The Piano Man Project Page 0,73

of turbulence it sloshed from the pot onto the lap of the passenger closest to her.

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ she said, putting the pot down quickly and grabbing a cloth. Dabbing at the guy’s paperwork, she noticed it was sheet music rather than the usual reports or graphs passengers studied in transatlantic business class.

He put out a hand and stopped her, and when she looked him in the eyes she found him smiling. ‘Hey, it’s fine,’ he said, his accent placing him as American. ‘It wasn’t very good anyway. You’ve just saved me a job.’

‘You write music?’ Tash asked, always ready to take the time to chat to passengers, especially ones with sexy blue eyes and an easy smile.

‘I try, anyhow,’ he nodded ruefully. ‘I’m a pianist.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Honey left it until after lunch to go over and look in on the new chef. Pushing the kitchen door open tentatively, she could hear shouting and clattering from within. Inside, the new chef had his back towards the door and held a frying pan held aloft, waving it around in the air as he yelled at Skinny Steve. Honey was sure he didn’t intend for it to look threatening, but nonetheless it did rather look as if she’d walked in thirty seconds before Skinny Steve took one for the team.

‘Whoa there,’ she said lightly, clearing her throat, and then ‘Er, hello?’ a little louder when the chef failed to even register her presence. He spun around, frying pan still in the air.

‘What?’ he spat in heavily accented English, his dark moustache bristling with contempt. Judging from his appearance, Honey hazarded a guess at Spanish, or possibly Mexican. He wasn’t a tall man. An unkind person would have even called him short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in volume. ‘What do you want, woman!’ he shouted, and Honey watched the pan carefully in case it came down on her head as she approached him slowly.

‘Do you think you could, umm, put that pan down?’ she tried, summoning scant hostage negotiation skills gleaned from the movies.

The chef looked slowly up the length of his arm and stared at the pan as if he was as surprised as anyone to see it there.

‘You means this pan?’

Honey nodded and smiled the small, quivering smile of the mildly terrified.

Chef’s eyes moved from the pan to Honey, and then across to Steve, which was the point when he started to growl.

‘Ooohkay,’ Honey said, and catching Skinny Steve’s eye she flicked her head towards the back door that led to the garden. He didn’t need telling twice. Like the worst hero in the world, he made a dash for freedom and left Honey to dodge around the chef and slam the door to stop him from chasing Steve.

‘Whaddya do that for!’ he shouted, and slammed the pan down hard on the counter. Honey jumped, but stayed splayed over the door like a police cut-out.

‘You were frightening him,’ she said.

‘What is he? A man or a mouse?’ The chef’s chin wobbled. ‘He tell me all morning, don’t do this, don’t do that. They won’t like this, they won’t like that.’ He picked up a whole chilli from the work surface. ‘And they definitely won’ta like these!’

He bit the chilli in half and ate it without turning a hair. ‘My mama in Mexico has these for breakfast and she is one hundred and three.’ He shoved the rest of the chilli in and swallowed. ‘These people,’ he waved vaguely towards the dining room in disgust. ‘Bland. I just try to spice up their lives, and that boy …’ he looked murderously through the window for Steve. ‘He won’t let me. Who is in charge here? Him, or me? My chilli con carne won three red peppers in the Chihuahua Chilli Awards 2010. Three peppers!’ He picked up three more chillies, and quite alarmingly shoved them all in his mouth at once. Honey stared, transfixed, as he stood with his hands on his hips and chewed them all up with difficulty.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she whispered, as tears ran down his cheeks.

He spat out a chilli seed. ‘I not cry because of the chillies. The chillies are delicious. I cry because my soul is crushed. Crushed by these people who look as if they are made of paper and will only eat bland, bland food.’ He’d gone from angry to maudlin in a blink, impressive for someone stone cold sober. ‘I cry because I