Yes chef, p.9
Yes, Chef, page 9
“Just James. Yeah?” He looks up. “What’s up?”
“My table informed me that you’re supposed to be attending to them tonight. Did someone make a special reservation?” I ask, trying to keep a neutral face.
“Not that I’m aware of.” He stands up walking towards the window in the door that lets him look out to the tables. “Did they give you their name?”
“I don’t know that they gave me an actual name—more like a username.”
“What?” He whips his head to me.
“I believe she’s ‘Mandy Eats’ on YouTube if I’m remembering correctly.”
“Shit.” James breathes out before he can stop himself. “You’re going to have to take this one, Claire. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing good would come from me taking her table. But I warn you, she can be a real piece of work.”
“You’re not making a good case here, Chef.”
“There’s no such thing when it comes to her.”
“Do you know her?” Is she an ex-girlfriend? I can’t possibly picture the two of them together, but from the way he’s reacting, he clearly knows her. It makes my skin crawl a little bit thinking that she could be his type.
“No. God, no. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
More relief than I have any right to possess floods me at his outright rejection.
“Are you sending me into a trap, Chef?”
“James,” he says, looking straight at me, startling me a bit. “And not so much a trap. More like the worst kind of customer,” he says with an actual grimace on his face.
“Well, you haven’t met my mother. I’m fully prepared.”
Well, I was not prepared. Not in the least.
Mandy was a real peach to deal with. She did not take well to the news that the James Sullivan wasn’t going to make an appearance. She asked for substitutions on every course, most of the time requesting three or four substitutions, and she wasn’t pleased when I replied that most of those substitutions simply weren’t possible. I kept my tone neutral through every sneer she threw my way. I delivered each plate with a smile. She took a million photos of each course and then took one or two exploratory bites before pushing it to the side, waiting for the next. I brought back so much food that I was starting to feel guilty. One of the reasons we work so hard to only use what’s in season is to prevent waste, and Mandy and her nameless friend were setting us back with a week's worth of wasted food all on their own.
Feeling a bit defeated and tired from pretending to have an authentic smile for the past hour and a half, I go back to my station for the final course— the mousse. Truthfully, I didn’t want to give it to her. She didn’t deserve it. She’d just waste it like everything else. Still, I knew I must persist. I was just getting into the swing of it when I felt him behind me.
“Thank you. I know this isn't a fun one,” James mumbles, practically hiding behind me.
“Do you want to offer any explanation?”
“Let’s just say I’ve been warned not to go within ten feet of the notorious ‘Mandy Eats,’” he says after a moment's hesitation.
“Care to explain why?”
“She’s been known to offer . . . well, she’s been known to offer trading her, um, talents for coverage on her YouTube channel…if you understand what I mean. Her channel is famous but definitely not worth that.”
“She hasn’t offered me anything. Should I be offended?” I ask with a raised brow, earning a special James smile all to myself, and my mood is instantly lifted.
“No, you shouldn’t take anything she does to offense,” he says. I pick up on the sincerity in his voice.
“I better get this out,” I say, motioning to the mousse.
“Of course. Thank you again, Claire.”
“You’re welcome, Chef.”
But all it takes is two seconds for a look of disbelief as Handsy Mandy looks at the mousse in front of her. “What is this?” she asks as if I haven’t told her the menu three times at this point. “It looks like poop.”
“Well,” I start, trying not to show too much irritation, “it is a chocolate mousse.”
“I can’t photograph this. It will never translate. Take it back and serve it in a bowl or something more civilized looking,” she says, pushing the plate in my direction.
But before I can say my best rehearsed and docile, “Yes, ma’am,” a tall presence comes up behind me.
“This is how the dish is served. We do not make special requests,” James says in a tone that leaves no room for negotiation.
Mandy is struck momentarily silent as she takes in all six-foot-three-inches of the blond American dream standing next to me. I watch as her face shifts from bitchy irritation to overt flirtation. “James Sullivan, I thought you weren’t here tonight,” she purrs.
Girls suck. They suck! I’m a girl—I know when I suck, and I know when other girls suck, and this little display right here just sucks.
“No, no, I’ve been here all right. Just making sure you have the best, and Claire here is the best,” he says, placing his hand on my lower back.
His hand warms where it's rested, and I’m keenly aware that he didn’t choose to rest it on my shoulder or arm. The gesture feels kind of intimate, and I hate it and love it at the same time. Mandy notices, too, and her nostrils flare. She and Henry would suit each other just fine in my opinion. They both hate being told no.
I don't want to marinate on his hand placement for too long, and I’d prefer to bask in the compliment of being “the best.” Does he truly think that? Or is he just sidestepping a hassle with Mandy?
“Well, we’ll take the check then, please,” she says through gritted teeth.
“I’ll bring it right out,” I reply, turning to head back to the kitchen, uneaten mousse in hand.
I set the plate on my station for all of two seconds before James pulls out a spoon from who knows where and takes a big scoop of the mousse to eat for himself. A little baffled, I just look at him, jaw likely slightly ajar . . . and he winks at me. The man winks! And then follows that wink with the world's smallest half smile, but a smile none of the less.
“You were right, Claire.” Then, after taking another bite, he says, “Just like a cloud.”
And just like that, whether he knows it or not, there’s a shift. Just like that, we’re on the same team. Turns out, I’m an easy friend to win over.
Chapter Nine
Chianti: aged for several years in oak barrels and known for its fruity, acidic flavors of cherries, plums, and herbs, Chianti tends to be medium-bodied but can range in style from a light, easy-drinking wine to a more complex, full-bodied wine.
I’m heading out the back door after a job well done, walking on the high of successfully adding an item to a menu when I hear him shout from behind me.
“Claire! Wait up just a second. Let me grab my jacket and I’ll walk with you.”
“All right,” I mumble, then pause to wait for him.
We’ve never formally discussed our routine of often walking together, and if we miss each other, then we miss each other. No big deal. But now that I’m determined to try to be his friend, I don’t mind waiting to walk with him. I have no pressing needs to sulk over a lone walk.
If he can stick it to Mandy, I can try a little harder to be his friend. What’s the harm in that? I can be friends with my attractive boss. My attractive boss with a big hand that spans almost my entire back.
He walks out with his jacket casually flung over one shoulder, and it’s just not fair how effortlessly attractive the man is. It’d be a lot easier to be his friend if he wasn’t so . . . hot. There, I said it. The man is hot, and I hate it. I would much prefer not to get butterflies every time I see him, but it’s something I’ll just have to deal with. Even Henry didn’t give me these kinds of butterflies when we first started dating. No, these bad boys are active for James, and James alone. That’s something I’d like to not focus on for too long.
We fall into our usual comfortable silent stride for two blocks before he speaks up. “Thanks again for handling Mandy.” He looks at me to read my reaction, which I keep blessedly neutral.
“Of course. I’m still a little offended she told me to get out of one of her pictures. Other than that she was . . . well, she was terrible all around. I’ll admit it.”
I hear a rush of breath come out of James’s mouth that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
“I had a friend in New York who got a little tangled up with her. I don’t understand why her channel is so popular. I watched the episode from my friend's restaurant in solidarity, but it was almost painful to hear her describe food,” he admits.
“Probably because she didn’t eat any of it.”
“Can’t really talk about what you don’t know, huh?” he says.
“Want to know the worst part?” I ask.
“Oh no, did she do something I didn’t see?”
“No tip.”
“What?” he nearly yells.
“Yep—nothing, zilch, nada. I mean, when someone from here doesn’t tip me, I don’t care. I know that’s part of the culture. But she’s American. Her lack of tip felt a little personal.” I smile so he can tell I’m joking.
Our conversation leads us right in front of our respective apartment doors, and for the first time, I find myself intentionally hesitating, wanting to continue the conversation with Just James.
“Are you headed to your balcony?” he asks cautiously when he reaches his own door. “As a thank you—and a delayed tip for handling the world’s worst customer—can I offer you a glass of wine?”
This feels like an olive branch, and I’m more than happy to take it. “Sure,” I say, allowing my own half-smile.
“Meet you out there in five,” he says simply, then walks through his door.
I walk through my apartment feeling lighter than I have in a while. I don’t love conflict and finding myself in a constant state of conflict for the past year has taken its toll on me. I’ve dutifully ignored Henry’s messages all evening, and without even glancing through them, I plug my phone in and set it on my side table, throw on my favorite sweatshirt, and head to the kitchen to grab a wine glass. I don’t want to assume his offer of wine included a glass, and I’m a little particular about my glass.
Walking out to my tiny patio, I see he’s already out there with a bottle and his own glass at the ready.
“Oh, good, you brought a glass. I only have my one,” he says, noticing the glass in my hand.
“What if you have company?” I reply with misplaced shock, considering I myself only have this one glass, but I don’t tell him that.
“And when exactly would I have time for company?” he asks with a raised brow. “We’re not done at the restaurant until midnight most nights.”
“We do get every Monday off.”
“A day I spend sleeping most of the time,” he admits. “You make me feel like such a slug when I see you come in after a run while I’ve slept the morning away.”
“Well, don’t be too impressed. You can barely call what I do running.”
“You get out the door. That’s the most important part.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I say, handing my glass across the railing to his balcony.
He fills it up with a generous pour and hands it back over.
“What are we drinking?” I ask, settling into my customary swirl and sniff test. I know it makes me look like a snob, but it’s second nature. Having grown up on a vineyard, I’ve been drinking wine far before the legal American drinking age, and I’ve learned to appreciate it from multiple angles.
“It’s from a vineyard out in Saint-Émilion. It’s newer so not quite expensive yet, but the vintner out there is trying some unorthodox methods that age a wine faster in the barrel.”
“Is he fluctuating the temperatures? I’ve heard of that in whiskey.”
“That’s exactly what he’s doing,” James says, looking at me as if I’ve shocked him a bit. “You said your family is in wine?”
“I did say that, yes,” I answer delicately.
“Does that make you picky?”
“My father would be so disappointed to hear me say this, but no, it actually makes me less picky.”
“How so?”
“After seeing how much work goes into each bottle and how many variants are simply out of a person’s control, I kind of learned to appreciate each wine for what it is,” I try to explain. “The only wine that I don’t like is a wine that’s trying to be something it’s not.”
“I’m going to need you to explain that to me a bit more,” James says, shifting in his chair to face me directly.
“So, I like to pick wine by region more so than by the type of grape or the flavor profiles. I like to know that the bottle of wine I’m drinking wasn’t manipulated or infused or blended to try to fake a flavor. I like to know a wine has a mineral undertone to it because the grapes were grown in a volcanic region. Take a Chianti, for example. It’s basically the house wine of Italy, but it’s called a Chianti not because of the grape or the flavor profile, but because that’s the region it comes from. And I know what I’m getting when I order a Chianti, versus when I order a cab from anywhere in the world, it could be totally hit or miss . . . sorry, I could rant about this for a while,” I say when I notice his eyes still on me. He looks anything but bored, I realize to my satisfaction.
“No, please continue,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I’ve never thought about it that way, but I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“I once heard someone describe the scent of a wine as ‘an open can of tennis balls,’ and a flash of chemical smell hit me so fast I was forever turned off from that vineyard. I love wine like I love food, but people can get too carried away with it.” Thinking about every blind tasting I’ve been to over the years, I've seen how the overtly pretentious descriptions of simple wines can overpower the wine itself. Sometimes you have to just let the wine be. You don’t need to describe it to death. Obviously, I’m thinking of one particularly irritating sommelier who likes to hear himself talk. I can’t help it.
He sits there thoughtfully for a second before asking, “Your last name is Richards?” I brace myself, knowing what his next question will be. “As in the Richards Winery?”
“That’s the one,” I say, glancing down at my wine glass.
“So, when you say your family ‘is in wine,’ you really mean your family owns most of the Napa wine market? I put two and two together on the first day, but I feel like you hide it,” he says with a hint of a smirk.
“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly, but we do own a lot of it, yes.”
“Interesting.”
“How so?”
“Well,” he says, reaching over the railing to fill up my glass again. I hadn’t realized it was almost empty. “It’s interesting that you’re all the way out here when you have a smidgen of a dynasty to run back in the States. Wineries tend to stay in the family, do they not?”
“Going back is inevitable, sure. I just wanted to do something for myself for a while.”
“I can understand that.”
“Can I ask you a question, Chef?” Even with a little bit of liquid courage running through my veins, I still feel my nerves spiking.
“If you call me James, sure.”
“All right, James, why are you suddenly being nice to me?”
“Was I not before?” he asks with a genuine look of surprise on his face.
“I would say we were cordial before . . . barely.”
“Cordial?”
“Well, I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I’m complaining, but I seem to be on the receiving end of most of your criticism. And that was if you were choosing to acknowledge me at all.”
There’s an internal war waging on his face that I can’t quite decipher, so I look out to the street while he wrestles through his thoughts.
“Can I be honest with you?” he finally asks.
“I would prefer it.”
After a beat of silence, he says, “I don’t know how to act around you.”
“Not sure how to take that, Chef.”
“James.”
“Not sure how to take that, James.”
“Well, I knew who you were the second Elliot introduced you, but you weren’t what I expected.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Every time I’d previously heard your name, it was paired with Henry Callan’s.”
“Ah,” I say, not knowing what else to contribute.
“So, I was a little surprised to see you halfway across the globe.”
“That was very much by design.”
“He’s not really someone to cross, from what I gather.”
“Well, he’s also not someone with whom I like to be associated,” I say with a bit more bite.
“You’re not still together,” he states—not asks.
“No,” I affirm. “We’ve been separated for a year.”
“That’s what I assumed, but that’s not what people think.”
“What do you mean?”
“The buddy I told you about earlier in New York . . . when I was talking to him and mentioned that you were here, he was as shocked as I initially was. Apparently, Henry was just at his restaurant, still talking about you as if you two were together.” He delivers the news carefully.
“That bastard.”
James almost spits his wine out, a laugh just at the tip of his tongue.
“Well, to clear the air, we’re not together, we’re never getting back together, and I thought moving to another continent would clearly communicate that message, but I guess I’ll just stay here until he can get it through that thick skull of his.” I take a breath, then chug the remaining contents of my wine.
He wordlessly reaches over to fill it for the third time.
“So, now that the air is cleared, can you quit giving me the silent treatment every day until we get to the kitchens?”
“I think I can manage that,” he says, filling up his own glass. “But no promises on holding back the criticism. You tend to improvise. It kind of drives me nuts.”
