The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,22
whuffling sniff and slowly wagged his tail. Julian raised his hand to brush it over Alvin’s silky, fluffy head. “Yeah, there you go,” he murmured. “You’re a good dog, aren’t you?”
“Okay, Alvin, that’s enough. Thank you. Go lie down.”
With a final snort, her dog pranced over to the kitchen and waited for them. Elena let go of a breath. “I never know who he’ll love and who he’ll hate. Looks like you’re on the approved list.”
Julian laughed. “He’s gorgeous. I can see why you’re so fond of him.”
“Thanks.”
“He looks like an orange bear.”
“Yes. The vet told me that he’d seen a lot of dogs named Bear, but Alvin was the first one he thought should really be called that.”
“Ah, these are for you,” he said, offering the flowers—tiger lilies and cannas and roses, all shades of peach and pink and orange.
“The colors of El Día de los Muertos.”
“Are they?”
She nodded, smiling. “Thank you.”
“I brought wine, but I didn’t know what you’d need for tonight, so don’t feel that you have to open this one.”
Waving him into the kitchen, Elena said, “I hope you don’t mind if we eat at the kitchen table. It’s the most comfortable spot.”
“That’s fine. Smells good.”
She inhaled the chile and pork aroma, the hint of chocolate hanging like a whisper in the air. The round table was nestled under the window, covered with a red woven cloth from Ecuador. She’d set it with simple things, shallow white bowls and white napkins and fat white candles on a red and orange saucer she’d found years ago at a thrift store. “Do you want a beer?”
“Please.”
Settling the flowers on the counter for a moment, she opened the fridge to fish out two bottles of Dos Equis. “I like wine, too,” she said, “but beer is better with a meal like this.” Opening both bottles, she handed him one, and toasted, “To our venture, Mr. Liswood.”
“To our venture,” he echoed, and drank a modest sip. “But you’ve got to stop calling me Mr. Liswood. It’s Julian.”
“I’ll try.” Gesturing for him to sit on a stool, Elena settled on the other side of the granite countertop. It was cold on her elbows. “Thanks for arranging for the condo. It’s perfect.”
“You might change your mind when the whole complex fills with skiers every weekend. But I thought you’d like the kitchen.”
“Absolutely.” In the background played Matt Skellenger, jazz bassist, invigorating but not too intrusive. On the stove, the soup simmered, a sound Elena sometimes dreamed about. “Did your daughter arrive safely?”
“She’s here under duress,” he said. “But she’s here.” He sipped the beer. “Let’s talk about you, Elena. Tell me what you thought of the building.”
“I made some notes.” She grabbed her notebook and ran through her initial impressions, touched on some of the ideas she had for remodeling, and listed the most urgent expenditures. “Also, I met Ivan.”
His body loosened. “Ah.”
“He’d crashed in the staff room and smelled of three weeks’ hard drinking, but he did assure me that he was the best chef that ever lived.”
Julian grinned. “And?”
“I said that would be impossible because I am the best.”
His laughter was as bright as poppies. “That’s why I hired you. Chutzpah.” He sipped the beer, and rubbed his belly. “Let’s eat, shall we? That smells so good my stomach is growling.”
Elena jumped up, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry. Of course. We can talk and eat. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
His hand closed around her wrist. “Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Flutter. Worry, start the servant-master thing. I hate it.”
Trouble bloomed right there, the two of them standing too close with the smell of Elena’s posole heating the air. She saw the faded scars of childhood acne on his lean cheeks, faint now, but once not so. She saw the weary thinness of the skin beneath his eyes and the creases along his mouth. He was older than she by more than a decade. He’d been through three wives, one of them twice. She caught a sharp taste of sour cream and potatoes—latkes, was that what they were?—Jewish food. Of course.
In his turn, his eyes showed nothing, only that liquid blackness, focused on her face.
“Where did you grow up?” Elena asked him, moving away.
“New Jersey.”
“Really? You don’t have that accent.”
“We moved to Pasadena when I was twelve.”
She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “And you fell in love with movies.”
“I bet you read that in a magazine.”
“Maybe.” She ladled the stew into the bowls, and garnished them very simply with tiny rings of