I sipped my latte and shook my head. “She passed away a few years ago.”
Charles touched my arm to stop me. “Elle, I’m so sorry.”
His face was stricken. I sort of felt guilty dropping that on him. I had come to terms with her death long before she was gone. The unavoidable side effect of a long illness is that you watch them leave you a little bit every day. But when you tell someone, it changes them. Changes your relationship to them. They didn’t ask for that responsibility and now, boom, my dead mom was his problem too.
“I usually don’t tell people,” I admitted. “They get weird about it, you know? Don’t know what to say and—”
“I’m glad you told me,” he said, before I could trail off. “I mean it, you can talk to me anytime. About anything. I really do want to be your friend.”
And the strangest thing was, I did too.
Chapter 14
I hadn’t expected to enjoy myself so much with Charles. I mean, I’denjoyedmyself plenty in our first encounter, but as company went, he was brilliant too. He had this calmness about him. An ease that lifted some of the burden I had heaped on myself these last few weeks, fretting about money,ACE, and London. Things didn’t feel so insurmountable when I was with him. Still, there was that lingering hesitation that we were doing something illicit. And that if and when we got caught, I’d have hell to pay with his mother. Though it was difficult to feel guilty when we were having so much fun together. After all, there was no rule against friendship, right?
Now I was strangely looking forward to dinner. After I got back to the house with the new provisions, I jumped right back in the kitchen to get started. Tonight, I would really aim to impress, with a venison carpaccio, beet salad, saffron ravioli with wild mushrooms, and my classic mini carrot cake for dessert.
The first step was prepping my pasta dough. A tip I’d picked up from watching my favoriteTVchef, Marcus Lee, was throwing a little turmeric in there for that perfect deep yellow color. Once it was prepped and resting in the fridge, I readied my carpaccio. Using a beautiful venison loin, I trimmed the fat, sinew, and silver skin, then wrapped it in plastic wrap and popped it in the freezer to harden for a couple of hours. That gave me time to roast the mushrooms, then cool them for my ravioli and roll out my dough.
The key to any dinner service was timing, knowing exactly when to start my sauce so it was working while I built my ravioli, then taking my loin out to slice. I had all the plates spinning in my head, right on time, until Ali strode into the kitchen twenty minutes before service was due to start.
“Ravioli,” she said apprehensively, eyeing the stove while I dressed and composed the beet salads on each plate. “Hmm.”
“What?” I said, dread growing in my gut. “What’s wrong with ravioli? Does Mrs. Hawthorne not eat pasta?”
A preposterous thing to say, but people were picky and I’d long ago stopped trying to reason with their stomachs.
“No, no,” Ali said, forcing some lightness in her voice in a way that wasn’t easing my nerves at all.
“What?” I snapped too forcefully. “Tell me.”
“There will be three more for dinner,” she said, and I watched the regret form on her face. “Friends of Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne.”
“And I’m just hearing this now?” My voice was bordering on shrill while my hands hung in midair, stained red from the beets.
“I only just found out myself.”
Really, it wasn’t her fault. And a part of me wondered if this was intentional. Like some sick test from Mrs. Hawthorne to break me. Spring three extra guests on me at the last minute to throw my whole meal into chaos, and watch what happened.
This must’ve been how she’d chased off the last chef. Only I wasn’t in a position to quit. Which meant now I had to make more dough, sauté more mushrooms, and build ravioli for three more people. I had plenty of ingredients, but precious little time.
“Is there anything I can do?” Ali offered, sympathetic.
“No,” I snapped too harshly. “I need to work.”
I’d never moved so fast in my life. Tossing mushrooms in a pan, then pivoting to combining eggs and flour. Giving my dough barely any time to rest while I started on another sauce and sliced off some more loin. What began as a perfect dinner was now a rush job. I was barely taking my hands off each plate before the waitstaff took them away. When I’d sent out the last piece of carrot cake—slicing the pieces extra thin to make it stretch—I sunk to the floor and gulped down an entire bottle of water.
“Anything?” I asked Ali when she came to check on me.
“Mrs. Hawthorne remarked that the portions of cake seemed ‘on the stingy side’,” she said tightly.
I sensed she was reluctant to admit as much. Knowing it only drove the knife in further.
“Great.” Maybe if I’d had some warning, I could have made more.
“And she reiterated that she told you this job would require flexibility, and you should expect to be on your toes.”
Wonderful. This service just kept getting better.
