My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon - Lauren Landish Page 0,58
black heels on and legs straight with her hands crossed over her chest. And when the sun rises, she hisses at it like a pissed off cat but forces herself up. Maybe that’s why she’s always so cold and angry? She’s a creature of the night forced to live in the daylight.
“What are you doing?” she stands behind me at the line, arms folded across her chest.
“You are not supposed to be in the kitchen,” I remind her. “There are food and health codes.”
Her eyes narrow, and instead of backing up the way I’d hoped, she steps closer to my station. She knows what she’s doing, intentionally irritating me to get the answer she wants. I’m certain she’s accustomed to people acquiescing to her maneuvers and manipulations.
I’m not one of those people. I don’t need anything from her.
On my cutting board, I have a small pile of diced onions and a larger one of tomatoes. The skins and juicy remnants are in another pile to be trashed. Using the back side of my knife, I wipe the unneeded bits into my trash bowl, but one wayward tomato bit misses and falls to the floor, only to be intercepted by Meredith’s expensive black pump.
Oops! Did I do that? I think smugly.
“Ugh!” She groans, kicking her toe out to sling the tomato bit to the floor.
“Kitchens are messy places,” I say with zero apology.
Her lips press into a thin line. “As I told you at yesterday’s meeting, I needed the menu for today’s luncheon by last night.”
“Must’ve slipped my mind.” It did no such thing. I never had any intention of sending her a menu, my food reduced to nothing more than a list of ingredients. “No worries, I’m already preparing lunch, creating wonderful dishes the guests will love, each more delicious than the last. This, I promise.”
Her smile is robotic, but the gleam in her eyes is dangerous. “How about this? Since you didn’t do what you were told, with each course the waiters bring out, you can come out and explain what they’re eating and how you made the dish. Really give it that personal chef touch for the girls.”
We’re locked in a battle of chicken, seeing which one of us will flinch first.
She obviously knows that table visits are something chefs dread. The fawning over our food is fun, of course, especially when you are a new chef, but it is disruptive to the flow of the kitchen to have the captain of the ship leave the bridge mid-voyage.
Plus, based on the bridal party’s interest at the dinner at Avanti, I might have to play polite with guests when I would rather be in the kitchen.
Or with Abi.
The thought intrudes into my battle of wills with Meredith, setting me off-kilter at a crucial moment, and I give in. “Of course. I’d be happy to come out and share a few tidbits about each course.”
Victory makes her teeth look extraordinarily sharp when Meredith smiles. “Next time, perhaps you’ll simply send me the menu,” she muses.
One last dig to let me know she’s won this one.
Her heels click across the floor as she war-paths out of the kitchen. As soon as the door swings shut behind her, Esmar peeks out from around the corner to whisper, “Is the coast clear?”
I grin. “Afraid of her?”
He nods vehemently. “Yes! She is like a fox, a patient and cunning hunter that pounces when you least expect it.” He snaps his teeth, his fingers claws that scratch at the air in a charade that looks more like a lioness than a fox. But I get his point. Meredith is not one to be underestimated.
“Well, she’s gone for now, so let me get this prep finished.” Esmar comes over to help me, and after a while, Gilberto arrives as well.
Just in time because the front-of-house manager comes back to ask for my approval of the table setting. “Since I don’t know the menu, we want to be sure the silverware is appropriate.”
I get the feeling he’s one of Meredith’s minions, doing her bidding. Intentionally or not.
But it’s not an unusual request when I’ve kept the menu to myself. It’s not a secret. I just wanted to let the fresh ingredients speak to me and create something truly special.
I follow the manager to the floor and see that they’ve set up a lovely table by the open windows. The salt breeze off the sea blows in gently, rustling the pink- and white-striped runners that line the length