Yes, Chef

by T. Neilson

  He splashed water on his face, smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand, and tried to tuck some of the silvering strands under the darker locks, with no great success. Like a magnet pulled north, he found his mind returning to Luke Ferreya. His hair was still black as a raven’s wing. The lines on his face gave him dignity and gravitas, not the harried, exhausted expression Simon found himself looking at. How the hell had he done it? Luke was a Michelin-starred chef who had, by his own admission, had a breakdown bad enough to make him leave the kitchen, maybe for good. But tonight he had looked rakish and handsome, lean and fit, like an Argentinian soccer player taking a Stateside vacation to visit friends.

  And Luke had come without a plus-one. The fourth chair at the chef’s table had been discreetly whisked away before the party arrived and the table aligned as though a three-chair horseshoe shape of chairs was natural for a table that was supposed to be in full view of the kitchen. He supposed the lack of a fourth diner meant Luke was single. He knew Luke was gay—even before he’d seen Luke in the alley with Andre, he’d known.

  Luke had been not just “out and proud” but “out and hilarious,” racking up ridiculous firsts as they progressed through culinary school—first openly gay man to drop a bottle of champagne and not pop the cork, first openly gay man to be a melon-baller virgin, first openly gay man to shoot milk out his nose in an organic chemistry lecture. So when he hit the media as the First Openly Gay Chef Awarded Two Michelin Stars, Simon had almost done a spit take at his computer screen. Luke had retweeted the headline with the “laugh till you cry” emoji as his only addition.

  Luke had a sense of humor, and he knew who and what he was. He’d been a good friend in culinary school, and Simon liked his company. At forty he was still gorgeous—fit, lean, inky hair and copper skin. And his fashion sense was excellent too. It was like being out of whites had liberated him. His clothes tonight were impeccable, neither too serious nor too casual, and tailored to show off strong legs and an ass that even Simon could hardly stop trying to get a look at.

  All at once, Simon knew what he had to do.

  Tristan.

  Tristan could certainly do worse. In fact, as far as Simon was concerned, Tristan was currently doing way, way worse. And he wouldn’t push them together. Hell, Luke had always been his own man and too proud to take advice of any kind, and Tristan absolutely loathed it when Simon got into his business, even though he always wanted Simon’s help when he needed bailing out. No, he wouldn’t push them together. He’d just sort of… nudge.

  He pulled out his phone and texted Luke. So great to see you! I’m sorry I didn’t get to chat more. Let’s catch up sometime if you’re in town for a bit. PSA—Best bread in town is Sweet Nothings at 109 North Park. Opens at 5 am. Go early. There’s always a line.

  He grinned and sent the text. Then he squared his shoulders and nodded at his reflection in the mirror. The moment of solitude and now some very subtle matchmaking had restored his flagging energy, and the cool water made him feel less overheated and uncomfortable. And he had a plan, which was the only way Simon could stand to live. He’d have a coffee and finish the night’s service. Then he’d get to work on throwing Luke and Tristan into each other’s way.

  God, it would be such a relief to know Tristan was dating a good man, to say nothing of a gorgeous one. He smiled at the mirror. This time next year, Tristan would be thanking him. And Luke? Luke would probably be stepping into the world of food again. Tristan’s love of baking was incredibly infectious, and Luke was incredibly skilled. They’d be such a good team.

  He grinned, tossed the hand towel into the laundry bin, and headed back to his station.

  BY midnight the last of the guests had departed. The dining room stood silent and empty, the linens heaped on the tables, the tables and chairs pushed against the far wall in preparation for the cleaners in the morning. Simon went back to the office to make notes on the night’s service and grab his coat, phone, and keys. Then he passed through the kitchen where the chefs were cleaning their stations or packing away their knives, and Sam was up to his elbows in dishwater.

  “Yeah, but why?” Sam was asking Ginger.

  Ginger, seated on an upturned milk crate and smiling a tired, slightly bemused smile, shrugged. “The citric acid bonds to the caffeine molecules. It sort of… wraps them up.”

  “But don’t you want caffeine?”

  Ginger nodded. “Sure, but caffeine is bitter, so you only want so much.”

  Sam nodded. “Weird,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Simon asked as he shrugged into his coat.

  “Ginger’s coffee cocktail,” Sam answered. Simon glanced at Ginger, and she smiled.

  “Don’t worry. His was alcohol-free.”

  Simon scrolled back in his mind to remember the drink Ginger had been working on last week. “Is this the orange-juice-and-espresso thing?”

  She nodded. Sam noticed that Simon wasn’t making a face, and he grinned a big, cheeky grin. “I know, right? But it’s actually really good. Plus, I think I can hear colors now.”

  Simon glanced at Ginger. “How many did he have?”

  “He said he was tired,” she said instead of answering.

  “Like, all the colors of the rainbow.”

  Simon felt the weight of his exhaustion, the encroachment of middle age, and the early morning that was coming up. Luminara week was always murder, and that year would be no exception.

  “Okay, then,” Simon murmured. “Well, I’m glad it’s you and not me.” He glanced at Sam again and couldn’t help but look at the ring of yellow around the collar of his whites. The kid had a habit of coming in a little scruffy, and, yes, the kitchen was Mark’s domain, but Mark had his mind on Luminara, which was as it should be. But those whites. Jesus. “Sam, what did I tell you about washing your whites?”

  Sam looked down at himself and then looked up again, apparently baffled.

  “Collar. And the pits,” Simon added, pointing. There was a definite greenish tint there. “Don’t come in to this kitchen tomorrow with dirty clothes. It looks gross, and it’s disrespectful to Mark.”

  “Oh, sorry. I, uh….” Sam glanced around. “My dryer’s broken,” he said a little sheepishly. “I’ll wash it tonight but, can I, uh, borrow a new jacket till mine dries?”

  Simon and Ginger shared a tired look. “Throw it in with the hotel laundry,” Simon told him. “Don’t forget to tell them I told you to.”

  Sam nodded. “Sure. Yeah. No problem.”

  “No more of this nonsense with the stains. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Sam agreed.

  Simon clapped him on the shoulder and then started for the door. “Good night, guys.”

  “’Night,” Sam called.

  “Menu prep tomorrow,” Ginger called after him. “Stupid o’clock. Don’t forget!”

  He waved without turning around and stepped out into the humid night air.

  HE could have just gone through the service corridor from the restaurant into the hotel and then up the carpeted flight of stairs to his room on the second floor, but he didn’t. When he decided to move into the hotel, he made himself a promise not to take his work home with him—for some definitions of home. Ever since he started living in the unrenovated, extra-small suite 201, home had been a bed, a bathroom, and a desk for his laptop, though he had amassed a good collection of paperback travel guides. People tended to leave them behind at the hotel, and Simon, who never had the chance to travel, found he enjoyed reading them. He’d scored a walking guide to San Francisco, mentally traversed Italy, France, and Luxembourg, and was partway through a guide to Korea. It wasn’t quite the same as going there, but at least he could do it from the hotel.

  To help detach from work so he could read himself to sleep, Simon took his usual circuitous walk down the sloping, grass-covered hill, toward the lake. To the east, clouds had piled up, hiding the moon. But overhead, stars splashed the sky, and the farther he got from the lights of the hotel, the brig
hter and more silvery the Milky Way became, until it was a ribbon that cut the sky. He paused at a picnic table that overlooked the lake and sat for a while, thinking.

  Luminara in seven days—the event Simon created to honor his parents when his mom handed the torch to him and which she named after the festival in Pisa where she fell in love with Simon’s dad, the biggest event of the year, the single event that made the hotel viable and the restaurant small-time famous, the one that sold out minutes after ticket sales opened. No pressure.

  He glanced back at the hillside. Soon the tall grass there would be dotted by picnic blankets, and Luminara ticket holders would be nibbling from picnic baskets and drinking champagne as the Perseid meteor shower turned the sky into a dazzling show. There would be charcuterie and edible flowers, spiced-walnut-and-blue-cheese tarts, sliced melon, fresh from the kitchen garden, and tiny strawberries, as sweet as jam. There would be little disks of smoked-grape-and-sausage pizza, and, since it was a casual affair, there would even be tasting glasses of his brother Nate’s beers and some of Ginger’s curious cocktails. There would be little lanterns dotting the driveway to the hotel and more floating in the lake. A quartet would play selections from Holst, and finally there would be fireworks.

  One week.

  He felt it like a weight. Every year, Luminara loomed, wanting to be something bigger and better than the year before. It was the highlight of the summer season and the biggest single draw the Hotel sur le Lac possessed. The next year’s income rested on Luminara, and every year, people came to see how Simon had outdone himself. He was grimly aware that one day he wouldn’t be able to outdo himself anymore. One day the wonder and delight of Luminara would peak and then begin a long, slow slide into disappointment.

  “No pressure,” he murmured to himself.

  A little piece of paper fluttered between the boards of the picnic table. He plucked it free and looked at it. It was from a fortune cookie.

  Slow down! Love is trying to catch you.

  He laughed through his nose. Then, for a reason he couldn’t have explained, he folded the paper up and stuck it in his pocket. He pushed himself to his feet and headed back up the hill, through the meadow that would soon be the staging ground for Luminara, and up to the hotel, to his room and to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  THE clouds moved in sometime in the wee hours, and Sunday morning dawned gray and sullen. Simon rolled out of bed feeling, if not refreshed, at least not as exhausted as he had the night before. He checked his phone and found only a few urgent matters had cropped up while he was sleeping, and he forwarded those issues to the staff who needed to know. Then, still sitting on the edge of the bed, he took a moment to tweet. Great to see @TwoStarLuke and @ColeDoren at the brasserie last night! Then he closed the reminder about Luminara menu prep this morning. In spite of all there was to do, he felt the first little stirrings of relief. Finally there would be a few boxes on the gigantic and ever-enlarging to-do list that he could check off.

  He showered and shaved and dressed. For the staff of the brasserie, it was almost the weekend, and tired though he was, Simon could make it one more day.

  They never ran service at the brasserie on Monday. It gave the staff a guaranteed day to rest and recover from the week, and the cleaners a day to do a deep clean between the weeks so the whole restaurant was exactly as it had to be. Hotel guests could grab something quick in the bar or order room service, but it was just salads, soups, and sandwiches on Monday.

  But Sunday was a service day, and even if it was too early for the brasserie to open or for any of the customers to see him go into the place, Simon dressed to be seen. He could have chosen jeans and a T-shirt—if he owned a T-shirt—but those had been absent from his wardrobe since culinary school. He’d left them behind when he left being a child behind. Instead he wore a summer-weight white-and-blue dress shirt with his jeans, rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, and picked penny loafers instead of work shoes. And that was as close to casual as Simon ever came.

  A part of him envied his brother Nate, who ran the Old Canoe Brewery. The guy always looked like he slept in what he was wearing. He tended toward comfortable T-shirts and busted old shoes. Tristan too had a really good casual thing going, what with his black-and-white kitchen shoes and his collection of New York bakery shirts. But Simon could never remember his dad in a T-shirt, though he did remember his dad once said, “Apparel oft proclaim the man.”

  He glanced out his window at the bad view down to the dumpsters and the back of the kitchen. The sky was already clear, and the cream color of a hen’s egg. They’d have to prop the windows and doors open and get the fans going to make the kitchen bearable tonight.

  Simon waved at Jim at the front desk as he headed out the door into air that was already hot enough to be sticky. Maybe he and the staff could look over the paperwork outside before they all got shut up in the brasserie for service. He walked the few blocks into town to buy a croissant and a coffee from Sweet Nothings, where his brother Tristan stood, red-faced and sweating, at the till.

  “Hot one,” Simon remarked as he paid for his croissant.

  “Brutal,” Tristan agreed.

  “I sent a friend down.” Simon tried to make it sound casual. “Luke, from culinary school.”

  “Okay,” Tristan answered. Simon was aware of the line stacking up behind him, just as he was aware of Tristan’s red and sweaty face and the flour that dusted his forehead. First impressions. This is going to be a terrible one. Luke can’t see him like this.

  “You might want to wash your face,” Simon suggested.

  Tristan glared at him. “You want to do my job?”

  Simon shrugged. “You have flour all over you. It looks… scruffy.”

  “I’m a baker,” Tristan snapped. “And you’re holding up the line. Get lost.”

  Simon took his croissant and headed to the cafe and then back to the brasserie and to work.

  GINGER and Jenny and Mark were waiting for him, already deep in conversation when he arrived. Jenny, the sous, was the first to notice him. She glanced up and waved. “Morning,” she called.

  He saluted them with his coffee and dragged a stool over to the stainless steel worktop to join them. All the doors in the kitchen were flung wide, and the breeze was cool enough to make the place bearable, even with the promise of a broiling August afternoon in the air.

  “How’s it looking?” Simon asked, nodding at the stack of paperwork on the table before them.

  “Everybody’s timesheets are in,” Ginger answered. “And since I’m currently acting as maître d’, but I’m also, allegedly, head of beverage, I have to tell you—”

  “Ah,” Simon whispered. Right, the new position. And David leaving soon. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to HR.”

  She nodded. “When?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You’ve been telling me you’ll talk with HR for a week. When are you actually going to do it?”

  Simon squeezed his eyes closed. “Really? It’s been two weeks since Dave gave notice already?” This summer was going past him like a freight train. First Tristan’s bakery fire, then the shenanigans with Nate, and now Luminara rushing up.

  “Yep.” Ginger popped the final p in the word. “David’s already mentally in Napa. You need to get this stuff sorted out or Hiro’s going to blow a gasket over the state of the cellar.”

  Next to her, Jenny giggled. When Simon scowled at her, she shrugged. “She’s right. He says all that’s left is the high-end stuff and the stuff mall Santas drink and nothing in between.”

  Simon tried not to laugh at that. He gripped the coffee with one hand and fumbled out his phone. “Right,” he said as he opened the note program.

  Mark made a sympathetic noise. “It’s been a big summer,” he said in a comforting tone.

  “It sure has. And it’s not done yet,” Simon agreed. He hauled in a deep breath and centered himself. Then he called up the phone app and dialed Taylor. She would
n’t be in, since it was Monday, but that was fine. “Hi, Taylor, Simon here. Ginger has accepted an offered position and has become head of beverage as of….” He glanced at her.

  “August first,” she answered.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered and then said “August first” into his phone. “Could you call me back to confirm you’ve received this information? I’ll send the signed contract along this week.” He hung up.

  “Thanks, boss,” Ginger said.

  “Sorry it took so long.” He took a drink of his coffee and set down his phone. “Okay, how’s the paperwork looking?”

  “Timesheets are in, but Sam still hasn’t gotten us his tax information.” She frowned. “He asked me when payday is and….” She shrugged. “I’ve worked in service for ten years and never seen someone fail to turn in their paperwork after two weeks. Do we issue the check or not?”

  Simon scowled. Sam was a good kid for the most part. He was young, but he did seem to have more than his fair share of the issues that accompanied a young member of staff. He turned up to work in a less than pristine condition, forgot paperwork or shift-end times, and once even had to be sent home to shower. He was diligent and thorough about his work, but definitely lacked in other areas.

  “No,” Simon declared. “If he asks, tell him we have to have his tax information first. Legally we do.” He thought about how Sam’s whites had been less than white all week and how he’d overstayed his shift on Wednesday. “Actually, I’ll talk to him. There are a couple things I’ve been meaning to mention.”

  “Don’t scare him,” Jenny said. “Remember he’s just a kid.”

  Simon was genuinely startled. “Me?”

  Jenny gave him the side-eye. Simon glanced at Mark, who shrugged and pointed first at Simon and then at himself. “The three of us? We’re used to the kitchen, and as far as kitchens go, this one’s pretty tame. But Sam doesn’t know how they usually go. And you can be… abrupt sometimes.”