The Icing on the Cake (17 page)

“You want to order pizza?” Isaac asked me.

“Mmmm, pizza,” I hummed.

“Is that a yes?”

“A definite yes.”

Isaac and I made our way to the kitchen where Isaac opened a drawer and pulled out a bunch of pizza parlor menus. I guessed from the size of the stack of menus that Isaac and Ethan must order pizza a lot. “These are the ones that deliver out here,” Isaac said. “You pick whichever one looks good to you.”

Ethan, who had suddenly appeared as soon as the word pizza was mentioned, pointed to one of the menus. It was for a place called Stuff Your Face Pizza.

“That place is Isaac’s favorite,” Ethan whispered to me.

“I choose this one,” I announced, pointing to the Stuff Your Face Pizza menu.

“Hmm, I wonder how you came to that decision,” Isaac said, looking at Ethan through accusing eyes. “That just happens to be Ethan’s favorite.”

I jokingly waved a finger at Ethan. “Shame on you. You shouldn’t use your brother like that.”

The three of us sat at the breakfast bar, scanning the menu. We finally settled on The Mouthwaterer. This pizza was topped with extra cheese, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, green pepper, and mushrooms, and true to its name, the very thought of the pizza made my mouth water. Isaac called and placed the order, and we were assured that our pizza would arrive within thirty minutes.

“What happened to your lip? And why are you wearing pajamas?” Ethan asked, able to focus on other things now that the pizza had been ordered.

“Yeah, well, there was a little mishap on the tennis court,” I explained, trying to sound light.

“Rona accidentally hit Annabelle in the mouth with a tennis ball,” Isaac said.

“Rona’s here?” Ethan asked.

“She was here,” Isaac clarified. “She left a minute ago.”

“I wish I would’ve known she was here,” Ethan said.

“Yeah, just because you think she’s cute,” Isaac ribbed his brother. “You should just ask her out.”

“But, Isaac, haven’t you told Ethan that Rona’s engaged?” I asked, leaning forward against the breakfast bar.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Isaac asked me.

“Heard what?”

“Her fiancé broke it off.”

“What?” I choked out.

“Yeah. He fell in love with some Brazilian model.” Isaac spoke in a tone that said isn’t-that-just-awful.

And it was awful. It was horribly awful because now nothing was going to keep Rona from going for Isaac. “When did they break up?” I squeaked.

“Last Saturday. The day we saw her at the Portuguese restaurant.”

I sat paralyzed. This meant Rona was not only a free woman, but a woman with a broken heart that probably needed mending.

And that could quite possibly mean disaster.

O
kay, okay, clean slate. I repeated that phrase over and over in my mind as I drove to La Bonne Violette Wednesday morning, gripping the steering wheel tightly. I was dressed in my very best suit, a gorgeous silk one that I got really cheap at a boutique downtown when it was going out of business. And I was armed with an arsenal of questions I had written during the night since I wasn’t getting much sleep anyway.

And, why, you ask, didn’t I get much sleep? Well, not only was I nervous about going back to La Bonne Violette, but also, now that I knew that Rona was a single girl again, my mind was filled with questions about Isaac’s actions: Had he let her play tennis with us because he felt sorry for her? Or was there another reason? Had he looked so happy that Rona liked his photos because he enjoyed the praise professionally? Or was it more personal than that? Yes, those were the questions that had plagued me until I finally fell asleep around 2 AM.

I pulled into La Bonne Violette’s parking lot and took a deep breath. I tucked my car keys into my pocket because my handbag—my very best only-for-special-occasions handbag that I got at a consignment shop—was gorgeous, but not very roomy.

My heart was pounding as I opened the restaurant’s heavy front door. After greeting me, the maître d’ led me to Jean-Pierre who was in a tiny room in the back of the kitchen, caramelizing little ramekins of crème brûlée with a small blow torch.

“Good morning, Jean-Pierre,” I said in my most professional tone. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Annabelle Pleasanton from
Central Coast Living,
and I am here for our nine o’clock meeting. I would like this to be a very informal interview. I have just a few questions for you.” I reached into my handbag and pulled out my notepad.

“Jean-Pierre! Jean-Pierre!” A young man rushed into the room, speaking hurriedly in French.

After hearing what the young man had to say, Jean-Pierre’s eyes opened wide in shock, and he shoved the blow torch into my hands, flame still burning, and rushed out of the room.

I looked at the blow torch in my hand, and wondered what to do. Should I turn it off? Should I put it down? Or . . . should I finish caramelizing the crème brûlée, and then Jean-Pierre would be so impressed at how industrious I was he would be the most cooperative interviewee ever and give me tons of great quotes for my article? Yes, I decided, that’s what I should do.

So, I put my notepad back into my handbag, set the bag on a nearby counter, and began caramelizing.

In my first attempt, I ended up turning the crème brûlée a blackish color rather than the desired golden-brown. I quickly grabbed a spoon and scraped off the black. Problem was, since I was so focused on getting the burnt stuff off the crème brûlée before Jean-Pierre returned, I kind of forgot to turn off the blow torch. And I kind of held it against an apron. Which kind of caught on fire.

At the sight of the fire I gasped, and dropped the blow torch to the floor, which luckily turned the thing off. Telling myself to remain calm, I tried to think quickly. Like a flash, something I had learned in a fire safety class came to my mind. In the class, the teacher had said that baking soda was an excellent fire retardant. Frantically, I reached for some baking soda in a nearby glass container.

Unfortunately, however, it turned out that the white stuff wasn’t baking soda; it was flour. And in that same fire safety class the teacher had mentioned that flour is actually quite f lammable.

“Fire! Fire!” I heard myself screaming, as I backed away from the fire which had grown to the size of a frightening monster.

Two dressed-in-white sous chefs rushed into the room immediately. One of them grabbed onto me and moved me even further back away from the fire. The other grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed the white fire extinguisher foam on the flames. I closed my eyes to keep the foam from getting in them. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the fire was out. I also saw that my best suit was doused with white foam.

And then Jean-Pierre came back.

He stormed into the room, yelling at the sous chefs in French. The sous chefs pointed at me, and Jean-Pierre came over and got in my face. “Get out!” he hollered. “You are a disaster! Get out and do not come back!”

I backed away from Jean-Pierre and ran out of the restaurant much faster than I thought it was possible to run in heels.

The reception girls were giving me weird looks as I walked through the front doors of
Central Coast Living
, but I just didn’t have the energy to care. I hadn’t bothered to go home and change, because I had decided to do something—and somehow my doused suit seemed the perfect outfit to wear when I did it.

I had decided to tell George that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write the article. He was expecting a draft in a few hours, and I had nothing. I knew what that meant. It meant that I had failed.

So, I was going to tell him to give the assignment to Arvin and keep me as a recipe editor forevermore because I was obviously not cut out to write. I had wanted to do it so badly, and I had believed that I could, but apparently that just wasn’t enough.

I walked straight to George’s office, so I could get the whole thing over with.

“George is not in today,” Gidget informed me when I told her I needed to see him. Her eyes settled on my suit, and she looked almost pained at the sight of the blotchy silk.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He has pneumonia. I tried to call you earlier. His doctor wants him home at least until Friday, so he won’t be able to look over your article today. He said to leave him a voicemail if you need anything, and he’ll get back to you.”

“But I really need to talk to him about something. Can I call him at home?”

“He’s not taking calls at home. But he is calling in to check his messages. I can leave a message for him to call you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I, um, I’m not feeling too well myself. I think I’m going to go home.”

“All right,” Gidget said. “And here,” she jotted something down on a piece of paper, “this is the number for the dry cleaner I’ve been using for years. If anyone can save that suit, they can.”

I was at home, dressed in a pair of wide-leg sweats and a baggy tee, shoving large spoonfuls of Cold Stone ice cream into my mouth when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered wearily.

“Annabelle Pleasanton?”

“Yes.”

“This is Joseph Noir, the maître d’ at La Bonne Violette. I have your purse here.”

“What? Oh, yeah, I must have left it when I ran out,” I muttered softly. I was too disheartened by the occurrences of the day to really care that I had left my bag somewhere.

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes to pick it up.”

I stored the ice cream in my freezer, changed into a pair of wool pants and a button down shirt, and went back to the place I had been banished from just hours earlier.

“Thank you,” I said to Joseph as I grabbed my handbag and turned to rush out of the restaurant.

“Wait!” Joseph called out to me. “Jean-Pierre wants to see you.”

I froze in place. “Um . . . what?”

“Jean-Pierre would like to see you in the kitchen. Go on back.”

I swallowed hard. He probably wanted to hand me a big fat bill for the fire damage. “Okay,” I relented as I began walking back to the kitchen, my shoulders drooping.

I saw Jean-Pierre standing in front of the large range in the kitchen, and I almost fled, but he spotted me before I could.

“Perfect. Mademoiselle Pleasanton, I am so glad you returned,” Jean-Pierre said in a jovial tone.

What? He was glad I returned?

“Hi, Jean-Pierre. Joseph told me you wanted to see me.” My voice was slow, hesitant.

“Yes, yes. I wanted to apologize for shouting at you earlier today. As a chef I know that accidents happen.”

“You . . . you do?”

“Yes, I do. And I want you to know, I still would like to do the interview.”

“You would?” I sounded like a girl who just got asked to the big dance by the coolest boy in school.

“Yes. But you must do something for me first.”