14. Chapter 14
Chapter 14
C emre managed to avoid everyone by sneaking into their room long after lights out and leaving long before anyone else woke. It wasn’t as if she’d slept much, anyway.
She disappeared immediately after receiving her obligatory powdering and completing her pre-show interview, hiding in a nearby storage room until she heard the stage manager make the time call. She slipped onto the stage at the very last minute, careful not to make eye contact with any of her friends. They had surely rehearsed a song for today – most likely the one they hadn’t been able to do the day before – but after the close call with the durian, Cemre had decided she couldn’t let anything distract her from today’s round. She needed every ounce of focus if she stood even the faintest chance of succeeding.
No table or cloches stood before the judges. What evil plan had they come up with today?
“Our dear contestants,” announced Sir Beckwith-Parsons, “we have a special challenge in store for you.”
Mr. Ogleby folded his elegant hands over his waistcoat. “This challenge has no restrictions, no ingredient to feature, no handicap. Everything in the pantry is available for you to use.”
“Your task is to create a dish inspired by a happy memory,” Mr. Bronson explained. “We want you to take us to a place in time that is special to you. Make us feel as though we are there, experiencing it as you did.”
“But because we have given you free rein to make whatever you wish with no limitations except time, there will be no second round today. The worst dish will send its maker home.” Sir Beckwith-Parsons pointed to the clock above them. “You have two hours. Your time starts now!”
Cemre bustled into the pantry with the rest of the contestants, thinking about what happy memory she could base her dish on. She crab-stepped while examining the shelves and bumped into someone.
“Scuzi.”
Naturally, it was Massimo. And he looked awful, his eyes ringed and puffy, as though he had not slept all night. But worse than that, they carried a deep sadness, the kind of innocent, uncomprehending pain found in the eyes of abandoned puppies.
Cemre forced herself to turn away. She had to turn away. Now was not the time to apologize and hug and console. Besides, she had nothing to apologize for. Everything she’d said had been true. Although . . . perhaps the way she’d said it—
No. She couldn’t think about that now.
A happy memory, a happy memory . . .
Orange blossom ice cream in the park . . . No! Thinking of Massimo now was bound to end in tears for her.
Serving choux buns to Chef Santini . . . Massimo had been there too.
Why couldn’t she think of something that didn’t involve him? Surely something happy had happened before he came along. It couldn’t all have been brewing elixirs for Xanthan or desperately trying and failing to cheer up Taurine with inventive scraps or helping Rubella get through her homework without losing herself in a book about gruesome unsolved murders.
Cemre closed her eyes and dug into the past, as far back as she could manage. Her father had been gone long enough that she struggled to recall his face. They had not been very close. He’d spent a lot of time away from home on business.
She tried thinking of her mother instead. The pictures became even fuzzier, but Cemre was filled with a sense of joy and contentment, peace, serenity. That was her mother: calm and content but curious about everything around her, always looking for the fun in the everyday.
A vision of a warm, late summer’s afternoon beneath the orange trees flashed into Cemre’s mind. Nothing in it was clearly defined; it was only a mixture of impressions and images. A chequered blanket that scratched her bare knees as she crawled over it. Her mother warning her not to touch the nettle that had sprung up at the base of one of the trees. A warm breeze that rustled the leaves and cast out the yellowed ones. Crisp apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon. “You have cinnamon on your nose, beti.” Her mother’s laugh tinkled down Cemre’s spine like a glass of cool water, bringing her back to the present.
She filled her basket with green apples and cinnamon and a few other things. On her way back to her bench, she saw Massimo already well into his cook, ingredients and equipment cluttering his bench, with a half-chopped onion here, a mound of flour there, a saucepan on an element that hadn’t been turned on.
No, she couldn’t help him now. She had to keep her eyes on the prize.
She laid out her items, and of their own accord, her hands danced over the apples, juicing some, slicing others, pressing crescents into a frying pan, pouring juice into a tray and sliding it into the blast chiller.
Her mother’s low, musical voice followed her as she tripped back and forth in the kitchen; the warm breeze tickled her skin. Her heart felt full and sad at the same time. A tear slipped down her cheek, but she was quick to dash it away, hoping no one would notice. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of her mother like this in years. It was too painful to recall the memories of happy times with her and know they would never occur again. The pain would clamp around her heart like the jaws of a crocodile and drag her down to the depths of a swamp of despair, and she hadn’t been in a position to spend a week in bed moping since her father’s death, not when so many depended on her.
But today, it was different. Today she poured all her sorrow and longing and joy into the dish she was creating.
As the countdown started, she laid a single strand of saffron over the top. “For you, Amma,” she whispered.
The countdown ended, and she looked around to see how the others had done. Qhari, Tsytryn, and Rhydian seemed content with their dishes. But Massimo . . . Icy pain shot down her calves.
He stared forlornly at what could not have been the dish he’d intended to make. A quickly melting ice cream soaked into a pair of choux buns that hadn’t puffed up. She could see from here that whatever cream was inside the buns had split. Beside the plate stood a bowl of glaze that had clearly not made it onto the plate in time, and the bench was littered with discarded or failed elements.
He’d made choux buns .
For his happy memory dish.
Cemre held her hands behind her back to stop herself from running over to him. It wouldn’t do anyone any good now. And besides, there was no future for them together. She’d nipped it in the bud to protect them both, and she needed to uphold her decision.
Her wings pulsed in time with her racing heartbeat as each contestant was called and their dish tasted.
Massimo went up, his lips red from his unrelenting teeth. “Is a memory of a good time with a friend,” he mumbled when the judges questioned him. “Someone I care for who teach me many things, who make me laugh.”
Cemre’s throat burned with a captive sob.
The judges had nothing good to say, not a single positive word. They warned him that he was in trouble.
His knuckles would have dragged on the ground if he’d slumped over any farther as he trudged back to his bench. The look on his face made a hole gape open in Cemre’s stomach.
And then it was her turn.
“Well, what happy memory have you brought us?” asked Mr. Bronson.
Cemre took a deep breath, pushing air against her stomach to soothe it. “This is an afternoon spent in the garden with my mother, who passed away when I was nine years old. We sat in the orchard and ate apple slices dusted with cinnamon.” She forced herself not to look back at Massimo.
Mr. Bronson gave her a benevolent smile. “How charming. Let’s taste.”
She didn’t register them dividing up and eating her dish, barely heard their comments on it. Her mind was centred on the Cantuccinnian boy behind her, the one she’d hurt so badly it had ruined his cook. He was going to go home, and it was all her fault.
When the judges stopped talking, she wandered back to her bench in a daze. She had no idea whether or not they’d liked her dish, only a vague impression that they hadn’t hated it. She didn’t care if she made it into the top three. What was the point if Massimo had to leave?
She’d been selfish and cruel. She’d always known she was selfish, but she’d tried to make up for it by devoting herself to caring for her stepfamily. It had all meant nothing, though. The moment she’d felt threatened, she’d turned on the one person who cared about her with no expectation of anything in return.
She became aware that the judges were announcing the top dish, but their words didn’t register until Qhari gave her a big hug and congratulated her.
Top dish? How could she have—
“The dish that will be sending its maker home today belongs to . . .” Sir Beckwith-Parsons paused, letting the trembling violins fill the auditorium with anticipation.
She didn’t need to hear what the judge said next to know it was Massimo. He’d been far too shaken, too flat, too disorganized. And she was responsible for that.
She desperately wanted to go to him and cry and apologize. But she didn’t deserve forgiveness. She needed to stand firm and take her punishment. She needed to be brave and look him in the eye before he walked away.
She was a coward.
She couldn’t even glance up at the big screen.
The crowd was still as he left, no hurled tomatoes or boos or heckling as there had been with past contestants. How could they? Massimo was happy and funny and bursting with energy. He couldn’t say an unkind word under pain of death. Being mean to him was akin to drowning kittens.
Cemre’s legs shook, and she braced herself on the bench until the curtain came down. Tsytryn patted her on the shoulder as he passed – on his way to join the others in commiserating with Massimo, no doubt.
She couldn’t face any of them. And maybe it was best to distance herself now. Let them think she was mean and aloof. She’d lose them all after the competition ended, anyway. Their friendships had never been real to begin with – how could they have been when she’d been lying all along?
Her wings lifted slightly, as though buoyed by a sudden reduction in weight. It was a relief, cutting herself free of the pretence that anything they had was real, that it could last beyond the walls of the theatre. She’d had a few days of joyous and terrifying farce, and now she could set it aside and go back to her quiet life, to what she knew and understood and was no better than what she deserved.
She found herself in the empty bunk room. Massimo would surely be here any moment to retrieve his things. The last thing she wanted was to see him or any of the others. At least one of the other rooms had opened up now that so many contestants were gone. It would be better if she bunked in there until the end.
She threw her few things into her bag and scuttled for the empty room just as she heard the tell-tale reverberating thud of Tsytryn’s heavy footsteps in the distance.
The used linen had been cleared off the beds, but the reek of sweat and greasy hair and garlic lingered. It wasn’t the comforting garlic aroma of Massimo, though. Somehow, he made the combination of coffee and alliums work with his own natural scent.
She screwed up her nose. Had these chefs not washed at all? How was it that this room smelled so much worse than her previous one? She’d clearly been exceptionally fortunate in her roommates.
She sat down on the edge of a bare bunk and plonked her bag in her lap. So very fortunate. They’d taught her so much. Tsytryn with his delicate touch, Rhydian’s inventive ways with fish, Qhari and all the types of heat he incorporated into every dish, even his desserts.
And Massimo. His messy bench and endless ideas and pure passion. His was likely the dirtiest apron of anyone in the competition because he wasn’t afraid to create an absolute mess to achieve the dish he intended. She couldn’t bear it, but she also loved that about him.
She loved him.
It wasn’t a revelation. She’d felt it the moment he’d dried her tears with his cap when they met. This face is not for tears. And again when he’d bought her orange blossom ice cream. And smiled at her in the palace kitchen. And swung from the ladder to his bunk like an ape. And taught her to fillet a fish. And kissed her until she felt like the most precious, beloved creature in the world.
Her toes curled inside her steel-capped boots.
There hadn’t been any sudden realisation of her feelings. She’d seen the buds on the bough, watched them grow and open, and simply hadn’t guessed how wide they’d unfurl.
Of course, she’d tried to convince herself it was nothing, that her heart leaping every time she saw him or he smiled at her or spoke to her was only girlish fascination. She hadn’t even allowed the thoughts to become words in her head, slapping a false moustache on them as soon as they popped up and pretending they were something else, something she could control.
But she was still in the momentum of throwing away pretences, so what was another one added to the pile of false moustaches?
She was in love with Massimo.
She was going to miss him more than she thought her heart could take.
She was going to miss her friends, even if their friendship had been based on lies.
She wanted to be a chef, a real chef, more than anything, even more than she wanted to take care of her family. Even if that made her the most selfish person in the world – and she was certain it did – it was the truth.
An odd contentment settled over her as she lay down on her side, still clutching her bag to her chest, and let the tears flow.
“You know, we really must stop meeting like this.”
Cemre bolted upright with her bag and blinked furiously. The sparkling blur clarified into an hourglass shape, clad in sequins and topped with the incensed visage of a goddess.
“It’s a wonder you haven’t shrunk all your clothes with the amount of crying you do.”
Cemre sniffed wetly. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for feelings, darling.” Mel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Spriggan’s teeth, it’s like being a muse for children. Why you didn’t just tell the medick you weren’t well when you had the chance is simply . . .” She tsked and held up an admonishing finger. “Now listen very carefully, for I shall say this only once. It is a complete and utter waste of time trying to make sense of the world when your emotions are compromised. Do you understand me? You are trying to sight land through a spyglass with a blackened lens.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks and pitched her voice high. “‘Oh, there’s no land; we’re going to drown.’” The hands dropped to her hips. “It’s not that there’s no land; it’s that nobody, not even a hundred-eyed giant, can see through a blackened lens. Get the lens fixed, and you may just find a place to make port.” She heaved a loud and aggravated sigh. “Am I making any sense at all, or is even that analogy beyond your current abilities of comprehension?”
Cemre swallowed and squeezed her bag closer. “I . . . I think it makes sense.”
“Trust me, it does. And it will make even more sense once you’ve let Ellie work her magick. Then we can get on to the good stuff, like making it up to that boy.” She humphed. “Actually, that part doesn’t need to wait. Extra love never hurt anyone’s recovery process.”
Cemre rubbed her chin with the heel of her hand. “You think I should talk to him now? After what I did?”
“The sooner the better, darling. I never have held with this ‘give each other space’ nonsense. The only thing you should be giving each other is cuddles. There is far too much isolation and misery in this world and not nearly enough affection and humour.” She poked Cemre’s shoulder. “And you’re supposed to be inspiring others, remember? I don’t think that boy feels particularly inspired in his current state.”
Cemre hunched over her bag, guilt seeping from every pore. “He’ll be packing up to leave, may even have left already.”
“Stop. Making. Excuses.” She punctuated each word with a poke.
Mel didn’t need to unleash a lightning bolt for Cemre to feel as though she’d been hit by one. She’d decided to stop making excuses, hadn’t she? To stop hiding from the truth, hiding herself.
She stood up. “You’re right. I have been making—”
“Algernon? Are you in here?” Rhydian poked his head around the doorframe. His brow furrowed. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
Cemre looked back to where Mel had been standing, but the goddess had vanished, only the tiniest sparkle of glitter at just that spot on the floor to convince Cemre she hadn’t imagined it.
“He’s in here,” Rhydian called over his shoulder, then he dropped his eyes to her bag. “Why do you have all your things? Did you mishear the judges? It’s Massimo leaving, not you. You got top dish.”
Cemre gulped. “Um, yes, well, I just thought maybe it would be nice to spread out a bit now there’s fewer of us—”
Qhari pushed past Rhydian into the room. “Why are you here alone?” He pointed. “That is your bag. You are leaving? You have much kindness, but I do not think you can leave in place of Massimo.” He twisted his lips and looked at Rhydian. “Can he?
Shame stabbed Cemre’s stomach at Qhari’s suggestion, which had implied far more nobility than she possessed, not even having considered offering to leave in Massimo’s stead.
Rhydian looked over his shoulder again. “Tsytryn is calling us. Come on. Don’t you want to say goodbye?”
No, she did not want to say goodbye, but she had unfortunately concluded that it was the right thing to do. She dragged herself after Rhydian and Qhari.
Massimo was already in the passage with his bag over his shoulder. His slumped, defeated shoulder. The officials who would escort him off the premises waited just behind him. They didn’t seem in too much of a hurry, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. They clearly didn’t expect Massimo to commit any vengeful acts of vandalism on his way out.
His eyes bounced off Cemre and focused on their other companions. “I will miss you all very much. I have learned so many things from you.”
“I think I speak for all of us when I say ‘ditto’, Massimo.” Rhydian’s voice had a slight wobble to it.
“Yes, my friend,” confirmed Qhari. “This place will not be the same without you.”
“You will do well, all of you.” Massimo firmed his jaw. “You will make me proud, no?”
There was a murmur of acquiescence, and Cemre was sure the guards had added to it.
Massimo gave them each a hug, hesitating when he reached Cemre but giving her a brief squeeze anyway. She huffed in his comforting garlic espresso scent.
Tsytryn was the last to receive a hug, silently patting Massimo on the head. One of the guards wiped something from his eye with a sniff.
“Time to go, lad,” said the guard who was not sniffling.
Massimo nodded and allowed the guards to lead him down the passage. When they were about halfway down, Cemre surprised herself.
“Wait!” Her feet were carrying her towards Massimo before she realised sound had exited her mouth.
He stopped and half-turned to stare at her with a puzzled expression.
She skidded to a halt as she realised she had no idea what to say to him. She just couldn’t bear seeing him walk away like that, so forlorn and disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And she was angry with herself for not thinking of something better.
A faint smile curved his lips, and he shrugged.
“No, not because you are leaving. Well, also because of that. I’m sorry I . . .” She glanced at the guards behind him. Lowering her voice was not going to prevent them from hearing anything, especially since they were leaning in expectantly. She wrung her hands. “I’m sorry for . . . what I did. And said. I was angry, and I took it out on you.”
Massimo’s face was a blank page, and she was certain there was invisible writing hidden on it, but she had no idea what to do to reveal it.
Her chest wound into another knot with every breath he didn’t expend replying to her.
Finally, he nodded, looked down at the ground, and turned back to the guards. They took the unspoken signal to carry on towards the exit.
They didn’t even flinch at the sound of her heart cracking in two. She knew because she watched them until they turned down a side passage and not once did any of them look back at her.
Once they were out of sight, she trudged back to her three remaining roommates.
“What were you apologizing for?” asked Rhydian with a quizzical expression.
Her neck burned. “Something stupid I said. Something mean.”
“Mean? Can’t imagine you being mean.” Rhydian scratched his head through his cap. “That’s like imagining a butterfly with a dagger.”
Cemre wanted to laugh, she really did, but it seemed wrong to joke when she’d just said goodbye to Massimo.
“If you want to see him with a dagger, call him a butterfly one more time,” said Qhari.
“Algernon can take a joke, can’t you, Al?” Rhydian smirked at Cemre, but it quickly melted into a frown. “Or have I been too rough on you? Is that why you want to move to another room?”
Qhari’s eyes bulged. “Move? You don’t want to stay with us anymore?”
“I just thought—” Cemre began.
“No,” said Tsytryn suddenly. “We stay together. We work together.”
“But it’s the end of the competition and we are going to have to compete against each other soon.” She wiped her cheek with her shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we—”
“No.” Tsytryn folded his massive arms over his chest.
“Tsytryn’s right,” said Qhari. “We work together. Until the very end.”
Cemre tried very hard to keep her voice steady. “But what’s the point if we’re going to have to part ways at the end? With one of us the winner and the others losers?”
“Aye,” said Rhydian, “what’ll you all do once I’ve won and you all have to go home empty-handed?”
“No, no, you are the one who have to plan your sad future,” laughed Qhari.
“I’m no loser,” grunted Tsytryn.
“I believe ye, butt,” said Rhydian, slapping him on the back, then shaking his hand. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Keep forgetting you’re three boulders in a chef’s uniform.”
Cemre gaped at them. How did they maintain their cheer in the face of an upcoming hurt? She felt as if they’d come to some secret knowledge while she was sleeping.
“But . . .” She tried to straighten out her thoughts, but they were as tangled as a nest of kataifi 1 . “Aren’t you dreading the goodbyes we’ll have to make?”
“Won’t be goodbye forever,” said Qhari. “We’ll maintain the contact, won’t we?”
“Of course,” agreed Rhydian. “We’re friends. You can try getting rid of us, but you’ll only be farting in a jam jar.”
Cemre stood silent and blank-faced for so long Tsytryn tapped her forehead with a gentle but blunt fingertip. “Hello?” he rumbled.
“How about a cup of tea?” suggested Rydian. “We need to drown our sorrows at Massimo leaving and then pull ourselves together and re-group for tomorrow.”
Tsytryn took Cemre’s bag from her unresisting hands and deposited it in their room.
Qhari put an arm around her shoulders. “Tea make everything better.”
It had been so long since anyone had taken care of Cemre, done something to make her feel better . . . well, except for Massimo. Somehow, though, it had felt different with him. He’d known she was a girl, for a start.
These fellows who’d become her friends on an equal footing – even if that equal footing was a lie – it felt . . . undeserved, somehow. But also nice.
Her wings loosened and drooped but not from sadness. She let her friends lead her away for tea.
1. A traditional Hellahotian dessert made from finely shredded phyllo pastry.