With a Twist

Chapter One

Pardon me, Mademoiselle, could you repeat today’s specials? I love listening to that sexy French accent.”

Natalie Bocuse smiled sweetly as she honored Quinn O’Brien’s request. O’Brien, self proclaimed “best goddamn reporter in all of New York,” ate lunch twice a week at Vivi’s, the small bistro owned by Natalie’s half sister, Vivi. Quinn loved getting under Natalie’s skin, but after nine months of his endless teasing (or flirting, as her sister claimed), she’d learned to hold her usually sharp tongue.

Quinn took his time contemplating the specials (grilled tuna with herbed tomato, zucchini crepes), tapping his lower lip thoughtfully. “Which would you recommend?”

Natalie suppressed a huff of exasperation. “Both are wonderful. Everything Vivi cooks is wonderful.”

“True.”

Vivi’s cozy little cafe was a hit in the family-oriented enclave of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, serving classic French bistro food at affordable prices.  There was a neighborhood feeling to the place, enhanced by Vivi’s engagement to Anthony Dante, the temperamental chef and owner of the Italian restaurant across the street: Dante’s, a venerable Brooklyn institution. Vivi, born and raised in a small French town, loved the sense of community. Natalie, born and raised in Paris, found Bensonhurst a little too provincial for her taste.

Quinn still hadn’t made up his mind. Natalie stared at him, impatiently tapping her pencil on the small pad in her hand. She couldn’t hold her tongue anymore. “Well?”

Quinn, knowing he’d pierced her armor, smiled. “I think I’ll go for the zucchini crepes…unless you think the grilled tuna is better, Nat.” His expression was mischievous.

Nat. Another of the myriad ways he sought to irk her, by calling her by this stupid nickname, which she couldn’t stand.

“Are you saying you’re such a simpleton you need me to pick for you?” Natalie asked sweetly.

Quinn, satisfied that he’d gotten her to snap, laughed. “I’ll have the crepes.” 

Natalie scribbled down his order and headed for the kitchen, where she found Vivi standing in front of one of stoves, joyfully stirring some fish stock. The kitchen was a hive of culinary activity.Vivi’s was always packed for lunch and dinner.

Vivi glanced up at Natalie. “Doesn’t this smell heavenly?” she rhapsodized.

“Heavenly,” Natalie replied. “Mr. Journalist would like the zucchini crepes.”

Vivi winked at her. “That isn’t all he wants, cherie.”

Natalie clucked her tongue. “If he hasn’t figured out by now that I’m not going to give him the time of day, then he’s not as brilliant as he claims.”

“Why can’t you just admit you’re as attracted to him as he is to you?”

“Because I’m not. How many times do I have to tell you?  He’s a journalist, which is the lowest of the low. Plus he’s an egomaniac.”
Lord, when was Vivi going to stop trying to push her into the arms of Quinn O’Brien? Did Vivi really think she would go out with some reporter who looked like he slept in his clothing? Someone whose ego was so huge Natalie was surprised his head didn’t tremble under the weight of it?  Someone with a horrible Noo Yawk accent? She’d never go out with a man like that, no matter how striking his sharp blue eyes were, or and how sexy his salt and pepper hair was.

Vivi sighed in resignation as she moved to make Quinn’s crepes.

You’re stabbing yourself in the toes, you know.”

“ I believe you mean ‘Shooting myself in the foot.’”

Despite being in America for close to two years, Vivi still had trouble with American colloquialisms. Anthony thought it was adorable, of course. He thought everything Vivi did was adorable. Natalie hated to admit it, but she was envious of their relationship.

“Shooting yourself in the foot,” Vivi repeated. “Well, you are. He’s not going to keep coming in here forever.”

“It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to be around much longer for him to torment.”

Vivi looked stricken. “You’re not going back to Paris, are you?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Natalie assured her, though the mention of her home city did give her a small pang of melancholy.

“Then what?” Vivi looked alarmed. “You’re not in trouble again, are you?”

“No.”

“Trouble” was their euphemism for Natalie’s inability to handle money. She was a shopaholic.  One of the reasons she was working as a waitress at Vivi’s was to help pay off a loan from Bernard Rousseau, a UN diplomat who was an old friend of their late father. They’d needed the loan because Natalie had spent all the money they had to open the restaurant. Bernard had saved them, and Natalie had saved herself, regularly attending “Shopaholics Anonymous” meetings. She was “in recovery,” as they said. And she hadn’t slipped up once, which made her proud.

“Then what?” Vivi asked again.

“We’ll talk about it tonight, all right? I don’t mean to sound ominous. Honestly. It’s just something that needs to be discussed in private,” she said, nodding toward the two staff cooks working in the kitchen.

“All right,” Vivi said, backing off. “I still think you’re a stubborn mule not to go out with Quinn,” she murmured under her breath.

“Back to him again,” Natalie rolled her eyes. “Please, just let it go!”

he tried to imagine what a date with Quinn O’Brien would be like, and stifled a snort. He’d probably bring her to a Papaya King and buy her a hotdog and some chemical tasting phony fruit juice. No doubt that was all he could afford on a reporter’s salary.

Vivi handed her the plate of crepes, which looked and smelled lovely. “Here you go.”

Natalie took the plate of crepes out to Quinn, putting them down in front of him with an exaggerated flourish. “Bon Appetit.”

“Merci, ma petit rougeur.” Thank you, my little rash. He was always doing this: intentionally making mistakes in her native tongue trying to get a rise out of her. Natalie ostentatiously covered her mouth, gave a small bored yawn, and walked away.  Honestly, the man was so tiresome.

*

                                                     
If home was where the heart was, like the needlepoint hanging in his parents’ cramped living room proclaimed, then Quinn’s home was The Sentinel’s newsroom. The place was alive, pulsing with chaos and tension. Quinn loved the sound of hundreds of frenzied fingers tapping away on keyboards and the curses of frustrated reporters slamming down phones. He loved seeing the messy cubicles piled high with folders and littered with empty coffee cups and the debris of fast food meals. Home was where the adrenalin rush was. Home was where you triumphed and beat the competition.

The last deadline of the day was 10:30 p.m. He’d hurried in at ten fifteen, and was frantically writing up his latest story while the city editor, Cindy MacKenzie, hovered over him, looking like she was going to throw an embolism any second. “You sure you got all the details?” she asked Quinn repeatedly. “Because if we don’t get all the right details—”

“We’re fucked,” Quinn finished for her with an exasperated sigh. “Have I ever not gotten all the details right? Leave me alone so I can finish this up and get the hell out of here.”

Cindy backed off. Quinn quickly scanned over what he’d written, knowing it would run on the front page of tomorrow’s Sentinel. As always, persistence and a willingness to go the extra mile paid off. While finishing up his lunch at Vivi’s—a lunch made all the more satisfying knowing how much he’d irked Natalie no matter how she’d tried to hide it—he’d gotten a call on his cell from a source in the NYPD that there had been an incident in Queens: some punk had robbed and beat up an old woman on her way home from the grocery store. Thanks to Quinn’s connections he was the first on the scene. He began sniffing around, knocking on doors, and finally found two witnesses willing to talk. Then he went to stake out the punk’s parents’ house. Unfortunately, by the time they decided to give the media a prepared statement, the competition had shown up. The kid’s parents spouted some crap about their son being framed, even though he’d been positively ID’d as the old woman’s attacker. Every reporter present knew that by tomorrow, the kid and his attorney would be looking to cop a plea.

Once the parents went back inside, the reporters dispersed, most racing back to file. But not Quinn. He’d found out what hospital the old woman was in, and hustled over there as fast as he could to crash her room, something he generally hated doing, but that was necessary if he was going to get that one little nugget of info no one else had. Thankfully, the old woman was awake and lucid. Showing politeness and respect, the two things he’d learned over the years were the magic ingredients in getting people to open up even in the worst circumstances, he’d gotten a few quotes out of granny. He thanked her, jumped in a cab, and raced back to The Sent.
“Done,” he announced to Cindy, whose eyes were glued to the giant clock mounted high on the wall.

 Her tense little body relaxed. “I hate when you cut it this goddamn close, O’Brien.”

Quinn grinned. “We’ve got the story, don’t we? You should be kissing my ass, not pawing around in your desk drawer for Xanax.”
“Shut up,” she replied affectionately. She patted his shoulder as she hustled over to another reporter who was yelling for her. “Good job.”
“Always.”

Quinn sat back and took a deep breath, scrubbing his hands over his face. The rush would be slow in abating. It always was. He walked over to the cubicle of his long time buddy, Jeff Rogan. Twenty years older than Quinn, Rogan was a journalist from the old school: tough, hard drinking, no bullshit. He’d survived six editors in chief getting the axe as well as multiple staff cuts. He was Metro Editor now, so most of his time was spent in the newsroom. Quinn knew he wished he were still out on the street, even though the pressure was killer.

“You comin’ to the Wild Hart?” Quinn asked.

The Wild Hart pub, which Quinn’s parents owned and ran, was only two blocks from The Sent’s offices, making it easy for Quinn and his cronies to pop over after a long day, or night, at work.

Rogan glanced up from his keyboard. “I take it that’s a rhetorical question.” He scrutinized Quinn’s face. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m just saying. You don’t have to be in until three tomorrow. So, why don’t you try not to show up five or six hours early?”

“Can’t. You know that.”

“Won’t, you mean. God forbid you have a fucking life.”

Quinn flipped Rogan the bird, knowing that by “life” Rogan meant “a personal life.” The idea did cross Quinn’s mind—twice a week, in fact, when he strolled into Vivi’s and saw Natalie. He adored her, even though she could be a bit of a snob. He liked that she was so sure of herself. It reminded him…of him. But that wasn’t all: She was beautiful, she was witty, and whether she’d cop to it or not, he could tell she was as attracted to him as he was to her. He hadn’t yet actually asked her out for one reason: He had no idea where to take someone like Natalie on a date.

Rogan frowned, turning his attention back to his monitor. “Come back for me in twenty minutes and I’ll head over to your folks’ place with you.”

“Actually, I think I’m going to head over there now. I’m starving.”

“Me, too. Make sure your mother saves me some stew.”

“Will do.”

Quinn grabbed his jacket and backpack, heading outside. The night air was damp, the wide sidewalks still glistening from a downpour ten minutes earlier. Soon his closest buds on the paper would join him at his folks’ pub:  Rogan; Pete Rodriguez, the Sent’s sports writer who covered the Blades and Jets and drove everyone batshit with his habit of quoting sports statistics; Kenny Durham, the crossword puzzle editor, who was always tossing obscure words around; and Shep Moss, who’d been at the paper forever. No one was quite sure how old Shep really was, what he actually did anymore, or how he managed to hold on to his job. All Quinn knew was that Shep was a newspaper legend, and funny as hell.

Quinn couldn’t wait to hang out with them, relaxing over a few beers. Spending time at The Wild Hart allowed him to kill two birds with one stone: kick back with his co-workers, and see his parents and his younger brother, Liam. Sometimes one or both of sisters were there with their husbands, too. Rogan mockingly called Quinn’s family “The Waltons,” but he loved them as much as anyone else. Hell, everyone loved Quinn’s family.

 Satisfaction didn’t even begin to cover what Quinn was feeling as he strode confidently towards of the pub. He let himself indulge in a little self-congratulation on nailing his story and scooping the competition. The city and her stories, always full of surprises, was his life. That was another reason he’d yet to ask Nat out: he wasn’t sure he could fit a woman into his life. Besides, she’d probably turn him down anyway.