Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (140 page)

I nodded again and then thanked her.

As my soul left my body, I could make out the sounds of her heels as she moved on to Allison, who a few seconds earlier had looked over at me, her eyes bugging out like a giant insect from an old B horror movie.

CHAPTER 6

“Here’s to us, Abby Craig,” David said, knocking his glass hard into my bottle. “Drink up, roomie!”

I gave him a thumbs up with my free hand and took a big gulp of the Black Butte Porter.

“I just knew this would work!” he said, ripping open the Cheetos bag and stuffing a handful in his mouth.

It had only been a few weeks since David had moved in and it was a little premature to call it a success. But the truth was that it hadn’t been too bad living with him so far. He had kept his moods in check and was fun most of the time. And since Kate had moved to Portland, I had been a little lonely in the house. We talked on the phone a lot, but it wasn’t the same.

The only down side really was Sebastian, his pet turtle. If I got too close to his glass enclosure, the smell would hit my stomach like a bad enchilada and just seeing that leathery head poke out of the shell gave me the creeps.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s been pretty good so far.”

During the few challenging moments I reminded myself that I was being a good friend. David had lost his old place at the end of the year and I had the extra bedroom and offered it to him until he could find something else. But I had growing doubts about that last part. I had the feeling David was getting comfortable in his new life with me.

I got up and put another log on the fire.

“Are you sure I can’t make you something stronger?” he said. “It’ll warm you right up. It is Friday night after all.”

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

“Hey, we’re going out later and you’re welcome to come along if you’d like,” he said.

“Another time. I’m living the dream right here. I’ve been thinking about this all week, sitting on the sofa and watching TV.”

We were going with a classic, Agatha Christie’s
Ten Little Indians
. David had really gotten into old black and white movies lately, calling them part of his film studies.

“I love the music in this,” he said a few minutes in. “It’s so atmospheric.”

He drained his drink and shot up, disappearing into the kitchen and then returning with his glass full and a bottle under his arm. He set both down on the table. Apparently, he was also continuing his vodka studies.

“Don’t worry, Abby Craig. I’m not driving tonight. Liam is picking me up.” Liam was David’s new boyfriend. “How was your day, by the way?”

“Nothing new.” I sighed. “The instructor hated my entrée. Again.”

“Don’t stress. It’s too early to impress that kind of teacher. I know the type. She’s not going to like anything until the end of the class. You’ll see. I bet she didn’t like anybody’s dish, right?”

“Well, almost. She liked Miguel’s dish.”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, he doesn’t count,” David said. “Hey, speaking of Miguel, when are you coming to the gym with me?”

I paused the movie and gave him a look.

“What?” he said and giggled. “I’m just saying that you have to be careful, Abby Craig. It’s common knowledge that culinary school poses certain caloric challenges. And your new pal can’t be a good influence, checking in at 500 pounds. I just don’t want to see you going down a wrong path.”

I wondered how he knew what Miguel looked like and then I remembered he saw him in the parking lot once when he dropped me off at the college.

“First off, Miguel is not 500 pounds,” I said as I punched him softly. “Well, not quite anyway. And second, what are you saying exactly?”

David lifted his eyebrows and then took a long drink as he shrugged and looked away.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, Norton,” I said. “Are you calling me fat?”

Since I had started school, I had put on a little weight. I nibbled and tasted things all day and ended up skipping a lot of workouts. I had also dropped out of the indoor soccer league for the season. It was a bad combo.

He put down his glass and held out his arms.

“Not fat exactly. Maybe you’ve just gotten big boned since September. And, hey, for all I know Ty is a
baby got back
kind of guy. I’m just saying you might want to keep an eye on the scale.”

I punched him again.

“Ouch, that one hurt, Abby Craig.”

I glanced down at my stomach. I couldn’t see a beer belly. Not yet anyway. But maybe it was time to take some action.

“All right, you
might
have a point. My pants do feel a little tight. I need to get back to the gym.”

“Yay,” he said, clapping. “Start coming with me next week.”

David had asked me to coach him several months ago when he was getting ready for an upcoming scene involving a lot of running. And somehow, he was still going strong, joining my gym and going there more often than I did. 

“Okay, I’ll meet you there after school,” I said. “And thanks for caring.”

“Remember when I fell into that donut hole after my series was canceled? You’re the one who pulled me out and dusted me off. I’m just trying to return the favor.”

I hit the play button.

Hugh Lombard was making eyes at Ann Clyde while my own eyes grew heavy.

But it was a good heavy.

CHAPTER 7

I said goodbye to Lyle and Mo and shuffled out to the Jeep like an old man, watching the flakes float down and sparkle in the headlights of the few cars going by. I smiled up at the night as I scraped the windshield, my fingers quickly getting numb.

I slid behind the wheel and checked the back seat. No ghosts this time.

Sometimes you gotta take what they give you.

Almost two feet of snow lined the edges of the street and although the road had been plowed and graveled recently, it was still slick.

Ty wouldn’t be home for several more hours, but I decided to head over to his place anyway. Sometimes it was easier to study there. No David. Plus, with the roads the way they were, I thought it best to get the drive out of the way.

I took my time, thinking about Ty and his plans for opening his own place. When he had first mentioned the idea back in the summer, I thought he wasn’t serious, but as the months went by the idea seemed to take root and bloom larger in his mind. He talked about it almost every day, about the different beers he would brew and about how I would be the executive chef.

It made me laugh.

“What?” he had said.

“Well, maybe I should finish school first before being an executive of something.”

But I played along most of the time and we ended up having long conversations about how cool it would be.

He always referred to it as
our
restaurant. But I wasn’t sure where the road would take me after culinary school. I might have to go to Portland or some other city, which I was fine with. Wherever I ended up I knew I had to put in my time and learn the business. Really learn.

I wanted to succeed at this. Not play at it.

But Ty said I could do it if I wanted to, that I really was that good, and that together we could make it happen. I told him that maybe we should get a dog first and see how that went. Then somewhere down the line, a business.

“You’re always fighting it,” he said one night as he held me in his arms.

“Fighting what?”

“How good you are. How good we are together.”

“I guess I’m just a natural born fighter,” I said, tagging him with a playful uppercut.

But it wasn’t always self-doubt that kept me from fully embracing the idea. Sometimes I thought about the numbers. In my business class I had learned that 80 percent of restaurants fail within the first two years.

There were a lot of hopes and dreams and skills that made up that percentage. As much as I believed in him and in my own ability to one day become a good chef, I wasn’t sure what Ty and I would bring to the table that would make us stand out. Luck wasn’t much of a business plan.

But he wasn’t worried. He said that we would go into it with both eyes open, start small, and grow. “Just like our relationship. Slow and steady.”

When I was able to let go of the anxiety, I had to admit that the idea of operating our own place in Bend was exciting. Really, I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do. Or anybody I would rather do it with.

CHAPTER 8

He was waiting on the sidewalk when I got to Ty’s place.

I stood by the Jeep for a second before walking toward him. He dug his hands in his pockets.

“I haven’t felt this cold in a long time,” he said.

“Do you want to come in?” I said, hoping he would say no.

“No, I wouldn’t want to impose, especially after the other night, in the back seat.”

“I’m over that,” I said.

Just then a cat ran out of the shadows and started rubbing up against my boot. Charles Modine reached down to pet it. His hand passed right through the thick fur and flesh and bone and out the other side, but the cat didn’t seem to mind. I could hear it purring.

“You a dog person or a cat person?” he said.

“Whether I like it or not, I suppose these days I’m a turtle person.”

He stood up and lit a cigarette.

“Sarah and I, we were cat people.”

I gave him a slight nod.

“I was coming back from the store one night and it was really coming down,” he said. “You know, like they say, cats and dogs. Anyway, I’m not sure how I heard it over the rain and the sounds of the traffic, but there was this tiny cry that somehow caught my attention. I stopped and listened for a moment but didn’t hear anything. I almost went back along my way, but then I heard it again.”

I noticed more of the accent this time. Back East somewhere, maybe New York.

“It was meowing. High pitched and desperate. I looked down to where the sound was coming from and there it was, this wet rat. At least that’s what it looked like. I’ll tell you, if it wasn’t for the meowing, I would have left it there. Anyway, it was right at the edge of a storm drain, trapped in a pile of leaves and other trash and about to be washed away or drowned or both.

“I fished it out and brought it home. Hell, I didn’t know what else to do. I was sure we would take it to the pound the next day but the minute Sarah saw it, there was no going back.

“We liked our coffee black so we didn’t have any milk or creamer or anything like that for it that first night. Sarah got it in her head to make it a waffle. I thought no way, but that kitten went to town on it.”

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

“She named it Mister Waffles. We had that cat for years.”

I walked down the cobblestone path to the front door, Modine trailing behind.

“You should come in,” I said, opening the door.

“Well, maybe for—”

He suddenly looked over his shoulder.

“Actually, this isn’t a good time for me,” he said. “I’ll catch you later.”

He was gone before I could say “Okay.”

CHAPTER 9

The dreams began with Chef Dubois angrily waving a ladle in front of my face in the culinary school’s demonstration room. My classmates huddle around us, laughing, stretching their lips back to reveal rows and rows of pointy, razor-sharp teeth. The sound of their demonic laughter makes the walls shake.

A moment later, I’m fist-pumping hard into the air as Ty jumps off a springboard and makes a perfect three-rotation dive into a vat of bubbling beer.

Then I’m running through a dense forest being chased by a small girl with ribbons in her hair and a sharp knife in her hand. She darts through the trees like a jackrabbit, coming closer and closer, shouting, “21-foot Rule! 21-foot Rule!”

The girl disappears and the dense woods fade abruptly like at the end of a movie reel.

And the atmosphere suddenly changes.

Diesel fumes and rancid fruit and urine hit my nostrils, the scents rising up from the concrete, mixing and floating in the air around me like ghosts.

Overhead, the night is giving way to dawn as the last stars burn out and disappear. Tall buildings rise up on all sides, crowding around a narrow swath of sky. Their shadows keep the city in night.

A siren screams in the distance, howling out like a dog mourning its dead owner.

I walk alone, passing closed shops and restaurants, newsstands and subway entrances. Over cracked sidewalks and past crumbling stoops as plastic bags scrape across the ground in the breeze.

Nothing looks familiar.

The sound of metal on metal pierces the air as a delivery man on the other side of the street opens the back of a truck. An old woman in shabby tatters leans over and picks through some trash. Somewhere a bakery comes to life, the smell of yeast and warm sugar whispering to me.

The city is yawning and stretching as a new day begins.

I’ve never been here, but for some reason, I don’t feel lost. I don’t feel anything in fact, except a strange uneasiness in the pit of my stomach that grows larger with each step.

I turn down a dark alley lined with backdoors and trash bins and brick. A cold, dark wind blows through me.

This is a place that never sees the sun. Even on the brightest, hottest of summer days, it only knows the shadows.

I begin shivering.

I pass a man sleeping under cardboard, the smell of bad wine and neglect heavy in the air. He groans and readjusts his paper blankets as I walk by. 

The end of the alley comes into focus. I force my feet to keep moving, even as the uneasiness grows.

Suddenly, a noise rips open the darkness from behind me. A muffled rumble grows into a roar, the sound amplified by the claustrophobic brick buildings.

Small fingers of fear begin to clutch my heart.

I stop dead in my tracks and turn around, squinting, as the alley turns white in the headlights.

The fingers squeeze harder.