Skinny Bitch in Love (28 page)

I walked up the three porch steps and rang the bell. The house was dark. No answer. I dropped down on the second step and stared up at the almost twilight sky. Shit, shit, shit.

It took a lot to shock me. A lot. And Eva Ackerman had pulled it off.

Of all the people to screw me over. Eva.

I thought of the way she’d hugged me by her car at my parents’ house, her way of thanking me for talking to her about her husband when she’d been so upset.

I wish I knew if I could trust him,
she’d said.
I want to
.

You just have to go with your gut,
I’d told her.
The gut knows everything
.

So the gut didn’t know everything, after all. That sucked, too.

I was so relieved that Alexander hadn’t stolen my recipes that I just wanted everything to go back to the way it was before. I hadn’t known how important a friend he’d become until the friendship had gotten squashed.

Fucking Eva.

I waited on the steps for twenty minutes, watching people jog by and walk their dogs, before I realized that if Alexander did come home, Rain might be with him. I was not dealing with her. I got up and started heading down the steps when Alexander turned the corner, his dogs beside him. He stopped when he saw me.

“I owe you a huge apology,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah, you are,” he said coming toward me. He looked as pissed off at me as he did the day I’d confronted him.

Lizzie ran up to me and I rubbed her head. “I screwed up. I know you didn’t take my recipes. I knew it even when I was confronting you, but I was freaked out when I saw you with
Rain, and it seemed so wrong to me to see you two together that anything seemed possible, you know?”

“Actually, no. I don’t know. I thought we were better friends than that. But we’re clearly not friends at all.”

And with that, Alexander walked up the steps to his house and shut the door behind him.

Chapter 19

As I walked home from the crap encounter with Alexander, I tried to remember what had been going on with Eva at Sara’s birthday party. She’d been expecting her husband to show up, and he hadn’t. Once, when she’d been in the kitchen, grossly double-dipping tortilla chips into a little cup of salsa, the buzzer had rung, and she’d jumped, almost spilling the salsa on me. She’d rushed to the intercom, and when it turned out to be a coworker of Sara’s, Eva had flung the chip in the sink and stalked off with her phone in hand. I’d taken it as the usual crazy bullshit of Eva’s “they are; they aren’t” status update. She’d probably called her husband and asked where the hell he was and if he was coming to the party like she’d told everyone he was. Between that call and my missing recipes was her motive. To suck up to him? To win him back? To prove her undying love?

I punched her number in my phone. Fuming.

No answer. But it rang a bunch of times before going to voice mail, which meant she was ignoring it. After the beep, I left a message. “Eva, it’s Clementine. I passed Prime tonight, which your husband co-owns, I just found out, and three of my recipes are hanging on a blackboard in the window. I’m doubting this is a coincidence.”
Click
.

By the time I got home twenty minutes later, she called back.

“Clementine, that’s crazy. I would never. Never.”

“Really. So it’s a coincidence.”

“It absolutely has to be,” she said. “What was on the menu? Veggie burgers? That’s on
every
menu.”

“Actually, my jambalaya, my empanadas, and my lasagna.”

“
Your
lasagna? Clem, come on. You think you’re the one chef who ever came up with Mediterranean Lasagna?” She snorted.

There was dead silence for a moment, so she clearly knew she’d outed herself. Lasagna? Yeah. On every menu. Mediterranean Lasagna? No.

“Well, if you’re saying I stole your recipes and gave them to my husband to use at Prime, you’re wrong. Because I didn’t. Yeah, I saw the recipes at the cooking class when you were showing them to the reporter. And yeah, my husband has a stake in Prime. But I’d never betray you like that, Clem. I swear.”

Right.

“So someone else stole my recipes.”

“Or you misplaced them. The thing with Prime is total coincidence. Okay, yeah, I mentioned to Derek that you were creating vegan menus for some restaurants. And yeah, he thought that was a great idea. So he obviously mentioned it to his chef, and his chef made up some dishes. I’m sure once he saw the
L.A Times
article he wanted to make sure he had something going for the weekend crowd.”

“You’re a liar, Eva,” I said. “I thought we were friends.” And then I hung up on her.

Sara and I were watching
Top Chef
when the buzzer rang.

Eva.

When I opened the door, she started crying.

“It was all for nothing, too,” she said, blackish-brown mascara streaks running down her face. “He’s back with the skank.”

“Are we supposed to feel bad for you?” Sara asked. “Because I don’t. You, Clem?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Clem, just let me try to explain, okay?” Eva said.

“What’s to explain? You betrayed me to suck up to your husband. Do I have that right?”

More tears. “I just felt so desperate. He’s been stringing me along for sex. And when I told him about the menus you’re creating for restaurants, it was the first time in a long time that he actually listened to me. He paid attention to me, you know?”

“You know who else paid attention to you, Eva? Clementine,” Sara said. “When you were crying your eyes out over that douche at Clem’s parents’ farm, who went to go to talk to you? Clem. Who calmed you down? Clem. Who gave you good advice? Clem. And you fucked her over. I can’t believe it.”

“I didn’t mean to, I swear,” Eva said, looking from Sara to me. “When I told him about the vegan menus, he thought it was such a great idea and was asking me all kinds of questions about what we covered in class and if I’d saved any of the recipes, which I didn’t. So then he got all pissed at me for not keeping them and what was the point of telling him about the vegan menus if I couldn’t help him out. The main owner of Prime can’t stand him and was trying to buy him out. I thought if I could help him, he’d be so grateful and—” She started crying again.

“Jesus, Eva,” Sara said. “This isn’t any kind of excuse.”

“I’m just trying to explain. No excuse, okay?” She reached into her bag and pulled out a gross wadded-up tissue and dabbed at her nose. “He’s just been so hot and cold and leaving me totally hanging. So when he didn’t come to the party, I just got so upset, and then I saw the pack of recipes in the kitchen and I thought if I gave them to him, he’d be so grateful and would want me back.”

“So now he has my recipes and he’s back with the Pilates chick instead,” I said.

She nodded and blew her nose again.

“You also screwed up Clem’s friendship with someone else,” Sara said. “She accused someone else of taking the recipes.”

Actually, that one’s on me,
I thought but didn’t say.

“I’m really sorry, Clementine. Really, really sorry. If I could make it up to you somehow, I would. I feel like such an ass.”

Sara rolled her eyes and handed Eva a clean tissue. “We’re missing who’s gonna get cut from
Top Chef,
so . . . ”

Eva eyed me. “I am really sorry, Clem.” Then she ran down the stairs.

My sister talked a mile a minute about lawsuits and intellectual property to the point that my brain was going to explode. I’d called her after Eva left and filled her in on everything. Elizabeth said I had to do something to legally document how my recipes had ended up at Prime so that a) the asshole couldn’t sell them as Skinny Bitch recipes in his possession and b) so I wouldn’t get sued for selling my own recipes that he had on his menu.

“Any way you cut it,” Elizabeth said, “Eva will have to be deposed. Will she tell the truth?”

“Not sure,” I said. “She seems to feel guilty enough. But get her husband in possible deep shit? I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get on it. Wow, Clem. Recipe theft. I guess this means you’ve really arrived.”

Whoo-hoo.

I had the weirdest dreams that night. Eva trying to stab me with a fork. Alexander saying “I thought we were friends.” And
Zach throwing hundred-dollar bills at me. I woke up Sunday morning feeling like total crap. But I had to get the hell out of bed. I had a zillion orders to fulfill by seven thirty. Because people—including me—liked to hang in coffee shops with the
Times
and pastries, Sundays were my busiest days.

Which meant I was too busy to think about any of it—Eva backstabbing me, Alexander hating me, Zach being . . . Zach. I got out of bed and took a long, hot shower, flung my hair into a bun, and hit the kitchen, turning on ABBA as loud as I could for five thirty in the morning, which meant I could barely hear “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen.”

And then, as always, it happened. The feel of flour, the scent of vanilla, the taste of chocolate on my fingers—it all combined to take me away, make me forget everything. Baking for me was as good as meditating or doing hot yoga. And in a couple of hours I had six dozen cupcakes—cherry almond, chocolate raspberry, and vanilla chai—four dozen tropical fruit scones, and seven dozen cookies. I’d make my deliveries, then come back and test my blackened seitan fajitas; I had a cooking demonstration and tasting for the chef at Surf in the afternoon.

I left Sara a scone and even made her a pot of coffee, then went to make my deliveries. The manager at Runyon’s flirted with me, as always, and the grumpy owner of Delia’s barely cracked a smile, also as always. I had no idea what she was always so grumpy about, considering she owned an always-packed coffee shop. She hadn’t even smiled as she was telling me my gluten-free cookies were the best she ever had.

Deliveries made, I headed in the direction of my space for
Clementine’s No Crap Café. I was so close to making it mine. The bank should be calling me in a few days to tell me I got the loan, and then I could rip down the FOR LEASE sign. I couldn’t wait to do that. I couldn’t wait to stand in front of that storefront and know the place was mine. Open the door with my key instead of pressing my face against the glass and imagining what I’d do if it were mine.

It
would
be mine.

Maybe I’ll finally call the Realtor listing the space and make an appointment to tour it
, I thought as I approached the door, getting out my phone to key in the Realtor’s number.

Except there was a new sign up on my space.

LAST CHANCE FOR BIDS FRIDAY, AUGUST 15TH!

Friday, August 15th, was seven days away. The loan would come through, and I’d make the deadline. I punched in the Realtor’s number and told her I was interested in the space.

“Well, the owner of the building has two offers and will be making final decisions on the 15th. What’s your intended use of the space?”

“A vegan restaurant. Ten, maybe twelve tables. A few tables out back.”

“Well, you’d be up against a bar, a knitting store, and a coffee shop. Once you see the space, if you’re sold on it you’ll need to make an offer by the 15th.”