Sweet Girl (17 page)

I turn my chair completely around to face her, my back now to the mountain of payroll paperwork I am working through. Avis is leaning up against the doorjamb, peering at me through her giant glasses. Today, instead of her usual turban she is wearing a vintage-looking bandana around her topknot like a 1950s housewife.

“The dulce cheesecakes sold out again yesterday. That makes three weeks in a row,” she says.

I smile in response.

“I know. I’ve asked the team to increase the quantity by twenty percent again this week.”

Avis grunts in what I assume is agreement.

“You know, this might just become one of the new signature dishes. Everyone is saying it’s one of your best in years,” I tell her with more than a little fangirl in my voice.

“So I’ve heard,” she agrees.

Her fingers still tap, tap, tap on that box. She looks down at her shoes for several long minutes. She could just be thinking or in some other place entirely. I never really know with her, and I’ve learned it is best to wait it out. Either she’ll start speaking again or she’ll eventually wander away. I study my manicure while I wait. This color is called Bubble Bath. I know that because I have a weird fascination with nail polish names, and this particular one stuck out because it was the first time I’d had anything other than Black Satin on my nails in years. Since my first day here I’d had bare nails, and because this polish is light pink, and therefore kind of girly, it is the equivalent of a bold new choice for me.

“We need something special,” Avis says to her shoes.

My head comes up with a small smile already in place. I know she’ll get around to her point eventually.

“What did you have in mind?” I ask, having no idea what she is talking about. But I’ve learned from the very beginning that if I can keep her talking, I have a better chance of getting more information—or at least enough information to have some idea of what she wants.

“Marcus is hosting a dinner.” My ears perk up at the mention of the famous celebrity chef who put this hotel on the map. I’ve seen him a few times in passing, but he seems aloof and unapproachable to me, not the type to host a gathering of any kind.

“The owners, several VIPs, other chefs.” She looks up at me. “When I say chefs I’m talking Teague, Dutton, and Birdwell.” She names a few of the world’s greatest chefs as if she is throwing items at me for a grocery list. I suppose those names might not be a big deal to her because she’s part of the same crowd, but hearing them bandied about so casually makes my eyes want to pop out of my head.

“Marcus wants something special,” she continues. “A dessert sampler. Three options served in miniature for twenty-two guests. I’ve written them out here,” she says, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and handing it over.

On closer inspection it is a copy of her cable bill with her usual chicken scratch covering both sides. As usual, I can pull out just enough ingredients to have a basic idea of what she wants.

“Looks like a . . . sticky toffee pudding”—I squint at the sheet—“a buttermilk
panna cotta
. . . and a banana custard.” I stare harder, shocked when I identify the ingredients for the accompaniment.

“Is this a bitter-chocolate sorbet? To set off the custard?” I look up at her in awe. “That’s genius!”

“Sure,” Avis answers noncommittally.

I wonder, not for the first time, what it would be like to be such a prodigy that you can’t even recognize how special your work is. I hold the crumpled bill with a bit more reverence.

“You want me to help you with this?” I ask her.

“I want you to make it completely.”

I am more than a little taken aback. The idea of making these creations, even if I am just recreating her recipes, is more than a little disconcerting, given who’ll be eating them.

“But should you . . . I mean, you typically handle the special orders,” I say, grasping the paper a bit harder.

“Stork,” she says, sounding slightly exasperated, “I’m a guest at the dinner, which makes it a little hard to fire the dessert in a timely manner.”

Of course she’d be invited to the dinner. Avis is easily as famous as the other chefs she mentioned, and Marcus Balmain is her boss, even if I’d never seen them interact with each other.

“Um, OK,” I answer, fighting the sudden need to throw up my breakfast. “When is this dinner?”

Please be next month, please be next month, please be next month.

“It’s on the first,” she answers, shoving the cigarettes into her pocket, a sure sign that she’s grown tired of the conversation and is about to walk away.

“Of August?” I ask hopefully.

“Of July,” she answers with a roll of her eyes.

“As in . . .” I choke on the words.

“As in Thursday of this week. Stork, you better get on it.”

With that, Avis turns and leaves me staring at the empty space she just occupied. Three days to figure out three new recipes and their plating. Then I’ll need to prep and serve them to twenty-two VIPs for a dinner hosted by one of the biggest chefs in the nation, who also happens to be my boss’s boss.

I start manically making a shopping list: eggs, milk, butter, cocoa.

And oh yeah, some crack, because surely I’ll need to be smoking some in order to believe I have a flipping prayer of pulling this off!

“OK, so this is the final plated version,” I explain, placing the rectangular plate down in front of Taylor on the table with the same reverence you’d give an operational nuclear warhead.

“It looks unbelievable,” he says, looking down at the food before him.

All the tension falls out of my shoulders.

“Really?” I squeak.

Chocolate-brown eyes catch mine.

“Really.” He picks up a fork and waves it at me. “Now do the thing.”

“I don’t want to. It’s stupid. I’m not a real—”

“Do. The. Thing,” Taylor demands.

I roll my eyes, fighting embarrassment and a ridiculous urge to giggle.

“OK.” A sigh falls from my lips. I point to the first dainty dessert on his plate. “This is a sticky toffee pudding made with dates from an organic farm just outside of Palm Springs. It’s finished with a caramel whiskey sauce and some Baileys-infused whipped cream.”

Taylor makes a sound deep in his throat. I laugh and keep going.

“Next is a buttermilk
panna cotta
finished with a Meyer lemon zest and fresh seasonal berry compote. Last is a caramelized banana custard topped with a bitter-chocolate sorbet, which you need to eat before it starts to melt,” I admonish.

Taylor digs into the custard first as I knew he would. I learned a while ago what a sucker he is for anything with chocolate. He moans into his spoon, and I roll my eyes again rather than admit how ridiculously happy it makes me that he likes what I’ve created. He reaches out to try the next dessert and asks, “Will you give that little speech tomorrow night at the dinner?”

The slide of fur against my bare foot stops me from answering for a moment. I reach down and rub one hand over Holden’s hideous face. He deigns to accept the caress. It is just like the ridiculous cat to ask for attention and then receive it like a magnanimous sheikh. He flips over onto his back as I stand up again, but I use my foot to rub his belly. Sometime over the last month this thing and I have come to a truce. He isn’t allowed in the kitchen with me, but if I step out of it, I will pet him. Most of the time he allows it.

“I don’t know,” I tell Taylor honestly. “I’m not sure if she’ll want to do it herself. Also, Harris and Ram are staying to help me, so it’s not like I’m the one to take the credit.”

“You deserve some kind of credit,” Taylor says, spooning up another bite, “or an award or something. The fact that you can make heads or tails of her recipes is a sign of divinity or a special power at the very least.”

I shrug at Taylor, more than a little uncomfortable with his praise. When I remove my foot from the soft belly below it, Holden hisses in annoyance and bounds away.

“Ingrate,” I call after him.

I head back into the kitchen to clean up the disaster I left in my wake. I haven’t been in there for more than five minutes when Taylor comes up next to me and starts loading the dishes I am rinsing into the dishwasher next to him.

“You don’t have to help,” I say while scrubbing a particularly difficult bit of caramel off a bowl.

“I know,” he answers, picking up another plate.

“You didn’t make the mess, though, and you’ve already helped me clean up every night this week.” I hand him the now-rinsed bowl.

“Because you’re the least tidy person I know.” He bumps my shoulder. “If I didn’t help, this would take hours. Besides, this is a good workout.”

He makes a show of using a whisk as a dumbbell before putting it into the proper receptacle in front of him. Taylor has a weird OCD thing about the precise way to load a dishwasher. I’m not about to fight it, though, because it means less work for me.

“And you have to keep your girlish figure,” I say, throwing one of his favorite lines back at him.

“Exactly,” he says with a wink.

We continue to clean up while Mumford & Sons croons out of an iPod dock in the corner of the room, and my mind starts to wander. It still amazes me that I find myself here. That I am working with Avis Phillips is shocking enough, but the fact that Taylor has been my biggest cheerleader is even more unbelievable. In all the weeks I’ve been coming here to borrow his kitchen, he’s been here every single time, ready and available to taste-test or cheer me on or make me super-spicy eggs (which I am beginning to suspect is the only recipe in his arsenal). I know from Landon that he never lacks for female companionship, so it strikes me as odd that he never has other plans when I ask to come over. No matter what I do, he ignores my grouchiness and sidesteps my bad moods, and I am utterly shocked to realize that Taylor has become one of my best friends.

Taylor has become one of my best friends?

It’s true. He has become one of my best friends—
the
best friend, if confessing my secrets to him counts for anything. And honestly, there is almost no one I’d rather hang out with now than him.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I let out a maniacal laugh, which makes him look at me in confusion.

I’m sure I sound like a psychopath, but seriously,
when did this happen?

“Something funny, Jennings?” Taylor says as he divides the silverware up by type.

“Yes. No, not funny, just . . .” I look for something to say that will sound less crazy. What comes out only reaffirms the loss of my mental capacity. “You should go away with us this weekend.”

It probably would have been better as a question, but somehow it comes out as a command.

He doesn’t turn in my direction, but I can see him fighting a grin.

“To your parents’ house? For the Fourth?” he asks casually.

Wait
. . .
should I not have asked that?

Maybe I shouldn’t assume that he doesn’t have plans already. I mean, just because he’s been hanging out with me constantly doesn’t mean he is without a life. Taylor is a social butterfly, and I’m sure there is a long list of parties he could attend this weekend.

“Yeah, I mean, there’s plenty of room and everyone is going.” I scrub at the whisk in my hand hard enough to take the top layer of stainless steel off. “Landon, Miko, my siblings, my parents—”

“You want me to meet your parents?” he teases. “Jennings, that’s so junior-year prom night of you.”

There is no way he could know what a big deal it is for me to even have a male friend, let alone invite one to go away for the weekend. But his dismissal stings just the same.

“Never mind.” I reach for a bowl. “It was just an idea.”

Taylor grabs the other edge of the mixing bowl and holds it suspended between us. When I won’t look at him or release the bowl, he shakes it gently, forcing me to pay attention to him.

“It’s a great idea,” he says softly. “I’d love to come.”

“You don’t have other plans?”

“I don’t have anywhere else I’d rather be,” he replies.

It isn’t really the answer to my question, but it is a good answer just the same. I have worked nearly seven days a week since I started at Dolci, and since I am working even harder on the menu for the Balmain party, Avis is letting me take a few days off. I am already excited about getting the time off for the holiday weekend, but knowing Taylor will be with us makes it more exciting. Now I just have to figure out how to tell my parents he is coming without everyone being weird about it.

Forty-five minutes later the kitchen is pristine once again, and all my odds and ends are packed back up. Taylor insists on escorting me to my car, which is ridiculous since it is just a short walk across the lawn in one of the safest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I argued with him over it the first few times I came to his house, but his chivalry is deeply ingrained and he won’t be budged. Now I secretly look forward to that short walk. He never does anything other than load my bags into the trunk and wait until I drive off to head back inside. What he doesn’t know is that this simple act is the most I’ve let someone take care of me in years.