“I blacked it out.”
“Good because there’s also dessert.”
“Dare I ask?”
“Molten chocolate brownies and pistachio cheesecake. I declined ice cream because I figured it would melt in the four hours it will take to eat all this.”
“You’re a marvel.”
“Wait until you see how much damage I can do.”
I load up my plate with a generous assemblage of food and dive in, both out of rabid hunger and determination not to put it to waste. Felix, probably just to avoid embarrassing me, does the same.
“What, as a professional chef, is your review of the cuisine?” I ask him, once I’m out of danger of hypoglycemia.
“This Roquefort dressing is delicious. And I’m impressed by the homemade pappardelle. Though the macaroni cheese is a bit too truffley for my palate, and the crab cakes could do with less potato and a sharper aioli.”
“A measured response.”
“No chef should be judged by room service food. Unless you’re doing chicken fingers. Those have to be perfect.”
“Do you do chicken fingers in your restaurants?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Tell me your specialties.”
He describes things like Cornish crab salad with grated egg, aged lamb tartare with pancetta and tarragon crostini, roasted pork belly with celeriac mash, butter-poached Dover sole with cod’s roe and sage emulsion.
“I’m dying,” I say. “Let’s steal a lifeboat and sail directly to London.”
“Can you sail?” he asks.
“I can canoe.”
“Surely a translatable skill.”
“I have other skills.”
“Like what?”
“Juggling. Architectural photography. Badminton.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Of course not. All I’m good at is writing short stories no one will ever read and college admissions essays for high school students.”
“That last part seems unethical.”
“Well, I don’t technically write them. I just tell them what to say and edit it with a very heavy hand. It’s a good side hustle to earn extra cash.”
“Tell me more about the short stories part.”
I sigh. I don’t love talking about my failed ambitions and wasted potential to people I’m trying to sleep with.
“I always wanted to be a writer,” I say. “A novelist. I had some success early on—sold a book when I was still in college.”
“Wow,” he says. “That’s amazing.”
