Joan Kilby - Party of Three

“Someone stole my effing spoon!” Gord roared suddenly. “Baz, was it you? I told you to keep away from my meez!”

“Sorry.” Baz slid Gord’s favorite slotted spoon across to him then looked to Ben. “What’s meez again?”

“Mise-en-place, your station prep, your assembled ingredients, condiments, tools,” Ben explained as he swiftly stacked slices of rare lamb fillet atop a puddle of buttered polenta. “Everything at the ready, the squeeze bottle of sauce placed just so, the metal pans of chopped condiments arranged in a precise order so that you can reach for a specific item without looking.” He wiped the rim of the plate with a clean rolled napkin and sprinkled on chopped parsley. “You don’t mess with another chef’s meez.”

Ben slapped the lamb on the pass-through window next to a veal marsala. “Pick-up on fifteen!”

Across the steamy kitchen Gord, his face as red as his flaming hair, berated Mick, the dishwasher. “Get those effing plates washed or I’ll shove them up your effing arse.”

Ben spotted Danny sitting on a sack of rice in a corner, munching on garlic prawns. While Ben swirled butter into a demi-glace heating in a saucepan he said, “How’s it going, mate? How are the prawns?”

Danny shrugged. “You need kid food on the menu.”

“There’s no such thing as kid food, just uneducated palates,” Ben told him. “Why, I was eating Szechwan and loving it when I was your age.”

“Ben!” Julie was shouting at him through the serving window as she stacked plates of seafood risotto on her arm, ready to whisk away. “Cassie’s way out of her depth and going down for the third time. Where did Steve get her, Hungry Jack’s?”

Not far off. Cassie, the maître d’ Steve had hired because she was his wife’s cousin, had last hosted at a family restaurant in suburban Melbourne. “Cut her some slack, she’s new.”

“We’re all new here,” Julie said bluntly. “Table Six wants to compliment the chef.” She lowered her voice. “It’s the mayor.”

“I’ll be right there.” This was no time to be away from the kitchen but he couldn’t ignore the mayor. She’d been very helpful about Mangos’s liquor license.

He turned back to Danny. “Go on upstairs. Take something from the pastry cart if you want.”

“When are you coming home?” Danny said. “I don’t like it up there by myself.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Tomorrow we’ll go swimming.” Ben gathered his son in a rough one-armed embrace. “Turn on the TV but don’t watch garbage. I’ll be up to check on you as soon as I can.”

He pushed through the swinging wooden doors that led into the dining room and wove his way through the tables, smiling at unfamiliar faces and calling greetings to those he recognized.

Table Six, next to the window, held two women in their late fifties, both blond, well-dressed and well-preserved. To Ben they looked almost identical. A panic-stricken thought swept through his brain—which one was the mayor?

“Evening, ladies,” he breezed, automatically making a mental note that the woman on his right hadn’t touched her kipfler potatoes. He directed his next words to her. “I hope you’re enjoying your meal.”

“The steamed tuna was delicious,” she said.

Above the aromas of food and wine, the scent of White Diamonds tickled his sensitive nose, triggering a memory of their earlier meeting. “Thank you, your Honor. I—”

A movement outside caught Ben’s attention. Through the window he recognized the priggish young woman from the cottage rental agency next door stumbling along the rain-soaked footpath. Her sleek brown hair had fallen out of its tight ponytail and was plastered to her cheeks in wet ropes. Even through the blurred glass he could tell she was crying.

Leave her be, Ben told himself. She wasn’t his problem. God knows, he had enough of his own waiting for him in the kitchen or upstairs. Then she turned her head and he saw her contorted face. Something shifted inside him, and he couldn’t ignore her pain.

“Excuse me,” he said to the mayor and her guest. “There’s something I have to attend to.”

The next instant he was out the door, grabbing Ally, whirling her to a halt. “Whoa! What’s your hurry, sunshine?”

She struggled in his arms, kicking at his shins. “Let me go.”

“Ow! Stop that,” he said, ignoring her request. “Ally, are you hurt? Tell me, so I can help you.”

Hearing her name, she stopped struggling and pushed back her lank hair to peer at him. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, me. You’ve lost a shoe.” For some reason this sparked a torrent of verbal abuse directed at men in general and some poor sap named George specifically. Ben took her by the shoulders. “What is it?”

Ally took a huge gulping breath. “I went home and found my fiancé and his s-s-secretary drinking c-c-coffee together!”

“Sorry, I’m not getting it,” Ben said with what he thought was commendable patience while the rain soaked through his chef whites. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Her underwear was on my p-p-pillow! They’re having an affair.” Ally gave a violent shiver and her teeth began to chatter. She bent over and started retracing her steps, looking for her missing shoe.

He swore under his breath. “You’d better come in out of the rain or you’ll catch your death.”

“I want to die,” she said fiercely.

“Not outside my restaurant, you don’t. People will blame the seafood.” He found her shoe floating in the gutter and plucked it out just before it was sucked down the storm drain. Handing it to her he offered his arm to lean on while she put it on.

“Come inside,” he urged, intending to park her in front of the fireplace with a glass of brandy until she calmed down and dried off.

“I can’t go in there,” she wailed. “I don’t want everyone in town seeing me like this.”

“You’ve got a point. We’ll go in the back way.” He started to tug her around the side of the building. “I’ll take you upstairs to my apartment.”

“I don’t know you,” she said, resisting.

“Trust me, I’m not going to attack you.”

“Why should I believe that? I saw the way you looked down my blouse this morning.” She was shivering and soaked to the skin, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. The rain had rendered her blouse transparent, revealing a plain cotton bra, about as alluring as her pinched white face, although the nicely rounded breasts that filled it had potential.

“In the name of Good Samaritanism I’ll do my best to resist. Anyway, I have to get back to my restaurant.”

“But—” She broke off to sneeze violently.

“Come on, at least you’ll be warm and dry. My son is up there. I’ll send up some food. Are you hungry?”

She’d started to shake her head when her stomach gave a rumble that was audible over the drumming rain.

“When did you last eat?” he persisted.

“A salad at lunch.”

“I thought as much. Do you like pasta?” Reluctantly she nodded. “Creamy chicken and wild mushroom sauce?” She swallowed, as if salivating already. Ben took her arm and tugged gently. “Sundried tomatoes, avocado, parmesan…”

She let him lead her past the Dumpster and the empty produce boxes, past Baz sneaking a smoke outside the back door and up the steep narrow staircase to the apartment.

Ben gave his coded knock, three short, two long. A moment later, the latch turned and Danny opened the door.

“What the—?” Danny’s wide-eyed gaze took in the pair of them.

“This is Ally,” Ben told him. “She got caught in the rain. She’s going to stay here for a bit and dry off.” Beneath his arm he could feel the faint tremor in her shoulders. “You okay?” he said to her.