The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,80
I let him. Give me a call and I’ll come get him in the morning.
She hesitated, then added:
Hope you got what you wanted with the meeting. We were pretty pleased from our end.
Elena
She carried the note upstairs, past the hallway she had used the night she stayed here, and down another hallway. Wrong way. This led to guest rooms. She headed back the other way, almost landed on the mezzanine to his office, and steered around again. Finally, she found Julian’s bedroom and halted, suddenly shy, on the threshold. It was a vast room, well appointed but not terribly personal, as if a decorator had done it all.
But the air smelled intensely of Julian, that particular apple-and-sunlight fragrance she had come to associate with him. It assaulted her, soaked into her body through her skin, through her nose, made her breasts feel heavy. Her neck prickled. She stood there for long, long moments, breathing it in, feeling it calm even as it aroused, as if his flesh would be the ultimate aromatherapy, curing everything, but especially her loneliness.
A sharp trill of laughter shattered the moment. Blinking, Elena hurried forward and put the note on his bed, hoping suddenly that no other woman would be lying there with him, that his head alone would be on those pillows. Then, shaking her head at the strangeness, she hurried out.
No wonder he was so powerful, she thought, starting Patrick’s car. He must have the pheromones of a tiger. A lion, an elephant. Something huge, anyway.
Yet another reason to steer clear of Julian Liswood.
TWENTY-FIVE
PAN DE MUERTO (BREAD OF THE DEAD)
1 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup (one stick) butter
1/4 cup water, just warmer than body temperature
1 T flour
1 tsp sugar
2 packages dry yeast
5 cups flour
1 T whole anise seed
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
GLAZE
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 T orange zest
Measure the milk and salt into a large glass measuring cup and drop in a stick of butter, cut into chunks. Heat in the microwave until milk is scalded, stir until butter melts, and let stand for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, measure warm water into a small bowl and stir 1 tablespoon flour and 1 teaspoon sugar into it. Sprinkle yeast on top and let it dissolve for a few minutes.
While those are resting, measure 11/2 cups of flour into a bowl and set the rest aside. Mix in the anise seed and sugar, then add the milk/butter mixture and the yeast mixture, and stir vigorously until well mixed. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the remaining flour 1 cup at a time until the dough is soft and not sticky. Turn out the dough on a counter and knead well for 10 minutes or so, until the texture is as cool and smooth as a young breast or a baby’s bottom. Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough in it, turning it so the entire loaf is coated lightly with oil, and then cover with a thin, damp cloth and put it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise until doubled, about 1–2 hours.
Punch the dough down and shape into loaves that look like skulls, skeletons, bones. Let the loaves rise for 1 hour. Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Paint with glaze.
Glaze: mix sugar, orange juice, and zest together, and boil for 2 minutes, then use it as a paint for the loaves. Sprinkle with colored sugar in pink, orange, green, and blue. Serve to the dead.
Or to the living, who tend to eat more of it.
TWENTY-SIX
Julian was in a deep sleep when something blew over his face. He slid one eye open and found himself staring into the face of a very big nose. When Alvin saw he was awake, he woofed softly, putting his paws on the bed.
“Need to get outside, do you?”
Alvin woofed again. Julian put on his robe and padded downstairs to let the dog out. Standing there on the deck, he thought of Elena with a sucking sense of guilt.
The movie was a go. He had not said a word.
He didn’t know, now, how he would.
Tell her, man.
But how could he?
On the Day of the Dead, Elena took the morning off from work, as was her annual habit. It was strange not to have Alvin with her, but she’d loaned him out in the service of a good cause. She arose early, smiling at the rustling, the soft whispers in the rooms of her apartment, ghosts gathering in happy anticipation.