Devil's Food (20 page)

“Don’t think too hard! This is the most important night of the second half of my life!”

“I still don’t see how you could have wrecked your face and gotten full of cuts on the bathtub.”

“It was a freak accident. I’ll explain when you get here.” Philippa hung up.

Emily quietly replaced the phone and tried to wriggle inconspicuously back under the sheets. She had just about regained her
former posture when Ross said, “Let me guess. Philippa’s getting married this afternoon and needs a bridesmaid.”

“She wants me to take her place at a movie opening tonight in New York. She fell in the bathtub and bruised her face.”

He laughed out loud. “What a crock!”

Emily snuggled up to her husband. “Could you come with me?”

“Don’t tell me you’re doing it.”

Second by second, she felt him shrinking away from her. “What’s the matter?”

Ross was totally awake now. “Emily, you don’t think that you can just wear one of your sister’s tasteless outfits and convince
a thousand people that you’re Philippa, do you? All of her friends will be there. So will her agent. The minute you open your
mouth, everyone would know. What’s going on? You’ve spent your entire life pretending you don’t have a twin sister. Now you
pretend to be her?”

“I thought for one fucking night I might have a little fun.”

“Now you’re even talking like her.” Ross slid back beneath the sheets. “Go then. Have fun for one fucking night in your life.”

Overcome with guilt, Emily stroked his back for a few moments. “Ross?” He didn’t move. Eventually, her hand dropped away and
she lay watching the light bloom on her bedroom walls. She wanted to get away from Boston, away from Ross, Guy, death, and
Diavolina for a while. At breakfast, as her husband was studying the editorial page with acute fascination, Emily announced
that she would be going to New York that evening. If he changed his mind and cared to come along, she would meet him on the
three o’clock shuttle. He did not ask, and she did not tell, when she would return.

Byron looked up from the comics as Emily entered the kitchen at Diavolina. “Morning, Maje. Have you seen today’s paper?”

Sure, reflected upside down on her husband’s reading glasses. Emily poured a cup of coffee and sat opposite Byron at the table.
“Am I missing something?”

He read from a two-inch story in the local news section. “‘An unidentified vehicle drove through the front window of Cafe
Presto late last night, injuring Guy Witten, the owner of the
popular downtown caterer. According to police reports, Witten was seated at a front table, going over the day’s receipts,
when the vehicle hit the window. Witten, who sustained head injuries and a sprained wrist, was unable to identify the vehicle
or the driver. There were no other witnesses to the apparent hit-and-run incident.’”Byron dipped an almond biscuit into his
coffee. “How would you like a Toyota up your ass after a long day?”

Emily immediately called Cafe Presto. “No answer at the restaurant,” she said.

“How could there be, Maje? The building inspector would have shut it down!”

She began phoning hospitals. Mass General had had a Witten in and out of the E-room last night. Emily tried Guy’s gym, with
no success. “I guess he’s at home,” she told Byron. Forget calling there; no telling who might pick up. “Look, I’m visiting
a few suppliers this morning. Tonight I won’t be in. Could you take over the kitchen for me?”

“Sorry, I have other obligations tonight.”

“Wait a moment! You told me yesterday to stay out as long as I liked!”

“I’ve worked four weeks straight in this booby hatch! My nerves are in shreds!”

“Okay, okay. Never mind.” That did it: no gala in New York. Emily felt surprisingly disappointed.

Ward shuffled in wearing her pink, jam-smeared jogging suit. It was getting fairly tight around the midriff these days, giving
her the appearance of a stuffed bear, minus the alert, white eyes. She went immediately to the coffee machine. “Major, I thought
you were paying courtesy calls on our vendors today.”

“I wanted to touch base with Byron first.”

The sous-chef closed his newspaper. “Ward, who’s third in command here?” Before Ward could reply “No one,” Byron continued.
“Seems that Emily and I both have to be out tonight.”

“Oh, that’s terrific. Great.” Ward reached in her pocket and got a dime. She flipped it in the air, tried to catch it, missed,
and finally stomped on it with her sneaker as it was rolling toward the broiler. “Heads or tails?” she called to Byron.

“What for?”

“Whoever wins doesn’t have to work tonight.”

“You can’t do that! I told you months ago about this! You promised!”

Ward thought a moment. “Today’s your grandmother’s ninetieth birthday? I forgot.” She looked at Emily. “What about you? Silver
wedding anniversary?”

“Masquerade ball.” Emily sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

Klepp walked in. “Eh, what lovely, cheerful faces. Starts my day off just right. What are you doing here so early, Ward? Getting
a head start on our paychecks?”

Ward opened Mustapha’s refrigerator and helped herself to a wedge of chocolate cake. “Klepp, you’re in charge of the kitchen
today. Serve whatever you want. Just try not to kill anybody. No, on second thought, try to kill everybody.” She padded back
to her office.

“Inspirational words,” Klepp said heartily. “You two, vamoose. That’s an order.”

Emily drove toward Quincy Market; perhaps she’d find Guy in front of Cafe Presto with his arm in a sling, selling muffins
to the regulars. She needed to see that he was all right. Correction: She just needed to see him again. A smile would do,
or a wave, any indication that perhaps he might still be a friend. Emily still hoped for that. It was probably ridiculous.
Maneuvering between jaywalking pedestrians, she stopped her car near a hydrant and walked to Cafe Presto. The notice on the
front door said it would be temporarily closed for renovations. For several moments Emily stared at the boarded front. One
lousy car had taken out all those windows? Guy was lucky to have escaped with a sprained wrist. What could he have been doing
at a front table so late at night? Waiting for her, perhaps? Waiting for someone else?

Emily saw Presto’s pastry chef emerge from a coffee shop across the street. “Bert!” she called, trotting over.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “What happened?”

“A car drove through the front window last night. I read it in the paper.”

“But I woke up at five o’clock to get to work! Why didn’t Guy tell me?”

“He was in the hospital. The car hit him, too.”

Bert was not impressed. “Do I go on unemployment now?”

“If I know Guy, the windows will be replaced in a few hours.”

“Does that mean I’m supposed to hang around for lunch?” Bert squinted up the narrow street. “Hey! Lois!”

Crossing over, the cashier greeted them. Bert explained what had happened. “Mr. Witten was hurt?” Lois cried. “What was he
doing when the car hit him?”

“The newspaper said he was totaling the receipts,” Emily told her.

“What? I total the receipts!”

“That’s what he told the cops,” Bert scoffed. “It would look pretty stupid for him to admit he was just sitting there drunk,
staring out the window.”

“Bert! That’s not true!”

“Sure it is, Lois. The new chef drives him to it.” Bert began to talk in a foolish singsong. “In Sveden ve like valnuts, not
peestachios!” He looked accusingly at Emily. “Why did you leave us like that?”

“I had to help out a friend in an emergency,” Emily lied, glancing up and down the street in case Guy appeared. Every few
seconds, one of their regulars would stop, read the sign in the doorway, and look around for someplace else to get breakfast.

“When’s this emergency going to be over?”

“Soon.” Then, well up the crowded sidewalk, Emily glimpsed a familiar head, familiar gait: Ross? Of course, Ross! His office
was just around the corner. Instinctively, Emily shrank behind a mailbox; he must not see her here. Even now, it might give
him ideas. “What’s the new chef’s name?” she asked.

As Bert and Lois launched into cruel parodies of someone called Lina, Emily anxiously followed her husband’s progress down
the street. Her heart began to thump as he stopped at the entrance of Cafe Presto and stared at the sign on the front door
for a very long time. As Ross finally turned away and resumed
walking, she dared to look at his face. He was smiling, not his normal gentle smile, but that huge, euphoric grin Ross wore
when contracts were clinched, competitors smashed. Emily even thought she heard him laughing. Laughing! No, impossible. That
was just residual guilt playing tricks on her. She watched until Ross had turned the corner.

Having run the Swedish chef into the ground, Lois and Bert began to discuss last night’s accident. “How are they ever going
to find the person who did this?” Lois said. “Why couldn’t the car bash into that ugly little rug shop next door? I don’t
understand how someone could drive through the front window without aiming for it.”

“Probably some drunk without a license,” Bert replied. “That’s why no one stuck around afterward.”

Up the street, a truck honked at meandering pedestrians. “Can you believe it? New windows!” Lois cried, pointing at the large
panes of glass strapped to the vehicle. “Guy must have called the repairmen from the hospital! He’s a maniac!”

The truck slowed to a halt in front of the restaurant. “Shhh. Here comes Lina.” Bert indicated a stocky woman who was ordering
the driver around.

Instantly, helplessly jealous, Emily saw Lina inspect the windows and direct the men to begin unloading them. Unable to look
anymore, she exaggeratedly pushed back her sleeve, found her watch. “I’ve got to go. Give Guy my best.”

She returned to her car and a bright orange parking ticket. Robotic commuters already jammed the narrow streets, battling
for position with cab drivers who would rather take a fork in the eye than stop for a red light during rush hour. Emily squeezed
along the expressway toward the turnpike, where she slipped behind a Corvette. They flew west in tandem, slowing down for
a few patches of fog. After fifty minutes, Emily left the turnpike and headed into the hills of central Massachusetts. The
leaves here had turned brilliant yellow and red; many trees had already become skeletons until spring. Only pumpkins, hay,
and a few dry cornstalks remained in the fields. Misshapen carcasses, attended by large black crows, knobbed the roadside.
In ten minutes
Emily saw only two people, both women, both hanging laundry on clotheslines: looked sort of like the frontier days, except
that these pioneers were about as wide as the satellite dishes in their backyards. Emily passed a hospital and a dilapidated
gas station. Coming upon a nondescript mailbox with a cross carved in its post, she turned onto a dirt driveway. Two pheasants
flapped out of her way as she drove down a rutted hill into the forest: must be a joy getting out of here in winter. Not many
of the monks would even try, of course. They were supposed to be inside praying for the wretches vagrant in the twentieth
century.

The woods suddenly cleared and Emily braked, staring at the granite mansion in front of her. It was thick and high, tiered
with balconies and statues of angels in beneficent poses. Ross must see this, she thought immediately. He would smile at the
balustrades and leaded windows, the copper roof, the sheer tonnage of this monstrosity in a meadow. He would probably even
know which architect had fulfilled some demented client’s dreams.

Appearing on the front steps, Brother Augustine watched Emily park the car. “You found us.”

“You gave me good directions. This is quite a place.”

“Not all monks live in caves.” He took her arm. “How nice of you to visit. Have you had breakfast?”

Hours ago, with a monk of another sort. “Yes, but I’d love some coffee.”

Augustine brought her inside to a dark foyer with a tremendous fireplace at either end. Overhead hung an iron-and-leather
chandelier that looked like a ten-woman chastity belt. A sea of dark green tiles glimmered on the bare floor; one almost imagined
that the room perched on a slumbering leviathan. “We’ll go to the library,” Augustine said. “It’s warmer there.”

Pushing a heavy door, he led Emily into a room overstuffed with books, rugs, and leather sofas. A fire crackled in the hearth,
baking everything within ten feet. As Emily was removing her jacket, a young woman popped her head in. Had the woman not been
wearing a nun’s habit, Emily would have mistaken
her for the lady of the house. “And what will it be, Brother Augustine?” she called cheerfully. Irish, pretty: some monastery.

“Coffee, thank you, Sister Grace,” Augustine answered. He settled back in his chair and regarded Emily for a few moments.
Then he smiled. “Yes, we’re co-ed here.”

She felt her face redden. “My knowledge of church orders is rather weak.”

“This is a Benedictine monastery. The house and grounds were given by a woman who lost her husband and son in the First World
War. This had been the family lodge. The widow added the statues as a last touch. WeVe grown rather fond of them.”

“How many people live here?”

“About forty monks and nuns. There are two hundred acres on the estate. We’re almost entirely self-sufficient. To make ends
meet, we raise Labrador retrievers and run a small bakery.”

“And sell mushrooms.”

Augustine shook his head. “No, we eat the mushrooms ourselves. And give a few away.”

“To people like Leo.”

“Yes. Leo’s always been one of our most generous supporters.” Augustine fell silent until Sister Grace had poured their coffee
and left. “Has anyone heard from him, by the way?”

“Not a word.” Emily wasn’t interested in Leo today. “Who’s the mushroom expert here?”

“I am.”

“Have you ever made a mistake?”

“Poisoned anyone, you mean? Only myself, and only once. I learned. Why?”

“You may have heard that we had an accident recently at Diavolina,” Emily began.