All Stirred Up

by Brianne Moore

  Gloria snorts. “What? Like she didn’t know that?”

  “These things are always so fake,” Rey agrees.

  “I did,” says Chris. “I grew up a bit rough, on one of the council estates in the city. I …” There’s a pause so long that Gloria and one of the line cooks look up at the radio, wondering if it died. Susan frowns, wondering what Chris is thinking of. “I knew more than a few people—young people—who got into trouble. And honestly, I probably would have been one of them if it hadn’t been for cooking.” His voice takes on a self-deprecating tone. “I know that must sound incredibly cliché, but it’s true. The kitchen saved me, and I want to do the same for other lads—and lasses—who need direction. So, Seòin is also a sort of social enterprise. I’m hiring at-risk youth and young offenders and giving them a chance for a different sort of life.”

  “That’s very noble,” the presenter purrs.

  Rey rolls his eyes and makes a “jerking-off” motion with one hand before getting back to the vegetables he’s pickling.

  “Just do him already, why don’t you?” one of the apprentices joins in.

  “Shh!” Susan hisses. She doesn’t care much for this presenter either, but she thinks Chris’s plan for the restaurant deserves a little respect. Some people would do something like this purely for a marketing angle, but she senses he’s in earnest. She can hear it in his voice. He’s excited about this.

  “And you’re helping out fellow chefs as well, aren’t you? Helping them get started?” prompts the presenter.

  “Not just me. There’s a team of us—the Kitchen Lab. Established Scottish chefs who’ve been fortunate enough to find success. We’ve bought a space in the Arches, near Waverley Train Station, and turned it into a restaurant that up-and-coming chefs can use as a pop-up for a month at a time. It helps them get exposure that may help them establish themselves more permanently on the Scottish restaurant scene.”

  “Aren’t you worried about potentially creating competition?”

  Chris laughs softly. “I welcome it. Competition keeps you sharp. Keeps you innovating.”

  “Speaking of getting started in cooking—it was Elliot Napier who gave you your first job in a kitchen, wasn’t it? At his flagship restaurant?” the presenter continues.

  Susan’s heart thumps and her stomach twists.

  “That’s right, he did,” Chris agrees. “Back when Elliot’s was still producing halfway decent food.”

  The kitchen goes dead quiet as everyone stops what they’re doing and stares at the radio.

  The host chuckles. “Don’t think much of it now, I suppose?”

  They can almost hear Chris shrug. “Oh, you know, he let it go corporate, and it lost its soul. It used to be one of the best restaurants in the city, but now … Well, the tourists like it, at least. They’re planning a relaunch, I hear, but honestly, at this point it’d take a miracle to make that place any sort of destination again.”

  “Ouch,” Gloria says with an exaggerated wince. “Thanks a lot, wanker.”

  The dishwasher flips a middle finger at the radio, and Rey shrugs. “Imagine how surprised he’ll be,” he says, finishing up with the vegetables, “when he has his first meal here … Mmm!” He smacks his lips. “He won’t know what hit him.” He looks up at Susan and cocks his head. “You okay, honey?”

  Susan is still standing in front of the door to the pastry kitchen, anchored to the spot. Her emotions are so all over the place she isn’t quite sure what she’s feeling. Shame? Rage? Embarrassment? A certain determination to deliver a massive culinary “F--- you to Chris I’m-so-famous-now Baker? Maybe all of those things?

  Gloria, too, glances up and her brow furrows. Susan realizes she must look awful. She takes a stumbling step back toward the pastry kitchen, mumbling about having a lot to do. Once safely inside, she closes the door, shutting out the rest of the interview. She crosses to the refrigerator and yanks open the door, letting the cold air soothe her for a few seconds. Then she returns to her strawberries.

  * * *

  The perfect end to the day: the goddamn jelly hasn’t set again. Susan glares at it. It glistens in its sheet pan, a mocking, gelatinous, Agent Orange–hued symbol of failure.

  The rest of the staff has long since gone. She hardly noticed them trickling out, but now she looks up and realizes the main kitchen is silent, cleaned, and empty. And no wonder: it’s almost half past eight.

  As she stands there, struggling not to cry, Gloria walks into the kitchen, spots her through the window, and does a double take.

  “Still here?” she confirms, sticking her head through the door to the pastry kitchen.

  Susan continues to brood over her ruined jelly. “It won’t set,” she mutters.

  Gloria joins her, cocks her head, puts her hands on her hips. “Time to throw in the towel on this one, I think,” she concludes. “You gave it a good try; no use wasting more time over it.” She pats Susan on the shoulder. “Maybe we can reduce the juice down to a sauce or something, or use it in a vinaigrette.”

  “Sure,” Susan agrees dully, taking the pan over to the dishwashing station and tipping the mess into the sink.

  Gloria follows and watches as Susan hunches briefly over the sink, closing her eyes and trying not to get so worked up over something as stupid as a jelly. She realizes she’s sore all over from standing and bending for hours. Even her eyes are sore—they feel sandy when she blinks.

  “Let it go, Suze,” Gloria urges in a gentle voice. “No use crying over spilt jelly.”

  Susan barks a laugh.

  “Right,” Gloria decides. “You need to replace jelly with alcohol. Come on—let’s get a drink.”

  * * *

  They settle in at a bar farther down the Mile. Gloria knows the bartender well enough to exchange nodding greetings with him and to request “that thing you make that I like so much? She’ll have one.” She indicates Susan before continuing, “And I’ll have an IPA. The one the hipsters all like right now.”

  “Right,” Gloria says once the drinks are in front of them. “So what’s really up? Are you letting nerves get to you?”

  “Of course I am,” Susan answers. “I’d be crazy not to. We are up against it, and if this place fails, that’s it. And we’ve got to find a way to create an entirely new reputation, which is pretty damn hard to do, especially when famous people are slagging you off on live radio.”

  “Oh, there it is.” Gloria nods, sipping her beer. “The interview. Yeah, I have to admit I was a bit scunnered by that one as well. Bit of a low blow, that.”

  “A bit! Calling my grandfather a sellout when Chris owes him his start. You know he just showed up at the restaurant one day and asked for a job? I’m serious—my grandfather went to open the restaurant one morning, and there was this kid there, lying in wait for him. And he somehow managed to convince my grandfather to let him come in and cook something, and he didn’t know anything—nothing at all. I think he made bacon rolls or something like that, but my grandfather was impressed enough by his enthusiasm to take him on as an apprentice and teach him what he knew. Chris owes my granddad everything!” Susan takes an angry swig of her drink, which tastes of about eight different kinds of alcohol.

  Gloria waits for the end of the tirade, then comments, “He’s got some balls, Chris does. You have to give ’im that.” She sips her beer, then asks, “So, what happened? He and your granddad fall out or something?”

  Susan toys with her glass and takes another sip while Gloria waits. Gloria’s face transitions from “What’s up?” to “Oh, I see,” just in those few seconds. Even so, Susan steels herself and says, “He didn’t say those things because of Grandad. It was because of me.”

  Gloria nods. “It all comes together. Didn’t end well, I take it?”

  Susan closes her eyes for a few seconds, wishing she could will away the past decade. But nothing can do that, and the universe seems determined to keep throwing it back in her face.

  “No,” she admits in a
voice that barely breaks a whisper. “No, it really didn’t.”

  How to explain to someone who wasn’t there?

  Elliot’s death had been a blow, but her mother’s was a bomb detonated among them, leaving the family torn and ragged, scattered and hollowed out. Without her to rally around, they fled, finding comfort where they could. For Susan, it was Chris, who felt like the one good thing left in her life. And he’d tried so hard to be there for her—she knew that now, looking back from the perch of greater maturity. He had also lost a parent; he understood. He held her when she cried all night and endured her silences, her clinging, her constant presence in his cramped, dingy flat.

  But he had his own life. He had a career he was desperate to establish, and restaurants are as demanding as a grieving partner, if not more so. He came home later and later, as she lay in bed, staring into the dark. Panicking, imagining him dead or hurt somewhere, bleeding into the pavement. Or not dead—just tired of her. Out enjoying himself with some blonde with perky breasts, who smiled and giggled and cooed over his accent. And why shouldn’t that be the case? He was young and good looking—far too good looking for me, Susan always thought. Why shouldn’t he be out with happy young women, instead of dragging himself home to a depressive sad sack who could barely function?

  After all, Chris seemed to have energy to burn. Most chefs got tired after endless double shifts, on their feet in hot kitchens simmering with urgency, but Chris seemed to thrive on it. He came home hyperactive, even on the days he was out until dawn. Susan, sleep deprived herself, found his energy exhausting. She was hardly able to take it in as he quick-fire chattered about his day and new dishes he was coming up with, new techniques, plans to travel. He hopped from one thought to another, pinging around from subject to subject, a pinball ricocheting faster than Susan could follow.

  “Thailand!” he announced one day, bursting into their bedroom at three o’clock one morning. “We should go, don’t you think? You and I? Not the beachy bit that all the tourists go to, but the real Thailand, where actual Thai people live and work and eat. Wouldn’t that be great? You know, I think I might order some Thai. You hungry? I’m starving. You think that place we like is open? Nah, probably not. Are there others? Maybe pizza instead? Or I could go to that kebab place down the road—they’re always open. You think that guy ever sleeps? It’s the same guy there all the time—did you ever notice that? Last time I was there, they put some sort of sauce on the kebab. I really need to ask what was in that, because I think I could do something with it. Not on a kebab, of course, because we don’t serve kebabs at the restaurant, which is just snobby, I think. We should do a kebab. A really good one, with that sauce. I wonder if that guy at the kebab place makes the sauce too, or if they bring it in? Or I could get Thai food. How about we go to Thailand?”

  “Thailand?” Susan repeated, struggling mightily to follow him.

  “Or somewhere else! Japan, India, some of the Middle East, the States—there are so many amazing places we could go. We could just eat our way across the globe! Let’s do it!”

  In her state of mind then, the thought of planning a trip so intricate—sorting out visas and hostels and a dozen different languages—overwhelmed and intimidated her, so she’d just stared at him as he leafed through takeaway menus, gabbling about kebab sauce. But later that day, when she met her aunt for lunch, and Kay innocently asked how things were going, Susan burst into tears.

  Babbling almost incoherently about plane tickets and Chris’s hours and her fears, she scared the hell out of Kay. Scared her enough that Kay unearthed herself from her own grief and stepped in. She found a counselor—one of the best—and sent Susan to her (and, not long after, Julia as well).

  Kay had dealt with the loss of her sister by throwing herself into her work; taking a role in a film that was shooting in New Zealand. But with principal photography nearly finished, she told the director she was done and settled back down in London, turning down offers of work for the time being, so she could always be available to her nieces. The counseling and having this one steadying influence helped get Susan back on an even keel. At Kay’s suggestion, she moved out of Chris’s flat and into her aunt’s. No longer waiting for the sound of Chris’s footsteps every night, she started sleeping better.

  Once it was clear Susan was improving, Kay sat her down for a serious talk about her future.

  “He’s a nice boy,” Kay allowed, “but you know how this business is. You’ll be waiting up nights forever. Is that what you want? To always be waiting? You have your own future to consider—you had plans, Susan, and your mother was so excited about them and so happy you were doing so well at school! She’d be so disappointed to see you throw it all away just to sit around, night after night, in some Tottenham flat.”

  She pulled Susan close and hugged her. “This whole relationship was formed when your emotions were very high, my dear,” she murmured. “Believe me, I know how that can be—it’s happened to me dozens of times! I’m not saying you have to throw the whole thing away, but perhaps simply take a step back. Give yourselves some space and time to … develop a bit. Grow up, even. Let your life calm down. You’re both so young! You’re just getting out in the world. Let him climb that restaurant ladder, if that’s what he wants to do, and you go back to Cambridge and finish your degree and start your career. And just … see where you both end up.”

  Kay toyed for a moment with a cup of tea, then added, “It’s so challenging for a young man in this business to balance those hours with a relationship. He’ll probably thank you for this.”

  But—

  “He didn’t thank me,” Susan concludes in the story for Gloria. “He really, really didn’t.”

  “Well, he should have understood, right?” Gloria asks. “I mean, like you said, he lost a parent, and it’s not like he didn’t know you were grieving. And he must’ve thought you’d go back to school eventually.”

  “It wasn’t just that,” Susan sighs. “I handled the whole thing horribly. Really horribly. I went back to his place and packed up the last of my things and just waited for him. I had this whole speech prepared, but when he came through the door … I don’t know, it just went out the window. And I didn’t know what to say, so I just babbled something about space and told him I was sorry, and I just left. I didn’t even have the guts to tell him I was breaking up with him—I didn’t say anything. And he kept trying to phone and text me, and I ignored him, and eventually he stopped.”

  “Oh, man,” Gloria breathes, cringing. “You ghosted him?”

  “I know! I’m such a bitch! It’s just … I was such a mess. There was all this confusion in my life already after my mum died, and Chris and I—our thing—it was just really, really intense and amazing, and I wasn’t prepared for it and didn’t know how to manage it, so I just ended up fucking the whole thing up.” Susan finishes off the drink, which is definitely not meant to be drunk all in one go. She feels almost instantly tipsy.

  “Oh please, everyone’s an arsehole in their twenties,” Gloria reassures her, patting her on the back. “Some never get past that stage, so you’re already doing better than them, right? Aw, don’t beat yourself up. I mean, this was—what, ten years ago? If he’s still holding a grudge over a fling that ended badly a decade ago, he’s got some serious issues.”

  “It wasn’t just a fling, though,” Susan sighs. “It definitely wasn’t for me.”

  The bartender whisks her empty glass away and immediately replaces it with a full one. Susan knows she shouldn’t, but she starts drinking it anyway.

  Gloria scrunches her face sympathetically. “Aw, man, he was your first, wasn’t he?” Off Susan’s look, she nods. “Yeah, those’re tough to shake. Like a bad lurgy, right? Make you feel all sick and dizzy, even after they’re gone. Took me ages to get over my first. Seeing him with another man really helped.”

  Susan laughs despite herself.

  “You’ll shake him eventually. We all do,” Gloria continues. “We have to,
don’t we?”

  “Suppose so,” Susan agrees, staring down at her drink.

  A moment’s silence, and then Gloria asks, “You want him back?”

  Startled, Susan stammers, “No! I mean, I-I don’t know. I don’t really know him anymore, do I? I knew him ten years ago, and he’s done so much since then, he must be different now. And he hates me. Clearly.”

  “Maybe he’s just trying to get your attention.”

  “By insulting my grandfather’s restaurant?”

  “Worked, didn’t it? And I have t’admit, it lit something of a fire under my arse. Don’t you just want to prove him wrong now? I sure as hell do.”

  “Yeah,” Susan murmurs, nodding. “Yeah, you know what? I do!”

  “Attagirl! And while you’re at it, get out there! Nothing clears a bad dating history like a new one. Go date! Or don’t—just take someone home. That guy at the end of the bar keeps looking at you. He’s cute. Go for it!”

  Susan glances toward the end of the bar. A young man with ridiculous cheekbones and brown hair that waves far too perfectly for him to be entirely mortal is having a lively conversation with the bloke sitting next to him. He’s way out of her league.

  “You’re seeing things,” Susan says.

  “I don’t think so.” Gloria cocks her head and squints. “He look familiar to you?”

  Susan looks again. “Kind of. It’s a small city, though. We’ve probably run across him somewhere.”

  “I’d remember if I’d seen him somewhere around.” Gloria smirks. “If you won’t have a go at him, I might.”

  “You do that, and have fun,” Susan says, slowly getting down from the bar stool and trying not to visibly sway. The room is tilting just a little, and her hands are tingly—a sure sign she’s hovering on the edge of having drunk too much.

  “Oh, I would,” says Gloria. “Seriously, though—forget Chris Baker. He thinks he’s hot shite because everyone keeps telling him he is. But you know the truth, right?” She leans toward Susan with a wicked smile. “I mean, you’ll know about all those times he burnt the toast or laughed so hard he farted, right?”