Me: I start working with Satan’s twin next Friday.
Minka: We should celebrate. You can come over and make me some mangonadas. We can hit delete on your OF profile together.
I smile despite the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
In a fit of desperation, I created an OnlyFans page a few weeks ago. I was seriously considering stripping for strangers on webcam if I didn’t get a job. Not that there’s anything wrong with stripping or sex work, but I’ve never been particularly comfortable with the shape my body.
The fit-spiration and thin-spiration movements never appealed to me. I love butter and sugar too much. In fact, butter and sugar are how I met Minka.
Minka’s day job is human resources manager at the first restaurant group I worked for after graduating from Le Cordon Bleu. Blue Ribbon Foods owns a bunch of local fast-food restaurants and low-brow dine-in establishments. I worked as a line cook for one of their dine-in Tex-Mex restaurants. My half-Mexican father cringed at the food they served, but it wasn’t bad for my first job out of college.
One day, I brought in homemade polvorones—Mexican style sugar cookies—for the staff. I was immediately sent to Minka’s office to be reprimanded for bringing outside food into the restaurant. But Minka’s assurance that she wasn’t actually going to write me up endeared her to me. And my insistence that she take the forbidden cookies home to her family won me an invitation to happy hour with her and some coworkers. We’d been best friends ever since.
And we still referred to all sugar cookies as forbidden.
Me: 8pm Saturday?
Minka: I’ll pick you up. Pack your jammies.
In the six days since I accepted the hostess position at Forked, construction of the dining room and bar has been completed. Blue masking tape Xs dot the taupe walls, where paint touchups are needed. Potted plants are strewn about the room, waiting to be placed in the boxy, modern planters near the windows and behind the reception desk. Stacks of liquor cases behind the bar sit ready to be unpacked, the bottles to be arranged on floating wooden shelves.
Ollie waves at me from behind the bar, then resumes chatting with a bearded, tattooed fellow who appears to be unpacking a box of shot glasses. They’re both wearing the same black T-shirt and dark jeans as I am.
Having never worked in the front of the house, I’m used to wearing a chef’s coat over whatever outfit I grabbed that morning. The fact our uniforms don’t really look like uniforms only makes wearing the same jeans and T-shirt as everyone else more awkward. Though I know it isn’t, the outfit feels personal; like a subtle reminder of my loss of autonomy.
Not to mention, the jeans fit too loosely on my waist while also being way too tight on my ass and hips. The seam keeps riding up my butt-crack. Whoever designed them did not take into consideration those of us with juicy booties.
“Hey!” Ollie says, pulling me in for a quick hug. “Alice, this is Sandro,” she says, turning to the attractive, bearded gentleman. “He’s one of our bartenders.”
Sandro and I shake hands. “Nice to meet you, Alice,” he says in a thick Italian accent, which only makes him more attractive.
“The pleasure’s all mine,” I reply, then silently curse myself for sounding creepy.
Ollie appears to be holding back laughter as she nods toward the double doors behind her. “The waitstaff are dying to meet you.”
Her words make my body tense as I anticipate my coworkers’ wild-eyed stares and whispered musings about my sanity; all speculation based on lies told by Edward. But as we push through the doors into the pastry kitchen, I find four people absorbed in a discussion about whether they should use tempered chocolate shavings or cacao powder as a garnish.
They pay us absolutely no attention as we pass through, but I can’t help but notice the chef standing in the center of the group: Judith Benson.
Judith—or Mrs. Benson, as I knew her before today—taught a culinary course at Monroe College, the state college I attended before transferring to Le Cordon Bleu. She instilled in me a true appreciation of chocolate work, from the history of cacao beans to the artistry of confectionery. She attended pastry school in France and America, and studied chocolate in Mexico, becoming the associate dean of the Culinary Institute of America after she left Monroe College.
Most pastry chefs probably don’t make half as much as a dean of students. Ethan must have offered her a lot of money to get her to leave her position at CIA. I’m beginning to understand the secret behind his success.
I consider approaching Judith, but Ollie clears her throat as she holds the door to the main kitchen open. I follow right behind her, feeling disappointed at not being able to connect with one of my favorite professors, but also relieved I’ll have something to look forward to after facing the gauntlet beyond the double doors.
I straighten my back as we pass the kitchen line on our left—the place where servers will pick up food after the plate has been finished by the expeditor. Beyond that is the fry station with three deep-fryers. A stainless steel prep station in the center of the room spans the length of the enormous space. On the other side of the prep table, a group of between fifteen and twenty people are crowded around Ethan as he speaks to them while standing in front of a large wood-fire brick oven in the back corner of the kitchen.
Ollie and I have only taken a few steps inside when a breeze tickles the back of my neck as the double doors behind us fly open. I turn around to see Judith rushing in with a delighted expression on her face.
“Alice?” she asks, her mocha-brown skin glowing with excitement. “I thought that was you.”
“Mrs. Benson,” I reply, closing the distance between us and holding out my hand for a shake.
She glances at my hand then pulls me in for a hug. “You can call me Judy.” She steps back and assesses me for a moment. “You look great. How have you been?”
My composure falters as I realize she hasn’t heard the rumors about what happened between Edward and me.
Quickly slapping a smile back on my face, I blurt out, “Great! I’m doing really…well!”
She looks puzzled by my delivery, but she seems to decide she shouldn’t pry. “Are you working here?” she asks, a proud glint in her eyes. “I always knew you’d be a great chef.”
Her words are like a butcher knife in the chest. “Actually, I’m…I’m a hostess. Just…kind of rebooting after a spat of unemployment.”
The pride in her eyes dims to concern. “I’m sorry to hear that. But if you have to start at the so-called bottom anywhere, this is really the best place to do it.”
I don’t understand what she means by this, but I nod in agreement to prevent myself from spilling any more embarrassing news about myself. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too, dear. Maybe we can catch up later over a coffee, or your favorite opera cake, huh?”
My insides warm at the thought of someone I admire so greatly remembering such a small detail about me. “I’d love that.”
I feel light as air as I watch Judy head back to the pastry kitchen. I can do this. I can start all over again and still be the chef—or pastry chef—I imagine in my dreams.