Chapter 15
Isabelle
"Well? What does it say?" Margot leans over my shoulder as I scan the review on my phone.
We stepped out to the garden a few minutes ago, the one off the guest wing with the stone bench and the rose beds. The Chronicle review dropped at seven this morning, and it’s good. More than good.
I scan the key lines, barely breathing. The words revelation and one of the most assured debuts in recent Napa memory jump out at me.
The critic praises the food as having both technical precision and genuine artistry, and then the line that makes my throat close: Beaumont proves she isn't riding her family name.
She has the talent to back it up, and quite possibly the vision to take it somewhere new.
"Eeeek!" I jump off the bench and grab Margot's arms and we're both bouncing up and down on the damp garden path like two teenagers who just got concert tickets. "She called it a revelation! A revelation, Margot!"
Margot pulls me into a hug, squeezing hard. "I knew it," she says into my ear. "I knew it was going to be good. We have to celebrate."
I laugh, pulling back to look at her. "Definitely. God, I had hoped it would be positive, but you never really know with critics like Vivienne Leclair. The Chronicle doesn't mess around."
I scroll down, continuing to read, and catch a line about the wine pairings. "Oh, Margot, look at this part!"
She leans in, reading over my shoulder. And the wine pairings elevated each course with selections that showcased Napa's best without falling into the trap of obvious choices. Truly a masterclass in thoughtful pairing that respected both the food and the region.
I turn to look at her. "That's all you. I couldn't have pulled off those pairings without you. You're an artist with wine."
She blushes, looking pleased. "Well, I do love events like these. But I have to say, I've never been so invested in one as I am in yours. Usually I'm just facilitating, you know? This felt like building something together."
"That's because we built it together," I say. "You had a huge hand in this. I mean it."
"Well, if that's the case, I expect a mention in your James Beard acceptance speech," she says, grinning. "And this ought to show your father that you're ready for New York."
"New York," I say, and the words taste different today than they usually do.
I've always known it was my next step, and that I was ready for it. Maybe my father will finally see that too. Maybe a review in the Chronicle calling his daughter a revelation will do what years of me proving myself couldn't. I feel supremely, ridiculously, stupidly proud of myself.
Margot stands and brushes off her skirt. "Okay, I have to get back inside and finish the wine menu for the Calloway wedding, but I'm so happy for you and we are absolutely meeting up later to celebrate properly."
"Wouldn't miss it," I say, beaming.
She squeezes my shoulder and heads back inside, and I'm left alone on the bench with my phone and the review and a smile I can't get rid of.
I pull my legs up and hug my knees and read the whole thing again from the beginning, slowly this time, letting every sentence sink in.
After the third re-read I smile to myself and look out at the gardens.
It drizzled this morning. Unusual for October in Napa, and the entire landscape feels damp and lush, so different from the warm, dry days we've had all week.
The air smells rich, loamy, the scent of wet soil and greenery, fragranced by the wet roses along the stone wall and throughout the garden. Like a new beginning.
Maybe I should text Alex. He's been a massive help, and like Margot, he's one of the people who will be genuinely happy for me, who will build me up instead of finding a way to make it about themselves.
Before I can text him, I see an email notification from Bethany, my father's assistant.
The subject line reads: NYC Menu Finalization.
I frown. I hadn't discussed any of the NYC menu with Bethany.
I've been emailing back and forth with Laurent, the current head chef who's retiring, about the transition.
But we'd agreed that the menu wouldn't be finalized until I arrived in New York after the pop-up ended.
That was the deal. My menu, my timeline.
I open the email and my heart sinks as I read:
Hi Isabelle,
Attached please find the finalized menu for the NYC restaurant.
Mr. Beaumont reviewed your initial proposals and felt that some adjustments were needed to better align with the restaurant's established identity.
He has revised and approved the attached version.
The kitchen team has already been notified and prep scheduling will begin next week so they can start practicing before your arrival after the pop-up concludes.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Bethany
I read it again, not quite believing what I'm seeing. I tap the PDF attachment with fingers that have gone numb.
It opens on my screen, laid out in clean formatting on Beaumont Group letterhead. Some of my dishes are there, but altered, tweaked in ways that strip out the things I was most deliberate about. The structure is different. The direction is entirely different.
He's removed the tasting menu format I designed and replaced it with a prix fixe, more traditional, more in line with what the restaurant has been doing for twenty years under Laurent.
And he cut the dish I was most excited about, a reworking of my grandmother's cassoulet, refined for fine dining but with the heart of it intact, the duck fat and the thyme and the memory of standing on a stool in her kitchen watching her cook without measuring anything.
I had wanted to put a piece of her into that menu. A piece of my heart into that restaurant. I thought maybe if people tasted it they'd feel what I felt in that kitchen, even a fraction of it.
Gone. Replaced with something elegant but utterly soulless.
My eyes burn and I wipe them furiously with the back of my hand. I scan the email again. The kitchen team has already been notified.
The team found out before I did. He had the courtesy to inform his employees before he told his own daughter. The next head chef of the restaurant. The woman who the Chronicle just called a revelation, whose review is still glowing on my phone screen three inches below this email.
He does this. He always does this. He builds me up and then swoops in and reminds me that the building is his.
And I don't know how to reconcile it, the love and the control, the pride and the interference.
How do you fight the person who gave you everything?
How do you tell the man who built your entire career that he's also the one standing in the way of it?
I've been working toward New York for years, and nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Will I ever be good enough for him to actually let go?
The drizzle starts again, light and cool on my arms and the top of my head. This morning it felt like a fresh start, the garden washed clean, the air bright with possibility. Now it feels melancholy, pathetic even, like the sky is crying on cue in some overwrought movie about disappointment.
I should go inside, call my father and tell him what I think of his finalized menu.
That's what I've always done, pushed through, pushed forward, converted the anger into fuel and kept moving.
But right now I don't want to move. I want to sit on this cold bench in this beautiful, indifferent garden.
It's nearly midnight when I'm finally alone in the kitchen.
I made it through the dinner service, which went flawlessly despite the fact that I was barely holding it together inside.
And I managed to avoid my father beyond the bare minimum required politeness when he dined at the chef's table with Olivier and some other investors whose names I didn't bother to remember.
He flies out tomorrow morning and I still haven't confronted him about the menu. I didn't have it in me to argue today, which is so unlike me that it's almost disorienting, like I'm watching myself from the outside and wondering who this passive version of myself is.
I barely spoke to Alex either, which is its own kind of torture.
Alex is the one person I don't want to avoid, but it feels safer this way.
Easier. The alternative is acknowledging this painful crush that only gets worse every day, every time I catch him looking at me across the kitchen, every time our hands accidentally brush. And I'm a big fan of easier right now.
He's been keeping his distance since San Francisco, likely reading my cold shoulder correctly, which only makes me more miserable.
Miserable enough and angry enough at everything else in my life that I keep fighting off dangerous ideas like showing up at his cottage tonight and picking up exactly where we left off, consequences be damned.
So I decided to make myself useful and stay late, work on the New York problem in the empty kitchen where no one can see me spiral. The staff left an hour ago, and now it's just me and the low hum of the walk-in and the pot of chamomile lavender tea I made to calm my nerves, which isn't working.
I take another sip and give the mug a hard look. "Bitch, you better fix me."
To be fair, that's asking a lot of a few dried flowers and some hot water. But I'm a big believer in setting high expectations.
I have papers spread around me on the stainless steel prep table, printouts of my father's "finalized" menu with my original proposal laid out beside it for comparison. Red pen marks cover both versions, my handwriting getting more aggressive as the night wore on.