Chapter Four

RACHEL’S HEAD POUNDED so hard she swore she could hear the physical thud outside of her skull. Her face was mashed into the sweaty spot in her pillow where she’d fallen the night before and where she still lay, now with the addition of a drool spot that wet the flowered pillowcase. At times like this, she was glad she lived alone: there was no one to witness her shame.

She lifted her head, hoping to find a leftover water bottle on her nightstand, anything to get rid of the dry taste in her mouth. She must have crashed the minute she got home. Which would make it, what, midnight?

She squinted at the red numbers on her alarm. Only eight? She’d be willing to swear she’d slept longer than a few hours. Only then did she realize that the light streaming in from her window wasn’t the golden glow of sunset but the obnoxious flood of full sunshine.

Eight a.m. She’d slept almost eighteen hours. In the same position. No wonder she felt like something that had been dragged behind a semi on the freeway.

Rachel pushed herself up on the bed and half-stood, half-fell from the end. Her phone vibrated from her back pocket. She pulled it out and saw that she’d had four missed calls before this one, all from Ana.

“Mrph,” she answered, trying unsuccessfully to untangle her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

“I’ve been knocking at your front door for ten minutes. And I called you four times. I was about to call the police!”

Only then did Rachel realize that the pounding hadn’t been coming from her head. She stumbled to her front door, where Ana’s indistinct silhouette waited on the other side of the stained glass panel, unlatched the deadbolt, and pulled the door open, the phone still pressed stupidly to her ear.

Ana lowered her own phone, her expression turning to one of sympathy. “Ah, hon, you look terrible.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Rachel backed up, leaving Ana to let herself in, and stumbled toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

Rachel made their coffee automatically, grinding beans, boiling water, pouring it into the French press without conscious thought. The smell of fresh coffee penetrated the fog enough for her to form coherent words. “What are you doing here?”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone. I thought you were avoiding me. Wait, did you sleep in your clothes?” The side-eye Ana gave her wrinkled jeans and sweatshirt would have made Rachel laugh, were she physically capable of it. Even at eight in the morning, Ana was perfectly turned out for work in an ivory silk blouse, a black pencil skirt, and a gorgeous pair of patent snakeskin pumps that made Rachel’s feet hurt just looking at them. She must have stopped on her way into the office.

Rachel avoided the remark about her wardrobe and instead focused on the first part of the statement. “Why would I be avoiding you?”

“Coffee first. This is definitely a discussion you need to be caffeinated for.”

The jittery feeling that had been dogging her since Ana’s unannounced visit to the restaurant came back with a vengeance. Ana wasn’t here simply to make sure Rachel was alive. Given events of late, that couldn’t be good.

Rachel pushed aside those concerns in favor of the immediate one, pulling out two plain china mugs from the many-times-painted cabinets and finding a pint of half-and-half in the refrigerator. Not that it was hard to find, considering there were only a handful of items in the avocado antique. It, like the rest of the kitchen, dated back to an ill-conceived 1970s update, something that Ana and Melody teased her about relentlessly —an award-winning chef with a kitchen that was barely functional. But if Rachel wanted breakfast, she made it at the restaurant. If she wanted dinner, she picked it up on the way home. Her microwave was her most-used appliance.

When the coffee had finished brewing and Rachel had fixed them both a cup the way they liked it —hers with cream, no sugar; Ana’s with a healthy dose of both —she settled into a chair at the battered table beside her friend. “So. Lay it on me.”

Ana heaved a sigh. “I thought you weren’t going to respond to the media. I issued a statement to that effect.”

“Ah.” The reporter yesterday. “I know I should have blown her off, but I didn’t do much more than explain why I wasn’t going to comment.”

“That’s not what it looks like.” Ana grimaced and pulled out her tablet —the Tablet of Doom, Rachel had begun to think of it —then opened a video. There she was, looking only slightly better than she probably looked now, exhausted and irritated at the questioning of the reporter. Then the voice-over: “Rachel Bishop is one of the few female chefs making a successful career in the kitchen, but she seems to believe that she is the only exception.” Rachel flashed onto the screen saying in what now sounded like an arrogant tone, “They don’t have the dedication and skills to succeed. They shouldn’t be there.”

Ana pressed pause, her expression conflicted.

“That’s not what I said! Or at least they took it completely out of context. I said that regardless of whether a cook was a man or woman, if they didn’t have the skills and the dedication, they shouldn’t be there. And then I said that the food was the thing that was important and I couldn’t speak to the wider ranks of women in the workplace because I hadn’t interviewed every one of them who chose not to work in this industry.”

Ana relaxed visibly, though her brow was still furrowed. “I don’t understand why, if you were going to talk to anyone, you would talk to Squawker. Their entire business model is based on sensationalism.”

“Squawker? But I thought . . .” Clearly, in her post-service fog, she hadn’t recognized the reporter as she thought she had. Squawker was known for trying to trap celebrities in embarrassing statements and out-of-context situations. Never mind the fact that three days ago, no one had known who she was.

Rachel nibbled a thumbnail reflexively. “What should we do?”

“That depends on you. It’s still not too late to give an interview. Discredit whatever this site might write about you. Most people will dismiss this for what it is, a trumped-up rant on Squawker’s part. But there are a few who will take it seriously. Expect angry e-mails. Disable posts on your Facebook page so no one can post there for a while.”

“I don’t even have my password to Paisley’s Facebook page.”

Ana gave her an indulgent look. “I wrote it down for you.”

“And I put it somewhere safe. I just have no idea where that is now.”

“I assume that means you still want to remain quiet?”

Rachel gave an emphatic nod. “I won’t dignify these sorts of things with a comment.”

“You kind of already did.” But Ana seemed resigned now. “The first thing we should do is tell your staff —and you —not to talk to any more press. As for the rest, we lie low. Had some random writer not decided to draw attention to Espy’s review, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

“If you had to guess, what’s going to happen here?” Rachel asked.

“I never predict, Rachel. If you won’t let me get in front of this, we’re going to have to let it play out and see what happens. I still don’t get why you’re so anti-publicity, though. You barely did any interviews after the Beard.”

“Because all anyone wanted to talk about was what it was like to be a woman in the kitchen. What kind of discrimination did I face? How do I manage to have a social life? What do men think about the fact that I do this kind of job? What will happen once I get married and have kids? Can you imagine asking a male chef that sort of thing?”

“That’s why you should speak up, Rachel. Obviously there are still a lot of people who need to be set straight.”

“But the people asking are part of the problem, and as you can see, things rarely get portrayed in the way they’re meant. I’m not like you, Ana. I’m not great with words. I’m not good on camera. That’s why I went into the kitchen in the first place.”

Ana nodded sympathetically, but Rachel could tell she still didn’t understand. “In any case, I need to get going. I’ll call you if there’s any news.”

“Stay a couple of minutes. I’ll make you something to eat.”

Ana wavered between duty and food, and in the end, food won out. She slid back onto the chair while Rachel began pulling ingredients out of the sparsely stocked refrigerator and much-better-stocked cabinets. With a knife in hand, she could relax a little. Publicity might be foreign to her, but this she knew. The sharp blade cutting through shallots was a more effective calming measure than meditation.

“How’s Rob?” she asked.

“Rob is . . . gone.” Ana rolled her eyes. “Big surprise. You predicted he wouldn’t last.”

“I did, but I’m still sorry. What was it this time?”

“He found out I made more money than him.”

“Good riddance, then. You’d think he’d be happy you could pay for your own stuff if you wanted.”

“Yeah, but with that, plus the fact I know half the chefs in town thanks to you, he could never impress me with dinners out.” Ana smiled, but there was something fragile beneath it. Unlike Rachel, Ana really did want to find someone special. A high-powered career woman had difficulties finding a secure man as it was; her family’s expectation that she marry a traditional-minded man, quit work, and have lots of babies couldn’t help matters either.

Rachel transferred the shallots to a small pan with diced ham while she started mixing savory crepe batter. “You need to find a man who isn’t threatened by your connections.”

“Easier said than done.” Ana smiled. “What about you? Anyone interesting come along lately?”

Rachel shot her a look and Ana laughed. “Right, the only people you know are cooks. And you’d never date one.”

“Not if he works for me,” she said. “Are you still coming over for dinner tonight? Melody said she’s in.”

“Of course I am. I might be late, though.”

“No worries. I don’t go in until ten tomorrow.” Of course, Rachel didn’t tell Ana that she would be dropping by the restaurant later today to check on things and look over the prep lists that morning crew would use first thing tomorrow. A day off only meant a day off from customers; it didn’t mean there weren’t things to be done.

Ana drank her coffee at the table and watched while Rachel cooked, telling her the outrageous client stories from that week, many centering around Denver’s professional athletes and politicians. Even as ridiculous as they were, it was somehow comfortingly normal, the life of a friend who had a nine-to-five job. Well, more like nine-to-nine. Rachel assembled the crepes, cheese melting over the ham filling, and set one plate in front of Ana. She watched expectantly as Ana took her first bite and rolled her eyes back into her head in ecstasy.

“Seriously, Rach, this is amazing. Can I move in with you?”

Rachel laughed and picked up her own plate. “I think our hours would clash, but otherwise, yes.”

“Come on, sit. You can’t stand and eat. It makes me nervous.”

Rachel hesitated, then refreshed their coffee and took the chair next to Ana. For a moment at least, sharing a simple breakfast with one of her dearest friends, she could believe that all was right with her world.

*   *   *

As soon as Ana left the condo, now an hour late for work due to her “breakfast meeting,” Rachel straightened up the trail of belongings she’d left on her way in yesterday, then jumped in the shower to wash off the grease and grime of the day before. That sense of wrongness came back full force while she drove to the restaurant. When she pulled up to the lot behind the building, she understood why.

Two cars sat there already, a gleaming black Range Rover and a silver Mercedes. The back door of the restaurant was cracked open, a sure sign someone was inside.

Dan sometimes dropped by during service to eat; Maurice, the other owner and a chef friend of Rachel’s, came in at the beginning of prep when he wouldn’t be disturbing anything. Neither of them ever visited on a Monday when Paisley was closed, even though it was no secret that Rachel would be there.

Her heart squeezed in a fist of dread, clenching tighter with each step toward the back door.

Slowly, she entered the restaurant and made her way toward the low voices in the front. Dan and Maurice sat together at the bar, both staring at the screen of a laptop. They looked up when she entered, Dan’s expression tight. But it was Maurice’s vaguely guilty look that made her stomach toss.

“We tried to call you,” he said in his faint French accent. “You didn’t pick up your phone.”

She reached for her back jeans pocket and found it empty. “I must have left it at home.”

“Sit down, Rachel,” Dan said.

His tone immediately raised her hackles —that of a father about to scold a wayward daughter, not a business partner about to discuss some matter of business. Still, she swallowed down her annoyance and slid onto the stool. “What’s this about?”

He swiveled the computer to her, the browser open to Twitter, and her breath caught.

Ana had set up Twitter accounts for both Rachel and the restaurant when Paisley opened, but Rachel rarely checked them unless her app told her she had direct messages or she wanted to advertise a new seasonal menu to her couple thousand followers. That meant there were rarely any tweets involving the @PaisleyDenver account.

Now, there were page after page of them. Rachel reached for the laptop and began to read them, wide-eyed.

Apparently a woman’s place is everywhere but the kitchen. So my place will be everywhere but @PaisleyDenver.

@ChefRachelB breaks the glass ceiling, sets feminism back 40 years. Well done.

If @ChefRachelB doesn’t want other women in her kitchen, we won’t eat in her dining room either. #BoycottPaisley

And those were the nice ones.

“I thought you weren’t going to talk to the media,” Dan said, his tone tight.

“I wasn’t planning on it. I was blindsided.”

“How difficult is it to say, ‘No comment’?” A vein throbbed at Dan’s temple, and Maurice nudged him in warning.

Rachel looked between Dan and Maurice. “You both know me. You know what I think about this subject. It’s pretty clear that this was a hatchet job. Pure sensationalism.”

Maurice leaned forward, his tone and his expression sympathetic. “Why didn’t you issue a statement after the article came out and then leave it at that?”

“Ana did issue a statement, and we were hoping since Denver isn’t exactly a major market, the whole thing would stay quiet.”

“I think we can safely say that it didn’t stay quiet.” Dan took the laptop back from her and clicked over to a different tab, then turned it her direction.

“The Huffington Post picked it up?” Rachel said, dazed. “How could this happen? People pay publicists huge amounts of money to get something to go viral, and instead we can’t keep one little thing quiet?”

“That would be a question for Ana, wouldn’t it? I told you I had reservations about hiring her to handle the restaurant’s publicity, but you felt so strongly about her . . .”

Rachel shook her head. “This isn’t Ana’s fault, and you know it. I asked her to handle this in a low-key fashion because I didn’t want to be onstage. I had no idea it was going to get out of control like this.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Maurice finally jumped in. “Listen, Rachel, you are an incredible chef. But your reputation —”

“My reputation is impeccable,” she said.

“With diners,” Maurice said. “Not in the industry. Ever since you walked out on that panel discussion at Johnson & Wales last year, you have a reputation for being a diva.”

“I didn’t want to be associated with the direction that panel took,” Rachel said. “That’s part of why I’ve stayed out of the public eye. They basically wanted a bunch of female chefs to get up there and bash our male colleagues, and I refused to do it. Some of the best cooks I’ve ever worked with have been men, and while there are some wonderful women, there aren’t that many of us. It would be a slap in the face to the chefs who gave me my start.”

Dan was shaking his head now, maybe from shock at her naiveté. Even as the words came from her mouth, she understood how her actions could be misinterpreted. But really, what did that matter? It was the customers who came back for the food who made Paisley successful. What the other chefs in the city thought of her was largely irrelevant. She said as much, but Dan continued shaking his head.

“It may not matter to you, Rachel, but it matters to me. This is considered part of my restaurant group, even if you are the majority owner by 1 percent. Your behavior —and this social-media frenzy —reflects on all my properties. My other chefs are getting requests to comment from the media, and that’s not the kind of attention we want for them.”

Rachel pushed her hands into her hair and let out a long sigh. She’d been so painfully naive to think this was going to go away on its own. The public liked nothing better than scandal, even if it had to be bootstrapped. “Then we go into damage control mode. I’ll issue a statement in person. I’ll do a press conference, whatever. I’m sure once I explain —”

“Rachel, it’s a bit too late for that. We all agreed when we started that we would do what was best for the restaurant. You’ve become a liability.”

“I’ve . . . what?” The truth came flooding into her with horrifying clarity. “You’re cutting me out?”

“Rachel —” Maurice began.

“You can’t cut me out. I have 34 percent ownership.”

“And together we have 66,” Dan said. “Maurice and I have discussed it, and we’d be willing to allow you to buy us out.” He named a figure —almost double what they’d invested in Paisley —that had her eyes widening.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “You know very well I don’t have that kind of money.”

Dan withdrew a check from his pocket and slid it across the polished bar to her.

She looked at it in stupefied dismay. There were a lot of digits there. Her investment into the business plus another 30 percent. “What is this?”

Maurice cleared his throat uncomfortably. “We can’t discount that this restaurant wouldn’t have done this well without you. We still believe it can be profitable, and it didn’t seem fair to give you back your investment without acknowledging the potential long-term value of your contribution.”

She understood then. Dan had wanted to cut her out without throwing her a bone, but as a chef himself, Maurice understood there was so much more to making a restaurant successful than pouring money into it. It was her menu, her culture, her staff, her design decisions. She was Paisley. If they were going to kick her out, he was going to make sure that she walked away with something to show for it.

“There’s nothing I’m going to say to change your mind?”

Dan shook his head. “Our contract is pretty clear. You and I will make the announcement to your staff in the morning.”

Her staff. He couldn’t even take ownership of them. Slowly, she folded the check in half and slipped it into her pocket, then slid off the stool. “You are welcome to do whatever you want with your staff. Assuming they still want to be your staff. But don’t expect me to gracefully pass the baton.”

She went to her office and pulled several boxes from the closet, then began to pile her personal items into them. One box held her coats and her knives. The rest she filled up with the cookbooks she’d brought from home and the composition books that contained all her recipe notes and ideas for future dishes. One by one, she began to carry the boxes out to her car. Maurice appeared briefly to help, but she glared at him until he backed off. He could try to pretend that he’d been pushed into it —and maybe he had —but he could have just as easily sided with her against Dan. She would expect to be betrayed by the money man, but not by a fellow chef.

Once she had all her things loaded in the back of her vehicle, she climbed behind the wheel and sat there in disbelief. Everything she had worked for, all gone in a mere three days. That might be a world record for the shattering of a dream.

A curious sort of numbness enveloped her on the drive home, stayed with her through the multiple trips into her house with her boxes. She texted Melody and Ana and then sat down with her phone on the sofa, watching the tweets stack up, some vicious and some just plain stupid. Surely people would get tired of this at some point. Wouldn’t they?

By the time Melody and Ana arrived, it was clear that it wasn’t going to end at a few comments. Rachel watched as the tweets and Facebook posts and Instagram photos took on a life of their own. Somewhere between Rachel finishing a half-dozen cookies herself and ordering delivery pizza, someone came up with the hashtag #WeBelong and women began posting photos of themselves holding signs in places they were in the minority: not only restaurants, but laboratories, research universities, construction sites.

By midnight it was clear that one innocent comment had spawned a movement. She might have been proud of it had it not been for all the posts that called her out in opposition.

Show @ChefRachelB #WeBelong.

@ChefRachelB, you may not think #WeBelong, but 2.2 million nurses feel differently.

Rachel huddled in the corner of her sofa with a blanket, too stunned and pained to do anything but stare at the messages scrolling down her phone. It kept getting worse. Until the nail in the coffin.

Alice Mears, the chef under whom she’d gotten her first shot as a sous-chef, posted a photo from her own kitchen, clearly in the middle of service. We don’t let anyone tell us where #WeBelong.

Hot tears slipped down Rachel’s face as she curled into a ball and, for the first time since she was fifteen years old, cried until she could cry no more.