French Quarter Kisses
Pierre spotted Roz across the room. “What about her?”
Brooke followed his gaze. “Who, the guy in the white tux?”
“No, the woman he’s talking to.”
Brooke’s smile slipped, but her voice remained chipper. “Roz Arnaud?” She waved a dismissive hand. “Not a part of high society. She tried to be. Snagged a job with my paper right out of college, but couldn’t hang in the big leagues. Left and took a job with a small, regional paper, pretty local, actually. Now, the woman behind her is a major socialite whose husband owns—”
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to cut you off,” Pierre said as he watched Roz head toward an exit. “But successful people like that don’t need me. I’d rather give those small, local businesses my support.”
Pierre left a sputtering, confused and chagrined Brooke trying to pick her face up off the floor. He wasn’t aware, so mesmerized was he by Roz’s natural beauty. She reached the door and was stopped by an older, distinguished-looking couple, which gave Pierre the time he needed to cross the room and catch her arm before she left the room.
“Leaving so soon?”
“And if I am?”
“Then I’m glad that I was able to stop you before you got away.” Pierre looked up and saw two women walking toward him with purpose. “Look, can we go somewhere private?”
Without waiting for an answer, he slid his hand from Roz’s arm to her hand and gently steered her down the hall to the first opening, a short hallway leading to a set of restrooms. No doubt they wouldn’t be alone long.
Roz withdrew her hand from his, but not before Pierre noted her silky, soft skin.
“Okay, Pierre, what is this about?”
“The other day at the gym. That’s where we met.”
“That’s right.”
“Wow. You look...totally different.”
“I clean up alright.”
“More than alright. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe who I saw the other day is really you.”
“Are you saying at the gym you thought I was butt ugly?”
“No!” This wasn’t going the way Pierre planned. A small bead of perspiration formed on his neck and rolled down his back. “You were... If I’d known that... I mean...”
“Go ahead. Keep digging.”
He pushed sweaty hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall. “I wasn’t very nice to you.”
“You were rude.”
“I didn’t think you were really a reporter.”
“What then, a troll?”
“No!”
Roz held the frown for a second longer before a chuckle escaped her lips. Pierre exhaled. “Girl, quit teasing. I haven’t felt this nervous since high school.”
“You thought I was making up being a reporter as a way to spend time with you?”
“Stranger things have happened. You also look very different tonight from...the other day.”
“Well, I wasn’t faking it. I’m a reporter, one who has called several times to arrange an interview. Did no one give you the message?”
“They may have, but...”
“I also reached out to your publicist, Cathy Weiss?” He nodded. “Before you suggested it, by the way. She told me you were busy, which considering that you’re opening a restaurant, I understand. But good publicity never hurt a new business, so I thought at the very least you’d find time to answer the list of questions I sent over.”
“I don’t remember getting any questions, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t sent. My emails are overflowing and voice mail stays full. If you really need to reach me Don is your best bet. He’s my personal manager and the only one who can reach me 24/7. I can give you his contact info.”
“I guess I can send him the questions I sent Cathy, since a personal interview is out of the question.”
“Why do you want me so badly? Wait, that came out wrong.”
“Ha-ha. It sure did. To be clear, the editor and another writer are the ones who feel you’re too relevant not to cover. I can think of half a dozen subjects more worthy of the space.”
“Damn, beautiful, why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
“I just did.” She smiled, drawing Pierre’s eyes to her lips. Lips that were full and moist and ready to be kissed, making him wonder if that fiery personality transferred to the bedroom, and how that looked up close. An errant tendril fell across Roz’s eyebrow. Instinctively, he reached up and gently placed it behind her ear. Their eyes met. Was that a flash of desire he saw in the chocolate orbs watching him intently?
She broke the connection, reached into a jeweled clutch and pulled out her cell. “Don...what’s his last name?”
“Sanders.”
Roz’s thumbs flew across the keys. “Number?”
“You haven’t been to the restaurant, right?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Tell you what. We’re closed today, but why don’t I make an exception for you and have you come by around...eight or nine, and I’ll make a few dishes?”
“Why?”
“How are you going to write about my restaurant if you haven’t tasted the food?”
“The food is what everyone is writing about. That’s the obvious angle. I want our focus to be on the man behind the menu.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re turning down a private dinner at the hottest restaurant in New Orleans?”
“I guess so.”
“Come on, now. I’m trying to redeem myself.”
“That’s admirable, but you know what they say.”
“No, what do they say, whoever ‘they’ are?”
“That you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
“Then will you give me the chance to make an excellent second impression?”
“While conducting an interview?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes, I’ll give you that chance. And I have the perfect place to meet. It’s not well-known or highbrow, but they make the best local cuisine anywhere.”
“You mean besides mine.”
“I mean better than anyone, anywhere. Period.”
“You want to bet on that?”
“I’d have no problem taking your money if you want to go that route.”
“Watch yourself now. Remember, you haven’t tried my food. Not a good idea to place a bet that you’re guaranteed to lose.”
“I’m confident enough to call you on it.”
“Okay. What are the stakes?”
He watched Roz ponder the question. “If I win, dinner for my parents at your restaurant. Next week. On the house.”
“Done. And if I win?”
“You won’t.”
“Yes, but just in case I do. What can I have?”
A devilish glint showed in Roz’s eye just before she answered with a question of her own. “What do you want?” And then, as if words had rushed out before she could catch them, much as had happened to him earlier when his thoughts of her beauty were voiced out loud, she rushed on. “Wait. Don’t answer that. The question came out totally wrong.”
“Ha! Too late to back out now.” He watched her catch and nibble a portion of her lovely lower lip. “Nervous?”
“No.”
She warmed him like sunshine. Pierre wanted more of her heat. He pulled out his phone. “What’s the name of this place?”
“It’s called Ma’s. I don’t have the address, but I can text it to you.”
They exchanged numbers. A group of women rounded the corner, headed toward the ladies’ room. Once they saw Pierre he knew privacy was over. “I look forward to our date,” he mumbled as they neared them.
“It’s not a date.” Roz began walking away. Pierre’s touch was tender as he grabbed her arm. She turned around.
“Call it whatever you want to call it, but just remember that when it comes to all things culinary...I usually win.”
Chapter 5
“How stupid are you?”
That’s what Roz’s BFF Stefanie asked when told that Roz had turned down Pierre’s invitation for a private dinner after hours in the most sought-after space in town. Roz understood. Stefanie didn’t. She hadn’t met Pierre up close and personal, felt the animal magnetism that kept Roz tossing and turning all night after the ball, and thinking about him for the rest of the weekend. If Stefanie knew all that, then she’d know that meeting Pierre on neutral territory with people around would keep Roz from doing something she’d later regret.
She arrived early and waited in her car, determined to not make a repeat of their past interactions. Placing bets and blurting out leading questions in a direction she totally intended not to go. It wasn’t like her to flip out over a handsome guy. She was neither a starstruck fan nor a bumbling idiot with no command of the English language. She was a serious journalist who knew the price that could be paid for turning a business opportunity into potential pleasure. Embarrassment. Heartbreak. Delano had taught her that.
That the two men knew each other was yet another reason to keep things strictly professional between her and the chef. No telling what her ex had told Pierre about them. Knowing Delano, he wouldn’t have kept quiet about their past relationship or been hesitant to throw her under the bus with why it ended.
Roz thought these things and ignored the flutter in her stomach when an image of how Pierre had looked that night swam before her eyes. Ignored how she’d thought of him all day and anticipated this meeting. Told herself she’d gotten there early because she wanted to be there when Pierre arrived, lest he take one look at the humble abode that served as a public eatery and keep on driving.
On one matter, however, she allowed herself to face the truth. When it came to Louisiana cooking, nobody could outdo Manette Lafeyette, whom everyone called Ma. Roz’s bestie, Stefanie, had dragged her there the day Roz decided to leave the city’s biggest newspaper for the job at NO Beat. While she’d been excited about the possibilities attached to the start-up, feeling she’d been forced from the job she’d snagged right after college had left her down in the dumps. That day Roz had learned that anything going wrong in life could be cured with Ma’s gumbo. And her crawfish? Lord have mercy. Roz couldn’t wait to see Pierre’s face when he entered Ma’s and was assailed by the aromas that wrapped themselves around you as soon as you walked through the door. Smells that effortlessly pulled you farther into the room. Just thinking of the bucket of crawfish and buttered bread loaf served free with every meal made her mouth water.
Roz got out of her car and checked her watch, anxious now to assuage her grumbling stomach. It had been months since she’d eaten at Ma’s. She’d purposely skipped lunch today to enjoy the meal. She checked her watch again, frowned as she looked up...and into Pierre’s eyes.
“Am I late?” He’d lowered his window to ask the question before pulling to the curb and parking. He turned off the engine and hopped out of his car.
Those eyes. That smile again. Damn, he was gorgeous. Don’t be affected, she warned her body. Don’t let it matter, she told her head.
“Right on time, actually. Hope you’re hungry.”
“If the food inside looks as good as you do...”
“Don’t be average,” Roz said, as she rolled her eyes and began walking up the sidewalk toward the house. “Save that for your groupies,” she added over her shoulder.
“Groupies? I don’t have groupies. And that wasn’t a line. You look very nice.”
“Then perhaps that’s what you should have said.”
A smile softened the caustic words as Roz waited until Pierre caught up with her before she opened the small home’s screen door and the thick wooden one behind it. She wanted to see the look on his face that she’d seen on so many other Ma first-timers.
“Ready?”
His glance was skeptical. “I guess.”
Her smile widened. She opened the inner door. A cacophony of odors rose up like instruments in an orchestra. Oregano harmonizing with garlic and onion. Thyme keeping time with dry mustard and dill seed. Cayenne, smoked paprika and bay leaves adding oomph to the melody. Pierre took two steps. Stopped, closed his eyes and inhaled. Roz laughed.
He opened eyes filled with wonder. “Whose place is this?”
“Mine, and y’all need to get on in here and close the door. I’m not trying to cool off the whole neighborhood.”
A petite woman with long white hair and an ageless face that could have been sixty or ninety-six walked toward them. Mouth frowning, eyes beaming.
She reached up to give Roz a hug, all the while looking at the man standing beside her. “Took long enough for you to get back here. Where have you been?”
“Way too long, I know. I’ve been really busy lately, but I’m so glad I’m here. Just thinking about your food makes my mouth water.”
“Hmm.” Ma looked at Pierre. “Who is this handsome young man you’ve brought to my house?” Her eyes slid back over to Roz. “Is he why you’ve been busy?”
“What? Oh, no, Ma. This isn’t... We’re not...”
“Pierre LeBlanc, ma’am.” Pierre leaned down to hug Ma, then raised her soft and slightly wrinkled hand to his lips and kissed it. “It smells like I just walked into crayfish heaven, and a whole lot more.”
Ma stepped back to look up at him. “What would you know about it? You look way too fancy to know about mudbugs.”
“I know a little something about them. Grew up in New Orleans.”
“He’s a chef, Ma,” Roz explained. “Just opened a restaurant in the Quarters, called Easy Creole Cuisine.”
“So you think you can cook, huh?” Ma asked.
“I do alright.”
“If I ever get to taste something you fix, I’ll be the judge of that.”
Roz raised her hand to cover a chuckle. Pierre’s eyes gleamed as he smiled. “Alright, then.”
He took a couple steps and looked around him. “Never would have guessed all of what was going on in this little house.” He tipped his head. “Behind that door we just entered.”
“That’s the way I like it,” Ma said, giving him a little shove as she pointed to one of four tables, all unoccupied, in what had originally been a living room. “Don’t want the city coming in here bothering me, telling me what to use and how to use it.”
“How do you get your customers?”
“How’d you come here?”
“Word of mouth.” He nodded, looking paradoxically comfortable as he sat in a plastic chair that might have been around at least half as long as Ma. “Well, if the food tastes half as good as it smells...”
“It tastes even better.” Roz took a chair to his right, facing the door. She placed her purse on one of two empty chairs at their table and pulled out a small recorder. “Do you mind?”
“What’s that for?”
“With the smells assaulting your senses I can understand you forgetting what brought us here. Our interview.”
“Oh, right. That.” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t mind. Depends on what you ask me.”
“Fair enough. If you want to share something off the record just let me know.”
“Does that really work?”
“What?”
“Sharing something off the record.” He used air quotes to underscore his distrust.
“Depends on the reporter. There is a code of ethics that most professional journalists follow. I’m a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the organization that established the code in 1909.”
“Then how do magazines get away with printing any and everything about celebrities and people they don’t even know?”
“Clearly, everyone who writes and prints a story does not follow that code. But don’t worry. Given you’re already the city’s golden boy, I’d imagine this chat will be pretty painless.”
“Y’all go wash your hands!” The command yelled from the kitchen caused a raised brow.
“You don’t want to disobey her,” Roz whispered, scooting back her chair to comply. When the two returned, Ma had set two lemon waters on a table now covered with newspaper. She came up behind them swinging a small bucket in one hand, holding a small loaf of buttered French bread in the other.
“Bone appetite,” she said, purposely mispronouncing the famous French phrase as she set down the fare, along with two large “napkins,” otherwise called hand towels.
Pierre leaned into the steam rising from the bucket and inhaled. “Wow.” He positioned the towel over his lap and prepared to dig in.
Roz made a sound that stopped him. “Um, ladies first?”
“Ladies better hurry.”
“Ha!” Roz reached into the bucket and pulled out what was alternately called a crawfish, crawdad, crayfish or baby lobster, depending on who you asked. She felt Pierre’s eyes on her as, with a quick twist of the wrist, she separated the body from the crawfish head. With unabashed pleasure she placed the latter in her mouth and sucked out the juicy meatiness inside. After tossing the shell on the newspaper, she made quick work of slurping the remaining meat from the tail while reaching for her next one.
“Obviously not your first bucket,” Pierre quipped as he picked up one of the Louisiana delicacies and devoured it the same as Roz.
“Nope.”
“You from here?”
“Born and bred. Only recently developed a love for crawfish, though. My mom hates them and refused their presence in our home.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Eastover.”
“Ah, one of those.”
Roz frowned as she shamelessly licked juice from her fingers. “What do you mean by that?”
“Girls from your part of town had nothing to do with us boys in the Ninth Ward.”
“Is that where you grew up?”
“Spent a lot of time there” was Pierre’s vague answer.
“Well, I can’t speak for the girls you met back then, but I was not a part of the popular girl crowd.”
Pierre eyed her as he twisted the head from another crawfish. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it. I was tall, skinny, with a head too big for the slender neck beneath it. I was too light in some places and too dark in others. In other words, I often didn’t fit in anywhere.”
Pierre’s eyes narrowed seductively. “Clearly all of that’s changed. You are...lovely.”
“When I look in the mirror I still see the socially awkward bookworm.”
“Everyone else sees someone beautiful, educated, successful. Someone with the world in the palm of her hand.”
“I guess you’d know.”
“Me?”
“Of course. Superstar chef with the world as your oyster, probably with a trail of broken hearts scattered down Interstate 10.”
“Not even close. What you see of my life now looks nothing like it did growing up.”
“In this area?”
“Sometimes.”
“Where else?”
“Didn’t matter where. The results were the same.”
“According to what I’ve read, being here mattered in 2005. You were here when Katrina hit.”
“Until the water pushed us out and I landed in Houston.”
“Tell me about that. It’s the angle for my story. New Orleanians who experienced Katrina to survive and thrive.”
Pierre nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “What would you like to know?”
Roz wiped her hands on the towel and reached for her water. “Everything.”
Chapter 6
So easy to talk to, Pierre thought, as he considered her question. He, too, wiped his hands and sat back in the hard plastic chair. When he did his eyes dropped to the recorder. Sure, she was beautiful, and dismantled one of his favorite crustaceans like a pro, but she was a reporter. Of course talking to her would be easy. Maybe too easy. She’d been taught how to coax information from individuals, make them feel comfortable. Catch them off guard. If this was what her schooling, training and experience had taught her, Pierre thought, she must have graduated at the top of her class. She was very good at her job.
So good that Pierre had almost forgotten some very important rules. He didn’t talk about his past, especially Katrina. Because to talk about Katrina, he’d have to talk about family. To talk about family, he’d have to talk about his mom, and Grand-Mère Juliette. Pull the scab off the wound left by his grandmother’s and mom’s disappearance during the storm. He still called it that, a disappearance, even though with all the time passed he was sure that they’d met the same fate as thousands of others whose lives had ended in a watery grave. The mom whose last words had been “Take care of your sister. I’ll see y’all soon. Promise.”
Only she hadn’t arrived in Houston. She’d broken her promise. Which was why to this day there wasn’t a woman he could trust.
Especially one who’d set a recorder between them. He shifted in his seat, saw Ma carrying a heavily laden tray out of the kitchen, and was thankful for her timing.
“Here, let me help you with that.”
“I’ve carried heavier burdens in my lifetime,” Ma insisted, though she readily allowed Pierre to take the tray of steamy goodness and place it on the table beside them, while Roz, knowing the drill, carefully bunched up the newspaper and placed it in the now empty red bucket.
“What all do we have here?” Pierre removed two small bowls from the tray, lifting one to his nostrils before setting it down. “Red beans and rice with, what’s that, andouille or boudin?”
“Neither. That’s Ma’s sausage. None else like it nowhere.”
He stepped back so Ma could set down piping-hot plates of jambalaya being transferred from the tray to the table.
“Ma, this all looks amazing,” Roz said.
“Smells even better than it looks,” Pierre added.
Ma replied in her traditional fashion. “Bone appetite.”
He’d barely sat down before picking up his fork to spear a chunk of sausage swimming in the bowl of beans and rice. He placed the nugget in his mouth and closed his eyes as he began to chew.
“The usual suspects,” he began, still chewing. “Thyme, paprika, bay leaf, sage...” Swallowing, he turned admiring eyes toward Ma. “But what’s that sweet undertone? Nutmeg? Ginger?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to never find out. Knowing that here is the only place you can get it will keep you coming back.”
“No doubt, I’ll be back.” Pierre tested the jambalaya. “Ma, this is divine. I need to spend some time in your kitchen.”
“I guess I could use a dishwasher from time to time.” She winked at Roz while Pierre laughed, and walked back into the kitchen, a smile clearly showing that his compliments were appreciated.
For the next few minutes, the deliciousness of Ma’s food dominated the conversation. But midway through the jambalaya, Roz repeated her earlier question to Pierre.
“You were telling me about your experience during Hurricane Katrina. What was that like?”
“You first. Where were you when it hit?”
“Out of state, Columbia, Missouri, preparing to enter my first year at Mizzou.” At Pierre’s raised brows she added, “University of Missouri.”
“Why didn’t you attend college here?”
“I wanted to. My mom wanted me to go to Southern, or Tulane. But my dad is a Midwesterner and felt that spending time outside my home state would broaden my cultural horizons. Plus, the University of Missouri has one of the best journalism programs in the country. So it wasn’t a long argument. Dad won.
“Watching that storm on TV, and the events that unfolded afterward, was surreal. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the videos I saw and the town I knew. I wanted to come back and cover it, write an article for the school paper. Of course, my parents forbade it. Too dangerous. I was livid, sure I could cover the events in a way foreigners couldn’t. Foreigners being anyone not from New Orleans.
“Looking back, I know they were right. I may have been ready to write a story, but I wouldn’t have been ready to see in person the aftermath we all witnessed on TV, or handle the emotional and psychological aftereffects.”
Having dealt with those aftereffects for more than a decade, Pierre understood.
Both became quiet—somber, reflective, remembering a moment in history that few who witnessed it could ever forget. Pierre wanted to, wished he could, and continued to steer the focus away from those painful memories.
“They made it out, your family?”
“Yes,” Roz answered. “Our home wasn’t in the major flood area, but my parents didn’t want to take any chances. One of my uncles lives in Atlanta. They left before the storm hit. What about you? Where were you when it happened?”