What Love Tastes Like

by Zuri Day

  “He’s probably married, anyway, or at the very least has some lady living with him. A man like that isn’t sitting at home twiddling his thumbs every night.”

  “You don’t know what a man like that is doing. The only way you’re going to find out is to get in touch with him. It’s one simple phone call about a job offer. He has the restaurant and you’re looking for work. What do you have to lose, Tiffany?”

  Tiffany didn’t answer, but rather continued eating. She knew that with a man like Nick…she could lose a lot.

  13

  Two weeks and ten restaurants later, Tiffany walked into the lobby of Le Sol. Instead of e-mailing her résumé to Nick, she’d decided to call the number on the ad she’d seen in the Sunday edition of the LA Times. She’d talked with human resources, e-mailed her résumé, and gotten a call back from the chef’s assistant. If she got the job as sous chef, it would be on her own merit, not because of anything Nick did for her. She already owed him twenty-five hundred dollars for the hotel suite. She didn’t want to owe him anything else.

  By the time Tiffany finished the interview with Chef Wang, she was praying she’d get the job. What he had in mind for the menu was exactly the type of quality and variety of cuisine Tiffany wanted to work with. She was sure that Nick had had a say in the menu selections, which boasted pasta and Italian breads made on the premises and a healthy selection of seafood dishes, including scallops used both as appetizers and for a couple of main-course dishes. She’d toured the state-of-the-art kitchen furnished with professional kitchen supplier Citisco classics: dual-flame stoves, double-deck ovens, prep tables, warming units, food wells, and every other industry-strength appliance imaginable. The pasta machine was exactly like the one she’d trained on in Rome. The kitchen was stunning, a cook’s dream.

  “Do you think you could handle the pressure of a fast-paced environment?” Chef asked. “The owners plan for this to be an award-winning establishment, the draw of the property, besides the views of the rooms facing the ocean. We’ll probably be full most nights, and in addition, be responsible for catering private parties and meetings that take place here in the hotel. You’re short on experience but long on enthusiasm. Plus, you’ve worked with Emilio Riatoli which, frankly, is the reason we’re thinking to hire you.”

  Tiffany turned to the chef and looked him straight in the eye. “I want this job more than anything I’ve ever wanted, and I’ll work my heart out for you. I’ll work long hours, weekends, and holidays. I’ll help with the catering. I’ll do it all! This job would be everything I could ever dream of, and I can tell just by talking with you that just like with Chef Riatoli, I would be working with a master.” Tiffany didn’t quite believe this last statement but was hoping that in this case, flattery would get her everywhere.

  “If we do decide to hire you, when could you start?”

  “The same day you call me.”

  Chef Wang laughed. “Well, in that case, stay by the phone.”

  Tiffany was beaming as she left the offices by the kitchen. She was almost positive she’d be getting a phone call and was already dreaming about perfecting a scallop creation to hopefully become her signature dish. Chef Riatoli’s scallop and asparagus masterpiece was definitely the inspiration for her love of this particular seafood, and in time, after she’d proven herself, she hoped to add a piece of her imagination to the menu at Taste, the name Chef Wang said one of the owners had chosen for the restaurant inside Le Sol. Probably Nick, Tiffany thought, which was one of the reasons she tried not to like it. But she couldn’t help it. The name was perfect for this eating establishment—from the décor to the menu. Nick was the last person Tiffany wanted to think about, so she pulled out her BlackBerry and began typing in the ingredients she’d need from the store, to experiment with various scallop recipes. Chef Wang had gotten her excited. She was ready to cook!

  Tiffany hurried down the hallway, quickly crossed the lobby, and was almost to the revolving doors when she heard it. The voice she’d know anywhere. Firm and commanding, much like its owner. Tiffany stopped in her tracks, her thoughts quickly vacillating between running away and running into his arms. But since this was the owner of the establishment where she longed to work, there was only one choice.

  Tiffany turned around. It took everything she could do to place a casual smile on her face. Nick was looking finer than she remembered, dressed in fitted black dress pants paired with a stark white shirt. He wore no tie, and the first couple buttons of the shirt were undone. She knew what that chest felt like, but Tiffany reined in her thoughts before they could continue. It wasn’t time to think about that night, about how it felt with his arms around her. That incident was in her past and Tiffany was focused solely on her future. She waited patiently for Nick to cross the room with his sure, languid swagger. Inside, she was a bundle of nerves.

  A smile lit up Nick’s face when he finally reached her side. “Hello, Tiffany,” he said softly, his voice belying the formalness of his businesslike handshake. “Were you going to come into my establishment and not say hello?”

  14

  Tiffany hid her disappointment at this formal greeting, even as the moment brought clarity to their polar-opposite positions. Nick was part owner of a luxury hotel and probably other establishments. She, on the other hand, was an out-of-work ex-intern seeking a job as a cook. What did I expect? His tongue down my throat in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of his lobby?

  Nick had acted business-like and professional, just the way Tiffany had told Joy she wanted their interactions to be. Yet even as she thought this, an image, one of Nick’s head between her legs, popped into her mind. She willed the picture away, straightened her shoulders and held out her hand, hiding desire and nervousness behind dark sunglasses. “Hello, Mr. Rollins.”

  Nick’s brows rose slightly at the use of his last name. “I would think my, um, late night dessert at the penthouse in Rome put us on a first-name basis, don’t you think?”

  Nick’s reference to the mental image she’d just erased almost caused her to shudder, but Tiffany remained as still as stone. Now was not the time for daydreams, fairy tales and lost control. You’re an out-of-work cook with bills and a mortgage, she reminded herself. This man is your potential employer. Keep your eye on the prize!

  “We’re no longer in Rome,” she said after a pause. “And as I am very much hoping that you will soon be my employer, I should probably follow the protocol of the others who are working for you.”

  “I see.” Nick’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out whether Tiffany’s obvious discomfort was due to nerves, true dislike, or hidden desire. Sooner or later, he determined, he would definitely find out.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Rollins.” The hotel manager stopped several feet from where Tiffany and Nick were standing.

  “Yes?” Nick answered him, but kept his eyes on Tiffany.

  “You have a phone call. It’s Mr. Price.”

  Nick turned to the manager. “I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Tiffany, his voice strictly business even as his eyes darkened when quickly scanning her body from head to toe. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Tiffany had barely steered her Prius out of the hotel parking lot when her phone rang. She figured it was Joy, calling for a play-by-play. She clipped on her headset and clicked the Talk button without checking the ID.

  “Yes, he’s still as fine as he was in Rome,” she said by way of greeting.

  “I thought you went to Italy to work. Who’s still as fine as he was in Rome?”

  Damn! “Oh…Mom.”

  “Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic,” her mother answered sarcastically. “Obviously you were expecting someone else. Now back to my question. Who’s still as fine as he was in Rome?”

  Tiffany barely suppressed a groan. The last person she wanted to be discussing either her past lust liaison or her future employment with was her mother. Her mind raced for a deft way to put the proverbial cat—that was almost out of the bag�
��back inside. “Oh, just somebody I had dinner with, a casual acquaintance. How’s business? Did you get the airport contract?”

  Normally any question about Janice Matthews’s technology firm could send her into a nonstop spiel about the center of her world…her business. Now, however, was not one of those times.

  “My business is fine. Now back to yours. Who’s this casual acquaintance you met in Rome? Your comment didn’t sound all that casual to me.”

  Tiffany had never found it easy to lie to her mother. She figured she would tell as little of the truth as possible and hoped it would satisfy her mother’s curiosity. “Okay, Mom, you got me. Actually, he’s not a casual acquaintance, he’s the man who might be my boss.”

  “Tiffany, now, I know I raised you better than that. Office liaisons are the easiest way to throw a career off track, get you booted out of the workplace, and have you landing flat on your rump, pun intended. But then again, if this is another one of those kitchen jobs, that might not be such a bad idea.”

  “Look, Mom, I don’t want to argue about my career choice today.”

  “Neither do I. I just wish you’d change it.”

  “I can’t talk right now, all right?”

  “Wait, Tiffany. There’s a reason why I called. Your father is going to be in town this weekend. He asked about you. I gave him your new number. It’s time you two talked.”

  Tiffany was stunned into silence. She hadn’t talked to her father in over a year, hadn’t seen him in almost five.

  “I hope you’re not angry at me for giving him your number. But no matter the differences you two have had in the past, he’s still your father, Tiffany. Tiffany, are you there?”

  “Yes, Mom. I’m here. What’s the business that’s bringing him to town?” Tiffany asked the question because she knew he wasn’t coming just to see her.

  “Some new partnership he’s checking out. I don’t know the details. Would you like his number? Just in case, you know, he gets busy? You know how single-minded he can be when he’s working on a deal.”

  “Yes, Mom, I know all too well. But if he’s too busy to call his only child, especially when we’re in the same city? Then he’s too busy.”

  Janice sighed at the sarcasm she heard in Tiffany’s voice, even as she understood it. She couldn’t blame her daughter for feeling resentful, and she couldn’t deny that her daughter was right. Her father had always put business first—before his child and his marriage. She’d probably shared too much of the bitterness she felt toward him with her daughter, but at the time, she’d been too angry and hurt to care. That the divorce was acrimonious was an understatement, and for years after it was over, Janice tried to wipe every trace of Keith Bronson from their lives. That’s why when she’d taken back her maiden name, she’d changed Tiffany’s last name also—from Bronson to Matthews. She’d justified it at the time, saying it would be easier for her, her daughter, and the grandmother who was helping to raise her to have the same last name. Later she regretted it, and when Tiffany was sixteen, Janice asked if she wanted to have her father’s last name again. But by that time, Janice’s bitterness had become Tiffany’s. She said no.

  “Well,” Janice concluded, “let me give you his number, honey, just in case.”

  “No, Mom, if Dad and I talk, it will be because he calls me.”

  An hour later, Tiffany pulled up to a familiar curb in the older, yet well kept neighborhood of Los Angeles known as View Park. The row of medium-sized, stucco-covered houses stood behind freshly mowed lawns and newly trimmed bushes. A profusion of color burst forth from bird of paradise plants that lined the walkway leading up to the bright red front door. As Tiffany approached the porch, a giddy lightness replaced the wisps of heaviness that still coiled around her heart following the conversation with her mother. The mood had lifted somewhat as she walked the aisles of her favorite market, gathering up items for the dinner she planned to cook. But it was only now, as she rang the doorbell shaped like a flower, that a smile flittered across her face.

  “Tiffany!”

  “Hey, Grand!”

  Tiffany stepped into the cozy foyer and hugged Gladys Matthews, her favorite person in the world. It was at the elbow of Gladys, her maternal grandmother, that she had not only developed a love for great food, but a love for preparing it as well. While both her parents had adamantly opposed her decision to become a chef, one of the few things on which they agreed before, during, or since their ten-year marriage, Gladys had encouraged her to follow her dreams. Whenever Tiffany was at her grandmother’s house, the world righted itself and everything was possible. If anybody could help her make sense of what was going on in her life, it would be the woman Tiffany simply called “Grand.”

  “Come on in the kitchen,” Grand said, noticing the bags Tiffany carried. “What have you got here?”

  “Dinner,” Tiffany replied. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Child, a little bird must have tweeted in your ear. I was just thinking about how I sure didn’t feel like cooking tonight. And here you are.”

  Tiffany felt the tension begin to leave her body as soon as she stepped into Grand’s kitchen. The familiar smells of the onions, peppers, and garlic that were hanging in a vegetable basket by the window, as usual, blended perfectly with the warm color of the kitchen walls and the copper pots that hung from a rack near the ceiling. Tiffany had helped Grand pick out the mellow yellow wall color almost ten years ago, and had chosen the bold, bright fabric depicting every kind of vegetable imaginable from which Grand had sewn curtains for the side and back windows. A well-worn teapot held its usual spot on the back burner. Grand was always ready to make peppermint tea. It was her favorite, which might explain why it was Tiffany’s favorite as well.

  “Well, it sure is good to see you,” Grand said as she bustled around the kitchen to prepare the ladies’ favorite brew. “I can’t wait to hear all about your trip to Rome, and especially about the fella who has you wanting to cook up a storm.”

  “Grand! Who said anything about a ‘fella’? I’m here because I wanted to cook for you, and so you can help me perfect my would-be scallop masterpiece.”

  “That may be so,” Grand said as she walked to the other side of the island, which contained a massive cutting board. She picked out an appropriate knife from the butcher block and joined Tiffany in dicing vegetables. “But you’ve got a slew of food to cut on this here table, enough to supply a small soup kitchen. You got that habit honestly. I used to do the same thing when your grandfather was trying to court me and got on my last nerve in the process. I’d retreat to the kitchen and get to slicing and dicing. Better those vegetables than his neck! Now, tell me about the man who’s got you practicing your cutting skills.”

  “His name is Nick,” Tiffany said with a sigh. “But it’s not how you think, Grand. We’re friends, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh,” Grand said knowingly. “And Mona Lisa was a man.”

  15

  To say she had experienced first-day jitters at Taste was an understatement. Less than two hours into her new job, Tiffany had broken a nail, cut her finger, and shattered a glass mixing bowl. She wished she could have blamed her clumsiness on Chef’s harshly barked orders. But Chef Riatoli had been a taskmaster as well, and possibly because she’d worked as a line cook in a super-busy restaurant while earning her culinary degree—and not buckled under that insane pressure—she’d blossomed under his heavy hand. Unfortunately it hadn’t been the man barking orders in the kitchen who had Tiffany all discombobulated; it was the man who occupied the largest of the executive offices on the second floor.

  While she tried to convince herself otherwise, Tiffany knew it was because of Nick that she’d gotten the job. Why else would she have gotten a call the day after her interview, before the chef would have had time to check her references and review her school transcript? She even wondered if it was her imagination that the chef seemed a bit cold and aloof toward her. Often, chefs were temperamental at best, but the
last thing one would want was to be told who to hire in his or her kitchen. Because Tiffany felt this might be the case was all the more reason she determined to be the best sous chef in LA.

  Fortunately for her, the fast pace in the kitchen had made her first week on the job fly by. She’d been too busy to think, for which she was grateful. Because if she’d given herself time to do so, then she’d have to give in to the hurt and disappointment she’d experienced yet again when her father had come and gone without calling her. Then she’d have to think about how angry she was at herself for being hurt and disappointed. She knew better. Keith Bronson was simply being true to form.

  Another blessing: in the two weeks that had gone by since she’d started at Taste, she’d only seen Nick once. Considering how her kitty meowed at the very thought of him, this single sighting was a good thing. Having seen his picture on the Internet, Joy thought Tiffany was crazy not to date him. But Tiffany knew that if she saw him after dark, tackled him in the parking lot, and demanded he sex her real good in the backseat of his car—which was what she wanted to do—he’d think she was crazy, too.

  Now, there were only two weeks until September, and the hotel’s grand opening. Besides learning the way Chef liked his vegetables cut, pasta formed, and sauces prepared, Tiffany also had to familiarize herself with a new kitchen and cooking devices and get back into the groove of working in a fast-paced environment. The hotel had been accepting reservations via e-mail for over a month, and some of Nick’s well-placed connections, along with an A-list Hollywood premiere Chef Wang had catered, had created a buzz about the restaurant even before its doors opened. It was the anticipation of this onslaught, combined with Chef Wang’s Type-A, perfectionist personality, that kept everyone frenzied, frazzled, and moving at a furious pace.