in the deep pit of her stomach. Would she rise to the challenge or would she spectacularly crash and burn?

  Only time would tell.

  Chapter 10

  Hayley suddenly stopped short in the doorway of the hospital room the following morning, startled to find Randy’s bed empty. She glanced over at Romeo, who was sitting up in his own bed, pillows propped up behind him, casually staring at his phone in his hand.

  “Where is he?”

  Romeo looked up at her, befuddled. “Who?”

  “My brother. Where did he go?”

  “Oh, they came in about an hour ago and took him away.”

  “Who took him?”

  Romeo shrugged. “I don’t know, a couple of orderlies.”

  Hayley checked her watch. “But it’s only eight-thirty. His surgery isn’t scheduled until ten.”

  Romeo shrugged again. “What can I tell you?”

  “Did he look like he was in any kind of distress when he left?”

  Romeo, who by now was finally picking up on Hayley’s rising anxiety, set his phone down on the over table and tried thinking back so he could tell her something to calm her down. “I actually wasn’t paying much attention. I was watching Savannah Guthrie on the Today Show, who is back, thank God. He didn’t seem upset or anything, just . . . you know, kind of out of it.”

  Hayley spun around to leave.

  “Hey, can you spare a few minutes? I’d like to discuss a twist for my chicken piccata recipe you could roll out as a Friday night special.”

  “Not now,” Hayley said brusquely as she marched back down the hall to the nurses’ station where Tilly was manning the phones while Fredy was at a computer filling out some kind of report. “What happened to Randy? He’s not in his room.”

  “He’s in surgery,” Fredy calmly explained.

  Hayley checked her watch again. “The doctor told us ten o’clock. It’s not even nine.”

  “There was an earlier opening in the operating room, and Dr. Kendall decided to take it. I’m sorry, didn’t anyone call you?” Fredy asked, concerned.

  “No, nobody called,” Hayley said, her lips tightening.

  Nurse Tilly gasped. “Oh, Fredy, you left a note for me to call Hayley and I plumb forgot. It’s just been such a hectic morning.” Then she turned to Hayley with pleading eyes. “Hayley, I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”

  Hayley knew how hard nurses worked, the stresses they faced on a daily basis, and how little things could easily fall through the cracks, so she was not going to make an issue out of it. But she had hoped to see Randy before he was wheeled off to the operating room, to squeeze his hand and tell him everything was going to be all right, and that she would be waiting for him when he got out.

  But now those hopes had been dashed.

  “It’s okay, Tilly,” she whispered.

  She could tell by Tilly’s gloomy face that she had not been convincing with her reassurance. But Hayley feared that if something went wrong, some unexpected complication developed, if for some reason he didn’t make it as had happened during many routine surgeries, she had missed her chance to see her brother one last time. The possibility was admittedly remote, but it hung over her like a dark cloud.

  Fredy circled around the nurses’ station and put a comforting hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “Why don’t you head down to the cafeteria and get some coffee? It’s going to be a while. But I promise I will let you know the minute it’s over, so you can talk to the doctor.”

  “Thank you, Fredy,” Hayley said.

  His calm, soothing voice was doing wonders for her jangling nerves. She gratefully patted his hand that was still resting on her shoulder. Hayley then nodded at Tilly, who was on the phone but mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry,” before wandering down to the cafeteria to buy a cup of coffee. Then she made her way back toward Randy’s room, but as she approached, she decided she just was not up to the task of spending an extended period of time listening to Chef Romeo’s bountiful ideas on how she should run his restaurant when it reopened on Friday, so instead she decided to wait out the surgery in the hospital waiting area. Just as she turned to head off in the opposite direction, she heard Romeo shouting.

  Curious, Hayley made a beeline back to the room and walked in to find Romeo still sitting up in his bed as a middle-aged woman with big, teased-out black hair, too much makeup, and the longest ruby-red nails Hayley had ever seen, standing at the foot of the bed, wagging a finger at Romeo.

  “You cannot talk to me like that! I will not allow it!” the woman snapped.

  “All
I said was I’m too tired to deal with you. Don’t get your panties all in a twist,” he screamed, waving his hand as if dismissing her.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Hayley said quietly.

  The woman huffily spun around and sized Hayley up with her big, brown angry eyes. “And who is this?”

  “The gal who is going to save my business!” Romeo barked. “Hayley, this is Connie, a friend of mine.”

  “A friend? That’s what you’re going to go with? You can be so insulting and infuriating,” Connie roared before whirling back toward Hayley and loudly announcing, “I’m Romeo’s girlfriend! He just has a hard time saying it!”

  Romeo winced.

  Hayley was suddenly distracted by the amount of cleavage that was spilling out of Connie’s tight pink blouse, a startling sight even for Hooters, let alone a small-town hospital.

  Connie instantly noticed. “Jealous?”

  “No . . . I—I was just—” Hayley fumbled.

  “Connie, don’t start!” Romeo yelled. “Now stop harassing everybody and get the hell out of here before you give me another heart attack!”

  Connie bristled and glared at Hayley. “Why does she get to stay and I have to leave?”

  “Because she’s not here for me, she’s here for her brother!” Romeo sighed.

  Nurse Fredy appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me, could you please keep it down in here? We can hear you all the way down the hall and you’re disturbing other patients who need to get their rest.”

  “What is this, a Nazi-run hospital? How dare you order me around like that!” Connie shrieked. She turned to Romeo. “I will be back when you’re not so grumpy!”

  And then she huffily pushed past Fredy and stormed out of the room.

  Once she was gone and out of earshot, Fredy grinned slightly. “She seems like such a breath of fresh air.”

  And then he ambled off back down the hall to the nurses’ station.

  Romeo sighed heavily, covering his face with his meaty hands. “She can be so exasperating!”

  “No relationship is perfect,” Hayley observed.

  Romeo quickly dropped his hands from his face. “Let me be clear. We are not a couple. She likes to think of herself as my girlfriend, but she’s not. Not even close.”