by Cocktails
‘So, a party, tomorrow. Savannah, whatever you want to cook. And bring that boyfriend of yours.’
‘Rob?’ I squeaked, shocked.
‘No,’ she huffed, ‘the new one. You know, the American bartender who thinks he’s Cary Grant.’
‘Humphrey Bogart,’ I said.
She frowned, ‘Why would he want to be Humphrey Bogart when he could be Cary Grant?’
‘No,’ I huffed, ‘you called him Humphrey Bogart last time.’
‘And he’s clearly more of a young Marlon Brando,’ Charlotte added. ‘Hopefully he ages better.’
‘Um, I’m not sure he’s… we’re not… we haven’t…’ I struggled to find the words.
Taya grinned. ‘Hey, Savvy, Bel says to bring that guy you’re casually seeing. That better?’
I nodded, sighing. ‘Yes, much better.’
‘Good! So, can we go get lunch now? I need another glass of Champagne after all that.’ Bel stood up abruptly, leading the way, not giving us any time to question. And I had bigger things to worry about. I suddenly had to cook for a big bunch of people, and had 24 hours to be as impressive as hell.
* * *
I wasn’t as stressed as I should have been about the party. I was focused, determined to impress without being too poncey. I wanted the food to be flavoursome, simple and high quality. I wanted someone to pop something in their mouth without thinking about it, and then stop and mouth ‘Wow’. That was the goal. I called Milo.
‘Are you free tonight? My boss has decided I can cook for a whole bunch of her friends and staff for a party. She’s invited you too.’
‘Me! I’m honoured.’ His voice was a slow drawl. ‘I’m on an early shift – I’ll stop by.’
‘Great!’
‘Hope she’s paying you for cooking? Everyone seems to want to make the most of your skills now.’
I didn’t know – huh, didn’t even think about it. ‘I assume so. I’ll check. But I’m excited to cook what I like. Ricardo’s going to be my sous-chef! Can you imagine?’
‘I absolutely can! Today has been so crap, I’m looking forward to seeing you.’ His voice was tired and low.
‘What’s up?’
‘Jamie got fired today.’
‘The one you said you hated because he never shared his tips? And weren’t you sure he was taking from the till? Isn’t it a good thing he got fired?’ I asked.
I could almost hear him shrug. ‘Yeah, I think the guy’s an asshat, but you shoulda seen him pleading about how much he needed the job, that his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed the money. The guy treated me like crap, but it was sad. And we were understaffed until they could send someone over from one of the other restaurants.’
‘Damn, that is sad,’ I sighed, remembering that I hadn’t particularly liked Jamie. I’d asked him which types of gin they had and he’d replied with an eye roll and, ‘Every kind. This is Soraya, madam.‘ I tried to remember if I’d mentioned that to Alba. I didn’t think so.
‘Anyway, any word on which cooking school in which country wants you?’ His voice was hopeful, overly cheery, but masking something else. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
‘Not yet. Finally decided which country you’re going to open your bar in?’
‘Not yet,’ Milo said lightly.
‘Well, I guess the adventure continues then.’
‘It does.’ I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘See you at eight.’
It was nearing its end, obviously, this thing we were building. We were going to move in opposite directions, and we were no more than a moment for each other, a boost towards our individual destinies. And that was sad, but he was clear about it. It didn’t matter that my heart quickened when his lip quirked, or that his arms were warm and strong, or that he was really, really good at saying the right thing. That stuff was just beginning stuff. It didn’t mean anything, really. I had to focus on my dreams; I had already spent years sacrificing who I was for a guy. I couldn’t do that again.
And yet, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I didn’t have much time to think after that, because I needed to shop and cook. Ricardo took me to the market, and helped me work out the costings, the orders and how much it took to make things. He overestimated, and when I tried to pull him back to the budget, he showed me his calculations. They were precise and delicate, ensuring just the right amount of everything. It was almost like he could weigh it all out in his head, see how it would reduce or how much waste there would be.
‘Shit, I have so much to learn,’ I muttered, chucking the bags on the kitchen counters.
‘Of course you do, Africa, but that’s okay. That’s the point. You’re at the beginning of the journey. You can be a great cook, you can have a concept of flavour, texture, temperature. You can make it look beautiful and tell a story with your food, but there’s basic maths too. You wanna cook for a hundred people, you’ve got to do your maths. No point 3 people saying you’re a great storyteller and 97 saying you’re a moron who can’t count.’
‘Very true,’ I said, ‘so how do I fix that?’
‘You don’t panic, and you work in a kitchen for more than five minutes on a Friday night. You’ve got to keep your cool. And that’s it. The rest is art.’
I rolled my eyes a little, but he was right.
We spent the afternoon working companionably, side by side. I said what I wanted to do, and Ricardo talked me through it, shooting a hundred quick-fire questions at me.
‘How’s it cooked?’
‘Pan fried.’
‘Are you serving it straight away then?’
‘Sure.’
‘What about the garnish, the dressing? How many people you need in your kitchen?’
‘I… I… I don’t know!’
Ricardo raised an eyebrow at me. ‘See, things to think about, kid.’
I felt my shoulders drop, like I was physically deflating. I smiled at Ricardo and shook my head. ‘I’m not ready for any of this, am I?’
He grinned at me and patted my shoulder. ‘The only thing you need to know is that you’re a newbie. A lot of it comes with experience. If you’ve got the passion and the talent, but you’re green, there’s still work to do, Africa. That’s the only lesson I had to teach you. Let’s plan it out – I’ll show you.’
* * *
The day went quickly and I loved it. I was exalted, energized and even though I had so much to learn, I wanted to learn it. I wanted to be better, or more than that, I wanted to be the best. I didn’t just want Milo to look at me in awe, I wanted all of them to. I wanted to taste things and know that everyone wasn’t just being polite. And secretly, there was a fear that it was getting close to the deadline for a lot of those applications, and I’d heard nothing back. A bunch of friends telling me I was good at cooking was not as loud as the silence from all of the people who knew what they were talking about.
So maybe this would be my last hurrah. Maybe I would just stay here, train under Ricardo for a year or so. Maybe it was ridiculous of me to apply to cookery school when I’d been a bartender for years. I’d worked in an office. I’d worked in factories, been a barista and spent a horrific seven days as a tour guide at London Zoo before I got sad about how small the space for the giraffes was and got fired because I couldn’t stop referring to the zebras as ‘stripy ponies’. I had spent way too much time without thinking about the big goal, that one thing that I might be excellent at. I couldn’t just expect to waltz into cookery school without experience. Everyone else there would be the best of the best; they would have endless experience, stories to tell, things they’d learnt, ways they’d failed and succeeded. I didn’t have any of that.
The idea of staying didn’t seem so bad, though, really. Sure, it felt dramatic and powerful to go off to some exciting city, where I didn’t know anyone, where I could be a completely new Savvy, but already I was a new Savvy. I was Savvy with the bright pink tips of her hair, who cooked food and slept with a man who made her l
augh. I had friends who were burlesque goddesses, shimmying on stage until the room was full of nothing but glitter and slack jaws. I could be this person without cookery school. Without Milo.
And yet, I worked hard all evening, obsessed with perfection, chasing it down the rabbit hole, tasting and fixing and tasting and adapting, taking Ricardo’s advice until he told me to calm the hell down and it wasn’t getting any better than it already was.
We presented the food beautifully around the room, piled up, plated perfectly, ready for people to walk by and experience. The other items were sent out as they were made, and Ricardo and I snuck out to watch as people ate. I leaned my head against the edge of the door, biting my lip in anticipation.
‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘please.’
Their faces lit up, they stopped their conversations. They pointed at what they were eating, and encouraged each other to try things. A ‘wow’ moment. Bel delicately nibbled on a mini roasted red pepper and goat’s cheese tartlet, closing her eyes briefly as she chewed. She opened them and looked straight at me, blew a kiss and winked.
‘Good job, darling,’ she mouthed. Then she thumbed behind her: ‘Your totty is here.’
I skipped from the kitchen, throwing my apron at Ricardo as I headed straight to Milo, jumping into his arms and kissing him.
‘Did you try the cashew noodle cups?’
He laughed at me, holding me close. ‘Um, hello, hi and no, not yet.’
‘Try them!’ I yelped. ‘Let me fix you a plate!’
‘I…’ His voice trailed off as I shook my head. ‘… am excited to eat food.’
‘Good answer!’ I grinned, grabbing Jacques as he walked past. ‘Jacques! This is Milo!’
Jacques looked him up and down, this time close up instead of across a room. He raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. ‘Nice to meet you, Milo.’
‘You talk, I’m getting food!’ I yelped, heading back to the kitchen where I’d put items aside. I pushed through the swinging doors with an overwhelming sense of power and pride, energized by what I was achieving. I was Wonder Woman. Queen of Food. I was invincible and everything was going according to my will. That was the way it was. And maybe the three glasses of Prosecco I’d had that evening weren’t hurting.
I grabbed the plate I’d prepared for Milo and sidestepped and shimmied as I moved through the crowds to get to them.
As I approached, I heard Jacques’ loud, dominant voice insist, ‘Well, really, I’m the reason you and Savvy got together. If I hadn’t signed her up to that app, you know…’
I paused, unsure whether to barrel in or wait. I hadn’t even thought about this. Why hadn’t I thought about it?
‘What app?’ Milo’s voice was still relaxed, just curious.
‘Well, she goes to all those fancy Restaurateur Club places, doesn’t she? Tastes the food and gives feedback.’
‘Oh, sure.’
I exhaled. Okay. This was going to be fine.
‘And the staff and service, stuff like that.’
‘The staff?’
Oh, God.
‘Yeah,’ Jacques blathered on, completely unaware that he was ruining everything. ‘If they don’t meet standards, if they’re impolite or break the rules. Stuff like that. My ex used to do it. Saw a bartender pocketing money and got him sacked. I mean, the places Savvy goes are fancier-’
‘-Sacked?’
‘You know, fired? He lost his job. That’s not usual, obviously, but –’
Milo cleared his throat, and I couldn’t see his face, just the stiff set of his shoulders as he moved. ‘Could you excuse me?’
I could hear the tension in his voice as he simply turned on his heel and walked towards the door. I ran after him, shoving the plate into Jacques’ hands and glaring at him.
‘What?’ he yelped.
‘Everything!’ I yelled at him as I turned towards the door.
By the time I’d crossed the room, passing the people who wanted to say hello, those regular patrons or the part-time performers who congratulated me on the food, I was terrified I would have lost him.
I climbed the stairs up to the street, bursting through the door into the fresh night air.
He was just standing there in the shadows, watching the people as they walked down the busy London backstreet, weaving and dodging past each other, like aggressive shoals of fish in a harsh, grey concrete ocean.
I took a breath, unsure where to start.
‘I know it sounds bad, the way Jacques said it, but it’s not a big deal. It’s nothing to do with you.’
His face was stone as he looked at me, those golden eyes completely cold. I had never seen him so lacking in emotion. From the twitch of his lip or the slight quirk of an eyebrow, I was used to seeing something. Some marker of how he felt, because he felt so much, so often.
‘You asked me to break the rules for you. I gave you Persephone Black’s details when no one was meant to know. Should I be waiting to get fired once you feed back to your superiors?’
My jaw dropped. ‘No, of course not, that wasn’t work! That was me asking you a favour.’
‘So there’s a difference?’
‘Of course there’s a difference!’
He paused, setting his jaw, then looking away from me. ‘Jamie getting fired – are you telling me you had nothing to do with that?’
I paused for slightly too long. He noticed.
‘Right, I guess it all makes sense now, doesn’t it? All of this has been about about a bloody app! And a free Restaurateur Club membership. Can’t just write scathing reviews online like everyone else?’ He paced back and forth, switching direction as he growled at himself. ‘God! All that stuff I said, moaning about the clientele and how snobby and stuck up they are!’
‘That wasn’t –’
‘And the stuff I said about the other bartenders! God, this has got to be the most boring honey trap, though, hasn’t it?’ He snorted, looking at me with disgust set into his bottom lip.
‘You don’t honestly think my job was to sleep with a bartender from a fancy restaurant in order to find out if he thought his boss was a dickhead? Are you insane? What kind of fucking pointless job would that be?’
‘Well, you tell me – what kind of fucking pointless job is it?’ He choked out a laugh, and I could see the depths of hurt in his eyes.
‘You can’t honestly believe that I –’
‘Lied to me about being a Restaurateur Club member, about every interaction you’ve had there. That you were there to spy on me and my colleagues? Is Persephone Black even your mom, or was that some story?’
I felt panic and fear building up in my stomach, a sick kind of terror as he looked at me like I was a stranger. Worse than a stranger – a liar.
‘Yes, she’s my mum! This was nothing to do with you. I signed up with this app to review restaurants... I met you. That’s it.’
‘Did they tell you to look out for the Yank who wasn’t good enough? All those months of telling me I wasn’t to the standard they wanted, I wasn’t the right kind of person, I was too casual with the customers, but they couldn’t fire me for not being of their class, for being too friendly… did they ask you to look out for me?’
‘No!’
‘I don’t believe you. I knew this was too easy, I knew it couldn’t be real.’
His words hung in the air briefly, before they were swallowed by the noise of a passing ambulance. I felt myself losing then, like I was falling backwards away from him, arms extended, fingertips grasping for the ledge. No hand reached out for me.
In that moment I could smell the leather of those seats on the tour bus, and as I watched him walk away, I could hear my mother’s voice:
Okay, baby girl, an ordinary life for you.
* * *
There wasn’t much I could do after he left. I went back into the Martini Club and hid out in the kitchens, throwing Jacques a glare as I passed. He knew better than to say anything then, but I knew what he was thinking: If you
hadn’t lied, this wouldn’t have happened. You can’t blame me.
The frustrating thing was that I hadn’t lied, not really. I’d omitted. And okay, yes, maybe I had said something negative about Jamie, but I didn’t use any of the stuff Milo told me. At least, I didn’t think I had.
I couldn’t feel or think anything. I went numb, the way I always did when I needed to deal with things. But it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t hold the numbness close to me in the way I needed. I spent my time scrubbing a pot in the kitchen, desperately scouring until my hands were red and scratched and my lip was bleeding from how many times I’d bitten it to stop crying. I just had to wait. I had to wait, and he’d calm down and let me explain. And it would all be fine. He wouldn’t leave over a misunderstanding. Except… he was leaving anyway. So was I. That was my big, brave plan, wasn’t it? Not to be beholden to yet another man who held my dreams in his hand and could hand me the keys to them when he felt like it. If he felt like it. I was going to push him away, when I was strong enough, why not let it be now? Why not cut my losses, and let him be the one to walk away?
Because it felt like being stabbed. And twisted inside out. And set on fire. Guess I was a drama queen, just like my mother after all.
I stumbled home that night drunk on misery and whisky on an empty stomach. I stopped at the end of the road to vomit into Mrs Henderson’s recycling bin. The old bat thought recycling was something ‘enforced by those pricks in Belgium’ anyway. She deserved it, really. It was karma. Smelly, disgusting karma.
I collapsed through the front door, kicking my shoes off and padding along the hardwood floors. Well, I thought I was padding, but the walls were starting to sway and I reached out my fingertips to graze them, grasping for something solid. I briefly stopped, considering crawling along on my hands and knees as I had so many times before in that house. Those teenage years of rebellion, where I was sure I had nothing else to prove but how many drinks I could down before I stopped thinking about her, and what she’d say and whether she thought about me. That last time, when I ended up in hospital, that was when I’d stopped drinking. Jen’s ashen face as she explained what had happened, when she asked me why I wanted to kill myself for a ghost of a person who didn’t give a crap about me – that was what stopped me.