The Appetite of Fate

Published 2022 Copyright © Matthew Teague, 2022 The right of Matthew Teague to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. www.matthewjteague.com

The Appetite of Fate

Olivia pulled at the collar of her grey dress, making sure it showed just the right amount of collar bone. She was nervous. More nervous than she’d been in a long while.

Perhaps it was the poison.

Delicate slivers lay before them, meticulously arranged to create the beautiful impression of a white lotus. Placed on black marble slate, the dish was striking.

Olivia eyed it suspiciously. “How dangerous is this?”

Scott flashed a disarming smile. He seemed at ease for someone on a blind date.

“Fugu? It’s lethal.” Scott winked. “But only if they’re careless when they prepare it. My work friends rave about it. They say it’s a chance to feel truly alive.’”

Scott’s enthusiasm was hard to ignore. It raged like the rapids of a foaming river. In contrast, Olivia was a dry creek in the desert. She wished she’d said no when Scott had suggested the Japanese Restaurant, but she’d wanted to seem easy going.

She sipped her glass of water, trying to wet her soul and steady her apprehension.

Olivia looked past the other diners to the cherry blossom trees painted tastefully on the wall opposite them. They put her on edge. To most, the elegant branches and soft flowers were a thing of beauty. Olivia wasn’t fooled. In her life, beautiful things had dangerous souls.

“So,” Scott began, reaching for his chopsticks. “You’re a model?”

“I am.”

That question went one of two ways; he was picturing her sprawled out in a swimwear catalogue or wondering about her intelligence.

“I’m sure you’re sick of guys asking prurient questions about your modelling?” He reached across the table and placed a serving of fugu on her plate.

“Impressive,” she said, swirling the ice cubes in her glass and staring him straight in those supposedly innocent brown eyes.

“What is?” he asked, doling a generous serving of fugu onto his plate.

“You’re testing me,” she said slyly, “and hitting on me at the same time.”

A smirk. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Do you always toy with your dates like this?” she asked, playfully challenging him in return.

“Only the special ones.”

He was good. She fought hard to keep from being swept off her feet in the tango of their duelling minds. This was going to be an interesting evening.

Trying to hide her smile, she looked at a nearby table. A woman in a yellow dress sat with a friendly looking man in a blue sports coat. Before them, an assortment of red and orange sashimi rested on a bed of shiso leaves like a resplendent field of flowers.

Olivia ached with longing. Not for the food, though it looked better than the poison before her. Sitting between the couple was a one-year-old boy, happily banging his plastic spoon on the table.

When Oliva turned back, she realised Scott had been watching her. Feeling the heat in her face rise, she said quickly, “You like analysing people, don’t you?”

If Scott found her observation unexpected, he made no sign of it, parrying her question with ease. “My sister used to say the same thing,” his stubble rasped as he scratched his chin. “I enjoy getting to know them, seeing why they behave the way they do.”

“Psychologist?” she asked, intrigued.

“Lawyer.”

“Should that impress me?”

“I get it now,” he said, laughing to himself.

“Get what?”

“I couldn’t figure out why a model would need a friend to set her up on blind dates.” His eyes locked on to hers. “You intimidate them, don’t you?”

Olivia was taken aback. Scott had seen right through her. She deflected. “So you’re a lawyer who can order in fluent Japanese. What else don’t I know about you?”

Scott’s eyes fell downcast for a moment. “My sister used to be a model.”

“Anyone I know?” asked Olivia, wondering at the coincidence.

“I doubt it. It was short-lived,” he hesitated, “In the end, she could barely touch her food. That was hard to watch.” He fell silent.

Olivia thought he shared the same expression as the elderly lady sitting two tables away. Neither saw the meals before them nor heard the surrounding diners. Each was lost at some other dinner table, at some other time.

He took a steadying breath, returning to the present.

Olivia nodded. “It’s an industry that will take everything from you. I don’t even have enough time to look after my rabbit anymore. I had to give him to my parents.”

Scott laughed, “I’m sorry,” he said, “You don’t strike me as the rabbit type?”

“And what is the rabbit type?”

He shrugged, eyes sparkling. “Overalls and farmland?”

Olivia laughed. She was beginning to relax. “If there was one great love in everyone’s life, mine would be food. But modelling and eating for pleasure don’t coexist.” She glanced at the surrounding meals, feeling the yearning for more than new tastes. “You never notice what food actually is until you can’t have it. The events you don’t attend, the people you don’t meet, the life you don’t live...”

“Why not quit?” He stared at her.

Olivia smiled sadly to herself as she contemplated the rim of her glass. “There’s been too much sacrifice for me to turn back now.”

“Well,” Scott said in a rallying voice, “Just try some with me,” he said, picking up his chopsticks.

Olivia’s mouth twitched. She glanced at her phone on the table. It was usually a loud and demanding dinner guest, abuzz with messages from her agent and clients. Now when she needed an excuse to leave, it sat there silent, unwilling to help.

“Sure,” she said, trying to sound brave.

Olivia, not trusting her coordination with chopsticks, pierced the fugu with her fork. Slowly, she guided the bite between her lips; perhaps the last brave action she’d ever take.

The taste was underwhelming.

“Not worth dying for,” she joked.

Scott watched her closely before starting his own piece of fugu.

Olivia thought she saw something in his eyes. Satisfaction maybe? She had the distinct feeling she was being tested again.

“Eating fugu is more about living than dying,” he said after a pause.

“I’m not sure a blowfish should get to decide that.”

“Who should then?”

Olivia loaded the perfect answer on her tongue and fired it like a missile. “A lawyer, of course.”

He didn’t laugh. In fact, he barely seemed to hear Olivia’s jibe.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked with an appraising look.

“They’re the only indulgence with zero calories.”

From the eagerness in his eyes, Olivia got the impression Scott had wanted to talk about this all night. He dropped his voice and leant in conspiratorially. “I once threw a case on purpose.”

Before Olivia could react, a waiter stood beside her and refilled their drinks. She was forced to hide her scandalised sense of shock beneath a polite smile, waiting. Once the waiter was out of earshot, she asked eagerly, “Really? Why?”

“He was a murderer,” Scott said, staring into Olivia’s eyes. “He murdered two people and wouldn’t even admit that it was his fault. He wasn’t sorry at all. So I mounted just enough of a defence that it couldn’t be declared a mistrial, and he went to prison for the rest of his life. But what choice did I have?” The edge of his stare pierced Olivia like a pointed rapier. “I thought he’d kill again.”

“Sounds like he deserved it,” said Olivia, enthralled.

He took a moment before his grave, memory-stricken face resolved into his good-natured mask, “He did. And so does anyone else who takes a life without taking responsibility for it.”

Olivia winced as her stomach twinged. A sense of dread rose within her and she wondered if it was the fugu or something else; something deeper.

“Do you feel okay?” he asked.

“Perfectly fine. I’m sure they’d never serve anything that was actually dangerous.” Olivia wished she felt as glib as she sounded.

Scott seemed to build up his nerve before asking, “Do you believe in justice?”

Olivia’s chest tightened. Something had shifted in Scott’s mood. The playfulness in his voice had grown into a desperate seriousness.

She stared into her glass, thinking, then quietly replied, “I don’t know.”

His brow furrowed like trenches on a battlefield. “I can’t help but think about the killers out there. If they’re haunted by their crimes. If they even think about their victims at all?”

She could feel Scott manoeuvring the conversation. Her heart rate increased. She answered carefully. “If they’re good people, they’d think about it all the time.”

“If they were good people, they wouldn’t have anything to haunt them in the first place.” It was almost a challenge.

Olivia narrowed her eyes, wondering if they were talking about the same thing. She felt her fingers squeeze the hem of her skirt as she tried to calm herself. “Sometimes good people make mistakes. Do you think a teenager who gets wasted and hits someone with his car is evil? Does he deserve to be punished forever?”

“Not if he accepts responsibility for it. It’s when we hide from what we’ve done that evil grows.”

This was getting serious for a first date. Olivia wanted to leave, but facts were hanging in the air like guillotines.

Scott’s sister had been a model. Aleisha had set them up together. Scott had a secret. Olivia had one too. It occurred to her that their eating fugu was no adventure in living.

“If you have a question, then ask it,” she said, trying not to panic about the increasing discomfort in her stomach.

Scott clenched his jaw. “Aleisha told me everything.”

Olivia tried not to look like someone had slapped her in the face. “What do you want?” she asked as a bead of sweat ran through the foundation on her brow like a snow-plough.

“The truth.” He threw the answer onto the table like a hand of cards.

Olivia didn’t fold. “The truth? Or someone to blame?” She rallied her spirit. “We should go.”

Neither moved.

He interlaced his fingers like the bars of a cage and answered a different question. “When I first met Aleisha, I didn’t know she knew my sister, but once she realized who I was, guilt drove her to tell me everything. She told me about you.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

The pieces clicked into place like the cocking of a gun.

One of them stood upon the edge of a blade, nothing but air at their backs. “God, karma or some other cosmic force wanted me to find you. It wanted us to come here tonight, to play Russian roulette with our tastebuds and our lives. If you are innocent, then you have nothing to fear. But if you’re not, then maybe the chef screwed up. Maybe he missed some of the toxin in this blowfish; a tiny drop of judgement waiting to be passed.”

Olivia was shaken, but more than anything, she wanted to get away from the man who may have poisoned her. “You want the truth? Here’s the truth. Your sister got involved with bad people and she got herself killed. That’s as much as I know.”

He pounced on the statement. “But are you one of those bad people?”

They sat staring at one another. Scott’s face was so impassive you might’ve thought he was reading a newspaper. Olivia was less composed. The seconds dragged by and it occurred to her that Scott wasn’t reading the newspaper. He was reading her obituary.

Olivia’s heart was like a hammer, pounding on the weakening door of her resolve. She ran through the list of sensations in her body, trying to convince herself it wasn’t the blowfish that was making her feel this way. But what if she had been poisoned?

Scott still watched her, those dark eyes filled with the self-righteous judgement of the universe itself. What she’d give to escape that stare.

Her eyes flickered across the restaurant, over the other diners, who so far made no sign of noticing her peril. Her whole body was on edge, the sounds of scraping plates and cutlery piercing her head like knives. If she could get away from Scott and his stare, she knew she’d feel better.

But she could no longer leave.

She’d lived with the weight of her secret for so long that now the promise of absolution was too good to ignore. She poured her focus into keeping her mouth shut. If she didn’t speak, she wouldn’t say anything incriminating. But Scott had poisoned her. This may be her last chance.

She felt the last shreds of strength waste away, leaving behind the same fragile girl she’d been all those years ago, seeking fame and success for a price she didn’t know she’d regret.

It wasn’t her lips that betrayed her first, but her eyes. One by one, the tears tore at her mascara, smearing the truth down her face.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she gasped, no longer able to hold herself back. “It was an accident. Your sister was talented - too talented. Aleisha and I had been slipping her appetite pills for months. But the dealer... He gave us the wrong thing.”

She pressed a hand to her chest, willing the beating organ to slow, “It was my fault”. She swallowed. “I think about her every day, the things I took from her… the life I stole”. Her confession finished with a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

Around them, the noise of life continued on. Conversation, food, laughter, all of it was wasted on these two souls who had come to the restaurant and been consumed by the past.

Scott took a deep breath, and Olivia braced herself. No shouting came. Instead, his face collapsed; the once impenetrable wall of his reserve was now an ancient and weathered ruin. His eyes filled with sadness; all traces of his former lawyer-like composure had vanished. Here he was, just a brother who’d lost his sister and could never bring her back.

He nodded, his eyes averted, no longer able to look at Olivia. Scott pushed himself away from the table and stood.

“You get the cheque,” he said. And then he was gone.

Olivia sat, staring at the fugu before her. Wondering when her heart would seize and the pain in her chest would become excruciating.

The waiter appeared beside her. “Can I take this?” he asked, indicating her plate.

She looked up at him, desperate for help, but knowing she was undeserving of such things. She cleared her throat, resigned. “Yes. If I’d known it’d be my last meal, I would’ve ordered something better than fugu.”

The waiter frowned. “Fugu?”