The Art of Love

by Gayla Twist

  ***Kiki***

  I don’t know how Sue did it. When I checked, the kitchen was a total mess with no one doing anything. By the time I headed upstairs, got by Linda (a.k.a. Trent’s executive watchdog), waited for Trent to get off the phone, and told him that there was no way dinner was ever going to make it to table, it was only like ten or fifteen minutes. He headed downstairs right away, but by the time he barged into the kitchen, it was like Sue had just offered to double everyone’s salary if they actually did their jobs. She made me look like a complete idiot.

  I wonder if Sue actually got all emotional and cried or something to make everyone get to work. I hate when women use tears to get their way. Especially in the workplace. Be professional, already. Okay, I can admit I’ve had an angry cry or two during the span of my career, but that’s done in the privacy of the ladies room and not used as a weapon or as part of some public display.

  But I guess men have their version of getting overly emotional. They either whine or get angry and defensive. It’s funny how anger is acceptable at work, but tears are not. Aren’t they both pretty much the same emotion? Whenever I see a guy like Escoffier laying into someone, I always think of a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

  So Susan or Suzanne or whatever the hell her full name is pulled out of her career nosedive and managed to squeak a little work out of the kitchen staff. Well, we’ll just see how long that lasts. Tears, and tirades for that matter, don’t motivate people forever.

  Chapter 12

  It’s the dinner rush, although none of the staff is really rushing because Bouche is only about half full. But it does provide me with the opportunity to peek out from the kitchen from time to time to see how my plan is going into action.

  I see the first offensive strike executed by Pedro with military precision. One of the blonde waitresses is taking an order at table twelve. She’s finishing up with the preliminary orders of drinks and appetizers. She’s backing away from the table while still talking. “I'll be right back with your... Ouch!”

  Pedro has come up behind her with a tray full of dirty dishes dripping over with sauces and wasted food. As the waitress turns, Pedro is there, and they collide—not with any velocity, but some of the slop from the dirty dishes does end up on the hip of the waitress’s skirt. “Sorry,” Pedro blurts, whipping a bandana from his pocket and trying to wipe down her rump but only managing to smear the stain.

  “Stop that!” the waitress barks, slapping at his hand. “Leave it! I’ll take care of it.”

  “Sorry,” Pedro says again before hurrying back to the kitchen with his loaded tray, barely able to suppress a smirk from creeping across his face.

  Completely forgetting that she’s standing in the middle of the Bouche dining room, the waitress curses while twisting around trying to get a better look at the stain. She sighs and grumbles to no one in particular, “I just bought this.”

  Over the next two days, my league of busboys goes about staining, snagging, and scuffing the clothing and shoes of every server and bartender on the Bouche staff. Pedro is by far the best at this act of sabotage, always appearing to be free of intentional wrongdoing. I saw him knock a glass of wine out of a bartender’s hands, spraying red all over both of them, and then have that same bartender apologize to him for the spill. It was genius.

  Most of the time, the wait staff don’t even know how their clothes are stained. I happened to see Gwenn, the supermodel waitress, at a table with an elderly lady who was enthusing about one of the Bouche menu changes. “This pasta is amazing! I've been coming here for years, and I've never tasted anything so good.”

  “I'm glad you like it. I'll tell the chef,” Gwenn said, but she was obviously distracted because she’d just noticed a stain on the large, puffy sleeve of her blouse and she was pretty angry. “Damn it!” she cursed.

  “Excuse me?” the older lady asked, not quite sure if she should be offended.

  Gwenn looked up. She’d obviously forgotten that she was at work—her mind was so focused on the stain. “I said, dah… d… Darn right. I’ll tell the chef.”

  As the days go on, the outfits of the front of the house quickly go from fashion plates to well-ironed but dated. Everyone is still gorgeous, of course, but not runway gorgeous. Meanwhile, I’ve acquired two more copies of The Art of War. The original document is from 475 BC, so each translation interprets it in a slightly different way, and I need to understand Sun Tzu’s teachings from every angle if I’m going to succeed.

  One thing that’s been made clear is that I need to keep rousting my troops. On the third day of my covert attack, I call everyone into the kitchen before we start prepping for the dinner rush. This time, it’s much easier to get them to quiet down and pay attention.

  Inspirational battlefield speech. Direct transcript:

  Every time you're out on the streets of Chicago, you should be talking about Bouche. I don't care if you're with family, friends, or that weird guy waiting for the bus; it's all about Bouche. We're making changes; we've got an exciting new menu; we're buying locally; we've got a whole new attitude. The important thing is to start some chatter out there. We want people talking about Bouche because once they're talking then they'll start showing up and eating.

  End of transcript.

  Much to my surprise and delight, my troops head out into the field and follow my orders. June reports that she was out drinking and began flirting with two guys in suits while waiting to be served at the bar. The one guy said, “You work at Bouche? Wasn't that place cryogenically frozen in the nineties?”

  June fired back with, “Well, we got unfrozen. It's a whole new menu.”

  Paolo let me know that he’d been chatting with his fellow countrymen in a café over Bouche’s use of fresh ingredients. I don’t speak Italian, but I have to assume he said something like, “Bouche e buona. Usa l'alimento fresco.”

  Pedro was more than happy to have a fresh topic of conversation as he attempted to pick up female joggers in the park.

  Even Aspic updated me that he had told a man in the subway to eat at Bouche. I imagine whoever he spoke to was too intimidated by our own André the Giant not to show up for dinner immediately.

  And it’s working! Reservations in the last couple of days have seen a small but steady increase. And our Yelp reviews are getting better and better. When I started as chef de cuisine, Bouche had an overall rating of 2.5, but I’ve only been in charge for a little over two weeks, and we’ve already risen to a 3.1. The latest Yelp reviews are pretty darn good. Here are excerpts from the latest entries:

  5 stars

  “I haven't been to Bouche since my prom in the late nineties. Even then it felt a little dated.

  But recently a friend of mine said she went by there and the chef was doing some interesting

  new things with the menu, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm so glad I did!”

  5 stars

  “The swordfish was mind blowing! The vegetables were delicate and flavorful. The sommelier

  recommended the perfect pairing of wine, and I couldn't have been happier with my meal.”

  And my very favorite review:

  4 stars

  “The reasons I'm not giving Bouche a five star review are:

  1) The decor is so dated it made me want to perm my hair.

  2) The wait staff looked sloppy and our waitress was kind of snippy.

  But, ambiance aside, I had a wonderful meal. The food is so good! I don’t understand why Bouche isn’t still considered a Chicago culinary hot spot."

  “Hey, Boss Lady.” Pedro came to find me in the kitchen. He’d been calling me by that name for the past few days. I know he is being facetious, so I don’t comment on it. “Kiki’s having one of her meetings in the dining room. Just thought you’d want to know.”

  He is right; I do want to know. Pedro is a bit of a smart-aleck, and I know Escoffier wanted to fire him dozens of times in the past, but he has proven himself to be invaluable as far as my campaign a
gainst Kiki. In the big picture, Pedro is probably just in the wrong occupation.

  Yesterday, Pedro showed me that if you slip out the swinging doors that separate the kitchen from the dining room and stand immediately to the right, due to an architectural anomaly created by the bar, you are practically invisible to everyone in the room, but you can easily observe most of what is going on. Ideal for my purposes.

  I set down the knife I’m using and wipe my hands. It’s time to find out what is up with my nemesis. “Thanks, Pedro,” I say as I hurry toward the doors.

  Kiki has her troops lined up in single file, and she is looking mighty annoyed. There is good reason for that. The members of the front-of-the-house staff are looking attractive, as always, but not nearly as stylish as they had been just a mere few weeks ago. Not only are the waitresses and bartenders in less fashionable clothing, but even their basic grooming is on the decline. Kiki is furious.

  “Maybe I didn't make myself clear with what I told you last week,” she snarls, pacing back and forth in front of them like a caged leopard. “When I said I wanted you dressed to the nines, what I meant was designer labels.” She takes a swipe at a bartender’s shirt causing a few buttons to pop. “I didn't mean the sale rack at Banana Republic!”

  Supermodel Gwenn, dressed simply but still looking gorgeous, cannot control her counter-annoyance to Kiki’s tirade. “That's fine for you to say. You're not the one whose clothes are getting trashed,” she grouches. Gwenn could probably find work as a spokesmodel in an instant, so that makes her less concerned about speaking up because she’s not afraid of getting fired. “If the Winchell wants to cover my dry cleaning bill then I'll start dressing better. Otherwise, forget it.”

  “Yeah,” someone says from the line of troops.

  “I’m sick of my wardrobe totally getting trashed,” adds another voice from the crowd.

  Kiki glares at Gwenn. “What are you talking about?”

  I sense I’m about to get busted, so I slip back through the swinging doors as quickly and silently as possible. By the time Kiki bursts into the kitchen, I’m safely ensconced in Escoffier’s office.

  “Where is she?” I hear Kiki demanding from the kitchen at large.

  “Who? Suzannah?” Paolo says in a surprised voice. “I don’t know. Maybe she in her office.”

  There is the clack, clack, clack of Kiki’s high heels slamming into the floor as she charges down the hall to confront me. A second later, my office door comes flying open, propelled by what I can only assume is Kiki’s foot.

  I look up from the pile of invoices I’ve been hunched over, appearing completely surprised as Kiki storms in uninvited. “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  “You've got a lot of nerve,” she growls at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know.” She leans on the desk and tries to singe the life out of me with a death glare. “You told your little busboys to spill on my staff.”

  “I did what?”

  Kiki’s face is a lovely shade of hot pink. “You're purposely having your busboys trash the clothes of my wait staff!”

  I give her a look of confusion. “Why would I do that?”

  “So they look bad!” she thunders.

  “Kiki, if they look bad then Bouche looks bad,” I explain with a note of incredulity. “All I've been doing is busting my butt to get more people in the restaurant. Why would I do something to keep people away?”

  “Because...!” she all but yells, but then thinks about it and stalls. “Because...” she says in a less yelly type voice. “Because then I look bad.”

  “Kiki.” I get to my feet, using my most reassuring voice. “We're on the same team. I'm not going to do anything to make you look bad, just like you wouldn't do anything to make me look bad.” Kiki is flat-out flummoxed, so I use this opportunity to guide her toward the door. “I'm sorry if the busboys have been clumsy. It's probably because I told them they have to work faster. But I’ll fix it. I'll tell them to be more careful.”

  “Remember,” I say as I have her positioned at the threshold of the door, “we're all in this together. If there are any other problems, just come see me.”

  “But...” Kiki is trying to quickly formulate a counter attack, but it is too late. With a gentle push from me, she is in the hallway, and I’ve closed the door behind her. I can hear her standing out there for several seconds trying to figure out what just happened before she clack, clack, clacks back down the hall.

  ***Kiki***

  I may have underestimated Miss Mealy Mouth. She’s craftier than I thought. Persuading her busboys to trash the clothing of my servers is pretty genius. The tips at Bouche aren’t bad, but they don’t exactly justify the designer wardrobe I expect from the staff, especially if compounded by repeated dry cleaning bills. Sue must have known that if their clothes were getting trashed, my staff would definitely reel in the quality of apparel they were willing to put at risk. Pretty smart of that little wimp, and I can’t even begin to guess how she talked the busboys into doing it.

  Of course, she pulled out the whole, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” innocent routine. That is so not going to work with me anymore. I have no way of proving she did what she did, but I know it in my gut.

  If that’s the way she wants it, fine. The gloves are off. This means war.

  Chapter 13

  "In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack - the direct and indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers." ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  I’m spending a lot more hours at Bouche than I was as a lowly sous chef, and even then I was here fifty to sixty hours a week. Still, between my regular duties and the added Escoffier duties and some exciting new insomnia that I’ve developed, I might as well bring a sleeping bag to work. Not to mention all the pre-work I have to do before showing up. Grooming is quite time consuming and really cutting into the free hours I have available to relax around my condo. Still, it has to be done. I haven’t talked to Trent privately since we discussed the initial changes to the menu. He’s swung by the kitchen a few times to check in on me, but there’s been no talk of getting together on one of my nights off, which are few and far between. I keep hoping he’ll ask me out again, and maybe he would if we were alone, but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. He probably doesn’t want to do anything that isn’t workplace appropriate. At least not in front of the other staff.

  Kiki, on the other hand, has no qualms about being discrete at work. She’s been wearing skirts so short they are practically just belts and takes every opportunity she can to wave her rump in front of Trent when he happens to be in the restaurant or out in the lobby. I swear she’s somehow tagged him with a microchip so she can track his whereabouts at all times.

  I hate to admit it, but maybe Kiki was right about Trent only being interested in her and just wanting me to do the hard work. Last night I saw him opening the door for her as they were both dressed to the nines and headed out somewhere, presumably together. Was it a date? Are they dating now? If they are, I have to assume Kiki would swing by the kitchen to rub it in my face. She hasn’t done that yet, so maybe it was work related or just a first date, and she doesn’t want to jump the gun.

  When I saw the two of them looking so gorgeous together, I felt immediately deflated. I felt like an idiot for ever thinking I could land a man like Trent, especially with someone like Kiki hot on his trail. I felt an overwhelming urge to just surrender and look for another job. But then Kiki paused in the doorway to flash Trent a coy little look over one shoulder. She must have caught site of me out of the corner of her eye because she made direct eye contact and gave me a triumphant smirk. I don’t know for sure, but Trent might have caught her doing it because he did glance in my direction with a bit of a frown.

  If my first impulse is surrender, then my second is anger. Women like me have to stop constantly letting women like Kiki walk all over us. If I want to be with Trent, then
I have to just go for it and not let being insecure about Kiki get in the way. I spent some quality time on my break delving into my favorite translation of The Art of War to figure out how I can gain an advantage over Kiki. Short skirts and skimpy outfits can’t be everything.

  That’s why this morning, I am taking advantage of my insomnia by slipping into the hotel’s laundry room when no one else is around. I know the crew in charge of the laundry runs the Bouche tablecloths at night so they can get them pressed and ready by the next afternoon. While the machines are running, there’s really no point in just standing around watching them, so they usually slip off to nap or play craps in the basement.

  Kiki’s bullying and my orders to reel in my platoon of busboys has raised the wait staff’s appearance again, but that’s not the only way to make Kiki look bad. All I need to do is deploy a pair of deep indigo jeans into the wash cycle with the linen tablecloths and slip out of the laundry undetected. The laundry staff is part of a super tight union, so I feel pretty secure that none of them will suffer from any type of laundry mishap. Just because I’ve decided to become ruthless doesn’t mean I want anyone to become a casualty of war.

  After the deed, I go to catch a few hours of sleep in my office. I have a worn-out Winchell Hotel blanket in there and can easily curl up on the enormous desk once I stack all the unpaid invoices on the floor. By carefully monitoring every penny, I’ve managed to start submitting some of the oldest invoices to accounts payable, but it’s tricky. If I submit too many at once, Bouche will be over budget, and that will create its own mess. Still, I can imagine the looks of incredulous joy on some of our vendors’ faces as the money for the ancient invoices arrives in the mail.

  I sleep longer than I expected that I could curled up on a wooden desk. When I limp into the kitchen massaging a hip that’s gone a little sore from snoozing on such a hard surface, I see Paolo busy sweeping the floor near the knife rack. “What’s going on?” I say through a suppressed yawn.