Tasteless (21 page)

INJURED CHEF SAYS “THE CAKE MUST GO ON”

Taste Buddies New York

September 13
th

Renowned pastry chef, Gerard Paison, teased us with Instagram photos of his new experiment for Lilac’s dessert menu, informing potential customers that his black sesame pear cake would be available to order in a few days.  But this past weekend, he and his assistant got into a pretty serious boating accident and though their injuries were not life-threatening, they are both reportedly being hospitalized with no release date set.

“I am saddened by these circumstances and even more so because I was so excited to serve my new creation,” said the chef on his Facebook page.  “But since the cakes have already been prepared, they must not be wasted and will still be served – with or without me! Bon appétit, my friends!”

“I told you I wasn’t a pastry chef,” Sam said, standing over the decorating counter in the Lilac kitchen.  Gemma held the plate containing his pathetic attempt at decorative piping on the restaurant’s signature chestnut cake.  The cake was shaped like half a sphere and covered in a thin layer of a glossy chocolate glaze.  The regular pastry chef would always pipe a quick design on it before sending it out and while his looked like the delicate weave of Chantilly lace, Sam’s looked like a bunch of chewed up rubber bands.

“I know you’re not,” Gemma replied, still staring at the cake.  “But this makes me question your general motor skills.”

“Hey, you’ve seen my handwriting,” Sam laughed.  “You know that this sort of thing isn’t exactly my forte.”

“Well you better try a little harder,” Gemma sighed, setting the plate down before crossing her arms.  “Aunt Mira and I vouched for you.  We really pushed for Hudson to give you a position here.”

“And I’m grateful for that,” Sam nodded like a schoolboy.  He had flown back to New York about eight hours after Gemma and Damian left Hawaii and showed up back at their house the following day.  Sam wished he had considered the fact that they were technically on their honeymoon the night he returned so he would have remembered to announce himself before letting himself back in.  “Can I also say again how sorry I am about that night?”

“
No,
you can’t,” Gemma said, putting a hand out in front of her.  Though Damian seemed to find it a little bit funny that Sam had returned the way he did, Gemma was less than pleased about being caught in the act.  “We don’t ever have to talk about that again.  You can make it up to me by trying a little harder at this job.”

“I’m trying
very
hard,” Sam insisted.  He pointed at a clump of frosting on the corner of the cake.  “That was me almost losing my mind right there.”

“Sam, you’re a great chef but you have to be a little more vigilant about your reputation right now,” Gemma replied, her face serious.  “You may have been the media darling this summer but people also love a fall-from-grace story and that’s what you’re becoming.  Between Sandrine’s crazy owner happy to perpetuate the rumors about you and your sudden change of heart about the Somervilles, people aren’t so sure about you anymore.  And that includes Hudson.”

“I know, I know.”

“Hold onto this job, Sam!” Gemma said, shaking him by the shoulders.  Sam laughed.  “Fall’s here and Damian and I aren’t going to be around as much to save you from things.”

“Alright.”

“We love you,” Gemma said, pulling his head down to plant a kiss on top of it.  “Now be good.  I’ll be back with Damian later tonight to see how you do on your first day.”  She walked out the kitchen, waving little waves at him as she left.  Sam couldn’t help but feel like a kid who had just been dropped off for his first day of kindergarten.  He couldn’t help but feel that he had regressed quite a bit.  After such a successful run on
Chef Elite
and a promising post-show career, he never thought he would be serving as an interim pastry chef who only got the job because he had friends who were willing to beg with their powerful family members.

If he had learned nothing else from his experience, it was that success wasn’t linear.  It was never a continuous upward trend.  And even the best of the best saw ups and downs – which he knew now because of the pile of self-help and inspirational books that Gemma had left on his nightstand.

By dinner, Sam’s piping technique had gotten significantly better.  Chef Gerard had left extensive instructions on how to present his new layer cake, all detailed in his own ridiculously neat and almost floral handwriting.  He had even offered to videochat with Sam from his hospital bed to teach him the proper technique, but a nurse quickly vetoed the idea.

Though the cakes were already prepared, the individual slices were to be served delicately wrapped in a veil of spun sugar.  And before that sugar cooled, Sam was to pipe fine swirls of pear frosting on top to mimic flowers.  Then the whole thing was topped with a fine dusting of a ground black sesame and cocoa powder, before finishing it with a garnish of crystallized ginger and gold leaf.  Sam was surprised that Gerard didn’t also ask him to blow it a kiss before sending it out.

When the first orders came in, Sam surprised himself with his newfound deftness.  He was almost disappointed when customers ordered anything else on the menu because they weren’t nearly as fun or challenging as Gerard’s crazy cake.  By the time the compliments started coming in, Sam was happy to know that he hadn’t failed Gerard, and even happier that he hadn’t failed Gemma and Mira.  They had indeed gone out on a limb for him, trusting that he’d be a fast learner and less unpredictable in one of Hudson Gunn’s kitchens.  Still, knowing that Hudson was hesitant about having him there made Sam’s ego falter.  Hudson had hired him on the condition that he and the rest of the staff would keep his presence there a secret for now.  It wasn’t exactly what Sam wanted to hear considering his great respect for his new employer.  He wanted a legend like Hudson Gunn to know that he was talented enough and hardworking enough to deserve a space in Lilac and that he wasn’t just some reality show alumnus looking for a handout.

He was pretty sure nothing could take away his focus and determination in that moment.  Between his mother’s casual but strangely inspirational pep talk and the second chance his friends had entrusted him with, he wasn’t in a place where he wanted to let
anyone
down, least of all himself.

But that all changed when he heard the murmur of her name.

As he took a quick break out back, he heard the servers mention that Rye Somerville was in the dining room.

“She looks great, seriously, like incredible,” one of them said as she put out her cigarette.  “I mean, I have no idea how she managed to look so much better in such a short period of time.”

“Well, she
is
a Somerville.”

“Do you think she had work done? Because whatever she did, I could use some of.”

Sam smirked at the thought of Rye having cosmetic surgery when simple cosmetics were still a pain to her.  As the servers turned to head back into the restaurant, they caught sight of Sam sitting alone with a beer by the doorframe.

“Oh shit, I didn’t see you,” the taller waitress said.  “I’m sorry we were talking about your friend.”

“That’s okay,” Sam said.

“So, I was wondering, do you know if she’s had work done?” the other waitress asked before the tall one shoved her back inside.  Sam laughed, setting his bottle down.  He had been so focused on doing things right and getting his career back on track that he had managed to forget about Rye for a few days.  Besides, thinking about her reminded him of the disappointment he seemed to bring others, which didn’t do his work ethic any good.

It had only been two weeks since he quit but he had heard through the grapevine that Rye was now living in Manhattan.  From what he understood, Somerville Diner was still up and functioning, even if there were already rumors about it folding.  He had hoped that his resigning would mean that Rye could have the restaurant back, running it as she pleased without the corporate bigwigs and their company agendas.  But instead, she had for some reason chosen to leave Dutchess Plains as well.  He couldn’t help but feel like his gesture was for naught.

Because curiosity got the best of him, and because he was desperate just to be in the same room as her, Sam allowed himself to peek out of the kitchen at her table.  She was sitting one of the private booths but the curtain was drawn back and he could spot a flash of her golden hair.  She no longer wore it straight but it wasn’t the endearing mess that it used to be either.  Instead, they hung as loose waves across her shoulders.  Around her shoulders was a skinny male arm, undoubtedly belonging to Jeremy.

When an order came in for Gerard’s cake from Rye and Jeremy’s table, Sam scrambled back to his station and began to scheme.  Though he wasn’t explicitly forbidden to go out into the dining room, he wanted to respect Hudson’s request of keeping his presence a private matter.  Yes, he had ignored all her initial texts about him quitting, but his quick visit home had him feeling renewed and ready to talk to her and tackle his feelings for her once again.  He hadn’t slept much that night in his childhood bed, distracted once he noticed the glow-in-the-dark sticker of a T-Rex that he had stuck on the ceiling as a ten-year-old.  It was his own personal reminder that he too wanted to be a giant, a force to be reckoned with one day.  He had, of course, since learned that the dinosaur was unlikely a fierce carnivorous animal and more likely a scavenger, but the glowing sticker still had an effect on him.  He stared at it until the sun came up, until the tiny dinosaur faded back into the white of ceiling.

He considered the hundreds of ways he could present the cake to secretly make his presence to Rye known, to express remorse for his sudden disappearance and all those ignored calls.  But when he found himself wondering how he could also express his love via a plastic bag of frosting, he realized he was in over his head.  So he prepared the cake like all the other cakes, wondering if she would pick up a call from him after he had left her hanging the way he did, wondering what she thought about him now after all that had happened.  He could only hope that whatever the feelings, they were as strong for him as his were for her.

~

Rye stared at the back of Jeremy’s head as he sat typing on his bed.  He had said he wanted to quickly blog his thoughts from their dinner but it had been an hour since he opened his laptop.

“I’m sorry, I don’t like keeping my fans waiting,” he had said.  Rye tried not to roll her eyes.  She had gotten ready for bed while she waited, moisturizing her legs as she waited for him to finish.  She thought about the many different ways she could try to get his attention, most involving something sexual, but she knew now how strangely immune he could be to all that.

Though she didn’t have a whole lot of experience with men, Rye had grown up being told that all they thought about was sex.  In her own personal experience, she knew that men rarely thought about sex when it came to her, as demonstrated by Sam’s ability to resist her when he was known for sleeping with anything female.  Of course she learned later on that he had felt
something
for her as she had felt something for him, but by then she couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on.  Not with the fact that she was now in a relationship with Jeremy.  Not accompanied with the crazy confession Sam had about what he knew about her family.

She wondered if his kiss came with his temporary bout of insanity as he dealt with keeping those secrets from her.  After all, he had gone on to ignore her attempts at contacting him.  If he really did care for her the way he had said, she was pretty sure he would have at least texted back.

As Rye leaned back against the brick wall behind the bed, she wondered what Jeremy’s excuse was for his apparent lack of sexual interest in her.  She was his girlfriend and she had a healthy sexual appetite and years of pent-up tension on her side, but she was also sick of making the first move ninety percent of the time.  She knew he was straight, as demonstrated by the whiplash he would get anytime they ran into an attractive woman.  But when it came to sex, he always seem to rush through the act.  Any attempt Rye made to extend their time with foreplay, or even their time in bed, was quickly shot down.

Everything that lead up to the diner’s opening had done wonders for her self-confidence.  She realized for the first time ever that she
was
actually capable of being attractive and it had temporarily changed her outlook on life.  And now that she was in her first real relationship, she was looking forward to putting it all to the test.  Unfortunately, Jeremy managed to turn it all around.

Rye had done some shopping at a lingerie boutique near Lilac before meeting Jeremy for dinner.  As they cabbed back up to Jeremy’s Yorkville apartment, she imagined what his reaction would be like when she came out dressed in her new babydoll slip.  It was unabashedly sexy with its sheer black silk that draped down mid-thigh and its skimpy halter bodice of lace.  She coupled it with a matching pair of cheeky underwear that showed off a good majority of her backside.  It didn’t leave very much to one’s imagination and Rye realized that the gown was really only made to decorate her figure rather than contain it in any way.

But when she came out of the bathroom and slinked over to the bed, Jeremy looked up only for a second.

“Cute,” he said quickly, before returning to his typing.

“I was really hoping we’d get to have a little fun tonight,” Rye finally said, getting up from where she was sitting and crawling over to the edge of the bed.  She wrapped her arms around Jeremy’s neck, pressing her breasts to his back.

“Didn’t you have fun at dinner?” he asked, seemingly unaffected.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she purred into his ear.  He tilted his head away from her before laughing.

“Give me a second, I’m almost done,” he said.

Rye sighed, sitting back on her legs as she watched him wrap up his work and close his laptop.

“Okay,” he said, sliding the laptop under his bed before turning to her.  He whipped off his shirt and threw it aside before grabbing her by the waist and throwing back against the bed.  Rye giggled, happy to finally have his attention.  She watched as Jeremy kicked off his pants.  “Could you grab a condom?”