I laugh at the memory. It was a culinary school requirement for students to gain experience in the school’s restaurant, and it never sat right that we were required to work for free in order to earn our degrees. “Well, I couldn’t have done it without your amazing social media campaign.”
Kasumi and I met in culinary school a decade ago. We were partnered up during the first week of pastry class and immediately bonded over our assignment to make a lemon cake with yellow buttercream flowers. Kasumi had grown up poring over the beautiful photography in Food & Wine and Bon Appétit, and I’d secretly dreamed of designing celebrity wedding cakes. Together, we baked batches upon batches of lemon sponge, trying half a dozen different recipes until we’d settled on just the right blend of citrus and sweet. And then we spent another two days perfecting our rosettes until we felt our work was worthy of a spread in an upscale food magazine. Our instructor, an older man who’d been teaching at the school for decades longer than we’d been alive, called our work “adequate” and gave us a B-minus.
We were crushed.
And then Kasumi posted a photo of our creation on Instagram, and it got over ten thousand likes. When a local socialite reached out and asked us to make the cakes for her daughter’s quincea?era, it was the first time I realized that maybe my parents were wrong. Maybe I really was good enough.
Kasumi and I sent the Instagram link with all the comments raving about our work to our professor, and he agreed to bump our grade up to an A-minus. Emboldened by our success, we decided to tackle the unpaid labor issue. I organized the students, and Kasumi ran a social media blitz. I’m proud to say that the students at the Northeastern Culinary Institute are now paid for their internship hours, and that Kasumi and I have been inseparable ever since.
Which is why it’s so unsettling that’s she’s looking sideways at me like she doesn’t quite know who I am. “You never put up with Xavier talking to you—or anyone—like that before.”
I shrug and focus on rolling my apron in a ball, so I don’t have to meet her eyes. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“Well, usually you tell him off or something. But—” She stares at the industrial-grade oven behind me, shaking her head.
“But what?” I’m defensive because I know she’s right. It goes against every instinct I have to stay quiet about this. But every time I’m tempted to open my mouth and tell Xavier where to shove his unreasonable demands, the Golden Girls theme song plays in my head. I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back there.
I wish I could confess everything to Kasumi, but I honestly don’t know how. She’s been my best friend for ten years—eleven, if you count the one I’m living all over again—and I can usually talk to her about everything. But this second chance year goes beyond normal best friend problems. It’s literally cosmic level.
I stand there, folding and unfolding my apron, and Kasumi watches me.
“Never mind,” she finally says, grabbing a tray of vegetables and moving back to her prep space on the other side of the kitchen.
I put my head down and go to the break room to change into the server’s uniform. And then I hand my cakes over to Doug and make my way out to the floor, just like Xavier told me to.
I am a terrible server. I get in the way, I accidently slosh water on some guy’s lap, and I mess up the point-of-sale system, forgetting to add all the expensive bottles of wine to the bill. The real servers have to keep jumping in to fix my mistakes, and I can tell they’re growing increasingly frustrated with me. I don’t blame them. The only person who seems to enjoy my presence in the dining room is the older man who booked the VIP table. He’s quite happy to request that I reach across the table to pour more wine, and I suspect it’s so he can get a look down the front of the shirt Xavier picked out for me.
Even though the servers and I are friends when I’m in the kitchen, it’s obvious they resent my presence in the dining room. At one point, after the water-in-lap incident, Marianne snaps, “What the hell are you doing here, Sadie?”
I honestly don’t know how to answer that.
When the dining room finally clears out, I return to the kitchen, sweaty, exhausted, and with a deep appreciation for how hard the servers work. All I want to do is go home and fall into bed, but first, I need to check out Doug’s handiwork.
He’s nowhere to be seen, but I find Kasumi standing in front of the pastry prep table, her features arranged in an almost cartoonlike cringe. I follow her gaze to the chocolate-covered… something… on the table, and I gasp.
“Yeah.” Kasumi nods in agreement.
“Are those my…?” I can’t even finish the sentence.
“I’m afraid so.”
“They’re—”
“Awful?” she supplies helpfully.
Awful doesn’t even begin to describe what Doug did with my cakes. Instead of four perfect cylinders coated in shiny chocolate ganache with a wave of delicate candied oranges frolicking across the top and down one side in a seemingly random but completely intentional manner, Doug has made…
Well.
Doug has made four enormous poop emojis.
“Oh my God,” I wail. “I’m going to be here for hours fixing these.”
Kasumi shakes her head. “I think the only way to fix these is to throw them in the Hudson River.”
I sigh, exhausted to my bones, and begin a slow shuffle to the supply closet. “I guess I’ll have to start over. Xavier needs them by eleven a.m. tomorrow.”
“Do not despair, friend. The other sous chefs and I have your back.” Kasumi takes my arm and leads me over to the speed rack. She waves her hand at twelve round pans, each containing one perfect layer of chocolate orange cake. “We made them when we saw the havoc Doug was wreaking. They won’t be as good as yours, but they’ll be edible. All you have to do is layer and decorate them.”
I throw my arms around her. “Thank you. You’re the best friend ever.”
“It wasn’t just me. Everyone pitched in. We’ve got to stick together in this business.” She leans back from my embrace to look me in the eyes. “Is everything okay with you, Sadie?”
“Sure.” For the second time today, and about the hundredth time since January first, I’m tempted to tell her about this wild second chance I’ve been given. But I have a mountain of cake decorating ahead of me, so instead, I give Kasumi a shrug. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”
“You just don’t seem like yourself.” She bites her lip as if she’s debating whether or not she should say the next thing. “A couple of months ago, you wouldn’t have let Xavier get away with parading you in front of a table of VIPs just because they wanted to look at a nice face and a perky pair of tits.”
“Oh my God, Kasumi.” I turn and grab a pot from the rack, banging it on the stove with extra force. “That’s not what happened tonight!” Except it’s exactly what happened.