The Last Good Paradise (2 page)

A knocking on the conference door shook her out of her reverie. “Ann, are you in there?”

She said nothing, swinging her feet into a nearby leather swivel chair. Candy wrappers littered the table and floor like spent condoms.

She heard another voice. “Maybe she’s in there with someone.”

“The Scorcher? She’s probably playing alone. After devouring her mate. The lady praying mantis. She’s ruthless. The Peters case was settled in an hour. The Brenner woman ran out of here crying. Dolan crushed.”

“Have fun in there.” The smirking voices moved off.

This was why she deserved partnership over the other junior partners—because unlike them, she knew that the seemingly solid, soundproof conference room doors had been specially hollowed out so that private negotiations could be overheard. Yes, she’d won. Her consolation prize. But they were wrong. She wasn’t ruthless; she was just trying to be a big fish. Things would get better. They had to. Today was her thirty-eighth birthday.

*   *   *

Richard was determined to test-run a few new recipes before he baked Ann’s cake for dinner that night. It was his favorite time in the kitchen, before Javier and everyone else showed up, and he opened the back door onto the alley, enjoying the whiff of sea breeze. He put on Pavarotti’s Neapolitan songs, and set a pot of Yukon Golds to boil. When the phone rang, it was yet another credit collection agency asking for Javier. “He’s on vacation,” Richard said and hung up. He needed to work on his potato-and-fennel au gratin—he still hadn’t gotten the right mix of creamy and sharp cheese. As a substitute for pedestrian Gruyère, he was thinking of maybe a Cantal or Reblochon? Or finding a source for a salty, buttery, earthy L’Etivaz?

The delivery buzzer rang, breaking Richard’s thoughts. He slapped at the intercom with floury fingers. It was UPS.

“Where from?”

“Overnight from Lodi.”

Shit. The rabbits. Richard and Javi’s brainchild. Hardly a restaurant in the LA basin served rabbit—just hole-in-the-wall ethnic places in the Valley—yet in Europe it was a well-respected staple. He would explain on the menu that rabbit was lower in fat and higher in protein than chicken. The challenge was overcoming the bad image. Richard’s solution was to substitute it in some well-known recipes. He would transform coq au vin to lapin au vin. Rabbit Abruzzi in a sauce of tomatoes, olives, and artichokes. Then he would feature one French classic such as
lapin aux pruneaux
, rabbit with prunes. But the delivery—a box of fryers for experimenting—wasn’t supposed to be till tomorrow, overnighted on dry ice from a free-range rabbit farm in Northern California. Should he dare try making a dish for tonight?

Richard took delivery and put the box on the counter, grabbing a pair of bone shears to cut the plastic binding. His palms were just the slightest bit sweaty. When he took off the lid of insulating dry ice, the sight that met his eyes set him back years. Not anonymous, cut-up fryer pieces sanitized in plastic but four whole, furry white bodies funereally laid out in the interior. Unskinned. Was this a joke? Was the supplier some kind of sadist? He put the Styrofoam lid back on, spinning away and stumbling over a chair, his shirt soaked in flop sweat.

A throbbing engine stopped in the alley. Richard staggered toward the door to close it to keep the fumes out. It was Javi behind the wheel of a new silver Corvette convertible.

“What are you doing in that?”

“Leased it.”

“With what?”

“Almost the same as the Honda.” Which in Javi-speak meant double what the Honda cost.

“Creditors have been calling all morning. Not about my gnocchi.”

“Want to take a ride?”

Richard thought of the leporid sarcophagus and the unpleasant task ahead of him. “Give me a minute.” He shoved the box in the walk-in refrigerator and fled.

*   *   *

It was way past noon by the time Richard and Javi made their way back to the restaurant, arms fraternally around each other. They’d gone up the coast highway, the day so spectacular they had decided to continue all the way to Malibu, and once in Malibu they couldn’t
not
stop off for a quick seafood lunch of
fritto misto
and beer on the pier, and then they ran into a chef friend who staked them to a round of
reposado
tequila. The only blip in the afternoon occurred after Richard bought yet another round of drinks for the group and his card was declined, but he laughed it off as having overspent for the restaurant and paid in cash.

It was late by the time they returned, and he went to check messages in his office—electric company, credit card company, linen supplier, bank. The only call he returned was from the car dealership verifying Javi’s employment and a salary that was more wishful thinking than reality. When he arrived back in the kitchen, Javi had the box of rabbits out, butcher paper spread, with a splayed white body in the center.

“Looks like the Easter Bunny arrived early.”

Richard forced himself to look at the matted fur. He lost it at the sight of the delicate, folded-back velvety ears. All the blood in his body sloshed down to his feet so that he had to hold on to the counter to keep from falling through the floor.

“Whoa, you okay, partner?” Javi asked.

“Not feeling so good.”

“Why don’t you leave this to me? Start on Annie’s cake.”

“I almost forgot.” Richard went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. What had happened to him? Unheard of—a chef with an aversion to cooking meat. The idea of stockyards made him faint. Boiling lobsters made him queasy. The easy acceptance of
foie gras
, roasted whole baby lamb, and, his own undoing, rabbit paralyzed him. He looked at his blotchy face in the mirror and considered googling “psychotic breakdown.”

His shins itched to the point of him scratching himself raw; his doctor had diagnosed stress-related eczema. He had developed a tic under one eye that at random moments made him appear to be winking. Earlier that day in Malibu, it had happened in front of a toned young woman in spandex who, thinking he was being lewd, gave him the finger. Now he swallowed half a bottle of probiotics, washing it down with copious amounts of Pepto-Bismol in an attempt to curb the chronic indigestion, PUD (peptic ulcer disease), and irritable bowel syndrome that had started during the last few months and threatened to ruin the upcoming evening.

The enormous strain of trying to make the opening a success and at the same time cover for Javi’s threatened implosion was wearing him down. On top of that, he felt guilt over Ann’s working so hard and in good faith handing over all her money to him for the restaurant, some of which he had to hand over to Javi to keep various collection agencies off his back so he would concentrate on designing the menu. Now Richard had to tactfully broach the matter of new car payments that were out of the question.

The itching grown unbearable, his medicated cream at home, in despair Richard headed back to the kitchen for olive oil to slather on his raw skin. When in doubt, olive oil. Javi was on his cell phone, and when he saw Richard, he scowled and went outside for privacy. Often Richard wished he could invite Javi to live with them; just do away with the pretense that the man was a fully functioning adult and treat him like the willful, tantrum-prone five-year-old Freudian id he was.

*   *   *

As Richard finished up Ann’s cake (Javi having mercifully taken over the “rabbit issue,” creating a fricassee with cilantro and onions as an appetizer for that night), he had a stroke of inspiration and whipped up a bowl of crème Chantilly. He had not had time to buy a present, but what kind of present would it be anyway, with them both knowing it was Ann’s money that bought it? He went into his chaotic office, shoved whole stacks of paperwork out of sight, and spread a long tablecloth for ten on the sagging sofa, the ends puddling nicely. Standing back to assess the makeshift effect, he raided the supply cabinet for votives and set them on every surface: the room itself turned birthday cake. He placed a butane Iwatani brûlée torch at the ready to light them for Ann’s arrival.

*   *   *

Ann let herself in through the front entrance of the restaurant. The beauty of the dining room consoled her, despite the fact she was tired and had a stomachache from all the Mars bars. It was her baby, designed from scratch from notes she had taken from their favorite places over the years. Instead of the modern, antiseptic dining spaces then in vogue, theirs would have a rococo feel. The room had deep-red velvet walls with chocolate-brown wood accents and was hung with ornamental mirrors in heavy gilded frames. On the center of each virginal white linen tablecloth stood a small crystal vase, which would be filled with choice blooms spotlit from a halogen light in the ceiling. The tables would not have candles, which were an inefficient use of limited table space, but hundreds of votives would be lit on shelves projecting from the walls. Ann wanted each customer to feel like a prized truffle nestled inside a Valentine box of sweets.

That was the future. Right now she wanted nothing more than to go home, put on a bathrobe, and hole up in bed with a thick novel, but there stood Richard, inexplicably winking at her. He took her hand and led her to his office, the fiery room fragrant with melted wax and burned sugar. A rubber bowl of whipped cream stood on his desk.

“Strip,” he said softly, “my sexy thirty-eight-year-old goddess.”

She giggled.

“Where’s Javi?”

“I sent him for ice. An hour-long ice trip to be exact.”

The lit candles heated the room more quickly than Richard would have thought possible. Stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, he suddenly realized that the room was a classic firetrap. As he led Ann to the sofa, he tried to recall exactly where the new box of fire extinguishers had been stored.

Meticulously Richard basted her arm in a coat of whipped cream that he then licked off. “No fair!” Ann laughed, and he fed her dollops off his fingertips. He couldn’t help himself—as much as he loved Ann, the whipped cream was making his throat so acidic he felt close to throwing up. He moved to another position, licked spoonfuls off her inner thighs, but the angle made his neck crick. He drove himself on, denying the pain, moaning to release some of the agony, which Ann mistook for passion, prompting her to grab his head and cant his neck at a forty-five-degree angle of torture as she kissed him. He buried his head in her cleavage to hide the tremoring like a Mexican jumping bean beneath his eye.

They made love. It was nice. Friendly. Comfort sex. She had the sense that Richard was clenched inside; his mind seemed far away. Because he had seemed to enjoy it so much, she grabbed his head again and gave him another hard, bad-girl kiss. Afterward Ann felt a purring contentment as she got dressed, as well as a stickiness under her clothes that she couldn’t wait to go home and wash off. She was still wearing her good suit from the office—she had come straight there from another ten-hour day—but it seemed petty to complain when Richard was trying so hard. He was under such strain, she was surprised he even remembered her birthday. A dry cleaning bill and a potentially ruined wool skirt. Life could be worse than being desired by your husband under a mountain of whipped cream.

*   *   *

They sat in the restaurant’s new kitchen with its gleaming stainless steel appliances, its spotless linoleum floor—within weeks the kitchen would never again be as quiet and pristine. Richard and Javi had cooked up a special five-course dinner and dragged a small table in from the dining room, complete with tablecloth and tapered candles.

Richard had pulled out a 1974 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut Rosé champagne, known for its silky bite and salmon color. They toasted.

“Did you braise the sirloin tips?” Javi asked.

“No, I thought the main dish and roasted broccolini would be enough.”

Javi winked at Ann. “Carrots scream, too.”

They polished off Javi’s rabbit appetizer, then a Roquefort-and-sautéed-apple quesadilla, an organic baby greens salad with hearts of palm, and then a mango ice as palate cleanser. Javier, the mad-genius chef, had created a new dish in honor of Ann’s birthday: soba noodles with pink Florida prawns, braised bok choy, miniature scallops in soy sauce, rice wine, and serrano chilies. Richard’s broccolini was brought to the table as an afterthought.

Javier’s reputation for achieving culinary ecstasy had the tables booked up for two months solid from opening night. Every restaurant critic from Santa Barbara to San Diego planned to make the pilgrimage to their obscure location on the wobbly border of Santa Monica and Venice, braving chronic lack of parking and the abuse and urinary insults of homeless people, the indigent, and the belligerent who haunted the canyons of urban blight west of the 405. There were rumors of national foodies from
Esquire
,
Travel & Leisure
, etc., booking under aliases.

Javier’s fiery temper, moderately good Latin looks, vulgar mouth, and lewd behavior toward anything female created an outsize personality that fit perfectly in a profession where chefs were under the onus of not only cooking delicious meals but also having that magic celebrity “it” factor promising that just around the corner the Big Break would happen, which would render same-week reservations a thing of the past.

The fire from the serranos was delightfully unexpected, but after the initial surprise one realized the taste was not quite right.

Richard’s aversion to cooking meat was becoming a problem. It had started when he was a teenager, but then abated at CIA, Culinary Institute of America, where he had to learn how to french-cut a rack of lamb, divide a pork loin into chops, carve steaks, and grind meat and sausage. The constant pressure to perform prevented him from dwelling on the meats’ previous incarnations—that is, until the master charcuterie/butchering course a year after he met Ann. It was an honor to be invited, and he was flown coach to France and put up at a youth hostel in the Marais, with a bathroom down the hall that had never seen a scrub brush. They couldn’t afford the airfare for Ann to join him, and besides, she had just started at the law firm. Still, it was Paris. He was young and in love with food.