The waiter placed a shallow bowl of cold zucchini soup before each of them and smiled pleasantly. “Everything all right?”
“Perfect,” Jake said, his eyes never leaving Amy’s.
When the waiter had retreated Amy shook her bread knife at Jake. “You’re seducing me in a public restaurant. Shame on you.”
“Is it fun?”
“It’s outrageous and excruciating.”
He took her hand, rubbing his thumb across the tender flesh of her palm. “Do we need a big wedding? Can we get married tomorrow?”
Amy averted her eyes and tasted her soup. Marry him
“Amy?”
She gave herself a mental shake. “A big wedding isn’t necessary, but I’m sure my parents would want to attend.” Her face brightened. “We could have the wedding in my house. Just a few family members and close friends.” It would be wonderful, Amy thought. She would fill the house with spring flowers and wear a tea-length dress. Something lacy and Victorian and incredibly romantic. And afterward they could go outdoors for champagne and petit-fours. Thousands of elaborately decorated petit-fours.
Amy was distracted by voices being raised in the next room. The voices grew louder, the twenty-minute men appeared in the doorway, and Amy felt as if her heart had just been freeze-dried. She stared at the men in grim fascination as they approached her table with the minicam running.
“This is Amy Klasse,” Ponytail’s assistant narrated, “better known as Lulu the Clown…”
“Ignore them,” Jake said. “Eat your soup.”
The newsman continued: “… and Dr. Jacob Elliott, owner of the veterinary clinic where Rhode Island Red was mysteriously taken from his small cage.”
Jake kept his eyes on his soup, but Amy could see a flush rising from his shirt collar, darkening under his tan. “Ignore them,” she mumbled. “Eat your soup.”
“Dr. Elliott, this is a very expensive, very romantic restaurant. Am I right in assuming Miss Klasse is more than an ordinary employee?”
Jake coolly stared into the camera lens. “Absolutely. There’s nothing ordinary about Miss Klasse.”
The man persisted. “We’ve been told from reliable sources that Miss Klasse is under suspicion for the abduction of the rooster. That, in fact, the police searched her garbage for evidence. Is that correct?”
Jake sighed, took his napkin from his lap, and laid it beside his plate. “You aren’t going to give up, are you?”
Ponytail grinned malevolently. “No.”
“Excuse me,” Jake said, suddenly standing, taking the smaller cameraman by surprise. In one quick movement Jake lifted the minicam from Ponytail’s shoulder, removed the microphone, and deposited it in a nearby glass of Burgundy; then he took a swipe at the butter tub, spreading a thick layer of grease on the camera lens. He carefully handed the minicam back to its owner and returned to his seat.
“What do you think of the soup?” he asked Amy.
Ponytail muttered an oath and snatched his microphone from the glass of wine. His eyes were small and glittery. His breath whistled from between bared teeth.
Rodent, Amy thought with a shiver, the man’s mousy, dirty-blond hair fueling the comparison. “He looks rabid,” she whispered to Jake.
Ponytail reached across the table, grabbed Jake’s tie, and plunged it into his zucchini soup. Jake looked at the tie in controlled resignation.
“I’m going to stop wearing ties,” he said, blotting at it with his napkin. “This is getting boring.”
“I’m going to ruin you and your little friend here,” the enraged cameraman ground out. “I’m gonna nail your hide to the wall.”
“Don’t mess with me,” Jake said levelly. “I specialize in neutering.”
Two uniformed policemen strode into the dining room accompanied by a glowering headwaiter.
“I’m pressing charges,” Ponytail said. “This… veterinarian willfully destroyed an expensive microphone.”
The officer looked at Jake apologetically.
“Maybe you’d better come back to the station house with us.”
Amy held out her hands. “I’m going too. Do you want to handcuff me?”
“No ma’am,” the policeman said. “I don’t think you look dangerous.”
Jake stood and helped Amy to her feet. “A lot you know,” he said to the smiling policeman.
Outside the restaurant a crowd had gathered around the squad car. Amy faltered a moment when she saw the number of people who had been drawn by the flashing lights on the black-and-white. The crowd parted as the curious parade marched from the restaurant. Two policemen, Lulu the Clown, Jake the veterinarian, and the twenty-minute men complete with battery pack and video. One of the officers helped Amy into the back of the squad car.
Amy clasped her hands in her lap and swallowed back tears. She was disgraced. Publicly humiliated. Plucked from the ritzy restaurant like an undesirable fugitive.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the restaurant was just three doors down from the
Two hours later Amy and Jake were back in the little red sports car. “That wasn’t so bad,” Jake said. “They didn’t even arrest us.”
Amy took little solace in that fact. There’d been a horde of photographers everywhere she’d gone. She couldn’t blame them. She was news. Human interest in a bizarre sort of way.
Jake wistfully looked at the restaurant. “You think they held our table?”
“I think they’ve probably burned our table.”
“Didn’t feel like eating fish, anyway. How about a burger?”
“As long as I don’t have to get out of the car. If one more person clucks or cock-a-doodles at me I’m going to commit mayhem.”
“I know the perfect place. We’ll go to the McDrive-in We’ll get McFries, McShakes, McBurgers, and McCookies.” He pulled into the drive-through and shouted his order into the order machine. He grinned at Amy. “Is this romantic enough for you?”
Amy had to smile with him. He was invincible. He’d joked with the policemen and jollied her through the entire ordeal. He’d proudly announced their engagement to every passerby newsmen included. In fact, he seemed to be not at all bothered by the fact that his life was going down the toilet.
Nothing had gone right since he’d known her, she silently wailed. He’d ruined two ties, pitched himself into a Dumpster, been made a public spectacle, almost been arrested, and had his reputation slandered. This wasn’t going well. They weren’t just talking tremors here. They were looking at earthquake-quality vibes. She shrank back into the seat when Jake reached for the bag of food.
The girl behind the counter leaned out the drive-through window. “Hey, aren’t you the lady who cooks chickens? Like wow. Like omigod.”
Amy smiled weakly and nodded acknowledgment as Jake stepped on the gas and turned the car toward Main Street. “You’re getting quite a following. I never thought I’d have a wife who was famous,” he said, reaching for his chocolate shake.
“I think the word is infamous. I feel like Lizzie Borden.”
Jake took a long pull on the straw. She was mustering up a reasonable amount of bravado, but under it all she was really hurting, and he wasn’t sure exactly why. Part of it was a sense of responsibility to maintain a certain image for the children who had watched her, but it had to be more than that. She’d looked like an angel in the police station with her blond curls and serious wide blue eyes, responding politely to everyone. A credit to her acting ability, he’d thought, remembering the few unguarded moments when the facade had slipped, and she’d seemed so lost. Almost victimized. Like a piece of driftwood, floating downstream, unable to control its journey.
