Chapter 3
Burbank Airport
I sidle up to the ticket counter line, already seven people deep despite the early hour, laden down with two suitcases that contain all my worldly possessions and a large designer backpack—secondhand and made of supple deep green leather—that I use for carry-on items too valuable or precious to check.
Of course there are prosaic items inside, like my laptop and earbuds, which I can’t afford to replace at the moment.
But more important are the sentimental items that even my stern pragmatism, born of fifteen years of constant moving, hasn’t managed to pry from my grasp.
In hard moments such as these, I often clutch the bag and hold it to my chest, letting the comfort of the items inside seep through the porous leather and envelop me like the perfumed steam of a sauna.
Among my small trove of treasures is a small case with my meager collection of jewelry, including an amethyst necklace from my parents when I graduated high school and amber earrings that had belonged to my paternal grandmother that Dad passed on to me when I turned sixteen.
I wear both frequently and consider them my good luck charms. Not especially valuable, but irreplaceable.
But prized above all else is my dad’s forty-two-year-old Michelin Guide to Paris that is dog-eared and marked up with his bold script that is still, eighteen years after his passing, achingly familiar.
It’s highlighted with all the places he’d been in his youth and annotated with his impressions of them.
I spent a good deal of my scarce free time in Paris tracking down his old haunts.
Some of the establishments had faded into the dust, while others were generations-old icons that had weathered more economic downturns and setbacks—like global pandemics—than most of us would see in our lifetimes.
Monoliths of the Parisian gastronomic skyline much in the vein of the Eiffel Tower.
Every time I ate at one of the restaurants from Dad’s guide, I yearned to see his face across from mine at the table.
So much so, I kept notes on every meal and compared them with his once I was back in my apartment.
I could hear his voice on the restless breezes of autumn as they rushed by my window.
I could imagine too vividly the animated conversation we might have about the heavenly roasted duckling at La Tour d’Argent.
I imagined taking him to compare the decadent savory and sweet soufflés from the classic restaurant Le Soufflé, which he’d loved, with those at the newer Le Récamier, which hadn’t yet opened when he was in the city.
I dreamed of chatting about it all over a cup of proper French hot cocoa at Café de Flore the following morning.
I wished we could wander the streets and stumble upon the new, as-yet-undiscovered gems that might be the icons foodies flocked to three generations from now.
Dad’s guide had been in the discard pile once Robin had gathered the strength to sort through his things—a task that was infinitely harder than the funeral for all of us.
I’d squirreled away the guide when she wasn’t looking.
She probably would have objected to me resurrecting it from the rubbish with a pretense of not wanting me to develop hoarding tendencies or some foolish thing.
Which would be ironic, given that she has a four-bedroom house full of belongings while I insist on being able to carry everything I own in two standard-sized TSA-approved suitcases, my beloved backpack, and a sturdy yet classic cross-body purse.
I need to be able to manage trains and subways, airports and taxis, without assistance. Too often, there is none to be had.
Really, Robin just didn’t—doesn’t—want her judgment questioned.
And ironically, I completely understand why she would have pitched it.
A natty, out-of-date guidebook would appear to any other person to be a prime candidate for the trash bin when they were faced with the task of sorting through a lifetime of belongings. It just wasn’t trash to me.
I clutch my backpack tighter to my chest as I approach the front of the ticket line.
I have my choice of about twenty-eight cities if I’m flying direct .
. . and virtually anywhere in the world connecting via the major hubs they service.
In all my life I have never been in an airport without a ticket and a plan and any number of contingencies at the ready should my original plan fail.
“Be present in the moment” might be a credo of mine, but “Go with the flow” is not in my vernacular.
When Michelin is the goal, whether you’re a chef, a hotelier, or a wannabe inspector, there is no plan B.
Because if there is a plan B, at some point down this long and grueling slog of a desert road, that cozy little tree-lined detour will lure any sane person away from the path they’ve been on for so long.
And once you take that detour, diverting back to the desert road is nearly impossible.
The family in front of me accepts boarding passes and scoots off to the side, and I am beckoned forward by a young, vivacious ticket agent whose brass name tag reads Olivia.
She is far too bright and smiling for this ungodly hour, and I fight the urge to take a step backward.
I am capable of many things, but facing this sort of unbridled energy without the assistance of near-lethal doses of caffeine is almost too much to ask of myself.
But just before I close the distance from the two poles at the front of the line to the check-in desk, an older woman with soft gray curls taps Olivia on the shoulder. Olivia’s face goes blank for a moment, and she scurries off as though to an urgent appointment.
The old woman waves me toward her, but her warm smile is tempered with the grace earned from a few more decades of experience, so my feet find their way forward.
“Where to, dearie?” She has a lilting Irish accent I hadn’t expected.
She seems oddly familiar, likely because she reminds me of every doting grandmother in a generic sort of way.
I open my mouth, hoping a destination will pop out. I’ll just go with whatever city comes to mind and find a job there that will get me a step closer to Michelin. Come on, brain.
San Francisco? Too close and way too expensive without a very good job lined up.
Phoenix? Not a Michelin city, but it has loads of potential.
And Tucson, a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, is just an hour away. Blistering hot place to live for much of the year, but amazing work is being done with Sonoran Mexican food there.
Or I could try Chicago, which I’ve always felt is underrated.
Do I want to go back to the big leagues and try New York? Maybe New Orleans again, or somewhere in the Southeast where Michelin will finally be expanding in the coming months?
Stay domestic or go abroad? Expand my horizons and go somewhere in Asia for the first time? Practicalities swirl in my brain. Expenses, language barriers, and job possibilities all compete for what little bandwidth I am working with.
“I—I don’t know.”
I don’t. And it terrifies me.
I always know my next move on the chessboard of life.
Usually several ahead. But Maison Ortense was meant to be my last stepping stone before I applied to Michelin.
For the first time in my entire life, I don’t have a next move queued up.
From nowhere, tears spill over the rims of my eyes, and I worry I am going to collapse into a blonde puddle on the floor of Burbank Airport.
This is not who I am. This is not how Sabrina F.
Sorensen (yes, my middle name is Fair—ugh) conducts herself.
I want nothing more than to have a mentor and a friend to lean on right now.
And while I have left an impressive string of jobs in my wake, I don’t feel like I have much to show for them.
What have I been doing with my life but chasing a dream?
Which is great if you catch it. But for the mortals down here on the ground who don’t make the cut, what’s left?
It’s not that I don’t have choices. I could excel in any number of dining and hospitality jobs. Enjoy them, even. But when so much of my life has been devoted to making myself worthy of this job, how can I face the world if I fail? How can I live with myself if I never get the chance to try?
I let the tears fall and stare into the woman’s gentle blue eyes and shake my head. “I just don’t know.”
“Oh, this won’t do at all, will it? Come with me, dearie.
” The ticket agent, whose brass name tag reads only Ticket Agent, rather than her given name, vacates her post and meets me on the other side of the counter.
It’s like the relic of a bygone era when people in service only needed to divulge the job they performed and were still afforded the privilege of anonymity.
While I am not one to romanticize the past, I do wonder if that was a perk we’ve lost.
Olivia emerges from somewhere and resumes her place at the counter as though nothing has happened. She motions the next person forward, her bright smile affixed like she’s advertising whitening toothpaste.
I follow the Ticket Agent down a hallway toward what I assume is a series of airport offices the general public doesn’t have access to unless something is seriously amiss.
Because of my breakdown, is she taking me to some sort of airport infirmary to have me evaluated by a physician before they let me near an aircraft?
Instead of a sterile doctor’s office, I’m shown to what looks like the most elegant VIP lounge I’ve ever seen. It looks like it’s out of an opulent 1950s or ’60s movie set with plush oversized chairs, wooden tables shined to a mirror finish, and a gleaming bar area with abundant food and drink.