A Taste Of The Nightlife Part 12

"What do you think of Sevarin?" Brendan asked abruptly.

Way to change the subject. But I was glad he did. "Honestly? I don't know yet."

"Don't trust him, Charlotte. He's got his own agenda."

I hitched my purse strap up on my shoulder. "I know, but I don't have a whole lot of choice. I have to find out what's happening with Chet."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

There's a certain kind of look people get when they've just replayed their words in their head and wish they could hit the DELETE b.u.t.ton. "I'm sorry," Brendan said. "I'm just worried. There's a turf war brewing and my family's either starting it or egging it on or . . ." He let the words trail away and just shook his head again.

Which reminded me once more that there was a whole extra set of problems in the background I hadn't gotten a good look at yet. Something else we had in common.

I took a deep breath. "Look. My brother . . . his judgment wasn't fantastic before he was turned, and it didn't get any better afterward. But whatever he's doing . . . it's going to turn out to be more frat house than Mafia."

"I hope you're right."

Me too. "I'll take another run at him tomorrow night. He never could keep a secret from me."

Brendan did not say he'd been doing a good job lately, which was considerate. "So, can I call you tomorrow night?"

Something inside, right under my lungs, lurched. "I'll keep my phone on."

I got a smile for that, the kind that spreads a soft light through the room and makes your bones go all gooshy. Brendan was so close that I could feel exactly how far I'd have to stretch to reach his mouth with mine. I could have done it as a promise, or just to see what it would feel like, or to make up for the fact that I'd been flirting with Anatole right after we'd held hands, or just because I hadn't been this close to anybody I could really consider kissing in close to forever.

But what I did was walk out the door.

12.

I left Brendan's in a cab. When I got home, I grunted at Trish and Jess and stumbled past them on the way to my bedroom. There, I toppled over without undressing and slept like the well and truly dead.

Around one in the afternoon, my eyes opened of their own accord. Feeling a lot better, I washed and dressed and went into the kitchen. There, the all-but-empty refrigerator confronted me accusingly. I hadn't had a chance to restock since my cooking binge, and whatever Trish might think, a six-pack of Yoplait, a half gallon of skimmed-to-in-an-inch-of-its-life milk and a brick of cheap Cheddar did not const.i.tute a decent bout of grocery shopping.

I checked my smartphone. Miracle of miracles, there were no frantic messages from staff, warlocks, policemen, my brother, or a.s.sorted stray vampires. Maybe I could risk a minute to catch up on personal business. I grabbed purse and jacket and fled with the speed of a teenager handed Mom's credit card.

For an hour, I let myself forget. Juggling a cup of coffee and a warm bialy, I picked over produce; eggs from free-range chickens, good cheese, fresh, crusty bread and Spanish olive oil. I inhaled fragrances that reminded me about my real life, the one I was going to get back to as soon as this whole mess cleared up.

I most emphatically did not think about what had happened at Post Mortem, or afterward. I was still most emphatically not thinking about any of that when I backed into the apartment, my arms straining to wrap around four overstuffed grocery bags. I turned around to kick the door shut-and saw Jessie.

She sprawled facedown on the sofa with one arm dangling limp and still over the edge. Dark stains crusted her trailing, expensively highlighted hair.

My reaction to this tableau, given the last few days, was perfectly natural. I screamed like a horror movie virgin, dropped the food and rushed over to her.

"Jess!" I hauled on her shoulder, trying to flip her over and find a pulse at the same time.

Jessie opened one badly smudged eye in what I have to admit was a fairly good outraged glower, considering our mutually awkward positions. "What on earth is the matter with you?" She swatted at my groping hands.

"Ergh . . . unk." I stumbled backward, plopped down on the edge of the coffee table and proceeded to shake. "Sorry. Startled. Wasn't expecting you home."

"Me either." The smudged eye closed wearily.

For a minute I thought about reading her the riot act for scaring the c.r.a.p out of me, but the utterly flat way she intoned those two words, along with the fact that she was still facedown took me aback more than a little. If that hadn't done it, the sight of her makeup being smeared would have. In the two years we'd roomed together, I'd never seen Jess with a less than perfect face.

"What happened?"

"The bridal party from h.e.l.l," she mumbled into the sofa cus.h.i.+ons. "Mother-daughter screaming match that graduated to throwing things, which included several pairs of designer heels and half my stock."

"Ouch."

The hand dangling over the edge of the sofa waved, indicating agreement with this particular understatement.

I searched for words of comfort and came up disconcertingly empty.

"You can bill them for the lost stock, can't you?"

"That's not the point!" Jessie rolled over and clutched a sofa pillow to her stomach. In addition to her smoke-gray eye shadow being smudged on both lids, a long green smear decorated one cheek, like someone had slapped her with a piece of wet nori. "I'm supposed to make things better! I soothe nerves, I improve health and outlook, I show them who they want to be!" Jessie pressed the heels of both palms against her eyes.

"What if they want to be raging queen b.i.t.c.hes?"

"You're not helping here," said Jessie, without bringing her hands down.

"Sorry."

Jess shook her head. Now I saw the smudges in her foundation that looked way too much like tear tracks. "Go cook something, will you?"

Probably this was a good idea. "You want anything?"

"World peace and a sane clientele."

"Sorry."

Her hand waved again.

I collected my discarded groceries, went into the kitchen and started putting things away. I kept sneaking glances at Jessie, though. She lay there, pillow in a stranglehold, staring at the ceiling. I tried to tell myself this was just Jess's patented emotional overkill, which she applied to any given situation as readily as she applied Paris Rose blush to her cheeks. Except, as I put the bread in its box, I realized I'd never seen her actually in tears before. Then, as I rinsed the fresh romaine, it occurred to me I'd never really thought about what Jessie did during the day, never mind that she might see it as a . . . well, a calling of some kind. I mean, all she did was sell makeup, a substance I normally avoided like six kinds of plague. But then, some people looked at what I did and said it was just food and went around happily eating whatever came closest. I did understand wanting to make a place where people could feel better, even in a small way or just for a little while. I also understood how miserable it felt when you failed, whether the failure was your responsibility or not. Especially when it wasn't your responsibility, because that failure remained yours.

I rubbed my hands on my pants and glanced around the little kitchen. Jessie had a sweet tooth and probably hadn't eaten since before her personal disaster. Maybe I should bake something. But as I drummed my fingertips on the counter and glanced at my still-unmoving roommate on our sofa, a new idea stirred in the back of my brain. Slowly and tentatively, fearful of rejection, it crept forward and urged me to look at my drumming fingers. I blanched. No. This idea could not belong to me, and it had better return to the disordered back of my brain. But the idea pulled out a whole portfolio of images I hadn't been letting myself see, mostly involving sitting in La Pet.i.te Abeille with Brendan.

I steeled myself. This isn't for you, the idea whispered to me. It's for the greater good. I'd be spending a lot of time hanging around the apartment during the day until we got Nightlife open again. My having to hang around with Jess when she also was sunk in professional misery would not be good for anyone concerned.

"Jessie?"

"Mmmph?" She blinked at the ceiling.

"Would you . . . could you maybe just this once, you know . . . give me a manicure?"

Jess pushed herself upright and very gingerly set the pillow aside. "Who are you and what have you done with Charlotte Caine?"

The temperature of my charitable impulses dropped precipitously, and I felt my eyes narrow. "If it's going to be a big deal . . ."

"No. No, no, no. No." Jessie was on her feet. "No. No, no." She vaulted the coffee table, something I had no idea she was capable of, and ran over to me, neatly cornering the dining room table. "It's just . . . no, no."

She grabbed hold of my hand and stared at my palm as if she meant to read my future. As she did, the breezy, light versio of Jessie faded away. In her place was a cool, serious woman. This new Jess prodded at my cuticles, separated my fingers and ran a delicate thumb across my calluses, taking in the details with a laser-sharp gaze.

This was too much for my timid idea and it tried to slink away.

"Look, I'll understand if you can't do anything here. I mean, you know I can't have polish or scents or . . ."

"Silence!" Jessie commanded. She backed away toward her bedroom, practically daring me to move. As she vanished behind her door, I s.h.i.+fted my weight and eyed the door to the hall, wondering if I could make a dash for it. Too late. Jess reappeared lugging a pair of bright red cases that could have held my entire wardrobe, including the shoes. She plunked them down next to the dining room table and began snapping latches and opening drawers.

"Sit." She kicked out a chair for me and turned her attention to the cases.

I gripped the chair back, watching with numb fascination as Jessie lined up the tools of her trade on our leaf-patterned tablecloth. There were boxes and jars and pouches and towels and a set of what looked like mini chafing dishes, under which she set the heat going. There was also an array of s.h.i.+ny silver instruments with pointy ends that had me wondering if she might suddenly start asking me for missile launch codes.

Jessie turned away from her impromptu lab setup, her hands encased in latex gloves, holding one of those delicate pointy instruments, and saw me still standing behind the chair.

"Oh, sit down, you big wimp."

I will not say that I sized up my roommate and decided I could still take her in a stand-up fight if she got too enthusiastic with any of these strange implements. I will say, however, that I was having some second thoughts. But only because I wasn't sure I had time for all this. Really. If I took a second to think about it, there must be a thousand other things I needed to be doing right now.

Jessie made an entirely unreasonable face for someone ushering a friend into uncharted territory, and tapped the table with the blunt end of her silver pick.

I set my left hand down on the white towel she'd laid out.

She snorted, took a firm grasp of my hand, and leaned in. I tensed. She rolled her eyes, and started digging around under my nails.

Now, I have tough hands. Every chef does. Mine have suffered ten years' worth of cuts, burns, and even the occasional smack with a wooden spoon (it was a French pastry chef, and yes, I probably did deserve it-maybe). But never before had they faced a pick that looked like a refugee from a dentist's office. I gritted my teeth and sat on my other hand. Jess kept digging, firmly and deliberately, her concentration completely on my fingers. Slowly I came to the realization that this might not hurt. Yes, it felt strange to just sit there and let somebody else work, but there did not seem to be any actual pain involved.

In fact, it felt kind of good.

"So, what brought on this sudden change of heart?" Jessie switched from a silver pokey thing to a wooden proddy thing.

"Erm . . ." Was there a nice way to tell her this was a mercy mani?

"I only ask because there was that one time you said you'd rather eat Burger King for a year than sit still and-I'm quoting here-have somebody do strange and intrusive things to your hands."

"Erm . . ."

"Uh-huh." Jessie set down the wooden proddy thing and checked on whatever was brewing in her chafing dishes. "What's Erm's first name?"

"Brendan." I braced myself for the squeeing overreaction. Complete mockery was also a real possibility. Jessie settled for plunging my hand into a warm liquid about the consistency of a loose puree. "Nice name. Cute? Paraffin soak," she added. I a.s.sumed that last one referred to the liquid she held my hand in, not to Brendan.

I pictured Brendan's warm eyes and killer smile, and the heat from my soaking hand seemed to spread straight through me. "Definitely cute."

"Employed?" Jess asked, proving her mother had instilled in her a firm grasp of the essentials.

"Enough for a loft in SoHo."

"Definite bonus. So." She pulled my hand out of the paraffin and wiped it down with a warm, soft towel. "What's the problem?"

"What problem?"

"You're making faces, Charlotte. What's the problem? He married?"

"What? No!"

"So, what?" She pushed my hand back into the paraffin. I hoped I never had to admit this, but the soft warmth was actually starting to relax my back and shoulders. Tense is my natural state, but this was affecting me like my trip to the produce market had. Slowly, things inside me were letting go.

"It's complicated," I said.

Jessie gave me another of her glowers. I wondered if this was what Chet felt like when I turned the Big Sister Glare on him. "Pretend for a minute you don't believe I'm a total idiot."

"I don't believe you're a total idiot." Jess pulled my hand out of the paraffin and contemplated it while fingering a little hooky thing and I swallowed. "Really."

"Uh-huh. Hold still."

I swear to G.o.d, I don't know how she did it. I'm very good at keeping things inside my own head. But while Jessie soaked, smoothed, ma.s.saged and buffed my other hand, I told her what had happened to me yesterday. All of it, including the play-by-play on dinner with Brendan and then what happened with Chet, and Anatole, and afterward.

She was toweling off the fingers on my left hand when my words finally ran out. "You're not going to do the smart thing and call the police, are you?"

I shook my head. "How can I? I don't know what's going on."

"You mean you don't know how much you're going to have to cover for Chet."

That should have been the cue for my famously short temper to rise up and cut loose. It would have for anybody else. As it was, I was wondering uncomfortably how Jess could understand so much about me when we were so different.

"This is so messed up," I muttered.

"You're right about that much." Jessie gave my nails a final swipe with one of her astounding array of brushes and leaned back to consider her . . . handiwork . . . from farther away. I looked at my fingers. They looked . . . new. The skin and nails were perfectly clean and had a healthy pink glow. My hands felt relaxed and ready to go.

"What you need is a once-a-month lunch," said Jess.

"Sorry?" I blinked, and resisted the temptation to touch that rosy skin just to confirm it was still mine.

"Once-a-month lunch. All the district reps get together once a month and do lunch, without the district supervisors. You find out everything that's going on."

I was so surprised by this transformation of my work-hardened hands that it took a minute for Jess's words to sink into my head, and another minute for them to bloom. "Dear G.o.d," I whispered. "I'm an idiot."

"Really? Why?"

There was a little too much glee in Jessie's voice just then, but I ignored it. A new idea had come out of the back room, this one fully formed and fully cognizant of its own worth.

"If you want to find out what's going on with somebody in the business, you don't just ask them."