14
He had planned to call Marguerite anyway, and now he was glad that Iris had forestalled him because instead of phoning Marguerite with some vague idea of getting together, he now called with a definite purpose. He liked the way she answered the phone. She had to know it was him since she had his number programmed into her cell phone but she still answered, “Hello?”
So he went along with the idea that she didn’t actually know who was calling and said, “Marguerite. It’s Alexei.”
“I was pretty sure it was, but I like to be absolutely certain.”
He thought she was charmingly old-fashioned that she didn’t trust call display to tell her the truth and then he was forcibly reminded of his boneheaded move earlier when he had answered his ringing phone. He said, “You’re smart. A little while ago I answered my phone thinking it was you, and it was your sister.”
“Rose called you?”
He figured that was a fair assumption to make since Rose was currently engaged to his brother and, he supposed, when a woman had as many sisters as Marguerite did it was easy to get them mixed up. He said, “No. Iris.”
“Iris called you?”
“She did. And I thought it was you, so I picked up the phone and told her I was thinking about her.”
There was silence for a moment and he knew she was taking in the fact that he’d been thinking about. “That’s nice,” she said softly. And then, “But what did Iris want?”
“She wants me to cater her wedding.”
“But you don’t do catering.”
“I don’t normally do catering. But, like I told her, her sister’s marrying my brother, so we’re practically family. Besides, I was thinking you and I could use this as an excuse to work up some recipes for the cookbook. What do you think?”
“You’d really cater my sister’s wedding?”
“I’ve already agreed to do it.”
“If you had any idea how she’s been stressing over the catering… She wanted to do the whole thing herself, for her to trust you to cater her wedding is a huge compliment to you. And for you to agree to do it is a huge relief to the rest of us. So, thank you.”
He’d have preferred words of passion and promise, but he supposed gratitude was better than nothing. He said, “Don’t be too grateful, you’re getting involved in this too.”
“Me? I can’t cook anything.”
“You can chop things and you can taste. Plus, we can start combining my recipes with what grows locally in abundance. Iris is getting married in two weeks. Would you have any time in the next few days? Say, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Um, yes. Of course.”
“Great.” He felt the warmth of anticipation simply knowing he would see her tomorrow. “I’ll be finished work at four. Why don’t you come to my place around five. Bring some samples of whatever you’ve got fresh right now. We’ll play.”
“Play?” She sounded suspicious as though what he had in mind involved very adult games. Naturally, that put pictures in his head that immediately made him want to do nothing but play adult games with her all night. However, he forced himself to laugh and said, “Sure. That’s how we invent new recipes. We take different ingredients and play. It’s an adventure. You’ll see.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“What? Of course not. We just had sex, why would you even ask?”
There was a pause as though she were contemplating what to say, while he tamped down anger that she would even ask him such a thing after what they’d shared. “I wasn’t snooping, honest I wasn’t, but there was a note on your dresser from a woman named Heidi. It said something about her being discreet since you have a girlfriend.”
He didn’t remember any such note, but his stomach sank anyway. “It’s the curse,” he said finally. “Women sometimes come on to me. It’s been happening since I was thirteen.” He could go on for hours about the embarrassing situations he’d been thrown into by eager girls and women. “The girlfriend was Matt’s idea.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, but Matt said that when a girl makes a pass, I should tell her I have a girlfriend. Saves everyone’s feelings.”
