Melinda Wells - The Proof is in the Pudding

“May I order you breakfast?” Long asked. “They can make anything you want down in the kitchen.”

“Actually,” I said, giving a nervous laugh and feigning shyness, “it’s Happy Hour in Australia, so do you suppose I could have a little drink?”

In anticipation of this meeting, just before I left the house I’d had a huge breakfast: three eggs scrambled in butter, three pieces of bacon, and four big slices of ciabatta bread that I dipped into a dish of olive oil. This wasn’t at all my usual morning meal, but I needed to line my stomach. And it wasn’t my idea-it was Benjamin Franklin’s. Somewhere I’d read that when he was asked why he thought he’d been such a great success as a diplomat, he’d replied that he owed it to his ability to drink every other diplomat under the table, and his secret was consuming olive oil before getting together with them. After what I’d forced down, I hoped Mr. Franklin had been serious and not joking.

Long aimed a huge smile at me. “Della, you are a woman after my own heart.” He stood and headed for a mahogany cabinet below one of the paintings. “ Australia just became my favorite continent.” He opened the cabinet to display a bar with an impressive array of bottles. “What will you have?”

“I hate to drink alone,” I said. “I’ll have whatever you’re going to have.”

“Scotch. The nectar of the gods.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. “My ancestors came from Scotland. But I thought the nectar of the gods was nectar.”

“Depends on where you worship.” He took two glasses from a shelf and started to pour.

He returned with our drinks and handed one of them to me. This time he didn’t perch on the edge of the sofa; he settled back against the big, puffy cushions.

Long raised his glass and toasted: “To that rare woman who knows how to live. Cheers-and may we good people outlast all the bastards.”

I tipped my glass in his direction. He took a swallow and I took a sip. While he added a second sofa cushion to the one behind his back, I moved the bowl of flowers closer to me.

“When you called, you said you wanted to talk about my being a guest on your cooking show.”

“Yes. You’re such an enormous success in so many fields I thought it would be interesting for the public to see a more relatable side to you,” I said. “My thought was that you and I would prepare a dish together-any dish you chose-and as we did that, you could talk about what you like to do when you’re not out conquering the world.”

He chuckled at that; I suspected he liked the image of himself conquering the world.

“The viewers already know Eugene Long, the titan,” I said. “I’d like to show them Gene Long, the man.”

“What gave you that idea?”

I made a show of looking uncomfortable. “I hate to say this, because it might sound as though I’m taking advantage of a tragedy, but it occurred to me last week at your gala. After the-after the terrible thing that happened to Keith, the way you took charge of the people there and kept everyone calm. I was tremendously impressed with how you handled things in a crisis.”

He took another swallow while I touched the rim of my glass to my lips.

“And, too,” I said, “it moved me how sensitive you were to your daughter’s feelings.”

“My baby doll… the love of my life.” He finished his drink and got up. “Can I get you another?”

“Not quite yet,” I said, taking another tiny sip.

He refilled his glass and came back to the sofa. “My Tina’s the one you should have on your show. She can cook. I don’t know a toaster from a toilet.”

“I think you’d learn pretty quickly if you ever tried to make toast.”

He either ignored my attempt at humor or he didn’t hear me, because he went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Yvette taught her to cook. Now she’s a wonder in the kitchen.”

“Having Tina as my guest. That’s a fascinating idea.” I smiled at him over the rim of my glass. “How is she doing? What happened must be especially hard on her. I heard she and Keith were engaged.”

“She’s okay. Cried for three days, but it’s winding down.”

“Tina and Keith would have made a handsome couple. Did you like him?”

Long nodded as he swallowed. “I could talk to him-not like some of those male model types she used to bring around. He’d have made a good first husband.”

Looking thoughtful, and a little sad, he swallowed more scotch.

I pretended to take another sip before I said, “Tina’s such a beautiful girl. Do you think she’d be willing to cook with me on camera?”

“My baby doll never met a camera she didn’t like. She-”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the cordless phone on the end table between us, on the other side of the bowl of flowers.

Scowling, he snatched it up. “Georgie, I told you to hold my calls.” He took another swallow as he listened briefly. “That’s not my idea of a crisis. Tell him to go-” Long glanced at me. “Tell him to go do something anatomically impossible to himself. And don’t ring this line again until I say so.” He disconnected and tried to put the phone back in its charger, fumbled, but managed to get it set correctly on the second try.

Eugene Long was getting drunk. A couple more glasses of scotch, and I’d have him in the right state to answer my real questions.

An hour later, Long had refilled his glass a few more times and was clearly inebriated. He returned to the sofa with his whichever drink and my third. I’d continued to take only sips, and to pour most of my scotch into the bowl of flowers when he turned his head away from me, but I was getting a bit of a buzz.

Drinking had never been a part of my social life. Enjoying a glass of red wine at dinner in a restaurant or if I had guests at home was the extent of my alcohol intake. In spite of my attempt to cushion the hard liquor with a Benjamin Franklin breakfast, my stomach was reacting with mild displeasure. I realized that I had to get the information I needed before it surged into violent rebellion.

As we drank, I kept him talking about what interested him, mostly himself and his daughter. The one possibly relevant tidbit he’d revealed so far was that he and Yvette Dupree had never had a romantic relationship.

“Not that I didn’t want to at first, years ago, but she was seeing somebody an’ wouldn’t play naked with ole Gene.” He sighed and drank. “Better this way. If we’da done the nasty an’ then broke up, that would have hurt my baby doll. Angel loves Yvette like a mamma. My wife died, ya know.”

I didn’t know that, but I murmured words of sympathy.

He stared down into his drink for a moment.

“Life’s a bitch,” he said.

This was my chance. “It sure is. A few months ago I had to deal with a woman who tried to destroy me.”

Long grunted. “You shoulda come to me-I know how to handle problems like that.” Long swallowed the rest of the scotch in his glass and got up for a refill. He wasn’t entirely steady on his feet, but he wasn’t stumbling. I was astonished at how much that man could drink and still walk and talk.

He came back with his fresh glass and one for me. As I still held one in my right hand, I reached for the other with my left.

Laughing, he called me a two-fisted drinker.

Long flopped down on the couch and rested his head against the back of it. I put the new drink down on the coffee table and leaned closer to him.

“What did you mean, about knowing how to handle an enemy?”

He chuckled, winked at me, and then stared into space.

“Won’t you tell me, Gene? I went through a really terrible time with her.”