Meg and Jo

by Virginia Kantra

  My face flushed despite the cold. Not that this was love. Exactly. Yet.

  I hugged my arms around my waist. If it were love, wouldn’t I know? The way Meg had, the first time she met John. “Love at first sight,” she had claimed, and I’d rolled my eyes. My feelings for Eric had come on more gradually, respect and infatuation mixed with a healthy dose of lust. And trust. All I knew was I’d never felt this way before, never been able to feel for Trey the things he claimed to feel for me. Not that I didn’t love Trey, in my own way. I certainly never wanted to hurt him. But I’d never been able to hear him say those three words without feeling panicky. Or suffocated. Or sorry. I sure as hell had never felt tempted to say them back.

  “Whatever.” Frank exhaled a stream of smoke. “Boss wants to see you when you clock in.”

  “Ray?”

  “Chef.”

  My heart bumped pleasantly. “He’s here?”

  Frank pitched away his cigarette. “Just said so, didn’t I?”

  I was surprised. Eric had left my place around dawn. More convenient for me, since I needed to be at work before he did. I’d been busting my ass all week, determined to pull my weight in the kitchen. With Frank back on the line and the weekend looming, I had a ton of prep to do.

  Maybe, I thought, he wanted to talk about the cookbook.

  He hadn’t mentioned it again. But the idea had stuck with me, like the smell of the kitchen that clung to my hair, sinking into my skin, gradually becoming part of me. I walked around with it for days. It rode with me on the subway and followed me to work. “You are a writer. Maybe you should write my cookbook.”

  I tugged on the back door, releasing a gust of fat and garlic into the alley.

  We needed to talk. This weekend, away from the restaurant. I didn’t even question anymore that we would spend Eric’s day off together.

  Stupid me.

  I ducked inside. The cooks were stocking their stations, slicing, chopping, joking, yelling, but as I entered the narrow work aisle, the kitchen fell suspiciously silent. A trio of back waiters nudged one another, one of them slipping his phone into his pocket in an elaborately casual gesture. I looked at Constanza for guidance, but our motherly garde-manger was deep in conversation with the dishwashing crew. Tomas caught my eye and winked.

  “Chula!” Constanza bustled over. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Why is everybody acting so weird?”

  But I thought I knew. Gossip traveled like cockroaches through the kitchen. No matter how professionally Eric behaved, no matter how hard I worked, sooner or later word would get out I was sleeping with the boss.

  “Not weird. No weird,” Constanza said. “Jefe, he wants to see you.”

  “Thanks. I heard.”

  I wanted to see him, too. Anyway, I needed to change into my chef’s coat.

  I headed for the office, ignoring Lucas’s sympathetic look as I passed. Ray was just leaving Eric’s office. Ray handled routine staff matters—requests for overtime, advances, and days off. He was probably in there reminding Eric that women were trouble in the kitchen and I was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

  He nodded stiffly. “March.”

  I gave him a dead-eye stare. “Chef.”

  Eric was standing at his desk, his back to the door.

  “Hey.” I smiled. “You wanted to see me?”

  He turned. No answering smile. “Close the door, please.”

  I complied. He didn’t move to kiss me. Didn’t quite meet my eyes. Didn’t acknowledge in any way that we’d been together last night. Which was fine, I told myself. Even with the door closed, the restaurant was no place for Public Displays of Affection. I’d never been touchy-feely anyway.

  I angled my head. “What’s up?”

  He shifted, giving me a clear view of his desk, and nudged the computer so the monitor was facing me. “You tell me.”

  My heart moved into my throat. I looked at the screen. Oh. Oh crap.

  There was my banner, Hungry, with its familiar apple-missing-a-bite graphic. (So far, Snow White and the computer people hadn’t written a cease-and-desist letter demanding their logo back.) The headline was from two days ago: Dumpling Love, A Taste of Home Wherever You Are.

  I’d written about mothers and comfort food, about the combinations of protein and noodles that spelled and smelled like home—Asian dumplings, Italian ravioli, Momma’s chicken and dumplings, and . . . Yeah. There it was. A recipe for sweet potato pierogi. My own recipe, okay? No red cabbage. But still . . . Pierogi.

  My stomach sank. When I checked this morning, I had thirty-two comments and almost a dozen shares on social media. Not my best-performing post, but close. Now there were eighty-one comments.

  No, eighty-two. I blinked. Eighty-three.

  Crap. “How did you . . .” Of course. “Ray.”

  “He follows this . . . Hungry on Instagram. Naturally, he didn’t know it was you.” Eric looked at me briefly. Neither did I, his eyes accused.

  “Yeah.” I swallowed. “Look, Eric, I . . .”

  “I didn’t believe him,” my lover continued evenly. He reached for the keyboard, careful not to touch me, and scrolled down. “Until he showed me this.”

  Monday’s post filled the screen. Low and Slow: How to Make the Best Scrambled Eggs Ever! I’d done my best to follow Eric’s technique, beating and folding the eggs myself, staging a photo to go with each step of the instructions. The final shot, though, I’d taken earlier in the day. Those were Eric’s eggs, fluffy yellow and perfectly smooth. That was his arm, holding the plate. And . . . those were his very recognizable tattoos.

  I felt sick. I’d cropped that photo. I knew I had, to hide his identity. But maybe, in my hurry to get the blog done before our date, I’d uploaded the uncropped photo by accident.

  “There are no accidents,” Momma used to say. Or maybe that was Freud.

  “You wrote about me,” Eric said. “About us.”

  “I wrote about dumplings.” I glanced at the screen. Ninety comments. Ninety-four. Shit. I was going viral.

  Something flickered in his eyes. Pride? Hurt. “I made you my mother’s pierogi.”

  “They were delicious.” Unable to help myself, I started reading the comments.

  The first one was innocent enough. Great eggs, thanks!

  I’m lactose intolerant, read the second. Can you use olive oil instead of butter?

  Very “soigné.” , Sousbaby wrote. Who’s your kitchen helper?

  “I was honest with you,” Eric was saying. “I opened myself to you, yeah? And you never said a word about this . . . this . . .”

  I tore my eyes away. “It’s a food blog, Eric. I’m a food blogger. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Then why not tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d react like this!”

  His face changed without moving, flesh into stone.

  My throat thickened. I looked away again, toward the screen.

  I usually add milk to my scrambled eggs. Can’t wait to try this.

  Hey, isn’t that Eric Bhaer? asked Foodie10012. The chef at Gusto?

  How can you tell? You can’t see his face.

  The flying pig. That’s totally his tat.

  I bit my lip. “At least they like the eggs.”

  Eric’s eyes went flat. “This is a joke to you.”

  “No.”

  He folded his tattooed arms across his massive chest. “Did you see everybody out there? Do you know what they’re talking about? You’ve made me look like a fool to my staff.”

  “I never mentioned you by name.”

  He started to reply. His cell phone buzzed. He looked at it and put it away, his lips tightening.

  Not just the Gusto staff, I thought. Not if he was getting texts from outside the restaurant. Normally, I was happy when a post took
on a life of its own. But this was awful.

  “I trusted you,” Eric said. “Like a fool. Like a lovesick teenager. And you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.” Exactly. “I just . . .” Didn’t tell you.

  “Took something that was personal, private, and put it on your fucking blog without telling me.”

  “You knew I was a writer.”

  “A writer, yes. Not a blogger.”

  “Don’t dis bloggers. I make money from that blog.”

  “Because you write about me. About my restaurant. You used me.”

  My eye twitched. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry does not fix this.”

  “I made a mistake.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “So did I.”

  My temper—my terrible temper—sparked and ignited. “By trusting me, you mean? Or by sleeping with me?”

  “Shout a little louder,” he said in a hard voice. “I don’t think they can hear you in the kitchen.”

  The twitch became a throb. “You know, it’s not like I deliberately set out to hurt you.”

  “How would I know? I do not know you. You tell me nothing.”

  I threw my arms wide. “What do you want me to say, Eric? What can I do?”

  “Take it down.”

  “I can’t. It’s too late. It’s already out there.”

  I’d linked my blog to all my social media accounts, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Once a post got picked up by other bloggers, once it was tweeted and retweeted, liked and shared . . . Yeah. The food scene in New York fed on itself like a rat snake. The online community depended on networking. I couldn’t have other sites, other bloggers, other influencers, clicking on a broken link.

  I tried to explain. “It’s not just one post. I can’t delete the whole blog. I have a commitment.”

  “You have a commitment.”

  The scorn in his voice lashed heat to my face. My temper flared. “Yes. To my readers. To my advertisers.”

  “What about your commitment to me?”

  A moment of electric stillness, charged with emotion, swirling with the bitter echoes of every argument I’d ever had with Trey. I would not give myself up to be with him.

  “What commitment? We hooked up. We had sex. I’m your booty call.”

  He went very still. “You work for me.”

  He didn’t contradict me, I noticed. “We had sex. I’m your booty call.” Not, We made love. Not, I love you. Never that.

  Not that I wanted that. My pulse throbbed in my head. “Maybe I should quit.”

  “Fine.” His voice was a near-growl. “Walk off. Walk away four hours before service.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” It was the cardinal sin of the kitchen, to call out without a substitute. “I’ll give you two weeks’ notice.”

  He said something in guttural German. “I don’t want your fucking two weeks’ notice.”

  “Don’t you swear at me,” I said.

  “Swear at you? I’d like to . . .” He broke off, glaring. “Go. Just go. You’re right. This situation—you working for me—I knew it would be a problem.”

  My vision blurred. My headache was blinding me. “Yes, Chef.”

  I fumbled for the locker, my jacket, my knives. Pulling myself together to face the fire outside. To get back on the line.

  * * *

  Eat,” Constanza said, handing me a generous slice of flan. “You’ll feel better.”

  If I ate anything, I’d throw up. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “I saw your review of Earl’s,” Lucas said. “Man, that was brutal. What does a guy have to do to get a good review from you?”

  Frank snickered. “Ask Chef.”

  At least they weren’t mad at me. They clustered around, curious and sympathetic. Suffocating.

  Ray’s face folded like a wet towel. “All right, back to work. All of you.” His gaze flicked to me. “You good to go?”

  “Go. Just go.”

  Out of his face? Or out of his kitchen? I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t walk off the line, leaving the kitchen short-staffed a few hours before service. “What about your commitment to me?”

  “I’m fine.” I was furious. Shattered.

  “I want you on batch work today,” Ray said.

  I nodded. The assignment—making the vinaigrettes and aiolis the whole kitchen would use over the next two days—was a mark of his confidence in my ability to follow a recipe. Or maybe he just wanted to keep me out of Eric’s way.

  Smart move.

  I blew my nose and washed my hands. Focusing on the ingredients, chopping and measuring, helped keep my mind off the fight in Eric’s office. And if occasionally my eyes watered, hey, I blamed it on the onions. Anyway, I made it through the afternoon somehow without cutting myself or stabbing anybody with a kitchen knife.

  An hour before service, Malik, the headwaiter, bustled into the kitchen with the reservations book. “Heads up. The phone’s been ringing off the hook. We added twenty covers to the second seating.”

  Lucas swore. “I need to prep more sunchokes.”

  “You knew we’d be slammed. It’s the holidays,” Ray said.

  “It’s that blog. Hungry,” Malik said. “Nothing brings out the foodies like thinking they know something nobody else don’t know.”

  “We should sell tickets,” Frank said.

  “Give sex tours,” Kevin suggested.

  Lucas laughed. Constanza hit him with a spoon.

  “What? Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, Jo.”

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  Not fine. I didn’t want them to censor themselves on my account. I wanted the comfort of being one of the guys, part of the team.

  When Eric called us together to demonstrate the day’s specials, I hung back, not pressing with the others around the table. I watched over Constanza’s shoulder as Eric layered colors and flavors on the plate, his hands beautiful and sure. I snuck a glance at his face once or twice. Okay, maybe three or four times. But he would not look at me.

  When the staff gathered afterward for family meal, I fled to the storeroom, seeking out the deepest, darkest aisle behind the wire shelves. I was not going to snivel. I was not the type. I pulled out my phone, like a teenage boy surreptitiously surfing for porn.

  The torrent of comments had slowed. One hundred fifty-eight. But interspersed with the usual comments (Yummy. Hate dry scrambled eggs. And Do you know where I can buy fresh farm eggs in Millington, New Jersey?) was speculation on Eric’s identity. On mine. On our relationship. (I love it when my boyfriend cooks for me. And So does Bhaer wear the chef pants in the kitchen?)

  You took something that was personal, private, and put it on your fucking blog without telling me.

  Meg had messaged me a picture of a Christmas tree, a cluster of red balls weighing down one branch, a snapshot of her small, bright, perfect life. Decorating with Daisy and DJ!

  A swell of longing for my sister swept over me. I tapped my phone once. Twice. Don’t go to voice mail, please don’t go to voice mail . . .

  “Jo?”

  I swallowed hard. “Hey, Meg. Whatcha doing?”

  “Just throwing dinner together.” Something clattered on the stove. “What’s up?”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “Jo?” The concern in her voice nearly made me cry. “Can you hear me?”

  I cleared my throat. “I’m here.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  I slept with my boss. But I posted his mother’s recipe for pierogi on my blog, and I lied to him, and now he’s acting like I released a sex tape.

  “I just wanted to say hey.”

  “Hey back at you. No crackers, Daisy. Mommy’s making dinner.”

  “I hungry now, Mommy.”

&nbs
p; “Sorry. You’re busy,” I said. Meg was always busy. She had twins. Not to mention she was visiting our mother in rehab and shoveling out the goat barn on a regular basis.

  “A little,” Meg admitted. (“I starving to deaf,” Daisy said in the background.) “I’m doing the books for Carl Stewart now. And I’ve got to work the farmers’ market again tomorrow.”

  “Who’s Carl Stewart?”

  “He was a couple years behind you in school? He took over his parents’ farm.”

  “Oh. That sounds like fun,” I offered.

  “So much fun,” my sister said dryly.

  I held the phone, reluctant to let her go. “How’s Momma?”

  “No, Daisy.”

  “Meg?”

  “Sorry,” my sister said. “You know Momma. God forbid we make a fuss.”

  “A fuss about what?” Silence. “Meg?”

  “She doesn’t want you to worry.”

  A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. “Meg! You can’t say something like that and then not tell me. I’ll only worry more.”

  Meg sighed. “Okay. But you can’t let on I told you. She has to have an operation on her back. On the twenty-third.”

  “Oh God. Is she going to be all right?”

  “I think so. The doctor says so. Apparently she has a pinched nerve in her spine. The surgery is supposed to relieve the compression. But you can’t tell Beth and Amy.”

  “Of course not.” Bethie felt horrible enough already about missing Christmas with the family. Any more stress, any more pressure, any excuse to come home, and she’d crack like an egg. And Amy couldn’t afford the airfare. I frowned. “You said the twenty-third?”

  “That’s the only time the OR was available. I guess they have a lot of surgeries scheduled before the end of the year.”

  “That’s right before Christmas.”

  “I know.” My sister sighed. “Listen, sweetie, I have to go.”

  “Meg . . .”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  She disconnected, leaving me alone in the dark. The door to the storeroom opened. I looked up, a quick flutter of hope in my chest.