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Laurel turned, looking up at a tall man in faded jeans and a blue jersey that had been washed so many times it was almost white. He wore glasses like the principal, Mr. Moss-square black frames with thick lenses that slid down his nose. Only Mr. Moss was old and mean … and this man was young. Through the light flashing off his lenses she could see that his eyes were smiling.

“Laurel?” he asked.

Laurel nodded, wary. Was he a teacher, is that how he knew her? Maybe. But even dumb little kindergartners knew you weren’t supposed to talk to strangers.

She started to back away; the man didn’t try to stop her. y

He smiled. “I’m Joe. Your sister said to look for the prettiest girl up on that stage, and I guess you’re it.”

What a lie! She looked awful, she knew she did. Still he seemed nice; he was probably saying it to make her feel better. He must have noticed that she was crying. She sniffed loudly.

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“Here,” he said, pulling a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and handing it to her.

“Thank you,” she said, blowing her nose into it.

“Hey, you think we could find a chair and sit down? Annie sent me over here to tell you she’s okay, and Dolly too. She’ll explain everything when she gets here.”

No, this man didn’t feel like a stranger. Just looking at him, she could tell he wasn’t bad.

Then something clicked in her head: Joe … the lobster man? It had to be him, those glasses and his wavy, blond-brown hair that looked as if he’d been too busy to do more than rake his fingers through it. He was just the way Annie had described him.

The cold spot in her stomach eased. All of a sudden, Laurel felt very tired. “Annie’s really okay?” she asked. “And Aunt Dolly?” She had to fight to keep from yawning.

“Sure, they are. They just got … held up. Nothing to worry about, Annie said she’ll be home before you know it. So why don’t I take you back, and we’ll wait for her. How does that sound?”

“Okay.” Laurel yawned. “Then you can see our Christmas tree. The one you gave us.”

“Tree … what tree?”

“The one Annie traded the lobster for.”

Joe stared at her for a moment, then started to laugh. “She did that?” He shook his head. “Your sister is really something.” He squatted down so that she could see into his eyes, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. “She told me about … well, your leaving home and coming here. I think both of you are pretty brave.”

Laurel felt cold again. He knew! Annie had told him? Nobody but Aunt Dolly was supposed to know.

“Are you going to tell?” she whispered.

Joe just kept looking at her, his eyes steady and serious, like the look Miss Rodriguez got when she stood up in front of the class to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to tell.”

And she believed him.

Now he was rocking back on his heels, and rising, up and up, becoming even taller than before, it seemed.

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Looking up at him, Laurel felt dizzy. He held out his hand, and she took it without hesitating. Big and warm and dry, his fingers curled about her hand, making her feel safe.

She thought about Santa Claus, a fat elf in a red suit with a bushy white beard, who she used to think was a real person. Now it occurred to her that if Santa was real he might not look like that. Not old and short and whitehaired. He might be a tall man, and young-not much older than Annie-wearing faded jeans and a blue polo shirt washed so many times it was almost white, with glasses that slipped down his nose, and eyes that crinkled up at the corners when he smiled.

Watching Rudy go out the door. Dolly wondered, Did he believe me?

Feeling lightheaded, she sagged against the counter, Tom between relief and worry. Had she overplayed it? Acted too helpful? After she’d told him she hadn’t the slightest idea where her nieces were, did she have to go on and on about all the places where they might have gone? And her acting so friendly, practically falling all over him, had that made his antennae go up? Lord knows, she’d never liked Rudy … and in the old days, she hadn’t tried too hard to hide it.

A memory came to her. She’d been dating Val, and they’d gone to a big Beverly Hills lawn party. When Val introduced this ugly sawed-off gnome as his brother, she was sure it had to be some kind of joke. The two didn’t look the least bit related. Then later, Rudy had cornered her in the gazebo, where she’d been taking a breather from all the guys coming on to her. He’d had too much to drink, but even so, she’d seen the sly intent in his piggy eyes as he blurted, “You’re wasting your time with Val … he’s in love with somebody else.”

She had felt her face flush, and before she could stop herself, she asked, “Who?”

Rudy grinned, and tossed back the rest of his drink. “Himself. Who else? And, believe me, you can’t compete. Nobody could.”

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,

Now, standing in her shop, hugging herself to keep from trembling, Dolly thought, He’s crude … but definitely not stupid. Isn’t that why Val sent him? Sure, Rudy the bigshot lawyer, she’d heard Val say he was a whiz at crossexamining witnesses in court, trying to get them to trip up and admit stuff they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Had she let something slip without realizing it? Or maybe he’d caught her glancing toward the stairs, on which she’d been half terrified Annie might appear at any moment?

No, she told herself, I was careful. I was an actress, wasn’t I? And even a failed B-movie flop like herself could pull off something as easy as pretending not to know where a couple of teenage girls she supposedly hadn’t seen in years might have gone off to.

Still, Rudy’s last words as he was leaving kept buzzing inside her head like a fly against a windowpane: “You’ll let me know when you hear from them?”

Sure, she’d said. You betcha.

Now, as she straightened, and started for the stairs to get Annie, it struck Dolly: Rudy hadn’t said if you hear from them. , . .

He’d said when.

A slip of the tongue? Or did it mean something?

Either way, she thought, the day that little bigshot Rudy and his stuck-on-himself brother heard from her would be the day she’d have a snowball fight in hell.

Joe stared into the saucepan at the curdled mornay, and had to clench his jaw to keep from really losing it this time. Holt had left the sauce to boil, again, and now it was ruined-history.

Jesus, where had the kid been his two years at the Culinary Institute-in the toilet, where he was now?

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS I $3

If only Rafael were here. But his sous-chef had had to run off to Puerto Rico to look after a sick dog. A stud pit bull, no less. Joe didn’t know what Rafy and his brothers did with those dogs besides breed them. But when it came to whipping up a perfect sabayon, b้arnaise, or beurre blanc, one thing he did know was that Rafael had the touch of an angel.

But now he needed more than Rafy; he needed a double dose of Irish luck. Because upstairs, at about this very moment, Nan Weatherby had to be dipping her spoon into her Navajo sweet potato soup.

He’d spotted the food critic when he’d dashed upstairs to help Maria set up for a party of eight that had wandered in without a reservation. No one was supposed to recognize Metropolitan magazine’s arbiter of the food scene; but that braying laugh of hers, and those thin penciled lines drawn where her eyebrows should have been, he’d remembered them from years ago. She must’ve been a stringer back then, interviewing his father for a piece on New York State Appellate Division judges. She’d even snapped his picture, along with his father’s. Though, of course, she’d never remember him-he had been twelve or so at the time.

And now, with one sentence, she could ruin him. And his father’s oft-repeated warnings would all come true.

Joe’s belly felt as if it had an iron bore in it, twisting up and up, filling his mouth with a bitter taste.

Christ, just cool it, will you? I’m a good chef. Not great, maybe … but pretty damn good. If things could start going right for a change-if Holt got with it, and if Burke and Maria between them could handle the tables upstairs witr๎but Nunzio, who was out sick. If, if, if …

Well, Aaybe … just maybe … he could pull it off.

Hell, he had to.

First, the mornay. La Weatherby had ordered salmon as a main course. No choice but to start a new batch.

Joe grabbed for the pan with the ruined sauce, jerking it off its burner. Pain from the overheated handle shot

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through his hand. Jesus! Forcing himself not to drop it, Joe swung the saucepan over and thunked it onto the stainless counter. Then he ran cold water over his throbbing palm.

At the refrigerated locker that spanned the kitchen’s far end, Joe reached in and grabbed a cardboard tray of eggs, which he carried over to the center work station. As he cracked and separated, he found himself thinking of Cloetta, his family’s cook since Creation-a somehow ageless figure bent over their kitchen’s old-fashioned tiled counter. He saw her large, rough, mahogany-colored hands cracking eggs into a yellow bowl, then guiding his own small ones, pale and clumsy, trying to do the same.

Yes, Cloetta had believed in him, no matter how many times he messed up. And then with time, he had learned. All the magic those big, dark hands brought forth from the kitchen she ruled. Rich, savory Virginia-style gumbo. Beaten biscuits light as a feather. Spicy, cloveperfumed duck with honey-marmalade glaze. Sausage stew flavored with fennel and cumin, covered in a crackling corn-bread crust.

And never any recipes-she couldn’t read or write. So what she’d passed on to Joe was all the more precious. No written words, just a certain lightness of touch, how to measure with your eyes, and how to know the exact moment a sauce was peaking.

As he whisked egg yolks, Joe willed himself to imagine a glorious future.

Three stars from Nan Weatherby, or even two (let’s not be greedy) would bring him all the bookings he could handle. He’d seen it. The Belgravia, L’Assiette, Purple Broccoli. So why not Joe’s Place?

Four thousand in rent due in thirteen days, and he might do more than just barely scrape by. He might actually wind up with a few thousand to spare.

He began to feel excited, but only for a minute. Nan Weatherby, he remembered with a pang, gave mostly scathing reviews. Acid, that’s what she’d dumped on Le Marais: The lighting was funereal, which, considering the sadly wilted salad and sorry excuse for a b้arnaise blan-

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keting the decomposed trout, was probably a mercy… .

Le Marais, one of the best, went out of business eight weeks later.

His father’s voice, dry and measured, droned in his head: / can’t stop you, Joseph. Your grandmother left that money in your name, and it’s yours to do with as you wish. But let me say one thing: You’ll fail. Inside a year, you’ll be out of business. I’m not simply guessing … it’s a fact. You’ll fail us, and yourself, the way you failed that poor girl at Yale, and so needlessly.

Caryn.

All day, her memory had been pushing at him with an odd insistence, and then it struck him: Today would have been Caryn’s birthday, her twenty-fourth… .

Joe squeezed his eyes shut. He felt the throbbing of his burned hand spread up into his chest.

No, he mustn’t think about Caryn. Not now. No time.

He snatched a clean saucepan from its hook, and poured in clarified butter into which he whisked a few tablespoons of flour. Next, he added hot fish stock from the huge cast-aluminum kettle on the back burner. When the mixture was simmering, he added several more cups of stock. Now came the hard part-hurry up and wait.

While he stirred, waiting for the sauce to thicken, Joe looked about the kitchen. Long and narrow, like a railway car, with old brick walls the color of sun-dried tomatoes, black-and-white floor tiles worn to a smooth depression in the center, a flaky pressed-tin ceiling. He remembered Dad seeing it for the first time and declaring, What this place needs is a wrecking ball. Joe had cringed inside, but only for a minute. He already was in love with its deep enamel sinks, its hulking eight-burner Vulcan range, and the enormous brick hearth that dominated one end.

You’re wrong, Dad, he thought, I’m not going to fail. But if I do, it’s on my head. You can be damn sure I’ll never come begging to you.

In his mind, he was seeing Annie Cobb, remembering her calling him that night-was it only a week ago?-

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the stiff-necked, even dignified way she’d asked his help. With one oven out and the place fully booked, why had he dropped everything just because a girl he barely knew asked him to?

He couldn’t explain it, not even to himself. But something in Annie had touched him. With those big eyes of hers, she made him think of a half-starved alley cat—tough, independent, but also a bit lost.

Now Annie and her little sister thought he was some big hero. What a laugh. He’d be lucky if he could keep his own head above water.

Joe was nudged back to reality by the sight of hulking, ginger-haired Holt shambling into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. In spite of his annoyance with the kid, Joe felt a twinge of pity. Holt Stetson. Jesus, a movie cowboy’s name with the face and body of Bullwinkle the Moose, he had to be the butt of a million jokes.

“Holt!” He was trying not to yell. He pointed at the ruined mornay. “What do you expect me to do with this … hang wallpaper? Christ, man, I’ve got ten minutes to deliver a miracle to Nan Weatherby and you’re off scratching your ass!”

Holt reddened. “I’m sorry, Joe, I-“

“Here.” Joe thrust the whisk at him. “Take over while I grill the salmon. And don’t forget the lemon juice.”

“Ay, Joe! The dishwasher ees makin’ that funny noise again!” shouted Julio from the small room in back, drowning out Holt. “You choor the man fix the hose like ee say?”

God, yes, he could hear it, a faint clunkety-clunketyclunk amid the hiss of hot water and rattle of china. Shit.