Page 52 of The Botanist's Assistant
She rings the doorbell, the sound of the buzzing bell releasing a pulse of panic. Aren’t you supposed to bring something like wine or flowers when someone invites you for a meal? And yet, how can someone expect a gift when you’ve only been invited twenty minutes before? She is not a magician. She wonders if people who often get invited to meals keep a supply of wine and scented soaps on hand for just such occasions. Another puzzle of polite society to be worked out.
Dr. Deaver’s house may not have surprised her, but Joe Torres’s house does. The living room is decorated with two fat armchairs, a beautiful leather couch, a thick throw rug, a big terra-cotta pot containing a healthy-looking areca palm and huge, moody-looking paintings that cover two walls.
“My housemate,” Joe says as if reading her mind. “He’s aninterior designer. We roomed together in college. Come into the kitchen. I’m basically not allowed to set foot in here.”
Margaret follows him, the rich scent of cooking filling the compact kitchen.
“The rice is just done,” Joe says and gestures toward a round table set in a windowed alcove. It looks out onto a Japanese flowering apricot (Prunus mume) with a redwood fence behind it. “Have a seat. I’ll serve, if it’s OK with you.”
“That would be acceptable.” Why is she talking like that? “I mean, that would be nice.”
He brings over two fragrant bowls of what he says is a chicken curry and sets one in front of Margaret, then carries over two tumblers of ice water and joins her.
Margaret inhales the scents of cumin, ginger and garlic. “I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. It’s the only dish I can make besides spaghetti.” He grins. “Dig in.”
Which they do.
They talk about spaghetti for a while, Margaret telling him about how difficult it is to grow tomatoes where she lives and how she settled on a variety called Early Girl, which are amazing when eaten right off the vine, and him saying the best tomatoes he ever had were at a small restaurant in Spain.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Spain,” Margaret says. “I read that Barcelona is beautiful.”
“It was a little village outside of Barcelona, actually.” Joe forks curry into his mouth and chews. “My last assignment was there.”
“A travel article?”
“Not exactly.”
Margaret waits.
“It’s too beautiful a day for a downer story.” He looks out the window to the apricot tree.
“You can tell me if you want. I don’t mind a downer, as you call it. Sometimes, it’s better to speak of things.”
She never speaks of her sister and her role in her disappearance. Maybe if she did, it wouldn’t be like chromic acid, still eating holes in her heart.
“You really don’t need to hear it.”
“If you need to tell it, then I need to hear it.” Margaret sets down her fork to let him know she is ready to listen.
His story comes out in halts and starts: He’d tracked down a guy who’d exposed an oligarch’s financial crimes and had to go into hiding in Spain. Joe had flown over, careful to cover his tracks, but apparently he hadn’t covered them well enough, or maybe he had. It’s a question that he’d never been able to answer.
Over a series of encrypted texts, Joe had convinced the whistle-blower to tell his story, and while they were meeting at the man’s hideout on a beautiful and warm summer day, a motorcycle had pulled up and a Molotov cocktail had been thrown through an open window. The man, who’d just gotten up to retrieve a bottle of wine, was hit by a full blast of the flaming liquid and burned to death.
“I managed to get out, but not before, well, you know.” He turns his head slightly and Margaret sees the violence imbedded in the tightness of the scarred skin. “Anyway, that’s when I decided I needed to get out of journalism for a while.”
The faint sound of a dog barking comes through the window.
“So, you came here?”
It seems an odd place for a man like him to land.
Joe lets out a little blow of breath. “The thing is, being in the hospital gives you plenty of time to think. Morphine and bad food will do that to you.”
The corner of his mouth twitches up in a quick grin.
Margaret gives a slight nod. “I can see where it might.”
