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PASTRY CHEF NEEDED, the ad reads. NO IDIOTS NO TIME-WASTERS. That’s it, that’s all it says. Normally she’d have ignored it, but she’s interviewed already at all the reasonable restaurants, and either been turned down or turned them down, and now she’s left with bills to pay and a belligerent help-wanted advert. These things happen.
She shows up to the place (Dà Dheug, although she’ll be fucked if she can pronounce that) in street clothes and her knife bag tucked discreetly into her purse. Nice enough place, if a little ramshackle. Looks like it’s been here for decades. She hasn’t heard of it, but working at a restaurant means you have no time to eat at other restaurants, so she’s not all that concerned.
Ten minutes later she’s still waiting at the bar. Considering the appropriateness of ordering a drink before you’re interviewed by your potential boss. They’ve got a nice selection of scotch, certainly. The bartender is polishing a glass very slowly. Time is passing, very slowly.
And then there’s a sort of grey-haired stick-insect thing darting onto the stool next to hers. Glaring down at her from underneath impressive eyebrows. She can feel the ego from here.
“Pleased to meet you, Chef…” She flicks her eyes subtly down to the name embroidered on his coat. It says ‘CHEF’. She smiles brightly, and rides out the awkward pause.
“Right. So. Job.” He tosses her resume onto the bar. “Can you do it?”
“I was hoping you could tell me more about what the job actually is-”
“It’s baking,” he interrupts. “Can you bake? It’s that.” He jumps up, making an impatient c'mon gesture.
She follows him, hoping no one notices she has to skip a little to keep up. Chef’s got long legs and a quick pace. They pass through the front of house, through the kitchen - some poor kid dashing out of the way with a pot of boiling stock - and stop in front of a, what. A cubicle? A matchbox?
“This is you,” he announces.
“Getting a bit ahead of ourselves,” she mutters. She steps into the space, and then back out, and then back in: it seems, somehow, to be smaller on the inside. “It’s…cozy.” It’s microscopic. There’s a little window, though, the pass facing the open kitchen, glimpses of the front of house and outside world just visible. And it’s not horribly laid out. It could be worse. Not making rent is certainly worse.
“What are you looking for, style-wise?”
He spreads his arms wide. “Sky’s the limit. Just make sure it’s something amazing.”
It’s not bad, all things considered. Living inside a blazingly-hot fishbowl. She’s got full run of the menu, which is nice, and tacit approval to order whatever she wants from the wholesalers. She’s got two ovens, a refrigerator, a table, all in mostly-working order. A whiny, recalcitrant printer. A tub filled with inexplicable miscellany. A paycheck. This is the kingdom of Clara Oswald. Hooray.
She’s assigned a prep cook, a surly young woman named - Voyage? No, Journey - who unironically describes her workspace as a ‘battlestation’. But she works clean and fast, and Clara can’t complain. Halfway through her second shift, she accidentally picks up a culinary school kid, Rigsy, who sort of insinuates himself into pastry after being yelled off the line by Chef. Super green, a little cocky, but hey, at least she’s got someone to help man the ovens.
And she’s got the view: the grill guy is extremely cute, and the grill guy is nearly always in her field of vision. And there’s the occasional dinner-and-a-show of Chef (also cute, in his petulant aging-manbaby way) storming through and flinging dishes to the floor. And the servers, who are, yes, cute. Everyone is attractive here. Wouldn’t be the first place she’s worked where the staff was chosen based on physical appearance. It’s the kind of thing that would have made her mad, back when she was a wee little FNG; these days, she can’t quite find the energy. Besides, she’s enjoying the eye-candy a bit too much for it to not be hypocritical.
She drops a raspberry tart (sauce on the side, extra raspberries, fuck you very much) onto the pass and waits to catch Grill Guy’s eye. She does, he grins and waves, and she tries to look sultry posed over her tart. One plus side of servers taking forever to pick up their damn food, she’s got enticing props to flirt via.
Clara has a desk now, too, which is less compelling. It’s a desk, she has to sit at it sometimes. There’s a computer running Windows 98, some corporate-giveaway notepads and pens, an elderly telephone, a swivel chair with wheels constantly jammed up with pieces of string. And it faces Chef’s desk, which is - kind of weird. Listening to your boss grumble about budgets and fish pricing and Yelp reviews. Catching him sneak glances at you out of the corner of your eye.
This restaurant has an attractive staff, is all she’s saying.
“Couple questions,” Rigsy says.
“Mmm.” She slides Tray ‘o’ Buns #785 of the day onto the rack, breathing in deeply. Fresh-baked bread, that smell never gets old.
“One. ‘FNG’?”
“That’s you, yes.” She stares him down. “Fucking New Guy,” she elaborates. “And the fact you don’t know what ‘FNG’ means tells me that you are, in fact, the FNG, so please stop dropping hints about getting a raise.”
“Right. Fine. Whatever, that’s not-” He catches himself, starts again. “Two. Does Chef have a name?”
“Chef’s name is Chef,” she says, possibly losing patience. The printer starts rattling off tickets, the first rush of the night. Creme Brulee !!86 cream DAIRY ALLERGY!!. She sighs heavily.
“Three. Are you sure we can’t put my squid ink faux-caviar on the sorbet dish because I really think - ”
“No. Shut up. And back to work, hear? Time to lean, time to clean.”
Fucking molecular gastronomy. Kids these days.
She starts ditching the classics, starts making the menu her own. Throws in some desserts her mother used to make, some weird shit, some lets-use-up-these-apples-before-they-go-bad dishes. She’s selling more than this place ever has before, she’s sure of it. She’s an asset. She’s a wizard. This pudding, please try it.
“Not bad,” Chef says. “Could be worse.”
Fuck him, those candied blackcurrants are delicious. But that’s his version of praise, isn’t it. So it’s reasonable to get a little thrill at pleasing him. It’s a totally normal reaction, being deeply into the look on his face as he closes his mouth around her spoon.
A spoon, not her spoon, house spoon, technically his spoon. The point being that it’s not even a euphemism, so why is her mind going - places?
And why bother with King Asshole when there’s a handsome knight standing across from her station every shift? Grill Guy, Danny when he’s at home, although she tends to just yell ‘Grill’ and wait for him to yell back ‘Hot Buns’. She likes Grill Guy. He shows her his rubber-band ball, which is really quite impressive. Nearly as impressive as his arse, fleetingly visible beneath his loose trousers.
He’s a good man, Grill Guy. He holds it down, keeps it steady, puts out steak after steak at precisely the right temperature. He’s got a nice smile and a kind disposition. She saves his number to her cellphone, in case she ever has the time and energy to go out for a drink. Hot Buns and Grill Guy, that could be a thing.
Bad night. Bad, bad night. A total shitshow. The computer system goes down, the refrigerator breaks, 250 people scheduled on the books, and two surprise buses filled with pensioner tourists show up around seven, the sort of people who send back ice cream for being too cold. Journey sprints melodramatically between the prep kitchen and the pastry station, saluting as she goes. Rigsy holds up mostly, although he manages to cut himself on a blunt hotel pan. They’re desperately, hideously weeded for about three hours, and then slowly but surely ground into a fine paste for two; by the time the last slice of cake goes out around midnight Clara’s just sort of vaguely hallucinating about margaritas.
Chef swings by as she’s closing up, looking utterly unaffected. Energized, even. The bastard, probably doesn’t even sleep, probably absorbs energy directly from loud noises and heat sources. Chef and his stupid hair and his beaky nose. It’s a terrible face, she hates it. She hates everything.
“You did good,” he says. Tosses it out like he’s hoping she won’t hear.
She hears. She preens, as much as she can manage. “I know,” she says.
“I could use a drink. Got a nice bottle of scotch I’ve been meaning to waste on a meaningless occasion. If you could use a drink too… I’ll be in the office.”
That’s weird. He’s weird. She’s weird? She could definitely use a drink, though. As awkward as it is to share said drink with your boss.
She meets him in their office about twenty minutes later, feeling like a shitty congealed pile of syrup. He nods, pours them both a shot - it is a nice bottle, and isn’t this sacrilege? Slamming down quality booze? Whatever. She salutes, he frowns, cheers.
That happens a few times. The next time she checks the clock, it’s 3 am. For fuck’s sake, she has to be back here in seven hours. This is an error. She stretches and looks up at Chef, fully intending to say, you know, thanks but unless you’ve got a time machine I need to leave now or else I’ll still be drunk tomorrow. But she doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say anything.
Because, shit, that look on his face. He’s always intense, sure, but now all that intensity is directed at her. His eyes are hooded, he’s biting his lip. Him and his stupid face.
So she does the only thing she can think of, which is lunge across their desks face-first and tackle him with her mouth. His chair skids backwards, string-tangled wheels squeaking in protest. She clambers across their assorted piles of paperwork and plops down on his lap. He grunts, she giggles, she kisses him again.
He tastes like scotch and coffee and candied blackcurrant. He’s making the most delicious noises. His hands come up behind her back, beneath her coat and thin t-shirt, callouses scratching over her skin. She grinds down on his rapidly-hardening cock. And again, and again, until the friction isn’t enough and she pulls back just far enough to yank down the elastic waistband of his trousers, kick her clogs off and pull her own trousers off all the way, flinging them over the fax machine.
This is an error. She’ll regret this when she’s sober. She’s doing it anyway. She unbuttons his coat, slides it off his narrow shoulders. Nothing underneath, that’s nice. Her own calloused hands sliding around his neck, over his chest, his skin soft under her rough fingers. She positions herself, and slams down without much of a warning. He yelps, she kisses him again, sucking his lips into her mouth, teeth and tongue and their breathing speeding up.
She remembers him coming inside her, and she remembers having to get herself off manually, and she remembers squeezing his stupid face affectionately. After that it’s all sort of a blur.
The next morning, she walks into the office, to-go coffee in hand, to find him slumped over his desk, wearing sunglasses and generally looking like something the cat dragged in. “Ehrgh,” he says.
She grins, and slaps him on the back. “Another day in paradise. 300 on the books tonight. You ready to get fucked up the arse?”
“Figuratively or…” He trails off, sliding down low in his chair.
“Both, if you play your cards right.” She grins again, and heads off to the kitchen. Heat sources and loud noises. It’s nearly enough to live off. The triple-espresso helps, though.