Roast Mortem (17 page)

I sighed.
So much for my public-place-will-keep-him-calm theory.
“Your mother's fine, Matt. She's perfectly okay.”

“She's okay?”

I nodded.

His hard body sagged a moment—until his righteous anger got a second wind. “Why didn't you call me? I mean, last night she wasn't okay, was she?”

Before I could answer, Esther snatched up the paper. “Boss! Front-page news and you didn't mention it! I knew I should have watched
In the Papers
this morning. I hardly ever miss that segment, but Boris slept over.”

“Excuse me,” Tucker said, “but why should Boris have anything to do with it?”

“Because he didn't want me to watch New York One first thing in the morning. He wanted to, um . . . I mean, well, he
distracted
me . . .”

“Distracted you?” Tucker folded his arms. “Esther, I'm shocked. A euphemism?”

“A girl has a right to her boudoir privacy.”

By now Matt was fairly vibrating with impatience, but he failed to interrupt our baristas, primarily because he was still doing a double-take at Esther. He hadn't seen our most popular employee since she began piling her wild dark hair on top of her head in an ebony half beehive à la torch singer Amy Winehouse.

Tuck, who was familiar with the pop star's unfortunate bouts with alcohol and drugs, had already dubbed it the “Detox Rock look.” According to Esther, it was driving her boyfriend mad with desire.

“What's the point of having a news anchor read from the papers, anyway?” Tucker was saying. “Why don't you just read the papers yourself?”

“Because if I watch
In the Papers
, I don't have to read the papers!”

“Okay, Esther. If you don't read the papers, then hand that one over. I'd like to read all about it.”

“No!” She clutched the dog-eared tabloid to her Renaissance chest.

“Listen,” Tucker said, “I can do New York One's morning anchor in my sleep. I'll read it to you.”

“You can do Pat Kiernan?”

“The Clark Kent of local news?” Tucker waved his hand. “He's your basic cross between Mr. Spock and Mr. Rogers.”

“Okay.” Esther offered up the now substantially wrinkled
Post
. “Do him for me, Tucker!”

I glanced over at Matt who was standing stiffer than Oz's Tin Man. His jaw was grinding so visibly, I thought he might actually need the oil can.

“Esther, Tucker,” I quickly said before the man blew, “I need to speak with Matt in private. So you two ‘read all about it' while you're covering the counter, okay?” I met Tucker's gaze. “Two
doppios
?”

“No problem.”

I gestured for my ex to follow me to a corner table. “Like I said, your mother's fine.” I kept my voice low as we walked, hoping he'd take the hint.

(He didn't.) “Then why didn't she answer my calls this morning!”

“Please lower you voice. Your mother went to sit with a friend in the Elmhurst ICU. They don't allow cell phones in there. Last night I tried to make a call and I couldn't even get a signal.”

“Who's in the ICU, Clare? What friend?”

“Lorenzo Testa.”

“Aw, no . . .”

We came to our usual little corner table, which stood next to the line of tall French doors. On days like this I expected a drafty chill, but our old hearth was close by; and even though the fire wasn't what it used to be, the heat was still there for Matt and I, providing just enough warmth to keep us comfortable.

I sat with my back to the smoldering embers and pointed to the chair opposing mine. “Sit. I'll tell you the whole story . . .”

Matt dropped heavily and I talked . . . and talked. Finally, I ran out of words.

“Sorry I blew up,” he said.

“It's okay.”

Tucker brought over our double espressos. Matt thanked him and bolted his. I sipped mine slowly.

With an agitated hand, he rubbed the back of his short, dark Caesar. Then (at last) my ex relaxed, stretching out his wrinkled khakis until they extended well beyond the tabletop's disc of coral-colored marble. His shoes—black high-top sneakers with white laces—were purposefully urban hip. In New York they ran over a hundred dollars. Matt had purchased his in a South American market stall for under two bucks.

Strapped to his right wrist was a glittering Breitling chronometer. Encircling his left was a multicolored tribal bracelet made from braided strips of Ecuadorian leather—and that pretty much summed up the paradox that was Matteo Allegro: one part slick international coffee buyer and one part fearless java trekker, lightly folded together in a larger-than-life concoction that I once couldn't get enough of and now sometimes found hard to swallow.

“How's our daughter?” I asked, still savoring my double. (Replacing the grinder had fixed all issues. Tuck's shots were now spot on, the nutty-earthy sweetness of the
crema
drenching my tongue in the liquefied aroma of my freshly roasted beans.)

“Joy's doing great,” Matt said. “I have pictures to show you once I get this piece of crap recharged.”

He threw his latest electronic device onto the cold slab of marble between us—PDA, phone, camera, calculator, microwave oven. I'm not sure what tasks it was supposed to multi.

“Why didn't you just use a camera?” I said.

“Joy did. She's going to e-mail you photos of my visit when she can find the time. She's been working extremely hard, but she says she's still loving it.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear it. And does she have a new boyfriend?”

“None that she mentioned. But I think she's too busy. Which is more than fine with me.” Matt rubbed his eyes. “Frankly, if my baby throws in the towel on this chef thing and decides to join a convent in Lourdes, I'll breathe a whole lot easier.”

“Well, I wouldn't. Nothing against the good French sisters, but I want to be a grandmother.”

“Bite your tongue!”

“Give it up, Matt. One of these days, Joy is going to settle on a guy, get married, and have kids—and then you'll have to hear it—”

“Don't say it—”

“Grandpa.”

Matt visibly cringed.

“Or would you prefer the cheekier ‘Gramps'?”

Ribbing the man was just too easy. I'd married him at nineteen. He'd been twenty-two at the time, although in matters sexual he'd been a virtual Methuselah. We'd met one summer in Italy (I'd been staying with relatives while studying art history), and when I'd ended up pregnant, after a blindly blissful summer of love, his mother had pressed him to the altar.

Back then, she was the one who'd wanted a grandchild—a legitimate one. So we never looked back, which is why he was far from the age of your average granddaddy.

Needless to say, our wedding hadn't been the wished-for, dreamed-for event of most young couples, planned down to the last flower petal and Jordan almond. It just happened. And for years I thought that was the reason Matt had gone through such difficulty accepting the ring and the vows and that forsaking-of-all-others-in-short-skirts thing.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Matt's occupation was partly to blame. I was a needy bride, an uncertain new mother, infatuated with her young handsome groom whose job of sourcing coffee beans took him all over the world, all year long.

Matt had lived for it.

I died a thousand deaths.

Now that we were partners in coffee (instead of matrimony), my feelings about the man's peripatetic gene were completely upended. So go the astonishing ironies of middle age. Live long enough and you come to love the thing you loathed, embrace the thing you dreaded.

These days, I was downright grateful to my ex for trekking the globe, chasing harvest cycles to bring back the world's finest crops. And that's what they were:
crops
. Despite a corner of the industry sealing coffee up in cans with expiration dates implying freshness through a nuclear winter, coffee was seasonal. In Matt's view (and I didn't disagree), it belonged in the produce aisle, right next to the fruits and vegetables.

“How was Ethiopia?”

“Great. Our Amaro Gayo is outstanding, picked at the perfect time and the sorting is good. You should see the first shipment any day.”

“I'm looking forward to roasting it.”

“And I'm looking forward to tasting your roast.” He smiled then, a genuine vote of confidence, which I appreciated.

“Does Breanne know you're back?”

Matt stifled a yawn as he nodded. Annoyed by his own jet lag, he reran a hand over his dark head then waved at Tucker. “Another double!”

“How's Bree been?”

I hadn't seen her since the Blend's holiday party last December. But then Breanne Summour, the ultratrendy, trend-setting editor of
Trend
magazine, traveled in much different circles than
moi
. The woman was a definite trade-up for my ex—in wealth and looks.

Before their marriage last spring, wagging tongues had speculated what a wayward coffee hunter and a socially ambitious fashion maven could possibly share. But I didn't question it.

Despite their wildly different career choices, I knew Matt and Bree weren't so very different under their toned tans. Both enjoyed living large, both craved excitement, and both jetted around the world for their respective careers. Granted, Matt's dusty treks through Nairobi and Bogotá were more exotic than Breanne's glittering tours of Milan and Barcelona, but to someone left behind, globetrotting is globetrotting no matter where your loved one trots. Conveniently, the Allegro-Summour union left no spouse behind while conveniently providing each nomadic partner with the comforting illusion of a rooted marital home.

“We texted each other before I got on the plane,” Matt said. “She's on her way to Milan by now—another trade show. I missed her at JFK by ninety minutes.”

“That's too bad.”

“Not really.” Matt shrugged, a little too casually. “Gives me a little space to relax, kick back, enjoy some time alone in the Big Kumquat . . .”

I frowned. After years stranded on Matteo Island, I'd become way too fluent in Matt-speak. Even his eyes were sparking with that regrettable when-the-cat's-away look.

Before I could challenge the man's wet noodle of a moral code, the Blend's front bell jingled. Glancing up, I saw James Noonan's wife coming through the door.

Valerie Noonan wasn't much taller than I, but the dynamic charge of her fast-clicking heels across my wood-plank floor appeared to lift her to the stature of her firefighter husband.

“Clare!” she called with the burning energy of a Con Ed plant. “We need to talk!”

“HOW
are you?” I asked when Val approached our table.

“Great—now that I know I've caught you!” Val's low, throaty voice belied her bubbly demeanor and freckle-sprinkled nose. What it betrayed was a pack-a-day habit.

I felt for her. I'd smoked a little in high school but quickly kicked it (the kick in the pants from my grandmother had helped). Val said she hated her addiction, had stopped for a few years, but the recent stresses of her job had sent her back.

“You made quite an impression on James last night!”

“Really?” It was the last thing I expected her to say.

“Yes, and let me tell you”—she arched a slender eyebrow—“it's not easy hearing your husband gas on about another woman's heroism before you've even had your coffee!”

“Heroism? Not me. James and his friend Bigsby Brewer were the ones who ran into that burning building. They're the real he—”

“Don't say it.” She held up her palm. “James hates the word. He'd say he was just doing his job and that a hero is a sandwich.”

Matt coughed—loudly.

Yeah, okay, Matt, keep your pants on.
“Val, this is my business partner, Matt Allegro.”

As Matt rose to give up his chair, Val cocked her head.
“Allegro?”
She glanced at me then back to Matt. “Clare's daughter's name is Allegro—Oh! You must be Clare's ex—”

“We're still partners,” Matt said. “But only in business. Very pleased to meet you, Val. That's a pretty name. Short for Valerie, right?”

Matt took her hand, the simple shake turning into a meaningful squeeze. He moved a little closer, the dilation in his dark pupils as clear a sign of the man's interest as a construction worker's wolf whistle.

If I didn't know Matt better, I might have assumed he was having a simple, Pavlovian reaction to the rich, russet shade of the woman's short, bouncy curls and trim business suit, both of which displayed the exact color of a perfectly pulled shot of espresso
crema.
But I did know Matt, and his reaction had everything to do with woman's curvy figure beneath that stylish suit.

“Val's
husband
is a
firefighter
,” I told him with pointed emphasis.
And he'll break your head with his Halligan tool.
“He's also the very same fireman who pulled your mother out of that burning building last night.”
So poach elsewhere, please.

Matt instantly dropped Val's hand. With a weak little smile, he asked her to thank her husband for him then excused himself to “freshen up” in our restroom.

As he sauntered away, I noticed Val considering his well-built back. I shook my head. Matt's Tabasco-colored tee may have appeared to be an easygoing choice, but I knew he'd purposely selected the tighter size to show off his molded pecs. And while his open denim work shirt looked loose and casual, those sleeves had been rolled with strategic precision, giving full exposure to his tanned, sinewy forearms while tempting the ladies with that first teasing curve of his bulging biceps.