All Stirred Up

by Brianne Moore

  Ohhhhhhh. The soup is perfect, smooth and luscious, with a slight tang from the turnips (the “neeps” of the title) that keeps it from being too heavy. The finishing flavor is smoky, peaty. A little whisky, perhaps? The haggis croutons crunch as she bites into them, and the burst of spice further tames and complements the velvety richness of the soup. She devours every bit, sopping up the last of it with the scone, which is surprisingly fluffy for something made with potato. Like that morning’s amuse-bouche, she’s sorry when the dish is finished.

  But then Gloria appears, whisks the bowl away, and replaces it with a plate of seared trout with a lime-green sauce. On the side is rainbow chard and a small potato, split open, insides fluffed, topped with tuna tartare—a cheeky nod to a favorite Scottish meal of tuna salad–topped baked potato.

  “Trout with a lemony samphire sauce,” Gloria explains, turning to leave.

  “No, stay,” Susan invites, gesturing to the seat opposite. “Doesn’t every chef want to know how a diner’s reacting to their food?”

  “Oh, the hidden cameras will tell me that,” Gloria says. “Kidding!” she adds, when Susan looks up at her in alarm. She plops down on the chair, smiling, folds her hands, and watches as Susan takes her first bite.

  It only takes that one bite for Susan to decide to offer her the job. She’d be crazy not to. But she still keeps her face as neutral as she can (she slips up a time or two, closing her eyes and making some sort of cooing noise as that first bite of crisp, buttery fish and powerfully salty sauce hits her taste buds). She finishes the dish and pushes the empty plate to one side.

  “How do you like working here?” Susan asks.

  “It’s an excellent kitchen, and the restaurant has a good reputation,” Gloria carefully responds.

  “But …?”

  “But it’s coasting on that reputation, and that’s harming the place.” Gloria leans in, dark eyes shining intensely, cheeks pinkening as she becomes more animated. “The kind of customers you want to bring in—the ones who’ll pay the prices we charge? They know about food. They’re not impressed by the same old—they want something new. Not necessarily something completely crazy, but something that seems familiar with a new spin.”

  “Like haggis, neeps, and tatties in soup form?”

  “Exactly! We’re not giving that to them now. The menu almost never changes, and what we offer isn’t even remotely out of the box. There are a hundred places within a mile of here where people can get some haggis and mash on a plate. We need to do more! Give them something to talk about on TripAdvisor and Instagram and get some of the locals buzzing too. We can’t cling to the same dishes that this restaurant was founded on just because they were popular back then. We need to be sharks and move forward.”

  Susan can’t resist smiling. “Sounds like you’ve been waiting a while to get that out.”

  “Oh God, yes!” Gloria flops back in her chair. “It’s a relief, believe me.” She straightens up, face serious. “Don’t think I was bashing your granddad just then. That’s not what I meant at all.”

  “It’s all right—I know what you meant,” Susan reassures her. “So tell me, Gloria, what is it that brings you into the kitchen? What brought you here at seven in the morning? I’ve been looking at your past experience, and I know it’s not just this one opportunity that lights a fire under you, so to speak. You’ve been driven from the get-go. What do you think of when you cook?”

  “My parents,” Gloria answers immediately.

  Susan is taken aback. Usually people answer questions like that with some long-winded rhapsody about how seasonal ingredients are just so amazing they can’t wait to get their hands on them. But Gloria doesn’t really need to say that: her love and respect for food shows in everything she makes.

  Her surprise must have shown a little, because Gloria continues. “I’m first-generation Scottish; my parents came over from Poland six months before I was born.” She smiles ruefully. “When I got stroppy as a kid, Mam used to remind me how she battled morning sickness all through that awful trip, just so I could be born here. She an’ my dad, they settled down, worked hard, did everything they were supposed to do, so that I could be whatever I wanted. They dealt with some really awful shite—people can be such racist arseholes, you know? But they put up with it. I think about what they did, and I think—how shameful would it be if I repaid all that by being lazy and just coasting along, ya know? They did all they could so that I could succeed, so I’d damn well better succeed—or kill myself trying.”

  Susan absorbs that, then says, “Gloria, you’ve succeeded. Go phone your parents and tell them you’re now the executive chef at Elliot’s. The kitchen’s yours.”

  It seems to take a very long time for this reality to sink in for Gloria, but once it does, a slow smile spreads across her face, widening and widening until it nearly splits her cheeks.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she says, jumping up, grabbing Susan’s hand, and pumping it. “Really, thank you so much.”

  Susan laughs. “I have faith in you, Gloria. And your food is outstanding. I hope we’ll work well together.”

  “I hope so too. This is a team, right?” Gloria says, gesturing between Susan and herself.

  “Yes. It needs to be.”

  Gloria nods and her smile fades. She chews her lip, thinking. “Paul isn’t going to work under me,” she says at last.

  “Won’t he?”

  “I doubt it. He calls me ‘Double-E.’” Gloria gestures to her generous bust.

  “He calls you what?” Susan demands, flabbergasted. She knows restaurant kitchens, being pretty male dominated, often lean toward the misogynist, but straight-up sexual harassment is definitely unacceptable.

  Gloria shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Some boys never stop being boys,” she sighs. “Sometimes he changes it up. Uses ‘Girl’ or ‘Polack’ or something.”

  “Well, I’ll have a word with him, and we’ll see what happens,” Susan suggests. “If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll have to recruit for a sous.” Easier said than done, but if need be …

  “All right.” Gloria nods. Out in the kitchen, they can hear the clatter of feet on the stairs, the chatter of voices as the rest of the brigade starts to arrive. “Will you announce, or should I?” Gloria asks.

  “I’ll go out with you, but you take the moment. You’ve earned it,” Susan answers.

  Gloria heads back into the kitchen, with Susan trailing several steps behind. Paul passes them as they reach the main kitchen area, he on his way to the staff room to change.

  “Coffee, will you, Girl?” he says to Gloria, without even looking at her.

  “That’s Chef, Paul, not ‘Girl,’” she barks after him. “You will address me properly.”

  Paul stops and very slowly turns to face her. “Excuse me?”

  The rest of the brigade clumps near the pass, silent, watching. Gloria turns toward them. “Tom,” she says to one of the trainees, “What does ‘chef’ mean?”

  “Uh, ‘chief,’” he replies.

  “That’s right. Chief. The person in charge. I have just been appointed executive chef, which means I’m the number one in charge here, and I’m now announcing that a few things are going to change. First off—Paul, listen up here—we will treat each other with respect. So that means no more names that you pretend to think are cute and funny but that we all know are incredibly shitty. If I hear anyone throwing around racial or ethnic or sexist slurs, there will be consequences. And those consequences may or may not include me pinning your willie to that bulletin board.” She gestures to the corkboard where schedules and messages are posted. A few of the men in the crowd wince. “Understood?”

  Everyone nods.

  “Announcement two,” Gloria continues, “we are relaunching. This is a fresh slate for us. It means a new menu and new opportunities for staff members to advance. If I can move up, then you should too. Hard work and good ideas will be rewarded, and this goes for everyone from the sous che
f”—she gestures to Paul with a sweet and very fake smile—“to waitstaff and dishwashers. It goes the other way too—I do not have time for coasters. If you don’t contribute and pull yer weight, you’ll be cut loose. Got that?”

  More nods.

  “I want ideas, people. Dazzle me. Let’s make Elliot’s great again, a’right? Someone turn that radio on. Find something motivating. We’ve got work to do.”

  Staff begin to move, but Susan is frozen, feeling a little shell-shocked. Well, she tells herself, you wanted fireworks, right?

  Boom.

  Chapter Eight

  The Long Fall

  To the surprise of exactly no one, Paul quits before the week is out. Doesn’t even hand in notice, just packs up his knives and walks out the door, brandishing one last middle finger at Gloria, who smiles, shrugs, and yells, “Bye, Felicia!” as she waves at his retreating form. “I told you he wouldn’t work underneath me,” she says to Susan, “but don’t worry. I’ve got someone in mind. His paella will make you weep.”

  “You already have someone in mind?” Susan repeats warily.

  “Yeah.” Gloria puts her hands on her hips. “I didn’t plan this, if that’s what you’re thinking. I would’ve been perfectly happy to have Paul stay if he’d been willing. This is for the best. Let me call Rey in and you can see for yourself.”

  Susan agrees, and yes, his paella is amazing. And Reynaldo himself is definitely a more colorful personality than Paul.

  “Sit down, honey, and watch me work,” he tells Susan the day he makes his trial dish, rushing off to grab a chair from the staff room and setting it down at his prep table. He unrolls his knives with a flourish and proceeds to chop vegetables at a blinding speed, talking almost as fast, tossing jokes and anecdotes and occasionally a bit of raw veg Susan’s way, like he’s working in a Hibachi restaurant. It’s a shame we don’t have an open kitchen, Susan thinks. She laughs at the jokes, catches bits of pepper, and learns that, for all his showmanship, the man knows his business inside and out.

  “We were at Gleneagles together,” Gloria said when introducing him. Susan phones Gleneagles after she eats. The chef there begs her not to take Rey. She does.

  So they’ll have a sous chef in a few weeks. And Julia has secured a contractor, agreed to (and argued over) a budget with Susan, and begun looking over paint and upholstery and fixings. The restaurant is officially closed until the end of July, and Gloria’s already working on new dishes, with input from the rest of the staff. Susan feels a steady pickup in energy at Elliot’s, and she smiles a lot more now. It feels like something is finally getting done. All the activity distracts her and makes her forget, for a little while, all about Chris and his proximity. Until Meg reminds her.

  “You’re coming, aren’t you, to Russell’s party on Friday?” Meg suddenly asks late one sunny afternoon. They’re standing in the playground at George V Park in Cannonmills, watching Andrew and Alisdair climb to the top of a huge slide built into the side of a steep hill. There are stairs to get to the top, but the slide itself is flanked on both sides by a slope of pavers, with stones poking out here and there, presumably to serve as hand- or footholds. It looks to Susan like a parental nightmare, but Meg isn’t overly concerned and has been talking animatedly about how she’s decided to give up both gluten and potatoes because she heard the starch or something in potatoes can make your cells turn cancerous all of a sudden, as if root veg are creating a rebel army right in your body.

  “… so I told Russell that I’d need options at this party of his, or I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, and he just smiled in that way of his and said, ‘Sure, sure,’ so now I know I won’t be able to eat a thing. You are coming, aren’t you? To Russell’s party on Friday?”

  “His … party?”

  Meg looks exasperated. “Suze! Honestly! You all said you’d come, and he’s already given final numbers to the caterer. And God, what that man is charging! These so-called ‘celebrity chefs.’ Lauren just won’t shut up about him, goes on and on about how nice he is and what amazing food, and she can’t wait to go to his restaurant with all her friends, because he’s as yummy as the food is, and soooo nice!” She flutters her eyelashes mockingly. Ayden, from his pram, makes a protesting squawk, as if he senses his mother’s poor mood. Meg begins rhythmically pushing and pulling the pram back and forth to soothe him.

  The party. The party Chris is cooking for. A room full of rich political types. And Chris. A heavy pit forms in Susan’s stomach.

  “So you have to come,” Meg continues. “I want none of your excuses about being too busy. I’ll need someone else to talk to—the place’ll be crawling with politicians already practicing their campaign speeches on each other. More spending cuts and austerity! Fewer immigrants! Isn’t Brexit amazing!” She does some jazz hands at the end, and Susan laughs despite herself.

  “It won’t be that bad, will it?”

  “Of course it will be. You’ve never been to one of these things, but I’ve been to more than my fair share. All MSPs, MPs, and rich donors and everyone’s bored spouses. And the Chancellor of the Exchequer because he and Russell go way back. Oh, Suze! It’ll be so boring.”

  “Maybe the chancellor will bring his wife.”

  Meg pauses. The chancellor, a widower for some years, had recently remarried a moderately famous model-turned-television presenter. Amongst Lauren’s gossip at the most recent Sunday lunch was the tidbit that the chancellor’s wife is expecting their first baby.

  “He might,” Meg murmurs. “She would be interesting to talk to. Think of all she’s done! She used to be one of the faces of Alexander McQueen—I heard she was some kind of muse to Sarah Burton and practically designed Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.”

  Susan smiles and wonders if she’s found an escape from this torturous evening. “Just think how much you two would have to talk about,” she says, “now she’s expecting. It’s uncharted territory for her, but you’re old hat.” She gestures to Ayden, who’s gnawing on a giraffe-shaped toy, and to Andrew and Ali at the slide. Ali is perched at the top, watching his brother attempt to climb up via the treacherous pavers. Susan nudges her sister and points to Andrew. “Should he be doing that?”

  “Oh, it’s fine—he says he does it all the time with the nanny,” Meg answers, as Ayden throws his giraffe on the ground and begins to wail. “Oh, sweetie, have you dropped Sophie?” Meg murmurs, bending to fetch it and rub it clean on the leg of her jeans. “Do you think she still gets some sort of discount at McQueen?” she wonders aloud, handing Ayden back his toy (which he promptly tosses on the ground again). “She might even be able to extend it to close friends. I’ve heard some designers will do that. Oh, but you’ll still have to come. Really. Russell’s expecting all of you, and Helen says she’s counting on it because she doesn’t want the house to look too empty in case of last-minute cancellations, and Dad already promised you’d all be there.”

  Well, there it is. Now Susan feels stuck. Maybe there’ll be an emergency at the restaurant that’ll give her an excuse not to have to dress up and shovel Chris’s food into her mouth in the company of a bunch of rich people while he toils in the kitchen not ten feet away.

  Neither of them are quite sure how it happens. She and Meg are both looking away from the slide, so they miss it. But as Susan starts to answer, Andrew shouts, and the women’s heads jerk toward him just in time to see the boy tumbling down the pavers, crashing into the ones poking out, unable to stop himself. He lands at the bottom a second later, and a silent moment balances delicately as everyone in the park freezes and stares.

  Then he starts screaming.

  Screaming and wailing, a high-pitched sound that means one thing: pain. Lots of it.

  Ali, still at the top, gazes in horror at his brother; then he, too, begins to wail. Susan kicks into action, springing toward Andrew, who has managed to pull himself to a half-seated position. His arm sticks out at a funny angle, and he’s bleeding from a gash in his forehead. He screams and sc
reams.

  “Meg! Call an ambulance!” Susan yells, crouching beside her nephew. But Meg remains in that frozen moment, eyes wide, shaking, mouth agape. The baby is crying now too, along with a few children nearby. Other parents hurry them away for comfort, shooting Susan and Andrew concerned and pitying looks. “Meg!” Susan bellows.

  “I’m on it!” a nearby dad volunteers, waving his mobile.

  A mother sprints to the top of the slide and scoops up Ali, carrying him down, soothing him. “There, there, love, it’s all right. You’ve had a fright, now, haven’t you?” she murmurs. “Your brother’s going to be fine, just fine. Come over here, love.” She carries him over to Meg, who is now wailing almost as loudly as her firstborn. A few other parents are trying to calm her.

  Susan is dealing with Andrew, who’s turning dead-fish gray. “Andy, you’re going to be all right. We’re calling for help now,” she says, in the bright, fake tones one uses in situations like this. She examines the gash on his forehead. It doesn’t look too deep, but cuts to the head always bleed like crazy. She read that somewhere. Why is that? Is extra alarm really necessary when your head’s wounded? She pulls a tissue out of her pocket and dabs gently at the cut. She expects Andrew to flinch, but he doesn’t. He’s stopped screaming and is now shaking and staring into the distance. Shock.

  “Andrew,” she says, her voice now firm because some instinct tells her she has to keep him conscious and aware. “Andrew, tell me about your day at school. Or your favorite film. What did you see last at the cinema?”

  “That Lego movie,” he murmurs. “There were superheroes, I think.”

  “That’s good, that’s good.” Another slight dab at the head wound. “Did you like it?”

  “’S okay.”

  “What’s your favorite film?”

  “I liked How to Train Your Dragon. The dragons are cool. Wish I could have a dragon.”