The Art of Love Read online

  With all hands on deck and the extra help we’ve had to bring in, the kitchen is like a hive swarming with honey bees. We’ve actually had to close the restaurant to the public, and there is security at the entrance to keep the paparazzi from crashing the event.

  “Why are we killing ourselves over this wedding again?” Pedro asks the kitchen in general as he carries in yet another tray of dirty glasses. The Lake-McHale guests have no qualms about making use of the open bar, and the bartenders, who usually handle washing most of their own dishes, are overwhelmed.

  “Money.” Aspic explains everything in one concise word.

  “Money for who?” Pedro wants to know, setting the tray heavily down on the edge of the sink and causing the glasses to ring. “Is there some for me, or is it all just for Winchell?”

  Three guys struggling under three giant bakery boxes show up. “Where do you want the cake?” the guy in charge asks. “And don’t say anywhere because it has to be assembled.”

  “Where the hell have you guys been?” I demand. “The reception’s already started. You were supposed to be here hours ago.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell us there was going to be a full body cavity search to get into this dump,” the guy gripes right back at me. “The security outside is insane. I think it’s easier to get a shot at the president.”

  “Yeah,” one of the other bakers says, “like we’d really go to the trouble of baking this thing just to get a look at some stupid debutant at her wedding.” He laughs. “I’m surprised they didn’t search the cake for a camera or something.”

  “Okay… um… Paolo?” I call. He looks reasonably presentable, I guess.

  “What you want, Suzannah?” he asks.

  “Would you please show these men to the dessert table so they can set up the cake?”

  “Sure thing.” The Italian turns to lead them into the dining room.

  “Oh, and Paolo?” He pauses, so I slide up next to him and whisper in his ear, “Would you please button your chef’s coat before you go out there?” With the amount of waxing that goes on in wealthy communities, I’m sure quite a few ladies would pass out from shock at such a display of the Italian’s chest hair in public.

  Kiki materializes and stalks across the kitchen, hands on her hips. “All the guests are here! Where are the appetizers?” she hisses.

  She can see the chaos. She can see it right in front of her eyes, but that somehow doesn’t register. “Reel it in, Kiki,” I tell her. “They're almost ready.”

  Chandra Lake is a beautiful bride in as much as she’s normally pretty good looking and she’s got on a flouncy white dress that I’m sure cost more than a year of the mortgage on my condo. Besides that, she doesn’t really stand out in any way from the standard women you see modeling gowns in bridal magazines. In a weird way, that’s the problem with weddings. Every bride wants her wedding to be special, and they are all special to the bride and groom, but most of them kind of blend together until weddings become this giant mass in people’s memories with nothing to distinguish one from blurring into the next. Chandra’s probably has a bigger cake for her reception than most people’s, and the small gift set at each table setting appears to be some kind of Swarovski crystal figurine, but besides that, I don’t really see anything that will stand out in people’s memories. Okay, I forgot about the battalion of security out front. That actually leaves an impression. The groom is in a classic tux. He has that kind of Prince William look of having formerly been handsome, but he’s now a little toothy and a bit thinning on the top.

  I peek out into the restaurant as the hors d’oeuvres first leave the kitchen, hoping to gauge people’s reactions. Chandra is beaming as she chats with her guests, and everything seems to be going smoothly. Donna heads toward the bride with a full tray of finger food, offering small bites to people along the way. After Chandra’s behavior earlier in the week, I’m surprised Donna isn’t on the other side of the room. She finally reaches the bride and with all the pleasantry she can muster says, “Crab puff?”

  Chandra’s eyes bulge a little as she snatches a puff off the tray. “What is this?” she demands.

  Donna gives her a startled look and says, very carefully, like you would to a man waving a gun around, “It’s a crab puff.”

  “I know that! What I want to know is why are you trying to serve it to me?” the bride all but yells.

  Donna is at a loss. “I'm not sure I know what you mean...”

  “I mean, I don’t like crab puffs,” Chandra yells, throwing the food at the waitress. “I don't eat crab puffs, and I didn't order crab puffs for my wedding!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone running across the dining room. It’s Kiki in a flat-out, high-heeled sprint. “What’s going on?” she asks, skidding to a halt in front of the bride. “What did she do?” she asks, obviously meaning Donna.

  “She tried to serve me a crab puff.” Chandra’s voice is shrill enough to draw the attention of the drunkest of guests.

  “Okay… I… uh…” It’s obvious that Kiki has lost her place in the script.

  “I don’t like crab puffs! In fact, I hate crab puffs! So why the hell are you trying to serve them at my wedding?” Chandra is on the verge of a full bridal meltdown.

  “What do you mean?” Kiki manages to stammer.

  The bride is losing it in front of every single of her two hundred guests who hear, “My appetizers are paper-wrapped chicken, escargot-stuffed mushrooms, and ginger beef skewers. I never once mentioned crab puffs. Now, why are there crab puffs being served at my wedding reception?”

  Donna turns and skulks away from the conflict. It might be a trick of the lighting, but I swear she’s suppressing a smirk.

  All the color has drained from Kiki’s face, and she looks a little scared. “I don't know,” she croaks out. “The kitchen must have mixed up the order. I'll go check on it right now.”

  “You’d better!” Chandra shouts after her.

  One of the extra waiters we brought in to help cover the reception wanders into the bride’s peripheral vision and stops in front of some guests who have been gawking at the bride like a three-car pileup on the autobahn. “Crab puff?” he asks, oblivious to any impending danger.

  Chandra wheels around and points at a guest who is just about to bite into the proffered treat. “Don't eat that!” she bellows.

  I hurry back into the kitchen before Kiki catches me outside the swinging doors. She’s hard on my heels and is immediately up in my grill before I get halfway across the room. “What the hell is going on?” she demands.

  “We just sent out the first round of appetizers,” I tell her. “They can’t be ready for dinner already.”

  “You sent out the wrong appetizers,” Kiki hisses.

  “No,” I tell her, standing my ground. I grab the printout I was given to coordinate the meal. “No, we didn't.” I wave the paper at her. “It says right here, crab puffs.”

  Kiki snatches the printout from my hand and quickly scans it. “That's supposed to be cream puffs! For dessert!”

  The chaos in the kitchen has slowed to a crawl as everyone watches our exchange. Antoine has set himself up with a front row seat, his eyes out on stalks. I think the only way he could be happier is if he had a bag of popcorn.

  “This is wrong.” Kiki scans the page, repeatedly shaking her head. “This is all wrong.” She turns her eyes toward me. “Did you make all this stuff?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I’m not sure what she’s expecting me to say.

  “You did this on purpose!” The accusations ring out as Kiki scrambles for a way to divert the blame. “You did this to make me look bad!”

  “You're crazy,” I tell her. “That's the menu you sent me.”

  “No, it's not!” she shouts, her eyes blazing. “Look right here, you see... Wait. This isn't...” She becomes more and more bewildered as she scans the page. “This isn't the menu I keyed into the computer.”

  “Well, it's the menu you gave me
,” I tell her. I’m not apologizing, and I’m not making any excuses. I made what I was told to make.

  “But...” For just the briefest of moments, Kiki’s lower lip trembles, and her eyes start to swim. Then the moment passes, and she goes on the attack, “You did this! You... somehow... changed the order.”

  “I do not sink so, Keekee.”

  Kiki and I both turn to regard my most unlikely of defenders—Antoine. I’m so surprised, I could be knocked over by a stiff breeze. “You are zee only one who knows zee computer,” he goes on. “It cannot be zee fault of Suzanne. Or anyone here.” He waves a hand at the staff. “You trust no one with zee password.”

  Well, as far as Kiki knows, she’s the only one that knows the password. According to my reliable source, it’s common knowledge.

  Kiki visibly wilts, pressing one hand to her forehead in a very silent-movie-actress–type gesture. “This isn't happening.” Her voice quavers. “No...” She shakes her head back and forth very rapidly trying to make it all go away. “I don't want to go out there. I just... don't.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I find myself volunteering before I can’t think better of it.

  Kiki gives me a sharp look. “What?”

  “I’ll go with you.” I say it again, this time with the full knowledge that I am committing to putting myself in the line of fire. “Maybe we can, you know, kind of coax her to one side and maybe just ease her into the news. I mean, the food isn’t what she ordered, but it’s still pretty damn good. Maybe we can convince her not to worry about it and just enjoy her reception anyway.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Kiki says, “How do I know you won’t make it worse? I mean, this is all your fault, anyway.”

  “Maybe me being there will make it worse, but if I go with you, at least there’ll be more than one target.”

  I think it’s a sign of how truly scared Kiki is that she actually accepts my offer. We head to the dining room and try to corral Chandra to the ladies room. When she’s not having it, we at least try to flush her into a more remote corner of the room, but here again, she refuses to leave center stage. “Anything you have to say to me, Kiki, you can say right here, right now.”

  The eyes of every guest are on her, and although she has squared her shoulders and she’s trying to be brave, I can tell Kiki is cringing on the inside. She steps forward to whisper in the bride’s ear, and Chandra flinches back as if she doesn’t want to be contaminated by whatever the plebeian has to say. Kiki tries again, this time not stepping so close, and Chandra leans her head forward while keeping her body away from being polluted.

  As Kiki whispers, the fury is building behind Chandra’s eyes. I had hoped we could speak to the bride together, but it’s not playing out that way, and I have no idea what Bouche’s treacherous head hostess is telling the spoiled faux-debutant.

  “You ruined my life!” Chandra shrieks, giving Kiki a vicious shove that sends her teetering on her heels. “I trusted you!” The bride grabs a champagne glass out of a guest’s hand and whips it at Kiki. “I did you this giant favor, and you ruined everything!”

  “I’m sorry,” Kiki whimpers, dodging the projectile. “I don’t know how it happened. Someone must have hacked the computer system and changed the order.”

  “You were always jealous of me,” Chandra rages. If foam starts bubbling out of her mouth, I won’t be surprised.

  “It’s not like that,” I interject, hoping to divert at least some of the bride’s anger tsunami.

  “Shut the hell up!” She grabs another glass and cocks her arm. But I guess I’m not as desirable of a target because she swings back around to yell at Kiki again. “You think this is funny, Kiki? You think you could just pull one over on Chandra? Well, I'm going to ruin you! I'm going to ruin your life!” She lets fly with the second flute, but it goes wide, and a woman in a pale blue dress, gawking too close to the action, gets clipped on the forehead. She lets out a howl and drops her own glass. “Shut up, Martha!” the bride yells. “I didn’t hit you that hard.” Martha’s husband leads her away, hopefully to find an ice pack.

  “I’m going to ruin you. There is not going to be a site on the Internet that doesn't list in detail how much you suck at your job!” Chandra says, her voice sounding more like the feral growl of a wolf than a bride on her wedding day.

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” I try again. “The food is still good. It’s just not exactly what you picked as your menu.”

  “Shut! Up!” Chandra screeches at me, snatching a fork off a table and winging it in my direction.

  I make the decision that I’m not willing to take a fork in the eye to protect my enemy, so I cut through the crowd, leaving Kiki to fend for herself.

  “I'm taking out ads in newspapers!” I hear Chandra threaten as I flee. “I'm going to write a book about how much you screwed me over!”

  The groom makes a preliminary attempt to calm down his wife with, “Honey, why are you acting this way in front of all our guests?” in a very soothing voice.

  But he’s shouted down by, “Don’t even start with me, Nigel, or you know what’s coming!”

  I’ve never had a wedding, so I can’t speak from experience, but I do not understand most forms of bridal insanity. There are crab puffs at the beginning of the reception instead of cream puffs at the end. Is that really such a cataclysmic crisis? Is that worth having such a global meltdown that you completely ruin your own reception?

  In part, I think society is to blame. A lot of women either consciously or subconsciously feel their wedding is the only chance they’ll have in their entire lives to be the center of attention. Unless some gal becomes a prima ballerina, of course, but that comes with a whole different set of issues. I also feel, for a large part, the wedding industrial complex is to blame. Their mantra is that your wedding has to be perfect for your perfect day, and if you go with whatever overpriced goods and services they are offering then it will be perfect, and you will be the princess. But here’s the thing, do you know what you remember from a perfect wedding? Nothing. A perfect wedding just kind of blends into the background scenery of your life. What people remember are the little hiccups that give character to the event. A flower girl crying and too afraid to go down the aisle. The father-of-the-bride’s inappropriately long speech that has absolutely nothing to do with the wedding. Stuff like that actually sticks in people’s memories. I’ll give Chandra Lake credit for one thing, though. It is unlikely any of her guests will ever forget her wedding reception.

  As I flee from what is ramping up as Hurricane Chandra, I almost run into Donna, who is hovering on the edge of the gawkers but out of firing range. She’s snacking on a crab puff and wears a self-satisfied smirk. “Hey,” she says, extending her mostly full tray toward me. “Didn’t think all of these should go to waste.”

  I shake off her offer. “How do you and the bride know each other?” I ask, glancing back at the bride.

  “We went to high school together. Kiki, too.” She nods. “If you check out our yearbook you’d think we’d be best friends for life.”

  This does strike me as a bit odd. “So, what happened?” I ask.

  “Chandra’s dad became a porn king, and my dad retired from the post office. And Kiki… Well…” She picks up another crab puff. “Kiki’s always been a bitch.”

  ***Kiki***

  My life is over. Not with a sputter, but with a bang. A big, cataclysmic, Chandra Lake bridal explosion. I cannot believe Sue did this. I can’t believe she would go so far as to ruin another woman’s wedding. And she pulled it off so flawlessly. She must have hired someone to hack into the Bouche system or something. And then she just stood there, acting so innocent, even offering to help me break the news to Chandra.

  I totally misjudged Sue. She’s not some little prissy priss that is trying to grow a spine. She’s a sociopath. She obviously has a muffler on what are considered normal human feelings. There’s no way she could have done this unless that was the case. For a few weeks, I was f
eeling slightly impressed by her ruthlessness, but after this, I’m almost afraid of her. Who knows what else she’s capable of doing? I don’t want to disappear and have my dismembered body parts discovered in the freezer the next time Bouche does a full inventory.

  Now, I have to go face Trent, and I so don’t want to. Once again, I have no proof that it was Sue who messed with the menu, and since I’m the only one besides Escoffier who knows the password to the catering, I’m going to have to take the blame. There is zero doubt in my mind that Trent is going to fire me. Unless, of course, there’s something I can do to talk him out of it.

  Chapter 21

  Chandra Lake is true to her word about smearing Bouche along with Kiki on the Internet. If all of her postings weren’t so charged with personal venom, I would assume she hired someone to smear the restaurant for her. She’s even gone so far as to smear us on sites that have nothing to do with food, weddings, or rating services. And she’s doing this in an incredibly short amount of time. You’d think she’d be off enjoying her honeymoon instead of glued to her laptop complaining about us. But who knows? Maybe she’s tweeting from the beach or something.

  I’ve tried to resist wading too deeply into her posted outrage. And I’m trying not to take her attacks too personally. We did screw up the menu for her wedding reception, that’s true. But the way she’s acting, you’d think we committed cannibalism against someone in her family and served the dish as an appetizer.

  The Bouche staff has taken the whole thing with macabre good humor, even incorporating some of Chandra’s choicest phrases into the language that is bandied about the restaurant. Typical banter goes something like:

  “Those jerks at table eighteen only left me a four-dollar tip.”

  “They probably found your appearance gross and unappetizing.”

  Or something like:

  “Table twenty-nine sends their compliments. They said the food is not fit to be served at a gas station.”

  “That’s so nice of them. I’m glad I didn’t wash my hands after taking a leak.”