“It’s okay, at least we went to France, right?” At least I did some type of travelling.
He nodded slowly like he was thinking of something. “Where did you want to go?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Like on your gap year.”
I didn’t hesitate to travel. I had always wanted to go here, ever since I saw a picture on the internet of the beautiful blue water.
Just thinking about it made my eyes sparkle and my lips turn into a smile.
“Tahiti,” I said looking up and locking eyes with him again. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said, leaning back and taking his phone out, no doubt for more work.
CHAPTER FORTYEIGHT
“What’s happening?” I asked, confused, as Darius stood beside me. The door bell rung as I was drifting off to sleep on the couch, and it woke me up. I mean, it was hard to fall asleep when Adrian was bursting into the house, after ringing the door bell like a civilised person.
Darius just looked as confused as me as we stood in the kitchen while Adrian grabbed things out.
“So it has come to my attention,” Adrian finally spoke, grabbing a bag of something and placing it on the counter top. “That neither of you can cook.” He gave me a pointed look, making me blush.
I can make pasta? If you give me the sauce, I mean it was just boiling water, right?
“You are a disaster,” Adrian bluntly said and I glared at him. Gee, thanks. “And you have potential,” he said, pointing to Darius. I frowned, I was sure I had potential too. Well, okay maybe not. If Darius started to cook I wouldn’t complain. I’ll happily eat for him. He would be too tired to do both. I smiled at my wicked idea.
“So let’s start simple today. Lasagna.”
As delicious as that sounded, how was that simple? It sounded hard. I looked at the ingredients he was taking out.
“Why do you have vegetables?” I asked feeling stupid. Wasn’t lasagna just meat, cheese, more glorious cheese and pasta? Adrian looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on earth, which I probably was when it came to cooking and his jaw dropped.
“To cook with the meat,” his tone disbelieving and that’s when I decided to keep all questions to myself. I could always just laugh at him when the outcome was horrible and tell him that lasagna had no vegetables. Well, I don’t know.
“Adrian can cook pretty good,” Darius whispered beside me and I raised a skeptical eyebrow. Let’s hope so.
“Darius, you set up the stove. Ivory, cut this.”
A chopping board with carrots and capsicum was passed to me and I looked at it. Adrian had already washed them and peeled the carrots.
“Small, really small,” he told me and I nodded. Here goes nothing. The capsicum was slippery and the skin was a bit harder to cut through, but I got the hang of it pretty fast. I mean I did do this for him last time he cooked.
I cut them as small as I could, and then thought it was too small but when Adrian nodded at me, I guess it was okay. Man, I can cook! Well, cut.
“Now what do I do?” I asked after I finished. My jaw dropped when Adrian placed six onions, big ones, on the counter top.
“Cut them, too.”
Six?
I got to work right away. Only when I reached my second one did I feel my eyes burning. I could feel the tears coming down and I sniffed, closing my eyes. They were too strong for my eyes and nose.
“I can’t,” I yelled, dropping the knife and lifting up my shirt to press against my eyelids as they stung.
“Oh my god, onions,” I jumped up and down, turning around.
“You only cut two…” Adrian said from somewhere close, his voice sounded close and I waved a hand. “It stings,” I said.
How did chefs always cut onions without crying? I didn’t realise it would be this strong.
“Don’t be a baby. Cut them.”
“Adrian…” It was Darius.
“What? She can cut them. She only has four left.”
I blinked a few times before nodding. I can do this. I can take on these onions. I peeled the skin off the next one and washed it and placed it on the chopping board. I closed my eyes feeling for the knife and the onion and started chopping.
“Is she chopping with her eyes closed?”
“Wait, what?”
“She’s going to cut her fingers off. No, Ivory. Fine, switch with Darius.”
Thank the lord. I looked down to see I did a pretty good job. It wasn’t that bad to cut with your eyes closed.
“What do I do?” I asked, walking up to the sauce pan but it was pretty self-explanatory when I saw it. Stir. There was a red paste, no doubt tomato paste, and in the other pan there was hot oil, where mixed minced meat was already browning.
“Don’t let it burn.” I nodded upon hearing Adrian, who was walking around grabbing more things out of the cupboards.
“Where is Margaret?” I asked, realising again that her presence was missing.