“Let me know if you want more tea.”
That was the other thing—no alcohol was served. The owner was Baha’i.
“The music is good, too,” Julian said. “What’s playing?”
“Some kind of world-beat thing,” the boy said. “I’ll check for you.”
Elena smiled as the boy ambled away. Julian’s disguise had turned out to be remarkably simple—and effective. The curls were tucked beneath a Rastafarian-style knitted hat, and he wore black horn-rimmed glasses and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with wooden beads around his neck. He looked like a weird professor of some esoteric thing, like the history of the Congo or Sufi poetry. “You do nerd really well.”
“Yes, ma’am—lots of practice.”
“You mean, in disguises?”
His grin turned rueful. “Nyet. As a real nerdy guy. When I was seventeen, I played Dungeons and Dragons and chess.”
“Horrors!”
He lifted a finger—wait. “I also had an entire collection of all of Stephen King’s novels, and could quote, word for word, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Raven.’”
Elena’s nostrils quivered with laughter. “I’m getting this picture of a very skinny, intense boy. Virgin?”
“Oh, yeah.” He waved a hand. “To have sex, you’d have to actually talk to a woman. I couldn’t seem to connect.”
“With that array of interests? Imagine!”
“I know. Go figure.”
“So what changed it?”
“I made a movie,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “Suddenly, there were a lot of beautiful girls who wanted to talk to me.”
Something about that pierced Elena. “Was it hard, trying to figure out who wanted you for yourself?”
“At that point, I didn’t particularly care.”
Elena laughed appreciatively.
“You, on the other hand,” he said, “were probably the queen of your high school, weren’t you?”
“Hardly. I was odd woman out, too. Not a nerd, though—I was just different. If it hadn’t been for—” she paused, but only for a second, “my boyfriend and my sister, I would not have had any friends, I’m sure.”
His dark eyes glittered. Focused. Interested. “Why?”
“Well, for one thing, I stood out because I was so white looking, you know.” Isobel suddenly appeared and settled into the chair to Elena’s left. She shot her a glance, but Isobel folded her hands, blinking in total innocence.
“Go on,” Isobel said. “We’re both listening.”
“Um.” She rarely showed up when there were other people around, and telling the story felt suddenly self-conscious. “There were other white kids, but I wasn’t in their camp, since I was an Alvarez.”
“Lucky for you,” Isobel said.
“Lucky for me,” Elena repeated. “So I was in between. And,” she said, spearing a lovely cube of roasted sweet potato, “I was totally a bookworm and I got straight A’s.”
“Boring,” Isobel said. She reached for a crust of bread, but Elena shot her a look.
“‘Boring’ is the word,” Elena said.
“Oooh,” he said, grinning. “Not quite chess, but nobody likes a smart girl, either. Were you valedictorian?”
A cold, salty wave of memory doused her pleasure. Isobel vanished. “No. Things…got in the way.”
“Things?”
She shook her head.
He let it go, taking a sip of green tea. “I’ve been working on a soundtrack for the Orange Bear.”
Grateful for the change of subject, she said, “Spoken like a director.”
“And for the same reason—music creates a mood.”
“I’ll buy that. Are there soundtracks for your other restaurants?”
“Every one.”
“What’s the soundtrack for the Blue Turtle?”
“Let’s see—the CDs are about four hours long, and I usually end up mixing about five or six. For the Turtle, there is some French, some Canadian indigenous music, some East Indian influences. Other things, but those are the basics.”
“I never noticed.”
He shrugged. “You’re in the back. You’d never hear it.”
“True.” She stabbed a chunk of roasted red pepper from the stew and examined it. “This is really very good,” she commented. “So what’s on the soundtrack for the Orange Bear?”
“It’s better to play it for you.”
“You’re not doing a bunch of old ranchero favorites, are you?”
His smile was secretive and slow, his black eyes suddenly darker, more intriguing. “Not at all.”
She inclined her head. “When can I hear it?”
“Whenever you like.”
“Tomorrow?”
“In the evening. I’ve got a lot to do during the daylight hours.” He met her eyes, lifted his glass of water, and paused. “Your place or mine?” Again that slow, playful smile, a glitter dancing on his fathomless irises. A jewel in a ring on his right hand caught the light, a contrast to the Rastafarian hat.
Not this one, she said to herself. Not this one. “I have a lot to do, too. Let’s make it at the restaurant.”
“No problem.”
The server returned. “The music is Lhasa de Sela,” he said, fingers resting lightly on the tabletop as he leaned in.
“Thank you,”