Whiskey Island (15 page)

The apartment was roomy and individual. Megan liked things that were old and handmade. The circular rag rug under a primitive carpenter’s chest had been crafted long ago by someone with scraps of wool and time to spare. The cream-colored afghan at one end of the plain blue sofa reminded him of the intricately knit sweaters of Irish fishermen. The nest of pillows at the other had been created from pieces of old patchwork quilts.

In the kitchen, he rummaged for a corkscrew, finding one in the third drawer he tried. The room was small but cheerful. A ceramic pig held flour, and a ceramic mouse held rice. Old linens adorned with sentimental slogans or cheerful apron-bedecked figures hung from curtain rods and appliance handles. He was reminded of his grandmother’s kitchen, crowded with family treasures and, usually, with family, too.

He was looking for wineglasses when Megan entered the room. She wore a soft green sweater that almost reached her knees and something form fitting hugging her legs—he was sure there was a name for this particular item of clothing, but not one he’d ever learned. Her hair was a scouring pad of wet ringlets, and her only sop to vanity was a touch of lipstick.

“Find what you needed?”

Desire almost blindsided him. The feeling was so powerful, so nearly devastating, that it seemed like something outside him, some force from the universe pressing in on him.

He turned away to compose himself and hoped his reaction wasn’t as visible as it felt. “I found jelly jars and juice glasses. But not wineglasses. Do you have any?”

“I should have told you. They’re hanging in the dining room. Well, okay, it’s not really a dining room, it’s a table in the corner of the living room, but I can pretend.”

“Would you like to get me a couple?”

“I can’t wait.” She left, and he reminded himself that he had not come here for any reason except to talk to her. He had come to Cleveland to think about the rest of his life. He had not come to begin on it.

Megan came back and set two glasses on the counter in front of him. “If we finish that off tonight, may I keep the bottle to impress people?”

“We don’t even have to finish it off. It’s yours, bottle and contents.” As she moved closer, he could smell the sweet scent of her shampoo, something that reminded him of lilacs. It was an old-fashioned scent that seemed to go with the apartment, if not the woman.

She stretched. “I should start rustling up our dinner. You make great coffee, but do you like to cook?”

“Almost as much as I like to eat.”

She was already digging into a cupboard. She turned, obviously surprised. “Really?”

“One of those earthly pleasures they didn’t take away.” The moment he said it, he wished he hadn’t. Again it brought to mind that other pleasure so newly given back to him.

“How long has it been, Niccolo?”

For a moment he didn’t breathe.

“Since you left the priesthood,” she added, when he didn’t answer.

“I wasn’t sure exactly what you were asking,” he admitted.

She grinned. “Go ahead, then. Answer the question you thought I asked.”

“We can’t actually leave the priesthood. We lose all the rights, and we’re freed from all obligations of the clerical state. Which is a too-technical way of saying I took the final step about ten months ago.”

Her expression softened. “Are you okay with it?”

“I’m okay with my past and my present, just not necessarily my future.”

“No plans?”

“I’m taking another year off, maybe even two. That’s what the house is about. I like working with my hands, and it’s good to feel something coming alive again because of my efforts. I’ll make a little money and still have time to think.”

She brushed past him as she reached for a saucepan. “Do you like basmati rice?”

He thought with chagrin that he probably liked the feel of her body more than anything else in the kitchen. “Uh-huh.”

She started the rice; then she dug through the refrigerator bins, setting a carton of mushrooms, a red pepper, green onions and carrots on the counter before she straightened.

He presented her with her glass, and she lifted it and waited. “To new friendships,” he toasted.

“Are we going to be friends?”

He decided she was asking about the conversation to come, not whether their relationship was heading in a different direction. “I hope so.”

She took a sip. “Nectar of the gods.”

“Actually, just a particularly good two-year-old Soave.”

“I like my version better.” She set her glass on the counter and knelt to open a cabinet. She rose with a wooden cutting board shaped like an apple. “A cousin’s Boy Scout woodworking badge,” she said, holding it up for Niccolo to admire.

She had given him a natural entrée into the saga of her family, but he wasn’t quite ready to take it. “A family treasure.”

“I think so.” She set the apple board on the counter and slid a sharp knife from the rack in front of it. “If you love to cook, do you love to chop?”

“Not unless you absolve me of differences of opinion before I start.”

“Consider it done.” She couldn’t resist one piece of advice. “But cut on the slant if you can.”

“Consider it done.”

She moved to the refrigerator again, this time opening the freezer. Her head disappeared into the frozen confines. “So why Cleveland?”

“Most of my friends and family are still in the Pittsburgh area. I’m close enough here to get home easily. More important, Father Brady of St. Brigid’s was my mentor. I came to visit and saw the house I’m working on now. Everything just fell into place.”

“You never call it
your
house.”

He paused in the middle of rinsing the pepper. He wasn’t sure what she meant.

She slammed the freezer door and held up a plastic bag of frozen shrimp. “It’s ‘the house you’re working on.’ Not
your
house.”

“I guess that’s the way I think of it.”

“But something must have drawn you to that particular house. Something emotional. Personal. There are plenty of wonderful old houses in Pittsburgh, aren’t there?”

He finished washing all the vegetables before he answered, debating how personal he wanted to get. “The church prefers we leave the scene of the crime.” He gave a wry smile. “We’re not supposed to live in places where we exercised the priestly ministry. And my family wasn’t happy at my decision. I went from being the chosen one to the thorn in their sides. From one cliché to the other, huh?”

“That’s pretty unfair. It’s your life, after all.”

“Three generations in America, and we’re still one big entity. No one cuts the umbilical cord. So moving farther away made my decision less wrenching for everyone.”

“Will they ever forgive you?”

The truth was painful. “Most of my own generation probably will, but not my parents’ or grandparents’ generation. They love me because I’m family, but that’s the best I can expect.”

“I’m sorry. You lost so much all at once.”

He was touched. She sounded genuinely sad, but there was also an undercurrent of anger in her voice, as if she couldn’t understand how his family could have deserted him.

Megan to the rescue.

He halved and cleaned the pepper and began to cut it into strips. Megan brushed past him as she went to the microwave. He was beginning to be thankful she had a tiny kitchen.

“I kept my self-respect,” he said. “God and I are still on good terms. The church hasn’t barred its doors to me. I’ve been exhorted to live a Christian life, and I intend to. I’m okay.”

For the next few minutes they worked in silence until everything was sliced and in place. Megan peered over his shoulder at the pile of vegetables carefully arranged on a platter. She whistled softly. “You have a job at the saloon anytime you want one. That’s a still life.”

He thought about how much pleasure working with her had given him. Megan didn’t chatter, and, more surprising, she didn’t supervise. They had worked together with an odd sort of intimacy. Not quite old friends, certainly not lovers. Some rare and precious in-between.

“You don’t have to stay and watch,” Megan said, as she heated a stainless steel wok. “You can make yourself comfortable with your wine in the other room. I made you work hard enough already.”

“It’s no work to watch you, Megan.”

She looked surprised. He wondered where the reticence of years in the priesthood had disappeared to.

“Some people don’t like an audience when they cook,” he added, hoping to moderate that last sentence. “I’ll leave if you’d rather.”

“Don’t be silly. If I didn’t like an audience, we’d have to close Whiskey Island. I’m never alone in the kitchen.”

He settled himself against the small built-in table at the other side of the kitchen, lounging comfortably, wineglass in hand. Oil sizzled, and garlic and ginger scented the air. “What kinds of things do you cook? I’ve never seen the menu.”

“The usual noshing menu in the evening, plus salads, sandwiches, soups at lunchtime. And we’re famous for our specials. We use my great-great-grandmother’s recipes. They’re a closely guarded secret, passed down to one person in each generation. I’m the lucky one in mine.”

He chose his words carefully. “Who passed them down to you? Your father?”

She was silent so long he thought she wouldn’t answer. When she spoke, her voice was neutral, as if she had schooled it to be. “There was no ritual for transferring them to me, if that’s what you’re asking. I began cooking at the saloon when I was still a teenager. Being the oldest, the responsibility fell to me.”

Niccolo debated how far to push her on that. He had a hundred questions, but he knew timing was important.

She didn’t add anything, and he decided to wait until they were sitting at the table for more details. Instead he asked her about the recipes. “What do you make?”

“Well, our soda bread is Rosaleen’s recipe.”

“Rosaleen was your grandmother’s name?”

Megan turned up the heat and added another dollop of peanut oil to the wok. In a moment it was spitting at her, and she nodded, as if to say it was the way she wanted it. “Great-great.” She added the carrots and began to toss them from side to side with a wooden spoon.

“Is your soda bread different than anyone else’s?”

“Uh-huh. It’s spectacular.”

“I can hardly wait.”

She stirred for another minute, then added the pepper. “Our potato chowder and whiskey-and-leek soup are Rosaleen’s, our Mulligan stew, our mutton pie—only we use beef and call it Irishman’s pie. Mutton’s a little spotty around here. There’s also a sausage-and-cabbage soup, a cod cobbler that’s popular during Lent—although I’ll confess to using whatever fish my supplier tells me is cheap that day. There’s more, but that’s a start. I also bake Irish oatmeal bread, and brown bread if I’m in the mood.”

“Why are we having stir-fry?”

“’Cause I’m an all-American girl.”

“You get tired of the Irish shtick?”

“You got it.”

He laughed. “Do your sisters mind that you have the recipes?”

“Casey? Not a chance. She’d rather fight than cook.”

“And Peggy?”

“Peggy?” Her voice softened. “Peggy likes to cook, too. But she’s going to be a doctor. And she’ll be wonderful. She was always bringing home robins with broken wings, shriveling earthworms, anything that needed her. She drove my aunt crazy.”

“Your aunt?”

Megan was silent again. He waited.

She had added everything to the wok now except the shrimp and green onions. She tossed them in and waited until they were sizzling merrily before she spoke. “Peggy spent a lot of time with my aunt Deirdre and her husband Frank. They practically raised her. That’s the Frank Grogan you met down on Whiskey Island.”

He didn’t ask the obvious question. “You seem close to her anyway.”

“I adore her.”

“You’re very passionate about family, aren’t you?”

“Does that seem odd?”

“Not with my background. It would seem odd if you weren’t.”

She turned off the heat when the shrimp turned pink, and added a light sauce of soy and ginger she’d assembled earlier. “It’s ready, and the rice is finished, too. Are you ready to eat?”

“I’m surprised I made it this long.”

She heaped the stir-fry on a platter that she’d warmed in the oven, garnishing it with toasted sesame seeds. She held it out to him. “Why don’t you take this to the table and come back for the wine? I’ll dish up the rice, and we’ll be all set.”

They worked in silence until the small oak table was heaped with food and they were sitting across from each other. The china was a mixture of blue and white floral patterns that were more charming than a matched set; the table linens were ivory with age and the perfect complement.

Niccolo toasted her with his wineglass. “If I’d had to make a guess about the way you lived, it wouldn’t have been this apartment.”

“No? What were you expecting?”

He considered as she picked up her fork. “A modern, practical condo, somewhere just off the interstate, with a lap pool and an exercise room.”

“I get enough exercise running back and forth at the saloon.”

He was just warming up. “Beige carpet, white walls with no pictures, because you don’t want to bother patching holes when you move, a sofa that hides a bed, maybe a hassock or a coffee table that also hides blankets, or the television and stereo remotes. No pets, no plants, and a next-door neighbor named Hal who drops over once or twice a week to get advice on how to deal with his boss and girlfriend.”

She laughed. “You really don’t know me. I’d die in a place like that. Casey, now. That might just suit Casey. She’s never home. And she’d have Hal slobbering over her in a matter of hours.”

“You make a point of appearing completely unsentimental and no-nonsense.”

“You only see me when I have an agenda, that’s why.”

“I see you trying hard to pretend things are different than they really are.” He picked up his fork and started on the stir-fry. It was every bit as good as he’d known it would be.

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Well, for that matter, I wouldn’t have pictured you in the house on Hunter Street.”

“Where would you have pictured me?”