Fed up

problems recently.” Problems? If a restaurant’s dining area is noisy, and the service is a little slow, and a couple of menu items are unavailable, there are problems. If the owner is meandering around drunk in front of the patrons and using cocaine with them after hours, there aren’t just problems with the restaurant, there’s a catastrophe in the making. But I deliberately used the weak word.
    “Ah, just the usual crap.”
    “Obviously Gavin’s been cranky and difficult lately, but I can’t tell how bad things are for you there.”
    “It’s nothing, okay? And like I told you, Robin told me we can just film another episode for the TV show, so that won’t be a problem either. She’s just going to pretend it never happened.”
    I didn’t inform Josh that I, at least, intended to remember that the murder certainly had happened. Furthermore, since I was sure he’d disapprove of activities such as driving around in a stolen landscape van tailing a suspect, I said nothing about my morning’s adventure.
    “Josh, you know you can talk about work with me if you want. Maybe I could help you,” I suggested.
    “Lay off, okay?” Josh sighed audibly. “It’s fine. Leave it alone.”
    “Fine.” I shut the bathroom door and let him finish his shower. Maybe he’d wash off some of his grumps.
    This was hardly the romantic start to the evening that I’d hoped for. Something was up with Josh, but I didn’t know what. And who was that woman on the phone? I’d heard Josh deal with a lot of calls from Simmer. This hadn’t been one of those. Josh would never cheat on me, would he? If not, why was he was getting secret calls from unknown women? But this was clearly not the right time to push him on the subject of her identity; although I hadn’t tackled him about her, we were already verging on the seriously irritable.
    While I was changing clothes, I heard Josh turn the water off and then heard him talking. He had his phone in the bathroom with him, and I couldn’t help sticking my head into the hallway to eavesdrop.
    “Dig? It’s me. Just FYI, Chloe is coming out with us. So just don’t say anything, okay? Cool. We’ll see you there in an hour.”
    Don’t say anything about what? I didn’t like Josh’s odd behavior one bit, but I had to trust him not to keep anything important from me. I’d just have to suck it up and act maturely; he’d talk when he was ready.
    “Babe? How’s La Morra sound to you?” When Josh opened the bathroom door, he looked totally normal, as though he hadn’t just made that cryptic phone call to Digger.
    “Good. I love that restaurant.”
    While I finished getting ready to go out, Josh spent twenty minutes snuggling Inga and cooing to her. “Who’s so pretty now? Who is all clean and cute and gorgeous? Aren’t you lucky to be living here with Chloe instead of with that nasty shithead who starved you and didn’t brush you? We won’t talk about what might’ve happened to you, okay? Gimme a kiss.” I heard goofy kissing noises coming from the living room.
    Josh and I got to the restaurant a few minutes early and were seated at a table near the bar, where we had a view of the semiopen kitchen. La Morra was a northern Italian restaurant on Boylston Street in Brookline. Wood beams ran across the ceiling, and the wood tables were set with colorful place mats and white dishes rimmed with a warm yellow. The staff at La Morra were consistently warm, and the whole restaurant had a wonderfully cozy and rustic feel to it. Also, as I knew from previous visits, the food was fantastic. My mood improved the second we sat down.
    “S’up, kids?” Digger’s rough voice echoed across the restaurant.
    We waved to him, and then Josh stood up to shake his hand. Digger leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek before grabbing the seat next to Josh.
    Our waitress welcomed us, handed us menus, and took our drink orders. The menu here began with cicchetti, which were preappetizers, little mouthfuls of amazingly delicious snacks. Digger, who was working at a small tapas restaurant in the South End, was bound to become a fan of these small dishes.
    I looked up from the menu. “We have to get the Tuscan meatballs with porcini and prosciutto. And also the fried risotto balls.”
    “Fried olives, too,” Josh added.
    “Nice!” Digger agreed. “And then for antipasti, we’re getting the savoy cabbage salad with pomegranates, hazelnuts, and bagna càuda.” The bagna càuda was a strong