Diane Davidson - Prime Cut

“Are you sure he’s all right?”

“He’s fine. If he has more symptoms, he knows to put a tablet under his tongue. The nitroglycerin opens up the—”

“I know what nitroglycerin does.” Reminders of my enforced passage through Med Wives 101 never helped my mood.

“He seems to think he’s in excellent shape,” the paramedic added with a chuckle. “Are you okay?”

I assured him that I was, thanked him for checking André out, and trotted to the glass-paneled back door. Julian followed close behind.

Fussing loudly, André sat perched on a wooden stool by the Homestead kitchen’s massive oak table. He was buttoning up his crisp white chef’s jacket. Ian Hood and Rufus Driggle hovered nearby.

“—and I don’t understand why the two of you can’t go and take care of Saint Nicholas and the children,” André fumed as he elbowed Rufus away from him. “Just wait for us to serve you! I am fine! Stop being such busybodies!”

I nodded to Rufus Driggle, whose neon-orange sweatsuit hung in wide folds from his lanky frame. The carpenter sidled over to Julian and me.

“Goldy, we’re so glad you’re here,” he whispered, as if we were old friends. I blinked: Despite the crisis atmosphere, I couldn’t help noticing how the orange suit clashed painfully with please-call-me-Rufus’s orange hair and pale skin. “We were kind of worried about old André here—”

Ian Hood was giving André a thunderous, impatient look. “Listen, old man,” he reprimanded André, “I saw you grab your chest.” I cringed. “Maybe this work is too demanding for you. Maybe you should go home and rest. We can order in some doughnuts.”

André folded his arms across his copious stomach and glared. Rufus reached for a glass from an old wooden cabinet and ran water into it. He offered the drink to André. André ignored him.

“Did you hear me, André?” Ian demanded loudly. “Can you hear me?”

“I may be old , but I am not deaf!” André shouted at Ian. When André swiveled away from Ian, he knocked the glass of water out of Rufus’s hand. Miraculously, the glass clattered to the tile floor without breaking. André directed his fury at the carpenter. “You imbecile! Why did you put that there?” he bellowed, then glared at the two of them. “Didn’t you hear the medical people say I was fine?” He caught sight of me. “Now look what you have done! Made my student worry!” He batted Rufus Driggle away with a fleshy palm. “Go spray rocks! Move furniture!”

Ian ran his strong fingers through his thick gray hair, rolled his brown eyes, and tapped his foot. His sensitive features pinched as he worked his mouth slowly from side to side. He was more attractive than I remembered from the first day of the shoot; perhaps then I’d been overwhelmed by the models’ good looks. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but then changed his mind and merely shrugged.

I said, “I’m here now, André.” I tried to make my voice comforting rather than condescending, which would have made him more upset than he already was.

“Yeah,” Julian piped up unexpectedly as he appeared at my side. “I’m Julian Teller, her student, Mr. Hibbard. I hope it’s okay that I came. Goldy was so worried about you. She’s always talking about her teacher,” he made his voice appropriately awestruck, “‘a real master,’ she says, ‘that’s André Hibbard.’” With great seriousness, Julian perused the oak island: a rack of cooling muffins sat neatly next to containers of flour, unsalted butter, brown sugar, and eggs. “Are you doing a coffee break cake? It looks super. Goldy was working on one this week. Is it okay if I stay and help?”

André nodded at him and beamed at me. He threw a haughty, I-told-you-so look at Ian and Rufus. Ian wordlessly slammed out of the room, clearly irritated beyond control. I breathed relief.

“I need this scrim adjusted!” he shouted from the Homestead interior. André hrumphed and raised a silver eyebrow. Rufus hustled out the door.

“The coffee break is at ten,” said André without moving from the stool. He sighed. “Thank you for offering to help. The Santa is allergic to strawberries and needs a separate bowl of fruit. There are three shots this morning, for three children’s outfits.” I shook my head: so much work. Why hadn’t he asked me to come at eight? “Before you scold me, Goldy,” André went on, “let me tell you, I was not having a heart attack. When they asked if I had pain down my arm, I told them to go away. And when I told them to leave me alone, I was gasping. So they told the medics that I was short of breath! Nonsense.” He inhaled deeply, as if to prove his point.

“So how are you now?” I asked.

“Fine! The only reason I placed my hand on my chest was because I was listening to the curator’s terrible tale … she is quite upset with your husband,”—he wagged a finger at me—“about that robbery by the security guard. I was being sympathetic, not having an attack.”

“Aha,” I said. Upset with my husband? About that robbery by the security guard? You mean, the security guard who was murdered five days ago? I said, “Why is she upset with my husband?”

André wafted a hand. “She had to go down to the sheriff’s department. I invited her to our coffee break. She will be back later, do not fear, and you can ask her all about it.”

André assigned Julian to trim the fruit bowl components while I prepared the baked snack. Lucky for me, there were apples in with the fruit André had brought, and he’d thought to bring extra aprons, which we donned. Perched on his bar stool, sipping a fresh espresso, offering a wide range of commentary and directions, André appeared not only healthy, but entirely in his element.

“So how are you doing with the fashion models?” I asked him as I tried to recall how I’d put together the apple cake earlier in the week. “Have they been eating the food you’ve prepared?”

“Phh-t . I do not understand why people with no talent earn twelve hundred dollars a day to model clothes, while I struggle to pay my bills.”

“But they struggle too, don’t you think?” I ventured.

“Listen, and I will tell you.” Oh, boy, here we go , I thought. Andre’s lectures, I was convinced, energized him. And his strongly held, vehemently expressed opinions proved to him that he was not old, after all. He rapped on the island with his espresso cup and waited until Julian and I had put down our knives and given him our full attention.

“You cannot become a model the way you become a chef,” he began, “through work and talent. A woman needs only a skinny body and a pretty face. And what destruction this wreaks! What I used to see at my restaurant was hundreds of teenage girls who would not eat. Why would they not eat? Because they wanted to be like the models in the magazines. But they could never become models because they did not have pretty faces.” He sipped his espresso thoughtfully. “Do you know what I have observed this week?”

“Pretty faces?” I said. “May I finish chopping the apples while we listen? So we can offer the snack to those who will eat?”

He nodded. “The male models are strong. They work out and have big muscles.” To demonstrate, he flexed the arm not holding his espresso cup. “The women may do some exercise, but when they come in to model, they are half dead, always begging me for caffeine.” He held up the cup. “How can I converse with these women, when I give them coffee?”

Uh-oh , I thought as I set about mixing melted butter with eggs, brown sugar, and chopped apples. To André, converse usually meant you listen; I’ll talk .