Gone With a Handsomer Man (18 page)

By the time Coop returned, I’d found towels in the laundry room. I set one on the counter for him. He put down the groceries, lifted the towel, and rubbed it over his head.

T-Bone was still on the screened porch off the dining room. When he saw Sir, he stood on his hind legs, revealing a furry white belly. He looked more like the abominable snowman than a dog.

I sat on a bar stool. The house was chilly, and my wet clothes made me shiver. I rubbed my forehead. I’d jumped in bed with him too fast—the exact opposite of what I’d done in the old days. Back then, I hadn’t jumped fast enough.

“Who left who?” I blurted, wondering if I should’ve said who left whom?

“It’s not that simple, Teeny.” Coop ripped the plastic off the steaks and set them on a wooden board.

I waited for him to continue. He opened a cabinet and pulled out jars and boxes. Sea salt, pepper, meat tenderizer.

“You got any espresso beans?” I asked. “If so, I’ll make a rub.”

“Sure.” He looked relieved because the topic had shifted to food preparation, but he didn’t know me. If I didn’t chop, fry, or dice, I’d have a conniption fit. Cooking was the only way to calm down. I’d witnessed Aunt Bluette’s gentle guiding hand with Mama, controlling her excess energy through productive kitchen work, so it was only natural that I would use food as a stress-reduction tool.

He moved to another cabinet and pulled out a bag and a grinder. I opened the bag and sniffed the beans. I thought I detected a fruity aroma. “Are they flavored?” I asked.

“No.” He laughed. “Why?”

“Raspberry espresso makes a horrid rub.”

“The beans came from Ethiopia,” he said.

I thought of Ava and her Sudanese dig as I ground the beans and shook them into a glass bowl. “I need chili powder and Hungarian paprika, if you’ve got it.” I paused. “So, why did you and Ava separate?”

“We grew apart.”

“Why?”

“You ever ask easy questions?”

“Not when you’re answering my questions with a question.” I paused. “Did she have a lover?”

“What makes you think that?”

“She looks the type.”

“No. At least, I’m pretty sure she didn’t.”

“Did you have a mistress?”

“Hell, no. How can you ask that?”

“Easy. You’re married to her and you’re screwing me.” Just like he’d been dating me and screwing Barb.

I poured the spices into the bowl and stirred them with a fork. I pointed to the meat. “While I’m doing this, could you rinse the steaks and pat them dry with a paper towel?”

“Why? To make the rub stick?”

“Well, yes, but it just freshens up the meat. Washes off the grocery goop. So, if nobody was unfaithful, what went wrong? And don’t say ‘we drifted.’ It’s got to be more than a drift.” I blinked. “Where’s your sugar?”

He kissed me.

“Not that kind,” I said.

“I love how your mind works, Teeny. Like a bird hopping from twig to twig, never losing sight of the worm.” He handed me a twisted bag of brown sugar. I shoved a spoon inside. I hated being compared to a bird. Bing hadn’t liked my brain. He’d accused me of being simple, but I could focus when I had to. Like now. I wanted to know more about Coop’s marriage and his dashing, motorcycle-riding bride.

“Tell me about Ava,” I said. “Tell me everything.”

I added a pinch of sea salt and a grind of pepper. Then I dragged the fork through the seasonings. Coop pulled up a stool and leaned against the counter.

“Can we talk about this later? Because I hate to go from making sweet love to you to my problems with Ava.”

The way he said “problems” gave me hope. My mind filled with wildness. Maybe Ava smoked crack, suffered from bulimia, or followed a strict macrobiotic diet. You couldn’t be that thin and eat much.

“You’re going to have to tell me sooner or later.” I lifted a steak and dredged it in the bowl, patting the mixture into the beef.

“I wanted to practice law here in the Low Country, and she wanted to live in England. So we shuffled between her house in Wiltshire and Charleston.”

“And the Wiltshire house was filled with her obnoxious relatives?” I smiled.

“No, they’re all dead. It was me and her and sixty-three rooms.”

“Wow. So, she’s rich?”

“Yes.”

“I was kinda hoping she was a gold digger.”

“Her cousins thought I was.”

“And they drove a wedge between you?”

“No.”

“Then what?” I flipped the steaks, sending up a cloud of rub.

“This is embarrassing.” He rubbed his forehead. “She expected me to sit home and shoot clay pigeons while she skipped from one dig site to the next.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Oh, I tried. For a while. At first, I liked it. All of that history. Then the novelty wore off. I broke her concentration.”

“You were in the way?” I was thinking along the lines of, Please god, let this be it, even though I was having trouble seeing him as a long-suffering husband.

“It felt like that, yes. When she was working, she gave it her full attention. I went back to Wiltshire.”

I couldn’t imagine a hot-blooded man like Coop sitting beside the fire with hunting dogs, playing cribbage with the butler. “Are you sure you didn’t fool around?”

“Never came close.”

“Because you loved her, right?”

“Yes.” His brows came together. “Then Uncle Ralph died. Ava and I flew home. We stopped off in Charleston for a few days. I ran into a friend from law school, and the next thing I knew, I’d agreed to work part-time—in Charleston. Ava pitched a fit, but it seemed like a good solution for us both. She could play in the dirt and I’d play with torts. And I could plan my schedule around hers so we could play together.”

“And y’all broke up?”

“Not right away. She flew in and out of Charleston. We rented a place at Seabrook.”

I nodded. A picture was forming of a posh, la-di-da she-explorer who refused to give up her career for love—or the man who’d done backflips to please her.

“I practiced law in Charleston,” he said. “She stayed at the resort, golfing and horseback riding. She learned to sail. She enrolled in a firearms class. And she took flying lessons.”

On a broom, I thought spitefully.

“She got her pilot’s license. We went to parties and art galleries and restaurants.”

“Sounds heavenly.”

“The social scene bored her. She called Charleston the land of deep-fried magnolias.” He shook his head. “She thought my friends were pretentious and shallow. Funny, I’d thought the same thing about the crowd she ran with in Wiltshire and London. But it was more than that. She missed the dampness of England.”

“It’s wet in South Carolina,” I said.

“Yeah, but England is home. The wetness over there is more like a glaze. Perfect for her roses. She tried to grow them here, but the thunderstorms beat them to a pulp. So she got bored and went to the desert.”

“To punish you?” I asked. “Or does she like contrasts?”

“Both, I think.”

“Oh,” I said, but I thought, Please, if there’s a god in heaven, let her have a bedouin lover. A dark Biblical guy with a beard and a robe.

“Now you know the gist of it,” Coop said.

“Does gist mean all?” I glanced over the counter, into the dining room. Sir was licking one side of the glass door, and T-Bone was licking the other.

“She flew back and forth, from Charleston to wherever.”

“And?”

“I got tired of it. One of my pretentious pals drew up divorce papers. She came home all lovey-dovey, and refused to sign. I thought maybe we had a chance. Then she was gone within the week.”

“And now she shows up at the Red & White Grocery, when there are perfectly nice supermarkets on Sullivan’s Island,” I said.

“She likes to charge full bore into everything—even a divorce. See, whatever she’s doing at the moment gets 100 percent of her attention.”

“You said you wanted me to know everything.”

“And I do.”

“Keep talking.” I dredged the other steak in the rub. He still wasn’t telling everything about him and Ava. He was telling me what he thought I could handle. I refused to get all bent out of shape over his love life. What kind of crazy logic was at work here? Quirky astrology, stars in the wrong places, or bad luck? Sure, I was talking trash. Aunt Bluette would be so disappointed, but I needed to get it out. If I didn’t, I’d swear to god I’d burst into flames.

“Would you have told me about Ava if we hadn’t run into her?”

“Yes.”

“She wants you back.”

“It’s impossible to know what Ava wants.”

“What do
you
want?” I understood the why of his marriage. I understood the why of their separation. I got all that. Two gorgeous, highly educated people from good families—hell yes, they’d fall in love.

“Like I said, you ask hard questions.” Coop smiled.

“You’re sopping wet,” I said. “You’ll catch your death if you don’t put on dry clothes.”

“You’re wet, too.” He held out his hand. “Come with me?”

“I need to cool off.” I kept dredging the steaks. When he left the room, I spread my hands across the counter and knocked over the salt shaker. Mama used to say if salt spills, it means evil is nearby. At the very least, you’d cry one tear for every grain you’d spilled.

I flipped a few grains over my left shoulder. Okay, fine. He had a wife, sort of. But it was over. I found a frying pan, set it on the burner, and added a pat of butter. Just because I was a “more is more” girl, I threw an extra pinch of salt over my shoulder.

twenty-four

It was still raining when Coop drove me back to the Spencer-Jackson House. He walked me to the door, acting proper for the benefit of the detectives, but he gave me long, meaningful stares. Since I was facing the unmarked car, I clasped my hands behind my back to keep from pulling Coop into my arms.

“Call if you need me,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back to the street.

I went inside and shut off the alarm. Then I ran to the window and watched his taillights move away from the curb. Would he call Ava, or let it slide?

After I set my keys in the bowl, I walked to the kitchen and turned on the little television that sat on the counter.
Dragonwyck
was playing, and Vincent Price had just added deadly oleander to his first wife’s cake.

While I watched the movie, I flipped through Uncle Elmer’s
Joy of Cooking.
There wasn’t a single recipe that suited an almost-ex-wife. I’d just have to write my own anti-Ava recipe. I opened a kitchen drawer, grabbed a pen, and found a blank page in the back of
Joy of Cooking.
Then I jotted down a recipe called Skewer Your Ex Kabobs. I imagined cubed pork, chicken, pineapple, kiwi, and peaches, along with thick slices of red and green bell peppers.

Find a bowl and mix olive oil, peach wine vinegar (or bottled salad dressing), and salt and pepper to taste. Pull on disposable gloves and make a skewer, using two oleander branches. Strip the leaves and add to olive oil mixture. Steep at least three hours to mingle flavors, and to infuse oleander. Baste fruit, vegetables, and meat with olive oil mixture. Sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper. Assemble kabobs, alternating meat, vegetables, and fruit, taking care to alternate the colors. Grill until browned. (Spread tinfoil over surface of grill to prevent unintentional seepage of oleander marinade.) After the meal, gather the skewers, serving plates, and any leftover marinade. Place into paper bag. Bury the bag.

*   *   *

Miss Dora showed up early the next morning. I led her through the brick corridor into the garden. “Hope I’m not disturbing you, but I was horrified to call,” she said.

“I was just fixing iced tea—would you like a glass?” Sir was stretched out in the grass, watching Miss Dora with interest.

“No, no, I’m fine. I stopped by because I’ve got two things to tell you. First, I’ve found you a sort of job. And you won’t even have to leave home. I know the owner of The Picky Palate. Jan’s got terrible taste in furniture, but she’s got a business mind. She can’t be beat making pâté, either. She needs a ghost baker.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“That’s a hired cook who bakes dishes for money. The restaurant—or, in this case, Jan—pays the cook and takes credit for the dish. Apparently, The Picky Palate is overwhelmed with special order desserts. That’s where you come in.”

I tilted my head, trying to imagine such a job.

Miss Dora barreled on. “Like I said, you don’t have to leave home. Jan will give you the orders. Y’all can discuss how much she’ll pay you. ’Course, you’ll have to supply the ingredients and all. Don’t tell her I said so, but Jan’s desperate. A lot of cooks don’t like this setup because it’s advantageous to Jan. She’ll charge her customers twenty-five dollars for a layer cake, but she’ll pay the cook fifteen dollars. If you’ve put a dozen eggs into that cake, and fresh Meyer lemons, you’ll lose money.”

“Sounds dicey.”

“Could be. But if you’re a smart shopper, you might turn a profit.”

I nodded. This wasn’t perfect. A fifteen-dollar cake wouldn’t buy gas money for Coop’s Mustang, much less pay the electric bill for this humongous house, but it was a start.

“Fabulous,” Miss Dora said. “I’ll take you to meet Jan right before the funeral.”

“Funeral?”

“That’s the second part of my news,” she said. “The coroner released Bing’s poor old body. The funeral is tomorrow at noon. I would’ve consulted you about the flowers, but child, I didn’t know where you were. Not to pry, but where
were
you? With that Cooper fellow?”

“Yes.”

“He’s sticking to you like a seed tick.”

“We picked up Sir. Then we cooked steaks.”

“Your fiancé isn’t in the ground and you’re out gallivanting with your lawyer. That’s not like you, Teeny. Not like you at all.” She stepped closer. “I know it’s not my place to offer advice. But I’m just worried sick. The gossips will paint you as a wicked harpy.”

I reached down to pet Sir’s wrinkled head. “Harpy fits,” I said, “but not wicked.”

We walked into the foyer, and Miss Dora stopped beside the table. She leaned over to examine the crystal bowl, then ran her finger over the rim. “Did you ever find that key, darlin’?”