Yes Chef, No Chef

Home > Other > Yes Chef, No Chef > Page 19
Yes Chef, No Chef Page 19

by Willis, Susan


  Katie glowed with pride in the dining room when Jessica complimented her upon the starters and smiled in anticipated pleasure while Katie ladled a helping of bourguignon onto her warmed plate.

  An aroma of red wine, garlic and beef filled their nostrils and Terry declared that the sight of the large chunks of tender beef, strips of carrot, and quarters of soft mushroom which had simmered slowly for hours in a rich, red wine sauce was awesome.

  Terry forked a chunk of the beef into his mouth and she saw his shoulders visibly sink as he chewed and swallowed it. The grin on his face stretched from ear to ear and he groaned ecstatically, “Oh my God, Katie, this is sublime!”

  Her heart soared with happiness at his praise. “Bon appetit!” she said, and went back into the kitchen leaving them to enjoy the meal. She breathed a sigh of relief and knowing Terry wouldn’t mind she poured herself a glass of red wine to congratulate herself on a successful first booking. She felt much more relaxed now and flushed with triumph - almost on a happy-high, like a tennis player winning match point, she thought and grinned idiotically.

  Suddenly, the loud slam of the front door startled her and she almost dropped the glass. What the hell’s going on, she wondered creeping to the side window which overlooked the street. Under the street light she could see a red faced Jessica climbing into a new cream and black mini, which in turn, sped off down the hill at break neck speed.

  All was quiet in the dining room now and Katie floundered, not sure what to do next. Should she go in and make sure he was OK? Or wait in the kitchen until he came to look for her. Obviously, things hadn’t gone according to plan and she must have refused his proposal, but why? Gulping at her wine, she decided to load the dishwasher, give him ten minutes and then go to find him.

  Tentatively she crept along the hall and poked her head around the lounge door to no avail - the room was empty. Where on earth was he, she puzzled and then tapped quietly on what she thought might be his bedroom door but with no response. He couldn’t have left because she would have heard the door close so she began to clear the half eaten meal from the plates in the dining room. What a shame all this food was going to waste, and why had he popped the question in the middle of their main course? He should have waited until they’d at least had dessert and then she jumped because he was standing beside her.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said when she swung around to face him.

  He looked terrible and she immediately felt really sorry for him. “Christ, Terry, what happened?” she asked kindly, and then realising it was none of her business told him he didn’t need to answer and that she’d just finish clearing away and get going.

  “No, it’s OK,” he said. “Please don’t go yet. Have a glass of wine with me?”

  “Well…” she dithered, not wanting to get more involved but feeling wretched for him at the same time.

  He swiped a glass from the table and poured wine into it as she protested, “Just a half glass, Terry, I’m driving.”

  He swirled his wine around in the glass and said, “I was just building myself up to the question and thought when you’d cleared the dessert plates away I’d ask her, when out of the blue she told me she’s going over to Los Angeles for eight months to work! It’s a promotion and a great opportunity, and apparently, it’s too good to miss.”

  “Oh right,” Katie answered sipping her wine. He moved through to the lounge with the bottle in one hand and his glass in the other and she followed. She chose to sit on the settee opposite him but then he got up, crossed the room and plonked himself down next to her. The red wine fumes were overpowering on his breath and his eyes were glassy – she decided he looked very drunk. He poured more wine into his glass but she put her hand over the top of hers preventing him from filling it up and smiled reassuringly at him.

  He continued, “So, I blurted out that I was going to ask her to marry me and had an engagement ring ready and asked her why she hadn’t said anything earlier. And she said it only happened two days ago and it wasn’t her fault because she didn’t know anything about getting engaged.”

  He was rambling now as if he was turning the argument over in his mind, “And then I accused her of just accepting the job without talking to me first and asked her where that left us? And that’s when she’d slammed out of the room…” he said heaving a deep sigh.

  Katie sighed too. “Oh dear. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get engaged,” she said trying to sound comforting. “Can’t you just wait until she gets back?”

  “Well, it doesn’t look now as though she wants to,” he whined. “It was as if she couldn’t wait to get away from me and hated the idea of getting engaged. What’s wrong with me, Katie?”

  His face got closer and closer to hers and she shrank back from him further and further into the soft plush settee. He stared at her now as though he was seeing her for the first time and gave her a half-cocked drunken grin.

  She said, “Now Terry, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve probably had a little too much wine and you are…” she didn’t get another word out before he lunged at her and starting kissing her so hard that she struggled to breathe. His mouth stank of red wine and she tried to pull away but his lips seemed to have a suction quality all of their own, so with both her hands on his thick set chest she pushed as hard as she could to get him off her. The feeling of pressure on his chest must have brought him to his senses and he released his lips from her mouth.

  She gasped for breath and jumped up off the settee. “Got to go,” she rasped, “I have to get home.”

  Her heart was pounding fit to burst out of her chest and her mouth was dry with fear as she fled down the hall to the kitchen.

  He followed slowly, apologising, and desperately trying to make amends. “God, Katie, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  She was pulling on her jacket and grabbing all her bags together while unsteadily he slouched against the kitchen door. “Look, let me help you,” he tried again.

  “N…no, I’m fine,” she almost squeaked with hysteria. “I can manage.”

  Instead of waiting for the lift she took the stairs two at a time and ran out onto the pavement gasping for breath in the cold night air.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tim’s stomach was knotted with tension while he paced the floor of the lounge in the apartment trying to make his glass of red wine last until it was time to meet Julie. They’d arranged to meet at a restaurant on New King’s Road and although he was excited and looking forward to meeting her it had been a long time since he’d dated and worried she was out of his league. He’d often heard Jessie and Simon talking about speed dating and on-line dates and knew there was a whole new set of do’s and don’ts that he was out of touch with.

  “She’s called, Julie, but I call her Miss Cupcake,” he’d told Luke on his mobile.

  Luke had laughed and said, “Just get out there and have a good time.”

  Tim had frowned. “I will, but I’m a bit worried that I’m out of my depth?”

  “Look it’s just like learning to ride a bike,” Luke advised. “As soon as you get your feet back in the pedals again you’ll be fine.”

  They’d both laughed at this and then Luke had told him he’d definitely decided to leave Yorkshire and return to London. Tim’s flagging spirits rose and excitedly he’d invited him to stay in the apartment until he found somewhere to live. He grinned imagining them as roommates again and memories of drunken nights at parties, sharing everything at university, even girlfriends at one stage, flitted through his mind. And although they were older and wiser now, he knew Luke’s company was just what he needed at the moment.

  Managing to fight off the urge to pour another glass of wine for Dutch courage he wondered if they should both enter the marathon again and he could organise a strict training schedule for them. And maybe, he thought buzzing with excitement, they could get tickets for the athletics’ events at the Olympics’ next year. On his way down
Fulham Road the nagging doubts whirled through his mind until he began to wonder why he’d even asked Julie on a date in the first place. She wasn’t his Kate because nobody could be, but there again she was a woman and someone to talk to instead of spending his night off with the depressing never ending silence that seemed to have invaded the apartment since Kate left.

  “Oh don’t you look good?” she said, when he bent to plant a kiss on her cheek and inhaled the light flowery perfume she wore.

  He beamed at her and felt the earlier tension leave his body. “Do you want to eat first or have a drink?” he asked and was surprised when she agreed to the pub and then was even more surprised when standing at the bar she asked for a pint of cider.

  She wore a white clinging cat-suit which had a zip that started between her voluptuous breasts and ran the length of her body ending in her crotch area. She looked sensational and he knew from glancing around the bar that he was the envy of every other guy in the place.

  While he was imagining pulling the zip down to expose her fabulous body, she said, “I know exactly what you’re thinking?”

  You couldn’t possibly; he mused, but smiled at her raising an eyebrow. “You do?”

  She stroked the side of his cheek with a long pink-painted finger nail which instantly sparked his arousal and he felt his trousers tighten.

  “Yeah, you’re wondering how I can drink so much. Everyone does because I can drink pint for pint with any guy, and eat like a horse without putting on weight. I just seem to have that type of a constitution.”

  He knew the stroking of his cheek was definitely an intimate gesture and unless he was very much mistaken she was as turned on as he was. Her body language when she leant towards him, the slight shiver as he touched the base of her back guiding her though the door of the restaurant, and the small tactile gestures she made convinced him happily that he wouldn’t be making coffee for one the next morning. And, although she wasn’t Kate, the fullness of Julie’s breasts which seemed to bulge out from the scoop neck of the cat suit was so tempting he decided, that she came a very close second.

  The restaurant had been her choice and when the food arrived he thought it was poor, second rate and struggled to eat it. His smoked salmon was a cheap quality, and he picked at it cautiously, and then after two mouthfuls of the chicken risotto, he decided it was simply a glutinous mess. But, because she enjoyed her prawn starter, chicken escalope, sticky toffee pudding, and practically a whole bottle of Canti to wash it down with, he didn’t want to cause any or awkwardness by complaining.

  He decided it was easier and kinder to tell her he wasn’t that hungry when she mentioned how little he’d eaten, but it did mean that he’d had nothing to soak up the alcohol and because his idea of moderating the amount of wine he was drinking had long since gone, when he stood up to go to the toilet the room swayed and he gripped hold of the back of his chair to steady himself.

  “Whoa!” he said grabbing the dado rail which ran along the wall behind his chair, “I…I haven’t been drinking much lately and the red wine’s gone straight to my head.”

  She tittered, “As long as that’s the only place it’s gone to?”

  He heard her soft laughter while making his way through to the toilet and had to agree with what she’d said earlier in the pub, considering the amount she’d had to drink she did look comparatively sober.

  He managed to negotiate his way through to the male toilets without mishap but when he returned to the room he momentarily forgot he wasn’t with Kate and for a few drunken seconds he scoured the room looking for her glossy brown hair. Remembering she wasn’t there brought another pang of pain because he was so used to being with her but then winding his way between the tables he saw Julie’s blonde hair and her beaming smile, and he pushed the thought of Kate firmly from his mind. After all, he rationalised, here was a woman that definitely wanted to be with him and he was convinced they were going to have some fun later, which for now was quite sufficient.

  He paid the bill while the waiter removed the three empty bottles from the table and she hung onto his arm as they left the restaurant.

  “Coffee at mine?” she asked when they were outside on the pavement waiting in a queue for a taxi.

  The cold night air seemed to knock the air from his lungs and his head spun even faster than before. He slurred, “Yeah, that’ll be great.”

  Coffee would help, he decided, and if he didn’t have any more to drink he should be able to perform later and when she put her hands inside his jacket and wrapped her arms around his chest he moaned with sheer pleasure. He could feel the mounds of her soft, warm breasts pushed against his chest and he revelled in her female smell longing to lose himself in her body. Surely this mass of warm loveliness would be able to take all the weeks of pain away and when she lifted her face to be kissed he covered her mouth with his lips and probed deeply with his tongue.

  The next day when Luke asked him on the telephone how the date had gone he jokingly told him that kissing his lovely cupcake was the sweetest thing he’d done for weeks, to which Luke had roared with laughter and Tim felt he was back in the land of the living again.

  Simon was making pastry and Jessie had bought duck and goose in preparation for the Victorian stuffed game pies they were developing that day. Tim didn’t want the pies to be the standard type of stew in a dish with a puffed pastry lid which was the usual recipe in restaurants, he wanted his to be different. He decided to try and put the boned duck and goose one inside the other within a large turkey, which initially would make a fabulous centre piece for the royal wedding day banquet, and then they could cut thick slices from the bird to be wrapped in pastry and lightly oven baked. He worked feverishly all morning alongside Simon de-boning the meat and after stuffing the turkey and putting it into the oven to cook he took a breather in his office.

  He’d tried twice during the last three weeks to put the photograph of Kate back in the drawer out of his sight but had now stopped struggling against it, admitted defeat and found it comforting to have her looking at him. Christ, he still missed her so much; it was like a toothache which was constant day and night – it never left him.

  Two envelopes had arrived for her that morning and he’d pushed them into his jacket pocket before leaving for work. He pulled them out now and laid them on the desk in front of him. So far, he’d been re-directing her post but the longing to see her suddenly overpowered him and taking his tunic off, he tucked his clean white T-shirt into the waist of his jeans and headed out into the car park.

  He knew he was being rash and she probably wouldn’t be there but as he turned the ignition he knew if he stopped to think about whether he was doing the right thing or not he’d change his mind. If there was just the slightest possibility of seeing her then it would be worthwhile.

  Chapter Twenty

  “What a tosser!” Lisa shrieked. “Just because his world falls apart when Jessica turns his proposal down he decides to have a pop at the first girl that smiles at him…”

  Sarah lounged back into a white bean-bag in Lisa’s flat and sipped her coffee while Lisa put Danish pastries onto a plate.

  “I know,” Katie agreed. “And he was a horrible kisser…”

  Lisa roared with laughter and Katie joined her. “Yeah, and if I say so myself it was the best beef bourguignon I’d ever made. I couldn’t believe Terry could be like that. I mean, he was always so pleasant and nice at work. Now if it had been randy James I wouldn’t have been surprised. But there again, I wouldn’t have made dinner for that creep.”

  Sarah bit into a pastry. “I know Lisa is making it sound funny but, Katie, you must have been scared?”

  “Well, I was at the time, but you know when I’d calmed down afterwards I knew I’d over reacted, and was probably just feeling vulnerable after Tim.”

  “Vulnerable?” Sarah asked.

  She broke a pastry in half. “Yeah, I mean if it had happened before I’d met Tim I’d probably have just brushed him off as a d
runken slob. But once you’ve been part of a couple for a while any intimate contact with the opposite sex is alarming. I just need to get back to being a tough city girl again.”

  Lisa shook her mane of long hair. “Yep, that bloody Tim sure did a good job on you,” she snorted scathingly.

  “Hmm…” Sarah mused.

  They ate the pastries and drank their coffee in companionable silence and then Lisa asked, “But at least you got paid, right?”

  Katie rubbed her hands together. “Oh yes. When I got up this morning he’d pushed a grovelling, please forgive me, note through the door with his cheque.”

  She was desperate to ask Sarah about the blonde she’d seen with Tim because now the shock had sunk in she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who was she and how long had he been seeing her? And, could he have been seeing her when they were still together and were all his late nights at the restaurant excuses to see this blonde? The questions spun round and round in her mind day and night but she needed to be careful and ask in a way that wouldn’t upset Sarah again. Maybe she could casually ask who she’d been with in the restaurant that night and see what she could remember.

  As luck would have it she needn’t have worried because Lisa, in her own tactless but endearing manner, asked Sarah, “So, talking about tossers, have you seen Tim the love-rat out with the blonde anymore?”

  “Lisa!” Sarah shouted and then looked forlornly at Katie.

  “What?” Lisa retorted innocently and winked at Katie. “I’m only asking. And, Katie’s fine with it – aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am fine about it,” Katie replied. “But I’d love to know who she is, Sarah?”

  Sarah gently brushed some crumbs from her lap onto the plate. “I don’t know who she is,” she pouted. “But if I did know I’d tell you, Katie - honestly, I would.”

 

‹ Prev