The Secret Ingredient

by Kilby Blades

  “Third time’s a charm.”

  She swallowed thickly.

  “Don’t give me false hope. A lot of things have to happen before I can even think about that.”

  “If you keep thinking it won’t happen, it won’t.”

  Whatever optimism he’d seen just moments before dulled.

  “I can’t think my way out of my problems, Max.”

  “No…” he conceded. “You can’t. But sometimes you gotta dream big.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, and he thought she wouldn’t say more. She surprised him by speaking after they’d turned to go back.

  “It’s not that I don’t want it. The things I want…I want them so bad, it hurts.”

  “Maybe that hurt is the pain of fighting against things that are meant to be.”

  She was quiet for another minute.

  “One thing at a time.”

  22 The Fundraiser

  “You’re freaking out,” she said, amused, looking at something on her phone as he drove.

  “Because we’re late.”

  “The schedule has plenty of slack. We could’ve stayed in bed an extra hour and still been here in time to start serving by one.”

  “Heavy hors d’oeuvres for seven-hundred fifty people plus a sit-down meal for thirty can be achieved in no less than six hours. Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

  Her smile did nothing to calm his panic. “By twelve-thirty, at the latest, you’ll be twiddling your thumbs.”

  “What time warped universe do you live in?” he asked, before becoming distracted by what he saw as they approached the restaurant’s gates. He and Cella could make their left to enter only after a long line of black Suburbans from the opposite direction turned in, each making its respective right. Max looked at his watch, wondering which vendors could be arriving so early. Cella, instead, looked at him.

  “One in which I hire you a team of really strong chefs who’ll get it done.”

  “Where’d you say you found them again?” Max was beginning to get suspicious. All Cella had said the week before was that she’d called up a few people she’d worked with on the line.

  Her cryptic smile kicked his heart into gear. “Marcella…what did you do?”

  She remained silent as the car made its way to the end of the driveway, following suit and pulling into Max’s reserved parking space some twenty feet away from where the last of the Suburbans had parked.

  “Come meet my friends.”

  Max’s closed-mouth stare that gazed past her through the window turned into an open-mouthed gape.

  “Holy shit, is that—“

  “Ciao, mia bella!”

  An enthusiastic Gianna Barone had just exited the nearest car.

  “Come on,” she repeated. “They’re really excited to help.”

  What happened next was surreal. Max did exit the car, following Cella tentatively as a small gathering formed around her.

  “Max, these are my friends. Gianna, Antoine, Cedric, Avery and Sierra. Friends, this is Max Piccarelli, our Executive Chef.”

  One by one, Max shook hands, barely stammering his hellos and words of welcome. Antoine copped to owning copies of his aunt’s cookbook. Gianna and Sierra said kind words about Alessandra as a role model to women in cooking. Avery disclosed that he had eaten at the restaurant four times, remembered his aunt well, and had remembered Max as a boy. Cedric revealed that he had brought items for the auction—signed cookbooks and an offer of pasta-making lessons. The others chimed in with their own items for the auction—dinners at their private estates and rare bottles of wine.

  “You are in so much trouble,” he whispered to Cella after the chefs had been ushered in, still addled from the introductions. The others walked ahead of him, but he’d gripped a strong arm around her elbow, pulling her back. In place of even a slightly repentant look, she gazed up at him with her familiar fire.

  “Promise?” she whispered in his ear before following her friends.

  Ten minutes later, the chefs were out of their traveling clothes and suited in their uniforms, each at a different station, tying aprons, wiping countertops and unrolling their knives. Rising to the occasion, Max stood at the biggest table and called for them to come around, opening the binder he’d prepared containing copies of the recipes they’d make that day.

  “I’m humbled to have you in my kitchen,” he began. “It means more than I can express that you’ve all come here. But we have just short of five hours and we need to get to work. These are my aunt’s secret recipes. At least half of the people here remember the restaurant, and remember her. I’d be out of line telling you how to make any of these, so please…add your personal touches. You can take a look and see who wants what.”

  “I’ll take the arancini.” Avery said with a sheepish smile. “Hers were always better than mine. I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted to know her secret.”

  The laughter that ensued broke the ice.

  “I’ll work on pasta,” Cella chimed in. “The chef has schooled me on the right way.”

  From there, the others chimed in, Antoine taking the proteins for the sit-down dinner, and Cedric and Sierra teaming up on hors d’oeuvres. Gianna said she’d help with prep and pair the wine. Too preoccupied with getting everything done, Max dug in to his own work. He needed to get the sauces on of they were going to pull this off.

  The next four and a half hours were a combination of nerve-wracking madness and culinary bliss. As his sauces cooked, he floated around to each station to check progress and to consult. Avery watched his breading technique with attention. He taught Sierra a trick for when to add the champignons. He smirked at Cella when he informed her that, as the recipe stated, the secret ingredient in the gnocchi was cheese.

  What he didn’t have time to do was stop and think about their deference to his authority, their open manners, their eagerness to learn, their utter grace.

  “Chef, does this meet your approval?”

  Max picked up Antoine’s canapé, which was made of squid, half-expecting it to bear the French chef’s unique mark. But it tasted just like his aunt’s. Antoine’s rendition was one he scarcely could have done better himself. With gratitude, he complimented the master chef.

  “It’s perfect.”

  12:30. Almost show time.

  As he emerged from the walk-in refrigerator, Max took a glance at his watch. Gates would open to ticket holders in a little over half an hour. That meant that, in forty-five minutes, things would start getting crazy. In place of a simple lunch or dinner rush that might span only five or six hours, Max’s kitchen would have to deliver for eight or nine. Beyond looking forward to the food itself, people loved being on the property, with its splendid garden and views of the sea. Between cooking and cleanup, Max could count on another ten hours in the kitchen. The event always went well into late evening.

  But Max was ready. He’d just finished prepping a pickled sardine salad—which had turned out perfectly—for one of the canapés. In its small format version for the fundraiser, it would be served on a thick, waffle cut potato chip to give it some crunch and complement its briny acidity. Aunt Alex always said that dish—more than anything else—reminded her of home. He still remembered the look on her face when she took her first taste of a finished batch after it had set in the refrigerator for a while. It had become Max’s favorite, too—not least of all because it was delicious. As a tribute to her, Max had wanted to make this one himself.

  With his hands on his hips, Max surveyed the kitchen. Everything was under control. No—better than that. The kitchen was buzzing with an energy he hadn’t witnessed in five years. He’d seen it used by caterers and smaller teams of chefs in charge of the events they sometimes held. But as it was now—with every station and counter full with serious chefs who knew that everything had to be perfect—this is how Max had only dreamed that it could be.

  Max himself was, for once, as he had dreamed himself to be. He’d never had trouble co
oking for the fundraiser, but he’d never felt like this either at any of the handful of events that had been hosted there. The party hadn’t even started and Max had already begun to mourn the moment it would be over. He didn’t just want to cook today. He wanted to cook tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

  Get it together, man.

  But he couldn’t. And it hit him again. That this was how things were supposed to be. That reopening the restaurant wasn’t something he wanted—it was something he desperately needed. That it was more than a convenient device to get Cella to stay. The realization caused the blood to rush to his chest and tears to prickle his eyes. Feeling what was about to happen, Max realized that if he was going to fall apart, he needed to do it quickly, and he needed to do it outside.

  He was grateful for the cool air that met him when he went out the kitchen door and stepped squarely onto the middle of the staff patio. He breathed it in for long, measured moments, hands on hips, eyes closed and face pointed toward the sky. Something in the way the sun warmed his face at that moment gave him a fleeting indulgence in the beautiful wish that he had harbored. That, if his aunt was somewhere looking down on him, that she would see him and give him a sign.

  “Getting some air?”

  The heavily accented female voice broke him out of his reverie. Lowering his chin, he turned toward her when he realized he wasn’t alone. Gianna Barone was fanning herself with her apron and her face was glistening with sweat. She was a beautiful woman—had always reminded Max of Sofia Loren. They didn’t quite look alike, but Gianna had the same powerful combination of regal beauty, wisdom and charisma.

  “Hot flashes,” she explained, not missing a single beat of her rhythmic fanning. “One of the many joys of menopause.”

  Looking at her more closely, he realized why he hadn’t seen her—she had gone around the side of the building to stand in the shade. When she turned more fully to him, he saw that her embroidered shirt was open, revealing a modest camisole.

  “That’s where my aunt used to stand when she had hers,” Max said angling his head toward the stump of a dead tree. “She always said that next to that corner of the deck, facing the sea, you got the best breeze.”

  Taking his advice, Gianna climbed to the spot he’d described and opened her shirt a bit more as she found the angle, resting her arms long enough to throw him a grateful look before letting out her own sigh of relief.

  “I was sorry I never met her. Though I can see she taught you well. You weren’t just following recipes in there. I see how you are with the food—and the chefs—you run a tight kitchen.”

  He turned toward her and crossed his arms. “I’m fairly certain that any event where Cella Dawes is the sous-chef and Gianna Barone and Avery King are working the line, the food’s going to turn out pretty good, in spite of any help from me. But I appreciate the compliment. It’s very kind.”

  “Chefs are not known for their kindness.”

  “Says the woman who let six of the world’s top chefs hitch a ride from New York on her private plane to help a stranger.”

  “Ah, but you are not a stranger. You are a person who means a great deal to Marcella. Marcella, in turn, means a great deal to me.”

  Max stuffed his hands into his pockets just as he would stuff down his compulsion to make this day even more complicated by thinking Gianna’s sentiment through. “She means a lot to everyone around here.” He kicked at an invisible pebble on the ground, knowing that tomorrow, with the fundraiser behind them and his departure a week away, he would have to be more direct in his suggestions that Cella consider coming back.

  But there were no guarantees. His hope that they’d surrender to this thing they shared had been tentative. For the past two days, she’d been distracted and sometimes stone-faced as she’d taken an increasing number of calls from LA. Max could only hope it came from the pain of transformation to positive changes. He didn’t want to even begin to think of the possibility that this could really be goodbye.

  “Cella was right about you,” Gianna murmured, somehow smiling sagely and shaking her head in disapproval all at once. “You have the talent of a master and the modesty of a nun, but you are denser than a cheap pannetone.”

  Max’s eyebrows raised to his hairline.

  “Do you know where Marcella was, before she came here?” Gianna didn’t miss a beat. “She came to visit me in Siena, to stay with my family at our villa. Have you ever been to Siena?”

  Max just shook his head.

  “But you must have seen pictures and heard how beautiful it is.” Gianna looked out at the sea. “I thought that getting her away from her job and her troubles would give her some perspective and let her leave me happier than when she’d come. But Siena didn’t make her happy. And that light I was waiting to see in her eyes…I didn’t see it once in Italy, but I see it here, when she’s with you. I could hear it in her voice, when she asked me for my help with the fundraiser. I could feel it in her laugh when she told me she had a new job as a receptionist. Ten years I’ve known this woman. And she’s never been so happy as she became since moving in next door to you.”

  Max’s lips tingled. “What are you saying?”

  “What I can see in your eyes that your heart knows must be done. The fame is killing her spirit. She needs a little restaurant in a little town and a life surrounded by friends who are like family. Like you, she has seen the big, wide world, but she is not made for a life lived adrift. Please, Max. You must ask her to stay.”

  23 The Countdown

  Keri caught Cella’s eye just as she un-clasped hands with Kaito, who had just finished lavishing her with praise. The event had gone off without a hitch, and not just from all the food going out just right. They’d raised bucket loads of money, the chefs had mixed and mingled to the delight of the guests, and everyone, both inside and outside of the kitchen, had enjoyed a great time. The conversation she was about to have with Keri may have been the only rain that could have dampened an otherwise spectacular parade.

  Keri Cruz was Gianna’s agent. She had come expressly for Cella. Since having confirmed Liz’s betrayal, it was time for a changing of the guard. Strolling over to where the woman leaned against a high boy, glass of wine in her hand, Cella was surprised when Keri pushed another glass of red toward her.

  “Congratulations,” she praised smoothly. Whereas Liz could be as jumpy as hot beans, Keri was as cool as a cucumber. “Now…time to get to work.”

  The thought made her a bit sick, because she knew what it meant, though it wasn’t Keri forcing her hand. They’d spoken twice. Cella didn’t like what was coming, but every step they’d talked about was utterly necessary. She had to clean up her mess.

  “Let’s go for a walk.” Cella started down the pathway that would lead them toward the water—a stunning lower patio that fenced onlookers into a space that ended in a dramatic cliff. They walked silently, waving at the last of the guests who were making their way in the opposite direction. They’d stopped serving half an hour before, and whoever wasn’t working the event was making to go home.

  “Where are we?” Cella finally asked once they found themselves alone. For days, she’d kept everything close to her vest. She’d authorized Keri to work with her attorneys. Priority number one was a smooth, quiet transition. Since Liz had no idea she was being fired, it would be easier said than done.

  “The termination paperwork is ready. Now, it’s a matter of making it swift. If she sees it coming, she’ll try to control the story. Given what’s happened with her other clients, there’s a chance she’ll do something stupid from sheer panic. We don’t want that to rub off on you.”

  “What do we do about all the things she has in the works? Now that I’ve put my foot down on the restaurant deal, she’s scheduled media appearances for me.”

  “And you’ll keep them. Only, you won’t be working off of her scripts. Once it’s been communicated that she’s out and I’m in, I’ll talk to the producers. We’ll have to
see how the hearing with Kevin goes, but your attorneys are confident you’ll have the upper hand. You’ll give a media-friendly irreconcilable differences story.”

  “Will you send talking points?”

  Keri smiled. “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Unless you want them, I was planning on leaving it up to you. You’re experienced, Cella. And you’re smart. Liz is a great catch for someone early in her career, but you’re past the point of not being in the driver’s seat.”

  Some strange brew of gratitude and empowerment washed over Cella. Keri trusted her, and wanted her to be in control.

  “Ousting Liz will be a big step, and it has to be done surgically. Having the restaurant thing blow up on social media at the same time will only pour salt on the wound. But you’ve got to keep reminding yourself of what you’re really buying. Your freedom is worth it.”

  But Cella wasn’t free—not yet, and that was the other problem. Irrespective of her Liz troubles, she couldn’t very well treat Longport as her own personal never-never land.

  “Where will you be in all of this?”

  “In LA, waiting in the wings. The first few days will be hairy for both of us. As soon as word gets around, the studio and publishing execs will want to know where they stand. We’ll also get calls from people who pitched Liz on ideas from you and got turned down. And, Cella…you and I need to spend time hashing out your plan. I can’t represent you if I don’t know what you want.”

  Cella knew what she really wanted. She also knew it was too much to ask, despite how hard she’d thought of ways to make it work. Trading LA for Longport would be ideal. But her complicated life would be a wrecking ball to Max’s plans. Stepping into the spotlight at the same time—she with her restaurant and he with his—would only obscure him. Critics were bound to compare him to Aunt Alex—he didn’t need another culinary giant in the mix.