Читать книгу Baby Makes Three - Molly O'Keefe - Страница 7

“AND—” HIS SMILE SEEMED a little brittle around the edges “—I think we both know you didn’t mean it.”

She arched her eyebrows in response. Oh, she’d meant it all right.

“What do you want, Gabe?”

“A guy can’t visit an old friend?”

She laughed outright. At him. At them. At this stupid little dance.

“Gabe, we were never friends.” The lie slipped off her tongue easily. It was better to pretend they had never been friends than to dwell on those memories, to give in to the sudden swell of feelings his presence stirred in her belly. “What. Do. You. Want?”

He ran his fingers through his too-long hair and scowled at her, the fierce look that always warned her he was running out of patience.

Good, she thought, get mad and leave like you always do.

She scowled back. She’d never been overly gracious—she was too busy for that—but in her time with Gabe she’d learned to be polite.

But not anymore. There was no one in her life to be polite to, so she had no practice.

And she wasn’t about to apologize. Not to him.

“I need you,” he said and she fought to keep herself from choking on a sound of disbelief.

“Gabe Mitchell at my door, begging.” She shivered dramatically. “Hell is getting colder.”

“Alice.” He sighed. “This isn’t easy for me. You know that. But I need you. Bad.”

His low tone hit her in the stomach and snaked down to her sex, which bloomed in sudden heat. Too familiar, those words. Too reminiscent of those nights together, when they’d needed each other so much, good sense got burned to ash.

“I really can’t imagine why,” she said, crossing one leg over another, and her arms came across her chest, giving him every signal to stop, to say goodbye and walk away.

But he didn’t and she wondered what was truly at stake here. The Gabe she knew did not fight and he never begged.

“I built the inn,” he said softly. “The one we always talked about.”

It was a slap. A punch in her gut. Her eyes burned from the pain and shock of it. How dare he? He’d walked away with her pride, her self-respect, her dreams of a family and now this.

She wanted to scream, just tilt her head back and howl at the pain and injustice of it all.

The inn. The home they’d dreamed of. He’d built it while she worked shifts grilling grade B steak and making nachos.

She let out a slow breath, emptying her body of air, so maybe the shell she was would just blow away on the wind.

“Good for you,” she managed to say through frozen lips and got to her feet. “I need to go.”

He stopped her, not by touching her—good God wouldn’t that be a disaster—but by getting in her way with his oversize body.

“It’s gorgeous, Alice, you should see it. I named it the Riverview Inn and it’s right on a bluff with the Hudson snaking through the property. You can see the river from the dining room.”

A mean anger seeped into her, culled from her crappy job, her hangover, her ruined life…even from the Dumpster. She didn’t need to be reminded of how much she’d lost and she really didn’t need to be brought face-to-face with how well Gabe had done.

“Like I said—” she didn’t spare the sarcasm “—bully for you. I’ll tell all my friends.” She ducked by him.

“I need a chef, Alice.”

She stopped midstride, snagged for a second on a splinter of hope. Of joy.

Then she jerked herself free and laughed, but refused to meet his earnest blue eyes. Was this real? Was this some kind of trick? A lie? Were the few remaining friends in her life setting up some elaborate intervention?

“Me? Oh, man, you must be in some dire straits if you are coming to me—”

“I am. I am desperate. And—” he inclined his head to the Dumpster, the plaza parking lot “—from the look of things…so are you.”

The bravado and sunglasses didn’t work. He saw right through her and it fueled her bitter anger.

“I’m fine,” she said, stubbornly clinging to her illusions. “I need to get back to work.”

“I want to talk to you about this, Alice. It’s a win-win for both of us.”

“Ah, Gabe Mitchell of the silver tongue. Everything is a win-win until it all goes to shit. No.” She shook her head, suddenly desperate to get away from him and his magnetic force that always spun her in circles. “I won’t be your chef.”

She walked around him, careful not to get too close, not to touch him, or smell him, or feel the heat from his arm.

“I know where you live, Alice,” he said, going for a joke, trying to be charming. “Look, I just want to talk. If you decide after we talk that it’s not for you, fine. That’s totally fine. But maybe you know someone—”

“I don’t.”

“Alice.” He sighed that sigh that weighed on her, that, during their marriage, had filled the distance between them and pushed them further apart. The sigh that said, “Don’t be difficult.”

“I don’t,” she insisted. “I don’t know anyone who would want to live out there.”

“Except you?” Gabe said.

“Not anymore,” she lied. “My break is over. I have to go.”

“I want to talk. Can I meet you at home?” He caught himself. “At your house?”

Painful sympathy leaped in her. He’d loved their house, had craved a home, some place solid to retreat to at the end of the day. He’d finished the basement and hung pictures and shelves and repaired the bad plumbing like a man in love. And in the divorce he’d given it to her, shoved the lovely Tudor away like a friend who’d betrayed him.

“The locks are changed,” she said.

“I’m sure they are, but I’ll bet you a drive out to the inn that you still keep the key under that ceramic frog you bought in Mexico.” He smiled, that crooked half grin. Charm and bonhomie oozing off him and she wanted to tell him no matter how well he thought he knew her, he didn’t.

But the key was under the frog.

“Suit yourself, Gabe,” she told him. “But my answer won’t change.”

“Alice—”

He held out the roses and she ignored them. She hit the door and didn’t look back. She could feel him, the touch of his gaze even through the steel door, through her clothes, through her skin right to the heart of her.

Nope, she shook her head. Not again. Not ever again with that man. She’d worked too hard to forget the past. She’d worked too hard to stop the pain, to cauterize the wounds he’d left in her.

There was nothing he could say that would convince her. Nothing.

“WELL,” Gabe said, tossing the bouquet into the Dumpster. “That went well.”

He shook off the strange sensation in his stomach, brought on by the begging he’d had to do just to get her to listen to him.

Dad would be proud, he thought and the thought actually made him feel better.

He still couldn’t manage to wrap his head around the fact that she worked at Johnny O’s. Last he’d heard, her restaurant, Zinnia or Begonia or something, had gotten a high Zagat rating and someone had approached her about doing a cookbook.

He looked at the neon lights of the cookie-cutter restaurant she’d escaped into and smiled.

This had to bode well for him. She must be dying to get out of this place. He just had to figure out what kind of offer would make her see things his way.

First things first, he’d stop by the house, take stock of her kitchen, run for groceries and have some food waiting for her. Tomato soup and grilled-cheese on sourdough bread, her favorite. Followed up by mint Oreos—another favorite. Maybe he’d get the Beaujolais she loved, set up some candles…

A seduction. He smiled thinking about it, even when something primitive leaped in his gut. It was weird, but he’d set up a sexless chef seduction of his ex-wife.

Whatever it took.

He headed to his truck, climbed in and on autopilot wound his way through Albany to the lower east side. By rote he turned left on Mulberry, right on Pape and pulled in to the driveway of 312.

He took a deep breath, bracing himself.

Empty houses with dark windows disturbed him, ruffled those memories of being a boy and wondering if, when he went downstairs, she would finally be there. If this morning, after all the others, would be the one when the kitchen would be warm, the lights on, the smell of coffee and bacon in the air, and Mom would be sitting at the table. She’d tell him it all had been a mistake and she wouldn’t be leaving, ever again.

Stupid, he told himself. Ancient history. Like my marriage. It’s just a house. It’s not mine anymore.

Finally he looked up at the two-story Tudor—with its big backyard—where they’d planned to start their family. The magnolia tree out front was in full bloom, carpeting the lawn in thick creamy pink and white petals.

Her herb garden looked a little overrun with chives and she must have finally decided that perennials weren’t worth the hassle. Otherwise the house looked amazing.

Sunlight glittered off the leaded windows and he tried not to remember how he’d jumped on the house, probably paying too much. But it hadn’t mattered at the time—the house was meant to be theirs.

And it had been a happy home for a year.

His neck went hot and his fingers tingled. He forced himself to fold the feelings up and shove them back in the box from which they’d sprung.

Don’t care, he told himself ruthlessly, hardening his heart. He let himself go cold, pushing those memories away with the ones of his mother until his heart rate returned to normal, his fingers stopped tingling.

It’s just a building. Not my home.

He got out of the truck and bounded up the slate walkway.

He lifted the blue frog with the bulging eyes that sat on her porch and—as expected—there was the key. But he couldn’t pick it up. His body didn’t obey the messages from his brain. His body wanted to run.

“Hey, man? You need something?” Gabe whirled to find a good-looking, tall…kid. Really. Couldn’t have been older than twenty-six. He stood in the open doorway, a backpack slung over his shoulder.

“Hi,” Gabe started to say. “No. Well, yes. Actually.”

“You selling something?” The kid pointed to the sign Alice had hand printed and posted on the mailbox: No Salesmen, No Flyers, No Religious Fanatics. This Means You.

He smiled, typical Alice.

“No,” he told the kid. “I’m not selling anything. My name is Gabe and I—”

“You’re the dude in the pictures.” The guy smiled and held out his hand. “You look good, keeping in shape.”

Gabe was knocked off stride but managed to shake his hand anyway. “Thanks. Um…I’m sorry, who are you?” And what pictures?

“Charlie, I’m Alice’s roommate.”

Roommate? Gabe’s mouth fell open.

“No, no, man, not like that.” The kid laughed. “Though I did try at the beginning but she pretty much let me know that wasn’t going to be happening. I just pay rent and live in the basement.”

“Why does she need a roommate?” he asked.

Charlie shrugged. “Why does anyone need a roommate? Money, I guess. It’s not for the company that’s for sure. I barely see her anymore. She used to make me dinner.” He whistled through his teeth. “Best food I ever had.”

Gabe’s head reeled, but he saw the sugar he needed to sweeten the deal. Alice needed money, it was the only way his incredibly private ex-wife would ever rent out part of her home and, horrors, share her kitchen with some kid who no doubt scarfed down freeze-dried noodles and Lucky Charms by the boatload.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to convince her—working at Johnny O’s, renting out the basement. He only needed to push down her pride and get her to see what an opportunity he had for her.

“She is a great chef,” Gabe said. “Look, Charlie. If you don’t mind, I was hoping to come in and wait for Alice to get home. I am supposed to have a business meeting with her.”

“Sure, no problem.” Charlie stepped out onto the porch, leaving the heavy wooden storm door open. “Don’t touch her booze, though. She gets crazy if you drink her stuff.”

Gabe nodded, suddenly speechless as Charlie walked by dragging with him Alice’s scent from the house. Roses and lemon swirled out around him, reminding him of the smell of her blue-black curls spread out across the pillows of their marriage bed, the damp nape of her neck after a shower.

“See you around,” Charlie said and took off on a bike.

Gabe lifted his hand in a halfhearted farewell.

Suddenly, the narrow hallway leading back to the living room with its big picture windows looked a mile long.

The brass key in his hand—a standard house key, identical to the one he’d carried on his key chain for years—weighed a thousand pounds.

Need a chef. Need a chef. Need a chef.

He wished it didn’t require going into that house.

He took a deep breath, buffered himself against the ghosts inside and stormed the gates. Immediately he was caught short by the familiarity of their home.

The foyer still had the cut-glass vase filled with overblown pink roses in it—she’d always loved putting it there—and the walls were adorned with their photos. Black-and-white shots from their various trips. Those were the pictures Charlie had referred to. Gabe was in some of them, standing next to the Vietnamese fisherman and the Mexican grandmother who made the best tortillas he’d ever tasted.

What is she doing with these still on the wall? He wondered. He’d emptied all his frames of her, his wallet and photo albums. Looking at his apartment, you’d never guess he’d been married. Looking at her house, you’d never guess she’d been divorced.

He stalked through the house and turned right toward the kitchen, resisting the urge to check out the family room and the back lawn.

More roses sat on the kitchen table. These were fresh, bright yellow buds still.

The kitchen was spotless. Their expensive renovation still looked modern and elegant, such a reflection of his wife.

Ex-wife. Ex.

An image—one of the few to have survived the war between him and Alice—came and went like smoke in sunshine.

The memory was of a random night—a Wednesday or something in March—when nothing special was happening. Alice had come home late from shutting down the restaurant and he’d woken up while she showered. He’d waited for her in this kitchen, dark but for the bright panels of moonlight that lay over the furniture like a sheet. She’d walked in wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else.

She’d smelled sweet and clean. Powdery. Her hair a dark slick down her back. Her lithe body taut and graceful, her skin rosy and fresh.

“You’re better than sleep,” she’d said to him, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, just south of his ear. He’d touched her back, found those dimples at the base of her spine that he’d loved with dizzying devotion.

And then they’d made slow, sleepy lazy love.

It surprised him at odd times when it seemed as though his Alice years had happened to someone else. When he thought he’d finally managed to put it all behind him.

But looking at his former kitchen, the memory ambushed him, rocked him on his heels and had him struggling for breath that didn’t taste of his ex-wife.

He tore open the maple cabinets, as if he could tear that stubborn memory out of his brain. But in cabinet after cabinet he only found empty shelves. Which was not at all like her. She used to say that having an empty pantry made her nervous. If there wasn’t pasta, garlic and olive oil on hand at all times she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

Something in his gut twinged. Remorse? Worry?

No, couldn’t be. He was divorced. Papers, signed by both of them, exonerated him from worry and remorse.

But his gut still twinged.

He pulled open the cabinet above the fridge only to find it fully stocked with high-end liquor.

No need for the Beaujolais.

Another cabinet over the chopping block was filled with freeze-dried noodles and cereal.

Charlie’s small stake in the kitchen.

Something warm and fluffy brushed up against his ankles and he looked down to find Felix, their French cat. Another thing she’d gotten in the divorce.

“Bonjour, Felix,” he said with great affection. The gray-and-white cat wasn’t really French—he was south-side Albany Dumpster—but they considered him so due to his love of anchovies, olives and lemon juice.

Gabe opened the fridge and found enough anchovies and expensive olives soaked in lemon juice to keep the cat happy for aeons.

He pulled out a slick, silver fish and fed it to the purring cat. “What’s happening here, Felix?” he asked, stroking the cat’s ears.

During their last big fight, Alice had told him that she would be better off without him. Happier. And he’d jumped at his chance for freedom, relieved to be away from the torture they constantly inflicted on each other.

But, as he looked around the home that hadn’t changed since he’d left, he wondered if this empty kitchen was really better.

Is this happy?

He stopped those thoughts before they went any further. That cold part of himself that didn’t care about her happiness, that only cared about creating the life he needed, the dream that had helped him survive their divorce, slid over him, protecting him from any reality he didn’t want to see.

SHE STUCK AROUND way after her shift, even went so far as to contemplate sleeping in the front corner booth in order to avoid Gabe.

Maybe he’s left, she thought hopefully. She longed for her home, her couch. Her scotch.

Her promise not to drink had evaporated in the heat of Gabe’s smile. She needed a drink after today. She’d barked at Trudy—who only ever tried to be kind to her, even when she was a nag—she’d burned her hand and screwed up two tables of food. And now, as penance, she mopped the tiled floor around the stainless steel prep table as if her life depended on it.

Maybe I should not be a chef, she considered. Maybe she could get into the cleaning profession. Work in one of those big high-rises after hours.

She imagined going back to her home and telling Gabe that she couldn’t be his chef because she was making a career change.

She almost laughed thinking about it.

“Alice?” Darnell poked his head out of the back office that adjoined the main prep area. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

She set the mop back in the bucket and propped it against the wall, making sure it wouldn’t slip, and stepped into the minuscule manager’s office.

“Go ahead and shut the door,” Darnell said from behind the cluttered desk. She had to move boxes of recipe and conduct manuals out of the way in order to shut the door that, as long as she’d been here, had never been shut.

She guessed Trudy had tattled. Again.

“Have a seat.” He gestured to the one folding chair beneath the giant white board with the schedule on it. She had to move a stack of staff uniforms in order to sit.

“If you wanted me to clean your office, Darnell, you could have just asked.” She thought it was a joke, but Darnell didn’t laugh. His brown eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses were stern and a little sad.

Maybe she’d have to up the apology to Trudy. She could buy drinks for the whole staff after work sometime. That should put her back in everyone’s good graces.

“What are you doing cleaning the kitchen?” he asked. “Did you, by chance, not notice the staff we have for that?”

“I was just helping out,” she said. “I’m a team player.”

His mouth dropped open in astonishment for a brief moment, and then he sat back, his chair creaking. “I can only guess you’re kidding.”

She sighed, pulled off her hairnet and yanked out the clasp that held her hair back. She scratched at her scalp. If she was going to get lectured, she was going to do it in some comfort.

“Do you want to be a chef here?” Darnell asked.

No. “Of course.”

“Is that why you show up late, take too many coffee breaks—”

“Everybody does that.”

“And order your coworkers around?”

“No, I just do that for fun.”

“Trudy doesn’t think it’s fun,” he said through pursed, white lips. “I don’t understand why you pick on her. She’s the nicest—”

That’s why Alice picked on her. Nice made her feel mean. Kindness hurt. “I’ll apologize—”

Darnell leaned forward on his desk. “I hired you based on your reputation and the few amazing meals I had at Zinnia.” Her gut clenched at the name of her failed restaurant, her baby, her reason for living after Gabe and she ended. “I thought you’d make this franchise something special.”

Her mouth fell open and she grabbed a recipe manual from the stack at her knee. “I cook from a manual, Darnell. It’s against corporate policy to do something special.”

“But you haven’t even tried, have you? We have nightly specials and I gave you carte blanche.”

“Right, and I’ve—”

“Served the same thing for two weeks, despite the fact that no one orders it. Our customers don’t like duck, Alice. But those ribs you made two months ago were amazing, and you served them for two days. That’s it. It’s like you don’t want to succeed.”

Darnell watched her expectantly and Alice dropped her eyes to the recipe manual. She didn’t want sympathy. She didn’t want to talk about her problems. She wanted to work, pay off the outrageous amount of money she owed the bank and annoy Trudy. That’s it.

And drink. Dear God. I need a drink.

“Alice, I don’t know the whole story behind what happened at Zinnia—”

“I’ll talk to Trudy and I’ll put the ribs back up on the specials board.” She stood, stared at Darnell with tired eyes. “I have to be back here tomorrow for—”

“No.” Darnell shook his head. “You don’t.”

She slumped.

“You’re fired.”

ALICE’S CAR rolled slowly down Pape and she could see the dim lights, the shadow of someone moving through her kitchen window. She knew it wasn’t Charlie.

He’s still here, she thought and hit the garage-door opener on her dashboard. An itchy anger chugged through her bloodstream like a drug, making her head spin.

Gabe was the last thing she needed tonight.

The heavy white door lifted and she drove into the parking spot between the empty freezers and the golf clubs Gabe had left. She tried to gather whatever resources were left in her tired, drinkcraving, jobless body.

After the day she’d had, there weren’t many left. Gabe reentering her life dredged up feelings she’d been managing, longings she’d been subduing.

But tonight those feelings were here in force, like weights on her heart.

I wish I wasn’t alone.

I wish I had a family.

And he was in there with dim lights and probably tomato soup, something she lost the taste for after he left.

She chewed her beleaguered thumbnail and watched the door between the garage and kitchen as though it might open and Gabe would come running out throwing knives at her car. Not that she was scared of him, just scared of what they were when they were together.

“I don’t need anything,” she whispered her oftrepeated mantra that eventually got her through the worst days. “There is nothing I want.”

But the fates had conspired tonight. Her mortgages—both of them—were due at the end of the week and she had only enough money to cover one.

Am I too old to sell my body? she wondered. But that was a bit drastic, even for her.

She felt raw and panicked, like a trapped animal. Gabe was going to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse and she wanted to punish him for it. She wanted him to pay for coming back here and rubbing his success in her face.

She wanted to pick the scabs between them, scratch at old wounds.

I want to fight. Alice smiled, feeling feral. And there’s nothing in this world that Gabe hates more than a fight.

She opened the door between the garage and the kitchen and Gabe looked up at her from the bread he sliced at her kitchen table. He was too handsome for words in this light.

“You’re still here,” she said, unbuttoning her dirty chef’s whites. “You make yourself at home?”

His smile dimmed a bit, no doubt startled by her biting sarcasm. She came out swinging, hoping to get a few licks in before he made her that offer and she had to take it.

“Did you take the tour?” she asked, throwing the dirty jacket on the table. “Visit the baby’s room?”

His eyes turned to stone. His smile became a grimace.

“Alice.” There was that sigh again. It told her, better than words, better than failed doctor’s appointments, better than divorce papers, that he was disappointed in her.

And immediately she regretted wanting to fight over this. A fight she never won.

“Alice, there was no baby.”