“It’s only a few weeks,” Margot said more quietly. Her gaze locked onto mine. “A few weeks of hectic schedules, long hours, lots of hair and makeup, and hoops to jump through.” She leaned toward me. “But think of where you’ve been, Charlie. Think of where this exposure will take you. If you sign this contract and play by our rules for just a short time, at the end of this tiny tunnel you’ll be able to make choices you never could have faced otherwise. After all these years, Charlie.” She paused, taking in my expression. “After all your sacrifices, you are standing on the brink of having it all be worthwhile.”
I stared at the paper. Long days, long years felt heavy on my shoulders. I felt their cumulative weight and the passion with which I had pressed on, through exhaustion, sickness, Felix and his tirades, Alain and his empty promises. I thought of the dream I had so long nurtured and cherished, the hope that I could run my own kitchen in the way I wanted, the accolades that would come, the ability to set my own standard and my own pace.
And I thought of Kai. His face, his hands, his patient phone calls and texts. I thought of his easy laugh and the way he made me feel happy and cared for. I thought of the way he looked at me … and I knew he would be willing to wait.
I squared my shoulders to Margot’s tiny frame. “I need a day to review the contract before I sign.”
Avery let out a quick rush of air and Vic did a fist pump. Margot looked bemused, which I supposed was the closest she came to being pleased.
“You know what?” she said, cocking her head to one side. “I knew, Ms. Garrett, that you would. Fearless women finish first and finish best.” She seemed not to care that half the people in the room couldn’t possibly qualify in that grouping. Standing, she lowered the clipboard with a jolt onto my lap.
“You remember that,” she said and turned to go.
16
THE following night, a Saturday, made every person working at Thrill feel as though we were moments away from self-destruction. We were stacked from the first minute of the first seating. Avery strode in and out of the kitchen, muttering about the reservationist being on crack and how could any sane person think we could cook for all those people out there? Apparently even he had a limit for the amount of exposure he could take in one evening.
The servers looked frazzled and totally spent by eight o’clock, which was a very bad sign since we weren’t even halfway through the evening. One woman, Gigi, who had come on board with others in Tova’s pretty brigade, began crying hysterically, her mascara running in chunky rivulets down her cheeks. The salmon was overdone, she cried, and she really needed that table’s tip for her rent, due the following day. Six f-bombs and a hushed, back-rubbing conversation with Avery later, she touched up her makeup and soldiered back into the dining room with Salmon, Take Two.
Of course, the cameras caught the entire debacle, one of them coming so close to Gigi’s head at one point that she pushed it out of her way with an impressive shove and naughty word (F-Bomb #4). I was neck-deep in my own troubles after one of the gas burners in the pastry kitchen quit working just as I was building the heat for a finicky caramel. So I heard Gigi’s tirade loudly and clearly, but I didn’t watch closely enough to decide whether she’d been put up to histrionics like Tova had. When things had returned to the noisy but familiar chaos of the kitchen, I did see Vic nod once at Margot. I looked away, determined to know as little as I could about what happened behind the lenses of the black cameras that loomed everywhere around us.
Minutes after the Gigi debacle, Avery flew into our area, his eyes bugging, chef’s cap shoved to one side of his head.
“Charlie,” he said, his voice barely controlled. “We have a situation.”
I looked up from plating a slice of deep-dish peach blackberry pie, one hand over the dessert with a sifter of powdered sugar. “What kind of situation?”
Avery nodded, rhythmically, up and down, up and down. “We have in our dining room,” he said, still nodding, “some very special guests.” He paused, his gaze flickering to the camera above my head. “TiffanTosh is here.”
Tova let out a squeal and dropped the ramekin she was holding, nicking an edge on the counter.
I scowled at her and then turned back to Avery. “I’m assuming this person is famous since her name is so ridiculous.”
Avery’s mouth opened slightly, clearly disturbed I wasn’t dropping ceramics, too. “TiffanTosh is not a person. TiffanTosh is a people. The newest power couple in Hollywood.”
“Tiffany Jacobs and Macintosh Rowe?” Tova was talking and applying lip gloss at the same time. Her eyes kept darting to the door to the dining room, as if any moment a celebrity might walk through and want to discuss lip plumping. “They are amazing. So, so talented. And both of them are so gorgeous, I couldn’t possibly decide which one is prettier.” She looked to be considering this dilemma when she swiveled in my direction. “Ooh! And Charlie! They give truckloads of money to poor people in Africa or Asia or something. You like that kind of thing, right?”
I didn’t have the heart to say what I wanted to say in that moment, her puppy eyes were so hopeful. I settled for just staring while she went back to glossing.
“All right,” I said, returning to the pie. “What have they ordered?”
“No, no, no, no,” Avery said, shaking his head vigorously. “I just met them.” He stopped and nudged Tova with his elbow. “I met them!”