“Red.”
“Red.”
“Deek.”
“Uh, deek.”
“Fer-ed-dique.”
“Fereddique.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Three syllables, not two. Emphasis on the second. Was going to run withRed, but that’s, like, too tacky and common. Now whenever you read the name on a billboard, you’ll know it’s me. So what were you about to offer? You, like, asked if you could get me something.”
Marcus stared at his phone display, praying for divine intervention. “Can I get you a cab?”
“Heck no,” said Fereddique, effortlessly pulling on a chestnut corduroy jacket and flipping his ebony curls back from the collar. “I’ll walk. Studio’s, like, only ten blocks from here. That’s why I stayed over.”
Aaaaand the cruelest cut of all. Oblivious to the coup de grace, Fereddique appeared completely at ease, finishing off the ensemble by deftly tying an eggplant wool scarf around his throat, doubtless to ward off the chill February air.
As soon as he’d finished, he paused to scrutinize Marcus before coming over and pulling him into the briefest of hugs, the kind of antiseptic endearment Marcus’s pious aunt favored. With a step back, Fereddique left his hands on Marcus’s forearms.
“I’ll see myself out,” he said, smiling at Marcus before letting him go and heading for the door. About to depart, he poked his head back into the apartment and said, “And good luck with your cooking thing, Magnus.”
Marcus accompanied the closing of the door with an indignant huff. Not that he minded the faux pas with his name—he’d made the same mistake—butcooking thing? Back in London he had made a name for himself as a rising culinary virtuoso. Okay, so nowhere near the same league as Anthony Bourdain or Gordon Ramsay—neither did he want to be—but Marcus had resurrected traditional British recipes using organic, untreated, and fresh local ingredients. His grandparents—Gaelic and Celtic on his father’s side and Anglo-Saxon on his mother’s—had trained him to whip up a range of almost forgotten dishes. During college and beyond, Marcus had spent weekends scouring bookstores and markets for old recipe books, and worked hard to bring them up-to-date and, moreover, make them healthy. Now both of his London-based Old Country restaurants had achieved hard-won critical acclaim in the eyes of the capital’s fine diners and the ever-judgmental media.
Not bad for a thirty-year-old. And if his manager, Tina, ever got her way, he would be strutting his stuff on a cable network television cooking channel. So far, however, that was one battle she had not won and, if he had his way, never would. Marcus enjoyed his anonymity, having his minor celebrity status confined to the restaurant or an occasional newspaper article in one of the national dailies.
“Breathe and let it go, Vine,” he told himself aloud. As usual, he had a split second of disappointment that came and went like a lick of sherbet, before comforting thoughts settled in. Apart from being moderately successful, he still had everything to live for, nothing and no one tying him down. Not anymore. Maybe the solution was to stop paying attention to his friends and colleagues, most of whom translated their shackled lives of debt, petty arguments, sleepless nights, and nappies into the more acceptable term of wedded bliss. Maybe he should get a dog or a cat? But then apartment living would not be fair to them, especially with the hours that Marcus worked. A goldfish, then? Self-sufficient, no poop to scoop, no yapping or meowing, and something his neighbor Ruth might be happy to feed while he spent time away. A goldfish for companionship. One-night stands for sex. Done deal.
Thirty minutes later, after he’d washed and dressed, his telephone rang. Tina’s name and face popped up on the display. Not a good photo with her scowling at the camera—she had been with him the day he bought the device; hers had been the first photo he’d taken—but it tended to make him smile before he answered. Ignoring the trill, Marcus took his coffee and strolled over to the floor-to-ceiling window, where he perched on the arm of the sofa before taking the call.
“Mrs. Adebayo-Cruickshank,” he said, and then took a sip of the coffee, nodding his approval to the Manhattan skyline. “How are you this morning?”
Tina Adebayo had been his business partner for the best part of the past five years. Second-generation Nigerian, she stood at an intimidating six-two. In meetings, she mesmerized. A razor-sharp mind together with her deep, rich voice never failed to widen the eyes of any opponent. Always on the same side of the table as her—thank heavens—Marcus had come to enjoy watching the blanching of faces opposite him.
“Oh my God,” she groaned. “I still can’t get used to hearing that name. Doesn’t sound right, does it?”
Tina and her longtime boyfriend, Mel, had finally taken the plunge last year. Marcus had catered the small wedding reception, not something he would normally offer, but for Tina he had happily made an exception.
“I don’t know. I quite like it, actually. Has a nice ring to it.”
“Anyway, don’t get me sidetracked,” she interrupted. “What time did you leave the club last night?”
“Not long after you, around ten thirty.”
“Uh-huh. And did you get a good workout with poster boy?”
“Who? Oh, don’t even,” he sighed, and rolled his eyes for effect even though she couldn’t see him.
“But that chunk-of-hunk was so—Oh. Em. Gee!”
“Fereddique. His name is Fereddique. And please don’t ever use that acronym again in conversation with me.”
“Really? But he was built like an Aberdeen Angus rib eye steak.”
“Tina, if I had to compare last night’s liaison to a particular food, it would not be beef. I would pick uncooked, unseasoned, flavorless tofu. Sat unmoving on a plate like cold blancmange. Packing lube and condoms turned out to be completely unnecessary. If only I weren’t so shallow when it came to my type.”
