Chapter 5 #2
Feeling unmoored at the moment and more than a little concerned that her wish had somehow gone awry, but she couldn’t say that, could she?
Actually, Coco, seeing as how I made a deal with a demon named Daphne who may or may not be deranged, the jury’s out.
She’s about yea high and dressed in pink—maybe you’ve seen her?
She was supposed to grant a wish for me but instead I woke up—well, slammed back to consciousness, really—here. By the way, where exactly are we?
That would go over like a turd in a punch bowl.
No, unless Sam wanted to get carted out of here in a straitjacket, the less she said, the better.
“?a va. I’m, uh, I’m good.”
“And Glut?”
Okay, so apparently Sam was still working at the restaurant. Good to know something concrete, however small. “Everything is … everything is great at Glut. Just … awesome.”
“You’re too modest.” Coco nudged her arm. “I saw your profile in Food & Wine . What a coup for you, going from commis chef to successful restaurateur in under five years, and now your, how do you say, footprint grows?”
Commis chef to what , now? “My—my footprint?”
“Oui.” Coco plucked two flutes of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and handed one to Sam. “The sister restaurant you’re opening in Miami. Qu’est-ce que c’est? Gorge?”
Well butter her butt and call her a biscuit. Samantha Cooper, a freaking restaurateur.
“Right. Gorge.” Sam nodded like none of this was news to her. “It’s been, like you said, quite the, uh, the coup.”
“It really is impressive what you’ve managed to achieve in so brief a time. One might even say too impressive?”
There was a forced casualness to her tone that made Sam frown. “You think?”
Coco shrugged a shoulder, studying Sam over the rim of her glass. “Opening a restaurant is a costly endeavor and Miami a costly city. To embark on such an … ambitious venture must require quite the capital, non?”
Unease crept up Sam’s throat and she swallowed it down with a measured sip of brut champagne. She didn’t know where Coco was going with the leading questions, but she didn’t have a good feeling about it. “Like you said, I’m not one to brag, but Glut is … Glut is really thriving.”
She couldn’t exactly reveal the actual source of her windfall without sounding like the cheese had slid off her cracker.
“Félicitations.” Coco tipped her glass at Sam. “Your fiancée must be so proud.”
She coughed, bubbles burning the inside of her nose. “ Fiancée ?”
Coco’s pencil-thin brows arched. “Hannah?”
Holy shit. It had worked. Her wish had actually worked. She’d thought it might have, what with waking up in a world she didn’t quite recognize in a suit that easily cost more than her rent, but now she knew.
A giddy laugh bubbled up the back of her throat, escaping in a breathless rush. “Of course. Hannah. Have you seen her?”
“Oui. I saw her over by le boulangerie looking for you, actually.”
Sam’s heart beat double time. “And the bakery is—”
“Zut alors.” Coco huffed under her breath. “Really? Now?”
Across the room, two men, security guards by the looks of their plain black suits and Secret Service–style earpieces, conferred with their heads bowed close together, occasionally looking up to throw glances in Coco’s direction. The taller of the two straightened and beckoned her over.
“It seems my attention is needed elsewhere.” Coco took a final sip of her champagne and discarded it on the tray of a passing waiter.
“Enjoy the party, and—oh, youpi! Canapés!” Her face brightened as she stared off over Sam’s shoulder.
“You have to try one.” She kissed the tips of her fingers. “C’est incroyable.”
Sam turned and—
She must’ve been fucking kidding.
Wearing the same nondescript white uniform as the rest of the waitstaff, only with the addition of a pink bow tie in place of the traditional black, Daphne brandished a tray of colorful canapés and beamed.
“Might I interest you in a de lightful port-and-pomegranate-glazed venison bonbon with aerated malted potato and a matsutake mushroom reduction served atop a green pea and wasabi blini?”
Sam turned to Coco, but she had already melted into the crowd.
She looked over both shoulders before taking a step closer to Daphne, dropping her voice to a harsh whisper. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Offering you a venison bonbon.” Daphne shoved the tray in Sam’s face. “They’re sinfully delicious,” she singsonged to the tune of the Lucky Charms jingle.
“I don’t want your damn potato foam meatball.” Sam batted the tray away. “Tell me what you’re doing here. And while you’re at it, tell me where here is. And if you happen to know where the bakery is, you can tell me that, too.”
“There’s no need to take that tone with me, miss.” Daphne jutted her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout and shook her head slowly from side to side. “I’m only a cater waiter.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And I’m a monkey’s uncle.” She grabbed Daphne by the wrist and dragged her toward the fringes of the room, bullying her around the closest corner. “Talk.”
Daphne craned her head, caught between Sam’s body and the balustrade at her back, and smirked. “Fraternizing with party guests is strictly prohibited.” She dropped a hand, fingers flirting with the bedazzled broach keeping Sam’s blazer pinned. “But I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Hell would have to freeze over first. “I’m serious.”
Somewhere in this building, this very room maybe, Hannah was looking for her, for her fiancée . Sam didn’t want to keep her waiting longer than necessary.
“You really ought to lighten up, Samantha. Imagine how tragic it would be to have everything you ever wanted only to keel over of a heart attack before you turn thirty.” Daphne sighed and set the tray of canapés down on the flat top of a nearby abstract-looking statue missing its head.
“You’re at the grand opening of Crème de la Crème in Midtown, okay? ”
“Crème de la Crème,” she repeated slowly, rolling the name around in her mouth. Crème de la Crème. It didn’t ring any bells. “And that is …?”
“A brand-new food hall specializing in luxury ingredients and rare, hard-to-find food items from around the world,” Daphne recited, as if reading from a note card.
“Founded by former head chef of Glut Coco Duquette in partnership with Bacchus Hospitality Group. Crème de la Crème’s mission is to offer customers the highest quality of ingredients and provide all shoppers with an incomparable gastronomic experience. ”
This was a food hall? And it belonged to Coco ? Those comments about builders and wanting the place to look like le Palais Garnier suddenly made sense.
“And you’re here instead of, oh I don’t know, brainstorming new and colorful ways to torment Hell’s denizens because …?”
“Everybody who’s anybody is here tonight, Sam. And since, technically, I am the architect behind all of this”—Daphne gestured to the room at large—“I have a vested interest. I’m like a … secret silent partner. Or— ooh , I’m like an angel investor.”
Sam’s lips twitched. It wasn’t … Okay, it wasn’t … not funny, but she refused to give Daphne the satisfaction of knowing Sam thought so. “And the reason I’m here celebrating Coco Duquette’s triumph over the New York City food scene is—”
“Sam!”
Great. Sam bit back a groan. What now ?
“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Daphne smirked as she shouldered the tray of canapés. “Toodle-oo, Sam.”
“Hold on.” Daphne couldn’t leave. Not until Sam knew what she was doing here. “I still don’t know what I’m—”
“Sam! Sam!”
She spun on her heel. “ Damn it , what’s the—Melissa?”
Glut’s kitchen manager was a portly woman in her late forties with kind, dark eyes and cheeks like crabapples, even ruddier now that she was hotfooting it toward Sam like her drawers were on fire.
“ Crocodile. ” She skidded to a stop, a hairsbreadth from plowing Sam over. Her brow was beaded with sweat, copperpenny curls escaping from the turnip-like topknot fixed at the crown of her head. “The crocodile is headed to the—the—” She doubled over, gasping for breath. “ Swamp. ”
Sam put her hands on Melissa’s shoulders and frowned. “Slow down. Breathe. You’re not making any sense.”
“ Time ,” Melissa wheezed, shaking her head. “No time to breathe.” She grabbed Sam’s wrist. “We have to go. Now.”
Sam planted her feet, refusing to budge when Melissa tried to drag her off to God only knew where. “Will you please just— Jesus! ” She stumbled forward with a yelp, no match for Melissa’s might. No surprise, considering she’d once watched the woman break a watermelon open barehanded.
“ Now , Sam.”
In a last-ditch effort to avoid getting dragged into a mess that, for once, was not of her making, Sam looked over her shoulder in hopes that maybe Daphne could tell her what—Gone. Of course she was. Sam scoffed. Go figure.
“Sam.”
“All right! All right!” She had to hurry to keep up with Melissa’s much longer stride as she dragged Sam through another, narrower hall and through an archway and into a smaller room. “Hold your horses. Where are we even going?”
Unlike the last one, this room vaguely resembled a grocery store. With goods displayed individually on pedestals like art in a museum, it called to mind the Kardashian family’s ultra-minimalistic, all-beige aesthetic.
Melissa clearly knew where she was going, leading Sam down the centermost aisle, flanked by chest-high shelves sparsely stocked with tiny tins of caviar and jars with only enough olives floating inside for max two martinis. “Funny.”
Oh sure, Sam was a real hoot and a half. “Not to put too fine a point on it, Mel, but I’m sort of having the literal day from hell here. Don’t get me wrong, things are starting to look up, but I don’t think I have it in me to put out fires that aren’t mine right now. If you know what I mean.”
Melissa frowned at Sam over her shoulder. “Are you drunk?”
“Am I— No. ” Though she was starting to think she’d have liked to be. “I had one glass of champagne.”