Espresso Shot

Matt and I both turned to find a gorgeous young woman striding up to us. She was model slender with large dark eyes and long black hair. Her smooth, light-mocha skin was a sharp contrast to the pastel-pink minidress.

I expected her to say something sweet and charming to my ex. But she didn’t. She spat on the ground, cursed him in what I think was Portuguese, and then slapped him hard.

Red-faced (literally), Matt watched in stunned silence as the woman turned on her platform sandals and stormed away.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“An old friend,” Matt said, rubbing his cheek. “Get in the cab.”

We piled in, and Matt told the driver where to go.

“She didn’t look old,” I pointed out to Matt as the cab pulled away. “In fact, she looked quite a bit younger than you.”

“She’s an old girlfriend, okay?”

Right. No kidding. “What have you been up to, Matt?”

“Nothing! I swear. She and I were hot and heavy in Rio for a few months, two years ago. I haven’t even spoken to her in a year.”

“So why did she slap you?”

“I can’t imagine.” Then Matt’s eyes narrowed with a thought. “Or maybe I can.” He glanced over at me. “Why do I suspect my mother’s up to something again?”

“You think?”

By now, Madame already had launched half a dozen schemes to change Matt’s mind about the wedding. The fake letter from Joy begging him to remarry me didn’t fly. The anonymous invitation to the Playboy Mansion (mysteriously coinciding with the week of his wedding) didn’t dissuade him, either. The pretend heart attack almost succeeded, but Matt got wise inside of three days.

“I spoke to your mother this morning,” I told him. “I think she would have let me in on any last-minute scheme. Besides, she admitted her last hope was your plan to move in with me this week.”

Matt grunted. “Then she’s working on the wrong ex.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means, Clare.”

Silence descended after that statement. The cab suddenly seemed to lack oxygen. We sat motionless for a few moments, then I turned to my ex.

“Matt-”

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t waste your breath. You’re never going to forgive me for what I put you through during our marriage. Not enough to take me back, anyway. I’ve finally accepted that.” He looked away, cracked the window. “You moved on. And I’m trying to.”

As nice a boost as that was to my ego, it frankly unnerved me. Matt wasn’t wrong about me. It had taken years, but I’d finally gotten over my recurring, perilous infatuation with the swaggering, globe-trotting father of my child, a man who couldn’t stay faithful if his life depended on it.

Maybe the eternal boy really had reached some midlife phase where he was ready to nest. But so what? The wild pirate’s acute need for calm, dependable waters to drop anchor couldn’t remedy the decades of rough sailing I’d endured with him. (And I remained skeptical that he’d really be able to settle for one woman for long, anyway, no matter how spectacular she was.)

What did shock me about Matt’s little taxicab confession was his admission, four days before his wedding, that his impressive fiancee was essentially sloppy seconds-that Breanne Summour was someone with whom he was “trying” to rebound.

Despite my continual lectures to Madame about butting out of her son’s love life, I suddenly wanted to ask the man: Are you sure you should be marrying this woman?

Before I could open my mouth, however, we pulled up to the corner of Fifth and Fifty-second. Matt exited the cab, slamming the door hard behind him. He paid the cabbie through the window and barreled straight up the sidewalk to the House of Fen.

ELEVEN

I climbed out of the yellow taxi and paused, needing to get my emotional bearings as much as my geographical ones.

The low buildings and narrow streets of the Village were a sharp contrast to the skyscrapers around me now. Mid-town’s concrete sidewalks were huge, the crowds dense and loud, the traffic a perpetual snarl of taxis, buses, limos, trucks, and luxury cars.

People were in a much bigger hurry in this part of the city and generally dressed more formally. North of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (where we were now) the Avenue also boasted some of the highest temples of haute couture: Gucci, Prada, Bulgari, and Tiffany.

Even though my desire to stay out of debtor’s prison restricted me to the less exclusive stores on these rarified blocks (i.e., Esprit, Banana Republic, the Gap), I never failed to appreciate the restoration jobs some of the more exclusive establishments had done on the older structures that housed them. Just across the avenue, for instance, was Cartier, which sold its million-dollar diamond chokers out of a converted neo-Italian brownstone, circa 1905. It sat next to a landmark turn-of-the- century town house with a stunning white marble facade, originally erected for the family of George Vanderbilt and now occupied by Italian designer Versace, who’d spent a small fortune to restore it.

Even Henri Bendel was worth a stop now that the exclusive store had moved into the dignified old Coty Building. During that multimillion-dollar restoration, a priceless discovery was made in the upper story windows: more than two hundred panels of molded glass that formed a translucent tangle of stems and flowers. An architectural historian identified the work as that of Rene Lalique, the legendary French master of glass and jewelry design. (To view the only other example of this artisan’s work in the United States, I’d have to fly 3,000 miles to L.A.)

“Are you coming?” Matt called, holding the heavy door open beneath Fen’s arched doorway.

“Sorry!”

I hustled my dawdling butt through the boutique’s entrance. Matt guided me past a strapping African American security guard and across the high-ceilinged showroom. The floor was pale-ocher marble, the walls glossy white. The display cases were beveled glass with shelves dramatically lit to look like liquid gold. Hand- tooled bags, $900 shoes, gorgeous leather belts, and silk scarves were displayed with the care of rare museum artifacts.

I respected fashion design. It was as admirable an art as any other. But my own shopping excursions were usually loud, messy hunts through the jam-packed racks of crowded outlet stores. Maybe that’s why the interiors of these quiet, exclusive boutiques gave made the willies-or maybe it was just my Catholic upbringing. (Put me in a large room with a vaulted ceiling, earnest whispering, and rare Italian marble, and I started looking around for the altar so I could genuflect.)

Fighting the urge to bend a knee, I scanned the vast first floor and spotted a familiar form-a rather hefty one. Food writer Roman Brio was sitting on a white leather couch, his large head bent over the latest issue of Gourmet.

In his late thirties, Roman was basically an overgrown imp with dark eyes and apple cheeks in a blanched-almond complexion. His luminous, penetrating gaze in a baby face reminded me of a young Orson Welles; and, despite his girth (which reminded me of the later Orson), Roman was almost always stylishly dressed. Today he wore a finely tailored off-white suit with a loose, open-collared linen shirt of peacock purple and a matching kerchief stuffed in the suit’s breast pocket. His loafers were polished into glossy leather mirrors; and, in a bold statement of I’m here, I’m queer, get over it, his purple socks matched his shirt.

Roman attributed his love of food to his family’s live-in French cook. Sure, he was the youngest son in a prominent Boston tribe, but the kind and loving woman who looked after him in the family’s kitchen was the one who’d effectively raised him. As he got older, Roman accompanied his parents on their travels, and by his sixteenth birthday, he’d sampled almost every major cuisine in the world.

Unfortunately for Roman, his exalted family of judges, physicians, and scientists had been appalled by his desire to make a career in restaurant work. They pressured him through four years of premed before he ditched it all and moved to New York City.

Cut off from their financial support, he couldn’t afford culinary school, so he took jobs waiting tables in fine restaurants, befriended the chefs and sommeliers, and began to write chatty, flamboyant pieces on food and dining under the name Brio (a pen name made legal) for the Village Voice. Before long, glossy magazines like New York Scene and Food & Wine were publishing his work, and he was cowriting cook-books and memoirs with some of the city’s most talked-about chefs.

I’d first met the man last fall, during a coffee-tasting party at the Beekman Hotel, then again during my investigation of Chef Tommy Keitel’s death. (Roman knew New York ’s foodie scene better than the back of his chubby hand, so he was a valuable informant, to say the least.)

It was a stroke of luck seeing him here, since he’d been friends with Breanne Summour for years. As I understood the story, she’d been the very first editor to give Roman a restaurant review column in a national magazine. He’d always been grateful to her for that. And their friendship had grown over the years, going beyond the professional. The way he and Breanne spoke to each other and often acted was more like brother and sister than professional colleagues.

I tugged Matt’s apricot Polo shirt, or more precisely the snug-fitting sleeve above his bulging biceps. “I’m going to speak with Roman.”

“Fine. I’m going into the fitting room area to find Breanne, explain the situation.”

We parted, and I headed over to the white leather couch.

“Hello there, Roman. How’ve you been?”

The food writer glanced up from his magazine. “Why, Clare Cosi! Hello there, yourself.” He took in my worn jeans, scuffed boots, and long-sleeved cotton jersey. “Were you looking for the Gap, sweetie? It’s up the street.”

“No, Roman. I’m here on purpose to… help out Breanne today.”

Roman’s dark eyes brightened. “Do tell?”

“Matt’s going to find her and explain it all.” I pointed at the departing back of my ex-husband. Roman’s gaze followed the man’s posterior with nearly as much appreciation as Sue Ellen Bass had the night before. Then he shut his magazine and patted the empty seat next to him on the couch.

“Sit down, Clare. This I’ve got to hear.”

Roman was not unfamiliar with the history of my sleuthing, especially the cases I’d solved in the Hamptons and at the Beekman, and I knew I could trust him. I told him the basics of the situation and asked him to keep my mission to himself for now. I’d talk to Breanne after Matt came back.