Page 81 of Cookbooks and Demons

“Me and Chris were like that, in the beginning,” Charlie said, noting the whispering. “I’m so happy for you, Helena.”

“Don’t talk like that… I mean, in the past tense, you don’t know…” She struggled for the right way to say it. “Is it really over between you or do you think you’ll try to work it out?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said honestly. Then there was a chime song. He dug out his phone and held it up. Predictably, it said Chris across the top. He didn’t answer it, just stared at it until the jingling went away. Then Helena’s phone began to dance and jingle.

“Do you want me to answer it?” she asked.

“No,” Charlie said, completely calm. “We’re having breakfast right now.”

So she muted the ring, and they kept eating silently while both their phones continued to blow up with missed calls.

“Have you talked to Cindy yet this morning?” Chris asked.

Helena glanced at her phone clock. “I was going to before you came over. She told me to go to work, but I don’t see how I can. How did you hearabout it?”

“She called me late last night before I got the call from the other Charley. We talked for a long time. So on top of everything else, I feel guilty aboutthat too.”

“Charlie,” Helena said, leaning over to take his hand. “This is not our fault.”

“But I was wondering. I noticed some things, but I ignored them, that she wasn’t as alright as she wanted all of us to think. But I’m not like you, Helena. I’m not good at saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said. I just kept sitting around and waiting to see, you know. And this whole time she was a thin thread away fromsnapping.”

“Maybe she needed to snap,” Rafferty suddenly said.

“She needed to hurt herself?” Helena challenged.

Rafferty shook his head. “Maybe that was the problem. She didn’t feel like she could. She didn’t feel like she could be weak or let anybody down, so she just extended and extended and locked herself up so tight that she couldn’t ever let go. That sort of thing will kill you or make you do stupid desperate things to guarantee that you don’t fail. But what she really needed was to fail, so that it could be over, so she could let go, and now she’s got a chance to actually heal.”

Charlie nodded his head at that. “I’ve heard something like that before. That another way to look at depression is not as a bad thing, but your body telling you that you need to stop and rest. Depressed. Deep rest.” He examined Rafferty a little closer and Helena grew worried about what he saw. “Probably a common thing in culinary school, right?”

“The place I trained was very brutal. A lot of people didn’t make it,” Rafferty agreed.

“Ha, I bet,” Charlie said, cutting another bite from his quiche. “Well, you are a good guy, Rafferty, and you make a damn good quiche.”

“I am not a good guy,” Rafferty said, then nodded. “And I make an alright quiche. Could have used something more. Another spice. I don’t know.” He licked his teeth as he thoughtabout it.

“And that is the sign of a true chef,” Charlie pointed out. “Not like Chris. The freaking poser. He thinks everything he cooks isamazing.”

“Yeah, I know,” Helena said, flashing the demon, who was refusing to look at her and yet unable not to. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last couple months without him.”

Chapter 42

Kind of

Ditched Her

“Iwouldn’t bother with that. It’s not going to make a difference to the damage done,” Cindy said while she moved through her apartment, walking clothes over to her suitcases sitting on the couch. Helena laid out the last of Cindy’s towels to try to create a dry-ish path. Her bedroom had been completely flooded, and there was better light in the living room.

“Yes, I understand. Whatever adjustments you need to make to the arrangements is fine, as long as they fit the color scheme we dictated,” Helena said into her phone, which she had pressed to her ear with hershoulder.

Cindy noted her on the call and mouthed,“Sorry.”

Helena rolled her eyes, indicating her opinion of the caller. “What do you mean? Why would that change the price?” She listened for a moment. “That’s outside of the agreed on budget.”

She could hear the woman on the other endwheedling.

“Alright, if we approve that, we will have to take more money out of what is being raised at the Winter Rose Ball, and what is being raised right now is money for the children’s hospital’s new emergency room. Do you think a headline about how we couldn’t purchase one more breathing machine because the flowers cost too much would be of benefit to your shop?” The florist sputtered a moment, but Helena didn’t wait for her shtick to take too much of an effect. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I think I need to inform you that a feature is going out in a week about all of the different businesses contributing to this event…” She paused for a moment to let the woman have her reaction to that bit of news. “Well, yes. We thought it was the least we could do to all of those going above and beyond for this event. Unfortunately, we have no control over what the journalist writes, and we want to give them the best headline we can…” She listened a little longer. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” At last she could hang up.

“Sorry, Cindy,” she tried to say, but her friend waved it away.

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