Poison Page 16

  “You’re missing the point,” he said, leading me to his room somewhere at the back of the mansion. “This is the best way to introduce myself to the business.”

  “You mean immerse yourself,” I groused. “As in forgetting about everything and everyone else.”

  He frowned. “That’s not going to happen, Katy.”

  “Then why don’t you just work at the lab, or wherever? Shaw Enterprises owns most of the buildings in this town. You don’t have to live here.”

  “I think I do,” he said simply. “A lot of research goes on at the house.”

  “Like what?” I asked in my sharpest double-dog-dare-you voice. “French lessons?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it.”

  Peter sighed. “There are a lot of projects that are too experimental to keep in the Shaw laboratories.”

  “What are you saying?” I was instantly hurled out of any obnoxiousness by an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. “Are they dangerous?”

  “No, just . . . Well, some ideas can get stolen or leaked.”

  “So of course you’d have full access to them,” I said. “Because Jeremiah Shaw has made his fortune by trusting high school boys with industrial secrets.”

  Two dots of red appeared on Peter’s cheeks, a sure sign that he was wildly angry. But of course he would never admit that. “He’s only trusting me with one,” he said patiently.

  “As a test?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Sort of. I made a suggestion about a program, and that led to . . . something else.”

  Here was a fact about Peter Shaw: Although he had never been any great shakes as far as magic went, he was not stupid. In fact, he was so knowledgeable about computer science that he’d tested out of Ainsworth School’s two computer courses and had taken classes at the local community college since the beginning of junior year. “It’s a cool idea,” he said. “I wish I could tell you about it.”

  “Which of course you can’t.”

  His head bobbed slightly. “Not yet. But maybe soon. And you’ll see—”

  “Fine.”

  “Really, it’s not that big a deal,” he said. “The secrecy, I mean. Anyway, I doubt if you’d even understand it.”

  “Is that so?” Shades of my father.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Katy.”

  I wanted to ask just how he had meant it, but I was already tired of this conversation. “Great,” I said, standing up. “So you’ll be working on this new thing twenty-four–seven, right?”

  “I don’t . . . ” His voice trailed off. “Okay, yeah. Pretty much. For a while.”

  “So I guess I’ll see you even less than I already do.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Working on a major project for Shaw Enterprises might change a lot of things,” he said quietly.

  “Like getting you into Harvard,” I said. “And we all know how important that is to you.”

  “It is important to me, Katy.” He swallowed. “But it’s more than that.”

  “Oh?”

  He looked at his feet. “It’s Eric,” he said quietly. “My brother may have a lot of talent, but he’ll never be able to take care of himself. In time he may not even be able to live outside of a hospital setting. And once Hattie’s gone . . . ” He closed his eyes, his face a mask of misery. “I’ve got to be able to give him what he needs, Katy. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded, chastened.

  “And yeah, I want to go to Harvard, too. That’s part of what’ll help me get what I want for Eric. And for myself.”

  “At least you’re admitting it.”

  “Look, you don’t have to think about things like college. You ace every class, and your father’s been planning to send you to the Ivy Leagues since you were born. I don’t have any of that, not the grades or the connections or the money—”

  “You have Jeremiah Shaw!”

  “Do you think he’d lift a finger for me if I didn’t give him something equally important in return?” Peter shouted back.

  “Okay, I get it,” I said.

  So there it was, Peter’s very good reasons for seeing me even less than he already was. I understood. But all the same, there was nothing left to say.

  “Th-thanks for showing me your new place,” I stammered. “It’s awesome.”

  “Katy, please don’t—”

  “Got to run. Work at four.” I was almost at the front door. “I don’t suppose you’re going . . . ” I gestured toward the outside world, meaning Hattie’s Kitchen, where Peter had worked for most of his life. He stared at the floor. “Right,” I finished for myself. “I’ll tell Hattie.”

  “I’ve already told her,” he said. “It’ll just be for . . . a while. Then I’ll be back.”

  “Sure, okay,” I said, hearing how phony my voice sounded.

  Suddenly the butler who’d opened the door for me appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere. “May I be of some assistance, sir?” he asked.

  Peter, who had been standing with his hands in his pockets, looked up with obvious embarrassment. “No, thank you, Aldritch,” he said.

  No, thank you, Aldritch. I almost laughed out loud. Peter looked every inch the young scion at home in his ancestral mansion. I glanced at the embossed wood on the walls of the entryway, the silk-covered antique furniture, the paintings by artists whose work I’d read about in books.

  I can’t compete with this, I thought. I wasn’t losing Peter to another girl, even one as beautiful as Fabienne. My rival was a whole way of life that could never include me.

  I blinked, conscious that this might be the last time I was ever alone with Peter. Peter, with his honey-blond hair and gray eyes and his mouth that I could still feel touching mine. I wanted to run back to him and wrap him in my arms, to hold him one last time, to erase everything that had kept us apart and start over, just him and me, handfasted. . . .

  Handfasted. We had pledged ourselves to each other once, in what now seemed like an alternate universe. Of course, it hadn’t been official, so I didn’t suppose it really meant anything.

  Except that I would love him until the day I died.

  “See you later,” I said. The butler held open the door for me.

  CHAPTER

  •

  THIRTY

  There was just Hattie and me in the kitchen that evening. She was going over the prep work I’d have to do to get ready for the dinner service.

  “I’ve already made the desserts and breads, so you’ll just have to do the vegetables.” She read from a list: “Ten onions, diced. Ten tomatoes diced, ten sliced. Put sixteen potatoes in the oven right now.” She stared at me. “Right now?” she repeated. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “Oh.” I scrambled over to the potato bin. “Sorry.”

  “How many potatoes?” she demanded, testing. I tried to remember. I couldn’t. “That’s what I thought,” she snapped. “You came in here looking all moony, and you’ve gotten worse.”

  “I’m not all moony,” I said.

  Hattie put the list on the counter. “Is it Peter?” She rolled her eyes. “What am I saying? Of course it is. I guess you found out about him moving into the Shaw mansion.”

  “I just came from there,” I answered glumly.

  “And you’re jealous.”

  I spat out a little puff of irritation. “Of course not. What would I do with a butler?”

  “I didn’t mean you were jealous of Peter’s money. He doesn’t have any, anyway.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Okay. What, then? What am I so jealous of?”

  She looked at me sideways. “His time, maybe?”

  She’d hit the mother lode. I bit my lip, but my eyes welled up just the same.

  Hattie clucked unsympathetically. “You young girls are ridiculous,” she said. “Everything has to be so dramatic.”

  “Well, how am I supposed to feel?” I whined.

  “How about happy,” she shot back.

  I gaped at her.

>   “Yes, happy. The Shaws are Peter’s people, and it’s a damn good thing that Jeremiah’s finally welcoming him into the family.” Hattie smacked a piece of chicken with a spoon. “Oh, take that look off your face. This is Peter’s chance to make something of himself. Shoot, do you think I could send him to Harvard?” Her voice cracked. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “Shoot.”

  “Is Harvard so important?”

  “What are you saying, is it important!” She came up beside me like a freight train. “Don’t you two ever talk? It’s the most important thing in the world to him. So don’t you dare make him choose between you and Harvard, you hear me?”

  “All right,” I said unenthusiastically.

  “Because he’d choose you.”

  “That’s what you think,” I muttered.

  “Yes, it is, more’s the pity. That night when you found Summer Hayworth and her friends bound up in those old dolls, Peter was out of his mind with worry. He must have called everyone in Old Town looking for you. When no one knew where you were, he went out searching for you in the middle of the night.”

  “I know,” I said, remembering. “I was glad when he showed up.”

  “Well, that’s what Peter does. He shows up. Now I hope you’ll give him the same consideration.”

  I made a face. “What are you talking about?”

  “The dance. That frolic thing. He’s afraid you won’t go.”

  I sighed. “He’s taking another date, Hattie,” I said.

  “Now, surely you don’t think that little French girl means anything to him, do you?”

  My eyes scanned the room.

  “Well, she doesn’t. She’s an obligation. That’s all. But you . . . well, you’d better go, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. You understand me?”

  “I guess so,” I said. I recognized a threat when I heard one. “I’ll go. I said I would.”

  “Good. Now get to work. Sixteen chicken breasts stuffed with red quinoa dressing. That’s mushrooms, shallots—”

  Just then Bryce burst through the kitchen’s double doors, seething. “Do I have your permission to throw someone’s haunch out?” he shouted.

  “Haunch?” I asked.

  “Butt,” Hattie translated. “He means ‘butt.’ And no, you don’t. That is a privilege reserved for me. What’s wrong?”

  “Some horrible woman who’s demanding bulgogi.”

  “Bull what?” I couldn’t help laughing out loud.

  “It’s some Korean dish. She says Korean food is the rage now, and if I don’t know that, I must be an idiot.” With a growl he kicked the counter island so hard that all the overhanging pots and pans clanked together. Then from upstairs we heard a piercing wail.

  “Now you’ve gone and woken Eric up!” Hattie scolded, although I doubted if Peter’s little brother could have heard Bryce’s tantrum from the apartment above.

  “She demands to see the chef,” Bryce groused.

  “Fine,” Hattie said. “Katy, take her a bowl of chicken and dumplings.”

  “Right,” Bryce said sarcastically. “That will make her happy, the butt.”

  Hattie pointed a bony finger at Bryce. “You go cool off in the walk-in,” she commanded. “Lord, sometimes I wish that boy’d go back to being a foreigner,” she said as Bryce cursed his way to the refrigerator.

  I ladled some chicken and dumplings into a bowl. “Does this taste like bul . . . bul . . . whatever it was she wanted?” I asked.

  “Oh, who knows,” Hattie said as Eric shrieked again. “But no kind of bull parts are coming out of this kitchen as long as I’m in charge. Go.”

  I always got stuck with the irate customers. I put the bowl onto a tray with a hot buttered biscuit and an endive and radish salad. On my way I stuck my head into the walk-in cooler, where Bryce was sitting on a bench, grinning at me. “Give her hell,” he cheered, fist in air. Despite mistaking a butt for a haunch, his use of the vernacular had improved dramatically.

  “Right,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Haunchhead.”

  The woman was seated facing the glass wall with her back to me. At first all I saw was a cascade of blond hair flowing over a full-length saffron robe draped elaborately over one shoulder. It wasn’t until I set the tray down that I recognized her face: Madison Mimson, aka Mad Madam Mim, my father’s ex-girlfriend. She had painted a yellow stripe down her forehead, accented by a ruby-red bindi dot between her eyes.

  “Kathy!” she squealed, leaping up and grabbing me in a bear hug.

  “Katy,” I grunted, trying to balance the tray in my left hand while struggling to breathe. “Hi, Mim.”

  “I love it when you call me that!” She giggled, finally releasing me. “In fact, I’m going to insist that everyone at the ashram refer to me as Mim, rather than Ms. Mimson.”

  Or Godzilla, I thought.

  “It sounds kind of Indian and spiritual, don’t you think?”

  “You’re living in an ashram?”

  “Next week. In a remote village in Punjab,” she said wistfully. “I’m trying on outfits now. There’s an Indian dressmaker in Whitfield.” She held out her arms. “What do you think?”

  “Er . . . ”

  “I’ve decided to eschew corporate America for the contemplative life of a seeker.” She sighed eloquently. She probably didn’t know that I’d heard about her being fired from her job.

  “Ah,” I said.

  “My refined sensibilities require . . . ” She poked at the chicken and dumplings. “What’s this slop?”

  “It’s . . . er . . . ”

  “I wanted bulgogi, damn it.”

  “I know, but we thought—”

  “What kind of place is this?” she screeched. “There isn’t even a menu.”

  “Madison—Mim—please . . . ” People were turning around to stare. “I’m sure that if you tried these dumplings—”

  “Dumplings? Do I look like someone who eats dumplings? You must be out of . . . Oh.”

  Mim was like a rhinoceros. If she got distracted for three seconds, she’d forget why she was charging at you. In this case her attention shifted from the dumplings to a man coming through the door.

  Admittedly, a handsome man. A man who most of my friends thought looked like a movie star.

  “Dad,” I moaned. If Hattie thought Bryce was unreasonable, she had no idea what was in store once these two started fighting with each other. Which they would, momentarily.

  “Hello, Katherine,” my father said. He kissed my cheek, then instantly forgot that I existed. “Madison,” he whispered breathlessly, seeing her. As if it were the first time he had ever seen her. As if he didn’t know what a nutcase she was. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just came to try out the . . . ” She peered down at her plate. “Dumplings,” she said, her mouth twitching sensuously. “Will you join me?”

  The two of them slowly melted into their seats, their eyes locked on to one another. Licking her lips, Mim speared a dumpling and fed it to my father.

  “Ambrosia,” he said.

  I sighed. “I’ll fix you a steak,” I said.

  “No.” He sucked another dumpling off Mim’s fork. “This.” Their fingers touched. “Only this.”

  Oh, please. Didn’t they ever learn?

  Well, there was an expression in Whitfield that at Hattie’s you always got what you needed. Apparently what my father and Madam Mim needed was each other, because five days later I got an e-mail from Dad saying that he would be spending a few weeks at an ashram in India.

  There was no accounting for taste.

  CHAPTER

  •

  THIRTY-ONE

  When I got back to the kitchen, Hattie was carrying Eric in her arms. “Everything go all right?” she asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Next time you tell them we serve only USDA Choice or better. No bull.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Kaaay!” Eric squealed. He was eleven now, but
brain damaged from an incident a long time ago, and still a baby in a lot of ways.

  “Who’s a good boy?” I asked, walking into his open arms. He smeared his face against my cheek, and I felt all my problems fall away, the way they did every time I was around Eric.

  I used to think it was just love I was feeling. I did love the little guy, and I think he loved me too, but it was more than that. Because Eric was more than a lovable special-needs kid.

  He was also the most unusual being in Whitfield, which is saying a lot. For one thing, he could draw like Michelangelo, maybe better, even though he couldn’t spell his own name or count to five.

  He could also heal with a touch of his hand.

  Not many people knew that about him, which was how Hattie wanted to keep things. “A gift like that would bring nothing but harm to this little boy,” she had said when Gram had suggested that Eric volunteer at the hospital. The thing was, Eric’s gift was so great that none of the other hospital volunteers would be necessary. In fact, no one else in the entire medical profession would be necessary. Eric could heal the whole world, one person at a time, until he dropped dead from exhaustion. And then there would still be people getting sick, people dying. In the end it would be as if he’d never come along at all.

  Hattie had been right. Eric’s gift, as extraordinary as it was, ultimately would mean nothing. And so all of us who were close to Eric agreed to shelter him from the demands of the world as much as we could.

  I never told them that I believed Eric could do more than heal, but I knew that he could. Last year he had actually brought me back from death. But that would have been too great a secret for any of them to keep or even know.

  There was something else he could do that even Hattie’s inner circle of friends didn’t know about, something Hattie herself didn’t like to think about. He could predict the future.

  Maybe. This wasn’t something I knew for sure either.