Devil's Food (64 page)

“Why should she come to you?” Ross said. “How do you fit into all of this?”

“I used to have a diner on Lincoln Street. It was one of the few places in town you could get a cup of chili after midnight.
Your mother used to stop by on the way home from her shows. On my birthday, so did Joe.”

“Isn’t that nice!” Ross exclaimed. “Was he helping you celebrate?”

“You could say that. Joe was my twin brother.”

Ross and Emily stared at him, filtering many causes and effects. Finally Emily said, “You must have really hated him.”

“Always did. Always will. He was the favorite. We didn’t even look alike. I ran away when I was twelve.” Leo let that settle
as he got himself a glass of water. “Joe found me in jail. Whenever he visited people would say
You’re related to the pretzel man? Wow!
I changed my name the minute I got out.” Leo drank heavily. “The rest you know. Your mother didn’t make it and Dagmar spent
the rest of her life hunting for you.”

For a while the only sound in the kitchen was an occasional drip from the faucet. “Why did you disappear?” Emily asked. “Were
you looking for me and my sister?”

“Hell, no. There was nothing to find.”

“Didn’t Dagmar know who you were?”

“Are you crazy? Joe never told her. An ex-con brother was a blot on his social agenda. He only saw me for ten minutes on our
birthday. When he found out he was dying, I got a call. Joe had been obsessing over his missing children for forty years and
wanted a deathbed reunion.”

“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”

“That would have been too cruel.”

“Too merciful, you mean,” Ross guffawed. “You had all the tin soldiers. All you did was aim them at each other and evacuate
the war zone until there were no more bullets and no more bodies. Now you get everything.”

“So? At least I didn’t kill anyone.”

Drip, drip, went the faucet. Ross twisted it shut. “Who’s the father?”

“Slavomir, of course. Joe should never have commissioned him to sculpt his mistress in marble. You know how it is with artists
and their naked models.”

“I don’t believe you,” Ross said. How could Dagmar have gotten it so wrong?

“No? Go to the morgue and run a DNA test. Make it quick, though. I’m burying him tomorrow.”

Emily slowly swallowed the last scrambled eggs. That sot of a dishwasher was her father? That amoral wildcat was her mother?
Perhaps Philippa had been right to insist they were born in an upper East Side hospital. “Why did the priest keep this all
to himself?”

“Because I made sure that Joe sent a large gift to the monastery. All Dagmar’s money, of course. It was a small step toward
expiating her original sin with Slavomir.”

Who had done nothing but fall in love with an inconstant woman. Ross stood up. “Thanks for dropping by. We love guests for
breakfast.”

“Wait,” Emily called to Leo. “If you hated your brother so much, why did you take such good care of his mistress?”

After a long look, as if he were about to cast Emily in bronze, Leo replied, “Because that was as close as I’d ever get.”
He turned quickly and left.

Soon Ross returned to the kitchen. “Do you believe him?”

“Yes.”

He stared at Dagmar’s egg-smeared obituary. “All that fuss for nothing.”

Nothing? Fall in love, take your chances. Everyone knew it
was Russian roulette with not one but six loaded chambers, and everyone played anyway, seizing the opportunity to die smiling,
laughing even, as their brains hit the wall. Emily kissed Ross’s ear. “Do you have time to come to the travel agent with me
today, sweetheart? Let’s take that trip we’ve been talking about.”

He folded the newspaper and followed her to the bedroom.

We’re leaving tonight for Italy. Emily’s never looked happier. I know that some great weight has been lifted from her shoulders
,
but I’m not sure Leo did the lifting. He didn’t tell her particularly good newsy after all. He just threw stones in a few
old holes. No it was something else. I’m not going to ask; she’ll tell me if she needs to. Until then I’m going to accept
her silence. Bless it rather.

Today I was sitting on the bed watching her pack all sorts of vitamins and little baby books for the trip. “I think we can
throw these away,” Emily said handing me a stack of ovulation graphs that have been enslaving our sex life for years. Then
she went to get the laundry. I was tossing them out when I noticed the uppermost page. It was for last August. We should save
that one, I thought, put it in the baby scrapbooky just for laughs. Dana always used to joke that his eldest son had been
conceived at thirty thousand feet somewhere between London and Milan and said he had the charts and the plane tickets to prove
it. So I looked at the chart, following the temperature line up and down. It hit a high point on August thirtieth. Bingo,
I thought
,
then stopped: I know I was in Dayton Ohio, then. In fact, I had been there that whole week. Marjorie had been drilling the
dates into my mind for months. She wanted to make sure I didn’t schedule any vacations in the middle of a national builders’
conference.

I just stood therefore a few moments
,
wondering whether these charts were fubar or Emily’s cycle was. Then the truth washed over me like a warm, tropical wave:
Guy had fathered this child. You just know these things
,
you feel them in your blood. I began to quiver, not out of anger this time, but out of awe at the mercy.
the divine architecture, of it all. How often I’ve thought of him lying alone on my porch, in the dark, the rain, whimpering
Emily’s name as he bled to death. Maybe, as I watch his child grow, that ghastly image will fade, leave me in peace.

How fitting that he should give my wife something that I, in fifteen years, never could. Maybe that was his destiny, to fecundate
her and die. Maybe the two of them were a superior melding of yin and yang, of acidic and alkaline; and maybe I was only meant
to be the caretaker, never the possessor, of my wife’s heart. It’s not the worst of fates. Besides, I’ve lost my taste for
absolute possession. Like a severe drug habit, it shortens the life span: Look at Dana and that poor waif Rita. Look at Guy.
Even if you outlast your obsession, beat it down to a dull ache that haunts your days, you’re still left with only a speck
of conscience separating you from a beast. Look at Dagmar and Ward. Leo. Did they really even the score? Get what they wanted?
I don’t think that’s humanly possible: Justice, particularly in love, is a delusion. I’m going to abandon that pursuit. Now
that I have another mouth to feed, I’d rather live longer, but less madly; see more seasons change, read more books, watch
Emily’s hair turn slowly white. Die a quiet old man, humbled by maternal tolerance.

I think she knows that I put an end to Guy, and has forgiven me; she wouldn’t have given me this stack of charts otherwise.
I’ll never learn how she found out. Did Ward crack? Did Philippa? Has Emily forgiven that worthless sister of hers, too? I
can’t comprehend such love. But that’s why she remains the enigma, the vortex, of my life. She’s my one small window to God.

Rest in peace, Guy. I’ll remember you whenever I see her smile.

I am such a lucky man.

In the tradition of the delightfully wisecracking yet touching style of Susan Isaacs, Janice Weber creates a picaresque romp
through marriage, infidelity a woman’s sensual appefites-and murder. It’s an intelligent, rousinyly funny, suspenseful, and
sexy new novel: a sumptuous four-star feast garnished with wit and meant to be consumed with relish…

Emily is a master chef at a trendy Boston restaurant. Her passions are food and her husband, Ross, a straight-arrow architect.
Her twin sister, Philippa, is a campy Hollywood film star. Philippa’s passion is men, and she’s having a top-secret affair
with Ross’s partner and man-about-town, Dana. When Ross spots Philippa with Dana and thinks she’s Emily, the zany mix-ups
begin. And so do the murders.

First to die is Dana, keeling over after a gourmet meal at Emily’s restaurant—right into his black currants and cream. But
the killer may have been after Philippa, and now she’s running scared. As she and her sister take to the streets of Boston,
New York, and Hollywood to find the murderer, they begin checking off an intriguing menu of suspects.

Who’s on it? Ross, of course, the now homicidally jealous husband. A mysterious monk who grows mushrooms. A wealthy widow
with an erotic art collection. A weightlifting woman bartender. Dana’s bitter, bitter wife. A goat-cheese maker who runs a
fitness camp for battered women. Philippa’s slimy Hollywood agent. And yes, there’s even more.

Now to save their own lives, these two smart cookies cook up a brilliant scheme of juggling husbands, lovers, kitchen help,
the Hollywood media, and their own identities. But when dead bodies turn up everywhere and bullets start flying, they may
go off half-baked… and it’s only a matter of time before the final course, which is, naturally, a real killer.

Unabashedly naughty, redolent with wit, sinfully sybaritic, DEVIL’S FOOD is great fun to read, and it explores to full measure
a woman’s pleasures, be they food, sex… or revenge.

J
ANICE
W
EBER
is the author of three previous highly acclaimed novels:
The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway, Customs Violation,
and
Frost the Fiddler,
which was a
New York Times
notable book for 1992. A renowned concert pianist, she lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

“A bawdy and hilarious comedy…also a moving love story
and a social satire.”

—Library Journal

“Dazzling…hilariously sexy.”

—UPI

“Sexual rancor can be extremely amusing, and luckily a few writers
know it. Harold Pinter is one and another
is Janice Weber.”

—New york Times Book Review

’Almost every line, scene, and situation has you laughing. So
why does Weber leave you with a lump in the
throat?”

—Los
Angela Times Book Review

A
New York Times
N
OTABLE
B
OOK OF THE
Y
EAR

“An American concert pianist who writes as well as she plays…
(with) a lively writing style that is spiced
with naughty comments.”

—New york Times Book Review

“A brash spy novel…witty, and sexier than I dare to say.”

—Beaton
Globe*