Month of Sundays (7 page)

Erica’s shoulders dropped when Paul placed the plate in front of her. Griffin didn’t want her to lose confidence, but she didn’t want to swoop in and bail her out. To get the experience she would need as a head chef, Erica would have to solve the problem on her own.

“Chef?” Erica’s plaintive voice drifted across the room. She spread her arms. “I don’t know what to do. The first one was too rare, the second one was too well done, and this one is—” She turned to the equally harried Paul, who was carving out a path between the dining room and the kitchen. “What’s wrong with this one?”

Paul pursed his lips as if he were trying not to smile. “Too hot.”

“Who does this chick think she is, Goldilocks?”

Griffin held up a hand as she checked on the progress of the entrees for the private party. “If it were me, there are two ways I would handle it: slap a raw steak on a plate and serve it to her or drag her to the kitchen and tell her to cook it herself.”

The reporter scribbled in his notebook.

Erica turned to Paul. “Is she cute?”

“Does a politician know how to lie?”

Erica pulled an aged rib eye out of the meat locker. “Then get her back here ASAP.”

Griffin smiled like a proud parent.
My job here’s done
.
I’ve got work to do.
She pushed through the swinging doors that divided the kitchen from the house.

*

Rachel entered the banquet room, mingled with a couple of coworkers, and waited for the festivities to begin. With no assigned seats, people grabbed spots wherever they could and saved places for their friends. Assuming Etta the social butterfly would wait until the last possible moment to sit down, she reserved seats for her and Lawton. They joined her when senior partner Dean Edelman headed to the front of the room.

Dean launched into a lengthy speech welcoming everyone to the party and recapping the year, but Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off the woman at his side.

Griffin looked stylish, even though she was dressed for work. Her blond hair was swept away from her face and held in place by a flame-covered bandanna knotted pirate-style. Her white chef’s coat looked freshly pressed and surprisingly free of stains, given what a madhouse the kitchen must be. Her low-slung jeans hugged her ass and corded thighs, making her long legs look even longer. Her feet weren’t clad in the comfortable tennis shoes or airy Crocs Rachel expected, but a pair of well-worn motorcycle boots.

Dean thanked Etta for planning the party and asked her to stand and be recognized. Etta stood and waved. Her actions drew Griffin’s attention to their table. When Griffin smiled at her, Rachel thought she was going to spontaneously combust.

“Thank you for gracing us with your presence tonight,” Griffin said when Dean finally ceded control of the microphone.

Rachel told herself Griffin was addressing everyone in the room, but it felt like Griffin was talking only to her. She hung on to every word.

“My staff and I will do our best to make your evening a memorable one. For the sake of expediency, we won’t be offering you our full menu, but I think the limited one we have created for you offers enough variety to satisfy all tastes. When the wait staff comes to take your orders, please make your selections for all three courses at the same time. Otherwise, we could be here for a while. You see these people all day. I don’t think you want to spend all night with them, too.”

“She means you, Mike!” someone called out.

Everyone laughed at the private joke but quickly quieted so Griffin could continue.

“To begin, you have three choices of salads: Caesar with romaine lettuce and cornbread croutons; spring mix with grilled vegetables and a warm bacon vinaigrette dressing; or house with arugula, grape tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, and your choice of dressing. For your main course, we’re offering prime rib au jus with new potatoes and green beans, barbecued salmon with ginger rice and wilted spinach, or, for the vegetarians in the house, eggplant parmesan with polenta and roasted garlic bread. To finish, bourbon bread pudding with caramel sauce, chocolate-drizzled profiteroles, or mango sorbet.”

“One of everything, please!” Meredith from the secretarial pool yelled. Wasn’t she the former intern who had spent quality time in the coatroom with Mike at last year’s holiday party?

“A woman after my own heart,” Griffin said.
“My staff and I are here to serve you. If you have any questions or any problems, please don’t hesitate to find me. Enjoy your evening.”

She excused herself to return to the kitchen. God, Rachel loved watching her walk. She moved like a jungle cat, an intriguing blend of grace and power. Walking toward her, Griffin looked like a cheetah stalking her prey.
I suppose that makes me dinner.

“Love the hair,” she mouthed to Rachel as she passed her table.

“Do you know her?” Etta asked.

“We’ve met, yes.”

“Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“Remember what I’ve always told you, Etta. You’re the only woman for me.”

“Mmm hmm. Something tells me my name isn’t the one you’re going to be calling out in a few hours.”

*

Griffin cleared out of the way as the wait staff descended on the banquet room like a crowd of locusts. She returned to the kitchen with a renewed sense of purpose, barely cracking a smile when she saw Erica flirting shamelessly with the picky eater from table six. She always put pressure on herself to make each meal unforgettable. Now it was doubly important.

Rachel was here. And she looked incredible. Not just physically. She had lost a few pounds, but that wasn’t what had captured Griffin’s attention. Rachel’s defenses were down. Her eyes were open, unguarded. The wary expression she had worn when they were introduced was gone. Had she shed the emotional burden that had been weighing her down? Griffin couldn’t wait to find out.

She rolled up her sleeves and went to work. The second chance she had longed for had arrived.

*

The food appeared relatively quickly despite the large number of people in the party and the even larger number of people in the restaurant itself. Rachel ordered the house salad, salmon, and sorbet. All were the best she had ever tasted. Based on the reactions of everyone around her, her opinion was a common one.

Raucous applause greeted Griffin on her next visit. “My compliments to the chef.” Dean raised Griffin’s arm over her head like a referee signaling the winner of a prizefight.

She basked in the applause, but she looked tired. Her formerly pristine chef’s coat was dotted with various sauces, making it look like the early stages of a Jackson Pollock painting. Rachel couldn’t imagine how grueling an evening she had experienced. Saturdays must be even worse.

“How do you do this for untold hours a week without getting burned out?” she asked during Griffin’s return trip to her table.

“Because I love what I do.”

Etta and Lawton were working the room, which meant she and Griffin had the table to themselves.

“Dinner was amazing. But I’m sure you’ve heard that more than once tonight.”

“Just because I’ve heard it before doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it again.”

Griffin drank from a large bottle of mineral water. Rachel’s Manhattan looked sinful in comparison.

“I’m sorry you aren’t going to be able to make it to Jane and Colleen’s tomorrow night.”

“I’m going to be there.”

Rachel did a double take. “I thought you had to work.”

“I had a change of plans. After last night’s shift, my assistant chef requested Sunday off to visit family so we switched days. I have tomorrow off instead. I can’t think of a better way to spend it than with friends. Old ones and new ones alike.” She gave Rachel a pointed look. “I e-mailed Jane and Colleen my RSVP this morning. Didn’t they tell you?”

“Of course not,” they said simultaneously.

“What are you bringing?” Rachel asked, knowing that no matter what dish Griffin brought, everyone else’s would pale in comparison.

“I haven’t decided yet. I have to look through my list of recipes and find one that seems most fitting. What about you?”

“White chicken chili.”

Rachel hoped she’d get lucky and Griffin would say she felt the same way about white chicken chili that most people did about liver or Brussels sprouts. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about insulting her superior taste buds.

“I
love
white chicken chili.”

Wrong answer.

“It’s my favorite comfort food. Do you make yours spicy or mild?” Griffin asked.

“I prefer spicy. Jane does, too, but no one else seems to agree with us.”

“You’re like me. The hotter the better.”

For some reason, Rachel didn’t think they were still talking about food.

“What time do you get off tonight?” she asked. Even though they were drifting into uncharted territory, she was enjoying the journey too much to cut the trip short.

“We stop serving in about an hour, but I could probably clear out before then if I heard an offer that was tempting enough. What do you have in mind?”

“I think I owe you a drink.”

“Actually, you owe me several, but who’s counting?”

Rachel circled the rim of her glass with her fingertip. She needed to ground herself to keep from reaching out and sliding her hand up Griffin’s leg. “Are you always this effortlessly sexy?”

Griffin smiled and her fatigue seemed to disappear. “I think it goes along with the profession.”

“Yeah, you lucked out on that score. I got screwed. There are hundreds of sexy things you can do with food. Numbers? Not so much.”

“I don’t know. Put a slide rule in your hands and I’m sure you’d find a way to attract my attention.”

Slide rules were used for multiplying and dividing, not adding and subtracting. Rachel didn’t have much use for them in her line of work, but she was too busy enjoying the pleasant image in her mind’s eye to say otherwise.

“Meet you out front in five minutes?”

“Sure.”

Rachel finished her drink, then handed her ticket stub to the clerk manning the coat check counter. Griffin joined her a few minutes later wearing a black leather jacket, a navy blue cotton shirt, and a fresh pair of jeans.

“Shall we?”

“Where would you like to go?” Rachel didn’t want to pay a return visit to Maidenhead. The popular bar was bound to be both too noisy and too crowded to hold a real conversation. If they remained where they were, they’d be able to hear each other, but Griffin would be bombarded by so many well-wishers they wouldn’t have a chance to talk.

“There’s a new place in Greenwich Village. B&B, I think it’s called. Have you been there yet?”

“No, but I’ve heard great things about it.”

“So have I. Care to see if they’re true?”

Griffin offered her hand. Rachel’s heart skittered in her chest and she forced herself to remember what Griffin had said the night they met. She had mentioned the F word, not the L word. She had said she thought they could be friends. She hadn’t said anything about being lovers.

She took Griffin’s hand.

I’ll take what I can get.

Outside, Griffin whistled for a cab like a seasoned pro.

“Where ya headed?” the cabbie asked.

“B&B.”

“Got it.” The cabbie input the club’s name into the GPS attached to his dashboard and cranked the meter. Humming along to the Bollywood soundtrack blasting on the CD player, he didn’t attempt to make conversation. Twenty minutes later, he parked in front of a crowded nightclub, announced the price of the fare, and sped off as soon as he was paid.

“I think it’s safe to say our ride won’t be featured on an episode of
Taxicab Confessions
,” Griffin said, referring to the erstwhile late-night HBO reality series populated by actual taxi riders who willingly spilled their secrets, sexual and otherwise, to their overly chatty cab drivers while being filmed by hidden cameras. “But if there’s something you want to tell me, feel free.”

Rachel followed her inside the velvet ropes into the darkened club. “I don’t know you well enough to start telling you all my secrets.” She opened her eyes wide to help them adjust to the dim light.

Similar to a now-defunct bar that featured beds instead of tables and chairs, B&B offered the same comfy seating arrangement while adding an extensive breakfast-themed menu to the mix. “Ready for Breakfast in Bed?” a series of well-placed print ads inquired.

“Would you like to get to know me better?”

Griffin’s directness took Rachel by surprise. She nearly tripped over a group of people enjoying cosmopolitans and eggs Benedict on a mattress nearby.

“If I tell you everything up front, there wouldn’t be anything left for you to uncover. Where’s the fun in that?” She narrowly avoided another header.
Way to make an impression. She’s going to think I’ve forgotten how to walk and talk at the same time.

“Are you saying I should peel you like an onion or a grape?”

Griffin took her hand—probably to prevent her from doing a face-plant before they reached their destination. Rachel latched on for dear life.