Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

“They’re so lucky,” Christine whispered to Valerie, nodding toward Miriam and Sasha.

“I bet you miss Ed right now,” Valerie shot back.

“No,” Christine said bluntly. “Not at all.”

Valerie leaned against her, and they both laughed in the old way, with a shared sense of generalized scorn for men, glad to be unencumbered, independent, free.

Laurens was on Consuelo all night. He abruptly left the pass, where he’d been overseeing plating and garnishes, to stand directly behind her, as close as he could get without touching her; so close, Mick knew, that she could feel his exhalations from his nose on the back of her neck. Every now and then he’d correct her flatly, jabbing his finger to point at the offending action. “You waited too long to turn that,” he said. “Three seconds too much and a chop is ruined.” A minute later: “Don’t heat the fucking sauce till it boils, you break it that way.” Mick could feel Consuelo tightening, bracing herself, maintaining control and calm through strict, years-long internal discipline. Laurens was cool and icy; she was cooler, icier. Mick would have reacted exactly the same way. She was a pro, and he was proud of her. There was no reason for Laurens’s treatment of her tonight except that Laurens probably sensed that she wasn’t subordinate enough. She took too much pride in her work and invested too much ego in it for his liking, for the good of the kitchen’s overall morale, and so she required further taking down. He was doing his job, and she was doing hers.

“Yes, Chef,” she said for the tenth time, stepping aside so Laurens could show her the way he wanted the meat plated. Almost nine minutes had gone by since he’d stepped back to correct her, and she hadn’t cracked, not even a little. Her eyes were on her work, not flickering, not slitting. Her hands were steady. Laurens was testing her, poking at her, determining her weaknesses, and she was rising to it. But Mick kept close tabs on her anyway. He’d vouched for her and brought her with him to the main galley. So if she exploded at Laurens, or flashed any temper, Mick would be called upon to step in somehow and smooth things over. All his antennae were tuned in, his muscles tensed for intervention.

Laurens lifted the sauté pan of sweetbreads Consuelo was cooking in butter and held it under his nose, breathing in their steam, then shook it gently, assessing their turgor. “Did you blanch these?”

“Yes, Chef,” said Consuelo.

“When you sauté sweetbreads, blanching robs them of flavor.”

“Yes, Chef,” she said.

Mick felt a surge of pride in her. She was tough. Laurens was right, also. She shouldn’t have blanched them.

“It makes them easier to slice but it’s lazy. They’re better unblanched.” Laurens put the pan back down.

“Yes, Chef,” said Consuelo. Her voice sounded steady and earnest.

Just as Mick relaxed his grip and started to submerge himself in his own rhythm of work, Consuelo turned to Laurens, casually, as if she were about to add something to her submissive agreement.

“I have a question, Chef,” she said. Her voice was low and calm. “What if I told you that you were wrong and the sweetbreads are better this way? What would you do to me? Would you send me to my room?”

Laurens stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. He didn’t move. He had no expression at all.

Mick inhaled sharply and choked on some spit and began coughing hard. He bent over, low down, so he didn’t spray the food.

“I disagree with you, Chef,” said Consuelo. “The way I make them, they come out both tender and delicious-tasting. Look. Try some.”

While she spoke, she sliced off a piece of sweetbread with her eight-inch chef’s knife’s razor-sharp blade, impaled it on the tip of the knife, and dipped it into the sauce waiting to coat each serving, a rich-looking tomato sauce. She held it out to Laurens, stuck on the point of the knife, right in front of his face. It dripped red.

He looked at her. His face was white, and his voice held no emotion at all. “We will discuss this when dinner service is over,” he said. “Now, back to work, everyone.”

Consuelo winked at Mick and carefully ate the bite off the tip of her knife. “It’s fucking perfect,” she told him with a cold smile.

“Back to work, you heard him,” said Mick, not smiling back. No point in saying anything. The damage was done.

His ears thudded with his heartbeat. In the back of his throat, he felt the itch of another cough, but he suppressed it.

It had all happened in one minute, at the most, but he felt as if the waves of energy that powered the kitchen had been profoundly disturbed. For the rest of his shift, the rhythms were off. Laurens was tightly wound, and the tension in the room caused everyone’s movements to slow, bodies to fight for balance. All the other chefs seemed to be trying to stay on top of things and be perfect to make up for Consuelo’s unthinkable, terrible insurrection.

The rest of the dinner shift was as weirdly tense a night as Mick could remember in all his years working in a kitchen. People looked at one another furtively, grimly. No one looked at Consuelo. Mistakes turned into minor catastrophes and were surfed over, corrected, dealt with. Mick and Kenji, on opposite sides of the galley, exchanged quick eye contact a couple of times, telegraphing irritated bewilderment to each other with a flick of their eyes. Kenji’s fish station hit the weeds several times. A tray of charred cod had to be thrown out when black smoke churned from the salamander. A pot of béarnaise sauce was scalded beyond repair. On the meat station, Mick had to micromanage Rodrigo and Tony in addition to keeping his own stuff going. Consuelo was the only one in the kitchen who had been letter-perfect all night. Her sweetbreads, the waiters reported, were generating raves.

“Compliments to whoever made these,” one of the waiters had said, loudly, so that everyone could hear. “From the old lady who doesn’t like anything. The one who sent back her filet mignon the other night.”

Consuelo didn’t respond. She barely acknowledged the compliment or looked at the waiter. And she didn’t look at Mick once all night. Of course she knew he was baffled and upset with her, that he was watching every move she made. Her insolence surrounded her; he could feel it bubbling, hot, rash, triumphant. The piece of sweetbread dripping with sauce at the end of her sharp knife, extended toward Laurens’s face, was seared on his memory.

Goddamn her, he thought, even though what she’d done wasn’t so bad in itself. She’d disagreed with Laurens’s assessment of her technique and offered him a sample of her work as proof that it was up to snuff. But in reality it was far worse: she had challenged and even threatened the executive chef in front of the whole galley. They had all seen it, and they all knew what it meant. And Laurens knew it too. That was the unforgivable thing. Not the letter of the act, but the spirit. In the old maritime days, on an eighteenth-century ship, the captain might very well have had her thrown overboard. Instead, Laurens would put her off the ship as soon as they came into port in Honolulu.

As well he should, Mick thought. Although Mick wouldn’t necessarily have run a kitchen the way Laurens did, he preferred working under a control freak like Laurens to a chef who was more lax and volatile. He liked rules, liked knowing where he stood. The harder and more exacting the work he was required to do, the more comfortable he felt. This only doubled his anger at Consuelo: Laurens wasn’t even that bad! And yet, in spite of himself, Mick couldn’t help worrying about what would happen to her now. And this combination of protectiveness and anger reminded him of the way he’d worried about his younger sister, Beata, with her buzz-cut hair and tattoos and blackout drinking and stash of drugs and all-night raves in the ruin bars, stupid girl, coming home totally fucked up, defying their father to hit her the way Consuelo had defied Laurens to fire her. Authority, male: not their favorite thing.