Through The Grinder

“I’ve got news for you, Clare. I would have come anyway.”

“They’re upstairs, in the master bedroom.”

“I thought so.”

He lifted one hand from around my waist, reaching up to massage the back of my neck. “Maybe after dinner? You can show them to me?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said, fairly breathless. “Like I said, we hardly know each other.”

He laughed. “You need to know me better to show me your…Hoppers? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

I felt his hand move even farther north, tangling in my hair and prompting a tiny voice in my head to argue, It’s been too long, Clare…just let him touch you a little…there’s no harm…just a little… Cradling the back of my head, he kissed me again.

Warm and rich and tender…oh, yes…and, lord help me, I wanted more. Unfortunately, a booming voice wasn’t about to let me get it.

“Nothing says welcome home like coffee steak and gravy!”

Oh, God, no.

It was Matteo. My oh so unwelcome ex-husband, back from his East African expedition (without fair warning!). He’d used his key to barge right into the duplex — and back into my life.

Needless to say, the evening pretty much deteriorated from there. There was an awkward moment or two or three, of course. Accusatory looks exchanged, uncomfortable silences, and understandable tension made all the more intense by the presence of sharp steak knives and the fact that pretty much everything at this meal — including dessert — was laced with caffeine.

With trepidation I recalled the ominous words of an unnamed Hindu philosopher who warned against the pernicious influence of “that black bean from Africa” and compared peace-loving Asian tea drinkers with the warlike European coffee-consuming nations.

But then I remembered Mon Journal, by French social critic and historian Jules Michelet, which essentially attributed Western Civilization’s Age of Reason to the transformation of Europe into a coffee-drinking society.

So, against all reason, I remained civil when Bruce actually invited Matteo to sit down and have dinner with us. It wasn’t all that insane, really, given Matteo’s exhausting hours of travel. It was the decent thing to do, actually, and I didn’t object, figuring that if coffee could enlighten Europeans it could pretty much accomplish miracles — and boy did I need a miracle now.

After hastily cooking another T-bone, adding a place setting, and pouring the magnificent two hundred dollar bottle of Burgundy Bruce had brought, I sat down to dinner between my ex-husband and my date for the evening. As Madame would say, we were all acting so civilized we were almost French!

“I’m surprised you didn’t leave a message, to let me know you needed the apartment,” I said to Matteo, not really surprised in the least.

“I called from the Rome airport,” my ex replied. “Maybe you should check your machine once in a while.”

“That’s quite a tan you’ve got, Matt. Especially for autumn in New York,” said Bruce, attempting to interrupt our thinly veiled bickering.

Matteo grinned. His teeth shone white against his now darker than dark skin. His sleeves were pointedly rolled up six inches higher than Bruce’s, displaying his biceps in addition to his muscular forearms, both browner than a hazelnut and just about as hard.

“The African sun will do that to you.” He stabbed a chunk of T-bone with his fork and chewed it with relish. The coffee-soaked meat was obviously the jolt he’d needed to melt away the jet-lagged miles. “And nice to have fresh meat again,” Matteo said around the mouthful. “You can get real tired of doro wat.”

“Doro…?”

“An Ethiopian dish,” said Matt. “Stringy old chicken cooked in a stew with rancid butter. Kind of like Hungarian paprikas csirke, but much, much hotter.”

“Sounds delicious,” I said dubiously.

“The heavy spices cover a multitude of sins,” said Matt.

“Including ptomaine poisoning?” I asked.

Matteo gave me one of those pitying looks he often used during our marriage. A look that said so many things, like: “What do you mean you won’t go bungee jumping with me?” or “Why can’t we buy twin Harleys and cycle across Mexico?” or even “Are you really too uptight to try a night with Tiffany and me?”

“So Clare tells me you’re a coffee buyer,” said Bruce. “Is that why you were in Ethiopia?”

“Who said I was in Ethiopia?” said Matteo with barely disguised hostility — so much, if fact, that I suddenly wished I’d marinated the steaks in Prozac instead of coffee.

Bruce paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Well…I…thought you just did…”

Matteo set his fork down and sat back, smirking. “Yeah, I was in Ethiopia looking for coffee. May have found some, too. Nice enough cherries this season, but they’ll be better next year. I’m looking at the C market — futures.”

“Why Ethiopia?” asked Bruce. “There are safer places to buy coffee, aren’t there?”

“Ethiopia’s the motherland. Folks were drinking coffee in Ethiopia while Europeans were waking up to beer and mead.” With that, Matt lifted his glass of Bruce’s La Romanée-Conti Echezeaux and took a long, deep draft. Most of the glass had instantly vanished, and he reached for the bottle to refill. “Damn, that’s good wine.”

I met Bruce’s eyes and tried not to burst out laughing. He smiled, then tried again to make polite conversation.

“I heard things were bad there. In Ethiopia.”

Matt shrugged and resumed attacking his coffee-marinated steak like an East African predator. “They’re getting better. The coffee market in Harrar is coming back to life and the bull market in Jimma never stopped. The new farms near the Somali border are not producing yet, but I managed to take a Jeep trip to Jiga-Jiga without getting killed.”

“Sounds dangerous,” said Bruce.

I gave Matteo a look that told him I knew he was exaggerating the hazards of his trip — even though I also knew it was entirely possible he was not.

Matt winked at me as he told Bruce, “Remember that the next time you gulp down your morning blend.”

“Speaking of coffee, I’ll get the French press,” I said, rising from the table.

Matteo and Bruce both jumped to their feet so fast to help me that they nearly collided.

“I can handle it,” I said, waving them back down.

“So,” I heard Matteo purr as I hurried to prepare coffee. “What is it that you do, Bruce?”

When I entered the kitchen, I smelled gas and wondered if a pilot light had gone out. I checked the stove and found nothing.

For desert I’d prepared my new recipe for Three Chocolate Mocha Pudding — a second attempt. Detective Quinn had left before having it when I’d cooked dinner for him, so I gave it another shot for Bruce’s dinner.

I pulled out my favorite French press and three of the Spode Imperialware cups and saucers. Before Bruce had arrived, I’d brought up Jamaica Blue Mountain beans from the Blend’s special reserve (thirty-five dollars a pound), and they sat sealed in a dark, airtight container on my shelf, waiting to be ground and brewed.

When I noticed some dust on the coffee cups, I went over to the kitchen’s carved granite sink to wash them off. The brass faucet refused to turn on my first try. It had been giving me trouble for a couple of weeks and I’d vowed to get it fixed. Using both hands, I tried again.

This time the faucet came off in my hand — followed by a powerful blast of cold water that doused me from head to foot.

I screamed as water gushed everywhere.