by KD Fisher
“He quit, Sean.” My voice was calm.
Sean smoothed the front of his black dress shirt. “Who?” His voice simmered with barely restrained boredom. I didn’t miss the subtle eye roll and soft sigh, like he was bracing himself for a pointless discussion. I knew he thought I was difficult. And that was just fine with me. I could be plenty difficult when I needed to be.
“Your dang pastry guy.” I explained about the message and the job in Boston.
Sean raised his eyebrows. “Okay then. That’s a disappointment. I’ll make a few calls, maybe I can shuffle things around and get one of our people from New York.”
“No,” I snapped, a plan crystalizing in my mind like perfectly spun sugar. “I’m calling Grace. She’s who I wanted and she’s who we’re hiring.” I tried not to visibly bristle at Sean’s dismissive laugh.
“Adah.” My name dripped with artificial sweet. “Call her if you want but you and I both know a girl like that isn’t the right fit for what we’re trying to do here. She won’t be able to keep up with the pace or handle the pressure. We need confidence. Energy. Creativity.”
I bit down on my tongue. He was talking about me. I knew he thought I couldn’t do this job. Knew he wished Riccardo had hired some flashy chef with a big social media following instead of a nobody who had to look up what Snapchat was. He thought I wasn’t good enough. He was wrong. Plastering the same stony, unobtrusive expression on my face I’d perfected over decades, I reached for the phone on his desk. Our desk. I reminded myself yet again that this was my office too.
Grace answered on the first ring, shouting over a rumble of background noise. Kitchen noise. My stomach flipped.
“Hi, Ms. Park. This is Adah Campbell from Bella Vista. Do you have a moment?”
“Oh my god! Yes hi!” Her voice carried a nervous edge.
I willfully trained my gaze on the wall calendar, a bland photo of mossy woods, instead of Sean’s face. I knew his smug expression too well already.
“Great. Well I’d like to hire you on as our new pastry chef. Are you available to start,” I swallowed hard, “today?”
“Shit. I mean, crap. I’m so sorry and thank you so much for the opportunity but I actually accepted another job. When I didn’t hear from you guys I kinda figured it was a no. So, I took this job at The Yellow House. Have you been? It’s a really cool little spot... Wow two job offers. I feel like a rock star. Ugh, sorry I’m rambling. But thank you so so much. Seriously. I can’t believe you even considered me.”
The Yellow House. Of course she’d gone there. For what felt like the thousandth time since our visit two weeks earlier, I tried and failed to banish the memory of Beth Summers and her stupid vibrant hair and dumb luminous skin. The dang beautiful restaurant she’d built: fragrant wood smoke, tangles of herbs, and spills of summer blooms. The embarrassing late-night hours I’d spent scrolling through her restaurant’s breezy, surprisingly funny social media feeds. The way her big brown eyes had flashed fierce and angry in response to Sean’s patronizing tone. No, Adah. Focus.
“Right. I understand. Best of luck in your new endeavor.” I ended the call.
“Sounds like that went well.” Sean laughed.
The tiny ember of desire I’d felt for Beth Summers transmuted then into a searing rage that boiled up my spine. I wanted to stomp my feet, break a pencil, do something to let out the panic and fear that threatened, seemingly out of nowhere, to consume me.
Of course. Of course, Beth, with her effortless restaurant and easy manner, would snap up my staff. Outlandish, unfair thoughts stacked on top of each other in my mind like layers of puff pastry coming together to form a solid mass of animosity. She didn’t deserve her success. She was nothing but a pretty face. She probably didn’t even know how to bake. The logical part of my brain tried to remind me that Beth Summers and The Yellow House were not, in fact, the problems at hand. Sean’s reluctance to let me staff my own kitchen was the problem. My abject terror in the face of failure was the problem. The fact that I didn’t know if I could do this... Tears threatened. I closed my eyes. It was so much easier to hate Beth Summers.
* * *
Even down a pastry chef, the soft opening turned out to be a moderate success. My hunch had been right and Mac was amazing in the kitchen, picking up slack the few times the other cooks fell behind. The front of house staff was great, too, good-natured and attentive. The blueberry puddings hadn’t been a very exciting dessert and one of the bartenders had apparently quit halfway through her shift. Sure, the few times I’d gone out into the dining room to greet guests or discuss a dietary restriction, my stomach had dropped as I searched the room for Beth. Not that I’d expected her to show up. Goodness knew she was probably too busy giving interviews and posting photos on Instagram to show up to the soft opening of a restaurant she’d been so quick to write off.
Regardless, as I nursed a lukewarm seltzer, feet aching from a solid sixteen hours of standing, eyes crossing as I reviewed order numbers for tomorrow, I couldn’t help but feel proud. I’d done it. I’d actually run my own kitchen. Our food had been beautifully plated, flavorful, and people had loved it. The zuppa di pesce with grilled focaccia had been such a hit we sold out by the nine o’clock reservations.
My phone buzzed on the counter next to me and I answered without looking at the screen, assuming it would be Vanessa wondering when on earth I might actually come home. Peter would be long asleep, but I looked forward to running my fingers through my son’s soft hair, listening to the steady rise and fall of his breath.
“How was it?” Jay’s voice bloomed in the air around me and I grinned. I missed Jay, who’d started as Café Eloise’s spitfire pastry chef and had become my best friend in the universe, with a desperation I hadn’t expected. I pictured them curled up on their tiny, garish pink couch, reality TV playing in the background. A pang of homesickness echoed through me. “Have you seen a moose yet?”
I shook my head and smiled. Jay had asked the same ridiculous question every time we’d talked. “No. I told you, South Bay is a city. Well, kind of. Still no moose here. Not that I know of anyway.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever you say, genius Executive Chef Campbell.” I could hear the twist of pride and mirth in their voice. “How the hell was it? Was Sean a total fuckface? God, I hated working with him at Osteria Verde. But actually, he’s a waste of time to discuss. Tell me about the food. I bet people went berserk over the cod croquettes, right?”
I glanced around the empty kitchen. I’d seen the last of Sean and Riccardo a few hours earlier, after we’d cleaned up and given the requisite pep talks to staff. “Yes, to all of that, but I’m still in the kitchen.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “But yeah it was good, I think. I don’t really know. We sold out of the zuppa a few hours into service. Oh, and the dang pastry guy quit. Then when I tried to get the woman I’d liked all along she’d gone to work at that stupid Yellow House place.” No way, no how was I allowing the disappointment I’d felt when Beth didn’t show up to the soft opening to creep back in. Why the heck would she come? She thought Bella Vista was a tourist-trap joke. Besides, she had her own fancy-pants vanity bakery to run.
Jay scoffed. “Stupid Yellow House place, huh? The place owned by that cute redhead you mentioned about a dozen times? That particular establishment?” At my stubborn silence they forged ahead. “But yeah, of course that dude quit. I could have told you he’d be a no-show. And actually...” They trailed off. It was so unlike Jay to lapse into silence that my nerves pricked.
“What?” I asked, my voice tight. “Everything okay? Shoot, sorry I haven’t even asked you about your life. I’m an awful friend.”
“Nah. Everything kind of sucks, though, to be honest. Oh, let’s see...” I could picture them ticking the strokes of bad luck on their fingers. “Café Eloise has turned into a complete and utter shitshow since you left. The new chef is, I don’t know, like either totally
fucked up when he gets to work every day, in which case, like, dude, let’s get you some help, or he’s totally bad at his job and spacey as hell. Half the front of house quit to go work at that stupid gourmet burger place that opened down the street. And, well, Amy moved out. So yeah, my life is basically a miserable hellscape at the moment.” All of this was delivered with Jay’s customary audible grin.
“Jay!” My voice reverberated through the kitchen, pinging off of stainless steel and freshly scrubbed tile. “Oh my word. I am so sorry.” My heart broke for them. Jay was not only the hardest worker I’d ever known, but they were the kindest, most generous person on the planet.
“Eh, shit happens.” Jay’s voice broke and my heart shattered with it. They’d been with Amy for more than three years. The two of them had been talking marriage, buying a condo together. They’d adopted a dog, for goodness’ sake!
“Do you want to talk about it?” I hated when people pushed me to discuss hard stuff, so I kept my voice as level and calm as possible, even if I did want to find Amy and guilt-trip her to Timbuktu and back.
“I do not. I mean I do, but not right now. But what I really want is to join you up in the land of lobstah and mooses. Mice? What the fuck is the plural for moose? Anyway, may I interest you in a recently single, classically trained pastry chef to grace your lovely new kitchen?”
Even after all of the stress and joy the day had delivered, this was by far my favorite moment. I let every ounce of my enthusiasm flood into my words. “You’re hired.”
Chapter Four
Beth
I shaded my eyes against the sun glistening off the sea and breathed in deep. Seaweed and sunscreen and salt. It was early still, just after sunrise, the sky a pale blue dotted with soft rose gold clouds. Seagulls dove and bobbed, crying out into the morning air. The beach was empty save for a few joggers and diligent tourist families setting up their umbrellas and armadas of folding chairs. As soon as his paws hit the sand, Hamlet shrugged off his collar and bounded toward a group of sandpipers running in the surf. I called feebly after him but he was too focused on the ocean to care.
It was my first day off in months. Maybe my first day off since I’d taken over The Yellow House. Grace Park and Eitan Blumenthal answering my rambling mess of a job posting had been a stroke of positive fate. Grace brought boundless energy, gleaming positivity, and a baking intuition that was almost certainly better than my own. And Eitan was her exact opposite. Quiet, steady, organized. Excellent at breaking down large cuts of meat from the local farmers and blisteringly efficient in the kitchen. In the weeks since they’d both started, guests had been happy, the menu had blossomed, and I’d gotten more than four hours of sleep each night.
Gazing out at the piney islands dotting the horizon, I welcomed the day. This was the version of myself I liked best. Calm, light, connected. I’d been terrified of what I’d turned into the last few weeks. I’d become a monster fueled by adrenaline and caffeine alone. When I’d agreed to take over the coffee shop and decided to turn it into a bakery-slash-restaurant, I’d set intentions. If I was going to be stuck in my hometown instead of backpacking through Italy with Maya, I’d at least have a few things to hold on to: reasonable hours, honest food, good energy. The last few weeks those intentions had incinerated in front of my very eyes. Now I could get back on track. Start practicing yoga again. See my friends. Maybe even revisit the paintings lying abandoned in the shed out back.
“Hey!” A sharp voice yanked me from my thoughts. “Can you get your dog under control?”
Cold panic sluiced through me. I scanned the beach for the voice, for Hamlet. I found him rolling in the sand, tongue lolling out, at the feet of a young boy. The boy was laughing and bending down to scratch my dog’s enormous exposed belly. Two women looked on. One, older with silver-streaked brown hair, snapped pictures and laughed. The other woman...was none other than Adah Campbell. Her angular face was, surprise surprise, completely impassive as she waved me over. Her blond hair was wind tousled and she wore a pair of loose, light-wash jeans cuffed a few times at the ankles and a plain gray tank top. Blank expression aside, she looked more relaxed than the first time I’d seen her. I hazarded a guess that this Monday was her first day off in a long while, too.
Heaving a sigh, I jogged over, tugging up the hem of my long skirt so I didn’t trip and fall face-first into the sand.
“The signs say no dogs.” Adah’s voice was a harsh rasp. She eyed Hamlet like he was a rabid wolverine, not a dopey docile mutt.
“Aw, honey, it’s no big deal. It’s barely seven in the morning. Lots of people around here bring their dogs before it gets crowded. Lord knows I used to.” The other woman tossed an indulgent laugh into the breeze. She had a heavy Maine accent and I immediately liked her. I glanced between her and Adah, sensing a maternal warmth. But they didn’t seem to be related.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, face flushing hot as I clipped Hamlet’s leash back onto his harness.
The little boy looked disappointed, big blue eyes flicking from me to Hamlet like I might whisk away his new best friend. “He’s huge. What kind of dog is he?”
“I’m not quite sure. I know he’s part Great Dane but the people at the shelter weren’t sure what the other part is. Do you know a lot about dogs? What do you think?”
The boy sighed, world-weary, and cast a meaningful look in Adah’s direction. “I don’t know anything about dogs because my mom says we can’t get one. She’s a chef so she’s too busy.”
I glanced between the two of them, awareness pricked. Upon closer inspection, they really did look like mother and son: same shade of wheat-colored hair, same long, straight nose. But where Adah was reserved, even cold, he was all bright bouncing energy. In all of my pointless speculation about Adah since I’d met her and all but chased her away from my restaurant, it hadn’t occurred to me that she might be a mother. I’d envisioned her shooting pool and swigging beers in the local dives with the line cooks, not reading bedtime stories and joining the PTA. I brushed my hand over my face to hide my grin. I liked this new, softer vision of Adah.
I wasn’t quite sure if I should be polite, stick around and chat, or leave them to their family morning. Was that older woman her partner? Mother? Friend? I tried to banish any assumptions and focus on the particulars of having a conversation like a normal fucking human being. But why had I even assumed Adah was queer? She wouldn’t be the first or last woman to cut her hair short and dress with practicality in mind for the kitchen. Wishful thinking, I supposed. “How’s everything going?” I asked before I could stop myself. “At the restaurant, I mean.” Something about Adah threw me off-kilter, that was for certain. My thoughts were a jumbled mess.
Adah shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest. I’d never met someone with more closed-off posture in my life. “Fine. Well mostly fine. Aside from you stealing our pastry chef, that is.”
I cocked my head. Stealing their pastry chef? “You mean Grace? I didn’t know she worked for you.” I meant the words genuinely, but they came out sarcastic, a challenge.
“Well I’d wanted her to.” Adah sighed, sounding exhausted. “My GM insisted on some bozo who never showed up. Anyway, it’s all fine now, I found someone perfect for the job.” A small smile tugged at her full lips. I wanted to see more of it.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Again, I sounded far sassier than I’d meant to. What was it about this woman that inflamed my typically easygoing disposition?
“You two know each other?” the other woman asked, grinning at Adah and waggling her eyebrows. Okay, so unless they had a very open, very encouraging relationship, they probably weren’t together.
“Adah and some folks from her restaurant stopped by my place a few weeks ago and I was busy and ridiculously rude.” I gave Adah my best contrite expression, hoping it came across as genuine. “Sleep deprivation apparently makes me into an as—um, jerk.”
Adah
said nothing, her face as placid as ever, eyes now fixed on the horizon where a cruise ship chugged toward port. Okay, then, so that apology attempt went up in smoke. Note to self: this woman is cold as ice and decidedly not worth the fantasies of her showing up at the restaurant, pressing you against a wall, and kissing you until you can’t think. Probably.
“You’re a chef too?” The other woman’s voice pulled me from indulging, yet again, in said ridiculous fantasy.
“Oh, um.” I made a seesaw motion with the free hand not holding Hamlet’s leash. “I’m a baker mostly. I own The Yellow House over in Port Catherine.”
The woman’s face lit up. “No way! You’re little Elizabeth Summers? I thought you looked familiar. My husband and I used to come in a million years ago when your mother was still running the show. I heard you’re making a big splash over there, kiddo. How’s your family?” I half expected her to pull me into her arms for a not unwelcome hug.
I beamed. “My mom finally retired a few years ago. And by retired, I mean works four days a week at Wordsworth Greenhouse and basically turned her yard and mine into a farm. My brother, Andrew, works with me at the restaurant and he’s hoping to start an actual farm of his own as well.” I rifled around through my memories, trying to match a name to vague impressions of the woman’s face twenty years younger.
As if she’d read my mind, she batted the air between us. “You probably don’t remember me, huh? I’m Vanessa Tyler. I’ll bet you remember my Charlie though. Big red beard? He used to bring you and your brother all kinds of stuff he whittled.”