Conundrum (3 page)

“I think so. At least Will said he’d been here before.” It had seemed uncool for Iris to ask Will what had gone on here. Her relationship with him had blazed along, on-and-off during third year, until Iris’ vague sense of distrust wore away the connection. They had broken up the week before, when gearing up for their final reviews and Iris still hadn’t had a chance to process it. Now she searched the room for him.

“He’s over there by the windows,” Carey said, reading her mind. They both spotted Will, who must have been telling an amusing story. The
group around him were
laughing. Iris shivered,
then
wondered why Carey, whom the inner circle despised for showing them up, always seemed so fascinated with their members.

“Hey, Iris, there you are!” Ellie elbowed her way through the crowd. She tipped her head towards the tall, friendly-looking man following close behind her. “You remember Mack, don’t you?” Carey drifted off like fog.

Of course Iris remembered Mack. She was thrilled that her best friend had found such a nice guy. Ellie had met him, a med school student, in the laundry room of their apartment building. They hugged in greeting.

Ellie gave her
a
once-over and whistled. “I didn’t know you owned a dress. Why haven’t I seen this before?”

“It took three years of forgetting to eat to fit in it again. It’s from high school. Getting a chance to finally shower made me feel like dressing up.” Iris knew that the short, tight dress showed off her long legs, and the neckline displayed a tease of cleavage. The green color
intensified her hazel eyes. She even had mascara on. Her almost-black hair was piled in a loose, sexy chignon. She wanted Will to have this final impression of her burned into his memory-bank when they went their separate ways.

“So,
Iris,
has it sunk in yet that you’re done with boot camp? Ellie seems to be in shock still.” Mack sent Ellie an affectionate look.

“We’re done?” Iris said in mock-surprise. “We never have to go back to the studio? YES!” she shrieked, pumping her fist in the air. A few people looked over and grinned.

“We’ve stopped in to say good-bye to a few people on our way to the Turtle Café for dinner. Want to join us?” Ellie asked.

Iris did want to, but said “No, you guys go. I’ve got to get home to finish packing. My train leaves for New York first thing in the morning.”

Ellie grabbed her hands. “Now, you’ve promised me,
girl, that
you won’t disappear into your new life in the big city. New York is only a few hours from here.”

“Are you kidding? We’ve been watching each other’s backs for so
long,
I won’t be able to function without you. I’ll probably have to come back every weekend. You’ll be begging me to stay away.” Iris bent down as the two friends folded each other in their arms.

After they left, Iris wandered over to the kitchen island to pour herself a Coke. She wanted wine, but needed the caffeine to stay awake to pack. As she drank, she peered over at the bookshelves in the living room.
Seriously?
She crossed the space. Pulling a book out, she confirmed that it had been dust-jacketed in white vellum. Every single book had gotten this treatment. You couldn’t tell a book’s title until you opened it to inspect the real jacket below. Now here was an example of form over function. And it belonged to a professor training her in her profession?

She made a sweep of the room, looking for Carey. She wanted to say a final farewell, but before she could spot him she got caught in the headlights of a look from Alyssa, the class Queen Bee. Iris steeled herself as Alyssa strode over, cashmere cardigan knotted just-so around her neck. Even atop high heels, Alyssa barely reached five feet, but in her mind, she commanded attention.

“A little bird tells me that you and
Will
have finally broken up.”

Iris winced at Alyssa’s little-girl voice, then at her words.

“You’ve got to stop talking to birds, Alyssa,” was her only response. Given Iris’ eight-inch height advantage, it was easy for her to see over Alyssa’s head, as she willed the busybody to go away. She saw G.B. huddled in a corner in deep discussion with one of his acolytes.

As Alyssa’s voice chirped on, Iris saw a tableau over by the living area’s exposed brick wall. Carey had moved to the refreshment table and Will was offering him a plate of brownies. Bizarrely, her mind flashed on an image of the witch from Hansel and Gretel offering sweets to the children. Or maybe Carey resembled an eager puppy more than Hansel.

But when Iris caught the words “would have sewn his zipper shut at the beginning of the year,” her attention snapped back to Alyssa.

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s about time you broke up with Will. His affair with Sharon Abramson must have been tough to ignore.” Alyssa casually poured herself a plastic cup of
Almaden
chablis
from a green glass jug.

Iris felt an impact, as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She leaned against the island counter. So her feeling had been right. Will had been cheating on her. What kind of guy is that lacking in a sense of decency? What a scum-bag! Alyssa was studying her. Iris conjured up a bored mask and tossed off “Thank god he’s not my problem anymore. Now I’ve really got to go pack for my train to New York.”

She grabbed her purse and said over her shoulder “
exuse
me, Alyssa,” as she aimed toward the fire stairs. Her self-control wasn’t going to hold out long enough to wait for the elevator to rise to the seventh floor. The sound in the space seemed to crescendo into a cacophony of laughing shrieking voices, but got chopped off when the fire door swung closed behind her. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks as she crumpled down onto the landing, letting tears flow until her eyes stung.

After the time it took to catalog all of Will’s suspicious late-night absences and to progress from despair to anger to resignation, she wiped her eyes and plodded down the remaining flights to the exit door. Out on the sidewalk, she blinked in the hazy afternoon glare, disoriented until a startled cry pierced the suffocating stillness. Lifting her head, she saw a blur. What was that? It was huge. It looked like it flew o
ff the balcony on the top floor—
a dark silhouette against the sunlit brick. Sh
e shielded her eyes. Oh, my God—
it was a person! It was falling straight toward her, but she couldn’t move. She began to
hyperventilate,
her eyes were riveted on the torpedo hurtling at her. It was going to land on top of her. Oh, no! Not him! She r
ecognized Carey right above her—
arms outstretched as if flying, eyes wide as if startled,
mouth
open as if caught in a scream. His body thudded on the sidewalk before her, an empty, hollow sound. She stared down in mute horror, watching as the rivulets of her friend’s blood pooled around her sandals.

Chapter 5

T
his was ridiculous, Iris thought. She had the concentration of a gnat. Positioned at her favorite window table at the Paradise Café, the one with the view of frustrated drivers backed up at the Porter Square traffic light, she had read and reread the same paragraph in her Architectural Record for the last 20 minutes. It was early
May,
the tail end of New England’s mud season, and the café’s heavy wood door was propped open to allow the earthy spring air to waft in.

She glanced over one more time at the subject of her distraction: Luc, the café’s owner and chef who was perched on a stool behind a long, mahogany coffee counter. He was tapping on
an
i
-Pad as his barista, a guy with a goatee whose name Iris couldn’t remember, worked the espresso machine. The cheerful space was humming with the post-nine-a.m. crowd of the self-employed. Iris inhaled the aroma of strong coffee mingled with the smell of freshly baked pastries.

How old did Ellie say she thought he was?
Mid-thirties?
Iris herself was forty-four but still managed to draw appreciative looks from men. She’d never seen a girlfriend hovering around Luc in the four months since he’d opened the place. Then again, she and Ellie had never been here for lunch or dinner. Mornings were when they used the café to transition from private life to work life in their home offices.

Luc was wearing a thick, black, ribbed sweater with a zipper that angled diagonally down from his Adam’s apple about nine inches. She was fascinated with that zipper and its asymmetry. With his head bowed, she could also study th
e different yellows in his hair—
from pale pinot
grigio
to deep, buttery chardonnay. He had it scraped back into a ponytail that was looped around like a snail.

Maybe she could buddy up to Louise, the waitress with the stud in her nose. Louise might know if Luc was involved with someone. Iris watched his lips form private little smiles which appeared and disappeared. He was adorable. What was she thinking? Of course he had a girlfriend. Why hadn’t she paid him more attention when he’d drop by her table from time to time? But then again, if they ever did get into a relationship and it crashed and burned, as most of hers did, she and Ellie would be out of a perfect breakfast spot. Ellie would be pissed. Was it worth the risk? She sighed and swept her magazine into her tote, giving him a final regretful look just as his head rose to scan the room and he noticed her gaze.

She busied herself refolding the
Boston Globe,
returning it to the basket by the door and slipping on her black leather jacket.

“Are you leaving already?” Luc had materialized at her table. “I was finishing writing up the menu for tonight and wanted to join you. You looked so sad just now.”

He sat down and she sank back in
to the seat facing him. “Oh, no—
I was just thinking… about something. I guess I could loiter a bit longer.” She pulled her eyes away from the zipper. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

Luc looked slightly alarmed. “Okay.”

“How come you don’t wear clogs? I thought all chefs were required to wear them? Isn’t it in a contract somewhere?”

He let out a deep laugh. He had a wonderful laugh. “I hate clogs. They’re so ugly. Chefs wear them because they’re comfortable when you’re on your feet all day.” He displayed a foot shod in supple, brown calfskin. “I had these boots made in Italy, and they give me much more support than clogs. Besides, one of the perks of owning this place is that I get to set the dress code. Gee, is that the most personal thing you want to know about me? I’m crushed.”

She started to blush. “You can ask me something now if you want. Fair’s fair.”

He looked down at her left hand. She thought he was going to ask about the man’s watch she always wore, but instead, with a finger, he traced over a one inch scar near her thumb.

“How’d you get this?”

She looked down too. “Ah, that’s an architect’s tattoo. We all have them. It’s from an x-
acto
knife slicing me instead of the cardboard model I was working on in school. If you don’t have at least one hand scar, you’re not a real architect. Don’t chefs have knife scars?” She reached for his hands to look.

“If they do, it means that their knife skills seriously suck.” He displayed his unmarked hands with their long, elegant fingers,
pinning her with his blue eyes—
the quiet blue-gray kind, not the intense shade that jumped out at you. She liked that his nose was wide at the bridge, saving him from being conventionally handsome. It roughened his edges a bit.

“The other day when I stopped by your table, you and Ellie were talking about a class reunion. Did you guys decide to go?”

“So far we’re only signed up for the Friday night dinner. It’s being held at a house that I designed for the reunion chairman.”

“That’s right—
you’re an architect and Ellie writes books about architects. Who’s this client?”

“A guy from our class, Norman Meeker, who went into business instead of architecture.”

“Isn’t he that billionaire who invented all those eco building products?”

“That’s him. I forget how famous he is now; I just think of him as my irritating client. Last year he hired me to build him a trophy house to show off his inventions.”

As she talked about Norman an inspiration struck her. “As the reunion chairman, he asked me to find a good caterer for the opening night party. Does the Paradise do that?” Actually she had been in talks for a week with two catering firms neither of which
were
being particularly accommodating.

“That’s a co-incidence. I’ve been planning to start up a catering side business. I hadn’t gotten around to advertising it yet. I did a lot of that from my restaurant in Rome before I moved back here.”

“You had your own restaurant in Rome? You seem too young for that.”

“It was a small place that I had with a partner, but I ended up working all the time. I’m trying to pace myself better here.”

“Then are you sure you want to get into catering? Won’t that take up a lot of time along with the restaurant?”

“It’s a question of economics. I have a second chef coming over from Italy soon to help out in the kitchen. I need to keep expanding.” Luc glanced over toward the coffee counter to make sure that goatee-guy had the trickle of customers under control. Most of the
crowd were
contentedly nursing lattes while pecking on their laptops.