Luck on the Line (23 page)

“Your ex-fiancé.”

“Yeah.”

Volcano. Volcano. Volcano.

James clears his throat again and continues. “There’s nothing to tell anymore. It was three years ago. We dated for about a year and got engaged right quick. I proposed because I knew that’s what she wanted. But I was still just a line cook and it wasn’t enough for her. So I broke it off. I didn’t want to be with someone who made me feel like shit after spending twelve hours a day working my ass off. When I went on the show she was all over me again, but I haven’t returned a single call since. The only time I see her name is when someone shows me whatever shit she writes about me in that gossip column.”

“She’s DO NOT ANSWER,” I say.

James nods, stuffing his hands in his jacket pocket. “That’s why I changed my number.”

“What does that have to do with me, James?” I shiver in the salty breeze. “What does that have to do with why you were a dick to me? We had a good time together and in seconds you turned into
that
guy.”

“I’m sorry.”

I wish he would stop saying that. I’m sorry doesn’t mean anything. “It’s done. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I was in a terrible mood. I don’t love her, but I also don’t want to see her again. There are some things about my past that you wouldn’t understand.”

Anger snakes around my heart. The heat in my chest getting to the point where I can’t stand it. “You haven’t even tried. How can you know I won’t understand?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It could be very simple to me,” I say. “At least I’ll get to see Clarissa for a second time.”

In the shadow of the trees, James’s face is stricken with shock. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she came to the restaurant the day after the fight. The day you didn’t show up because a family emergency you won’t talk about.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” He shouts.

“Why didn’t you tell
me
?” I shout back. “First you hate me. Then you can stand me. Then you fight for me and kiss me and—Why can you do all of those things except tell me about your past?”

James drops his face into his hands. He balls them into fists that stay firmly at his sides. “Because you wouldn’t want to know! You think you do, but you really don’t.”

I reach out to touch his chest, but he takes a step away. “I’m standing here telling you that I want to know.”

I take my phone and start looking through the photos. I decided to hide the original somewhere my mom or Felicity wouldn’t accidentally find.

“I thought we were talking, Lucky. What does Bradley need now?”

I decide to ignore that. I click on the picture I took of his mugshot and hold it out to his face. I watch his features go stone cold. He takes another step back.

“Clarissa gave me this,” I tell him. It’s surprising how freeing that feels. It’s also surprising how shitty it feels to watch his struggle with his explanation. “She must really hate you.”

James laughs bitterly. “My bike certainly thinks so.”

Our silence is broken by the long horn of a truck, the cry of sirens, and the laughter of nighttime revelers.

“Are you going to say anything?” I ask.

“What’s there for me to say? You’ve got everything about me right there.”

My anger licks at the wounds in my heart. “That’s what you want to say right now?”

“What more do you
want
?” he asks. “What do you want from me?”

“The truth!” I press my hands on his chest and push him. “I want an explanation, James. I’ve been waiting all this time, trying to get you to tell me yourself. Don’t you think I know what Clarissa was trying to do? I don’t care about her. I care about
you
. I care if your past is catching up to your present. I’m sorry for hoping that you would be the one to talk first. James I—”

“You don’t want to hear it, Lucky.” He presses his finger into his chest. He turns around as if he’s going to hop in his car and drive away from me. For a second, I think he just might. James turns around and lets out a frustrated scream. When he faces me, I don’t recognize the James I know in his features. His anger and pain distort him in the shadows. The sadness that cloaks him fills me and scares me, but I stand still.

“I do,” I say. I’m shaking. Even despite all of this I still want to put my arms around James. To tell him that there’s nothing he can say that’ll push me away. Except I’m not so certain. “I want to know.”

I think about what Sky said, that people only confess when they’ve been caught. Or they deny. There is no denial in James’s face. There is sheer, ugly acceptance.

“I’m the reason.” His words, slow and sorrowful, linger in the night. “I’m the reason she’s dead.”

It takes me a second to realize that he’s talking about his mother. I wanted the truth, and now here it is. James stares at me, waiting for me to speak, but I can’t.

“Do you know what it’s like to live
every
single day
knowing that you’re the reason your family is broken? That no matter how successful you can get, it doesn’t matter because no amount of money can bring her back?”

He waits for my response. I don’t have one.
This is what he went to jail for?
It’s like I’m seeing a whole different side of him. For days I’ve had pieces of him. Now I have the complete version and I don’t know what to say.

“I told you,” he tells me. “You didn’t want to know. Now you have your answers.”

“James!” I want him to understand that my silence isn’t because I think he’s no good. That I’m just trying to process it all. But he’s already in his car. I smack the side of the door, and he hits the gas pedal.

After a fitful night of sleep in which I dream of a sixteen year old James beating a guy to a pulp, I wake up with puffy eyes. It’s the morning of the tasting so I put my game face on: mascara, black cat eye, and lip balm. I put my dress on a hanger and zip it up in a garment bag along with Felicity’s dress, and it goes in the office until we can get ready before everything starts.

I line up my wait staff and go over the final details. The tasting menus are printed on gold card stock with beautiful black calligraphy. The dishes are listed in order of appearance: ricotta and rosemary honey on toast, roasted summer vegetable salad tossed with crispy chicken skin, crab bisque with crème fraîche and jalapeño croutons, fried oyster sliders with a purple cabbage cilantro relish, fried shrimp and crab dumplings, braised duck medallions with a cranberry sauce, lamb pops served with confit potato mash, and finishing it off with a “Boston” strip steak with sautéed garlic spinach.

If you ask me, you can’t just take the New York strip steak and call it Boston. But no one asked me, and I have too many things to worry about. Still, I can’t help but smile when I see the new additions and changes. Then I replay our conversation from last night and I have to force myself to focus on the task at hand.

“Does anyone have any questions?”

Junior raises his hand. “How’s the lamb cooked?”

“As per the chef’s recommendation, medium rare,” I say.

Junior’s hair is slicked back in a David Beckham pouf. His skin is ten times more polished than mine, giving him a radiant vibe. Beside him Sammy is in a matching white outfit. The white was Felicity’s idea. White on white with gold accents. Sammy’s lips are ruby red and ready to go. She takes fervent notes in a tiny flip pad.

When Stella met them it took about five minutes for her to warm up. Between Junior’s smile and Sammy’s perfect finger wave, Stella realized that it was the kind of glamour she wanted.

Felicity runs up behind me and whispers, “The other two waitresses just cancelled.”

“Are you fucking with me right now?” I shout.

“Nope.”

“Did they say why?”

“Something about the rain and traffic,” she says. “I hung up before they could finish.”

“Call some of the ‘maybes’ and see if any of them are available in the next three hours.” I run past where Junior and Sammy are setting up the tables, making sure everyone has the proper cutlery. We’ve decided to do five tables of six people each instead of one long banquet like Stella originally wanted.

I open a Staples box with the seating arrangements cards, the cardboard slicing through my finger. I curse like a sailor and stick my finger in my mouth to stop the blood. When I pull back the top, I’m frozen. Of course, out of any day for everything to start going wrong, it’s the day of the tasting. An intimate gathering of network execs, bloggers, and critics, and instead of their individual names, I have a dozen fuchsia birthday invitations to a quinceañera.

I take a seat in my mom’s chair. When Felicity and I left this morning she was still in her room with the door locked. I could have sworn I heard her leave in the morning, but I was probably dreaming.

I take the box of invitations and run them through the shredder. I think the sound of paper getting ripped into tiny pieces is kind of therapeutic in an insane kind of way. One time I was at this gallery in Chelsea where this artist sat on a platform and shredded paper nonstop for four days. It was kind of pretty, the way the paper got bunched up and looked like a waterfall when all was said and done. Sure, the artist learned to do that at an insane asylum, but that doesn’t mean it it’s not effective for lowering stress.

I see a letter on my mom’s table that I probably shouldn’t touch. It’s handwritten from a guy named Frank LaRosa. It says, “
A beautiful bouquet for a beautiful woman
.” I don’t see any bouquet. I look under the desk and there they are—wilting red roses. Why does that name sound familiar?

James knocks on the door and I jump. As much as I try, I can’t not look at him. The cut on his lip is completely mended.
Don’t look at his lips.
His bruises are barely noticeable.
Don’t look at his face.

“A cocktail for your thoughts,” he says.

“Don’t be cute.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve shamed him into silence. He still lingers at the door. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I mean, with all the opening stuff.”

Am I okay? He bared his soul to me last night and I stood there frozen and unable to react fast enough. So he left. Now he’s asking if
I’m
okay?

“Just have to find a way to get forty replacement name cards in two hours, no big deal.” I point to the neon pink paper in the shredder. “Are you okay? In the kitchen?”

“We’re good. I think.”

“You think?” I would very much like to stop breathing this instant. The smell of him makes my belly twist.

His hair still looks damp, from the rain or a shower or both. He’s got on a white v-neck and light jeans. He sticks a hand in his pocket and leans against the door.

I’d very much like him to walk in, throw everything off the desk and kiss me. I want him to look at me with those incredible sea-green eyes and tell me that he wants me. Over and over again, James Hughes wants me. That last night would just make us stronger.

But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead he smiles nervously, like he’s not sure if today is already here. I know that he needs some kind of assurance, and as his boss, I should be able to give it to him. As the girl he drove away from, I can’t bring myself to give him that kind of comfort. Besides, in a few weeks, I’ll be long gone.

“Well, you’d better be sure, Chef James. We’ve got lots of hungry mouths to feed. Critical mouths that are way more ruthless than I am.”

“That’s comforting.”

“That’s what I’m good at,” I say, without a trace of irony. Okay, I’m being a bitch. But I have a restaurant to put together. He can’t have it both ways.

“Luck—” he waits for me to look him in the eye. “Lucky. Felicity mentioned some of your staff called out.”

“Yeah. Do you happen to know anyone who can waitress on super short notice?” I change the subject.

He pushes himself off the doorframe and digs for his phone in his pocket. “It’s done.”

I don’t start panicking, truly, sweating and shaking in the sparkling white and gold bathroom (that no longer smells like shit), until 7PM. James’s friend, a woman in her thirties with a shamrock tattooed on the inside of her wrist and dusty blonde hair gets ready beside me.

“How’ya doin’?” she asks with a nod of her chin. “Izzy.”

“Lucky.”

I can tell she was beautiful once, and while she still is in a rough sort of way, her life has aged her. I shake her hand, then I unzip my dress from the garment bag.

“Thanks so much for coming on such short notice,” I tell her. “You’re a life saver.”

“Hope it’s okay I’m in all black.”

“It’s totally fine. We bought gold ties for everyone, so it’ll be a nice balance, I think. Plus most of these critics are here to get wasted for free, so I’m not too worried.”

She barks a hearty laugh. “Jimmy said you were funny.”

“James?” His name sounds too much on my tongue. Too eager. Too good. Too full of want.

She takes the gold tie from my hand, but holds on to my palm. “You’ll be great.”

I breathe, and that breath shakes my whole body like a shack in the middle of a hurricane. Why does it take a stranger to tell me that before I can actually believe it? More importantly, why isn’t my own mother here to tell me that?

“Thanks,” I smile as genuinely as I can. “James will get you up to speed on the menu.”

As she exits, I slip into my red dress. I pull my hair back into a high ponytail that tickles the middle of my back when it sways. I fix my cat eyes, smudged from sweating bullets, then add another coat of mascara. Because all of my shoes are Chuck Taylors or flip-flops, I had to get a pair of dress shoes. I picked black suede stilettos that hug my feet at just the right angles. The heel is only three inches, so I won’t murder myself while trying to walk.

“You look stunning,” Felicity says, setting down her clipboard on the sink. “People are arriving. Stella still isn’t here yet. The guy from Foodie TV is Mr. Duvet. You
have
to use the French pronunciation or he’ll make a face during dinner. Trust me. The staff is prepped and ready to not drop anything. They’re going to start passing the hors d’oeuvres in exactly 18 minutes. It’s raining so one of the busboys is manning coat check for the time being.”