Taste for Trouble (15 page)

One
week later, James stood in the shower and tried not to gag as the smell of
parmesan cheese and meatballs oozed out of his pores. Between that and the
clothes he’d shucked off and heaped in the corner, his bathroom smelled like an
Italian deli. A really high-end deli, though. Full of culinary delights he’d
have scarfed down by the fistful not so long ago. Then he’d spent the past week
up to his elbows in a bowl of raw meat.

James
would toss his cookies if forced to look one more meatball in the eye but happily,
he wasn’t required to eat the damn things. Only serve them.

He
scrubbed his chapped fingers through his hair and winced at the sting of soap
seeping through his many Band Aids. He no longer felt compelled to guffaw at
Bel’s ten-inch Wusthof, either. Damn thing was sharp.

On
the bright side, he thought as he swiped a towel over his body, he might
actually be down a few pounds. The last thing James wanted after the week Bel
had put him through was food. He fell into bed every night, hitting the pillow
with an actual poof of flour. He stayed awake just long enough to thank God for
allowing him to retain all his fingers (or most of each of them) before falling
into a tortured sleep during which his subconscious continued to fry, sauté and
julienne until dawn.

The
only upside he could envision to today’s ordeal in which he’d serve the fruits
of his labor to a couple dozen giggly women was that it marked the end of Bel’s
mission to turn him into some kind of Cordon Bleu graduate.

He
tugged on a server’s uniform—something like a tuxedo, only waterproof—and
jogged down the stairs, eager to get this thing finished. Bel met him in the
foyer, her hair smoothed into a pretty braided knot that made her look like a
dancer, a white chef’s jacket buttoned starched and stiff over her chest.

She
plopped her fists on her hips and jerked her chin in a turn-around gesture. James
rolled his eyes but complied, revolving slowly. “So?” he asked. “Do I pass?”

“We’ll
see,” she said with a dark edge that had James sighing.

“Oh
come on,” he said. “My meatballs are kick ass and those little bitty egg rolls?”

“The
popiah
?”

“Yeah,
those. Those are awesome. They’re going to make the ladies squeal and clap like
little girls. And then your cake is going to finish them off. Knockout punch. One,
two.”

Bel’s
lips twitched, but she shook her head. “I have total confidence in the food,”
she said. “Even your meatballs.”

“I
should hope so,” James said. “I’m wearing permanent grease gloves because of
those damn things.”

“Poor
baby.”

“Hey,
am I complaining? My cuticles have never looked better.”

“I’m
sure.”

She
grinned at him, dimples digging deep into those soft cheeks. James grinned back,
a little dazzled. He stood there for a few more moments, basking in the rare
radiance of her amusement, in the glow of having earned a genuine smile. Then
she hiked up her sleeve and looked at her watch.

“Okay,
enough stalling. We still have to get to the hall, assemble the cake and prep
the rest of the wait staff. Are you ready?”

“Almost.”
James turned toward the stairs and shouted, “Guys! Let’s go!”

“Guys?”
Bel blinked as Drew and Will appeared at the top of the stairs in matching
black serving uniforms. “Your brothers are coming?”

James
threw her a look over his shoulder. “Of course. All for one, one for all,
right? Kinda like the three musketeers. Only I guess there were four of them,
weren’t there? Including D’Artangne?” He grinned at her. “We’ll include you,
then. You want to be Athos, Porthos or Aramis?”

Bel
shook her head slowly as Drew and Will landed at the bottom of the stairs
wearing identical expressions of pained sacrifice. “You sure you want to do
this?” she asked.

“I’m
sure,” James said and when Will and Drew failed to object, Bel released an
insultingly deep sigh.

“All
right then,” she said, clearly skeptical. “Your call. Let’s do this thing.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Waiting
tables turned out to be a novel experience for James. He’d been a lot of things
in his life—rich, poor, despised, adored—but he’d never been invisible. It was
strangely unsettling.

“Excuse
me,” the groom-to-be said, all but recoiling from the plate James had set
before him on the stainless steel kitchen counter. “Are those meatballs?”

James
hadn’t been to a lot of weddings in his life either but based on the five
minutes he’d spent with the groom so far, Wynton Quist struck him as a real
piece of work. Tall and blond with a face that landed somewhere south of Brad
Pitt but north of Ken Doll, good ol’ Wyn did
not
look inclined to approve
the menu.

James
handed the guy’s Botoxed mother the glass of champagne to approve and followed
Wyn’s horrified gaze to the lumps of meat James had spent an entire week
perfecting.
Meatballs
? he wanted to say.
Oh, no. Those are solid gold
door knockers
. And they ought to be, given his current hourly rate and the
time he’d spent on them.

Wyn didn’t
appear to expect an answer, however. One of those invisibility things again,
James assumed. Besides, it wasn’t a question so much as a trap. That much James
knew. But what the purpose of the trap was he had not the first clue. He tried
to look both intrigued and subservient as the man of the hour went on.

“Because
when I agreed to help Kate teach her wayward assistant a lesson, she assured me
the food wouldn’t suffer. That everything would be up to
Kate Every Day
standards.”

“
Kate
Every Day
standards,” James echoed carefully.

The
man fixed him with a patient smile. “Look. This isn’t a roadside barbecue. This
is an engagement party.”

“Oh,
darling, relax,” his mother said. At least James assumed she was his mother. The
matching ice-cutter cheekbones and permanently curled upper lip certainly
pointed that direction. Although, James mused, it was possible they just shared
a plastic surgeon. “They’re just meatballs,” the woman said. “Consider it a nod
to your charming bride’s roots.”

Wyn
gave his mother a quelling look. “In six weeks, she’ll be a Quist, Mother. Any
other roots are superfluous.”

“It’s
not that simple, Wynton.”

“Of
course it is.”

She
regarded her son with worried eyes and pinched lips. “You know best, of course,”
she murmured and drained the glass of champagne. She held the empty flute off
to the side in a vaguely preemptory manner. It took James a minute to
understand she meant him to take it from her. He grabbed the glass.

“Tell
the chef I need to speak with her,” Wyn said to James, then turned and fell
into muted conversation with his mother who James figured wouldn’t so much as
blink at a plateful of mac-n-cheese and beanie weenies so long as her champagne
glass stayed full. He realized with a start that if he disappeared right now
and sent some other poor guy out to deal with Wyn nobody would know the
difference. The Quists had glanced at him once or twice but only saw the
uniform.

He
didn’t know if this knowledge comforted him or depressed him.

He left
the kitchen and found Bel in the dining room babying a couple of cakes into
formation. One was dressed in a frothy swath of white frosting, the other in a
smooth chocolate tuxedo. Bride and groom cakes, he thought. Adorable. Hand it
to Bel. The girl might love her lists with a regulatory fervor, but whimsy
lurked in her heart. He was sure of it.

Too
bad she saved it all for her cakes. Her kiss could’ve used a drop or two. Yeah,
take that kiss of hers, add a little whimsy, subtract the frown of disapproval
and—

James
blinked, startled at the direction of his thoughts. It was the frown, he
thought. Bel was staring at her cakes with the same scowl she’d given James
last week while he was kissing her. He’d peeked through his lashes to see how
it was going over and had been taken aback at the fierceness of her expression,
even with her eyes closed. He’d broken the kiss off with unusual haste and wondered
if he ought to offer a written apology. Or maybe arrange for some governmental
protection.

It
was quite a frown. Those cakes had better be on their best behavior. God knew
James had been. Though why Bel would disapprove of cakes that seemed perfect,
he couldn’t fathom. He shrugged. There was a lot about Bel he found baffling.

“Bel.”

One
last glare at the cakes and she lifted her head. Whatever she saw in his face
had her bee-lining it to his side.

“The
groom thinks meatballs are déclassé,” he informed her.

She nodded,
unsurprised. “It happens,” she said. “What about the champagne?”

“Mommy
likes it.”

“That’s
all it takes.” She set aside the frosting bag and wiped her hands on a rag. She
strode briskly into the kitchen and presented herself at Wyn’s elbow.

“Hello,
Mr. Quist. I’m Belinda West, Kate Davis’ chef. I understand you have a
question?”

Wyn
gave Bel a patronizing smile. “Why, yes, dear, I do. It seems there’s been a...miscommunication.”

Bel regarded
him with grave eyes. “Yes?”

“Yes.
I allowed a free hand with today’s menu on the assumption that the importance
of this gathering was understood. But based on this—” He waved what James would
swear was a manicured hand toward the plate in front of him. “—I’d have to say
that was a faulty assumption.”

Bel’s
brow puckered in concern. “I’m so sorry. What seems to be the problem?”

“Well,
I don’t know how things are done where you’re from, but around here, we save
meatballs for backyard picnics and Italian restaurants.” He smiled as if he
hadn’t all but called her tacky and gauche. “This engagement party is my future
wife’s introduction to the circles in which my family moves. Her first step
into society, as it were. It’s meant to set the tone for our entire marriage
and the lifestyle we intend to pursue. So I’m afraid that this—” Again with that
dismissive flick of the wrist toward a week’s worth of James’ work. It was
starting to piss him off some, that wrist. “—is unacceptable.”

Bel
blinked down at the man’s plate and said, “Oh, dear. Perhaps I can explain.” She
lowered her voice and, though the only other people in the kitchen were James
and Wyn’s mother, she leaned in confidentially. “Those aren’t meatballs,” she
said. “Those are
boulettes catalanes
.”

“
Boulettes
catalanes
.” Wyn gave the meatballs a skeptical look. Bel nodded earnestly.

“They’re
a Mediterranean variation on a classic tapas dish—ground veal, spiced and
slow-simmered, hand rolled and skewered, then dressed in an olive and white
wine sauce. I thought they’d make a lovely counterpoint on the palate to the
fresh crispness of the
popiah
.”

“
Popiah
?”

Bel
pointed to what looked an awful lot like an egg roll to James. “
Popiah
. The
boulettes catalanes
are so rich, you know? The tender veal, the creamy
sauce? I liked the juxtaposition of that against the
popiah’s
bright
notes of ginger and tamari on crisp shredded heirloom cabbage.” She lifted
elegant hands to the sides as if weighing one against the other. “Slow-simmered
versus farm-fresh. Mediterranean versus Asian. I thought a fusion theme
provided a lovely metaphor for marriage, where a partnership of opposites
creates a single, breathtaking whole.” She brought her hands together, laced
the fingers and beamed. “Just like you and your beautiful bride.”

“See?”
Mrs. Quist gave her son a bracing pat on the arm. “The meatballs
do
represent your fiancée. Your cool to her hot. Your fresh to her cooked. Your
well-bred and educated to her—”

“That’s
enough, Mother,” Wyn said again, giving the meatballs a narrow inspection. Bel
had undercut his authority with a charming, deferential precision and now it
was either admit to culinary ignorance or play along. And James had a feeling
this guy wasn’t the type to admit a mistake.

Bel
said, “If they’re not to your taste, I’ll certainly have them removed from the
menu.”

“No,”
Wyn said slowly. “While I certainly appreciate your effort at making a
statement through the menu, my concerns are more cosmetic. The appearance on
the plate, you see?”

Bel
nodded. “I do hear that a lot. But it’s been my experience that the more
discerning and well-traveled the audience, the more this dish is appreciated. You
can fool the eye, you see, but you can’t fool an educated palate. Perhaps you’d
like to taste one then make your decision?”

Wyn
forced a chuckle, a little of his bluster restored at Bel’s confidence in his
palate. James eyed Bel with renewed appreciation. She was sneaky. He admired
that.

Wyn
helped himself to a delicate bite of meatball—
boulette catalane
, James
corrected himself—and the guy’s eyes nearly crossed with pleasure. An
unexpected burst of pride rolled through James. He didn’t necessarily care
whether or not this guy liked his work but damn. He’d taken the raw materials
and created a dish that made even reluctant people’s taste buds do a little
happy dance.