Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

I wasn’t worried. Très Bonne Cuisine was in good hands.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from freezing in my tracks when I saw who stepped into the shop.

“Hello, Annie.”

Tonight, Peter was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt the color of the paprika in little containers on our herb and seasoning shelf. He glanced at the bag I was carrying. “You’re leaving.”

“I’ve got to get to Bellywasher’s for a cooking class. Raymond will take care of you.” I motioned toward Raymond, who was just coming up the aisle from the back office where he’d gotten one of our white aprons and was tying it around his back. On him, the apron looked as if it came straight from the store’s Kids Cook section.

“Oh, that’s OK.” Peter barely looked at Raymond before he turned his attention back to me. He stepped toward the front counter. Since I was standing directly between it and him and the displays all around us made it impossible to get by without getting too close, I had no choice but to step back. “I just need a couple of things,” he said. “I won’t keep you long.”

I wanted to say, You won’t keep me at all since I’m leaving, but I remembered what Eve had said last time Tyler came to Bellywasher’s. Paying customers were paying customers and as caretaker of his establishment, I had an obligation to Monsieur Lavoie to treat everyone who walked through the door with respect. Even a weasel like Peter.

I motioned to Raymond that I’d take care of things and watched as his eyebrows rose in an expression that clearly said he realized I knew Peter-and that he couldn’t wait until we were alone so we could dish the dirt.

I ducked back behind the counter and from there, I saw that Raymond was straightening the shelves of stainless-clad cookware that was not so far away that he couldn’t hear exactly what was going on.

“I didn’t realize you were into cooking,” I said, watching as Peter took a quick look around. “Is it like poker, another new hobby?”

“Oh, you know how it is.” Peter stepped closer. “Everybody cooks.” His eyes lit. “Everybody but you. What are you doing here, Annie? The most cooking you ever did was grabbing a box of Hamburger Helper and-”

“Ancient history.” It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my cooking skills, or my lack of them. It was just that I didn’t need to be reminded. Not by Peter, anyway. And not in front of Raymond. I sloughed off his comments with a laugh and a lift of my shoulders. “You learned to play poker. I learned to cook.”

“Amazing.” He said it in a way that made me feel a little queasy. Like he really meant it. Like he was impressed.

I pretended to fiddle with the cash register.

“But what happened to the restaurant?”

Peter’s question snapped me back. “Bellywasher’s?” He looked at me with those melting brown eyes of his. “You told me you were the business manager there.”

“I am the business manager there. And I’m the business manager here. It’s a long story.”

“And again, I say, amazing. You’re…” Peter took a step closer to the counter. Call it instinct. Even though there was a slab of polished granite between us, I took a step back. “You’re like a different person,” he said. “You’re so accomplished. So professional.”

“Which means I wasn’t accomplished and professional before.”

“Not what I meant.”

“What you said.” There was a time this would have cut me to the quick. Now, I simply cocked my head and stared at him, expecting him to back down not because he had to, but because it was my due.

It was.

He did.

And somewhere deep down inside, I actually felt a little sorry for him. “I’ve got to get going,” I said, stepping to my right so that I could move around to the front of the counter. “We’ve got a cooking class at Belly-washer’s tonight, and-”

“I won’t be another minute.” Peter grabbed a pig-shaped wooden cutting board from a nearby shelf and plunked it on the counter. From another display near the front window, this one intended to attract mothers and grandmothers for those last-minute impulse buys, he reached for a tube of pink cake icing. As if that wasn’t enough, he added two boxes of the red, white, and blue citronella candles I’d put out in honor of the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.

“That ought to do it,” he said.

I look at the disparate assortment. “You’re sure?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t need anything else?”

He reached for his wallet. “Nope.”

“Then how about if you tell me what you’re really doing here.”

Just as my professionalism and business acumen apparently had done, my question caught Peter off guard. I would have known that even if we hadn’t been married for eight years. It was the uneasy, embarrassed way he smiled, I guess. Or maybe it was the uncomfortable way he shifted from foot to foot.

“I was just passing by,” he said, and I actually might have believed it if he didn’t push a hand through his dark hair when he said it. I remembered that gesture. I’d seen it a thousand times. Always when Peter was feeling guilty about something.

Oh, how well I remembered that he’d never once resorted to that gesture when he fessed up about Mindy/Mandy!

Keeping the thought firmly in mind, I wrapped the pig cutting board in tissue and tucked it into a shopping bag along with the candles and the icing. “You were just passing by and you decided you couldn’t live without a wooden pig cutting board? Or maybe it’s Mindy/Mandy who needs the cutting board. What, is it some kind of romantic anniversary for you two? Maybe you’re commemorating the first time you cheated on me with her? There are some who would see the pig as wonderfully symbolic.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Raymond give me the thumbs-up.

That was far more encouraging than the pained look on Peter’s face. “That’s not fair, Annie,” he said. Leave it to Peter to try to defend the indefensible. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just wanted to…” He was never the hemming and hawing type. He hemmed and hawed. “Actually, I just wanted to see you.”

I was about to ring up his purchases, and my hands stilled over the keys of the cash register. “That’s not a good idea,” I told him.

Peter shrugged. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I can blame a guy for not trying back when we were married and you didn’t give a damn.”

At this, Raymond’s eyebrows rose even more, and his eyes went wide. He had given up all pretense of not eavesdropping, and he stood with his colossal arms folded over his enormous chest, just listening.

I don’t think Peter noticed. He wasn’t looking at anyone or anything but me. “That was a long time ago, Annie. You haven’t forgiven me?”

I’d like to say I took Peter’s cash from him gracefully. It was more like I yanked the money from his hands. I punched the keys on the cash register, fished out the proper change, and shoved it in Peter’s direction. “If you’re looking for forgiveness, you’ve come to the wrong place. That’s not my job.”

“But-”

“Thank you for shopping at Très Bonne Cuisine.” I gave Peter the smile I offered every customer as they left.

Right before I stepped around the counter, grabbed my shopping bag, and called a good night to Raymond.

“You’re making a mistake, Annie.” Peter’s words followed me to the door. “You’re forgetting that not everyone is what they seem.”

Yeah, I already knew that. Peter had taught me that lesson.

But as I got to my car and headed over to Belly-washer’s, the truth of what he said hit like a ton of bricks.

“Not everyone is what they seem,” I mumbled to myself, and I knew exactly why it bothered me in the context of Monsieur’s disappearance.