On Lavender Lane (6 page)

“You’re welcome,” Madeline murmured.

“I would’ve decked her,” a woman standing behind Madeline said. “But you handled it with amazing class.”

“Thanks. I haven’t had the best day. I really wouldn’t want to cap it off by getting arrested for assault.”

“Yeah. I heard about your day.”

Of course you have.

“If my husband did that to me, they’d have to hide all the cleavers once I got home.”

Madeline decided against mentioning she’d already considered that idea.

“But if it’s any consolation, you’re a lot better-looking than the woman in the video.”

“Thanks.” Not that it was any consolation.

“And a better cook than your weasel of a spouse. I’ve tried some of your recipes and they’re great. But my husband took me to Maxime’s in Miami for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and I have to tell you, for such a big ticket dinner, we were not impressed.

“My eggplant-stuffed roasted salmon was surprisingly bland. Plus, my husband’s scallops committed the cardinal culinary sin of being overcooked.”

“I’m sorry.” A word Madeline seemed to be saying a lot lately. Two more couples and she’d be in her taxi and, thank you, God, could escape.

“Well, it wasn’t a total loss. I will say he’s created the sexiest restaurant we’ve ever been to. Between the waterfall, the ocean view, and the cool South Beach vibe, not to mention the blindfolded Chocolate Seduction, we couldn’t wait to get up to our room.”

The Chocolate Seduction—which involved one diner
being blindfolded, then fed a sampling of exotic chocolates to guess the fillings—had been Maxime’s idea.

Madeline had always suspected it was a dessert diners would order from room service, or take up to their rooms after dinner for fun and games later, but a surprising number of customers appeared to enjoy the exhibitionism of sampling while surrounded by strangers.

She was wondering if Maxime had re-created the Chocolate Seduction game with the woman in the video when the woman in the taxi line suddenly turned as scarlet as a boiled lobster.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what had me bringing up the sex thing. I mean…considering that he…You know.”

Unfortunately, Madeline did know.

“Don’t worry about it.”
Finally!
She was being assigned the taxi that had pulled up to the curb. “It’s good to hear that the dessert made up for a less-than-perfect meal.”

“Oh, believe me,” the woman assured Madeline as she escaped into the backseat. “It did.”

The taxi had no sooner pulled into traffic when her phone rang again.

She debated not answering, but knowing her agent’s tenacity, she’d just keep calling. And calling.

“Please tell me there’s not another video out there,” she said.

“No,” Pepper said. “At least not that I know of, but considering all the rumors over the years, I need to warn you, Madeline, you should prepare yourself for yet more shoes to drop.”

“What rumors?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. For a moment Madeline thought that perhaps the call had been dropped, but then her agent, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, asked, “Are you actually telling me that you’ve never heard the stories?”

“About Maxime? No.” Apparently, the old saying was true: The wife really was the last to know.

“Oh. Well, don’t worry about it. You know how rumors are; they probably don’t mean a thing.”

“What rumors?”

“Oh, Madeline.” A huge sigh. “You’ve already had such a rotten day.”

“It hasn’t exactly been a picnic. But I did sell a bunch of pots and pans.” Which was so not why she’d worked nearly her entire life to become a chef.

“Yay, you.”

“Yay, me,” Madeline echoed with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “You were telling me about rumors?”

“Oh, nothing specific. You know this city is basically just a small town. And people do gossip.”

“People gossip about my marriage?”

There was another longer, deeper sigh. “We need to talk. Why don’t you drop by my office on the way home?”

“Which one?”

There were two, including the “official” one in a beautiful landmark Victorian built by William Waldorf and John Jacob Astor III in the late 1800s. The other, which was usually saved for celebrations or serious career-planning sessions, was the Temple Bar in lower Manhattan’s NoHo, located between the East and West Village.

“The one with alcohol.” The bar. Which likely meant bad news. “I’m leaving now.” The line went dead.

After giving the driver the new destination, Madeline leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes, and tried to tell herself not to borrow trouble. But that didn’t stop her from worrying that perhaps ChefSteel had changed their mind about her being a proper spokesperson.

After all, there was a morality clause written into the twenty-six page contract. At the time she’d signed it, Madeline had assumed it referred to
her
behavior. But maybe any scandal would void the terms.

But would that really be such a bad thing?

In an attempt to bring in some much-needed additional income during the downturn of the economy, she’d started a part-time catering business. A chance meeting with a producer at a baby shower luncheon she’d prepared had led to a booking on
Today.

Which, in turn, had led to a call from a vice president at the Cooking Network, who, after seeing Madeline cooking dolmades and pastitsio for Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, invited her to cook for a panel of network executives. Declaring her a natural, to her amazement, the executives offered her own show,
Comfort Cooking
.

She’d been inclined to turn down the offer. But, as Maxime, who’d always derided TV chefs in the past for prostituting their talent for the masses, had pointed out, it wasn’t as if they could just pass up the money.

“Do you have any idea what it costs to open a five-star restaurant on the Vegas strip?” he asked. “One that can compete with Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio, Wolfgang Puck, and Emeril?”

Which was how she had ended up on television.

And within six months had a second show,
Dinner at Home
, featuring quick and easy meals for busy families.

Forgoing anything resembling a normal life, she’d also published a cookbook, had a second in the publishing pipeline, and, on the advice of her newly acquired agent, had inked a deal with the company that made the cookware she used on her shows, which required yet more traveling, such as her trip to Omaha.

All to feed the ravenous alligator that Maxime’s restaurant empire had become. After what he’d done, why should she care if the entire thing collapsed around him?

As it was, the career she’d looked forward to her entire life was looking more and more out of reach. Her parents had cooked for a living, true. But their goal, along with putting
food on their own table, was to share their meals with others.

But now there were times when Madeline was forced to consider that professional cooking was becoming less about food and more about chef branding and ancillary marketing—pots, pans, spice rubs, television shows, books, even designer chef–labeled baby food.

More and more she felt as if she were running on a treadmill, or, to mix metaphors, the tail had begun wagging the dog.

Perhaps, before she confronted Maxime, she could give serious thought to her options. All of them.

6

Anyone just walking down the street might not even have known the Temple Bar existed, which Madeline had always thought was part of its charm and was what kept it from being packed with the
Sex and the City
crowd, who was more interested in seeing and being seen. The only eye-catching thing about the exterior was the white petroglyph-type lizard on the blue stone wall.

But the moment she entered the gorgeous deco room decorated in a 1950s-style dark mahogany, she felt her nerves, which had been tangled even before the video debacle, begin to loosen.

She passed the sweeping L-shaped bar and marble and mirrored walls to a comfortable lounge in the back, where Pepper was already waiting with an oversized dirty martini and a bowl of popcorn in front of her. Her lips curved in a welcoming smile, but even in the dim light, Madeline could view the concern in her agent’s eyes.

“I love this place,” Madeline said as she sat down at the table. The velvet drapes and backlighting added to the feel that the bar belonged to a different time. “I always expect to see
Mad Men
’s Don Draper drinking Manhattans.”

Another cheating spouse,
she considered as she took a bite of the popcorn, which was laced with sweet swirls of fried yam and beet strips. At least the advertising exec was fictional.

“Or Frank Sinatra,” Pepper said as their server, a tall
redhead looking chic in Armani black, appeared to take their order. Both women were the picture of Manhattan elegance, making Madeline feel even more travel rumpled.

“I’ll have the Black Crow.” The vodka and Kahlúa would hopefully prepare her for whatever possible bad news Pepper was about to share, while, with any luck, the Vietnamese coffee in the cocktail would overcome the jet lag mixed with depression that was threatening to crash down on her.

“We’ll also have an order of the salt-and-pepper calamari,” Pepper told the server.

“What’s up?” Madeline asked.

“Quite a bit, actually. But while we’re waiting for your drink and our food, why don’t you tell me about Omaha?”

“It was cold.” Madeline plucked another bite of popcorn from the bottomless bowl the bar specialized in. “Our car ran into a snowbank on the way to the department store, but the son of the woman who picked me up was a cop, so he got us on our way soon. And the store staff had everything set up and prepared.”

“Well, I’m pleased to hear that something went well.”

Although the bar was nearly empty, it took a while for their order to arrive. Despite being eager to hear Pepper’s news, Madeline chatted a bit more about her experience in Nebraska. Leaving out the humiliating part about everyone racing to YouTube during her demonstration.

A little silence came over the table after she’d finished her story. The server showed up, placed their order on the table, and discreetly faded away.

“Well?” Madeline asked after taking a sip of the drink that was sinfully good.

“You have an offer.”

“Good try, but you could have told me that over the phone. I’m not going to be distracted that easily. First things first. If you know something about Maxime, you need to tell me. If for no other reason than a friend wouldn’t send
another friend into what might be the most important conversation of her life unarmed.”

“You’re right.” Pepper exhaled a long breath. Took a bite of the calamari. Madeline had never known her agent to be at a loss for words, as she seemed to be now.

“There’s never been anything specific,” she said finally. “I mean, not that I’ve heard, anyway, but you know how people talk.…”

“All too well.” Especially today.

“Well, the word is that he was a player all during his other marriages. And you know what they say about leopards changing their spots.”

“He’s French. He flirts.”

Even as she heard the excuse coming out of her mouth, she could hear Maxime’s voice. How many times had he used that very excuse during the early days of their relationship, when she’d been admittedly insecure about his familiarity with the women who flocked to his restaurant?

Unlike so many upscale restaurants in the city, Maxime’s had always been open during the noon hour.

“For all those ladies who lunch,” he’d claimed when he’d first come up with the idea. “They’re a valuable customer base too many chefs who refuse to lower themselves to serve food in the middle of the day are missing. Those rich socialites can’t all eat at Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys.”

At the time it had made sense. Now she wondered if he’d just been creating his own dating pool.

“Perhaps that’s all it was.” Pepper didn’t even try to keep the skepticism from her tone. “But he was certainly doing a great deal more than flirting in the video.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Darling, everyone from Tulsa to Timbukutu has seen that video. Including, I suspect, Katrin Von Küenberg’s husband.”

Madeline recognized the name immediately.
Forbes
magazine had ranked her in the top twenty of the world’s
wealthiest women. A frivolous, global-party-trotting heiress in her younger years, after her father’s death, she’d returned to Austria and taken the reins of her family’s international fortune.

Among the Von Küenbergs’ many holdings were factories that had provided tents and uniforms (and, rumors suggested, chemicals and munitions) to the German army in World War II and a brewing empire that had earned her nickname of Beer Baroness.

Madeline not only knew
of
her, but she also knew her personally. Along with having been dinner guests at her Upper East Side penthouse, she and Maxime had also spent a rare vacation week at her sprawling lake house in Bavaria, and another week cruising the Mediterranean in a yacht larger than the Shelter Bay farmhouse where Madeline had spent so many of her formative years.

“What does Katrin have to do with the video?”

“You obviously weren’t looking all that closely.”

“There was a glare from the overhead lights in the store. It was hard to make out details.”

Which was only partly true. The fact was that her head had gone so light, she’d been afraid she might embarrass herself by fainting right there in store aisle. And, admittedly, practicing avoidance, she hadn’t looked at it again. And hoped she’d never have to.

Also, her attention had been so drawn to Maxime, she hadn’t paid any attention to whatever woman he was with. While suffering through that long plane flight, she’d decided it must be some Las Vegas call girl.

“You do know Katrin and her husband are involved in a nasty, take-no-prisoners divorce?”

“Of course. It’s been in all the papers.”

You couldn’t check out of a market without seeing the tabloid headlines screaming the latest, so-called update. They’d been to dinner just two months ago when Katrin had mentioned that her husband—an American novelist of
obscure, experimental literature—was causing her problems. Two days later, she leaked photos of him dressed in a bra, panties, black fishnet stockings, and high heels to the
National Enquirer
.