All Stirred Up

by Brianne Moore

  “Meg! Breathe! He’s fine!” Susan reaches out, grasps her sister by the shoulders, and shakes her a little. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees William roll his eyes so hard his head rolls with them.

  “Then what? What is it?” Meg demands.

  “It’s this—” Susan releases her sister and gestures toward her. “This anxiety over everyone’s health. I think it’s starting to affect him. And maybe the others as well.”

  Meg crosses her arms and purses her lips. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Kind of. He thinks you’re going to die and that everything is filled with poison.”

  “Everything is full of poison,” Meg spits. “You know what I was reading recently about vaccines? I’m seriously considering holding off on Ayden’s next round.”

  “Oh God, let’s not be on about that again,” William groans, materializing from the kitchen with a brownie in each hand. A few telltale crumbs are sticking to his lower lip. He licks them away before offering one of the brownies to his wife. “Eat that; you’ll feel better.”

  “I will not,” Meg huffs, folding her arms and glaring at both husband and sister.

  William shrugs. “Your loss,” he says and crams both brownies into his mouth. “Mmm, delicious, delicious poison!”

  Susan closes her eyes for a moment, silently castigating herself for starting this mess. Andrew was already upset about his parents fighting, and what does she do? Starts a fight!

  “Meg, I’m sorry I brought it up, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Susan soothes. “I just hate to see you so stressed out. And the boys see it too, and it worries them because you’re their mum and they love you. And it worries me and William because we love you.” She turns to her brother-in-law with a smile and a fierce look in her eyes that says, “Your cue!”

  William takes his time brushing crumbs off his hands, but then looks up with a smile of his own. “Course I do,” he says.

  “I guess I can’t really expect you to understand,” Meg sniffs to Susan. “You don’t have kids. And you couldn’t possibly love mine the way I do.”

  “Meg!” William admonishes as Susan draws back, stung.

  “Sorry,” Meg says insincerely.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Susan says quietly, gathering up her things. “It’s late; we’re all tired. I’ll see you soon, Meg. Will.” She drops a perfunctory kiss on both their cheeks and leaves, choosing to walk home despite the fact the weather has turned suddenly and is unexpectedly damp and chilly.

  * * *

  Just up the street, Lauren wanders into the kitchen as Chris is preparing to pack up his knives. She hops up on a countertop, crosses her legs at the ankle and swings them, watching as he scrapes each knife down a honing blade, tests the edge with his thumb, and then carefully tucks it into his knife roll.

  “Do you have to do that every time you use them?” she asks, two knives in.

  “You don’t have to do it every time, but I do,” he answers. “It’s an end-of-the-day ritual, like brushing your teeth.”

  She smiles. “How do you know when you’ve got it right?”

  “You get a feel for it.” He spent time in Japan—quite a bit of time, actually—and was drilled in knife skills. He can sharpen them in his sleep now and slice anything paper thin without having to think about it. Muscle memory.

  “The other thing you can do,” he continues, “is test it. It should be able to slice through a sheet of paper.”

  “It will not,” she scoffs.

  “No, really—I’ll show you.” He reaches for the nearest piece of paper—the breakdown of tasks for the evening, now no longer needed—and hands it to her to hold up. She does, at arm’s length. He smiles playfully at her as he lifts his chef’s knife. “Ready?”

  She grins and nods.

  Lightly holding the handle, he lets the knife slice neatly downward through the paper, splitting it precisely in half. Lauren’s eyes widen.

  “Wow! That’s so … Jedi!” she exclaims.

  “It’s not,” Chris says, sliding the knife into the roll with the others and tying it up. “Just a skill.”

  “Will you teach me how to do that? The sharpening thing?”

  “Sure.”

  She hops down, grabs a knife from a magnetic strip near the stove, and rejoins him.

  Chris hands her the honing blade and says, “Turn around.”

  With a little smirk, she turns, nestling her back against his chest. Chris takes her knife hand in his right and the honing steel hand in his left and helps her scrape the blade down the steel. Scritch, scritch, scritch. He focuses on that, trying not to be distracted by her warm body snuggled up to him. Scritch, scritch.

  Lauren giggles. “Can I convince you to stay and help me do all of Mum’s knives?” She looks up at him with a flirtatious wink.

  Chris releases her hands and steps away. “I would, but tomorrow’s a busy day, and it’s late.”

  “Right.” She rehangs the knife and hands back the steel. “You’ve got your opening soon. And after tonight, you’ll probably have a full house for a while. Tell me”—she springs back onto the countertop—“did you enjoy the party?” She tilts her head, grinning, daring him to tell the truth.

  “It was really nice,” he answers. Once, he wouldn’t have been able to say that convincingly. But he’s developed the ability to smile and ingratiate and seem like he’s having the time of his life, even when he feels like he wants to jab himself repeatedly in the eye with a pickle fork.

  “Oh, come on, you were bored to tears!” she scoffs. “I was bored to tears! Anyone would be except for Dad and some of the others who really make this their lives. I thought the chancellor’s wife was going to make an escape through the bathroom window. But I couldn’t blame her, the way Meg was going on and on.” She rolls her eyes. “She’s sweet and means well, Meg does, but God. Shut up already!”

  Chris smiles, even though the mention of a Napier annoys him. They were all there—Meg (at least three glasses of wine too many), Julia (sneering at the champagne because it wasn’t actually champagne, but an English sparkling wine), and Bernard (laughing a little too loudly at every politician’s joke). All of them except Susan, and her absence irks him even more than the others’ presence. He thought this might be a chance to see her when he was at less of a disadvantage. He psyched himself up for it, thought of all sorts of things to say to her, clever and cutting things, so he could get some of his own back, finally, after all these years. It’s why he agreed to do this stupid party in the first place.

  But she didn’t come. The coward! She stayed away; he’d done all that planning for nothing. And on top of it, he had to endure an evening of being dragged away from his cooking by Lauren, who paraded him around, accompanied by her father, who introduced him to friends and colleagues as “that celebrity chef I’ve been telling you about. Really great, isn’t he? Did you try those scallops? And that beef thingy? Opening up his own place now—got to admire that! Quite a risk to take, in a market as crowded as that. When do you open again?”

  “A week,” Chris answered, wishing to God he had a pickle fork on him.

  “A week! Get those reservations in now, lads!”

  A week. There were a dozen other things he could be doing, but instead he was tripping over Calum in a domestic kitchen that wasn’t at all suited to catering, listening to his sous chef curse a blue streak about the oven, the flooring, and the twee decorations that took up precious counter space. And it was all for nothing.

  Lauren is still chattering on about something, and Chris tries to drag his attention away from his frustration and back to her. He focuses on her bright smile and the animated way she gestures with her hands as she speaks. Her hair is curly tonight, bouncing with her energy. Her skirt, cut to mid-thigh, shows off her long, slender legs, which she’s swinging again.

  “Will there be a party to celebrate the restaurant’s opening?” she’s asking. “There usually is, isn’t there? My best mate, Chelsea, is working f
or a PR firm this summer, and she’s been to at least half a dozen openings—restaurants, bars, all sorts of things. Her job sounds much more fun than mine, but then, I did get to meet with you and plan all this, so it’s worth it,” she adds, smiling coyly. “So, is there going to be a party?”

  “There is,” Chris answers. “Would you like to come?”

  Her face lights up. “Would I? Can I bring some friends?”

  “Why not?” It’s not as if there won’t be plenty of food. And Lauren and her pals might brighten up what might otherwise be a staid gathering of critics and overawed friends and family members.

  “You’re ace, Chris!” She notices his phone lying nearby and grabs it, typing away. “I’ll give you my number, okay? You can text me with the details. Or,” she looks up at him through her lashes, “we could meet up for a drink, and you could tell me in person.”

  Tempting, he has to admit. Her happiness and excitement are infectious, as is often the case with the young. Part of him wants to say “yes” and see what happens, but a slightly more practical part answers, “Maybe after the opening.”

  “Course.” She finishes off her typing. “You’ll be too busy this week. But you’ll send me the deets, right? I’ll be very disappointed if you don’t.”

  “I wouldn’t dare disappoint you,” he says, reaching out to take the phone back. She holds onto it for a second or two, giggling, then releases it to him.

  “You’d better not,” she says, hopping down from the counter and sashaying toward the kitchen door. “Night, Chris. Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter Ten

  Find Yourself a Girl, and Settle Down

  Twenty-four hours to launch. Chris’s kitchen is humming: deliverymen coming and going, extractor fans blasting, whisks scraping frantically around metal bowls. Calum is on the phone with their fish guy, who called to say he won’t be able to get the oysters they need after all, and could they just substitute some Shetland mussels instead?

  “No, the whole dish is built on oysters on the half shell!” Calum bellows. “Mussels on the half shell? Come on! Oi!” he shouts to a deliveryman bringing in crates of carrots. “Ya daft? Not there—does it look like we’ve got room to be tripping over those? Joe, show him to the walk-in.” He turns back to the phone. “You’ll get me oysters, or you’ll get my foot up yer backside, ’kay?”

  Chris is showing a line cook and an apprentice how to make the smoked bacon–flavored droplets that are meant to be going over the missing oysters. He looks up at Calum and says, “Relax. If they can’t get oysters, we’ll make do with the mussels. I’ll come up with something new.”

  “Right, because you have time for that,” Calum scoffs.

  “I’ll make time,” Chris answers. “Rab, y’all right, there?”

  Rab is trying his hand at puff pastry under the tutelage of the pastry chef, who’s also working on the savory ice creams. Chris notices a sheen of nervous sweat on the boy’s forehead.

  “Yeah, aw’ight,” Rab mumbles, concentrating on folding, rolling, and refolding the pastry.

  “Too much flour!” the pastry chef snaps. “And look—your butter slab is poking through.” He gestures to a spot where a bit of bright yellow is peeking through a tear in the pastry. “It won’t rise now. Ruined!” He sighs and shakes his head.

  Rab sags.

  “It’s fine,” Chris reassures him. “This is how you learn. Why don’t you show him how to fix it?” he adds to his pastry chef.

  “You can’t fix it!” the pastry chef snaps back. “You won’t get a proper mille-feuille out of that.”

  “But it’ll probably do for the mini haggis rolls,” Calum suggests. “Saves me the trouble of making rough puff. Thanks, lad!” He claps Rab on the back, and Rab revives a little.

  The pastry chef shakes his head and mutters as he scrapes the ice creams into tiny half-sphere molds.

  A sharp female voice cuts across the chaos. “You lot know how tae make a mess, I’ll give ’ee that!”

  Chris looks up and sees his sister standing where the crate of carrots just was. Like Chris, Beth is tall and sturdily built, with deep red hair worn short. She’s dressed in her typical uniform of worn jeans, plain T-shirt that’s starting to fray a little at the neck and hem, and trainers so old you can’t tell what color they used to be. Her right hand is planted on her hip as she surveys the chaos. In her left hand is a leash attached to a ginger-colored bulldog pup who’s hopefully sniffing the air.

  “Beth, my love—here at last!” Calum crows, swooping in to give her a hug.

  She grins and thumps him on the shoulder with her free hand. “Ah, ya numpty,” she affectionately greets him. “You stayin’ oot o’ trouble, eh? And keepin’ ’im straight?” She nods toward Chris, who’s wiping his hands on a towel and coming over to embrace her.

  “You’re early,” Chris notes. She was supposed to come in after six. Leave it to Beth to do her own thing.

  “Is that any way to greet yer only sister?” She rolls her eyes. “Charmer, him. How d’ye manage, Calum?”

  “I just ignore him,” Calum answers.

  “Oh, aye? Seems the ticket. Y’all right, then, Rab? Yer gran’s been asking after you.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Rab answers, ducking his head and blushing.

  The pastry chef sighs again and shakes his head, which does not escape Beth’s notice. Chris can see her narrowing her eyes and opening her mouth to say something.

  “You can’t have that dog in here,” Chris cuts in.

  “We’ll scarper,” she says. “I’ll take ’er for a walk to Bladigan’s and see some o’ th’ folk there.”

  “You can’t. It’s gone,” Calum informs her with a grimace and shake of the head. “It’s a yoga studio and juicery now.”

  Beth narrows her eyes. “Whit the bleedin’ hell is a juicery? Right, we’ll find summat to do.”

  “My keys are in the desk in the office.” Chris points the way. “You can just let yourself into the flat.”

  “Right.” She heads to retrieve the keys, then returns. “See you there, then, brother. Ta, loves.” She grabs a few slices of Iberian ham from a prep station and tosses one to the dog on her way out.

  Chris wails after her, “Beth! Do you have any idea what that costs per ounce?!”

  “Ach! It’s just posh bacon, Christopher!” she bellows, slamming the door behind her.

  Calum chuckles. “You think she’ll ever love me back?”

  “Only if you grow a tail and two more legs,” Chris sighs, getting back to work.

  It’s nearly one in the morning by the time Chris drags himself home and is let into his own flat by his sister.

  “Thought you’d be asleep already,” he says.

  “Well, I’m not.” She flops down on his sofa, which is already stippled with ginger hair from the dog, and looks around at the bare, stark white walls. “Ya sure know how to make a place homelike,” she observes with a raised eyebrow. “’Bout as cozy as living inside an IKEA cabinet. Is this that hygge thing I keep hearing about? Or is this what New York does to ye?”

  “It’s just a place to sleep,” Chris tells her, setting his knife roll on the kitchen counter and joining her on the sofa.

  “You cannae do much else here,” she says.

  Seeing it now, through her eyes, he realizes it is a bit unwelcoming and under-furnished. There’s the sofa (charcoal gray—chosen because it’s a color that hides stains well and therefore requires little upkeep), two overpriced, industrial-style lamps that a (short-lived) New York girlfriend insisted he had to have, and a pair of birch wood stools at the kitchen island. The only beauty spot is a coffee table fashioned from a slab of fallen oak, edges left jagged, just as nature intended. It was an impulse buy from a craftsman at the weekly Leith market.

  Even the kitchen is sparse because he does nearly all his cooking at the restaurant. There’s a tiny soup pot, a spatula, a colander, and that’s about it.

  It’s sufficient for him, but Beth pats the dog
on the head and remarks, “Needs a woman’s touch, this. What do the girls think when you bring ’em ’ere?”

  He snorts. “There are no girls.”

  “Are there no? Then ’oo’s this Lauren creature who’s been textin’ ya?” Beth holds up his phone.

  Chris gapes at her. “Did you steal my phone?”

  “Course I did,” she replies, now scrolling through his text messages. “Can you blame me?” Chris tries to yank the phone out of her hand, but she has a grip like a bear trap. The dog, not loving being caught in the middle, hops off the sofa and snuffles around the kitchen cabinets. Beth flicks through the messages and raises an eyebrow. “Chatty one, this. So, who is she?”

  “A nice girl,” he answers, finally wrenching the phone away from his sister.

  Beth gives him a skeptical look. “They’re always nice at the beginning, aren’t they?” She sighs and tucks both feet under her. “You should get out more, Chris. All work and no play makes you …” She gestures to the bare room.

  “I’ll get out after the opening.”

  “No ya won’t. You’ll throw yersel’ into that place twice as much as you already ’ave.”

  “Work is good,” he excuses. “Work keeps me busy. We want me to be busy, don’t we? Keeps my mind occupied. Keeps me out of trouble.”

  “Oh, aye, but so do people,” she says. “Nice people. I can’t stay around always and look after ye, and Calum can’t do it on his own. Ye’ll need others.” She sighs again. “D’ye like this girl?”

  “Sure. She’s nice. Really nice. Happy.”

  “So go out with her, then.”

  “She may be a little young.”

  “Is she legal?”

  “Yes, Beth, of course she is.”

  “Ach, well, it’s fine, then. Nobody thinks twice about an eligible man with a younger girlfriend. And my friend Carole’s fifteen years younger than her man; they get on a treat. Age is just a number, so they say. Nobody’s sayin’ marry her. Just a drink or summat. What’ve ya got to lose?”