“What are you…” I started, then stopped myself, realizing he didn’t know the first thing about kitchen prep. “How many of those have you done?”
He looked down at the sink. “Uh, four. Why? What am I doing wrong? They said they needed these for the whipped potatoes, so I thought—”
“They do, but there’s an easier way,” I said, nudging him aside. From under the sink, I pulled out a giant stockpot, filling it halfway with hot water. That done, I turned to the small stove behind us, setting it on a back burner and cranking the heat up to high as I put the lid on. “You boil them first. Then the peels will come right off.” I picked up a peeler and a dry potato, proceeding to remove any little buds before setting it in the sink to wash. He followed my lead, washing each potato with soapy water before rinsing it and placing it in a metal bowl with the ones he’d already skinned.
The first batch in the stockpot, I prepped another, this time for the spiral cut chips one of the assistant chefs would fry and serve as a garnish for some of the dishes. Zachary watched me load up two into the mounted gadget that sliced them before speaking up.
“Can I give it a shot?” he asked.
“Think you can handle it?” I replied with a smirk.
He returned my expression, cracking his knuckles with determination. “Looks easy enough. It’ll give me something to do while I wait for a load of dishes.”
I glanced over his shoulder at the washing station. “Uh, I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. There’s at least half a load there already.”
“There is?” he said, turning, then grumbling under his breath. “You guys make a mess fast.”
“Why do you think restaurants need dedicated dishwashers? No one has time to stop and do it.” I crossed my arms and wondered how a person could be so ignorant. Did he think all of the stuff we used in the back washed itself?
He picked up an unpeeled potato and sighed, sticking it on the horizontal prongs of the spiral slicer. Starting off turning the handle counter-clockwise, he quickly realized his mistake and turned it the opposite direction, feeding it along the razor-sharp edge of the blade at the other end. He kept his hand under the potato to catch it in case it fell, exactly the way he’d watched me do it, then presented the finished spiral to me with a flourish.
“Is Madame Chef satisfied?” He lifted an eyebrow at me.
I took the vegetable without ceremony and dropped it in the bowl. “Three down, seventeen to go,” I said. “You’d better get to the dishes.”
“Banished to the scullery,” he said, melodramatically wistful. “Madame Chef is a harsh taskmaster.”
I shook my head and got back to work. Three months of him was definitely going to test my patience.
* * * * *
“I need more parsley!” a voice called from the front of the kitchen.
“On it!” I hollered back, hurrying back to the cooler to grab three more bunches to prep for the line.
“Man, things never stop back here, do they?” Zach said, leaning up against the prep sink when I returned.
I shooed him away with a wave of parsley. “Too much for you? Ready to go back to your charmed life of doing nothing already?” The water splashed over the green herbs, and I gave them a quick wash before setting them on the butcher block to chop.
“Still think I can’t hang with the rest of you, huh?” He crossed his arms, watching me.
“One night of hard work only proves you can work one night,” I said, trying to focus on my job, rather than bantering with him. “And, at the moment, you aren’t doing much of anything.” The blade of my knife cut through the parsley with a shhh-click, shhh-click.
“It’s time for my break. We get twenty minutes, right?”
“Did you ask permission?”
“No, but the schedule says—”
I turned and pointed the tip of the knife at him. “The schedule can’t predict how busy everyone is at any given moment. You need to make sure no one needs anything before you go.”
He wandered away and I returned to my chopping, filling a bowl with green sprigs before running it up to the line. While there, I scanned the levels of everything else, trying to anticipate their next request, but everything looked good to go. Returning to my prep station, I was about to start slicing lettuce for wedge salads, but stopped short when I saw Zach leaning up against the sink again.
“Now what?” I asked, hands on my hips.
“Only one person needed something,” he said.
“So go do it. Why are you still standing there?”
“I am doing it. Your mom said you were supposed to take your break an hour ago and asked me to make sure you did.”
I scowled. He knew I’d been in the middle of fifty things then and hadn’t gone on break. “I have work to do.”
“Nothing that can’t wait twenty minutes,” he said. I opened my mouth to speak, but he didn’t let me. “Unless you want to argue the point with your mom, but she’s a little busy right now.”
The muscles in my jaw worked as I gritted my teeth. “I don’t need a break.”
“Everyone needs a break, and I’m not going to quit bugging you until you take one.” His mouth turned up in a grin. “Wouldn’t want to get fired on my first night for not doing what my boss said.”
Irritated, but seeing that I didn’t have a choice, I untied my black apron and pulled it over my head. “Fine, but I don’t need a babysitter.”
After hanging up my apron, I pulled the trash bag out of the metal container beside the prep station.
“You’re supposed to be on break,” Zach said.
“As long as I’m going, it might as well be a useful trip,” I said with a withering glance.
After thinking about it for a second, he grabbed the trash from the line and hurried behind me out the back exit. Lugging the bag over my shoulder, I grumbled under my breath the whole way. Zach lifted the latch on the white fence surrounding the dumpsters at the far edge of the parking lot and held it open for me. We dumped the bags and I left, heading for the line of wooden columns acting as the barrier between ocean and asphalt. I sat down on the knee-high wall, one leg dangling over the seaside edge, the other planted firmly on the ground, and took a deep breath of salty night air.
A wrapper crinkled, and Zach sat in front of me, his back to the water. He pulled open the foil on a chocolate bar, breaking off the first row of three rectangles and holding them out to me. I eyed them suspiciously.
“It’s just chocolate, Margie,” he said. “I’m not trying to trick you.”
“Just because you apologized, or whatever, it doesn’t make us friends, you know.” I didn’t make a move to take it.
He shrugged and took a bite. “I get that.”
“And you realize that I’ll probably never like you, right?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe.”
I studied him, the light from the moon and streetlights mixing in the highlights of his hair. Even at night, each strand held a golden, sun-kissed glow. “Then why are you trying so hard? Do you have a thing for lost causes or something?”
Zach didn’t say anything, instead staring at his chocolate for a long time, thinking. After a while, I gave up on getting an answer and turned my focus to the sound of the sea splashing against the wooden beams, the occasional wave hitting hard enough to send a tiny spray of water up the dangling leg of my pants.
“If I give up, there’s even less of a chance,” he said quietly.
“What?” My eyes fluttered open, catching his gaze for a split second. Had he been staring at me when I wasn’t looking?
“I said, if I give up, there’s even less of a chance.” The wrapper crinkled as he folded it back to reveal another row of chocolate. “The only things that are truly impossible are the things we never try.” He broke off the row and held it out to me again.
I accepted it this time, not really thinking about it. “And you think pure persistence is all it takes? They have a name for people like that. They�
�re called stalkers.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’m not a stalker, Margie. Just trying to make up for some stuff, that’s all.”
I considered the chocolate before breaking off a third of it, wondering how big a concession I was making by even having that conversation with him. “What if you can’t?”
“Won’t know until I give it a shot,” he said, “but it’s not really up to me if I get that chance.”
I popped the chocolate in my mouth, and it instantly melted on my tongue. “Which is what I told you from the start, if you remember. You’re not entitled to anything.”
“So, what are my odds here, then?”
“Right this second?” I asked, and he nodded. Leaning back on my hand, I took another bite. “About ninety-ten. Not in your favor.”
A small grin worked its way onto his face. “But ten percent is better than zero.”
I sighed, exhausted by him already. “Yeah. Better than zero.”
Silence crept back into our conversation, and I nibbled on the second piece of chocolate as I watched a sailboat slip through a pool of moonlight. I might’ve found more peace in the moment, if not for who I was sharing it with. The nagging worry that he might turn at any second and try to shove me into the water wouldn’t let me relax. After a minute or two, the nagging got the better of me.
“Look, what’s it gonna take for me to get you to go away? What do I have to do for you to leave me alone?”
He turned, his eyes dark in the limited light, his gaze lingering on my face long enough to make me blush.
“What?” I said, wondering what the hell he was staring at. Did I have parsley in my hair or something?
“Have dinner with me.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Dinner. You and me.”
After staring incredulously for several seconds, I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing. “Like a date? Are you kidding?”
“Exactly like that, and, no, I’m not kidding.”
His answer instantly doused my amusement. “You’re serious?”
The smile he gave me was one hundred percent genuine. “Totally serious.”
“What… Why…” I stammered, getting to my feet. “No. Absolutely no. Not ever. Why the hell… What?”
Zach chuckled. “You’d rather spend the rest of your summer being mad at me while I hound you than spend a single, solid evening with only me?”
When he put it that way, it did sound pretty dumb of me, but I wasn’t about to give him what he wanted. “And if I said yes, then what? You get to tell your friends all about the night you slummed it with the help?” I chucked the last piece of chocolate off into the ocean. “No thanks. I’m not something someone uses to soothe their own guilty conscience.” Turning, I stalked back towards Le Beau Tournée. “Break’s over.”
“Hey, hold on a minute,” he called after me, jogging to catch up. “I swear I don’t have an angle on this, Margie.”
I spun on him, my uncontrollable anger bubbling to the surface again. “Yes, you do. You always do. You’re either setting me up for something, or think you’re going to impress me with your money enough to… to…” God, I couldn’t even say it. Even the thought made me sick.
“To what? Come on,” he said, his eyebrows drawn together, “I’m not asking for anything but a few hours of your time. That’s it.”
“I’ve wasted years on you already.” I turned and opened the back door. “I’m not about to waste another second.”
Furious he had the nerve to ask me for a date— a date, of all things— I launched myself inside the restaurant again. The poor lettuce I butchered for salads never knew what hit it.
Chapter 8
“A what?” Destiny yelled into the phone, and I winced.
“A date. Can you believe him?” I rubbed my eyes as my headache beat another pulse of pain. “Just… Ugh. The nerve of him. Does he think I’m one of those townie skanks out to mark off rich boys from my to-do list? So gross.”
“He asked you out to dinner?”
I frowned at the phone. “Yeah, I think I covered that part already.”
“Did he say where?”
“The hell does it matter where? He could offer to rent out the Taj Mahal for a night, and I’d still say no.”
She sucked on her teeth, thinking. “Where he wants to take you is a pretty good indicator of what he thinks of you. You missed most of the high school dating scene here, but I’ve seen enough to know. If he takes you to a classy place he might see his friends, you know he legit likes you. If he takes you somewhere you’re not likely to run into anyone in his social circles, he’s just out for action.”
“That’s really sad it’s common enough for you to know that.”
“I didn’t say I agreed with it. That’s how they roll. I let Chad talk me into a night out once— and don’t even start with me about that— and he took me to some backwater Chinese dump an hour away. Better believe I called my mom and had her come get me.”
“Chad? As in—”
“Yep. About six months before he died in that wreck. Probably a good thing I shut him down. There was a Galloway chick in the car with him that night. And it wasn’t his girlfriend.”
“Was she…?”
“Uh-huh,” Destiny said. “After that, the guys here went through a serious dry spell. No one else wanted to end up like her.”
“Damn.” I shook my head sadly. “That’s horrible. Er, about the girl, not the dry spell. They probably deserve way worse.”
“Anyway, back to you. So where did he want to take you?”
I played with the car door locks, wondering when my parents would finally close up for the night. “Don’t know. I didn’t let him get that far.”
“Well, that was kinda dumb.”
“Thanks for the moral support, Des,” I said, my words dripping with sarcasm.
“Look, he says he’s trying to change or whatever, right?”
“So he says.”
“So, if he was really changing himself, and he honestly wanted to spend time with you, not just get in your pants, then he wouldn’t care who saw you together. It’d be a way to figure out if he’s on the level or just blowing smoke. See what I’m saying?”
“That’s if you’re assuming I care one way or the other. I don’t. I don’t want anything to do with Zach Robinson or any of his friends.”
She coughed out a laugh. “Liar. You totally care.”
I pulled the phone away and glared at it. “No, I don’t.”
“If you didn’t care, I wouldn’t have to hear about him every damn day since you’ve been back. If you didn’t care, you’d forget about him the second he was out of sight. Don’t tell me you don’t care, Margie. Des ain’t got time to play pretend.”
I giggled at her. “Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?”
“Don’t change the subject. You know I’m right.”
Before I could formulate an adequately snarky response of why she was wrong, my parents rounded the corner of the ramp outside Le Beau Tournée, heading for the car.
“Hey, my parents are coming. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Fine. Just think about what I said.”
“Yes, Mom.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m serious. Telling yourself you don’t care isn’t going to make it true, it’s only gonna make you feel dumb when you finally admit to yourself that I’m right.”
“I gotta go, Des.”
“Whatever. How about lunch tomorrow?”
The doors unlocked and my parents got in.
“Maybe. I’ll let you know. Later.”
“Night, Mighty Mouse.”
Grimacing at the name, I hung up on the call. On the ride home, my parents talked about how the night went, but they were pretty exhausted, so I didn’t flood them with a million questions. The dishes were well received, a little less than the rave reviews they were hoping for, but it was only the first night. What few kinks remained to work out o
f the system could be remedied by extra training for the staff so they didn’t forget things under pressure.
I made notes in my head of who I could assist and how, but I wasn’t focused on it the way I wanted to be. My mind kept drifting back to my conversation with Destiny.
Did I care? The thought nauseated me. I didn’t want to care about Zach. I’d been sure I managed to let go of any potential for caring I had years ago. Was Des right? Was I only lying to myself? I didn’t know.
Years of listening to psychobabble sent me down a path of self-analysis that lasted through my shower and followed me into bed. I stared at my ceiling, trying to figure out exactly how I felt about those guys.
One thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t care about their insults anymore. I’d unlearned those horrible things and was pretty confident that I liked myself now. Well, mostly. I wasn’t perfect, but I was happy with my progress.
But what about the rest? After a while, all I decided was that maybe there was a tiny amount of truth to what Des said. I didn’t know that I cared, but I knew that I didn’t want to care. The path of least resistance was avoiding them, but…
I sighed to myself. Avoiding things never solved problems. Dr. Hooper always told me not to seek out conflict, but to figure out how to deal with it when it found you. The Zachary situation was definitely conflict for me. How could I spend time with someone I’d thoroughly detested for almost my whole life? At least with Matt and the others I wasn’t seeing them much, so I hadn’t had to deal with that part yet. Zach was another problem entirely. I didn’t know how to look past all of the hurt and anger to see if he really was trying to be different.
I didn’t want to. Continuing to hate someone was much easier than learning to like them for who they were, rather than who they used to be.
I rolled over and yawned. It was ridiculous how much time I was wasting on that garbage. None of it mattered. In two and a half months, Paris would replace Carrinaw Island, and all of the people on it, too. With thoughts of the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Élysées taking over, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
My Bittersweet Summer Page 7