“But I love this.” She gestures around the dining room. “Running a kitchen, shaping a menu. Trusting my staff is the way I get to have both.” She finishes her espresso, pushing the saucer away from her. “So, what’s your favorite part of all this, Chef? Is it the chaos? The gratification of getting through a busy night? The creativity? What’s your why?”
There’s no hesitation when I say, “Feeding the people I love.”
Maven chokes on her own saliva with a laugh. “Then what the hell are you doing here? I couldn’t tell you the last time I cooked for a loved one. Now it’s all critics and fine dining . . . what do they call themselves? Foodies? But that’s what I enjoy most, feeding the people who want that kind of food.”
I don’t respond, using my chai to keep my mouth occupied.
“This little summer hiatus of yours,” Maven fills the silence. “You’re named Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year and disappear. You had the food world in a tizzy, Miller, and I’m honored to be your first kitchen back. But you’ve got to tell me, what the hell was that about?”
Do I tell her the truth about the burnout and the pressure? Will she look down on me for it? Judge me? Use it against me?
I tread cautiously, but honestly. “I was feeling a bit burnt out.”
“Already?” she raises a single brow.
I pull my eyes from her.
“I hit that place about four years ago. Granted, I was fifteen years in at the time. I left and had my daughter. Found a new passion for life in her, but I still had this ache to be here too.” She taps her finger against the tabletop, referencing her restaurant. “Do you mind if I give you a piece of advice? From one old chef to a fresh, young one?”
I laugh. “You’re not old, but yes, please do.”
“If you ever feel like you’ve truly lost your passion for this, quit. Your food will never meet its potential because you’ll never meet your potential. This career is not for the faint of heart. You will be beaten down on the line, day in and day out. You know this. But if you’re questioning if you made the right decision, you’ve already made the wrong one.
“Find your passion, Miller. Find what makes you excited to get up every morning and if it’s not this, walk away.”
Well, fuck me, am I that obvious?
“This is what I’m good at.”
“Oh, you’re fucking brilliant at it. But you know what’s better than being the best at something you don’t love? Being mediocre at something you do.”
“It’s really not that easy, Chef. I have a four-year waitlist of kitchens I’m scheduled for, just like this one.”
“Do you have signed contracts? Has money been exchanged?”
“Just verbal agreements.”
She waves me off as if saying I didn’t owe anyone anything with only a verbal contract.
I don’t have much more to add to that piece of the conversation because my mind has been doing cartwheels all summer knowing something has felt off for quite a while.
“All right Miss Food & Wine cover girl.” Maven claps her hands, putting the big questions on pause. “I need to know about these top-secret recipes. And where did you end up taking the cover photo? They called to get my permission to shoot here, but then called back to say they had a set in Chicago.”
A set in Chicago. I could laugh. They had a beautiful kitchen in someone’s home with a toddler running around.
“I was helping my dad this summer in Chicago. He’s a baseball coach and his starting pitcher has a son who needed a nanny for a couple of months. We took the pictures in his kitchen. Actually . . .” I pull my phone out of my pocket. “Violet sent over the layout for the article. They just need to add the write-up from the interview we’re doing this afternoon.”
Maven and I scoot our chairs closer as I scroll through my emails, finding the one Violet forwarded. As soon as I pull it up, the cover shot takes over the screen.
It’s blurred in the background, but it’s there. The kitchen I made so many memories in. I’m standing in front of it, chef coat in place, arms crossed over my chest.
But the most alarming part of this photo is how unhappy I look. Did no one else notice when they picked this shot?
“Wow,” Maven exhales. “Stunning photo, Miller.”
I don’t respond, scrolling down to find the images of my desserts and the recipes that accompany them. There are more photos of me, whisking, cracking an egg. I look just as unhappy.
“Oh,” Maven awes. “We need to feature that dark chocolate cylinder this fall.”
The dessert I thought of when I was in Boston with Kai.
And once again, I want to cry, crumble, dissolve into nothing because he’s everywhere.
He was so concerned about noticing my absence in his house, but I’m two thousand miles away and that man is embedded in every moment of my life.
As he should be.
I shake it off, trying to regain my excitement.
“Violet said the photographer sent over the shots that didn’t make it. I’m sure there’s more angles of the desserts there too. The mozzarella cheesecake turned out beautiful.”
In my emails, I find the photographer’s message with the subject line that says, “Thought you should have this.”
I click, letting them load, but once they do, I realize there are no photos of the desserts. No action shots or pictures of the kitchen.
Only one photo is attached. Me in my chef’s coat holding Max with a smile so big, my eyes are almost non-existent. He’s equally as happy in my arms, big gummy grin, and I’m looking at him like he’s everything that’s been missing from my life.
This must have been from when Max wobbled onto set, right before Sylvia lost it on me for daring to wrinkle my chef’s coat.
It’s undeniable, the joy on my face in this photo compared to the one that landed its way on the cover.
“Is that your son?” Maven asks, looking over my shoulder at the screen.
“Oh,” I startle, forgetting for a moment that she was here. “No. This is Max. The little boy I was nannying for.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“You look at him the way I look at Luna—my daughter, not the restaurant.”
With my new frame in hand, I thank the rideshare driver as he drops me off in front of the house rental in the Hollywood Hills. Parking is a real bitch in LA, so I’ve been taking rideshares and leaving my van parked in the driveway here.
The driver takes off and I look up to see a giant man sitting on the front steps, tattooed elbows leaning on his knees.
“Dad?” I ask.
His smile grows. “Hi, Millie.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I got your voicemail this morning. You sounded like you needed me.”
I quickly nod, picking up my pace to meet him at the steps. “I do.”
He wraps me up in a hug that’s big and comforting. A hug that feels like home after telling myself for so long that I didn’t have one.
“Missed you, my girl,” he says into my hair.
“I missed you.”
After convincing him and myself of my independence, like I could go through my life alone, it sure feels nice to admit how much I need him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, quickly pulling away to get a view of him. “Is Max okay? Kai?”
“They’re fine. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Don’t you have baseball?”
“Day off. We have a game tomorrow, so I need to get right back to the airport after we have this conversation.”
“What conversation?”
He gestures to the top step and we both take a seat.
“We’ve had this conversation a handful of times throughout your life, Miller, but I don’t think it’s ever really sunk in. I’m hoping it will now.”
He intertwines his hands, leaning his elbows on his knees. “When your mom died—”
“Dad, we don’t need to talk about this.”
“We do.” He takes a deep inhale, starting again. “When your mom died, I had my dream career.”
“I know.”