by Lila Moore
Becoming involved with him was a mistake. There was the blond woman Gwen to consider. Moreau looked offended when I suggested she was his girlfriend. I wasn’t sure why. She was pretty and tall; she wore an expensive designer outfit and she financed the restaurant. Clearly she had money, looks and connections. She seemed like the kind of girl men go crazy for. Not Moreau apparently.
Gwen seemed territorial over him though. There was something there. I was sure of it. It was a matter to puzzle over later. I had the rest of the evening off and I was going to enjoy it.
I stopped at the farmer’s market and picked up some fresh fruit and vegetables. I was going to make a home cooked meal for once. It was criminal how little I ate at home, especially considering I was a chef. I was desperate to play around. I love experimenting with new recipes and ingredients.
As I laid my market haul out on the kitchen counter, a pang of loneliness hit me. I turned to look at my bed. The sheets were knotted and messy. There was an indention on the side of the bed Moreau had slept on last night. The idea of spending another night alone held little appeal. It had been a couple hours since I’d talked to Moreau. Had he suffered enough? No, but I was lonely.
I started to talk myself into calling him. I told myself I was being foolish trying to teach him a lesson. What did Moreau have to learn from me? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I was being prideful. It was silly really. We were both adults. If our relationship turned out to be nothing but sex, so what? At least I’d have fun in the process. Loneliness could take a backseat for a while.
I took out my cell phone and dialed Moreau’s number. It rang and rang. The longer I listened, the more convinced I became that I was making a mistake. I should have stuck to my original plan. It was best to make Moreau come to me.
I started to hang up when there was a sound from the other end of the line. There was a shuffling noise as if the phone had been dropped. I heard a woman giggle in the background.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
I recognized the voice as Gwen. What was she doing with Moreau’s phone?
“Hello?” she said again in a singsong voice.
“Hi, I’m looking for Moreau.”
“He’s indisposed right now.”
Again she giggled, as if someone was tickling her.
“Okay. Tell him I called,” I replied lamely.
“Sure,” she said, sounding as if she wasn’t paying attention.
The line went dead. I suddenly lost my appetite.
The next day I walked into the kitchen expecting a scene. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because I spent all night obsessing over Moreau like a crazy person. I’d been foolish to think that after being rejected by me he would go home alone and suffer in silence. Moreau was famous. Women practically lined up to sleep with him. He would have no trouble replacing me with another girl.
Most guys don’t understand that you want them to earn your attention. He probably took my rejection at face value. He assumed I wasn’t interested then decided to go find a girl that was. In this case, the girl turned out to be Gwen. Why her of all people? He swore there was nothing between them. Why would he run straight into her arms? He must have lied. I bet they were dating. At the very least, they had a history.
Not that it mattered. Moreau and I had only slept together once. It was no big deal. He could do whatever he wanted and so could I. At least that’s what I tried to tell myself as I walked into the kitchen.
I was fifteen minutes early, but the kitchen was packed. It looked like I was the last one to arrive. Everyone was getting ready for the day. Everything looked normal. I scanned the room for Gwen. I don’t know why I expected her to be there that morning. Thankfully, she was nowhere in sight.
Moreau was arguing with a deliveryman. Apparently they’d shorted us on the order. I threw my things down on my station, attracting the attention of the new entrée preparer. He smiled at me brightly. I recognized him as one of the line cooks.
“The first week is the hardest,” he said.
“It gets easier?”
“Moreau doesn’t get any easier, but you’ll get tougher. You have to have thick skin to survive in Moreau’s kitchen.”
I looked down at my hands. I had a wound across my palm from where I’d cut myself a week ago. It was almost healed, but it would leave a pink scar. What if I wasn’t cut out for this life? Were my dreams of opening my own restaurant a foolish fantasy?
“You’ll do fine,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“What?” His words startled me.
“Don’t worry about Moreau. Just focus on doing what you do best: cooking. I’ve tasted your food. It’s amazing. As long as you focus on your strengths you’ll do fine.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “My name’s Bea.”
“I’m Tyson.”
I shook his hand. It was warm and rough. The way he was looking at me made me blush. I turned back to my work to find Moreau standing a few feet away. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and he was watching us. He looked pissed. What had I done wrong now?
“Making friends?” he asked snidely.
“Just introducing myself,” Tyson said.
“Focus on your work and stop flirting.”
Tyson nodded and went back to work. I felt my face burn hot. Was Tyson flirting with me? If he asked me out would I say yes? He was lean and tall with darkly tanned skinned. He was pretty cute and he had an amazing smile. Not to mention the fact that he was the only guy in the kitchen who was nice to me.
If he asked me out, I would say yes. If nothing else it would drive Moreau crazy. I looked up at him. Moreau was watching me.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked. He didn’t seem angry, only curious.
“Nothing. I’m just happy to be back to work,” I lied.
“Today’s a big day. We’ve got a food critic coming in. He’s a blogger,” he said with disdain, “but he has a huge following. Gwen is bending over backwards to please him.”
At the mention of her name, I stood up straighter.
“She’s convinced people will be lining up around the block to get in here if he gives us a good review,” Moreau continued.
“Will Gwen be here today?” I asked.
Moreau looked confused by my question. “I don’t know. Why?”
“You’re enough to handle as it is. Adding her to the kitchen will only add to the stress. We don’t need two bosses in here yelling at everyone.”
Moreau raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t my place to tell him how to run his business. And it definitely wasn’t my job to tell one of the investors to stay out of the kitchen. If she could hear me now, she’d probably demand I be fired.
“Thanks for the advice,” he said drily. “I’ll be sure to tell Gwen to stay away-oh wait, no one tells Gwen what to do. If she wants to show up and shut us down again, she can. This is her restaurant.”
“I thought it was your restaurant?”
Moreau looked around like he’d rather not be having this conversation in the middle of the kitchen where everyone could hear.
“I’m the captain, but she owns the ship. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
Gwen was the investor. Moreau took her money and made the restaurant a hit, but he could only do that if he had complete control. Gwen didn’t seem eager to give him total authority over the place. I wondered if the restaurant was in trouble.
“Moreau, is this blogger’s approval really that important? I mean, I’m sure he’ll love our food, but does it really matter?”
“Of course it matters. Every good review helps.”
“Do we need help? Are we in trouble financially?”
“Of course not. Now get back to work. I want everything perfect for this asshole. I don’t want to hear a single complaint from him.”
A chorus of, “Yes, chef,” echoed from behind me. This was going to be a long day.
Moreau
Was Roche out
of her mind? Why the hell was she asking me if the restaurant was in financial straits in front of the whole kitchen? Doesn’t she understand how poisonous thoughts like that are? Once it gets into people’s heads that we’re in trouble they’ll start to panic. Their work will suffer, the dishes will suck, the customers will flee and then we’ll really be in trouble.
In truth, our restaurant was still in the red. We never had an empty table during lunch or dinner services, but running a restaurant of this caliber is expensive and Gwen is greedy. She wants to squeeze every penny she can out of this place. Restaurants bleed money in the first six months to a year of being open. It takes time to establish a customer base, pay off all the debts incurred getting the place operational and more.
I didn’t need Roche spreading rumors that we were in trouble. If word got out into the public, they’d assume it was because our food was bad. They’d stay away and then we were really fucked.
Roche was new. She didn’t understand how restaurants live and die based on their reputations. She had to be more careful with her words. Luckily, the rest of my team is more experienced. They’d never blurt something like that out. They’re a superstitious lot. They don’t want to put any bad vibes out into the universe. They want this restaurant to be the best and they want to keep their jobs.
I understood that Roche was acting from a place of concern, but I couldn’t help being a little annoyed with her. When lunch service started, I soon forgot my irritation. She worked faster than I’d ever seen her work before, and more importantly, everything she prepared tasted fantastic. It was like she was in the zone. She kept her focus on her work in front of her, finishing off dishes and preparing perfect hors d’oeuvres.
“Nice job,” I said as lunch service came to an end.
She didn’t hear me; she was too focused on perfecting one last hors d’oeuvres, a caramelized egg with Brussels sprouts. I waited for her to get it just right. She passed it off to me and I handed it to the server without giving it close inspection. I trusted her to do it right.
“Good job everyone,” I said. “That was good practice for what we’ll be up against later. The food critic will be here for dinner service. The dishes should be perfect as always. Understand? Good. Now, I want-”
Gwen came running into the kitchen, cutting me off. She entered through the dining area, meaning she’d been in the restaurant, eating and talking to customers.
“Vincent, I need to speak with you in private,” she said.
I didn’t like to be interrupted, especially not in front of my staff. “Good work today,” I said addressing the kitchen. “Let’s keep the energy going through dinner. I want the same level of quality, the same hard work. Our last dish of the night has to be as good as our first dish of the day.”
“Yes, chef,” they responded.
I led Gwen into my office to talk.
“Boone loved his meal!” she squealed.
She threw her arms around my neck, practically choking me. It wasn’t lost on me that she referred to the food critic by his first name.
“What are you talking about? I thought he wasn’t coming till later.”
“He lied. He always does this. He likes to experience restaurants the way they normally operate. Boone knows that chefs go to extraordinary lengths to please critics. He wanted a typical meal at the restaurant, not one that was specially prepared for him, and he loved it!” She bounced up and down like an excited child.
“Good.”
“Good? That’s it? You’re not thrilled? Do you have any idea how many people this will attract? Boone has the most popular foodie blog on the internet. People will come from out of state to try our food.”
“We’re already at max capacity.”
“We’ll have to squeeze more tables in.”
“No.”
“Vincent, we’ve talked about this.”
“Yes, we have and the answer is still no. The restaurant already has too many tables. If you put any more in there people will be sitting on each other’s laps. It makes for a shitty dining experience.”
“But-”
“No but’s. I won’t allow it.”
“Allow it?” she scoffed. “What makes you think I’m asking your permission? This is my restaurant, or did you forget that?”
“Gwen-”
“No, you listen to me. If you want to continue to run this restaurant, you’ll do as I say.”
She was standing very close to me. Our bodies practically touched. There was an implication to her words I didn’t like. Gwen readjusted my collar, then kissed my cheek. I stood as still as a statue.
“Behave yourself,” she said. “I want to see you tonight. After work, I want you to come over to my place and cook a meal for me. Can you do that?”
Her hand slid down my chest and across my abs. I wanted to throw her out of my office, but I couldn’t do that. She could fire me in a heartbeat.
“Yes,” I said, practically choking on my words.
“Good.” She turned to leave, then stopped. “I almost forgot.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out my cell phone. “You forgot this at the bar last night.” She tossed it to me. I caught in and shoved it in my pocket.
As Gwen left, I caught sight of Roche. She was pretending not to watch, but I could tell she’d seen everything from Gwen hugging me to kissing me. She looked pissed.
Beatrix
“Good job, Bea,” Tyson said.
“What?”
I’d been distracted by the lovefest taking place in Moreau’s office. Gwen was hanging all over him. Moreau was so shameless. How could he look me straight in the eye and lie about being in a relationship with her?
“I said, good job.”
“Oh, thanks. Tyson, would you like to-”
I was going to ask him to have a drink with me. I needed to drink away the day’s stress. I wondered if it was possible to get so drunk that you could completely forget about someone’s existence. I’d like to erase Moreau from my life.
Suddenly Moreau screamed my name across the kitchen. “In my office! Now!” he ordered.
I ran over to see what was wrong. He slammed the door shut behind me. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, showing off his muscular forearms. I cleared my throat.
“Yes, chef?”
He looked at me searchingly. I wasn’t sure what to make of his expression.
“What were you doing out there?” he said.
“Cleaning up and preparing for dinner service. Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” he said, sounding pissed off. “You did everything fine.”
Was he being sarcastic? If I’d screwed up, I was oblivious to my mistake. I worked hard to make sure everything was perfect today.
“Are you going out with him?” Moreau blurted out.
“Excuse me?”
“Tyson. You two have been flirting all day.”
“Is that a problem for you if I do?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Just because we slept together once doesn’t mean you have some say in my life now. Besides, you have a girlfriend. You should be worried about her finding out you cheated on her.”
Moreau ran his hands through his hair so hard I thought he was going to rip it out by the roots. “She’s not my girlfriend. How many times do I have to say it?”
“I know you were with her last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I called you,” I admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed.
“Why did you call me?”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that she answered. It was clear the two of you were in bed together.”
“Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about?”
“When she answered the phone she was…” I didn’t know how to describe it without sounding weird. “She sounded breathless and there was this tone to her voice… it was clear I’d interrupted the two of you while you were… you know.”
“You think I sp
ent last night fucking Gwen?”
“She answered your phone.”
“Last night after you dumped me, I headed to the bar. Gwen showed up and gave me a hard time. I was pretty drunk. I yelled at her then stormed out. I left my phone behind. Gwen picked it up. She just returned it to me now. She may have been fucking someone, but it wasn’t me.”
I studied him closely. The story didn’t sound like a lie.
“I don’t know why she answered my phone. Unless…” he started.
“What?”
“She’s jealous of you. She probably saw your name on the Caller ID and decided to answer just to fuck with you.”
“Gwen’s jealous of me? Why?”
“She knows I like you.” Moreau rolled his eyes like it pained him to admit this.
“You like me?” I teased.
“Yes. I thought that was clear when I asked you out multiple times.” I laughed. “It’s not funny.”
“You never get rejected by women, do you?”
“No.” He took a step towards me. “I’d like to take you out tonight. We could get a drink, then go back to your place.”
“And then?”
He smiled. “Say yes and you’ll find out.”
“Gwen won’t be mad?”
“I don’t care about Gwen.”
A loud crash from the kitchen ruined the moment. A fire had broken out in the grill station. The chefs were desperately trying to put it out. Moreau’s jaw tensed. I could see the call to action in him. He needed to take control of the situation before the whole restaurant burned down.
“Well?” he asked. “Say yes.”
We stood there trapped in limbo. I wanted to say yes, but could I trust him? Was he lying to me again? To my surprise, Moreau stood before me, waiting for a response. It must have killed him knowing there was disaster brewing in his kitchen and he wasn’t there to correct it. Was he really putting me ahead of the restaurant? It was hard to believe.
“Yes,” I said.
Moreau smiled and leaned in as if to kiss me. He thought better of it when he realized the entire kitchen was watching. He ran his hand down my arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps across my skin.
