11. Vivienne
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vivienne
Ishouldn’t be in the kitchen.
That’s what I tell myself as I push through the swinging door, a heavy gray bus tub full of dirty plates and glasses balanced against my hip. I should stay at my table, in my corner, doing my job like the professional consultant I’m supposed to be.
But Frannie looked overwhelmed when the lunch rush hit.
She had a frantic look in her eyes as she tried to bus tables and seat customers at the same time.
And Lou, the dishwasher, called in sick this morning, which Danny mentioned when I asked why he looked like he was about to cry.
I watched him sprint from his prep station to the dish pit and back again, stopping every few minutes to jump on the line whenever Callum needed an extra hand, trying to do three jobs at once, and I just —
I couldn’t sit there anymore.
So here I am. In Callum’s kitchen.
Again.
This time doing dishes.
The kitchen is in that pre-dinner-service chaos I remember.
It’s controlled but just barely, like a pot just about to boil over.
The air smells like garlic and butter and some herb I can’t quite place.
Roman is at the main cooking station, a metal bowl in front of him.
He’s tasting something from a spoon with the kind of concentration usually reserved for defusing bombs.
Cora is in her corner of the kitchen, piping what looks like chocolate onto perfectly round tart shells.
Danny is finally back at his station, a cutting board in front of him piled high with vegetables, his knife moving in quick strikes.
And Callum is standing at the window that separates the kitchen from the dining room, where finished plates get sent out to customers.
He’s going over the new specials, a small notebook in one hand and a pen in the other.
His chef’s whites are pristine, not a stain on them yet, and he’s wearing that backward gray baseball hat to keep his hair out of his face.
He looks up when the door swings shut behind me with a soft whoosh.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t sound angry this time. More curious, if anything.
“Helping.” I set the bus tub down on the stainless-steel counter next to the industrial dishwasher. It’s a massive machine that looks like it could eat me whole. “Danny was trying to do three jobs at once, and I have hands.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.” I start pulling mugs out of the tub, lining them up next to the sink. “But I’m going to anyway.”
He watches me for a second. I can feel his eyes on me with that same assessing look he used to give dishes in school, trying to decide if they met his standards. Then he goes back to his notes, pen moving across the page.
It’s been different this past week.
Better, almost.
Callum’s been lighter, somehow. Less of that cold anger that made the first few weeks feel like walking through a minefield and more of the person I remember. The one who’d crack stupid jokes in the middle of a brutal shift and steal bites of my prep ingredients when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Who could make hours in hell feel almost bearable.
He apologized.
Three days ago. It was early morning, before anyone else arrived. I’d been at my table with my laptop, trying to make sense of the reservation patterns from the past month when I heard footsteps.
I looked up to see Callum walking out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee.
My heart had done this stupid jump thing in my chest at the sight of him.
He set one of the cups in front of me, and I could tell from the color it was made exactly right. Then he sat down across from me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Just like that. No preamble or stepping around the situation. Just straight into it.
“For how I acted that night in the kitchen. After I told you about Sarah.” He was looking at his coffee, both hands wrapped around the mug like he needed something to hold onto. “It wasn’t fair to tell you everything and then demand you do the same. That’s not — that’s not how trust works.”
My throat went tight. I wrapped my own hands around the coffee mug, felt the warmth of it seeping into my palms.
“You’ll tell me when you’re ready,” he continued, his voice quiet. “If you think I need to know. And if you don’t, that’s — that’s your right. It’s not my place to demand it.”
The words cracked against my skin and made the guilt I’d been carrying feel even heavier.
He was being kind. And understanding. He was giving me space and grace that I didn’t deserve.
When all I’d done was take from him. His trust. His friendship. His right to know why I’d disappeared.
“Thank you.” The words came out rough.
He looked up then and met my eyes. “We okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We’re okay.”
And we were.
We are.
It’s not the same as Paris. But we’re not the same people we were then. Too much has happened, and too much time has passed. But there are moments, small ones that are easy to miss if you’re not paying attention, where I catch glimpses of who we used to be.
I’m at the sink, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn coffee stain in the bottom of a white ceramic mug, when I hear Roman call out from across the kitchen.
“Chef, taste this.”
I glance up without meaning to at the title, my hands still in the soapy water.
Callum sets down his notebook and walks over to Roman’s station. Roman holds out a spoon, and Callum takes it, bringing it to his mouth.
And I can’t stop watching.
The spoon touching his lips. The way his throat works when he swallows, testing the flavors.
His face does that thing it always does when he’s tasting something.
It stays completely neutral and unreadable.
It’s the same expression he’d give our instructors in Paris when they’d ask what he thought of a dish, not wanting to give anything away until he’d fully processed it.
I’d forgotten that face. I used to study it and try to figure out what he was thinking. I’d watch him taste things and wonder what he was experiencing. What flavors he was picking apart and what textures he was analyzing.
I force my eyes back to the sink. Back to the dishes. Back to anything that isn’t the line of Callum’s throat or the concentration on his face.
“More acid,” Callum decides finally, handing the spoon back.
“I literally just added lemon,” Roman protests.
“Add more.”
“It’s gonna be too bright.”
“It’s flat right now. It needs more.”
I listen to the back and forth, the easy rhythm of it. This is what a good kitchen looks like. This is what Callum has built here. A place that actually feels safe and welcoming.
Roman sighs, dramatic and put-on, but he’s already reaching for the lemon. “You’re the worst.”
I laugh.
It comes out before I can stop it, loud enough that it surprises even me. I can’t remember the last time that happened. A spontaneous burst of laughter from me. I bring my hand up to my mouth in shock.
Both of them turn to look at me.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling my other hand out of the water and wiping them both on a towel hanging from the dish station. “Just — some things never change.”
Callum’s eyebrows go up. “Meaning?”
I turn to face them fully, leaning back against the counter. “You were like this in school too. Always pushing people. More acid. More salt. More something. You’d make people redo things until they were perfect.”
“That’s called having standards,” Callum returns, but there’s no bite to it.
And just barely visible under his mustache, a small secret smile. Just for me.
My own smile answers before I can stop it. “That’s called being picky.”
Roman is grinning now, looking between us like this is the best entertainment he’s had all week. “Oh, I like this. Tell me more about school-day Chef.”
Callum holds up both hands in surrender. “Absolutely not.”
I ignore him completely. “He once made our classmate redo a butter sauce seven times. Seven. The instructor finally had to step in and tell Callum to stop and leave him alone.”
“It kept breaking!” Callum’s voice goes up slightly, defensive.
“Because you kept adding butter too fast when you were ‘helping!’” I make air quotes around the word.
Roman’s grin widens. “Wait. Chef, didn’t your velouté break during the Valentine’s special last year?”
“That was the burner’s fault.”
“And the hollandaise at the Mother’s Day brunch?”
“The eggs were too cold.”
“The cream sauce for the mushroom risotto in —”
“Okay, Roman, we get it.” Callum cuts him off, but I can see the flush creeping up his neck.
“No way!” I have to press my hand to my mouth to hide my giggle. “Is it still happening? You broke a beurre blanc on our graduation night!”
“I was distracted!”
“You were showing off for the visiting chef from Noma!”
“I was not!” But even as he says it, the corner of his mouth gives him away. “Okay. Maybe I was showing off. I was trying to keep up with the Chef’s Award winner.” His eyes meet mine with a wink, and my heart stops. “At least I didn’t burn the tarte tatin.” His eyebrows go up.
“That was one time!”
“It was finals week.”
Roman is laughing now too, looking between us. “This is amazing. You two are nerds.”
“You were unbearable.” But I’m smiling again too.
“You were worse.” He crosses his arms, leaning against the counter next to Roman’s station. “You literally organized all your ingredients by color once. You spent like twenty minutes arranging herbs from lightest to darkest.”
“Organization is not a character flaw.”
“It is when you’re that obsessive about it.”
I straighten up, arms crossing to mirror his stance, falling back into that old rhythm we used to have. This back and forth. The way we’d bicker about nothing and everything, pushing each other and making each other better.
“You know what your problem is?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“You think perfectionism only counts if it’s your way.” I take a step toward him, and I can see Roman’s eyes going wide in my peripheral vision. “But guess what? My color-coded ingredients were just as valid as your seventh attempt at that sauce.”
“They absolutely were not.”