Skinny Bitch in Love (27 page)

“Let me look over everything, and you’ll hear from us within a week, Ms. Cooper,” she said, shaking my hand.

Last time there was no handshake.

Friday afternoon, I walked into Stark 22 with my ingredients and pans, shook hands with the owner, a tall, burly guy named Eric Arley, and shot the shit for a few minutes about the
Times
article and veganism and the restaurant business. He complimented my baking skills and told me he’d had a Skinny Bitch Bakes muffin just that morning. He already had a top pastry chef, otherwise, he said, he might try to get me to bake for him.

He was smarmy and kept checking me out, but not in a sickening way. Once he led the way into the kitchen and introduced me to his chef, he and his slightly overpowering cologne finally disappeared.

“I get why he’s interested in hiring you,” the chef said, his white jacket already stained even though it was only two thirty. “I could make vegan whatever, but I’d forget not to use real milk and then I’d get in trouble like you did at Fresh.”

“God, does everyone know that story?” I asked, setting out my ingredients. This was a place where there really were dead cow carcasses and bloody axes in the back room. I didn’t think the two worlds mixed.

“Yeah, but everyone knows Rain Welch sabotaged you and Emil. She admitted it to a chef friend of mine that she was dating, but then she cheated on him, and he told a bunch of people what she’d said. It’s been a couple of months, so she obviously figured enough time has gone by to fess up. She was pissed that you got her promotion and thought it meant you were sleeping with Emil.”

“Ew,” I said. “Never in a million years.”

He laughed.

Even if smarmy Eric Arley didn’t want my lasagna and fettuccini and the other dishes I was making for him today, coming here and working my ass off on these five recipes was worth it for that bit of news.

But two hours later, I had a check for two thousand dollars for creating a kick-ass vegan menu for Stark 22.

1:14 a.m. Friday night text from Zach:
I miss you.

Me:
You piss me off.

Him:
Ditto. Will you ever cut me a break?

Me:
Nope.

Him:
Don’t know about this, Clem. I miss you, but I don’t know.

Me:
Ditto.

On Saturday night, to celebrate the
Times
article, getting Stark 22, and the ten recipes I’d rewritten and tested since Tuesday night, Ty, Seamus, and Sara were taking me out to Georgina’s, one of my favorite restaurants, even if Georgina wouldn’t hire me after I got fired from Fresh. In her defense, she had a great staff already and no need for another head chef or sous chef.

“Hey, look, Clem. Prime already has your menu advertised,” Seamus said, stopping in front of the steakhouse just two doors down from Georgina’s. A blackboard hanging in the window read: ENJOY OUR NEW VEGAN DISHES! MEDITERRANEAN LASAGNA, CAJUN-SPICED JAMBALAYA, AND SWEET POTATO AND SPINACH EMPANADAS. SUPERMODELS WELCOME! “That last line is stupid, but now I’m in the mood for jambalaya. Maybe we should just go here for dinner.”

“I can smell the dead cows from here,” Ty said, stepping back.

I walked over and stared at the blackboard. “What the hell? Not only is Prime
not
one of the restaurants that asked me to come up with a menu for them, but these three dishes were in that packet of stolen recipes. I even gave them those exact working names.”

Sara pulled open the door. “Let’s go confront the manager or whoever and make them take down the sign and take the dishes off the menu.”

“Wait,” Seamus said. “It’s not like you can prove these are your recipes. Lasagna, jambalaya, and empanadas aren’t exactly uncommon.”

“And they’ll say they saw the
Times
article, thought a vegan menu was a great idea, and instituted one of their own,” Ty said. “Let’s find out who owns the place first. A hundred bucks says it’s a relative of Rain’s.”

I pulled out my phone and called Zach. “Do you know who owns Prime, the steakhouse on Wilshire?”

“Hello to you, too,” he said.

“Do you know?”

He sighed. “Dan Gloves. I don’t know him personally, though. Why?”

“Because three of my stolen recipes are featured in his window as their new vegan menu. And this is not one of the restaurants that hired me.”

“That’s really weird. Dan is known as being an okay guy. Hold up a second and let me see if he has partners.” He came back on a minute later. “One partner. A guy named Derek Ackerman. He only has a twenty percent stake in the place. I don’t know him at all.”

Derek Ackerman. Why did that name sound familiar?

“Okay, thanks. I’ll sic my sister on him. The lawyer in the family.”

“We should talk, Clem. I hate when we’re not in sync. Tomorrow night?”

I hate when we’re not in sync, too.
“Tomorrow night.” We hung up, the name Derek Ackerman echoing in my head. “Why does the name Derek Ackerman sound familiar?” I asked Sara, Ty, and Seamus. Where had I heard that name before?

They all shrugged.

“Wait, yeah,” Sara said. “I feel like I know it, too. The Derek part. Like I heard it somewhere recently.”

“I know. Me, too,” I said. “I can’t remember where, though.”

I took a picture of Prime’s window, making sure I got the name and the blackboard in the shot, then did a Google search for Derek Ackerman. Balding dude in his late thirties, maybe early forties. Kind of
Jersey Shore
–looking, but with wire-rimmed
glasses. There were countless hits, one after another, about some self-published book series he wrote called
Invest with Nothing!

Yeah, by stealing people’s stuff.

I typed in “Rain Welch” and “Derek Ackerman” to see if there was a joint hit. Nothing.

“Alexander Orr” and “Derek Ackerman.”

Still nothing.

Who was this asshole?

Between Ty’s hilarious story about the sauté chef at Chill and Sara telling us about a coworker who’d managed to get herself fired on her first day, I finally got my mind off of Prime and the fact that people were eating my Cajun Jambalaya, one of the recipes it would take me days to re-create. We sat at a round table at Georgina’s, which was packed—just the way my restaurant would be. I dug into my vegetable curry, studying what the place was doing right. Good music, not too loud. Good waitstaff, without smug asshole expressions on their faces as though they were too model-actor-singer to explain a dish. Perfect lighting. And excellent food.

“Hey, look, that waitress has Eva’s new haircut,” Sara said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually want something Eva has. Think my hair would do that?”

“You’d have to straighten it every day,” Ty said. “My sister would kill you, too. She said you have the perfect curly hair.”

I glanced over, and yup, the woman had an ear-length pointy bob with blunt bangs, except hers was white-blond instead of Eva’s dark red—

Eva.

Now I knew why the name Derek sounded so familiar.

Eva’s husband’s name was Derek.

And her last name was Ackerman.

“I’m Eva Ackerman. Eva. Just Eva. Not Eve. Not Evie . . . ”

Okay, this had to be a coincidence. Had. To. Be. Eva was a royal bitch, but she was my royal bitch. I would even call her a friend.

“Sara, do you remember what Eva’s husband’s name is?” I asked.

“She just always calls him her husband. Oh wait, I think it’s Darren or Dylan or something like that.”

Yeah. Maybe it was Dylan or Darren. Dylan Ackerman. Darren Ackerman. I really didn’t want it to be Derek Ackerman.

I pulled out my phone and typed into the search bar “Eva Ackerman” and “Derek Ackerman.”

Well, shit.

Wedding announcement in the
Modesto Bee
five years ago.

Investor Derek Ackerman and sales consultant Eva Brine were married last night at St. Michael’s . . .

There was a bad photo of the two of them, Eva with the same red bob and Ackerman looking even more
Jersey Shore
than he had in his head shot.

“Turns out Eva’s husband’s name is Derek,” I said, holding up my phone. “Derek Ackerman, to be exact.”

“Eva’s husband owns that restaurant that stole your recipes?” Sara asked, looking confused. “That’s weird.”

“Or not.”

I saw the lightbulb blink on over Sara’s head. She grabbed my phone. “Eva stole your recipes and gave them to her husband to use at Prime? What?”

“And I accused Alexander.” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. My appetite was totally gone. “I’ve got to go see Alexander.”

“Go,” Ty said. “I’ll get your curry boxed up for you.”

“Wait,” Sara said as I got up. “What about Eva?”

“She’s next,” I said. “But first I have to fix things with Alexander.”

Like that would happen so easily.

I doubted Alexander would be home at 8:40 on a Saturday night; he was probably working, but I walked to his house anyway. I wanted to talk to him in person. If he wasn’t home, maybe I’d leave a note in his mailbox saying that I was sorry, that I was wrong, that I’d totally get it if he never spoke to me again, but I really, really wanted him to. I’d write a whole thing about how I jumped to conclusions, like Zach was always accusing me of, and that I should have known Alexander would never do that to me, that he wasn’t capable in the first place.