I crack up. “Seriously? That’s really a band name?”
Indignant, she says, “And a damn good one. Don’t make fun of Pizza for Breakfast. They’re local, and they’re playing at the Den this weekend.”
I smack my palm on my forehead. “What has the world come to when I actually like a band called Pizza for Breakfast?”
She parks her hands on her hips. “Now, don’t tell me you dislike pizza for breakfast as a food. That was my staple for years.”
“I love pizza any time of the day, Tina, and I like this band. I’ll download the music later.”
“Pay for it, young man.”
“Do I look like a pirate?”
“Not tonight, in your fancy shirt. By the way, who’s the date with?”
I wrench back, surprised at her comment. “I didn’t mention a date.”
She smirks, a knowing glint in her warm brown eyes. “You didn’t have to. I can tell from your clothes,” she says, eyeing my attire.
My eyes drift down to my shirt, a dark blue button-down. “But see, I look devilishly handsome every day. Tonight is no different.”
“You dressed up more tonight. You’re usually in those too-tight jeans and an oh-so-trendy T-shirt—”
“I’ve never had any complaints about my jeans. Or my shirts, for that matter.”
“As I was saying, judging from this dress shirt, either you’re wooing investors, which I know you’re not, or you’re seeing a woman you like more than usual,” she says in that sharp, motherly tone she sometimes takes with me.
I shrug an admission.
“Has the ladies’ man of the kitchen met someone special?” she asks saucily, firing off one of the many names tacked on me over the years. There’s no point denying it. The names are true, though it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. When I first rose up in the ranks, somehow the food and dining press was as interested in my dating life as my cuisine. On the reality show, which I desperately needed to land a spot on, the producers made it clear that they liked that many of the women wanted my food and also wanted to go home with me. I’m not complaining about the opportunities that have come my way, especially since they’ve often intersected with the skyrocketing of my career.
In the last few years, I’ve been a lucky man, but I’ve known the other side of luck, too, and I don’t mean in love. I mean in life. As I was growing up, my family had very little. We scraped by for everything. My Brazilian father, an artist, fell in love with my French mother, a teacher, when he studied in France. We didn’t have much, but my parents rarely complained. Nor did I, even as I worked my ass off, desperately seeking the TV job and the chance it might afford me to leapfrog my career.
It worked, and now I run three restaurants, as well as a company that’s expanding into cookware, cookbooks, and more. That’s why I moved to New York from Miami a few months ago, since New York was better suited for the expansion.
And so, the nicknames have followed me—playboy chef, sexiest chef, and more.
“I’m hardly a ladies’ man,” I say to Tina.
“You can’t fool me, Gabriel,” she says, as she reaches for a bell pepper from a basket on her counter. “But answer the question, or I’ll cook my peppers too long and claim that’s what you taught me.”
I feign a look of horror. “Not that. Never.” The music shifts to a softer tune, and I pause to listen as a new voice sounds. “This band is good, too.” Then I add, “Anyway, it’s not a date.”
“Liar.”
I sigh. “Fine. You win. She’s someone I’m working with on a charity event.”
“But you want to impress her for more than the event?” Tina says, like she can see right through me.
Denial is impossible with her. She’s one of those women who just knows stuff. “Perhaps I do.”
“What makes her special?”
My mind roams back to Penny, and a smile tugs at my lips as I recall the twenty minutes we spent together at a booth in my restaurant the other day. “Besides being beautiful, I presume?”
Tina laughs sagely. “Beauty fades. Tell me about her.”
“I barely know her, but she’s sharp and passionate,” I say, remembering her “heavenly sandwich” compliment and the way she’d teased me, too, asking me if I was sure I knew her. I’d been certain at first, then perhaps not so much at all. “And more than that, she reminds me of someone.”
Tina shakes the pepper at me. “Don’t date her because she reminds you of someone else. Date her for her.”
“It’s not even a date.”
Tina scoffs. “Spoken like the sexiest chef in New York. Now go, or you’ll be late, and she won’t like that.” She grabs my arm and she tips her head toward the speakers. “Retractable Eyes. The band.”
“Where do they come up with these names?”
“Admit it. You love them.”
“They might have a way with notes and melodies,” I say, since Tina is nothing if not a musical goddess. I’ve found many crazy new bands to listen to because of her, and I love giving her a hard time about the wild names bands use today.
I say good-bye, and as I head uptown, I hold tight to Tina’s words, as if I’m clutching them in my fist.
Date her for her.
Penny might remind me, in a double-vision kind of way, of my Penelope from years ago, but I’m seeing her tonight for her, not for the sweetest memory. Though she sent me a text yesterday evening that reminded me so much of the girl I knew for three magical nights.