Hooked (3 page)

Something in the way he said
Renoir
made me think he expected I'd never heard of the man. Hell, I could have recited all kinds of useless factoids about the artist, thanks to the catalogue of 'essential knowledge" that was my parents' legacy. Like them, this man seemed to assume my profession meant I was a mental midget.

"Not particularly. But this one is obviously from his early years. I'm not very fond of his work after he returned to the classical style." "
Ha. You didn't see that coming, did you? Unexpected? I'll give you unexpected."
I willed myself to keep my eyes on the painting. Perhaps it was irrational of me, but I wanted to drop that little tidbit as casually as possible for effect. I wanted to make sure that he knew I was more than a hash slinger. It worked.

Morgan positioned himself at my side and quizzically cocked his head. "Very perceptive of you. You're right, of course. Why don't you like his later works?"

"They lost their softness. I couldn't get into those bathers from his Venus de Milo period."

"I think Renoir's early nudes are some of the most beautiful ever painted. Of course, the female form is such a worthy subject. A woman's body is a work of art." Although his eyes traveled over my body, there wasn't much for him to see. What curves I had were hidden under a stiff jacket and baggy trousers.

His
proportions were much more accessible. The half open shirt revealed a patch of dark hair and masculine angles of well defined muscles. "As is a man's," I answered.

"I've often wondered why the most famous nudes of men are sculptures but women are painted more."

"That's easy. The female body is soft and curvy and made for paint strokes. A man's body is hard. Stone and metal are better for the male physique." The thought of him modeling nude for some art class popped into my head. A dozen females licking their lips, including me.

"Where'd you learn all this?"

"My mother is an art history professor at FAU. My dad teaches English literature. By the time I graduated from high school, I already had a university level liberal arts education."

"And yet you chose . . . just cooking?"

"There's an art to good food," I said a tad defensively. My parents considered cooking a 'trade' as opposed to an art or a profession. It stung.

"I agree. There's an art to
all
sensual pleasures." He said it to the painting, but it went right to my core. His eyes caressed the painting and then turned his eyes toward me. He made me feel as undressed and voluptuous as the woman in the painting.

"I'm looking forward to sampling your artistry very soon, Chef Lamb." The voice was warmer now. Warm enough to soften butter but not quite melt it.

"Lara had quite a job for someone her age," Richard piped in. "But I'll her tell you about that later, when we've got today behind us. Right now, I'm afraid the kitchen is top priority if you want to get to the Bahamas on schedule." He began walking toward the dining area and I had to follow. I would have happily stood at Morgan Wolf's side talking about art, attempting to convince him I was more than 'just a cook'. I didn't try to kid myself; I already wanted to impress the man.

"I'll give you the grand tour of the boat later," Richard offered as we entered the kitchen. "But, for now . . . Welcome to the galley." He made a little theatrical bow and sweep of his hand as he ushered me in.

The room was an amazing thing of beauty, if kitchens turn you on. They turned me on; I'd devoted years to the alchemy of cooking.

"Shame about the stove." No matter how state-of-the-art, that electric piece of junk was going to be a challenge.

"Huh?"

"Electric."

"Oh, yeah. Gas just isn't practical for a boat. The walk-in is over here." Captain Richard pointed to the heavy stainless door of the cooler I'd be expected to fill and maintain. "As I told you, there's sixteen of us plus Mr. Wolf. The most we'll ever be on the water is ten days. Even with a Pacific crossing, there's always a stop in Hawaii."

I arched my eyebrows at him in disbelief. "There's enough storage here for weeks. This kitchen is bigger than the one I worked in at Topanga. We did a couple hundred dinners a night!" Peeking into the gigantic pantry, I saw a huge supply of canned goods and several sacks of Purina Monkey Chow. I shot a glance at the Captain.

"You'll get to know Mrs. Dalloway very well. She's extraordinarily well behaved and a real sweetheart. The Boss likes her a lot better than he likes most people."

Richard draped his sturdy frame over a stainless stool and motioned for me to have a seat. "The Boss is particular. Normally, I might not have considered someone as young and inexperienced as you for this job, but I'm hoping with your youth comes flexibility." He ran a hand through his close cropped sandy hair. "You noticed, I'm sure, that our last chef departed on less than friendly terms."

"Will I be cooking for the monkey frequently?"

He chuckled. "No. The birthday soufflé was a rare request. Mrs. Dalloway eats mostly monkey chow and fresh fruit. It was just the straw that broke Rodrigo's back. I'm glad to see him go. He was an unpleasant little sucker and had no sense of humor."

"Along with thick skin, a sense of humor helped me stay sane in the restaurant."

"That's good. You'll need it. I hope you can work fast because Mr. Wolf wants to shove off for a transatlantic as soon as you're ready. Can you supply the galley in a day?"

It would be my first test. I intended to rise to the challenge. It was only one o'clock and that would give me enough time to get an order to the various purveyors to be delivered in the morning. "I can do it," I told him with a bit more certainty than I felt.

Chapter 2--Morgan

I went back to my stateroom, flopped onto the bed and stared at the moulded ceiling. Sometimes days could pass without recalling the terror of my childhood but today was not one of those days. That chef had the same sweet face my small-boy self had treasured.

The nurses were always the warmest part of my world. A few of them actually cared about me. More than once I tried to tell one of them that I wasn't sick, that I wanted to run and play and go to school. Something always stopped me from telling them the truth. I didn't understand then and I still don't understand what it was that made me play the game.  All I knew was that the only attention Clari or I ever got was when we were sick.

There was that one in particular. The one who stayed for a long time and then just disappeared one day. I loved that nurse. That's why my mother fired her. No sharing of affection allowed. When Lara stepped up to shake my hand, Nurse Kelly came flooding back into my brain. It didn't happen often. But once in a while there'd be a trigger and then, bam.

She probably wasn't any older than my new chef. Her eyes reminded me of the cognac my father swirled in his big snifter after dinner. Lara's big-eyed gaze had that same kind tawny liquid glow. Just the opposite of my mother's icy eyes.

Richard should have known better. But of course, he couldn't have known. I'd told him about Clari and me, but I never really brought up Nurse Kelly and my little broken heart. I never explained why every woman I've ever 'dated' has been precisely the opposite of that . . . girl in the kitchen. That fresh, pretty, brown-hair-in-a-bun, American beauty rose. The kind of girl who worked for what she wanted. The kind of girl who knew more than what she could learn from watching reality shows on TV. The kind of girl who was capable and competent at more than make-up and wardrobe. There was a reason I preferred plastic gold diggers. They were safe. Like a business deal.

Mrs. Dalloway busied herself with the detritus strewn on my nightstand. She loved to rattle my keys and always enjoyed playing with the few coins I tossed there. At the beginning, I had worried about her swallowing something she shouldn't, but she was smarter than that. As much as she brought to mind a small child, she was wiser and more mature than her impish looks implied.

A monkey really isn't meant to be a pet. I knew this from the get go. Inheriting her from my friend after his death was a responsibility I took as seriously as any I've ever undertaken. She had been trained by "Helping Hands" for her role assisting Will, who had been rendered paraplegic in a surfing accident in his teens. By the time I met Will in my junior year at State, Mrs. D. was very much a part of his life. She had already been spayed, her canine teeth had been removed and she was completely acclimated to her life as a human companion.

I couldn't resist her from the start and she became nearly as dear a friend to me as her owner. Will and I agreed that the irony of her name seemed serendipitous. Will didn't have a clue as to why his monkey was named after Virginia Woolf's famous character. I'd always suspected my parents named my sister Clarissa mostly because they just loved the name and it was a little play on Wolf. But for whatever reason, Clarissa Dalloway connected the three of us--Will, me and the monkey.

Poor Will never believed he'd live to graduate from college and he barely did. He made me promise I'd take Mrs. D and give her a good home. Returning her to a sanctuary was impossible. She couldn't protect herself and she no more knew how to live as a monkey than I did. And, at almost ten years old, it was unlikely she'd be a good candidate as a helper to another disabled person in need.

She jumped up on top of the curtain rod and looked down at me. She knew I was thinking about her by the way I was watching her and it made her self-conscious.

"Ah, Mrs. D, I hope you've been happy with me for the past five years." I'd done the best I could by her and she hadn't always made it easy. The potty training nearly killed both of us.  But I was damned if I was going to change diapers on a monkey for twenty or thirty years.

Thinking about Will brought back the irony of our strange friendship. He had grown up as normal, active and wild as any kid in South Florida and wound up chained to a chair with a monkey to button his shirt. I lived my childhood as an enforced invalid and didn't begin to know life until . . . well, until the events that set me free. I was making up for lost time. I took risks, avoided commitment, and seized the fucking day by the balls. I spent as much time outdoors as was humanly possible and it never lost its sweetness for me. No one loves sunshine more than someone who spent his childhood in a bubble.

I sprang up from the bed as if by leaving it I could leave my thoughts there on the mattress. I tapped my shoulder and Mrs. D leapt up to her perch clucking and cooing into my neck as she hugged me.

"You can't flirt your way out of it." I told her as I scratched under her chin in a way that never failed to reduce her to a quivering ball of fur. "Time to go to your room for a while."

"That new female you just met is going to be staying. I hope you don't get jealous."

Mrs. Dalloway always paid such close attention when I spoke that I almost believed she understood my words. She cocked her head at me and grinned.

"She's our new chef. So pretty it almost hurts to look at her. It's been a long time since I've been around a pretty woman. Remember the Victoria's Secret model last week? Drop dead gorgeous. But she wasn't pretty. She was too artificial to be pretty." Mrs. Dalloway had pulled her perfectly coiffed hair and I had to put her away. She rarely warmed to any female I brought aboard. Most of the time I didn't bring them on the boat. Mrs. D's happiness has always been more important to me than a fuck buddy.

The contrast of my 'usual' to Lara was profound. I began to imagine what her dark-honey hair would look like freed from the knot she wore at the base of her neck. There wasn't much to see of her figure, dressed as she was in the shapeless chef's coat and baggy pants. But I could still make out the swell of her undoubtedly natural breasts and the tapering of her slim waist. She seemed impossibly small to do any kind of physical work. I can't be blamed for expecting someone much different. My mind's eye had had her built like a brick house with muscled arms and multiple piercings.

When Richard asked me if a female was okay, I had said yes without thinking. It simply never occurred to me that some  . . .
girl
would show up and knock the wind out of me just by being herself.

What I didn't conjure up was an angelic little face with cat's eyes that I could very much imagine locked with mine. I felt my groin stir in a very different way than I was used to. And I knocked Lara's image out of my head.

"Just what I don't need, Mrs. D. Right?" The monkey cocked her fuzzy head at me. She sensed a disturbance. "We'll keep our distance. Don't you be making a best friend out of our new cook."

I left her to spend the afternoon in her room and went out on deck. It was nearly lunchtime. If Rodrigo hadn't quit on us, we'd be at Paradise Island by now. Instead of wandering around Lauderdale looking for decent sushi, I'd be wolfing down some of Marley's conch fritters and heading for the blackjack tables.

Walking past the yachts swaying gently in their slips, I found myself getting annoyed and impatient. Killing time has never been easy for me. At least not on land. The sea was different. At sea, I felt peace. At sea, I was never bored.

I grabbed a taxi and told the driver to take me to the International Game Fish Association Museum. My father had endowed the museum generously every year for more than a decade and it was one of the few of his accomplishments that I genuinely took pride in. The IGFA was a damn good organization with a cause I held close to my heart.

Wandering the various rooms I was struck, as always, with the magnificence of the sea creatures the association worked so hard to protect. The sport was a bloody one, but it didn't have to be deadly. Catch and release was saving the billfish from certain extinction. Gone were the days of proud snapshots with some lucky angler and a dead five-hundred pound marlin hanging by its tail at his side. The new rules made it possible for guys like me to still enjoy the sport. Man had tried, but he hadn't killed all the behemoths yet.