Chapter 9
NINE
Dutifully arriving an hour earlier than normal for my next shift, I jump backward when I see the kitchen is not empty.
He is there. Sitting on a barstool. On the opposite side of the island with his elbows up, doing a Sudoku puzzle with one hand, and using his other hand to scroll through data reports on a tablet.
He doesn’t glance up at me.
However, I stare .
He’s wearing an all-black suit today, and it defines his frame in authoritative lines.
Annoyingly strong in contrast if you ask me.
To put so much emphasis on the breadth of your shoulders angling down to a narrow waist, and swathing your muscular arm articulations with such eye-catching darkness must be narcissistic.
Someone ought to replace Luke Abbot’s wardrobe with those sweaters that double as couch blankets to teach him a lesson.
I permit myself a quick glare, since he isn’t looking. In what capacity is my employer in the kitchen with me? Is it to supervise, monitor, and judge? Or is he costuming as an undertaker to remind me of his immutable power?
With a curiously dry throat, I ask, “Do you want tea?”
Cool steel-gray eyes slide over to me.
I feel it. A surge of frisson, this cord of adrenaline threaded with bated breath and overstimulated skin.
“Sure. ”
“Okay.”
It’s the politest exchange we’ve had yet, and I find myself needing to—with much effort—hold back a rush of demanding questions.
Why do I have to get up at the crack of dawn to serve you the most basic tea with no added components, only hot water and a dinky bag of Earl Grey? What kind of bonkers madman completes a numbers puzzle in pen? Why does someone so insufferable get gifted with great hair?
But I bite my tongue.
Technically, it is his kitchen.
He needs no reason to be here, nor to request my presence at the same time. Good thing he leaves right after finishing his tea. Fifteen minutes of overlap. The rest of my day goes as normal.
The next day, he is back in the kitchen again. Our fifteen minutes of overlap pass in the same exact way.
Then the next day, it happens again.
It’s at this point, after a string of civil “Good mornings” are exchanged, that I understand Luke isn’t trying to intimidate me, but actually thinks we are spending time together.
It’s a part of his ploy to gain my friendship.
He really is bad at this.
And it would be completely hilarious if he wasn’t also a distracting addition to my day.
He has a way of sucking up space and energy, and the brisk business-like way he absorbs morning reports and off-handedly does Sudoku in his head is veritably impressive.
Thank god it’s—once again—only fifteen minutes of my day.
I’ll get used to it. And conveniently not tell him that his mere presence is not powerful enough to kickstart any sort of friendship. If he believes it will, that’s his problem. Not mine.
Two days later, I stand, shocked in the kitchen.
This bastard changed the pattern.
There is no need to busy myself with making tea, since he already has two cups ready and steaming.
I put away my bag, take off my sweater, and don my apron. Then I walk slowly over and take a cautious sip from the cup on my side of the table. Then another.
It’s my tea.
Made to my exact specifications: black tea steeped for ten-ish minutes before honey and a touch of milk stirs in to create a perfectly muddy and slightly sweet brew.
How?
A flutter starts in my chest. He hasn’t been completely absorbed in his own work as I thought he was. He watches me and learns, even when I don’t notice it. How perceptive and shark-like this man must be.
Flutters flutter harder. It’s an early warning system. While I was lulled into false security during these morning interludes, he was plotting ways to launch a tea offensive. I take another sip. A perfect tea offensive. Why does it taste better than when I make it myself? Maddening.
With nothing else to say, I thank him stiffly for the tea. He barely nods before going back to his reports, though I swear there is a slight curve to his mouth as he does.
I won’t let him win, I decide. Even if he makes me tea every morning.
Those are fighting words I have to repeat back to myself because he does keep having tea ready for me when I get in. Thankfully though, the blessed weekend arrives, and I’m able to momentarily escape the manipulations I must endure at work.
Over the weekend, I brainstorm more ideas for the CUM competition and get bullied again by Janice. It’s also Mrs. Milla’s birthday. For her gift, I gave her the spa certificate Luke gave me.
Then come Monday, I will myself to not be affected by the tea. It works. We go on as normal for the brief time we share together.
Tuesday arrives and it’s more the same—except I feel him looking at me, though when I try to catch him mid-stare, he is thumbing through his reports, his mouth a flat line.
Perhaps work is being difficult, or maybe he is frustrated that I have acclimatized to our morning ritual and no further inroads on his end are being made.
Wednesday, I sit down, and we are both silently having our tea, when he puts down his pen and pushes something over without looking up.
Moisturizer.
“So you don’t get your skin cells all over my furniture,” he says before I can ask.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your hands. You scratch them.”
My fingers. They remain dull and dry due to the cleaning poison Janice makes me use. The juncture between my finger and thumb is the most reddish, as that’s where I itch from time to time. My skin is always on the verge of a reaction these days.
The moisturizer is a formulation of aloe vera but not one I’ve seen in the drugstores before.
Even this basic product looks expensive.
I stare at it, wondering if it’s another bribe.
If I’m not careful, I’ll be tricked into thinking my boss is considerate.
Not knowing what else to say, I settle for this very appetizing statement: “You don’t like extra protein falling into your food?
I bet it would add a taste of much needed umami to your otherwise lacking diet . ”
He spares me a disturbed look. “Your palette is crass.”
“Yours is unrefined.”
“Just get rid of your ghastly skin condition. For the sake of my sanity.”
“Does imperfection disturb you that much?”
“No,” says Luke. “That itching noise does.”
We both return to our tea, but after a few moments have passed, I subtly draw my nails back and forth across the table. A new mannerism I’m testing out. One might call it Luke Repellent.
I see the moment he hears it. His shoulders stiffen and he grips his pen more tightly than normal. Eventually, there is some muttering of what might be a comment on immaturity.
Then, after another prolonged minute, Luke stands up. He gathers his belongings and leaves without saying another word.
Leaning back, I enjoy the alone time. Then after I finish my tea, I unscrew the moisturizer and put a thin film of the solution over my hands.
I groan. The coolness is incredible. I put on another coat and my senses puddle into relief.
Damn him.
I’ve got no long-term vested interest in getting close to my employer outside of us having a standard professional relationship where he continues to sponsor my work visa and deposit my pay on a biweekly schedule, however I have been raised with good manners.
“Thank you,” I tell him the next day.
“Okay. ”
We both know I’m referring to the moisturizer. There is no need to elaborate or communicate further on any other topic after this pleasantry is exchanged. I expect us to enjoy our tea privately, despite sitting together.
“So, Rita,” says Luke.
“…Yes?”
“How long have you been a meal prep chef?”
“Excuse me?”
“How long have you been working in the capacity of a meal-prep chef?”
“Why are you asking?”
He appears to force a shrug. “Routine conversation. Small talk. Because why not?”
A lightbulb goes off.
Oh my.
Suddenly I feel transported to a mediocre first date where I’ve only committed to a coffee shop, and there is no eating of dinner to distract me from these awkward Stage One questions of familiarity.
Luke, for his part, stares me down, his darkening eyes practically screaming at me, yes, we are doing this; let’s get on with it.
My response: “Three years.”
His follow-up question: “How did you know that’s what you wanted to do?”
There’s nothing about my real answer I can condense into a few words. The truth is complicated and parts of it make me sad, and other parts of it wounds my heart.
Good thing I don’t have to get into it, actually.
My response: “It’s fun.”
Luke’s thumb bangs a pattern on the table. He looks unconvinced about my commitment to this process, but also like he is laboring through it himself.
“How is Mumbai?” is the next foray into Get To Know Me Land.
My response: “ Mostly hot.”
“How illuminating. Any other details or memories you wish to add?”
I tap my chin, thinking deeply about it. “Hmmm,” I say, stretching the syllables. “I guess I could say…that…there was also this one time…it was…”
Another pause.
He leans forward.
“… humid . ”
I smile into my tea, not needing visual confirmation of Luke’s ballooned irritation. The subsequent scratching noises coming off his pen as he aggressively completes his morning puzzle is evidence enough.
Annoying my boss is a decidedly delightful way to start the day. It must come with positive health benefits. Why haven’t I pursued this rejuvenating avenue before?
As I watch him shuffle through more reports on his tablet, another idea strikes me. It makes me want to cackle. How hilarious. He believes this to start and finish on his terms. “When did you become CEO?” I ask with an innocent, casual tone.
His eyes snap up at her, flashing silver.
Why, yes. If you try to open the door to me, I’ll do the same to you.
His response, a little snappish, is: “Last year.”
Always competitive. He gives as much as I did, which is not much at all.
“What’s your favorite part about being in charge?”
His response: “The power.”
“Do you have siblings?”
“Yes.”
“How many?” I ask him, quickly and with actual curiosity, because I could have sworn he was a classic case of Only Child Syndrome.
His terse response: “ One sister.”
Before I can open my mouth to dig deeper, Luke stands up. His tea isn’t finished, but he tells me he’s got a meeting to go to. Within a few blinks, he’s gone.
Okay .
Family clearly is a sore topic, but that only makes me feel more snoopy about it.
I wonder what it must be like growing up the way he has been immensely wealthy, and under the powerful shadow of an ancestral, multi-generational dynasty.
Thinking more about it—he’s got no portraits of people in his apartment.
At least the parts that I am allowed access to (entryway, kitchen, part of a living room, bathroom) don’t.
Does he keep personal mementos in other parts of the flat? Is there a shrine to childhood he’s got sequestered away? Or are he and his family really not that close?
As a product of Punjabi culture, despite being the only one of my South Asian friends to have almost no relatives outside of my dad and my uncle, I know and have seen strong kinship.
The ties in my culture that promote— for good or bad—multiple generations to live together in the same household, and families to make decisions together for the individual.
In most cases other than mine, there is always a random relative chiming in with their opinion, third cousins showing up at your doorstep without calling ahead, and the not-really-related person from your parent’s village back in India being hosted at your house for an indeterminate amount of time while they study at college.
Do the Abbots do any of that?
The next day, I think about asking him but can’t bring myself to voice my words.
It feels unsportsmanlike to push against a vulnerability attached to family, and also, I certainly don’t want him asking about mine in return.
There is too much rawness to uncover there.
As if in mutual understanding, the safest of questions are instead ping-ponged between us.
He asks: “How was your night?”
My response: “Good.”
“Did you go to the spa yet?”
“ No.” For my turn, I ask him: “What’s your favorite food?”
His response: “I’m not a food connoisseur.” Then he asks, “Do you like Barcelona?”
“ Mostly, do you even own any casual outfits?”
“I certainly don’t work out in my suits.”
“Where were you born?” I ask swiftly.
His response: “In the United States. Ohio. You?”
“India. Mumbai. Do you have a favorite color?”
“No.”
“Then are you a cyborg secretly masquerading as a human?”
To that question, I merely receive a droll stare.
So it goes on, these limited snips of conversation exchanged during the mornings.
And it’s only when the next weekend comes, and I wake up on a Saturday wondering what boring tidbits of information I won’t be learning about him today that I perceive with some faint level of discomfort that it’s kind of nice.
Comfortingly banal even to share non-revealing, safe questions and answers that pose no inherent risk of discovery.
Like a dripping faucet kept on with no danger of flooding.
As long as one ignores any kind of accumulation effect, which I will, because it is Luke Abbot and Rita Singh. We wouldn’t have anything to connect us, even if we started talking about our real lives and feelings.
On one hand, he’s a prominent CEO with an obsessive work ethic, plotting some sort of secret business maneuver with a white whale at some conference later this year, trying to win over my friendship as his side project.
On the other hand, I’m a meal prep chef, lost and squandered, stuck at a job to make sure my dad keeps getting help, whose only hope of ever becoming a professional non-smoothie making chef is currently pinned on a contest aptly named CUM.
He has plans. I have desperations.
We don’t have anything in common.
That’s a guarantee.