When in Doubt, Add Butter (20 page)

I thought about it for a moment. It was true, Angela had a tendency to be pissy with me, heaven knew, but where else was she going to find someone to cook to her exact—and ever-changing—specifications? “True, but if someone doesn’t like what I do, she can’t change their mind.”

A waiter came in and took the platter just as Lynn put the last plate on it, and then she started on another.

I plated, she plattered.

“Not unless she’s sleeping with them or something,” she said flippantly.

“Not likely.” I gave a laugh. “I don’t even think she’s sleeping with her own husband.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, spill it.” She paused and looked at me with interest. “What do you mean?”

I told her about Peter’s pass at me and how awkward it was in the house now.

“Girl, you need to get some new work,” she said, giving a low whistle. “If Angela finds out about that, you will lose every job here.”

“Do you really think she’s that powerful?”

“Oh, yeah.” She lifted the platter. “Listen, if I were you, I’d go back to that psychic guy and see if
he
can tell you where to find some new jobs.” She gave a quick smile. “And take me with you. I have a bad feeling that if you get screwed by this, I’m going to get screwed by association.”

“No pressure there.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it. Jimmy, my first husband, is an attorney. If I get fired unfairly, he’ll have their asses in a sling.”

“I didn’t know he was a lawyer!”

She nodded. “In some ways, I marry well.”

“And in others…”

“Yeah, well. I won’t make
that
mistake again. And if I try, I’m counting on you to stop me.”

I sucked air in through my teeth. “I don’t know about that. I’m with you in theory, but I’m afraid I’m a real sucker for romance. If you tell me you’re in love and want to go for it, I’m going to be hard-pressed to be a big buzzkill on that.”

“I know.” She shrugged, then leaned against the counter and said earnestly, “For all my kidding around about it, the truth is, I’d
love
to be happily married. I didn’t go into either of my marriages with the idea that divorce was an option.”

I nodded. “I’m sure you didn’t. What happened?”

“Oh, the typical stupid story you don’t think happens in real life. I married for the wrong reasons. I had daddy issues and married two men who were older and who could ‘take care of’ me, then the age difference took hold and”— she shrugged again—“it didn’t work.”

“So at least you know, now, what you were doing wrong.”

“Oh, yes. The problem is, knowing what you’re doing wrong and getting it right don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Romance is tough. Everyone wants a soul mate. But maybe we don’t all have them out there.”

It was a depressing thought to contemplate. When I was young, I’d assumed it was there if I ever wanted it, which made it easy to shun the idea and declare I’d never get married. Now and then over the years, though, I’d revisited the idea, only to feel that maybe I’d been wrong all along. Maybe it wasn’t a choice I’d made, but a decision that had been made for me by forces more powerful than myself.

Or maybe love was really only the domain of the young and lucky. In high school or college, it was easy to get a boyfriend. As time passed and people paired off, life became lonelier.

And despite the fact that a huge number of people seemed to be facing that and feeling that, the fact remained.

Life could be cold.

“Anyway,” Lynn said, breaking my melancholy mood. “Jared and I are going to give it another try, so … who knows?”

I looked at her. Her smile was tentative but unmistakably hopeful. And I felt an odd twinge that maybe she was right, maybe this time it was going to happen for her. “No one knows,” I said, and smiled. “That’s the point. We never, ever know what’s coming.”

Chapter 14

“Now you want to see me?” Vlad asked, his mouth drawn into a tight little line.

This was stupid. It had been a stupid idea to begin with, and an even stupider thing to pursue. Worse, I had cash in my pocket—cash I couldn’t afford to spend—in case he wanted payment for his psychic services this time.

“I was hoping you could help solve a mystery,” I said, like I was trying to entice a six-year-old into telling me where he’d hidden the TV remote.

“Shuffle the cards.” He nudged a large deck toward me across his desk.

“Don’t you want to know what I’m asking about?”

He looked at me. “If you must. But I think it’s about money, no?”

“You can
see
that?” I had the sudden thought that my situation must be even more dire than I’d thought if he could tell the minute I walked in.

He scoffed at me like I was an idiot. “Everyone worries about money. Money and love.” He nodded toward the cards. “Shuffle.”

Okay, wow. That’s how far gone I was. Was I so desperate for some easy solution to this situation that I was willing to leap to magical explanations and methods of detecting them?

Yes. Yes, I was.

I picked up the deck. Tarot cards this time. It was much taller than the playing cards he’d used before, and so wide, I had trouble keeping them from flying out of my hands while I shuffled. “How long should I do this?”

“Until you’re done.”

Helpful. I shuffled a few more times, felt as
done
as I was going to, and handed the cards back to him.

He set them down in an elaborate layout, then looked at them like a forensic scientist trying to study a minuscule drop of blood.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when it started to feel like a lot of time had passed with him saying nothing. “Don’t I have a future?”

He looked at me, sharp-eyed. “You have a future. Everyone has a future.”

Somehow that wasn’t reassuring. What if he was seeing that my future was just another hour or so?

I was being ridiculous. Psyching myself out over nonsense that had no credence. Really, I couldn’t even believe I was here doing this at all.

“I see a blond man here. Something about the arts. And film. Again with the film.”

“Ah.” I gave a dry laugh. “Is it Brad Pitt?”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

He knew I’d made a stupid joke, but he didn’t care to understand it. “I do not know who it is, but you make some movie with him.”

“Okay, well, I don’t know what that means, but maybe it will become clear later.” It didn’t take psychic powers to detect that I was being short, so I softened it by adding, “What I really need your help with is figuring out if there’s someone out there trying to sabotage my work.”

“What, like poison your food?”

“No, just”—I gestured vaguely—“I don’t know, someone who didn’t like my food.”

“Your food is wonderful.”

He said it with such uncharacteristic enthusiasm, I had to laugh.

“Thank you!”

“If someone doesn’t like your food, they are crazy.”

Any crazier than the girl going to the psychic to find out who doesn’t like her? “That’s very kind of you. But I think someone out there might have lost a big job for me, and I’m wondering if this is something I need to worry about.”

“Nah. No worry.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You will always have work.”

I could have quibbled with that, but he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it one way or the other—unless he fired me, too, of course—so I let it go.

“There is a child on the way.” He frowned at the cards. “Do you know this?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking Penny would
freak
if she knew the psychic saw her baby. “Is everything all right with that? Is the baby healthy?”

He nodded. “Everything is very good. No problems.”

Okay, but Penny would be glad to hear that. Good that I could give her the positive report, since she took this stuff seriously. “When will the baby be born?” I know it’s silly, but I thought it would be pretty fun if, somehow, he could peg the date and I could impress everyone with my own “psychic powers.”

He shook his head and said, “It’s undetermined so far. I don’t know.”

“Rats.”

He gave a light chuckle before saying, “You have other things to worry about first.”

“Great. Bad things?”

“Not too bad. But you must be very careful,” Vlad went on.

“I’m always careful,” I said quickly. “About
everything.
Honestly, I am very mindful of keeping my equipment clean, the food fresh, and so on—”

“I don’t mean with food.” He gave a small smile then. “But it’s true, you are. I can see here, and in my home, you are scrupulous about such things.”

“Thank you.”
I think.

He frowned. “The thing that comes up over and over is that movie you make.”

Crazy. The one thing that was never going to happen. But then it occurred to me: Marie Lemurra’s party. The film crew, the peacock … the screams. Could Vlad possibly be seeing my footage ending up on TV even though I hadn’t signed a release? Would it be legal for them to blur out my face or bloody license plate or both, and would anyone who knew me
not
recognize me and my car anyway? If they blurred out a license plate for legal reasons, would they still be free to leave the distinct
EAT BERTHA’S MUSSELS
bumper sticker I had on there? I’d gotten it in Fells Point a few years ago because it cracked me up, but would it now be the thing that identified me as an exotic pet murderer?

“Your future is very uncertain,” Vlad said, breaking into my thoughts. “You’re moving, do you know that?”

“What?”
I met his eyes. “Do I go broke? Do I have to move because I’m broke? Will I be living in a cardboard box somewhere on Wisconsin Avenue?”

He looked at the cards and shook his head again. “No. I don’t think so. This is your choice.”

Good. That was good. I breathed my relief. “So my work is secure.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What?”

He tipped his hand side to side. “Your work is flexible, no? You have a free night since your lady is gone.”

Gone
seemed like unfortunate wording, but I knew what he meant. “Yes, that’s true.” I glanced at the cards, as if a peek could tell me what I needed to know.

“And someone else will no longer be hiring you, too.”

“I’m losing another client?”

He frowned once more at the cards. “Something changes there.”

Great, so someone might fire me. Probably Willa. I’d been there one time since meeting her, and she’d been so intent on her online stuff that she hadn’t even made eye contact with me the entire time, though it was evident that she didn’t like having someone else in her house. She was probably going to sack me. “Will someone new hire me?”

“Not right away.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment; then his face returned to his stony set.

“Is anyone else going to let me go?” I asked carefully, knowing there was always the possibility that he, himself, might do exactly that. Might, in fact, be planning it right now.

But again, he shook his head and gave a raspy chuckle. “Not Olekseis,” he reassured me. “No one makes a kugel like you do.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

He gathered the cards. “You have any other questions?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just the same ones over and over again.”

“Nothing about romance and love?” He raised an eyebrow. “Almost everyone who come here has questions about romance and love.”

“That’s the
one
thing I’m
not
worried about right now.” I laughed. “Thank God.”

He turned down the corners of his mouth as he nodded. “And you are right. Your love life is good. This is when it usually hits. When you are not expecting.”

I stood up. “Yeah, well, I’m
definitely
not expecting.” I opened my purse and took out the cash I’d brought, hoping it was enough. “I wasn’t sure how much—”

“Pffft!” He waved it away. “No charge.”

“But I can’t take advantage of you that way. You pay
me
for what
I
do.”

“You can’t afford Vlad Oleksei on that.” For the first time in my presence, he really laughed. “Besides, I am eager to see how your story comes out. You keep coming, yes?”

I nodded. “Thank you.” I started to leave, but his voice stopped me.

“One more thing.”

I stopped. Oh, no. What could it be? An IRS audit? I turned to him. “Yes?”

“The borscht you will make tonight—I like extra garlics and onions.”

I’m sure he heard my sigh of relief. “You’ve got it,” I said. “And light on the cabbage?” They always wanted me to go light on the cabbage. Never eliminate it, just go light. I suspected that was Vlad’s preference.

He smiled and nodded. “Just right.”

So at least I had something right.

I guess everyone likes praise for what they do, but that night I enjoyed cooking for the Olekseis more than I ever had before. Everything about the ingredients, the smells, the textures,
everything
delighted me.

Maybe I should specialize in Russian food.

I sliced the garlic and dropped it into the pan. It started to sizzle, and I turned the heat down and began slicing the onion. It was very fresh, very pungent. My eyes watered, and I got sniffly. Then I smelled a hint of burn on the garlic and hurried back to the stove and shook the pan. Just in time. The slices were brown but not too brown.

I was getting good at this. I could detect the smell of burning just before it happened. That had to be some sort of superpower.

As I put the rest of the dish together—dicing deep, ruby beets; slicing carrots and Yukon gold potatoes; sizzling spicy sausage in the pan; spicing and tasting, and mixing, and finally pureeing the whole thing into a savory maroon liquid—I continued to marvel at the perfect ripeness and freshness of every ingredient I’d picked out. This was going to be the best batch of borscht I’d ever made, and normally I didn’t even
like
it! I took a spoon out of the drawer and tried it.

Perfect.

I could have eaten the entire bowl.

For all my worry about losing jobs, this was a good reminder: As long as I continued to do a great job at what I was hired to do—that is, cook nourishing, satisfying food—my livelihood would be safe.