Chapter 9
A
LTHOUGH I WAS
beat, Katie had been adamant about giving me an after-work cooking lesson. Who cared if it was 9:00
P
.
M
.
? Not her. Tigger pranced around the cottage, checking her out as she set food items on the counter. We rarely had guests this late. Katie had brought her mother’s old
Betty Crocker Cookbook
, the checkerboard cover splattered with who-knew-what. Bailey, Katie’s accomplice, sat at the kitchen table, her finger propping up the raised arm of the Lucky Cat. Two minutes ago, she had affixed it with superglue. The appendage was so heavy, she couldn’t let go until the glue set.
Tough break
, I thought with more than a bit of spite as I yawned and stretched.
“Making tomato soup isn’t hard,” Katie assured me. She set a pound of tomatoes, an onion, and herbs on a cutting board. Next, she pulled out a blender that I had yet to utilize. “A chop of this, a dash of that. I use homemade chicken stock at the café, but when I’m in a rush at home, I put in a natural, no-additives broth. You don’t pour in the cream until the very last because you don’t want it to curdle. In thirty minutes, snap, it’s done. Serve it with a chunk of bread, and you have a full meal.”
“I ate dinner,” I said. “I’m not hungry.” By the time Bailey and I had returned to The Cookbook Nook after our grocery run, the store and café were bustling with customers. When the buyers at the shop petered out around 8:00
P.M.
, we closed, and I downed one of Katie’s specials. The Brazilian fish had been so spicy, I had needed three glasses of water. But, yum!
“One can never turn down tomato soup,” Katie said.
“It’s the perfect complement to a grilled cheese sandwich,” I replied. As I said the words, I thought of my mother. She had loved cold days with warm lunches. Perfect
painting-and-wrapping-oneself-in-emotions
days
, she had called them. How I missed her and her positive attitude, her sunny smile, and our moments discussing artists’ styles and nuances.
“Ooh, grilled cheese,” Katie crooned, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Do you have cheddar?”
“No-o-o,” I said, putting a damper on her fun. “I’ll agree to a light meal and no more. Then bed. I’m beat.”
“Spoilsport,” Bailey said.
I mock glowered at her. “We have a full day tomorrow. So much to do before Natalie Mumford’s memorial.” Out of respect, we had agreed to close the shop for those two hours. It was the least we could do.
Bailey said, “By the way, did you note the run on grilled cheese cookbooks today? It’s a mania. I ordered an overnight shipment. Hopefully, we’ll get them before the Grill Fest resumes tomorrow afternoon.”
I popped open a bottle of chardonnay. Tigger startled and nearly did a somersault. “Cool it, kitty,” I said then poured three short glasses of wine and handed one to each of my friends.
Bailey frowned. “How exactly am I supposed to drink that?”
“You have a free hand. Put down the tube of glue.”
She glanced at the tube and laughed. “I think it’s stuck to my skin. I’ve never been good at arts and crafts.”
I helped pry her loose.
After she took a sip of wine, she said, “Better than caffeine any day. Now, did you tell Katie about the scene at the grocery store?”
“What scene?” Katie asked.
“Between Mitzi and Sam.” I recounted the event.
“No way.” Katie wagged a finger. “I don’t believe Sam had a thing for Natalie. I mean, honestly, he’s an upstanding guy. He manages so many accounts in town. Two at Fisherman’s Village. Why, he even managed my former boss’s account.” Katie used to be the personal chef for an affluent widower who’d died at the ripe age of ninety-seven. “Sure, there was some talk.”
“About Sam having an affair?” I said.
“No, nothing that risqué.” She wriggled her nose. “I’m not one to gossip.”
Bailey nearly snorted wine out her nose.
Katie skewered her with a look. “Okay, maybe I am. I like to be in the
know.
”
“Me, too,” Bailey said. “Share.”
“Mr. Powers, my boss . . . One day he asked Sam about a section of his portfolio. Sam had terminated it without Mr. Powers’s approval, but Sam assured him that he had simply moved money to a better-positioned account. Sort of a day trade. In the end, Mr. Powers was satisfied.”
Bailey moaned. “I dated a day trader once. The guy was as hyper as a three-year-old on a sugar diet.”
I said, “That doesn’t address whether there’s any truth to Sam having an affair with Natalie.”
“Right.” Katie laid a hand to her chest. “But I’m talking about character. Sam visited old man Powers often. He chatted him up as if he were his doting son. Never once did they talk about Sam’s interest in anyone but Mitzi. And I listened in. You know me.”
“Miss No Gossip,” Bailey teased.
Katie shot her a scathing look. “I mean, I don’t trust many folks. I didn’t want Sam or anyone for that matter taking advantage of the old guy, you know?” She sipped her wine. “Wouldn’t we have heard something gossip-wise at the shop about Sam before this?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s not like Mitzi and Sam are regular customers. Do you know, Mitzi actually bragged to me that she never uses recipes from cookbooks?”
“The gall,” Katie said.
“I thought it was sort of funny, like she had no filter.”
“You could mention the alleged affair to Cinnamon,” Bailey said.
My turn to spew wine. “Are you kidding? And make her think that I’m snooping?”
“You are.”
“No, thank you. Not interested.”
“Jenna, cut up tomatoes.” Katie pulled a knife from the block and brandished it at me.
In the past month, I had become pretty comfortable mixing things with a spoon. And I was good with a steak knife when eating meat. But slicing and dicing things that could go squirt in the night . . . all by my lonesome? Save me.
“It’s easy.” Katie demonstrated, chopping as fast as one of the chefs on television.
I blanched. “Not a chance.”
But Katie wouldn’t let up. Relenting, I took the knife and slowly, methodically cubed the tomatoes repeating a new mantra in my head:
No fear. No fear. No fear.
“Not bad,” she said. “Practice makes—”
“Music,” I finished, remembering another of my mother’s favorite sayings. In addition to being an artist, she had played guitar. Much to my chagrin, I couldn’t pluck a string to save my soul. I wasn’t bad with a harmonica; I could play a few pieces on the piano, too.
As I attempted to snip rosemary with a pair of kitchen shears, Bailey asked, “What’s this?” She displayed the bottom of the cat statue to me. “There’s writing. I think it’s Chinese. What does it say?”
I started for the Lucky Cat, but Katie stopped me.
“No, ma’am. Do not lose your focus. Cooking requires your full attention. Put all the ingredients in the blender and turn it on.” When Katie was certain I was on task, she headed for Bailey. “It probably says:
Made in China
.”
“I don’t think so,” Bailey said. “It looks handwritten, not factory-printed.”
Katie peered at the writing. “Hoo-boy, that’s a lot more than three characters.” She fluttered her fingers. “Wait. I’m getting a vibe. It means . . . It means . . .”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I warned. “Don’t start talking like Aunt Vera.”
“But I really do think it means something,” Katie said. “You know, like a fortune cookie fortune:
Avoid taking unnecessary gambles
.” She laughed. “As if any gamble is necessary.”
Bailey said, “What if David is sending you a message from the beyond?”
I shivered.
“Maybe the words say:
Every departure is an entrance to new adventures
.” Bailey rubbed the Lucky Cat’s belly. “Speak to me, precious cat statue. Speak.” She screeched out a cat’s yowl.
Spooked, Tigger leaped at my legs.
“For heaven’s sake,” I said. “Stop it. You’re freaking out the kitten.” I reached down to calm him at the same time that I hit Pulse on the blender. Like a volcano, tomatoes and herbs spewed upward. “Oh no!” Thanks to Bailey’s banter and Tigger’s surprise attack, I had forgotten to put on the blender’s lid. I stabbed the Off button. It didn’t matter. The kitchen looked like a crime scene: red goo upward, sideways, and everywhere.
Bailey and Katie cackled.
I grumbled. “It’s not funny. Help me clean it up.”
“Don’t get snarky.” Bailey set the porcelain cat aside; its arm held. She scrambled to her feet. “Really, you should find out what these words mean.”
“I will.”
An hour later, after I used three entire rolls of paper towels dampened with a mixture of vinegar and water to clean up the sticky tomato mess, and after I diligently made a batch of tomato soup that Katie said was pretty darned decent, my pals left.
Late into the night I searched the Internet for an interpretation of the writing on the bottom of the Lucky Cat, but because I was unable to draw the characters into the search bar—I didn’t own a scanner, so I couldn’t copy them digitally, either—I wound up stymied. The Chinese alphabet had thousands upon thousands of characters as well as countless styles: Ancient, Kai Shu, Xing. If I’d been so inclined, I could have learned to paint the characters with a choice of paintbrushes made out of rabbit, squirrel, or badger hair. Bleary-eyed, I fell into a restless sleep wondering whether the message on the bottom of the statue related to the gold coins, while at the same time hating David for leaving me with such a puzzle.
Except, of course, I didn’t hate him. I missed him.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING,
I woke with a start. A slim ray of sunshine peeked through the break in the curtains. Tigger pounced onto the bed and kneaded my chest through the comforter.
“No way, mister.” I plucked him off the spread and tucked him beneath the sheet. Instantly contented, he curled into me while I, wired and wide-awake, stared at the ceiling. What had awakened me? Had I dreamed something horrible? Had I heard a noise?
Unwilling to feel paranoid or sorry for myself, I clambered out of bed, donned my running clothes, knotted my hair with a covered rubber band, and headed outside for my daily walk/run.
A thick, foggy drizzle made it hard to differentiate between the ground and the ocean, not to mention that the sand felt mushy beneath my feet. Worried about twisting an ankle, I headed to the main road. With few cars out, I jogged in the lane instead of along the shoulder. I breathed in three counts and out four counts. After a few minutes, my shoulders relaxed. After five minutes, those teensy muscles that bind the ribcage together loosened.
As I was nearing The Pier, which due to the fog looked like a thin haze of charcoal gray, I heard a car coming up behind me. I twisted my head to look but couldn’t see anything. No headlights. No blur of color. I moved to the right and peeked over my shoulder again. A car was nearing. A dark sedan. Suddenly it was bearing down upon me. In the bicycle lane.
“Hey,” I yelled, like that would have done any good.
It didn’t. The driver seemed to be aiming straight for me. I flailed my arms. The car continued to head in my direction.
Fight-or-flight took hold. With my heart ramming my ribcage like a sledgehammer, I dodged to my right, skidded on the gravel, and stumbled. I hit a soft spot that gave way, and I tumbled down a small decline held together by scrub brush and weeds. The branches scraped me, but their assault was nothing compared to the beating I could have taken from a two-ton vehicle.
“Jerk.” I got to my feet and scrambled up the embankment to see if I could glimpse the offending car’s license plate. I couldn’t even make out what kind of car it was. I pounded pavement after the vehicle, but seconds into the chase I realized my pursuit was a lost cause. The fog had consumed any memory of the encounter.
Deciding that running on the sand might be safer after all, I headed back down the embankment. As I reached the sand, I glanced occasionally at the road, hoping that the driver would come back to check on me. No such luck. So much for having concern for one’s fellow man.
