Chapter 9
9
Three days later I pick at my freshly painted nails in the dimly lit corridor of El Turo. The hair on my arms stands on end as the sheer black sleeves move over my skin. To Alice’s credit, she altered the dress so well it looks like an entirely new outfit and restitched some of the seams to fit me perfectly. The way it hugs my waist and skims over my calves, a slit on one side hitting halfway up my thigh is only accentuated by my blood-red lips and gold dangly earrings. I borrowed a pair of her black leather boots, the only shoes in our flat that covered my ankle and scraped-up calf. The swelling went down after a day and a half of icing but my ankle looks like a toddler has drawn on it in purple and green crayon. The thought of having the injury on display and reliving our last date with Bancroft is worth the discomfort. This is so different from the outfits I wear to work but after the fiasco that was the hiking trail, I need to feel like a different person.
The heavy scent of roasted garlic is only eclipsed by the sound of mingling conversation, knives and forks on plates and clinking glasses covering the tread of Armani brogues stalking toward me.
Bancroft, dressed in a black turtleneck and navy pinstripe suit trousers, assesses me up and down with an unashamed, indulgent stare. “Hastings, I didn’t think you would even own something so...”
“What?” I cock an eyebrow and lean against the dark red lime-washed wall, crossing my bad ankle over the good one and waiting for the insult.
His eyes make it back up the dress to meet mine, a deeper shade of blue in the restaurant’s moody light. “Devastating.”
I suck in my cheeks in an attempt to stop them from turning flame red and stare at a suddenly very interesting patch on the speckled-gray quartz floor.
He clears his throat and changes the subject immediately.
“Remind me again why you thought a cooking lesson would be romantic?” he asks, plastering on the smirk I am so much better at dealing with than whatever that just was.
I match his arrogant attitude. “It’s like a sport: it’s team building, and it shows how you can bounce off each other, follow instructions together and bend to each other.”
The last thing I’m going to do is tell him the real reason why I chose this place, just in case he uses it against me later. El Turo is a local institution, run by three generations of the Alberti family. It holds a special place in my heart because it was here that Yemi, Alice and I had our first dinner together after officially becoming flatmates. It’s not fully set in stone, but my current plan for this project involves using my local connections to offer experiences Bancroft would never even consider.
Bancroft’s arm flexes under his jumper as he pulls the door open. “Some people like losing control. Maybe you should try it for once.”
I lift an eyebrow at his faux-gentlemanly act as he gestures for me to go in first.
“What? Aren’t you still all weak and injured?” He purses his lips pitifully at me.
“Thank you for your concern.” I use my good foot to kick him in the shin as I walk past him and take way too much pleasure in hearing him trying to suppress a grunt, wiping the pout off his stupid lips. I flick my hair as I enter the room. “But I’m healing fast.”
Following behind me, he leans down over my shoulder and holds his lips near my ear. “Who’s the sadist now?”
His warm breath causes a jolt of electricity to run down my body as I head through the door.
The shiny, distinctly Italian kitchen is filled with people who have signed up for the same class, mostly women and a few men who look considerably less enthusiastic. Maybe they thought they would be among the actual restaurant chefs in the front kitchen, but this space is reserved for weekly classes. A couple of our classmates glance at me and then do a double take at the tall, lean man shadowing me through the door. By the looks of it, all the women want to be on him and their escorting men want to kill him. My chest prickles as some of our classmates briefly give me the once-over.
I instinctively hunch over, wondering whether they can sense the inherent loneliness and fear-of-dying-alone-ness that radiates off me like a flickering lightbulb. Shame and guilt rise like bile as I scan the intrigued crowd, frantically looking for the class chef. A cheery sun-kissed face meets my eye and gives me a warm and open crescent-moon smile.
“Welcome!” she shouts. “I’m Chef Giada!” She holds out her tanned, calloused hands and pulls us both in for a joint hug, squeezing Bancroft’s body toward mine like flower stems in a clenched fist. My face is smushed against his chest. Yep, even under the soft cashmere it is still as rock solid as it was the other day. I can hear his heart pounding and try to count the beats to distract myself. As Giada finally releases us and spins around to the rest of the class, I take a deep breath and brush my hands down my dress, avoiding eye contact with Bancroft. “Everyone, this is our final couple of the evening: Grace and Eric.”
It’s true there are two of us, but there is something about the emphasis on couple that makes me bristle. Bancroft shifts his weight from one foot to the other without saying anything. The awkwardness between us is so palpable you could pluck a piece of it and eat it like an apple.
“OK!” continues Chef Giada, herding us to the last empty kitchen island and handing us striped navy-and-white aprons to match the rest of the class.
“What was that? That weird shuffle,” I ask Bancroft out of the corner of my mouth, struggling to successfully tie the knot in the back of my apron.
He throws the neck loop of his apron over his head and ties a quick knot without breaking eye contact.
“I could tell you wanted to say something but we are meant to be experiencing this class as though it’s a real date.” He creases his eyes, studying me as I continue to create a neat little bow, shifting my shoulders to get a better angle. “We can’t just announce we’re here for romance reconnaissance,” he says under his breath, emphasizing the R sounds.
“Right.” I nod and bite my bottom lip in concentration.
“Oh my God, can you just—” He grabs my shoulder and twists me so my back is to him, batting my hands out of the way. I place my palms on the cold edge of the island and my heart pounds as he undoes the strings of the flaccid half bow at my lower back.
He curls the string around his knuckles and lingers for a split second as I feel an unsteady breath on the back of my neck. A familiar heaviness settles in my stomach at the proximity as I resist leaning into it. But before I even have the chance to, he knots the string together properly with a tight tug at my waist. “There, one day I’ll teach you how to tie a knot properly,” he says to the back of my ear, causing a shot of electricity to run straight down my spine.
“Thanks,” I say quietly over my shoulder, giving a nervous laugh and polite smile to the four other couples who have all been watching this exchange with unreadable expressions. The island is relatively small, so when Bancroft moves from my back to stand beside me the sheer mesh on my shoulders and the soft wool on his arm lightly brush against each other. His scent lingers under my nose; the citrus, woody notes mix with the smells of garlic and rosemary in a way I want smothered on a piece of freshly baked focaccia. I shift to add space between us but then second-guess myself; a couple on a date wouldn’t be considering personal space.
Chef Giada claps her hands to gain everyone’s attention. “On the menu tonight: El Turo’s famous Pasta alla Vodka with Homemade Linguine. Let’s start with a couple of key ingredients in every Italian dish, garlic and tomato paste!”
The freshly sharpened knife zings as I slide it out of its plastic holder and begin crushing and chopping garlic on the beige wood chopping board.
After a few minutes, she adds, “If you could also please grab a saucepan from the rack and we can begin boiling our water.”
Midway through a clove I look up at the pans hanging above us from a curled iron rack. Bancroft beats me to it, reaching over, causing his jumper to ride up slightly, giving a glimpse of his lower stomach muscles. I grip the knife handle harder and blink to shake myself out of the trance as he unhooks the handle of the stainless-steel pan from the rack. Noticing the garlic bulb I’ve been pulling cloves from has rolled off the counter onto the floor, I lean down to grab it. But as I pull up from the floor and turn back to the chopping board, I collide with Bancroft’s constricting torso as he places the saucepan on the hob with a crash and an oomph.
“Fuck!” he exclaims so loudly the couple on the far side of the room notices; his knuckles are white around the handles of the pan as he bends over the counter.
I laugh in confusion as his scrunched face looks down at his stomach. “You drama queen. I’m literally half your weight.”
“Are you kidding me?” My quizzical laugh turns into 100 percent pure-grain confusion at the question until he turns to me and I look down at his apron, a round red blotch smeared just above his waist.
I relax my shoulders. “I’m sure your dry cleaner can handle a bit of tomato paste.”
“Hastings...” he says quietly through gritted teeth so as to not draw any more attention to us, but harshly enough to get my attention. He meets my confused stare with glassy eyes. He flicks down to my hand, still holding the freshly sharpened kitchen knife. “You... fucking... stabbed me.”
Pure adrenaline smashes me in the face like a glass of ice water.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God !” My voice projects through the room significantly louder than his hushed tone as the knife clatters onto the countertop. My volume immediately grabs the attention of Chef Giada, who hop-steps over to us.
“It’s OK, folks!” she announces to the worried faces around the room. “I’m first-aid trained, and this isn’t the first time a cooking lesson has resulted in a knife wound! You should see my cousin Marta: three years running a restaurant and no fingertips left!” She laughs breezily, pulling Bancroft’s jumper up and checking the bloodied area around his abdomen. “Phew, we’re OK. Just a scratch, not too deep, no need for stitches.” Despite her cheery tone, the relief on Giada’s face is palpable. She smiles warmly at Bancroft, who eases his shoulders back down to earth.
Standing awkwardly at the workstation while the rest of the class watches my victim being patched up, I try not to look as Chef Giada wipes down the red line with a sterilizing salve. When Bancroft returns back to our station, I whisper a semi-sincere apology.
“So, are we even now?” he replies, inspecting the slash hole my knife cut in his apron. “Or are you getting ready to finish your revenge plot?”
“Revenge for what? I’m trying to remember when you lacerated me last?”
He lands both hands on the island, long arms stretched straight and gives me another of his “are you fucking kidding me” looks. “You blamed me for you twisting your ankle.”
“I did not!” I feign outrage, crossing my arms and trying to stop the corners of my lips from turning upward.
“You did. I heard you in the Uber muttering something along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t have been walking that way if you weren’t being such a “Wankcroft.”’” He raises a playful eyebrow at me. “I prefer Eric, by the way. Wankcroft is my father’s name.”
I try and fail to contain a smile, but after a few seconds he bends his chin down to meet me, eyes shining. “So... can we please be even now?”
I contemplate for a few seconds.
“That seems fair.”
We stare at each other, both thinking of the next thing to say when Chef Giada approaches us. I thank the Italian food gods for her interruption because it’s clear from even just a few seconds that I have no idea how to actually have a civil conversation with my fake date.
“Now, I don’t want to be harsh... but you two are going to have to catch up.” She looks to the counter at the fresh non-blood-covered knife replacing my weapon of choice and slides it across the shiny surface to Bancroft. “This time, you chop.”
“Yes, Chef. I think that’s for the best.” He flashes her a winning smile.
We work fast and in sync to catch up with the rest of the class and I’m surprised at how smoothly things are going. Bancroft slicing the onions without shedding a single tear and me grating almost an entire wedge of parmesan cheese until my arm feels like a deflated tire. We’re even doing better than some of the others—a couple introduced as Derek and Angela have been arguing about what constitutes “al dente” pasta for a solid thirty minutes. Derek is sure he is correct, owing to his one-eighth part Italian ancestry. Bancroft tries to ignore them and meticulously measures out double cream into a measuring jug. I try not to think about how different things might have been if we were on the same team; how we could have worked to lift each other up rather than spending our days attempting to tear the other down.
“So, how come you don’t cook?” I ask into the saucepan, where the mixture of garlic, white onions, chili flakes and tomato paste is slowly bubbling away. “You’re clearly not bad at it.”
He takes a few seconds to respond, wiping a drizzle of cream off the side of the jug with his finger. “I never really thought about it. My family didn’t cook or really eat together when I was growing up. We’d either order in because my parents were too busy or it would be some dinner with potential clients that liked the ‘family unit’ aspect of their business.”
As a giant bottle of vodka gets passed around to our workstation for deglazing the sticky concoction in our pans, Bancroft squats down to grab a couple of glasses from under our counter and pours a measure in each. “To deal with Derek and Angela.”
I giggle and crouch down beneath the cheese-sprinkled counter, meeting him out of sight of the rest of the bustling class. We clink and down our glasses.
Grimacing at the sting, I ask, “Did the vodka we used to drink in the office taste as bad as this?” The warming sensation as the alcohol sinks into my stomach makes me shiver.
He coughs out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t bottom-shelf reserved-for-cooking vodka.”
He reaches his hand out to wipe a line of vodka that missed my mouth but hesitates, clearing his throat instead.
“You have a little—” He gestures to my chin and I use the back of my hand to wipe the alcohol before it drips onto my dress.
We study each other for a second, all sounds of metal clanging and knife hitting wood evaporating into the air. He takes the bottle from my hand, featherlight fingers grazing across mine as he says in a low voice, “It’s burning.”
I swallow, briefly glancing down as he wets his bottom lip. “The... vodka?”
His eyes lift up to the counter above us then back to me. “The sauce.”
“Right.” My thighs tense as I jolt up and splash the vodka into the pan without measuring, the hiss filling the space between us.