“Why are you adding this?” Michelle says. “The menu’s perfect as-is. And it’s…a burger.” I note the disdain in her voice but keep my mouth closed. As much as I want to defend the dish, I’m still too stunned that Cole is taking credit for my idea to be able to speak.
“I was thinking,” Cole says, looking up a little like he’s genuinely remembering, “our mains are good. Rich, full—but they’re pretty similar in texture. I thought this might add something a little drier, something less sauce-based. Without losing that richness of flavor.”
There are murmurs of understanding around the table, but it’s all I can do to hide the swirling ocean of anger that’s building inside of me. Leo frowns and leans forward, looking from me to Cole.
“Hold on,” he says. “Willow? You taught the new hire how to cook it? When did you do that?”
Cole glares at Leo in a way that makes the bald-headed saucier almost shiver in front of us.
“We had a little catch-up yesterday, a progress report. I showed her then since I won’t have time now. I take it that’s not an issue?”
“Well,” Leo says, glancing at me dismissively. “I mean she’s only been here a few days, and she’s already passing on your recipes?”
“If she couldn’t handle it I wouldn’t have hired her. Don’t worry,” Cole says, casting a look in my direction that seems loaded with mystery, “she can handle herself. Everybody get your asses in the kitchen. You’ve got an hour to do prep.”
Cole claps his hands again and it’s like a school bell, sending the crowd off in their separate directions, the sound of pushed chairs and stacking plates taking the place of the conversation and laughter. I hover around for a second, waiting for an opportune moment, and when Michelle strikes up a conversation with Chloe, I touch Cole on the arm to get his attention. He spins around, smiling a little when he sees that it’s me.
“Hey.” I try to keep the edge out of my voice, since my job is still in his hands, but I can barely contain my irritation.
“Hey,” he says, his voice bassier than the one he used for the others.
“Can I have a word?”
“Sure,” he says, taking my arm now and leading me off to the side of the restaurant. I catch a glimpse of Leo watching us, but ignore it as I try to hold my cool enough not to snap.
“What the hell was that?” I hiss angrily through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“My recipe.”
Cole frowns, his confusion all over the furrows of his brow.
“Oh. Right. Like I said, it goes on the menu for a week, and then we see if you’re as good as you think you are.”
“‘I taught Willow how to prepare it’?” I say, quoting him. “What was that all about?”
Cole’s confusion turns into a flippant chuckle.
“What did you expect me to say?”
“I don’t know. Maybe give me some credit for my dish.”
Cole chuckles again, even louder now, shaking his head as he does so.
“Wow. You know, maybe you aren’t cut out for the restaurant business. You really don’t see the problem there? Telling cooks who’ve worked for me for over five years that I’m letting the girl who’s been here ten minutes put something on the menu? The last thing you need is to make enemies here. And it’s not just petty jealousy or your life getting harder in the kitchen—there’d be other complications. Gossip about what’s going on between us.”
I take a breath, trying not to let Cole’s firmness sway me.
“Still…” I say, searching for words to articulate the sense of injustice. “To just take it like that…let everyone think that you…you know, you should have given me something.”
“Given you what?” Cole says, the chuckle gone now, replaced with the voice of a boss.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But you literally took the words out of my mouth and passed them off as your own. You don’t have to tell them the dish is mine, but at least pass on some of that credit in my direction.”
“Listen,” Cole says, serious now, “credit goes both ways. What if your burgers are a disaster? What if the guy who orders it feels short-changed when he tries his wife’s buckwheat galettes? Who takes the hit then? Me. It’s my reputation attached to this restaurant, and to the food it serves—not yours.”
I sigh and look down, struggling to maintain my frustration in the face of Cole’s logic.
“Still,” I say, shaking my head at his leather shoes. “I just didn’t like the way you presented it.”
After a second’s pause, I look up and see Cole smiling at me, a little too much like the way he smiled last night…
“Look: Your dish is about to be served in one of the busiest restaurants in L.A., to some of the most discerning eaters, and in some of the best surroundings. Credit or not—most chefs would take that.”
Michelle calls out to Cole, and he looks back to see Chloe waiting eagerly for him to come back. He raises a finger then looks back at me briefly to say, “Just hope that they like it,” before walking away to lead the Young Chef outside, the two of them waving at the others like departing family members.
I think about what he said for a moment, standing in the corner of the restaurant as the others reset the tables and the sound of prep starts cranking up in the kitchen. The sense of something not quite right about what my boss did still stirring, unresolved, in my stomach.
Irritated and confused, I try not to consider that giving him the recipe isn’t what I’m actually most bothered by—it’s what we did afterward, and the fact that it seems he’s completely forgotten about it.
7
Cole
I suppose I should be grateful to Chloe for keeping my mind off Willow. After leaving Knife I take the nine-year-old to a friend’s seafood restaurant a few blocks away where we watch them handle the fish, descaling and gutting, marinating and fileting. I had regretted letting Martin talk me into the Young Chefs program the second after I had dismissively agreed to it; the last thing I needed was a babysitting job, especially with the opening of the second restaurant in Vegas. But after seeing how Willow handled the kid—and perhaps having her show me what not to do as well—I started to figure out how to get a conversation going.
Ice breaks between us as we watch the food prep, and soon, I start to realize that Chloe’s nothing like the thumb-sucking brat I’d expected. She handles the sight of fish guts like it’s nothing, and the smell only seems to intrigue her further. When she asks to try an oyster, and she slurps one down with a giant grin rather than squirming in disgust at the texture, I finally realize that we might just get along after all.
After a while, the shift dies down and the owner lends us a corner of the kitchen so I can work Chloe through different prep techniques. How to chop evenly and efficiently, how to slice and dice so that nothing on a vegetable is wasted. The different flavors from herbs and produce that can emerge even at the prep stage.
“This is boring,” she sighs after I correct her handle on the knife for the fifth time. “Do I have to do it again? I know how to cut things.”
“Sure. And most people know how to cook—but we still get paid for being the best at it,” I reply.