Just One Taste

by C. J. Birch

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The expression of mild horror on the judge’s face as she swept past Lauren’s row bled panic into her heart. It was ten fifteen on Saturday morning. Earlier they’d all walked in full of equal mixtures of hope, optimism, and dread.

  The first year of the Bake or Die contest was held in a catering kitchen in the west end. Only ten people had competed that year. As word got out and the prize money grew, they’d had to move to larger venues. This year the contest was being held at George Brown’s culinary school, where they had enough cooking stations to accommodate three rounds per event. Lauren was in the first group, which meant she’d started at five a.m., and if she made it to the next round, she’d be back again at five p.m.

  Three hundred participants had entered the competition, but only fifty made it to the next round. After the third round, just fifteen continued, and in the last, there were five.

  This first round was pastry. Lauren was creating a croquembouche, which consisted of dozens of choux pastry puffs arranged in a cone shape and held together with threads of caramel. Their instructions had been to make it boozy, and since Lauren had already prepared to add salted-caramel-wine liquor to the pastry cream filling, she hadn’t had to change her recipe at all.

  As far as directives went, this was one of the simpler ones. One year, contestants had to miniaturize their pastries to fit on the palm of a hand. For those making pies, it had been easy to shrink their confections, but something like croquembouche would be hard to construct properly at that size.

  Besides being difficult, Lauren’s choice would also test her for time. They had only four hours to complete their entry, and every time she’d made it, she’d come in just at four hours, which was dangerous. You wanted extra time on the day of. She couldn’t account for so many things. At home she knew that her oven ran about ten degrees hotter than the dial and that the back right was much cooler than the rest of the oven. Every item in her kitchen had a place, and she was certain where that was—unless Hayley had been in there recently. She could work fast because she knew her space. Here nothing was certain. She’d never used the ovens, and besides the specialty items she’d brought with her, she had no way of knowing where everything was.

  These issues caused stress that Lauren didn’t need when she was already tight on time. She would have to rely on her years in the service industry, keep her cool under pressure, and hope she’d practiced enough. That was all she could do. But as she watched, the guy next to her making a mille-feuille had not adopted this policy. Never in a million years would she have decided to make a dish where so much relied on the thickness and flakiness of her pastry in an oven she was unfamiliar with.

  He pulled out the second sheet of puff pastry, only to see that the pastry hadn’t risen. It was as if he’d baked dark shortbread, which was no good. After all, mille-feuille literally meant, thousands of sheets. If you didn’t have those flakes, there was no point. The dish was ruined. Lauren knew it, the man next to her knew it, and the judge passing by at that moment knew it as well.

  Lauren returned her focus to her own station and continued to fill her pastry puffs with her crème patissiere. She still had to construct the damn thing and string it with tiny caramel ribbon.

  The judge passed by Lauren with no expression, which Lauren took as a good sign. The last thing she wanted to see on the judge’s face was pity. It was worse than disgust.

  As the minutes ticked by, Lauren filled her workstation with tiny puff balls. From afar, she imagined she looked focused on her task, but inside, nothing could be further from the truth. After making a few puff balls, an image would flash in her mind. Hayley’s lips wrapped around Lauren’s finger licking off a sample of crème patissiere. The crumpled, sleepy smile Hayley gave her this morning when she slipped out of bed at four a.m. Turquoise eyes staring down at her with such love and lust. They all made her feel something different.

  It was that night in Kensington Market sharing the Tourtieres when she knew she’d fallen in love with Hayley. The feeling had been subtle and fast and amazing, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about her. Hayley was a distraction but also the reason she was even here. For the first time in her life she felt like she had someone backing her, someone who believed she could do anything. Growing up, her mom had always made it clear that Lauren’s idea of what she wanted to do with her life was frivolous. Hayley didn’t make her dreams feel frivolous. It was the opposite, in fact. She made Lauren feel relevant, like she was doing what she needed to do, and that was everything to Lauren.

  Before entering the building this morning, Lauren had decided that, even if she didn’t win this weekend, it didn’t matter. She would take steps to make her dreams a reality. No more hiding or waiting for life to happen to her. She intended to make life happen for her. It might have started with Pete quitting, but Hayley had shown her that you needed to take charge of your life, and that’s what Lauren planned to do.

  * * *

  Hayley’s dishcloth landed short of the sink and slipped onto the ground. “Shit.” She trudged over and swiped it off the floor and chucked it in the bucket of bleach next to the sink. She’d been working since the morning shift. She’d rather be watching Lauren kick some ass, but Ramiro needed her. Theo was sick, and Ezra hadn’t wanted to take her shift.

  They’d been in a lull since noon, which was unusual for a Saturday, but then, so was the blizzard raging outside. Vic and Lily were at a booth folding cutlery into napkins.

  “So, Pollyanna, have you thought about what you’re going to do after this?” Ramiro propped his bulk against the counter, tucking his hands into his apron pockets.

  “I’m going to try to get over to George Brown to see the second half of the contest today.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t mean today. I meant, what are you going to do when you leave here?”

  “Greta’s? Why would I want to leave? I love working here.” It was true. She hadn’t thought she’d like cooking as much as she did, but once she’d gotten over the initial fears and picked up the lingo, she really did love it—the pace, the camaraderie, the skill, even the hours. She loved everything about being a line cook, but most of all because she was good at it.

  “The money’s shit, the hours are horrible, and there’s absolutely no glory in it.” He held up his hands to stop her from talking. “Hayley, you’re great at this, so I’m not saying you have to stop cooking. But you could be really something if you put your mind to it.” He shook his head, almost to himself. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this.” Ramiro pulled a business card out of his apron. “I love having you around, but I know talent when I see it, and so does my friend Rob.” He handed her the card. “He’s always looking for people he can train from scratch. Even better if you haven’t been ruined by culinary school. You’d be starting from the bottom, even lower than here, but you’d be learning from the best. A couple years with Rob, and you could go anywhere.”

  Hayley took the card. She’d never seen Ramiro so serious. He’d even used her name, which she couldn’t remember him ever doing, not since her job interview. “You want to get rid of me?”

  “Are you kidding me? Fuck, no. I want a million of you working here. But it’s unfair to you. You’ve been here what? Two months? And already you’re better than Theo and Ezra combined. You need to think about the future.”

  “Have you told Lauren about this?”

  “Lauren would have a heart attack if she knew I was encouraging you to leave. She loves you.”

  Without meaning to, Hayley blushed. She knew he hadn’t meant it that way, but her mind went there anyway. She ducked her head, reading the card, hoping Ramiro couldn’t see how red her cheeks must be. The card belonged to the executive chef of Brava, one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. She’d never eaten there. Hell, she couldn’t even afford the appetizers. Only millionaires and wannabes could pay twenty-six dollars for five pieces of calamari, though it was probably the best calamari she
would ever taste. This offer tempted her, but it would mean leaving Greta’s, which had come to mean safety for her. And she couldn’t do that to Lauren.

  Every day for the past two weeks Hayley had woken up in the warmth of Lauren, and that heat followed her all day, mostly because she got to see Lauren throughout the day. As she plated, through the service window, as Lauren shouted her orders, grabbed plates. The glimpses she got were like appetizers, a peek at what was to come later, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to give that up yet. Not until she could be sure Lauren felt the same way she did about them.

  They’d been hiding it from everyone, which made Hayley insecure about what they were. She hadn’t wanted to bring it up so close to the contest, in case it caused Lauren stress, which she didn’t need at that moment.

  Hayley’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up. It was hard to tell what the message said with all the exclamation marks. “Lauren made it to the next round,” Hayley shouted so Vic and Lily could hear.

  “Of course she did. There’s another woman wasting her talent here.” Ramiro slapped a hand against the counter and waved Hayley off. “Go. I’ve got this. Lauren will need the support for the next round. Now the real challenge begins.”

  Hayley grinned. Taking off her apron and beanie, she dashed out of the diner before realizing she’d forgotten her jacket.

  * * *

  “Lucky me.”

  Lauren froze. She’d been arranging several moulds next to her station for the next round, but the deep baritone of Hipster Dan stopped her cold.

  “I get to bake next to the most beautiful woman in this competition.”

  Lauren stood and faced Dan.

  “Hope I don’t get distracted.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  “You grease some palms to get this station? Unfortunately, you don’t have my notebook to steal your ideas from, so you figure watching how it’s done will help?”

  “Says the waitress.”

  “Well, this waitress is going to serve you your ass on a platter.”

  Dan slapped his knee in mock amusement. “Hope you don’t count on your humour to bring in the tips.”

  “You know what, Dan? Kiss my fucking ass.”

  “Such language. My goodness. Where’d you pick up that potty mouth? Wouldn’t happen to be from that blonde you came in with the other day?” He wiggled his eyebrows again. “Oh, and look at that. How sweet. She’s come to be your own cheerleading squad.” He pointed to the galley, where Hayley had squeezed in front to watch. Lauren’s mood soared even as Dan was trying to bring her down. It didn’t matter what he said or thought. Hayley was here to cheer her on, and that was the important thing.

  She shrugged and turned away from Dan, dismissing him as she should have done from the start. He was nothing to her, and now she knew it. He didn’t have her skills, never had. All he had was his bravado, which would only get him so far. Lauren turned her attention to her station and the task at hand.

  They had only two hours for this round. The number of contestants had been dramatically reduced, but these were the people to beat. Bake or Die offered no second chances or push-throughs. If you didn’t have it in the first round, you didn’t make it to the second. It didn’t matter why you failed, for this was Bake or Die. If you didn’t have it, you were gone.

  For the chocolate round she’d decided to do a take on the chocolates she’d made for Halloween. Hayley had suggested she tweak the filling, adding cinnamon extract, which worked out perfectly because the directive for this round had been breakfast, so contestants had been tasked with making a box of twelve chocolates, three different kinds, and they had to have a breakfast theme. Lauren had decided to do a brunch theme. The first was an espresso, mocha-flavoured, white-chocolate bite, the next was French toast, and the third was a maple-bacon flavour. With only fifteen minutes left, Lauren was scrambling to add the caramelized bacon bits to the top of her maple-bacon truffle.

  She’d ignored everyone and everything around her for the past two hours, allowing only two quick glances up at Hayley, who was watching with close attention from the galley. She’d done well to ignore Dan beside her. That was until he began tapping her arm.

  “Leave me alone, Dan.”

  “Well then, at least silence the goddamned vibrations on your phone. It’s been going off for the last ten minutes, and that’s all anyone in this row can hear.”

  Lauren groaned and glanced down at her phone sitting on the counter next to her discarded moulds. She had fifteen missed calls from Aaron on her display. “What the hell?” Had something happened to the diner? The phone rang again, and she picked up this time.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I’m not on call, Aaron. I do enjoy a day off here and there.”

  “My bank just informed me that we’re short. Do you know anything about that?” Aaron’s voice was tight and low. She’d worked with him long enough to know he was pissed. Greta was the same way. Where other people might yell, she would get quiet, and that’s when you knew you were in trouble.

  “How much are we short?”

  “A thousand exactly.”

  Realization hit Lauren immediately. Her eyes were drawn to Hayley, standing in the crowd, excitement and expectation on her face. She now knew where Hayley had gotten the money to enter Lauren in the contest. She’d stolen it from the diner.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “What were you thinking, Hayley?”

  “I was only borrowing it. When you won we would’ve paid it back.” Hayley’s face was redder than Lauren had ever seen it, and she wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment at being caught or anger that Lauren might quit the competition.

  Lauren slid her hands down her apron, rubbing off some of the dried chocolate. “That’s all ruined now. I can’t continue like this.”

  “You’re going to let it go to waste? You don’t get the money back if you drop out. You have to compete. You have to win.”

  Lauren paced back and forth. They were in a back room at George Brown. The judges were making their decisions about who would continue to the next round. Lauren had barely managed to finish her chocolates. But she had no idea that, if she did make it to the next round, she would continue. She’d been entered with stolen money. At the same time, Hayley was right. If she walked away now, they’d be out the thousand dollars. Now that she was here, she didn’t want to give up so easily.

  She’d told Aaron she’d look into it and get back to him. That would appease him for about a day, but then he’d want his money, and Lauren didn’t have a thousand dollars to give him. And Hayley certainly didn’t, or else she wouldn’t have stolen in the first place.

  Lauren sat down on a milk crate and let her head fall to her hands. All the fight had drained from her. She wasn’t sure she could continue, knowing what it would cost if she did. But mostly, she wanted out of this argument.

  On the loudspeaker, they were announcing the fifteen who would make it into the third round, which would start tomorrow and focus on savoury pies. Lauren stood and walked to the door to listen. When they called Lauren Hames she walked out and gathered up her things at her station and left before Hayley could catch up. She needed to be alone and think.

  Three hours ago she’d been so sure of how things were going, and now she wasn’t even certain where she wanted to go. She tramped down Adelaide, ignoring the Christmas lights and holiday cheer screaming from every storefront. The blizzard had let up, leaving everything fluffy and white. Lauren couldn’t remember the last time they’d had this much snow before Christmas, and usually that would’ve thrilled her.

  She turned north on Yonge and headed toward Dundas Square, the most Christmas place in the entire city. She didn’t care. Last-minute shoppers streamed by, chatting, laughing.

  Almost on autopilot, Lauren turned right on Queen and found herself going through the roundabout at St. Mike’s. She took the elevator to the eight floor and followed the red line to her dad’s room.

>   He was propped up in bed with an Elizabeth George paperback folded over. Only the side lamp was on, his roommate snoring in the bed beside him. Max set his glasses down and smiled warmly. “Hi, honey. This is a pleasant surprise.” He took a look at her and set his book down on the roll-up table next to his hospital bed. “The competition didn’t go well, I take it.”

  Lauren shook her head, then burst into tears, something she hadn’t done since she’d left Ben. “I made it to round three.”

  Max patted the bed next to him. “That’s great news. What the hell are you crying for?”

  “Hayley stole the money from the till and now I have to win in order to pay Aaron back or I’ll probably be fired because it was me who left Hayley with the money in the first place but who thought she’d steal and now I don’t know if I love her anymore.” It all came out in one blubbering sentence, and by the time she was done, she was sobbing on Max’s shoulder.

  “Okay. Give me a sec. That’s a lot to unpack. Some money was stolen?”

  Bit by bit, Lauren recounted everything that had occurred, ending with the phone call from Aaron and explaining exactly what had happened to that money.

  “And you think you’ve stopped loving her because she made a mistake?”

  “Dad, she stole money. She could go to jail for that.”

  “I doubt they’d put her in jail. But let’s look at why she did it. She wanted to give you a chance to do what you love. It was a nudge to get you off the ledge. What’s so bad about that?”

  “She stole.” The grunt from the next bed signalled how loud Lauren had become in the past minute. She lowered her voice. “She took money that wasn’t hers. It doesn’t matter why she did it.”

  “Honey, you have to stop seeing the world in black-and-white. Not everything fits into a box you can zip up neatly.”