by Sarah Zettel
“What? Are you crazy? I’ve got a dinner shift.” This is the cardinal rule of kitchen work. You show up for your shift, no matter what. If your aged grandmother and all her cats are being held hostage by rabid zombie terrorists, you send her a condolence card, and you show up for your shift.
“You come with me now, or it’s all off.” She had that look in her eyes that comes when you’ve got nothing left to lose.
Slowly, I got to my feet. “’Scuse me one sec.”
I went back into the kitchen. Ignoring the quizzical glances, I walked over to my battered desk and stood there, fingertips resting on the scarred surface, staring at one particular pile of colored papers with crumpled edges. This pile represented every expense that was not a staff paycheck. Meat. Blood. Flour. Milk. Eggs. Linens. Cleaning supplies. Liquor. Electricity. Gas. All the things without which I was not in a restaurant—I was in an empty room. These invoices were all coming due. Some of them were past due and heading into emergency territory.
Felicity was offering me a solution to the problems represented by these pieces of paper. One hundred seventy-five thousand dollars was more than enough to take care of this stack. It could, in fact, be properly called a whole hell of a lot of money. Surely it was worth taking off for one shift. But my chefly sense of impending trouble had been left very sensitive by recent circumstances, and it was tingling now. Because that one seventy-five was in fact a whole, heaping, incredible, suspicious lot of money, even for an emergency. Even for an emergency involving very rich people, both living and undead.
“Zoe! Reese!”
“Yes, Chef?”
To their credit, neither sous betrayed any hint of exasperation as they came over to my desk, even though they were the ones left dealing with the million rampaging details of the impending dinner shift while their executive chef was sipping tea in the nice, cool dining room. Well, okay, I was gulping coffee, but you get the point.
My sous are a study in contrasts. Reese has a linebacker’s build, rich brown skin, cornrowed hair and the words EAT THIS tttooed on his knuckles. He swears the ink is the result of losing a bar bet, but he won’t tell me what that bet actually was. I throw him the hard cases who come into the kitchen—the ones who think they know more than they actually do, or who might once in a while consider it beneath their dignity to take orders from a woman.
Zoe Vamadev, on the other hand, is a petite young woman who has a critical eye on the level of Simon Cowell with a toothache. Her parents are from Bengal and Bali, and she came to the U.S. by way of Bangkok, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and London. She speaks more languages than a career diplomat, and she has made no secret of the fact that she wants to be my competition, and she’s good enough to give me a serious run for my money, even in my own kitchen.
I stared at the bills. Zoe and Reese stared at me staring at the bills. The bills stared back and, I swear, they snickered.
“I’ve got to go see about a catering job with Ms. Garnett. Can you two handle the dinner shift?”
That was what I said. Having been in similar situations back when I was still a sous, I can tell you what they heard: I’m taking off suddenly, removing a pair of skilled hands you were counting on and taking with them a large chunk of institutional knowledge and kitchen authority, which will put you to a test you had no idea was coming.
There was only one answer they could give: “Yes, Chef.”
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Teaser chapter