Sweet Girl (5 page)

There is only one female Certified Master Pastry Chef in the entire nation, and she’s standing next to me. I have to ask her something in case I never get this opportunity again! I filter through the litany of questions and quickly decide on the most important.

“Is it cardamom? Is that what you put in the
budino
?”

Her head turns in my direction. Her mouth is outlined on all sides by wrinkles from a lifetime of smoking, and when her lips purse, I take it as permission to continue.

“There’s a little hint of something under the flavor of the caramel, and I’ve always wanted to know what it is.”

She studies me again in closer detail, and I try not to fidget while she looks me over. Finally she opens her mouth and shocks me completely.

“I’m hiring, Stork. You interested?”

Chapter Four

I’m not sure that I was able to give Avis any kind of verbal commitment, because I was too overwhelmed to reply. But surely I must have nodded or something, because here I am following her down the hallway like a dutiful puppy. We come from the main kitchen and in through the back of a smaller kitchen, where Latin music is bouncing out of surprisingly nice stereo speakers and filling the already-hot room.

Avis whirls around and looks at me. Through the lenses of her giant glasses, her eyes look twice as large as they are.

“You’re here because I need a stork,” she says.

I never thought my height would be any kind of job qualification, but Avis’s oddball personality is as notorious as she is, and I’ll take whatever help I can get.

I nod. “Yes, I—”

She waves me off with an erratic hand.

“No need to discuss it. Joey will tell you what you need to know. I’ll only tell you one thing.”

She takes out a pack of cigarettes and taps it against her hip. We stand there in silence for at least three minutes before I realize the cigarettes are keeping time with the music in the air. It’s a little awkward—OK, more than a little awkward, but I wait patiently for her to tell me whatever it is she wants me to know. When she does finally get around to it, the words are no less ominous for having been delivered by the absent-minded professor.

“Nobody ever gave me a chance, Stork”—she points the pack of cigarettes at me—“and you’re getting this. It’s the only one you’ll get from me.”

I nod earnestly.

“Now”—Avis points a wrinkled finger at the tile below my feet—“you stand there.”

I nod again, but she’s already walking away. I’m standing in the exact spot she left me, dead center where four dark-orange tiles come together.
X marks the spot.
I look around, using the moment to try to calm myself enough to process what’s happening. The scuffed toe of my Converse is so old and grimy that the white has long faded to gray. A plume of flour in the air dissipates and settles around my shoes, snapping me into focus, and my brain finally catches up.

I’m standing in Dolci!

I whirl around until I can see the partition of glass that separates the kitchen from the lobby, just to confirm where I am. How many times have I stood on the other side of that glass and wondered what it would be like in here? How often have I watched the first crew and wished I knew what they were working on?

I spin back in the other direction, suddenly wanting to memorize every single bit of the action I can, in case I never get back here again.

The energy isn’t frenzied, unlike the restaurant kitchens I’m used to, but the handful of people working around me radiate with a kind of intense focus as they carry out the tiniest of movements over and over. In the far corner of the room¸ a young guy is using a long paddle to add dry ingredients into a mixer that’s at least twice as big as I am. When the muscles in his back move each time he lifts one of the giant bowls, it looks as if they’re going to pop through the chef coat he wears. I wonder if he needed those muscles to do this job, or if having the job gave him the muscles.

Just next to him, tall metal rolling shelves are stacked with sheet upon sheet of baked goods. Even from a distance I can spot the scones, muffins, and chocolate croissants that compose Dolci’s morning offering. On the next rack over, dozens of cupcakes wait to be iced. I can’t see the color of the cake they’re made of, but I’d know the current menu in my sleep. I imagine I can make out the colors of black forest, raspberry red velvet, lemon ricotta, and a pumpkin spice with a cinnamon cream-cheese icing that shouldn’t be on anyone’s summer menu but is so popular that they serve it year round.

Next to the baked goods an older man is drizzling what looks like melted dark chocolate over long rows of biscotti. If they’re the menu item I think they are, he’ll finish them with a dip in crushed, toasted hazelnuts.

To my right is a tall bald man with biceps that are roughly the circumference of my head. He’s working on something that bubbles and steams from a saucepot in front of him. The hum of the kitchen is blocking out the sound of whatever he’s saying, but from here it looks like he’s professing his love to the sauce. The action is so totally incongruous with someone who looks more like a thug than a saucier that I can’t stop staring.

“It’s a sonnet,” someone says behind me.

I turn around, expecting to find Avis since I didn’t know any other women were in this kitchen. A beautiful petite woman stands in front of me wearing an oversize chef coat that barely covers her extremely pregnant stomach. Her long dark hair is braided over one shoulder, and I can’t tell if it’s the heat or the pregnancy that makes her shine, but her deep golden skin absolutely glows.

“Excuse me?” I ask, confused.

“Harris.” She smiles and nods her head in the direction of the saucier. “He recites Shakespeare’s sonnets to his recipes. It’s early in the day, so I’d guess he’s still at the beginning of the list. Sixteen or seventeen, maybe.”

Her speech is slightly accented, but I can’t place where she might be from.

“Papi,” she calls out to him.

The giant’s lips stop moving instantly, and he turns in her direction with an indulgent smile.

“Which one are you on now?” she asks.

“But wherefore do not you a mightier way,” he says loudly above the din, “make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? And fortify your self in your decay with means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, and many maiden gardens yet unset with virtuous wish would bear you living flowers.” He finishes his recitation with a wink and turns back around to the stove.

She smiles and reaches out a hand to me.

“I’m Joey.”

“Mackenzie Jennings,” I say, shaking her hand. “Everyone calls me Max.”

I blame the introduction on nerves. I haven’t introduced myself with my full first name in years.

“Come on. We’ll get you set up.” She starts to waddle towards the back of the kitchen, rubbing her lower back with one hand. I have no idea how someone can be this pregnant and work in this heat. It can’t be good for her.

It makes me anxious.

“When are you due?” I can’t stop myself from asking.

Joey turns her head with another sweet smile.

“Oh, a few weeks from now,” she says wistfully.

At my horrified expression she continues, “I think she hoped if she just ignored my belly, it wouldn’t eventually pop and turn into a baby. Avis is excellent at ignoring things she doesn’t want to deal with. Frankly, I’m shocked she hired a replacement. We all thought I’d still be in here when I went into labor. Everyone was betting on what recipe I’d be making when my water broke. My money was on the syllabub.”

Joey giggles at her own joke before leading me to a cabinet in the back of the kitchen. She reaches up on tiptoes to grab one of the freshly pressed white chef coats from the inside and hands it to me. I stare down at the stark white linen in my hand, mesmerized by the large cursive “D” embroidered in silky black thread on the front.

I reverently trace my fingers back and forth over the lettering. My exchange with the jacket can’t take more than a few seconds, but there must be something telling about the deferential way I’m holding it. Because when I look up again, her smile has been replaced with a grimace.

“Please,
please
tell me this isn’t the first time you’ve held a chef coat in your hands!” She starts rubbing her lower back faster in clear agitation.

It goes against my nature, or probably anyone’s nature, to actively try to piss off a woman this pregnant. I don’t want to stress her out more with the truth, but she’d catch me in a lie easily. I reach down and fiddle with the bracelets on my left wrist before answering.

“It is, but—”

Joey’s head snaps to the left like a hunting dog narrowing in on a small bird.

“I’m going to kill her,” she says vehemently. “This time I’m actually going to kill her!” Her right hand continues to rub her lower back aggressively, and she storms off as quickly as her belly will allow.

When I catch up to her a few steps later, still clutching the coat in my hands, she’s mumbling to herself in Spanish. I’m shocked at the four-letter words streaming out of this petite cherubic-looking woman. I didn’t mean to upset her, and I do my best to break into her diatribe.

“I haven’t worked in a kitchen before, but I’ve been a mixologist for the last few years.”

Joey stops and glares at me.

“A bartender!” she says with disgust.

Her accent is more pronounced now, feisty and Latin in her anger. Before I can say another word, Harris, the overly muscled poem-reciting thug, steps up to us and places a hand on her back, rubbing in the exact spot she was just touching. I stare on stupidly as he uses his other hand to sweep the hair that’s escaped her braid off of her face. His large, rough hands look like they could do some serious damage in a bar fight, but he touches her with utter reverence. I notice the wedding band on his finger and then the smaller matching band on hers.

Man, I did not see that coming.

“Love, what’s wrong?” he asks, searching her face for the answer.

At his question Joey leans into him and looks back at me, her eyes shiny with tears.

“She’s a stage.” She looks up at him miserably. “She’s never even worked in a kitchen before! How am I supposed to train a stage in a few weeks?” She sniffs weakly.

I’ve researched enough about chefs to understand the word she used now. A stage is someone who comes into a kitchen as an untrained intern and works from the bottom up. It takes months, sometimes years, to move into a better position, but it’s one of the only options if you haven’t been to culinary school. I don’t want her to cry, and I certainly don’t want to piss off the giant next to her, but given my years of experience with confrontation, I’m not about to let them stand four feet away and talk about me as if I’m not here.

“Look,” I say with enough emphasis that they both turn my way. “I’ve never been in this kitchen before, but I’ve worked in and around Gander’s for the last three years. I haven’t been trained, but I do know the mechanics and I’m a fast learner.”

“I don’t have the time to teach you,” Joey says miserably.

At least she’s not as angry anymore. I go for broke.

“You don’t have time
not
to.” I lift my chin defiantly. “You said it took her all nine months to grab me, and yes, I wasn’t exactly well vetted. But I’m here now, and I’m smart and hardworking, and I’ve studied your menu like it’s the Bible.”

She keeps looking back at me doubtfully while Harris, a quiet mountain at her side, rubs that spot on her back.

I can’t get this close and not even get a real chance! In a flash I see myself as that little girl dreaming up a recipe for brookies with my mom, then as a bit older, doodling what the storefront of my bakery would look like. Then I am a teenager looking through the websites of culinary institutes and trying to decide which one I’d attend after I finished undergrad.

They’re long-buried hopes, but they’re still just as strong. The dreams of your childhood aren’t easy to ignore or to leave behind. They’re the most powerful because you design them without boundaries or limits. It’s what makes growing up so hard, because even though life has shown you different, it’s hard to forget that there was a time when you believed anything was possible.

I work hard at being stoic—aloof, even—when it comes to work, but I hope she can see that little girl in my eyes now instead of the woman I’ve become. The woman I’ve become wants to say something rude and walk out the door. But that little girl in the small apartment kitchen, who dreamed about this for so long, is the one who keeps me standing here now.

“Please,” I say quietly, “just give me a chance. I promise I won’t let you down.”

Joey breathes in slowly through her nose and out through her mouth. She could very well be having a contraction for all I know.

“Fine. I’ll show you whatever I can in whatever time I have left—”

“You have eighteen days,” Harris tells us both.

She looks up at him beseechingly. “You know that’s not enough time, Papi. The doctor said I could go up to two weeks over before they’d have to induce, and I’m already cutting my hours in half as it is and—”

“You have two and a half weeks, Josephine,” he tells her more firmly.

“Don’t you dare use my full name. You are not my mother!”

Joey attempts to stomp away, but Harris grabs her gently and frames her face with both his hands. It is such an intimate moment, especially against the heat and the chaos of the kitchen around them, that I have to look away. I can still hear him, though, speaking to her in that same gentle cadence he used to recite the poem earlier.

“Love, you promised me. More than that, you promised
yourself
that you wouldn’t work past your due date. Your back hurts all the time, and it’s too hot in here. It’s not good for you or the baby. You promised, Joey.”

I don’t know how she responds because I am staring intensely at the giant ovens lining the wall in the corner, but her voice finally pulls my gaze in their direction.

“Max, there is no way this is possible. I’m not saying that to be rude; it’s just a fact. But this is Avis’s kitchen, and it’s her choice to make. I told her I would train a replacement and I will.” She lets out a long sigh. “You have eighteen days.”

I can’t help but smile. I didn’t plan on this moment, and I never thought I’d actually try to accomplish this dream. But it’s right in front of me, and I’ll jump at the chance.

“I’ll take it!” I say, already unbuttoning the coat to put it on.