Rosemary's Gravy (11 page)

“
Y
ou mean
, like, people will hire you to cater their events because of the adrenaline rush they’ll get from wondering if your cooking will kill them?” Thyme asked.

I could hear Sage breathing heavily and unevenly in a pathetic attempt to hold back her laughter on her end.

“Just go ahead and laugh, Sage. You sound like a pervert,” I told her before addressing Thyme’s question. “Yeah, it’ll be like those people who eat blowfish in Japan.”

“Jeez, Rosie, you don’t have to be so cranky,” Thyme shot back.

“Sorry. But I need to do something to earn some money. And everyone is telling me I should take advantage of my unwanted celebrity.” Everyone being one police detective and the woman who runs the kitchen at a homeless shelter, but my sisters didn’t need to know the details.

Sage hemmed then said, “Here’s the thing. Do you
want
to open a catering business? Because Thyme and I were talking. Despite old Doug the accountant’s persistent doom and gloom scenarios, we’re making a lot of progress toward cleaning up Mom and Dad’s debt. We’re in pretty good shape. Good enough shape that we could probably talk to the creditors and get a short extension—maybe an additional twelve months—to pay everything off. So if you wanted to come back here and get back into the lab, well, we’d support that. I mean, if you tell Dave you’re moving back home, I’m sure the cops will understand. As long as they can find you, they shouldn’t care.”

I was too surprised to speak at first. Then I shook my head as if they could see me. “No. Absolutely not. We’re getting that monkey off our backs by April, not a moment later. I mean, I appreciate the offer, I
really
do, but no. We’re sticking to the plan.” I felt my chin jut forward in an expression our father used to call ‘Rosemary’s obstinate face.’

“You know, you don’t have to be a martyr,” Sage said.

“I’m not,” I insisted.

“We miss you, Rosie,” Thyme broke in, speaking in a voice so soft I could barely hear her. “You’re so far away out there. And … all alone.”

Tears pricked at my eyes. “I miss you, too. But I’m okay. Honest.”

“As okay as someone who’s under suspicion for murder and attempted murder can be, you mean?” Sage asked.

“Right.” I giggled at the absurdity.

“And Felix just broke up with you,” Thyme said, as if I needed to be reminded.

“So?”

“So? So it’s our job as your sisters to take you out dancing and shopping and stuff to take your mind off it,” Thyme told me.

“Oh, please. We only dated for, what, a month? And we never even … you know. I don’t need to get over Felix. I’m already over him,” I lied as convincingly as I could.

“Right, of course you are. There’s nothing remotely traumatic about being barfed on and then dumped,” Sage deadpanned.

“Almost barfed on,” I corrected her, setting off a fresh round of laughter.

Between howls of laughter, Thyme observed, “You forgot arrested and fired.”

After we could all breathe again, we said our goodbyes. I hated to cut short a call with my sisters, but I had a to-do list as long as my arm if I was going to get Rosemary’s Gravy, A Special Occasion Catering Service, up and running. I may have been lying about being okay with what happened with Felix, but I wasn’t lying at all when I said I wasn’t being a martyr. Somehow, cooking for other people had become something I enjoyed, not something I had to do out of financial necessity. It had happened without my even noticing it. I was looking forward to starting a catering business, even if it did involve a ton of work—starting with about a million preliminary tasks.

And, unfortunately, one of the first tasks on the list was to make an unannounced appearance at the Patrick residence.

I
stood
for a long time on the lawn in front of the Patricks’ mansion before I forced myself to ascend the wide staircase and pass under the shadow of the utterly unnecessary and sort of pretentious columns flanking the door. I smoothed my hair and skirt and took a deep breath and exhaled. Then I jabbed the doorbell and listened to my heart knock around in my chest while I pretended to hope that Alayna answered the door even though I happened to know that she usually ran to the post office on Tuesday afternoons to check Pat’s P.O. Box.

A minute or so passed, and I was just about to ring the bell again, when the door opened and I came face to face with Felix for the first time since the night I’d held his hand in the back of an ambulance.

He took a half step backward, almost as if he actually believed I
had
poisoned him and had shown up to finish the job. My hammering heart skipped a beat.

“Um, hi,” I managed.

He nodded but continued to eyeball me warily.

When he didn’t say anything, I pressed on. “I’m sorry to bother you but I need to get my recipes off the kitchen iPad. I need them for my new job.” I smiled impersonally.

“Oh. Really? My dad didn’t mention anyone calling to check your references,” he said in a stiff, weird-sounding voice.

Spoken like a true trust fund kid—as if I would ask Roland Patrick for a reference. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d say about me. Even though Felix hadn’t invited me in, he also hadn’t slammed the door in my face, so I took three quick steps and propelled myself into the entry foyer before he could shut me out. Then I said, “I’m starting my own company, but I really need those recipes.”

“Oh, right. Sure.” He just stood there, staring at me.

An involuntary image of his hands roaming over my body while his lips pressed hungrily on my neck flashed through my mind and I felt my legs start to tremble. I leaned against the wall in a faux casual pose and said, “So what you said before—that Pat didn’t mention me—does that mean you and your dad are on speaking terms?”

He wet his lips, and I got the feeling he had a similar image running through his head. “Yeah, we are. He’s still staying at Antonio’s. We’re working things out, though. In our own way.”

“That’s great,” I said with a sincerity I truly felt.

“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. “I guess that was one good thing about your quitting; it got us talking again.”

“My … quitting?” I blinked at him and tilted my head, sure I’d misheard him.

He blinked back at me. “Right.”

I let my breath out in a long whoosh. “Wow. Okay, I didn’t quit. Your dad fired me.”

“He fired you?”

“Yeah. His lawyer sent me a letter.” Leave it to Pat to spin it like I quit. I narrowed my eyes, “Wait. Did you leave instructions at the hospital that you didn’t want to speak to me?” I asked. If the answer was ‘yes,’ it was going to sting, but knowing that Pat had lied about firing me, I had to wonder if he’d also been behind the brick wall that had sprung up between me and Felix.

His face turned white then red then finally purple with rage. “What? That’s … I never freaking said that. My dad told me you left town. I figured you moved back East without even saying goodbye.”

My head was swimming. All this time, I’d been thinking he’d shut me out, and he’d been sitting here believing I’d abandoned him?

I shook my head. “No,” I said in a soft voice, “I’ve been worried about you.”

His eyes darkened with a desire I recognized and he drew closer to me. “I’ve missed you,” he said. His mouth was so close to mine that our breath mingled when he spoke.

I could feel myself getting ready to melt into a puddle of sexual tension but some part of my brain was screaming at me to keep my wits about me. That still-functioning gray matter reminded me that nothing had stopped him from driving by my apartment or picking up the phone to confirm what Pat had said. I just needed to get copies of my recipes and get out of there.

It took all of my resolve, but I squared my shoulders and coughed. “The recipes?”

His eyes registered hurt and his face took on a closed expression as he stepped away from me. “Oh, right. Sure. You know where the iPad is. Take what you need. I was just heading to the studio. Just … let yourself out and set the alarm when you’re done, okay?” His voice was cool.

“Okay, thanks,” I mumbled. I stared down at my sandals for a moment and noted that my toenail polish was chipping. I raised my head and said to his departing back. “Wait.”

He turned and gave me an expectant smile. “Yeah?”

“I want to make sure you know this: you didn’t get food poisoning from my ceviche.”

His smile faded. “I don’t care, either way, Rosemary. Accidents happen. I just thought we had something real. Guess I was wrong.”

“So did I,” I answered in an even voice. “But you sure didn’t make any effort to get ahold of me when you got out of the hospital. I at least tried to reach you.”

He set his mouth in a hard line. “You know what? To hell with this. There are plenty of girls who’d love to be with me. You really don’t know your place.” Then he turned on his heel and walked through the door, slamming it behind him like a petulant teenager.

My place? My
place
?
I wandered into the kitchen on autopilot, trembling with anger. I sent up a quick prayer of gratitude to the universe that I had insisted on all those proper dates before we got intimate. Bullet narrowly dodged there.

I heard his car engine spring to life. He peeled out of the garage before I’d even powered on the iPad and found my file of recipes. My fingers were shaking as I opened up the staff browser and copied the file to Dropbox. I had copies of most of my recipes or had them memorized, but cooking for Amber had involved a lot of parties. The modifications I’d made to feed large crowds were work I’d otherwise have to recreate. So despite the bruising to my ego and the fact that I could already tell there would be a milkshake consumed through a stream of mortified tears in my future, I was glad I’d come. To my own amazement, I realized I was more excited about building my business than I was distraught about the fact that Felix had turned out to be a dick.

All the same, I’d be glad to get out here as soon as possible. I tapped my foot against the tile and waited for the files to upload. Once I was sure I had them all safely floating in the Cloud or wherever they were, I was about to power down the device when I had a sudden thought. Alayna’s files contained a list of vendors that Amber had used for events—places where she rented extra glassware, linens, tents, outdoor heaters, whatever. I might as well save myself some time and use services that I knew had met with Amber’s approval. I opened Alayna’s folder to copy the spreadsheet, certain that she wouldn’t mind.

As I scrolled through her files, an email notification from Amazon popped up in the corner of the screen. “Amber Patrick, how many stars would you give
‘Botulinum Toxin Applications in Medicine: Miracle Poison’
? The subject line barely registered at first, but after a few seconds, my fingers stopped moving and my brain started working.

When had I
ever
seen Amber reading a book? Answer: never. She
could
read, I knew, as she read scripts, reviews about her performances, and gossip columns. But a medical textbook? Not a chance. My finger moved to the email pop up and hovered over the screen for several, seemingly interminable seconds. I knew that I was about to snoop. And I felt moderately bad about it.

But I couldn’t just ignore the warning signals my brain was sending. Botulinum toxin is serious stuff. Produced by the bacterium
Clostridium botulinum
, the toxin is highly poisonous
and
just happens to cause botulism, a type of food poisoning that resulted in vomiting, paralysis, and sometimes death.

I made up my mind and clicked the email notification, holding my breath as I scanned it. Someone—not Amber, unless her Prime membership extended into the afterworld—had used Amber’s account to order the textbook just four days before my ill-fated romantic evening with Felix. The one that was interrupted by a bout of vomiting, paralysis, but, thankfully, not death.

I stared at the email, heart thumping, and tried to process what I’d read. The only person who’d been living at the house when the book was delivered was Felix. But surely, he wouldn’t have poisoned
himself
with something so deadly in an effort to set me up. Nobody was
that
crazy.

And, leaving aside the insanity of such a thing, how would he have gotten his hands on the toxin itself. I knew from my time working in university labs that highly poisonous substances are tightly controlled. Sure, you might be able to order them online with the click of a mouse, but they were only shipped to accredited research institutions with prior authorization to order them. No, there was no way Felix had poisoned himself.

But the book …

The garage door slammed. I jumped and then powered off the iPad and shoved it back into its holder. I was digging out my keys and slinking toward the front of the house to avoid another round with Felix when the garage door opened.

I let out an enormous sigh of relief at the sight of Alayna, her arms laden with carefully packaged demo CDs sent by aspiring musicians. One night this week, Pat would get a good laugh out of mocking some kids’ dreams over a bottomless gin rickey. It seemed to be one his favorite pastimes.

Alayna dumped the packages on the counter and narrowed her eyes as me. “I thought that was your car in the driveway.”

“Hello to you, too,” I said. I was sort of put off by her prickliness but then it occurred to me that Pat had probably lied to her, too. “I didn’t quit, you know. Pat fired me.”

“Hmph. Is that so?” she said, her tone softening slightly.

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Her gaze shifted to the ceiling. “Are you waiting for Felix? His car’s not in the garage.”

The mention of Felix made me tense all over again, just when I’d started to relax. Alayna and I have never openly discussed the fact that Felix and I had been dating. But it hadn’t taken a rocket scientist to pick up on the hormones that had been flying around the house. And Alayna was no dummy. She was the second ranked student in her night division program and had mentioned she was thinking about applying to medical school.