French Pressed - By Cleo Coyle Page 0,7

then took my arm and led me down a narrow corridor lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. She sat me down in a tiny room next to a stairwell. Inside the room, a bunch of metal folding chairs was scattered around a wooden table. There was a TV, a computer, and a boom box, all of which were off.

“This is our break room,” she explained, avoiding my gaze.

My daughter was obviously dealing with feelings of embarrassment. I was feeling a very different emotion. “What’s wrong with those people out there?” I said loudly.

“Quiet, Mom, they’ll hear you—”

“No. You could have been killed, hurt badly at the very least, by that crazy woman, and nobody in your kitchen moved a muscle! You’re lucky the maître d’ was there to disarm her!”

Joy closed the door and sat down. “You don’t understand,” she said, much softer than I was speaking. “Brigitte accused me of messing up some of tonight’s plates.”

“Excuse me?”

“She said the sea bass should have gone out on a bed of ramps, but I was putting asparagus down instead. I wasn’t! I know the difference between a freakin’ locally grown leek and a spear of asparagus! She accused me of being incompetent, but I told her that I’d done it right. And since the plates went out already, I couldn’t even prove it. I told her nobody sent them back or complained—so she was just making it up to make me look bad in front of everyone. That’s when she flung the béarnaise sauce on me.”

Joy lifted the soiled chef’s jacket in her hand. “And then she said I was purposely bumping into her all night. I wasn’t. She was the one bumping me—and on purpose, if you ask me. Anyway, her little fit tonight was nothing new. Chef Rouille’s been throwing a tantrum almost every night now.”

“I’d call trying to slash your throat with a chef’s knife more than a simple tantrum.”

Joy sighed. “She probably wouldn’t have hurt me—”

“Probably!? Muffin, that woman’s certifiable. I think someone should press charges. Surely Brigitte’s guilty of assault with a deadly—”

“No!” Joy touched my arm. “My internship’s been going really well. I’m not going to mess it up by calling the cops on Tommy’s restaurant.”

“Okay…but you have to tell me more. What exactly has been going on with that woman?”

Joy shook her head. “It’s not like Chef Rouille singled me out for special persecution. Last Saturday she screamed at Henry Tso, the sauté chef, and Henry never makes a mistake. On Tuesday she came down on Don Maris, the seafood chef, for overbroiling a lobster. Then yesterday, she gave Vinny so much work he had to hide in the walk-in refrigerator until everybody went home last night, just so he could finish. She threatened to have him fired if he didn’t have it all done by the morning. You remember Vinny Buccelli, don’t you? You met him at that press party last month. It was the same night you met Tommy.”

I did remember Vinny. He was a nice-looking Italian boy—a young friend of Joy’s from her culinary school class. I had assumed (wrongly) that the quiet, slight young man was Joy’s boyfriend, something I still hoped could come true once she realized how wrong she was to get involved with Tommy Keitel.

Joy frowned. “Brigitte’s got Vinny so rattled he called in sick today. And nobody calls in sick at Solange unless they want to lose their job.”

“What kind of a kitchen is Tommy running?” I demanded.

“This isn’t Tommy’s fault,” Joy replied—too quickly, I thought.

“Mr. Dornier told me that Tommy hasn’t been around much lately,” I said. “Dornier doesn’t sound happy about it, and I can see why. Tommy’s the executive chef. If he’s not around, then he’s not doing his job.”

Joy’s face got tight. I recognized the look. I’d obviously struck a nerve.

“Is that man still sleeping with you?” I asked bluntly.

“Mom!”

“I know. I’m not supposed to bring it up, but—”

“Please don’t start that again, or we’ll have to stop talking altogether.”

I threw up my hands. “Truce!”

Joy flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, looked away.

“Truce,” I repeated, reaching over to squeeze her arm. “Okay?”

Eyes downcast, Joy nodded. “Okay,” she said softly. “And the answer is yes. Tommy and I are still involved…romantically.”

I tried not to cringe at the word. I found nothing whatsoever romantic about their relationship. It was seedy. It was wrong. And it was a testament to my daughter’s immaturity that she’d use a word like that to describe what was going