Chapter 38 Daniela
DANIELA
I’m early the next morning. The kitchen lab is still dark. I walk in, the only sound the hum of the industrial refrigerators.
I walk past the room and toward the hallway that leads to the offices. I find Chef Charleston’s and knock.
“Yes? Come in.”
I open the door. His office is stark except for a desk, a computer, a small sink—weird—and a shelf full of cookbooks. It fits him.
“Good morning, Chef.”
“Daniela, good morning.” He smiles. “You said you wanted some help with an independent project?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah. Thanks for seeing me.”
He stands, washes his hands at the little sink. He yawns. “I’m sorry,” he says as he dries himself with a paper towel and throws it in a small wastebasket. “I’m exhausted. My daughter hosted a sleepover two nights ago and I’m still catching up.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Yes. Guinevere. She goes by Gwen. She’s eleven going on thirty.” He chuckles.
I blink. “Gwen?”
“Gwen C.,” he says, amused. “That’s what the homeschool group calls her because there’s another girl in the group, Gwendolyn, who also goes by Gwen.”
Heat pricks my neck. Gwen C. Belinda’s Gwen C. From class. From the slide. From the bowl of cheese balls.
I keep my face neutral. “Sounds fun.”
He huffs a laugh. “If you like glitter in your coffee. All right.” He gestures to the door. “Let’s go to the kitchen. We’ve got a little under a half hour or so before anyone else gets here.”
We step into the quiet kitchen. Everything gleams.
I set the zipper bag down. “Your lecture on chocolate was really interesting,” I say. “I’m wondering if you can tell me where these chocolates came from.”
“Of course.”
He doesn’t ask where I got them. He doesn’t ask why my mouth is tight. He just lays a clean board on the bench and lines up a paring knife and a tasting spoon.
“Ready?” he says.
“As I’ll ever be.”
He starts at one end. Smell. Snap. Taste. He presses the crumb to his palate with his tongue. Breathes through his nose.
“American.”
“American.”
“American.”
His voice is gentle but sure. “Milk weight. Vanilla. Too much sugar. That faint sour tang you don’t notice until you learn to hate it.”
Four. Five.
He breaks the fifth. “The snap on this one is different. Cleaner.” He examines it, turns it over in his palm. “The inside is a shade darker. The way it fractures is…softer.”
He tastes. Pauses. Tastes again. His eyes close.
“Not American.” He opens his eyes. Looks at me. “Colombian cacao.”
My fingers curl around the edge of the table. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as I get without notes.” He snaps his lips. “Fruit at the front. Floral mid. Earth, but not muddy. Tobacco whisper on the finish. Colombian. I’d bet Santander or Tumaco, depending on the maker.”
He moves on.
“American,” he says each time, almost bored. He taps the odd one with the tip of the knife. “This is the outlier. The rest are domestic blends. Milk-heavy. Sugar-forward. Have you tasted them?”
I nod. Though it’s a lie.
He steps back and washes his hands. “Want me to write this down?”
“No.” My voice is thin, but it holds. “I’ve got it.”
He doesn’t press. Isn’t he the slightest bit curious as to what this “independent project” is about?
“If you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make before class. Go ahead and get your kitchen set up. The other students will start trickling in soon.”
“Of course. Thanks so much, Chef.”
He nods and heads to the door.
I’m alone with a cutting board, a paring knife, and the one truth in a line of lies.
Colombian.
The word is a door. It opens, and I remember another swinging door.
* * *
A Year Earlier…
I push through the swinging door into the kitchen.
Chef doesn’t look at me at first. He knows I’ll come. I always come. My hunger for cooking knowledge outweighs the fee he knows I’ll pay.
He flicks his gaze toward the pantry. We both know what that means. His bonus. The price. The trade.
I step into the pantry. Cool air. Flour sacks. Cinnamon bark. Glass jars of cloves. I close the door and leave it closed. He’ll come when he’s ready.
He’s ready a moment later.
Pants drop.
Cock hard and ready.
I go out of my body and see myself above, from the ceiling. The young girl sucking off the older man. It’s not me. Only my body, my mouth, my tongue.
My soul is above, untouched by what’s happening.
At least that’s what I tell myself. My body has been used and abused so much now that it really doesn’t matter.
When he’s done, he walks out. I stay a moment. Collect myself. Pretend it never happened.
When I step out, he’s measuring water. “Chocolate santafereno,” he says, almost like a challenge. “You think you know it.”
“I think I want to.”
He displays a bar of dark, dense chocolate. “It is not Swiss. It is not Belgian. It is not Hershey’s.” His mouth curls on the last word. “Colombian cacao, or you ruin it.”
He breaks a chunk from the bar and drops it into the pot. The scent unfurls. Fruit. Flowers. Earth. Smoke. Not sweet. Not tame.
Alive.
“Raw milk.” He pours from a jug. “Cinnamon that is real. Ceylon from Sri Lanka. Don’t use Cassia.” He snaps off a piece from the bark with a knife. “A whisper of salt.”
He hands me the molinillo, a special wooden whisk we use for the preparation of hot beverages. “You froth until your arm breaks.”
I rub the stick between my palms. The surface goes from brown to velvet. From flat to a thousand bubbles.
He pours a little into a chipped cup. “Drink.”
I lift it. Steam warms my face. The chocolate hits my tongue and opens. Bright first. Citrus bloom. Then the flowers. Violet? Orange blossom? I don’t have the words he has, but I have the feeling. Beneath it, earth. Not mud. Something old and clean. The milk rounds it.
“This,” he says softly, almost reverently, “is ours. Not theirs. If you use American, the acid kills the body. If you use Swiss, the fat smothers the flower. Colombian or nothing.”
“I agree,” I say, and it feels like betrayal to mean it and relief to say it. The drink sits in my chest like a small sun.
He nods once. “Again.”
I froth until my shoulders burn. I would do worse for this lesson. I have.
Later, he wipes the rim of the cup with a thumb and watches my mouth as I drink. “One day,” he says, in an almost tender way, “you will make this for someone who deserves it.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have a name for someone like that.
* * *
Present Day…
I’m back. Back in the cooking classroom with the echo of Chef Charleston’s clap as students wander in. The normal world returns.
But the stone I left unturned sits heavy in my palm.
Someone I never suspected.
Could it truly be him?
Not one of my father’s associates who I serviced.
No.
Someone else I serviced but for my own gain. My choice.
The one who corrected my whisk grip and my Spanish in the same breath. The one who would rather starve than use American chocolate in a Colombian dish.
He would know the difference blind. He would flaunt the difference. He would build a message out of it.
A signature.
Veiled in a threat.
My stomach flips. I grip the counter until my fingers ache.
Voices swell. The door opens and closes. Lavender breezes past with a “hey,” and Gina with a wink.
I nod. I can’t speak yet.
A name sparks. Not his real one. I never knew it.
Gordon Brown. The two famous chefs he never stopped talking about.
Gordon Ramsay.
Alton Brown.
Chef worshipped at their altars. He copied their rhythms. Watched the Spanish dubs of their cooking competitions like they were a message from God. He borrowed Ramsay’s rage and Brown’s science.
Gordon.
Brown.
Damn.
Chef Charleston’s voice cuts through the room. “We’re going to work on precision today. Precision is love. Lazy is disrespect. The best chefs are lovers. Pick a side.”
I pick.
He strides back to my bench to reclaim his cutting board. On the way, he nods at the bag. “You want me to hold those?” he asks. “I’ve got a cooler.”
“No. I’m good.” I slip the bag into my backpack. “Thanks again for your help, Chef.”
He nods. “You have real talent for all of this. Use it.”
“I will.”
He starts class. I force my hands to tie my apron clean and even. I lay my knife down straight. I act like today is any other day.
But it isn’t.
I know the line that just connected.
I know what it means.
Jordan shuffles in, nearly late again. I ignore him as he pulls on his apron.
After class, I’ll text Vinnie about the chocolate. About the one piece that gives me the clue I’ve been searching for.
Colombian.
I can taste the cup in my hands again. Fruit. Flower. Earth. I feel the wood of the molinillo between my palms. The price of that lesson on my knees in the pantry, but the beautiful way that the chocolate erased the taste of his rancid dick.
If he sent these, he wants me to remember. He wants something else too.
But what?
I have nothing to give. My father’s money was all dirty. I’m virtually penniless. Everything I have is from Vinnie.
And if it’s me he wants…
I square my shoulders. Pick up my knife. I breathe.
“Okay,” Chef calls. “Let’s get ready.”
My eyes are up. My knuckles are steady.
And for the first time since I got the roses, I feel I might survive all of this.