Chapter 5

Cecily spent the next few days submitting her application to restaurant after restaurant, even the ones that indicated they weren’t hiring. Those who deigned to even look at her resume expressed no admiration for a culinary arts degree that wasn’t prefaced by either the Culinary Arts Institute or Le Cordon Bleu.

“Let me cook for you,” she begged the head chef of one establishment. “Just one meal for you to taste and judge the quality of my skill.”

Eight chefs declined the opportunity until one harried man looked her over and gestured curtly. “You got sixty minutes to amaze me,” he grunted, leading her into a dim, cramped kitchen.

Cecily nodded and asked to be shown the pantry. He pointed toward a dark alcove.

“There.”

She nodded and marched over there, ignoring her aching feet and anxiety. This wasn’t one of the better known or more popular restaurants, but it was a place that could use someone of her caliber to make it such. She knew she could put this little restaurant on San Antonio’s map.

The pantry’s depleted shelves challenged her, but Cecily had spent four years working her wizardry on a limited selection of inexpensive ingredients. Her tomato sauce was what attracted Pyotr to her in the first place: he’d wanted her in his kitchen before ever laying eyes upon her.

No, she thought and shook her head, she would not think of Pyotr. As much as she cared for him, she told herself he was a bad man. He’d made a career of beating people up, of intimidation. His work kept him in a place she did not want to be.

“I’m not stupid,” she muttered to herself as she quickly gathered ingredients. “I know you can’t just quit and I can’t ask you to do so.”

“Whatcha gonna make?” the chef asked as she carried an armful of ingredients to the kitchen.

“Chicken surprise,” she replied flippantly, then frowned. Really, that kind of attitude wouldn’t win any favors. But the man chuckled and leaned against a wall to watch as she sliced and diced, seasoned and sautéed. Within 30 minutes she presented him with an elegantly plated meal with an aroma that made her mouth water.

“Taste,” she said, offering him the plate.

The chef looked at it, examining the appearance of the food. He raised the plate to his face, inhaling deeply. Raising a skeptical eyebrow, he took the fork she handed him and speared a bite-sized piece of chicken, a bit of vegetable, and some rice. Both eyebrows disappeared into his hairline when the flavors exploded on his tongue.

“Chicken surprise indeed, little lady. This is incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“When can you start?”

“How much can you pay?”

He took another bite, chewed, and swallowed, thinking over his answer. “This is a city of exquisite cuisine. It’s hard to stand out.” He took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “I’m a good businessman, but not creative as a cook.”

“You own this restaurant?” she asked.

“I do.” His expression turned melancholy. “It’s not been the same since my Paulina passed away. She was the magic in the kitchen.”

Moved by his sadness, Cecily laid a hand on his arm and said softly, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” the man replied with simple dignity. "I’ve been trying to keep the restaurant going, but, without Paulina…” The words died away and his focus turned inward. He sighed, blinked, then continued. “Without Paulina, her recipes are just recipes. I don’t have her magic.”

“I’d love to see her recipes.”

The man nodded and set the plate down. Walking across the kitchen, he retrieved a box of stained and worn index cards.

“She wrote everything down here. She hoped one of our children would take an interest in the restaurant, but none of them did.”

She gave him a soft smile and said, “We all need to find our own way.”

“And what are you running from?”

“Not running, exactly,” she hedged. “I...my boyfriend...one of us wanted to get married and the other one didn’t.”

“So you left him,” the man said. He paused as though he were going to say more, but then decided against it. He named a salary that paid slightly more than minimum wage and said, “That’s all I can afford. The restaurant is barely surviving as it is.”

“My cooking will reinvigorate it,” Cecily promised. “You’ll have to do a bit of promoting.”

“That I can do,” he promised. “Can you start tomorrow?”

“I can. I’ll have to go shopping soon to restock the pantry. What’s my budget?”

He named a figure that would have had Maksim laughing for its parsimony. But Cecily nodded and said, “I know how to stretch that and make it seem like a feast.”

He smiled at her and handed her the box of index cards. “Look these over. It would be nice to feature Paulina’s specialties on the menu.”

Cecily took the box. “I’ll study them. I’ll want to design a new menu, but I’ll work with this for now.”

They shook hands and Cecily left with a spring in her step, despite the aching feet. Upon returning to the hotel, she pulled out the recipe cards and groaned. They were written in Spanish. She neither spoke nor read Spanish. Thinking for a moment, she called down to the front desk.

“Is there someone who could help me translate some Spanish?” she asked, hoping that a sympathetic worker would take pity on her.

“I’m sorry, we don’t run a translation service,” came the unhelpful answer.

“Thanks anyway,” she muttered and inserted the card back into the box. After another moment, grabbed the skimpy notepad and cheap ballpoint pen the hotel provided to all guests and carried them and the box of recipes down to the business center. where patrons could perform internet searches and print boarding passes. Bringing up a free online translator, she spent the next several hours painstakingly typing in the recipes and writing down the translations in a crabbed hand on the limited amount of paper available. Many of the translations made little or no sense, but she massaged them until she thought she understood Paulina’s notes.

Hands aching, she carried everything back to her room and read what she wrote. Yawning, she looked at the clock and groaned, realizing the late hour. With weary deliberation, she set the alarm and pulled out her last clean outfit. She’d have to do laundry tomorrow.

* * *

“I found her,” Gennady crowed.

“Where?”

“I set an alert for any mention of Cecily Carrigan and got a ping.”

“Where?”

“San Antonio.”

“We know that already. Where?”

Gennady grinned at his colleague’s rapidly fraying patience. “She’s the new cook at a second-rate restaurant called El Buey Azul.”

“What does that mean?”

“How should I know? I speak Russian, not Spanish,” Gennady shot back. “They’re blasting San Antonio with advertisements promoting the new chef. Not very wise of them if Cecily doesn’t want to be found.”

“Maybe she doesn’t care if she’s found,” Pyotr moaned.

“You’ve got less than ten days to go down there and convince her to come back to Cleveland,” Gennady reminded him. “You’ve made Maksim and me a ton of money, but it won’t last forever. Right now, you’re still a novelty and you haven’t gone up against the real pros on the circuit.”

The prediction of his impending loss soured Pyotr, although he knew that Gennady spoke truly. He’d not been fighting the cream of the underground MMA crop. Those youngsters would likely wipe floor with his face. He was too old, too out of shape, too out of practice, even though he’d been winning steadily over the past seventeen days and six fights. His body felt permanently bruised. His hands hurt all the time, especially his knuckles. Maksim had not relieved him of his usual work, although that involved more driving than it did enforcement. Slava Bogu.

With a surly grunt, he called Maksim.

“What is it, Pyotr?”

“I found Cecily.”

“Then you will leave shortly?”

“After tonight’s fight, I’ll get a flight out.”

“Skip the fight,” Olivia’s voice came over the line.

“Livvy! This is private.”

“Maksim, the boy’s in love and he’s going after his girl. Give him a break.”

His boss’ heavy sigh indicated capitulation. “Forget the fight tonight. I’ll find someone else to bet my money on.”

“Put your money on Slaughterhouse,” Pyotr advised. “He’s good, better than I.”

“Da. Spasibo.”

“Find Cecily and bring her back,” Olivia ordered. “We miss her.”

“We miss her cooking,” Maksim muttered.

“Da.” Pyotr could have mentioned he missed having Cecily in his bed, waking up to her softness, seeing her possessions mixed among his. Already her scent had faded from his apartment. He looked around, gaze gliding over Gennady’s ugly mug, and noted the signs of her absence. Chert poberi, he was lonely.

“Find me a flight to San Antonio,” he ordered his colleague. “I leave tonight.”

Gennady’s face brightened with a toothy smile. “Good. Then I can focus on my love life.”

“Gennady, you don’t have a love life. You just fuck them and leave them weeping.”

“They like what I do to them.”

Pyotr shook his head, not understanding how any woman could enjoy the kind of pain that Gennady inflicted upon them.

“They know what they’re getting into,” the tall, slender man defended himself. “They wouldn’t be in those clubs otherwise.”

“What do they call you? The Russian Dom?”

Gennady responded with a thin smile and said, “Do you want the eight o’clock or nine-thirty flight?”

Pyotr glanced at his watch. He still had to pack and get through airport security. “Nine-thirty.”

“Done. Give me your credit card.”

* * *

Cecily untied her apron and, placing her hands against her lower back, bent backward as far as she could without toppling over.

“A good night, eh?” Javier commented with a luminous grin brightening his dark face.

“A very good night,” she agreed and rolled her shoulders.

“There’s a customer asking for you?”

“Who?” A chill of dread trickled down Cecily’s spine.

However, Javier’s grin only got wider. “A reporter from Edible San Antonio. He’s reviewing us tonight.”

“Oh, Lord, I wish I’d’ve known he was coming.”

“Relax, niña. The menu was fine and your cooking was magnifico,” her boss reassured her.

“What did he order? Did he order one of Paulina’s dishes?”

“No. He ordered off the new menu, one of your specialties.”

“None of those was a Mexican dish.”

“It does not matter. The food was good and that is what matters. Go and speak with him, Cecily.”

She pouted. “I don’t want to.” Pyotr might find me if this reporter publishes my name.

Javier’s smile and good humor disappeared beneath a stern frown. “Cecily, don’t be foolish. My restaurant and your job may depend upon a good review. Be nice to the man. Smile at him.”

She sighed. There was no polite way to refuse this opportunity. Slapping a damp towel on the counter, she marched into the dining room to confront the lone, remaining customer. With determination, she fixed a welcoming smile on her face. If her mother had taught her nothing else, she had taught her daughters to perform their duties with a pleasant expression and polite manners.

Her mother had probably given birth with a determined smile, she thought sourly. The thought of children begat the thought of the making of them which led straight to the thought of Pyotr and a wave of loneliness so powerful it nearly caused her to stagger. Steeling herself against the weakness, Cecily squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

Hand outstretched, she greeted the reporter, “Hello, I’m Cecily Carrigan, the chef of El Buey Azul.”

The homely man with crooked teeth and lank, greasy hair shook her hand and introduced himself to her boobs. “Please sit. I’m sure your feet are killing you.”

“I prefer to stand, thank you.” What she did not say was, “My face is up here, you jerk.”

He nodded and jotted something down in his notepad. Cecily felt compelled to add, “If I sit, I probably won’t be able to get back up.” She softened the words with a smile.

“I know the feeling,” the reporter replied and immediately launched into his questions. His gaze focused more often on her chest than on her face, something Cecily had more than sufficient experience enduring and never appreciated. Thoroughly annoyed, Cecily kept her answers short and to the point until he came to the part about her background.

“Did you work in a restaurant before this?”

“For a short while,” she admitted. “I don’t talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Painful memories,” came the terse answer. “I don’t discuss it.”

“Auditions for Top Chef are coming to San Antonio. From what I sampled here, you’ve got some serious cooking skills. Are you going to enter?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Cecily said. “I only recently moved here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Batesville, Indiana,” she answered, thinking it best to omit all mention of Cleveland, except as necessary where her degree was concerned.

Not familiar with the rural, southwest Indiana town, the reporter dismissed it as unimportant and veered to other questions from a seemingly inexhaustible supply. When background questions finally ended, the interview turned toward her cooking, the influences, the inspiration, the goals.

“Someday, I’d like to own my own restaurant,” she admitted. “But that’s a long way away, so right now I’m happy to make my mark as Javier’s chef.”

“I think I have more than enough,” the reporter said and shook her hand. He tilted his head, looking her directly in the eyes instead of below her neck, and asked, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in going out for coffee with me?”

She shook her head and said, “Thank you, but I’ve got to clean the kitchen. Then my goal is to make it back to my bed before falling asleep on the sidewalk.”

He accepted the polite—and honest—refusal with good grace and bade her good-bye. Cecily watched him walk out of the restaurant and yawned, wondering cynically if he hit on all the female cooks he interviewed or if she was just the lucky one. Javier locked the door behind the reporter and flipped the sign to CLOSED. She retreated to the kitchen to scrub everything down for use the next day. She made a mental note to speak to Javier about hiring an assistant for her.

Leaving the restaurant, she locked the kitchen door behind her, hugged her purse close to her body, and began walking with purpose. Cecily disliked the dark alley, but Javier claimed he hadn’t the funds to install a security light back there. She pulled a flashlight from her oversized purse and switched it on. She blinked against the exhaustion that pulled at her, knowing that an alert demeanor helped deter assault. At least, that’s what the magazine articles on women’s safety said.

She should have learned self-defense at school when she had the chance.

She walked six blocks, turned left, walked another seven blocks, turned right, and walked three more blocks. The neighborhood wasn’t the best. Well, in all honesty, it was pretty damned bad, but no worse, she told herself, than the ghetto area of student housing where she’d lived. Looking around her new neighborhood, she knew that she couldn’t lie worth a damn, not even to herself. She climbed the stairs of her recently procured studio apartment. The hallway stank of urine and the skunk smell of marijuana and something harshly chemical. She thought one of her neighbors might be cooking up some crystal meth, but wasn’t curious enough to investigate. People in this neighborhood didn’t appreciate curiosity.

Cecily unlocked the door and the deadbolt and let herself into her small apartment, avoiding the rude stare of the creepy neighbor who opened his door to watch her whenever he realized she was in the hallway.

Except for a couple of cheap throw rugs, the worn linoleum floor was bare. A tiny kitchenette failed utterly as a place to cook an actual meal. A curtain drawn across the doorway to a small, dingy bathroom offered a modicum of privacy in case she was so foolish as to invite a guest to visit her humble abode. A few mornings of scavenging yard sales had netted her some general housewares and some extra dollars yielded the agreement of some sellers to deliver a double bed and mattress, a loveseat and armchair, and a dinette table and two chairs, and bureau. A morning trip to a local discount store helped brighten up the depressing space with cheap lace curtains, cheerfully colored bedspread and sheets, the aforementioned rugs, and a freestanding rack from which she could hang her clothes, since the studio apartment had no closet.

After relocking the door and deadbolt, she looked around the space and wished she could afford a trip to Ikea, then trudged to the bathroom to take a shower and wash off the sweat, grease, and grime of a long day’s work. Not all that far away, she heard shouts and two gunshots, screams, more yelling. She dared not look out the window. Business was picking up at the restaurant and she decided that she’d ask her boss for a raise. Not much, just enough to get the hell out of this horrible neighborhood.

Sirens interrupted her new nighttime routine. She’d quickly learned to ignore them. Sitting in her armchair with her e-reader in hand and a glass of cheap wine to help her relax, she jumped and splashed wine on her sleep shirt when someone pounded on her door. Hastily, she set the wine glass down before she spilled any more on herself. With caution, she approached the door and peered through the peephole.

“I know you’re in there, chica,” her creepy neighbor said. “You gotta let me in. I need to use your phone.”

“Tell me whom you want to call and I’ll make the call,” she shouted back through the door. No way was she going to let that weirdo in her apartment.

He jerked and danced in place, the flab of his skinny arms jiggling. “C’mon, chica. I locked myself out of my apartment.”

“I’ll call the super for you.”

“Fuck, chica, he won’t answer his phone. Shit hole like this? We be lucky if he ain’t the one shot out there.”

“I am not going to let you into my apartment,” Cecily said. “I don’t know you and this is a bad neighborhood.”

She heard him mutter, “Fuckin’ bitch,” as he walked away. Giving her creepy neighbor the benefit of the doubt, she called the superintendent who, surprisingly, did answer the phone.

“Whaddayawant?”

“Mr. Boromitz,” she began, took a breath to calm her nerves, and continued, “my neighbor from apartment 3-C says he locked himself out of his apartment. I’m calling to ask you to open his door and let him back in.”

“Why ain’t he callin’ me then, chica?”

Cecily frowned, tired already of being called chica. She wasn’t a little girl, damn it. “Mr. Boromitz, I don’t let strange men into my apartment, so I offered to place the call for him.”

“Tell the fucker I’ll be up after my show.”

“Thank you, Mr. Boromitz,” she replied faintly and decided that she would not venture into the hallway to let her creepy, probably drugged-up neighbor know that the building superintendent would unlock his door for him. Eventually.

She sat back down, picked up her wineglass, and drained it in one long swallow. She cast a glance at the open window, but decided not to close it. The building had no air conditioning and the temperature—already sultry—would grow unbearable if she closed her only source of outside ventilation.

“I have got to get out of here,” she muttered and plugged in her smartphone to be sure to have sufficient power to search for a new place to live. She’d just have to dig into her savings for a while to afford better living conditions.

Shouts, screams, and sirens still pierced the night at irregular intervals when she finally tucked herself into bed.