I let out a genuine laugh for the first time since I started telling the story.
“You know, you’re something. You’re the first person I let Martin hire for me. Usually I run candidates through all the hoops myself. But I’ve never in my life heard him rave about a new chef the way he raved about you. His instincts are excellent.” I take a breath, watching Willow take a long drink from her glass, enjoying the way the muscles in her throat move. “It’s not like it was the last time somebody stabbed me in the back. I’ve turned no-hopers into brilliant chefs, only to have them disappear without notice and pop up days later at some fancy place that promises them the world and ends up failing. I’ve had accountants that embezzled cash, waiters that stole food—and I’ve lost count of how many people have stolen recipes and suppliers once they’ve left. It’s best to treat everybody like they’ll eventually betray you in this business, because in my experience, they probably will.”
Willow squirms a little, rubbing the side of her neck as if she can’t get comfortable. I guess no one has ever given it to her this straight before. No wonder her restaurant collapsed. She’s brilliant, talented, ambitious—but in some ways, still a little naïve about the world.
“I don’t know,” she says with a contemplative sigh. “That sounds like an unhealthy way to live. Doing everything yourself. Not trusting anybody. Always looking over your shoulder, still holding on to all of that no matter how many years go by.”
I smile at her once more before lifting my legs back up on the lounger and lying back.
“It got me here, didn’t it?”
I draw some more of the whiskey and close my eyes, listening to the waves and feeling almost as if they could carry me away. Maybe this is what therapy feels like. As if some knot deep inside of you that you didn’t even know you were carrying is loosened. Then Willow’s words break the trance.
“Does it ever get lonely at the top?” she says.
I open my eyes and turn to see her sitting on the edge of her lounger, looking at me anxiously now as if worried.
I let out an easy chuckle. “How could I be lonely? I own a restaurant.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
I look at her, not quite understanding the question.
“How could I be lonely when I spend all my time around people, hundreds of people who turn up at the restaurant every week. And my staff. All the cooks I’ve worked with over the years. The parties, the events…I’m never alone. If anything I wish I had more time to myself—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Willow says, her tone more serious now. “That whole ‘not trusting anyone but yourself’ thing, it sounds kinda…sad. I don’t know how you can live like that. I can’t imagine living without any close friends, without someone you can open up to.”
“Why does that sound like an offer?”
“Maybe it is.” She laughs a little, almost nervously, then stands up.
Looking up at her, I say, “You need a break from my dark, painful past, I take it?”
She smiles. “I can handle it. But right now, it’s just too gorgeous out. Let’s swim.”
Willow holds out her hand, and I take it.
12
Willow
It took a month of very tactful cajoling, but I eventually give in and attend one of Asha’s gym-plus-boxing classes. As if my shifts at Knife weren’t exhausting enough. Still, Asha’s been right about pretty much everything she suggested up to this point, and the physical strains are the only thing keeping my mind off the emotional ones, so I give it my all.
I spend the first twenty minutes of her relentlessly high-energy class planning how to escape without anybody noticing, the next twenty minutes pitting mind against body as they both reach their limits, then the last twenty minutes on an adrenaline rush that’s almost spiritual. By the time I arrive home (without Asha, she had a few more classes to go) I’m walking on air. My mind clear, my body gratifyingly drained, and with a craving for sugar that goes down to my toes.
Since Asha’s not around to tell me why that’s a bad idea, I decide to go for it and make cinnamon buns from scratch, picking up confectioner’s sugar and cream cheese on the way home. Once I’m in the apartment, I take a quick shower and then get to work.
That’s when my sister Ellie calls, when my hands are deep in the mixing bowl, working the dough together. I answer the call with my elbow and quickly tell her to call me back on the videochat program on her laptop.
Ellie’s only older than me by five years, though in terms of figuring out what you want in life, she’s pretty much at the end game. After marrying her high school sweetheart in her mid-twenties, an IT consultant named Greg, she had two beautiful girls with eiderdown-soft hair and stock photo smiles and settled down in an incredible three-bedroom on the outskirts of Boise, to focus on her dream job of selling her handmade wedding dresses online. One of her first clients ended up being the style editor at Vogue, and after the magazine ran a short feature on her vintage-inspired designs, my sister’s business took off. Even her bathroom is perfect—it has an amazing view of the mountains.
Ellie’s more than just my wonderfully successful and incredibly humble sister, however; she’s my cheerleader, confidante, and—when times are particularly tough—therapist. She’s been calling me regularly to check in since I moved to L.A., expecting a full rundown of everything I’ve been up to. Considering how quickly things have been happening lately, she’ll probably have to start calling me daily.
“Hey,” I say, as her beaming face fills the screen, her huge living room extending off into the background.
“Hey you!” she squeals happily. I move back to the bowl and start working the dough again. “Oh gosh! That looks yummy! I miss your cooking, Willow.”
“It’s nothing. Just cinnamon buns.”
“Ughhh,” Ellie groans, making a drooly expression. “I love your cinnabons. Comfort food?”
“Earned guilty pleasure, more like. I just got back from one of Asha’s boxing classes.”
“Oh! How is she doing? And how was the class?”
“Great, and great.”
Ellie sighs deeply, and I glance at the screen to see her smiling proudly. “It’s all so awesome.”
The comment makes me laugh, though I don’t know why.
“What is?”
“You…there…doing all of that. Following your dreams.”
I finish kneading the dough and cover it to rise a little, then start whisking the cinnamon.
“It probably sounds more exciting than it really is. How’s Greg? And the girls?”
“They miss you. A lot. If you think I ask a lot of questions, you should talk to the girls. ‘Is Aunt Willow going to be in a movie?’ ‘Has she met Selena Gomez?’ Oh! And do you remember Carl, from the movie theater? He nearly had a heart attack when I told him you work with Cole Chambers. The poor boy almost asked me for my autograph.”
“I don’t know if you should be telling people that so quickly—especially since I was pretty close to not working for him just last week. Remember that?”
Ellie pauses before speaking, and when I glance at the screen again I can see she’s grinning mischievously at me.
“Who could forget the lemon thyme incident? And the fairytale romance afterward? Speaking of…” she says in heavily insinuating tones.
I laugh a little uneasily.
“It’s not a fairytale romance…”
“If you say so. How was the ‘real date’ with the big boss? Did you even go?”
“Yeah, I went…it was good.”
After another moment, Ellie says, “Grr! Come on! Is that it? God, I hope you didn’t tease him the way you’re teasing me. Where did you end up going? What did you talk about? How did you…end up?”
I shake my head as I finish with the icing and clean my hands, wiping them with a towel as I lean back on the dining table so Ellie can see me properly.
“Well, the place he took me to was this, like, private beach type area at a fancy hotel in Santa Monica—”