The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux - Samantha Verant Page 0,6
in my bag, and skulked out the back door among the rats. I walked in the pouring rain, each drop burning and pricking into me like needles. Still dressed in my checks and toque, blood streaming down my hand, I muttered and swore under my breath.
A text alert buzzed. I grabbed my phone out of my sack, hoping things had been set right. Eric and Alex couldn’t get away with this. Somebody must have fessed up. We weren’t ostriches cooking with our heads in the sand. Everybody knew everybody’s business in that kitchen. I clicked open the message, praying with every fiber in my heart, in my soul, only to find myself sucker punched by his words.
I was kidding about the burger joint. Still, nobody in their right mind will hire you once word gets out. And it will. O’Shea’s on damage control. My offer still stands.
A taxi whipped by, launching a tidal wave of putrid water over my head, drenching me. I was too angry, too flipped out, to care. My body filled with a palpable rage. I stood on the corner of Sullivan and Prince, raised my arms to the sky, and screamed so hard I thought my lungs would burst. Tears pricked at my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Lightning crackled in the sky, illuminating the buildings and bringing me back to my senses. An icy clarity washed over me. Eric wanted me back in every sense, and would make sure I had no other options but him. Soaking wet, I forced my legs to move and walked the four miles home to the Upper East Side, oblivious to the downpour, to the cold, trying to figure out a way to set the record straight. Until he cooled off, talking to O’Shea was out of the question, if he’d even give me a chance to explain what I thought went down, what I knew in my bones went down.
I’d found my heart in the kitchen. The only real relationship I had in my life was with food, and without my dreams I had nothing. Eric knew that. Now my heart was shattered into a billion pieces.
3
the jig is up
Ignacio, my friendly doorman from the Bronx with a gap-toothed smile, frowned when he buzzed me into the lobby. By now, the cut on my hand had stopped bleeding, but my chef’s coat was bloodstained, my toque had flattened on my head like a deflated balloon, and my black Crocs dirtied the polished marble floors, leaving a water trail with each step I took.
“Good lord, Sophie, you look like you’ve been through a war,” said Ignacio, clucking his tongue, worry speckling his usually cheerful tone. “Is that kitchen life of yours that dangerous?”
“In more ways than you can imagine,” I said with a long sigh.
“You hurt?”
“Only a flesh wound,” I said, feeling as if somebody had torn my heart out of my chest and seared it to a crisp. “Just a little cut.”
I didn’t want to be rude to Ignacio—he was always so nice—but I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I just wanted to get up to my apartment, change out of my bloody, wet clothes, and plot my revenge against Eric. I pressed the button to call the elevator. “I guess I should get upstairs and clean myself up,” I said, rocking self-consciously on my heels, water squishing in between my toes. “I’m making a mess in the foyer.”
“Don’t worry about it. Water dries,” said Ignacio with a sympathetic smile. “Have a nice evening. Tomorrow will be another day.”
“Thanks,” I said and stepped into the elevator, thinking about the old adage “The early bird gets the worm.” In my case, this conjured up a bottle of mescal, tequila’s smoky big brother. If the manufacturers of this potent libation hadn’t drowned the worm found at the bottom of some bottles, the worm would have metamorphosed into a butterfly. The knot in my stomach tightened, so painful I couldn’t breathe. I shook my head, the scene from Cendrillon flashing into my mind like some kind of hallucinatory nightmare, so dizzying I almost fell down. My prayers to the kitchen gods had gone unanswered, unless it was their intention to turn me into a sacrificial lamb, left gutted and slaughtered. Everything I’d worked so hard for had evaporated in less than five minutes. I slithered out of the elevator and onto the floor, trying to will my heart to stop from breaking.