Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched (11 page)

I stared right back but couldn't help the smile. “Yeah, me too.”

“I like you, Clementine Cooper. You're your own woman. I think we'll get along just fine.”

Ha. But maybe.

She and Keira then made small talk about the cooling pies and asked what I was making. I was in the middle of explaining baklava, which neither of them had ever had, when Dominique cut me off.

“Oh, Clementine, you just reminded me of the real reason we dropped in. I have a huge favor to ask.”

Okay, what was this? I should've known—buttering me up with that “you're your own woman” stuff?

“Based on the other night,” Dominique began, “I could tell you needed some additional help in the kitchen, and Keira is thinking of getting involved in the cooking world. I've tried to tell her that culinary school or, God forbid, catering, is not for her, but you know twentysomethings—they think they know it
all and sometimes you have to let them make their own mistakes.”

Good God.

“So some real-world experience would really help her come to that quicker. She could chop vegetables or what have you.”

Dominique had to be kidding me. “I'm sure she'd get more versatile experience at Zach's restaurant. The steak house serves everything. Clementine's No Crap Café is limited to vegan fare.”

Keira was biting her lip. “Well, actually, I tried working in the Silver Steer a few weeks ago and lasted for three hours. It's not like Zach's in the kitchen—or there at all—to help guide me. And the head chef? He's vicious! The whole staff is. They screamed at me within the first five minutes because I chose the wrong size sauté pan. Honestly, they scared me to death. And they knew I was the owner's stepsister too.”

“That's the way restaurant kitchens are, though,” I reminded Keira. I'd worked for some real assholes along the way. Even the nice executive chefs were assholes with orders coming in on a busy night. Screaming, cursing, name-calling, getting singed literally and figuratively. That was life in a commercial kitchen.

“But, Clementine,” Keira said, “when we toured
your
kitchen after dinner last night, everyone was so nice. The kitchen staff was actually having a good time—while they were very busy. They were being so nice to each other. It was so . . . Zen.”

It was true that I ran my kitchen the way I'd always wanted kitchens I'd worked in to run—a team that helped each other out, not screamed in each other's face or with a head chef that threatened to fire you every ten minutes.

Keira “Oh, I always forget cheese comes from a cow” Huffington in my kitchen?

“I'll work really hard,” Keira said, practically batting her eyes at me.

I was about to say no as nicely as I could when my cousin Harry's face popped into my mind. A month ago, Harry, five minutes out of business school with his MBA, asked if I could put in a good word at Jeffries Enterprises. Twenty-six-year-old Harry Cooper was my favorite cousin and had been living three thousand miles away for the past five years when he belonged in LA so we could hang out. Of course I put in a good word, which meant calling Zach and telling him to give Harry a job or else. Harry was now a junior accountant and took his job so seriously that he worked till eight every night and spent weekends in the office.

What was that annoying cliché? No good deed goes unpunished? It stood before me in the form of Zach's stepsister. How could I tell Keira no when Zach told my cousin yes?

A test. A simple test that even Dominique couldn't talk or pay Keira's way out of. I grabbed a tomato from the wire basket on the counter. “Slice this tomato,” I told her.

With deep concentration, Keira stepped up to the counter, took the tomato, and eyed the knives on the board. She chewed
on her lower lip for a second, then picked up the wrong knife and sliced way too thick.

Sorry, babe. Cousin Harry has an MBA. You can't slice a tomato.
“I'm sorry, but I really don't have the time to train someone right now. A new restaurant needs experienced staff.”

Dominique pulled me over. “Please,” she whispered. “You'd be doing me a huge favor. She'll see in a few days that working in a hot kitchen isn't for her. And, darling, seriously, if family won't, then who
can
we turn to?”

Oh, please.

“I'm a really fast learner,” Keira said. “I'll work my butt off, I swear.”

Oh, hell.

I thought of myself right around the time I'd met Zach, when I got fired from Fresh because a jealous wannabe sabotaged me. No one would hire me. No one.

“I won't let you down, Clementine,” Keira added. “If you'll just give me a chance.”

I felt kind of bad for Keira, being set up to supposedly prove Dominique right.

I thought of Cousin Harry, so happy in his charmless cubicle. Damn. And hadn't I planned to hire another pair of hands anyway?

It took forever for me to spit out my next word. “Okay. Your first day will be Wednesday.” I waited for her to complain that it was too soon. But she didn't. “And you'll have to start training yourself today until then—I want you to watch a bunch of
videos on how to properly cut vegetables.” Still no objections. She was nodding quite seriously. “I'll send you some links. Study them and practice. You'll have to prove yourself in the kitchen. If the staff thinks you got hired because you're related to Zach, it'll create problems. You have to show your stuff.”

“Swearsies!”

I almost burst out laughing. Gunnar would never forgive me.

Dominique beamed.

While the baklava was baking, I texted Zach.

Me:
Your stepsister is suddenly a kitchen trainee.

Zach:
She's a sweetheart.

Me:
She can't slice a tomato.

Zach:
She might surprise you.

With what else she couldn't do?

W
hen I got back to my apartment around eleven that night, Sara wasn't home, so I went into my bedroom to start packing up. Last night, Zach and I had spent hours in bed talking about how living together would be, how we wanted it to be. I'd never lived with a boyfriend before. I liked the idea of coming home to him every night—obviously, since I was marrying the dude. And his place was huge, so there would be a lot of space. Plus, Charlie the beagle. Always Charlie. God, I loved that little dog.

I was working on packing up my makeshift closet when I heard the door to the apartment open and slam shut. Uh-oh. Sara was pissed about something.

I came around the divider that separated my room from the living room. “What's up?”

“Hey,” she said, dropping down on the red velvet couch and resting her feet on the coffee table with a thud. “Joe and I got into a huge fight. We sniped at each other throughout the last half of last night's show, which the producer loved, of course. The audience went wild for it. Assholes. And then the fight continued the second we both opened our eyes this morning. I finally left and went to Greasy Spoon and ate a bacon and American-cheese omelet with home fries and then had a slice of cheesecake. So now I feel like double crap.”

I sat down beside her and put my feet up too. “What was the fight about?”

“You know how he abuses contestants on the live cook-off show? Yelling at them, berating them, egging on the audience to make fun of them and shout out insults?”

Yeah, I knew. I had been on the receiving end of his abuse on live TV. I couldn't believe the cable network he was on let him get away with all the crap he pulled. But the show was sickeningly popular. Sara had been hired as his “good” sidekick to speak for the contestants who were too rattled to give it back to him. He called them losers who couldn't cook their way out of an Easy-Bake Oven; she shouted back that he probably couldn't even spell
little
. On and on for an hour, twice a week.

“Well, he went way too far with this poor guy who obviously was falling apart,” Sara said, “and then the guy burned his hand and forearm pretty bad on the oven rack and left in the middle of the show to go to the ER. So Joe yells, ‘The dork forfeits!' And was saying all this crazy stuff, and I just stood
there, looking at him, like, who the hell are you? The guy had to go to the
ER
and it's like he didn't even care. All night, I kept waiting for him to call the hospital and see how he was—even to ask his assistant or the producer how the guy was. But he never even mentioned the contestant again.”

“Did he see your side of it at all?”

She rolled her eyes. “He told me I was being too sensitive. That it was about ratings and it was the whole point of his show. It really bothered me. It's one thing to be snarky. It's another to be a total asshole.”

“Isn't he always like that?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

She leaned back against the couch cushions. “I guess. But he's worse on camera. Sometimes, when it's just the two of us, when he's not cracking jokes, he can be a good guy. But he's always making fun of people on the street, you know? Like the jerks who used to make fun of my weight. The other day, he was laughing at some kid with bad hair and a shirt two sizes too small for him. Not to his face, but still. A
kid
.”

Just listen. Don't say a word against him. She just needs to vent. She'll figure it out for herself on her terms, on her time.

“Part of me wants to break up with him. But part of me still really likes him. Why do relationships have to be so impossible?”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Ha. Like you have any clue, Clem. You're tall and blond and thin and gorgeous. Everything's always been easier for you.
I lost twenty-two pounds and everything is still the same.
I'm
the same.”

“Yeah, I hope so. I never want you to change. No matter what you weigh, you're awesome and my best friend.”

“But everything was supposed to be perfect. I lost weight. I have a great job in TV. On air, no less. I have an interesting boyfriend. So why does everything still suck?”

I slung my arm around her shoulder. Everything didn't really suck. She just had stuff to figure out. And my life wasn't easy and never was. Before I could say a word, though, her cell phone rang and she lunged for it in her bag.
It's Joe,
she mouthed.

I could hear him talking because he did everything on high volume. He was saying something about having called his assistant to ask if someone had checked on the burned contestant, which of course they had, and the guy was fine and wasn't going to sue.

“Maybe there's hope for you yet,” she said into the phone with a smile.

“I wish he
would
sue,” I heard Joe say. “That would trend on Twitter and get written up everywhere. Great for publicity.”

Sara sighed into the phone.

Then I heard Joe say, “Gotta go, hot stuff.”

Sara put the phone back in her bag. “Shitburgers, maybe there isn't hope for him.”