Sweeter Than Chocolate: Valentine's Day Anthology

by Gina Kincade

  By the time I graduated from elementary school, the faculty had decided school uniforms were the only solution to people like me whose outfits didn’t fit the mold.

  “If she thinks a school uniform is going to repress originality,” Stella had commented at the time, “she is in for a rude shock.” Stella and my principal had never seen eye to eye.

  My middle school tended to take a more relaxed view toward what students wore. As long as nobody showed up in shirts that bared their belly buttons or with tattoos on their faces, it was fine. Sure there were mean girls who made fun of what I was wearing, but most of my classmates thought my clothes were fabulous and asked if they could borrow them. My tulle ballet skirt was the most coveted item in my wardrobe, especially by girls’ babysitters who let them watch Sex and the City, but my hats were popular too. If I have any sense of style at all, it’s because of Stella.

  I glanced at the clock hanging over the stove and realized I needed to get moving. Rolling up my sleeves, I pulled out my pans of premade appetizers—skewers of marinated chicken and vegetables, puff pastry pouches of goat cheese with herbs, tiny pizzas, miniature quiches, and salmon cakes the size of fifty-cent pieces—and slid them into the oven to warm up while I turned my attention to building the dessert tray. I’d brought chocolate-covered strawberries, two-bite fruit tarts, tiny chocolate cheese cakes, and miniature banana caramel cupcakes I’d made using a recipe adapted from a cookbook by the former royal baker at Windsor Castle. (The cake was said to be a favorite of both Harry and William.) I’d brought enough so that all the ladies could have two of each dessert option, then threw in a couple of extra cheesecakes for good measure. I knew Judge Silvera had a sweet tooth, and I knew my grandmother had a weakness for chocolate, so I knew there probably wouldn’t be leftovers.

  The ladies were all in high spirits and chattered about the news of the day, the books they were reading, and the exploits of their children and grandchildren. By the time they began gathering their coats and umbrellas for their expedition to the museum, the only thing left was a single salmon cake. Rather than let it sit there forlornly, I popped it in my own mouth. I love salmon in all its varieties and my salmon cakes are grown-up comfort food—like fish sticks, only better.

  “Lovely to see you,” Dr. Monroe said as she discreetly slipped a twenty into my hand. There’s no need to tip me for these monthly munchies—I built a gratuity into the price—but Susan Monroe always tipped me extra anyway. She was a class act and Stella’s best friend.

  It took me no time at all to clean up, and after I’d packed up the dirty dishes and containers, I trundled my cart down to the condo’s communal kitchen on the fourth floor, figuring I might as well get a jump on the week’s cooking, especially since a tenant had requested my services for a Friday night, Valentine’s Day anniversary party for his parents. Having a personal chef on call is one of the many upscale amenities provided for the tenants and one of its most popular.

  I worked six days a week stocking the refrigerator with pre-ordered meals the tenants could pick up at their leisure, as well as providing a buffet lunch Monday through Friday. I put those out beginning at eleven and was on call until two to replenish the steam trays and bread baskets and salad bowls. Those meals were always simple—soups and pasta dishes and sandwich makings with at least one other hot dish—fried rice, for example, or enchiladas or chicken pot pie—and always some vegetarian and gluten-free options as well.

  The lunches were included in the tenants’ monthly dues, and the staff were welcome to take home the leftovers, so nothing ever went to waste.

  About three times a week I was booked for a private dinner or a corporate event being held at the tower, and during holidays, I catered parties for almost every tenant in residence. The Valentine party coming up would be my last big event until the Mother’s Day and Easter meals started off the summer season. I always made a lot of money during the winter holidays, but they were always something of a meat grinder.

  I loved my job and was lucky to have it.

  Despite my grandmother’s recommendation, I had landed the gig as on-call personal chef only after a lengthy recruitment process that had involved whipping up meals from ingredients provided by the condo board—like a genteel version of Chopped—to serving a fancy brunch on an hour’s notice. I was certain the chocolate chip banana muffins I made for the brunch sealed the deal, particularly after I saw board member John Eakins sticking a few extra muffins in his briefcase.

  John Eakins was one of my most loyal customers. He was crazy about my cheesy potato soup. I’d heard he’d been ill, but I still got a weekly meal order from him, so whatever he was suffering from, it didn’t look like it had hurt his appetite.

  ***

  To my surprise, there was someone in the kitchen when I arrived. Usually none of the tenants ventured down to the kitchen on Sundays, preferring to order in or snack all day on the bagels and pastries baked on the premises in a tiny bakery tucked into the first floor of the building, along with a Bank of America, a mini-mart, and a spa. The spa had been the reason my grandmother had picked the condo in the first place. Forget the 24-hour concierge and the house chef and the on-call town car, she was in it for the reflexology and aromatherapy massages.

  “Hi,” I said to the little girl who was stirring something in a well-seasoned cast iron pan. I smelled butter and cinnamon and brown sugar, which is definitely one of my favorite combinations.

  She hadn’t heard me come in and startled when I spoke to her, whirling around and brandishing her spatula like a weapon. She relaxed when she saw me. Who was she expecting? I wondered.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said.

  “My dad lives in 406,” she said defensively, as if I was going to dispute her right to be there, or kick her out.

  “My grandmother lives in 506,” I said, starting to pull sacks of ingredients off my cart. “Will I get in your way if start doing some prep work? I’m hoping if I hang out long enough it’ll stop raining.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m almost done.” She turned her attention back to the stove and adroitly flipped two slices of bread that were caramelized and buttery.

  “What’s that you’re making?” I asked. “Praline French toast?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Would you like a taste?”

  “I would love a taste.”

  The girl used a pair of tongs to move a piece of toast from the skillet to a plate. She then carefully drizzled it with what looked like home-made cinnamon syrup from a tiny china pitcher and presented it to me with a fork.

  I took a bite. It was outstanding.

  “This is the best French toast I’ve ever had,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  “Kaley.”

  “Hi, Kaley, I’m Lily. How come you’re cooking down here and not upstairs?”

  Kaley’s expression darkened.

  “No one’s up yet,” she said. At noon? I thought, but didn’t judge. There were some Sundays when all I did was lounge on the couch and binge Netflix eating humus and pita chips instead of cooking.

  I took another bite of the French toast. “This is so good I want to lick the plate,” I said. “Is French toast one of your specialties?”

  She shrugged. I probably should have just left her alone and started chopping up vegetables for my “loaded” chicken noodle soup, but I was curious.

  “The first thing I ever made was brownies,” I said. “I liked the crispy edges.”

  “There’s a pan you can get that lets you have edges on every brownie.”

  “I’ve seen that pan,” I said, wondering why I’d never bought it. I made brownies and blondies for lunch all the time and I knew people liked crispy edges.

  “I think there’s one in here somewhere,” she said, and I knew she was probably right. When I first started my job, the kitchen was adequately equipped but nothing more than the basics. Over the months I’d worked there, tenants and guests had left behind purpose-made pans they’
d used only once—omelette pans and quesadilla makers and crepe pans—as well as all sorts of gadgets, including wine bottle openers so complicated it was a wonder anyone knew how to operate them.

  I finished my French toast and put the dirty dish in the dishwasher. I was annoyed to find it was almost full. The tenants were supposed to clean up after themselves but not everyone did. I’d left a few notes and that had earned me a snarky email from a tenant who explained that running the dishwasher when it was only half full was a waste of water.

  The lecture annoyed me because I knew it was laziness and not eco-awareness that was behind the dirty dishes.

  I sighed and retrieved a dishwashing cube from the box beneath the sink. Kaley brought her own sticky plate and fork and the little pitcher of syrup, which still had a little bit left.

  “That was good syrup too,” I said. “It would probably be outstanding on ice cream.”

  “Thanks,” she said, but poured the remainder down the drain anyway.

  I started the dishwasher while she wiped out the cast iron skillet. I was happy she knew how to clean cast iron. I once had a roommate who washed all my carefully seasoned cast iron skillets in the dishwasher and then let them sit there rusting until she took them out.

  She couldn’t figure out why I was so mad. “They were dirty,” she’d said. “They weren’t sanitary.”

  “There you are, Kaley,” a woman said as she entered the kitchen. She was tall and elegant and maybe a few years older than me, wearing a silk kimono that looked vintage. She looked extremely tense, and scowled when she saw the little girl wiping out the pan. Sniffing the air like a tracker dog, she said, “What did I tell you about sneaking off to make treats?”

  “I was—”

  “As fat as you are, the last thing you should be doing is eating sweets.”

  I think I might have gasped when the woman said the “F” word, because Kaley was a sturdy kid but certainly not fat.

  “Hi,” I said, interrupting, “I’m Lily Ostrander.”

  “I know who you are,” she said impatiently. “My husband hired you to cater his parents’ anniversary party Friday.”

  A name to match the face suddenly materialized. Sarah. Sarah Galbraith.

  “I look forward to it,” I said brightly. “I was trying out a couple of dishes I’ll be serving on Friday and Kaley here was helping me prepare my special onion marmalade.” Kaley gave me a wide-eyed look at the lie. I was probably setting a terrible example. “She’s a great sous-chef,” I added.

  Sarah looked at me through narrowed eyes and stepped closer to inspect the pan in front of Kaley and the bamboo towel she was using to wipe it out. To her surprise, instead of the residue of praline French toast, it now held a few scraps of sautéed red onions, garlic, and butter.

  “It smells sweet,” she said.

  “The onions caramelize,” I said.

  She sniffed again and then dismissed me. “Come on, Kaley,” she said. “Your father’s awake.” When Kaley was slow to comply, she added, “I told Brian you’d be down here making something you shouldn’t. Do you want to end up as fat as your grandmother?” Since Brian Galbraith’s mother was tall and slender, I could only assume Sarah was talking about her own mother. And sure enough, Kaley said, “She’s not my grandmother.” The picture fell into place. A second wife who lived in horror of getting fat like her mother to the point where it was making her mean. A little girl who was eating her feelings. I felt sorry for both of them.

  “Your father is not going to be happy with you,” Sarah said. “Come on.”

  Kaley obediently put the pan down. “Bye,” she said to me, and followed Sarah out the door.

  Your father. Was Sarah projecting? Was Brian Galbraith the kind of guy who’d discard a woman who didn’t fit some physical ideal?

  Chapter Two: Ut’s Witchcraft

  Wednesday night I was back at the condo to cook a private dinner for a tenant who wanted to celebrate her latest promotion. It would be an intimate affair—just her and her wife—and I got the feeling the two were hoping to reconnect after months of them both working so hard neither had had much time for the other.

  I took a little extra care with their menu, making sure that each dish came with a little extra enchantment so it would taste especially good and help smooth the way to let nature take its course. Kaley came bouncing into the kitchen as I was making the anchovy sauce for the pasta starter I was serving.

  “The fish are kind of melting into the oil,” she said, looking into the pan. “Neat.”

  “Would you like to taste the sauce?”

  “No,” she said. “Anchovies are gross.”

  Everybody’s a critic.

  “Are you going to be cooking today?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t have time. It’s family movie night.” She rolled her eyes.

  “You don’t like movies?”

  “The only movies Dad likes are ones with talking animals,” she said. “And Sarah always makes these gross snacks.”

  When Brian Galbraith had hired me to cater his parents’ anniversary party, he’d explained he and Sarah and Kaley followed the DEAT diet. I privately thought the initials stood for “Don’t. Eat. Anything. Tasty,” but it’s not my job to comment on the culinary preferences of my clients. Then he started listing all the diet’s proscribed foods, which included all dairy, all meat, all seasonings, and all grain products, and I’d grown a little alarmed. Further questioning had elicited the information that his parents weren’t adherents to the diet and so he was going to “allow” them to have whatever they wanted for the one night, even though he was paying for it and disapproved of the menu.

  His parents ordered up food from me pretty regularly and I knew they were cheese-loving carnivores who were fond of French bread, Indian food, and pasta. The party menu was probably going to blow their son’s mind.

  “Um,” Kaley said, but then she started fidgeting. I knew she was working up the nerve to ask me a question about what had happened the last time we’d seen each other.

  “You’re wondering how I turned a skillet of French toast into a pan filled with onion.” I said.

  She nodded. “Are you a witch?”

  “Yes,” I said and watched as her expression toggled between disbelief and what looked like hope.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “What else can you do?”

  “Not that much,” I said. “I’m what they call a kitchen witch. Everything I make tastes delicious. And if I don’t have an ingredient I need, I can usually transform something else.”

  “Like what?”

  I looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot. “Like say I need a tomato but all I have is this lemon.” I held the lemon up. She followed my gestures and when the lemon turned to a tomato in my hand, she squealed and clapped. “That’s really cool,” she said.

  “I think so too,” I said. “But I only tell cool people about it because not everyone understands.”

  “So it’s a secret?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Can you keep a secret?” I knew she’d say ‘yes,’ and I was pretty sure she’d keep it too, but I wasn’t too worried about it. If a kid tells a grown up that someone is a witch, it’s not like they’re going to be believed. Still, I didn’t tell her the other thing I could do, which was sprinkle a little love magic in with the rest of the ingredients I use. I can’t make someone fall in love with someone they’re not in love with—and even if I could, I wouldn’t because it’s against the rules—but I can help things along. I can rekindle affection that’s been buried. And sometimes I can resurrect passion that’s died out. I decided it was time to change the subject.

  “Are you looking forward to your grandparents’ party?”

  “Yes,” she said, “Sarah bought me a new dress.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “You’re lucky to live near your grandparents.”

  “I miss my other grandma,” she said. “She lived wit
h Dad and me when my mom was sick.”

  “My mom and I lived with my grandmother when I was a little girl,” I said. “And now she lives here.”

  “My other grandmother lives in Phoenix now,” Kaley said. “She doesn’t like the rain.”

  The oven timer went off. “Could you check the rolls?” I asked. Kaley obediently donned an oven mitt and cracked open the oven to peek in. “They need another minute or two,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “I want them under baked so when I warm them up tonight, they won’t get too crusty.”

  “Something smells good,” a guy said as he popped his bald head inside the door. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him at first.