The Wedding Gift

by Lucy Kevin

  “I’m still not quite sure why you did come by,” Rose admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that you brought us lunch and it’s good to see you again, but why are you here?”

  “I came by to apologize. Not to get my job back, but because I like you and respect you and hope we can be friends. I know I messed things up with the O’Neils’ wedding, all those problems with the squid and raw meat, then all the complications with Andrew and his brother’s wedding…”

  “I’ve worked with the same crew here for so long that I haven’t had to train someone new for a while now. You’ve helped me a lot by making me realize that I need to pay much better attention to my new employees in the future to help them succeed. Was there something we could have done to make things easier for you?”

  Julie shook her head. “I think most of it was inevitable. I’d been kidding myself about a lot of things ever since my restaurant fell apart. Before that, even. I’d convinced myself that Andrew’s harsh two star review was the only reason my restaurant failed. But it wasn’t. I messed up. I let the pressure of trying to run a place like that squash me into the shape I thought I needed to be in to run it.”

  And then, instead of taking responsibility for her own life, she’d assigned all of its problems to Andrew.

  But now that she’d accepted that those things were her fault–and that changing the bad decisions she’d made in the past wasn’t out of her hands–she’d finally begun to feel the seeds of true confidence sprout and blossom inside of her.

  “Once I got to the Rose Chalet,” she continued explaining to Rose, “I piled on even more pressure, trying to be perfect, trying to be the cook I thought you wanted.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that I should be the one apologizing?” Rose asked.

  “No,” Julie said, “that’s not what I mean. Yes, there were times when you were so busy with things that there wasn’t really anyone to go to for help, but honestly, I don’t think I would have asked for help anyway. I was always trying to be perfect, just like Aunt Evie had been. The trouble is perfection…well, it just isn’t me.”

  “How is Evie?”

  Julie smiled. “She’s good. Better than that, these days. In fact, when I left work just now, she was almost certainly plotting behind my back with my new boss to get me to take better care of myself.”

  “You didn’t say before. What are you doing now?”

  Julie hadn’t been sure whether she would answer that when she’d been imagining how this conversation might go on the way there. After all, it would probably seem to Rose like such a step down from her old job. Now, though, Julie knew that it didn’t make a difference. After all, it wasn’t what Rose thought that mattered.

  “I’m working on a food truck,” Julie said. “General cooking. Simple stuff really. I’m happy.”

  She expected a look of pity, or at least sympathy at Julie having what Rose would have to see as such a poor job. Instead, her ex-boss smiled.

  “Sometimes that’s the most important thing.” Rose looked wistful for a moment. “Happiness.”

  “Only sometimes?”

  Instead of answering Julie’s question, Rose deftly transitioned into an update regarding the Kyles’ wedding. Evidently, Andrew and Rose were still discussing how to deal with the food, since Rose didn’t think that she’d be able to get another cook in quickly enough. She hoped Andrew would be able to persuade one of his friends from the culinary world to take it on, though obviously, that wasn’t ideal. Julie apologized again for making things difficult as she left, then met up with Phoebe on the way out.

  “So,” the florist demanded, “how did it go? Did you get your old job back?”

  Julie laughed. “That wasn’t what I came for, Phoebe. It really wasn’t.”

  “That’s too bad. I’ll miss having you around here.” She raised an eyebrow. “I probably shouldn’t ask, but what about you and Andrew? I take it he’s history after getting you into that trouble?”

  “The situation with Andrew is—” Julie paused. “—complicated.”

  Once Phoebe assured her they would definitely be going for a girls’ night soon, Julie left. She stood in the parking lot of the Rose Chalet and took a long breath.

  She had needed to settle things with Rose, to let her know how she felt. To let her know why things had happened. There had been a closure that Julie hadn’t even known she was seeking. She stood with the sun on her face for several seconds, until she had to stop stalling.

  Julie had dealt with things at the Rose Chalet, but there was still somethng much bigger to deal with.

  Could she do it?

  Even that morning, Julie might have said no, but now, things felt different. And as she fished out her cell phone from a pocket, she suddenly felt like there was nothing too big for her to face.

  Which was probably just as well, considering she wasn’t at all sure that her plan would work.

  She might have left this until far too late. Her chance might already be gone. And even if it wasn’t, it was going to take a lot to get through. A lot of courage.

  Along with tremendous belief in herself.

  Julie smiled as she thought of Andrew saying, You’ve got good instincts, Julie. If you follow them, I predict you’ll do really, really well.

  Looking down at the screen on her cell phone, Julie scrolled through numbers until she found the one for Andrew’s producer.

  “Hi,” she said. “This is Julie Delgado. Is your offer still open?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “All right, people,” Andrew’s producer told the group on the set of Edgy Eats, “I know this is the last show, and we’re all excited, but can we please try to get it in the can before we start the party?”

  Andrew had found it hard to get excited about much of anything this past week, ever since his trip to see Julie at the food truck.

  He’d been so sure things would work out. So sure that she’d finally come to see what a great couple they could be. Yet here he was, back to square one. Further back than that, actually, because there didn’t seem to be much hope of ever getting through to her.

  From what he’d heard through the grapevine of chefs who frequented the food trucks from time to time, Julie was enjoying her new life. Even if it was nowhere close to being what Andrew had imagined for her, it seemed she was finally cooking in a way that made her happy.

  He knew he should be glad...but how could he be happy about anything when she didn’t want him.

  “Excuse me, Andrew.”

  He looked round to see a woman, obviously one of the audience, who had somehow managed to get out onto the main set.

  “I know I’m probably pushing my luck just coming up to you like this, but I was wondering, after you’re finished here, would you like to go get a—”

  Fortunately, Sandy came running over just then and interrupted them. “We need you to take your seat right away. Thank you.”

  As soon as the woman left with one more longing glance at him, Andrew asked, “Are Phil and Nancy here yet? What about my mother and father? You sent the tickets, right?”

  “I not only sent them, I couriered them over personally,” Sandy said. “Trust me, they got them. But—”

  “There isn’t any sign of them,” he finished for her.

  “I’m afraid not. Sorry, boss.”

  “It’s not your fault.” It was his, for thinking that his family might actually come in the first place. Oh, if he phoned them, they would probably have excuses about how busy they were. And they were. It was just that once, just once, it would have been nice if he’d been important enough to break into their busy schedules. Simply because he was family and family was supposed to count for something.

  Fortunately, there wasn’t much more to get through. Just shooting the finale, where he had to stand around looking good while six of the city’s cooks tried to outdo each other, and then…

  What? What did he want to do then?

  He briefly thought of Julie and shoo
k his head. She’d made it clear what she wanted. She’d made it even more clear what she didn’t want. So why was he still thinking of hanging around, begging for scraps?

  Better to get away. From her, from his family, from everything.

  He could fly off to France and make his way around the restaurants there. Heck, he could even buy a cottage in the Loire Valley and spend the time until the next series doing whatever he felt like.

  He’d have to come back for the wedding, of course, but that could just be a quick pit stop in San Francisco before he headed off to his next destination.

  Sandy touched his arm lightly. “Are you okay, boss?”

  “Fine,” Andrew lied. If you couldn’t lie to your own assistant, who could you lie to? “You’re still planning to start that production company, right?”

  His assistant nodded, but she looked a little worried. Obviously the start-up fund wasn’t quite where she wanted it to be yet. Well, he could take care of that easily enough. It would be nice to do something worthwhile before he left town.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked again. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

  He shrugged. “Are we ready to get cooking?”

  “Pretty much.”

  That was good. The sooner they were done, the sooner he could get away. He wouldn’t even have to pack, could be on a flight within a couple of hours of the end of shooting. That thought made it a little easier to smile his trademark smile as he stepped out into the middle of the kitchen.

  “Hello and welcome to Edgy Eats. For our final show of the season, we have a special treat for you. Several people who have been cooking with me this season graciously agreed to come back for our grand finale. To make it extra special, they’re going to be cooking, not just for me, but for a panel of critics taken from San Francisco’s food press and restaurant world. Please welcome our judges.”

  Lucy reported on food happenings for the Cuisine Channel, and had the bubbly good looks that came with the territory. Geraldine was a local chef with a reputation for harsh speaking, and a hatchet face to match. Steve was a restaurant critic for one of the local newspapers who, given the size of his paunch, obviously enjoyed his work.

  Andrew had met them before, but didn’t know any of them well. Now, though, he had to smile and pretend they were best friends. That was TV for you.

  “The rules today are simple,” he told the audience. “Our cooks will produce four courses for our judges. An amuse-bouche to give us a brief taste of their cooking style, a first course, a main course and a dessert. They can use any ingredients they wish, and I for one am looking forward to a real taste revelation or two.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Lucy agreed.

  “Though obviously, the standards achieved are vitally important too,” Steve put in.

  Geraldine nodded. “I have been told these are the finest cooks who have been on your show, so I will be expecting high standards from all of them.”

  And no doubt taking the opportunity to turn the knife if they weren’t up to it.

  Still, the contestants presumably knew what they were getting themselves into. Which reminded him…

  “Shall we welcome our contestants?” Andrew asked the audience, waiting until the response had died down a little before continuing. He had the names on the autocue, just to make sure nothing could go wrong. “Please give a big welcome to Mitchel Crane, Antonio Summers, Elaine Neilson, Gregory Brown, Natasha Smith and…Julie Delgado?”

  Andrew couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice as her name came up on the screen. He fully expected the director to yell ‘cut’ and explain it was all some big mistake—that they had put her name on while they’d still been trying to get her on the show again, and then forgot to take it off.

  But there she was, walking out to her workstation with the others, all the ingredients for her chosen dishes in a box…and looking so beautiful that he could hardly believe his eyes.

  Somehow, Andrew managed to stay the course, starting the big timer for the cook-off and wishing them all good luck. Knowing he couldn’t very well go over and have a talk with Julie about their relationship live on air, he had to wander around the contestants instead, asking them what they were planning, and what they’d been up to since the last time they’d been on the show.

  He found that hard going with the first contestants, mostly because his attention wasn’t focused on them. It was hard to keep up one half of a conversation about how someone had expanded their café or dramatically improved their approach to fine dining when it took every last ounce of his effort not to stare at the women he’d fallen head-over-heels for.

  He tried to tell himself not to be such a fool, and reminded himself of what had happened last time, but it didn’t make any difference.

  Because he was in love with her.

  Finally, finally, he was standing beside her. Lord, how he hated speaking to her as a presenter...rather than as the man who loved her.

  “Julie, it’s great to see you back here.”

  She smiled back at him, so sweetly that his chest tightened. “It’s good to be back here, Andrew.”

  “And what have you been doing since we last saw you?”

  “Oh, all kinds of things. You’re probably going to ask me about my menu now, right?”

  No, he wanted to ask much more important questions. Why are you here? Can you see how much I love you? Will you love me back? The trouble was, being on live TV meant he had to play his part.

  “What is your menu, Julie?”

  “I’ll tell you when I’ve worked it out.” Her eyes twinkled, matching her wide smile. “Don’t tell the judges, but I’m making it up as I go.”

  Andrew’s eyes widened at that. He waited for the live audience’s laughter to fade. “That’s quite a risk to take.”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding serenely, “it is. But I once had a very wise person tell me that if I trusted my instincts, everything would work out fine.” She paused. “It took me a while to understand, but I’ve finally decided that friend was right.”

  He wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to tell her how much he respected her. How much he adored her.

  Somehow, Andrew pulled himself away from Julie and moved back to the judges. None of whom had liked what she had just said.

  “It seems a little silly not to have a plan,” Lucy said.

  “Silly?” Geraldine echoed. “It’s idiotic. I’ll be surprised if there’s anything worthwhile on her plate as a result.”

  A few of the audience booed, obviously knowing who the bad guy was on this panel. Andrew felt like joining in. He couldn’t though. He was supposed to be impartial to give all the contestants a fair chance. Which meant that all he could do was stand there and make small talk with the contestants and judges while everyone used up their cooking time.

  Normally, he wouldn’t have minded doing that. He liked watching people cook. It said so much about them.

  Now, though, he spent his time glancing at Julie, trying to work out what she’d meant by finally being willing to take risks. Was she simply talking about cooking?

  Or was she also talking about being with him?

  “It looks like time’s up,” Steve the restaurant critic pointed out. Andrew glanced at the clock and saw that it was.

  “Time to put your knives and spatulas down, folks,” he said, sliding back into presenting mode. “We’re going to judge this course-by-course, tasting everybody’s food in turn. I don’t get a vote on our winner, so those bribes you all paid me earlier are wasted, I’m afraid.” Another laugh on cue from the audience. “But I am going to taste and offer comments, since this is my show, after all. Who wants to bring over their amuse-bouche first?”

  Andrew was proud of Julie when she stepped forward first, bringing with her a plateful of what appeared to be tiny meatballs, each covered in an individual sauce.

  “Meatballs?” Geraldine said with obvious distain.

  “With a
few extra ingredients,” Julie replied with a smile.

  The judges tasted first. Lucy said that they were nice, but that they seemed a bit too simple for a TV cook-off. Steve questioned whether she had a prayer of keeping up with the fine dining from the other contestants, and suggested that more of a plan might have avoided the problem.

  Geraldine put it more bluntly. “It’s fast food, and we expected more on a show like this. Awful.”

  None of their comments left Andrew with high hopes, until he actually bit down on one of the meatballs. His taste buds identified two kinds of meat: beef and chicken, while there were hints of subtly blended spices mixed in, and the sauce…well, the sauce was something else entirely. Something amazing. Ingredients seemed to fight for space in it before joining forces to blow his taste buds apart, in the best possible way.

  “I don’t get what you’re all talking about,” he said. “This is great.”

  “Thankfully, some of us know what we’re talking about,” Geraldine snapped. That earned her more boos that died down only when the rest of the cooks came forward one by one. They’d prepared the inevitable fine dining combinations, and Andrew had to admit that several of them tasted very good, but to his mind they weren’t in Julie’s league for originality. For passion. Naturally, the judges disagreed.

  It was the same story with the first course. Some of the other contestants did elaborate things that were nevertheless exactly the same dishes Andrew could have gotten from any restaurant in the area, and which would have been much better in the case of The Glass Square.

  Julie, on the other hand, served up what seemed like a simple tortilla wrap, until she explained that it used a mixture of pork, Thai-style spices, oriental vegetables and lime. The other judges couldn’t see past that tortilla outer shell.

  “Are you trying to make fun of this whole process?” Geraldine demanded.

  Andrew tasted it. He didn’t bother to hold back his smile. “It’s perfect.” The audience broke into spontaneous applause while Geraldine glared at him.

  Julie’s main course was a hot dog. Except that it was a venison hot dog, stuffed with herbs, homemade spiced bread, a combination of sauces that had absolutely nothing to do with tomato and mustard, and celeriac fries.