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ELEVEN

The Cake

“She licked her lips slowly as she swallowed the last bite of her banana cake. ‘I love creamy desserts,’ she whispered huskily, her eyes devouring him whole.”

—Terry Robs,
Glazed by the Cook

Ilan and Kalahari’s kitchen was even nicer than their living room. (For the record, I liked their shiny chrome toilet-roll holder a lot too. And they had black toilet paper, something I had never seen in my entire life. I stole some and stuffed it in my back pocket.) Examining the furniture, my eyes lingered on the long dark lava stone countertops and the coordinated black lacquered appliances. They almost made me wish my place had looked like an issue of
Metropolitan Home
too.

The meal itself was simple—fried eggs and a yummy little fruit and vegetable salad—but I had to admit that Kalahari was a remarkable cook. The joyful blend of fresh mesclun, grapes, pomegranate, and tart balsamic vinegar was absolute bliss. Plus I had skipped breakfast and was literally starving. I wolfed down my plate faster than a raccoon raiding the trash at McDonald’s, went for seconds, and when I looked
up to see that the dish was now empty, turned my attention to March’s plate. He seemed disturbed by my keen interest in his remaining egg, perhaps because I was practically drooling.

“Are you gonna eat that?” Let’s be real, he wasn’t going to. It was mine for the taking.

March didn’t see it that way, though, and proceeded to drag his plate away from me and closer to himself, staring at me intently as he did so. “Yes.”

Narrowing my eyes, I raised my fork in an offensive position. I knew what I needed to do in order to get that egg. Before he had the time to dig in, I gathered a pinch of breadcrumbs from the table, where Kalahari had cut some slices of baguette, and threw them onto his plate. They landed on his egg yolk like shrapnel, irremediably tainting it. I saw his throat constrict, and his fork stopped midair. I had won.

Kalahari burst out laughing at this, and even Ilan couldn’t suppress a chortle. March gave me a look of pure contempt and pushed his plate in my direction. “There will be consequences,” he stated coolly.

Ignoring his warning, I helped myself to the rest of his food while Kalahari went to fetch a well-garnished cheese platter. There were five different sorts of cheese, and a couple of them smelled like a pile of dirty diapers abandoned in a stable: I couldn’t wait to dig in. I cut a large slice of runny Muenster and spread it on a piece of bread with a regal gesture. Next to me, March was very still, and he politely declined when Ilan handed him the knife. Needless to say, curdled milk that’s been left to rot in a cave for years probably didn’t rank very high on Mr. Clean’s list of approved delicacies.

I, on the other hand, closed my eyes and moaned in delight. That Muenster tasted like it was older than me. “It’s been years since I had cheese that good!”

Ilan served me a slice of Reblochon as well. “How long has it been since you last came to France?”

“Four years. But we stayed in a hotel back then, and they don’t serve the same kind of cheese.”

He swallowed a large bite of graying, moldy goat cheese and nodded. “Yeah, food safety freaks . . . They don’t know what’s good.”

“My mother was like you, she always insisted that mold is good for your immune system and only pussies cut it out.”

“Spartan parenting?” Kalahari smiled.

“Pretty much. She’d be gone for days at time, and she really took advantage of how independent I was. She’d just plop me in a new apartment, say, ‘Computer’s here; microwave’s here. Be good,’ and . . .
whoosh
,” I explained, flinging my arms in the air.

Whoosh
. . . My eyes met March’s, who had been listening to the conversation silently in front of an empty plate, and something tightened in my chest. Would I have been able to learn the truth by myself if I had tried to? Had my mother been that good an actress, or had I turned a blind eye on all those times when she’d seemed a little too tired, a little too lost?

“Ah, tu sais dans la vie, on court, on court!”
You know, life is all about running, running all the time.
How many times had I heard her say this when she came home late at night and let herself fall on our couch, exhausted? I had always thought she was one of those overworked career women—a diplomat, a woman of the world, speaking a dozen different languages without the slightest hint of an accent, and sirening her way through glamorous parties. Except she hadn’t been there to binge on petits fours; she had been risking her life, night after night.

For me? To make money to support us?

No. As much as my mother had loved me, the new portrait that was progressively sketching itself in my mind suggested that she had been addicted to this life. She could have made just as much money by marrying my dad—no doubt he would have agreed, if the spark in his eyes whenever he mentioned her was any indication.

Across the table, Kalahari seemed in deep thought. “But didn’t you go to school?”

I stared down at the gooey cheese on my plate as I recalled those first fifteen years of my life. “No. We moved all the time, so my mom would sign me up for all kinds of distance-learning programs. Some relevant, some not so much. I ended up following a course on slaughterhouse management once, when I was ten.”

March’s eyes widened in an expression of scandal, Ilan’s mouth twitched, and tears of laughter built up at the corners of Kalahari’s catlike eyes.

“Yeah
. . .
” I sighed. “I’m not sure she read those leaflets before signing the application papers.”

“What about your father?” she prodded. “Didn’t he live with you?”

I shook my head. “You know that old song from Jean-Jacques Goldman? Elle a fait un bébé toute seeeule . . .”
She made a baby on her ooown . . .

She answered my singing attempt with a bright smile. “C’était dans ces années un peu folles ou les papas n’était plus à la mooode!”
It was in those crazy years, when daddies had gone out of style!
“I love that song!”

“Well, it was sort of like that. I think they had a two-week fling in London, nothing more. And then, nine months later, there I was. I suppose he was a little disoriented, but he tried his best. He’d give me toys for Christmas, my birthdays, and my mom sometimes sent me to spend a couple weeks with him in New York,” I recounted.

“You went to live with him after her death?” Kalahari asked.

“Yes . . . I was fifteen at the time, and it was a pretty drastic change of environment.”

“But it was better for you,” March stated, breaking his self-imposed silence.

My head shot up and I frowned at him. “It’s hardly your place to judge that.”

I expected him to back out and dismiss the topic, but to my surprise he insisted. “Children need a stable home, parents who’ll send them to school. Your mother—”

“You’ll never guess what’s for dessert!”

Kalahari had suddenly shot up from her chair, cutting through March’s judgmental little tirade before he could give me enough reason to throw my plate in his face. From the corner of my eye, I caught Ilan shaking his head at March. Kalahari looked at him as well, but there was no blame in her eyes, rather tenderness and sadness laced together. I thought of what March had told me the day prior in his car, about how he had dropped out before even reaching high school. What kind of family had
he
grown up in?

I pondered this over while Kalahari took a plate from a large side-by-side fridge. When I got a good view of the treat, I quivered on my chair. She was carrying a sexy, yummy
fraisier
cake. She laid the pastry on the table, its pink icing glimmering under the ceiling’s lighting.

“Your favorite!” She winked at March as she said so.

I peeked at him. He didn’t seem the type to like
fraisier.
Those luscious layers of sponge cake, vanilla butter cream, and strawberries seemed way too indulgent for a guy like him. I would have sworn he was into more manly stuff, like oatcakes.

I was wrong. Kalahari served him nearly a quarter of that hottie, and it started disappearing from his plate at a surprising speed. He kept a deadpan face while he ate, though, as if he didn’t want us to know he was enjoying it. I was so engrossed in watching him that I forgot about my own plate, and what a tactical error it was.

“Seconds?” Kalahari’s hands were already moving to cut him another slice.

He shot me a dark look as he answered her. “Please don’t bother. Island won’t eat hers.”

My eyes widening in alarm, I reached to grab some breadcrumbs again, but he had been ready for my trick and outsped me. By the time my fingertips started gathering ammo on the tablecloth, my plate was gone and March’s spoon was covered in the blood of my strawberries.

Kalahari burst out laughing, and Ilan’s lips pressed together in apparent consternation. Gesturing to the remaining cake, she offered to replace my serving, which now rested in the depths of March’s stomach.

His lips quirked in a smug smile. “I don’t think Island has time for more cake. She needs to get cleaned up, and we’re on a tight schedule.”

I glared at him before leaving the table to follow a still giggling Kalahari. She led me down a long hallway and into a large bedroom decorated with white furniture. In its center stood a massive four-poster bed covered with a swarm of colorful Indian cushions. There was a fruity fragrance in the air, which I soon associated with a couple of scented candles resting on one of the nightstands. I inhaled deeply and reveled in the warm, cozy atmosphere surrounding me.

Crossing the room to open the doors leading to a white-tiled bathroom, Kalahari pointed at my clothes and made an elegant circular gesture with her wrist. “Get rid of all this. You’re in desperate need of a bath!”

It was true. I couldn’t ignore the mud stains on my jeans or the faint smell of sweat floating around me, and I was a little ashamed of my state of disarray. She walked to a large polished concrete tub and turned the hot water tap on before squeezing some bubble bath in the rising water. Once she was satisfied with the water’s temperature, she returned to the room where I was still standing.

I gave her a sheepish smile. “Thank you. Can I borrow a towel from you?”

“Of course you can! There’re clean ones in the bathroom; just help yourself once you’re done.”

I nodded and was about to go jump headfirst in that tub, when Kalahari took a few steps until she stood in front of me. Her face had lost her joyful expression in favor of a soft, thoughtful one. “You’re going to be okay. Just relax for a little while.”

I wasn’t so sure that I was going to be okay, but I was at least being offered some momentary relief. I gave a grateful smile and entered the
bathroom. I had first intended to make this quick, but once I had sunk into the warm, flowery-scented water, I fell prey to its emollient effect and allowed myself to laze around. After an undetermined amount of time during which I stared at my toes, a soft tap echoed on the other side of the bathroom’s door.

Kalahari’s voice resounded. “Did you fall asleep?”

“No! Sorry, I’m coming out.”

I extracted myself from the now tepid water with clumsy movements and wrapped myself in a large gray towel that looked like a long dress on me. Confident that I was decent, I stepped out of the bathroom.

March had nothing on Kalahari where efficiency was concerned: by the time I entered the room, I discovered that she had prepared some clean clothes and even found a spare toothbrush for me—something that seemed like a small luxury, in my predicament.

TWELVE

The Octopus

“Every time his eyes plunged into hers, Honestee felt desire’s inescapable tentacles slowly wrap themselves around her body, their suction cups clinging to her skin.”

—Georgia Stilton,
The Shifter’s Mail-Order Bride

Half an hour and a few fittings later, I was wearing a pair of beige jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a navy-blue hoodie that wasn’t unlike mine except its back boldly advertised me as having been a part of Abercrombie & Fitch’s Physical Ed class since 1892. I could live with that. A little cleaning in the bathroom sink made my ballet flats as good as new, and I was ready to face the rest of the day.

I didn’t make it far. I got ambushed.

“What’s your sign?”

I blinked at the magazine Kalahari had just fished from her nightstand. Were we really going to take astrological tests in the middle of my kidnapping? I feigned disinterest. “I don’t know, I’m not really into this—”

“When were you born?”

“September 20.”

She waved the magazine in my face. “Then you’re a Virgo!”

Yes.
Indeed
. I was.

Ignoring my frown, Kalahari checked the latest predictions for Virgos who got kidnapped by hit men. “It says you’re in danger of losing your good reputation because you flirt too much and you need to stop sleeping around. It also says you have no boundaries and you can’t resist the temptation of . . . your heated core.”

“No it doesn’t say that!” I snatched the magazine from her hands.

It did say just that. I reread the part about my “heated core.” Kalahari had been kind enough to spare me some of the worst details: that magazine was basically calling me a slut. My mouth fell open in an expression that probably made it look like someone had just crushed my toes with a hammer.