by Noir, Roxie
I’d like to say that, as a grown man, I rise above that.
I don’t.
“They didn’t mention a twenty thousand dollar prize in my interview,” I say, as casually as I can manage.
“Last year it was two thousand,” she says. “And I thought that was cutthroat.”
“Who won it?”
She cocks one eyebrow, and that’s how long it takes me to know the answer.
“Guess.”
I glance around, unwilling to fall into her trap right away.
“Naomi,” I say, watching the sous chef chatting with someone from Maintenance, cheerfully grabbing a piece of cherry pie.
Violet doesn’t bother answering, just looks skeptical. The sharks in her eyes circle.
“Janice,” I said, naming our wedding cake person.
“She’s not even staff, she’s an outside vendor,” Violet says, like she’s explaining something to a four-year-old.
“She’s right over there,” I say, nodding in her direction.
“She probably likes pie,” Violet points out. “I like pie. Presumably you like pie, unless you really are that difficult.”
“Difficult?” I ask, putting one hand to my chest. “Violet, I’m anything but.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m a team player. I’d even say I’m a valuable team player,” I go on.
Her eyebrows rise, and I swear the side of her mouth twitches like she’s about to smile. In the corner of my vision, I see Montgomery — my new boss and presumably also hers — coming toward us, probably so he can introduce us.
You know, professional stuff that sounds a lot less enjoyable than giving Violet Tulane hell.
“Maybe even the most valuable player,” I say.
“Not a chance,” Violet says, deadpan.
“Best be on your toes, Tulane.”
She takes one step closer, eyes flashing, and suddenly this feels very unprofessional. It feels profoundly personal. It feels like a long-held grudge coming back to life and blossoming in the pressure cooker of the first day at my new job.
Also, goddamn she’s pretty.
“You’ll win this over my dead body,” she says quietly.
Montgomery closes in. I force myself to keep my cool, even though inside I’m close to my boiling point.
I want to tell her that shit has changed in ten years. That I’m back and I’m going to knock her down a peg.
I want to tell her that I’m going to win that twenty grand, buy myself a big-ass pickup truck, and drive it by her trailer with the radio blasting fifty times a night just to rub it in her face.
But I don’t say that. I clench my fists in my pockets and make myself smile.
“Hope you don’t mean that literally,” is all I say.
Then Montgomery is there, his good-old-boy smile blazing away. Violet steps back, her face softening, and she makes herself smile.
“I see y’all have already met,” he says, clapping both of us on the shoulders at the same time. “But just in case, Eli, this is Violet, our Lead Event Coordinator. Violet, this is Eli, our new Executive Chef. Eli, did you meet Martin yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Martin!” Montgomery calls, his hands still on our shoulders.
Violet makes a face. It’s subtle, and she controls herself almost instantly, but it’s a face.
Another man saunters over. He looks to be about our age, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a sharp nose. His button-down shirt has a Polo logo on one pocket.
Between the look he gave me and the face Violet made, I already don’t like him.
“Martin Beauregard,” he says, taking my hand and pumping it vigorously. He’s got a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and I give him back the same.
“Martin here is in charge of the guest experience,” Montgomery says. “You have any questions about that, just let him know.”
I’d like to know what, exactly, being in charge of the guest experience even means, but I decide to figure it out on my own.
“Fantastic meeting you,” he says, giving me that insincere smile again. “I’m looking forward to our working partnership. Nice seeing you, Violet.”
“Nice seeing you too,” she says, her voice pure ice.
“Fantastic,” Montgomery says to Violet and I as Martin steps away. “Eli, let me steal you away so I can introduce you around. Have you had any pie yet? They’re from Ruth-Ann’s and her strawberry rhubarb is simply out of this world…”
Violet turns. Montgomery leads me away, still going on about the pie, but my mind isn’t on pastry at all.
It’s on Violet, and the twenty grand, and Violet. It’s on how if Violet wins it, I may as well move out of Sprucevale again because I’ll never hear the end of it.
Right now, I know two things.
One, that money is mine.
And two, Violet is going down.
Chapter Seven
Eli
I open the hood of the smoker and a plume of smoke erupts out and floats upward, smelling of pure heaven and burning my eyes. I wave it away and stick a thermometer into one thigh.
One-sixty. About another hour at least before I can pull the duck out and let it cool.
I glance over my shoulder and back into the big, bustling industrial kitchen from where I’m standing on the grilling patio, a concrete slab that holds five different grills, a tandoori oven, and a giant smoker that’s nearly the size of my first car. I’m sure if a guest ever requests such a thing, we’d dig a pit and roast a whole pig for a luau.
Actually, that sounds kind of fun. I’ve never roasted a pig in a pit before.
Automatically, I start going through my mental checklist. The duck will be done in about an hour. I’ve got one sous chef baking the hand-turned sesame crackers and the other making almost a thousand wild mushroom ravioli by hand. There are six different sauces reducing on the stove, and and in another room, the pastry chef, Janice is baking hundreds of macarons.
It’s Thursday afternoon, and things are looking good. Not only is everything going perfectly for my first Bramblebush wedding as Executive Chef, I’ve barely seen Violet since the meeting on Tuesday.
Which is ideal. If we have to work at the same place, at least it’s big enough that we don’t really have to see each other. At this rate, we’ll both survive the summer.
I turn to head back inside, but before I make it, the door opens and Violet comes marching out.
“Welcome to the patio,” I say, one hundred percent cheerful and professional. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” she says carefully, looking at the collection of grills and smokers and outdoor ovens. “But Kevin said there was a problem with the menu that I needed to come talk to you about?”
I take the hand towel that I always have hanging over my shoulder and wipe my hands with it out of habit.
“Right. The mac and cheese balls,” I say.
“What’s the problem?” she asks. “Did your order not have the ingredients in there? I know Louis, the old chef, was having some issues when deliveries didn’t have the right —”
“I’m not making them,” I cut her off.
She pauses. Something glints in her gray-blue eyes.
“No?” she finally says.
She doesn’t change position, but her entire body tenses and I feel the fight coming on the way you can feel a thunderstorm.
“No,” I say, crossing my arms in front of myself. “They’re a travesty of an appetizer and this kitchen won’t be making them anymore.”
Violet gives me a long, up-and-down look like she’s assessing me for something and finding me unfit.
“They’re on the menu,” she finally says, her voice full of forced patience. “The bride and groom ordered them months ago. They specifically asked to have the mac and cheese ball appetizers, because I guess the groom’s brother went to a wedding here a few years ago and they were so amazing —”
“Well, the groom’
s brother is wrong because they weren’t amazing, mac and cheese balls are never amazing, and I’m not in the business of making non-amazing food.”
She snorts.
“You’re a wedding caterer,” she says. “Where do you think you are, some Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris? Make the mac and cheese balls.”
Anger bubbles up inside me, fast and hot because Violet is exactly the same as always: infuriating.
“Bangkok,” I say.
“What?”
“The Michelin-starred restaurant was in Bangkok.”
Violet raises one eyebrow, but I can tell she’s surprised.
“Kham Na. I was a sous chef. We were one of three restaurants in the city to get a star,” I tell her.
Violet looks at me, her face unreadable.
I want her to be impressed. Despite everything, I do. As much as I want not to care what Violet thinks about anything, as much as I want to never give the girl’s opinion another thought, I also want her to be impressed.
“And how, exactly, does that prevent you from making the appetizer that’s on the menu which was finalized several months ago and which someone has paid four hundred thousand dollars for?” she asks.
“If someone paid that much for mac and cheese balls they really overpaid.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You sure this place isn’t laundering money? If I saw appetizers with that price tag, that’s the first thing I’d think.”
Violet doesn’t say anything.
“It’s impossible to make good mac and cheese balls,” I finally say. “If you can get the cheese thick enough that it’ll stick the macaroni together properly, it dries out in the deep fryer. In order to make the macaroni pliable enough to form a ball in the first place, you have to overcook it, and then when you fry them they get even more overcooked and the result is a sticky, gloppy, textureless mess that tastes okay but that everyone only wants for the novelty of having macaroni and cheese in ball form, because for some reason Americans have a raging hard-on for all their childhood favorites. Next you’ll be asking me to make chicken nuggets and tater tots fancy.”
“No one ever complained about Louis’s mac and cheese balls,” she says. “They were fine. More importantly, he made them and didn’t try to mess with a menu two days before a wedding!”
“Just because no one complained doesn’t mean they were good,” I point out. “No one ever complains about vanilla ice cream but that doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“I like vanilla ice cream.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“What’s that —" Violet stops suddenly, narrowing her eyes. “No. We’re not doing this.”
I fight back the urge to smile.
“Doing what?”
“We’re not getting into a fight over this. We are at work and we are not fighting and you’re going to make the balls because that’s what they’ve ordered and that’s what’s on the menu and that is all, Eli.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, just jerks the door open and walks back into the kitchen. I’m right behind her, but I stop just inside as she makes her way between people, dodging a rack of pans and neatly stepping around a sous chef as he pulls a sheet of pasta from the pasta maker.
“I’m not making the balls!” I shout after her, over the din.
Violet turns around at the far door and smiles at me. It’s a dangerous smile.
“Yes, you are!” she shouts, and then she’s gone, the door swinging shut behind her.
In unison, everyone in the kitchen looks at the door.
Then they turn to look at me.
“What? It’s fine,” I tell them. “Keep cooking.”
They all go back to their jobs. I stand there for a few more moments, telling myself not to let Violet get the best of me.
Then I go back to work.
Chapter Eight
Violet
I stare down at the seating chart instructions, wondering why the bride and groom don’t just do this part themselves. Most do, but for some reason, Emma and Ashton decided that leaving me three full pages of instructions about who should be seated next to whom and who absolutely should not be seated next to whom would be easier for everyone involved.
Maybe they really enjoyed typing out all their family drama, past and present, for a complete stranger. I don’t know. I just know that Emma’s college roommate, Julie, should not be seated with the bride’s sorority friends, that the groom’s brother can’t be in the same half of the room as the bride’s coworker Della, that Emma’s cousins on her mom’s side all need to be seated at separate tables because of something that had happened in the nineties, and apparently the groom’s boss and the bride’s uncle, Jim, will get along famously and should be seated together, but absolutely not near the bar.
I’m starting to get a headache when there’s a quick knock on my half-open door.
It swings open before I can say anything, and there stands Eli.
He’s tall, dark, annoyingly handsome, totally interrupting my train of thought, unlikely to make my afternoon less of an exercise in frustration, and holding a plate of something.
“Come on in, I’m not busy,” I say, eyeing the plate. It looks he’s brought me mac and cheese balls, but I know Eli better than that.
After our earlier disagreement, he’d probably rather drink rattlesnake poison than make mac and cheese balls. Unless, of course, he’s bringing me mac and cheese balls laced with rattlesnake poison.
“Good,” he says, crossing my office in a few steps and putting the plate on my desk, right on top of the seating charts that I’m trying to work on. “Here.”
There are four breaded, fried balls, each about an inch and a half in diameter. They’re obviously fresh and, to be honest, they smell really good.
Briefly, I wonder if Eli knows how to get rattlesnake poison on an hour’s notice.
His older brother, maybe?
Would anyone in town be surprised if Levi knew how to get snake poison in sixty minutes?
Unlikely, though. I’m pretty sure Eli wouldn’t try to murder me. Even for twenty grand.
I pick one up between my finger and thumb. Poison or not, they smell amazing, and I’m pretty much incapable of resisting a tasty fried treat.
“Careful, they’re hot,” he says, folding his arms in front of himself. He’s still wearing his chef’s jacket, still has a kitchen towel slung over one shoulder. “Fresh outta the deep fryer.”
Another, non-snake-poison possibility presents itself to me.
“Did you make terrible mac and cheese balls just to prove your point?” I ask.
“Do those look terrible?”
“I can’t tell, they’re fried balls.”
“Just eat one before they get cold,” he says.
I keep considering the fried ball without putting it my mouth. I know they’re not actually poison, but I hate giving Eli the satisfaction of telling me what to do.
“What are they?” I ask, just to delay another moment.
“Delicious. Which you would know if you ate it,” he says, the faintest hint of amusement around his mouth.
He’s watching me. Not glaring, not rolling his eyes, just watching my face with his intense, deep green gaze.
I gaze back, the ball still held between my fingers.
For a split second, time freezes. I feel stuck, unable to move, pinned under the weight of his intensity and his attention. He watches me like a boxer watches his opponent: wary but ready, practically begging me to take my next swing.
I blink. Then my heart kickstarts. The moment is over.
I bite into the fried ball, my teeth crunching through the outer layer and sinking into the middle, savory flavors flooding my mouth as my eyes go wide.
It’s good. Really good. So good that for a second I forget where I am or who I’m with.
“Mmgaw,” I say. “Thishi mazin.”
Something like relief flickers across his face and then it’s gone, replaced b
y his usual half-hitched smile.
“Told you so,” he says.
I don’t bother arguing. The ball is crunchy on the outside and chewy in the middle, light and fluffy and bursting with flavor all at once with notes of lemon, garlic, thyme, and a dozen other things I can’t even name. Plus, the center is filled with perfectly melty mozzarella, pulling from my mouth to the other half of the ball, still in my hand.
I shove the rest into my mouth before I finished chewing the first half. I can’t stop myself. I want a dozen more.
“What are these?” I ask, swallowing and taking another one off the plate.
“Better than mac and cheese balls,” he says.
I just chew, swallow, take the third one one off the plate, and wait for him to answer my question.
“They’re called arancini,” he says, pronouncing it errran-cheenee. “They’re Italian. Sicilian, I think. It’s mozzarella in the middle of a ball of risotto, covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried.”
“So, basically a mac and cheese ball,” I say, biting and chewing. I manage not to moan.
Eli snorts.
“They’re nothing like mac and cheese balls,” he says. “There’s no mac. Completely different.”
“Please, they’ve got all the same stuff,” I go on, contemplating the half still in my hand. “Cheese, carbs, they’re fried…”
“Except mac and cheese balls are bad, and these are good,” he points out. “Porsches and Chevys have all the same parts, too, and you’d never call those the same.”
“They’re both cars. They’d both get me to work and back.”
“You might not notice a difference, but I wouldn’t show up in Monaco with a Tahoe.”
I chew. I was on my third, contemplating the fourth, but I need to save it.
“You still have to make mac and cheese balls for the wedding,” I tell him.
He shifts his stance, his body tensing into a fight mode. Despite the years since high school, I’d know Eli Loveless’s fighting stance anywhere.
“That thing is ten times better than some gummy, overworked and undercooked monstrosity of Americana and you know it,” he says, eyes flashing.