“Erica, I have to go.”
“Donovan,” she cried, and burst into tears. “I don’t know what to do. One of the line cooks quit and I need a new sous chef.”
“I’ll call François about the linen delivery,” he said. “And I’ll have Marie Odile Arceneau call you. She’ll make a terrific general manager and you can go back to being the hostess.” Erica hadn’t made this much of a fuss when they’d divorced.
She stopped crying with not even a residual sniff. “You’ll call him right away?”
“I’ll call him right away.”
She hung up without another word. She’d gotten what she’d wanted and was done with him. But he had the feeling that he would never completely be rid of her. He wanted to go forward and she wanted to go back. And to think he’d once thought her helplessness charming.
The health inspector returned. “You have some changes you need to make, Mr. Russell.” He handed him a list of violations. “You have a month to make corrections.”
He took the papers and just stared at the list. One of the mixers was broken—again. Two temperature gauges in the refrigerators were missing and several first-aid kits were empty. A fire extinguisher wasn’t properly seated in its cradle. One of the line cooks had improperly stored his utensils, which was something Donovan had warned him about repeatedly. And the deep-fryer station should be cleaner. “I will get on these immediately.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose trying to release his irritation. All these violations added up to make him look careless.
Mr. Deacon’s mouth grew even more pinched. “I’ll be back in a month.”
Donovan rubbed his eyes. He had too much work to do and not enough time.
“I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Russell,” Deacon said. “You’re a first-rate chef and you know how a kitchen is supposed to operate. You have too many violations, and I can’t help thinking someone doesn’t like you. These violations aren’t enough to shut you down and you still have an A rating, but I feel the need to warn you that these violations can’t go on indefinitely.”
Donovan had no answer. He’d come to the same conclusion himself, but that didn’t mean he could ignore health regulations. He prided himself on himself on the cleanliness of his kitchen. He’d never had so many violations in his entire career. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Fill up those first-aid kits. If I were you, I’d keep extra kits around just to replace the ones that seem to be losing their contents.”
“Will do.” Donovan watched the man leave and pulled himself to his feet. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and dragged a bag out. He’d started keeping medical supplies on hand and had begun checking the first-aid kits every morning when he arrived. How the kits ended up empty, he didn’t know. Even Scott, Donovan’s older brother who specialized in security, was shaking his head over the mystery. He’d installed surveillance cameras that covered almost every inch of kitchen and still the mixers seemed to break when no one was nearby. Temperature gauges in the cold storage areas disappeared. He’d even found cleaning supplies near food prep areas, which was a huge violation.
He picked up his phone and dialed his brother to let him know about the latest inspection and what it had revealed. Something had to be done. Eventually, the health department would get tired of these violations and shut him down. He couldn’t let that happen.
“I got the job,” Hendrix said to her grandmother, Olivia Prudhomme Beausolie. She cradled her phone against her shoulder while she sprinkled food into her fish tank. Her tiny little fish rushed to the surface to eat. She’d never been a cat or dog person. Animals had fur and fur traveled into every corner of a house. Her kitchen was immaculate.
She’d rented the cottage because the cheerful blue-and-white kitchen was huge while the rest of the cottage was tiny. The owner had liked to cook and knocked out a wall to create one large room from two smaller ones, doubling the size of the kitchen and then retrofitting the expansion with industrial appliances. The problem was that as a rental, the kitchen was a detraction unless the space was rented by someone who cooked and didn’t mind the small living room and bedrooms at the front. That someone had been Hendrix after the cottage had stood empty for a number of months.
“A hotel!” Olivia said. “Why a big hotel? I thought you were happy with Mitzi Baxter. You had told me she and her bakery were wonderful.”
“Mitzi’s kids didn’t like me. They thought I was going to take over and force them out.” Mitzi Baxter had offered to sell half the bakery to Hendrix, but a stroke had seriously damaged her health and her daughters had taken over. Quitting had probably not been the smartest action, but Hendrix couldn’t stand the way Lisa and Susan had hovered over her as though worried she’d steal a cup of flour and some raisins. “This way, I’m making double the money and can set something aside to open my own bakery.” Opening her own bakery had been her original goal. Rows of cakes, pies and tarts filed through her mind. Someday, she promised herself.
“Sound’s exciting,” her grandmother said, though she sounded doubtful.
“It does, though I think he’s going to be a little dictator. The executive chef is Cordon Bleu trained and you know how rigid they can be when you breathe around their food. Hopefully, as a pastry chef, our paths won’t be crossing that much. He’s even planning to give me my own kitchen so my desserts don’t get contaminated by the odors in the main kitchen.” Though for the moment, she’d be sharing his kitchen since he wouldn’t have one ready for her just yet.
“That’s good. He won’t be standing over you. I know you work best when left alone.” Her grandmother sounded amused. “I’m proud of you, Hendrix.”
“Thank you.” Hendrix grinned.
“Are you going to keep your experimenting to a minimal?” her grandmother asked.
Hendrix liked to dabble in the kitchen and see what she could come up with. The problem was, she often forgot what she did since she seldom wrote things down and too often couldn’t reproduce what she’d done. “I plan to stick to my established recipes. I know them by heart, and I’ll wait until I’m thoroughly certain he won’t get upset before I start mixing things up.” She tried to be more methodical about what she did, but too often she’d be caught up in the thought of the taste without paying attention to amounts. She liked having little surprises in her cakes. Her champagne cake had a very basic structure to which she added different ingredients in order to create more subtle tastes.
“Give your boss a chance to know you before you go creating things you can’t duplicate,” Olivia advised.
“I’ll rein it in.”
“Hendrix Marie Beausolie,” her grandmother said with an undertone of amusement, “sometimes you just have to play along to get what you want.”
True, Hendrix thought to herself, though she was shocked that her antiestablishment, unconventional grandmother would tell her that. Her grandmother had spent her life doing the unexpected and delighting in the fallout that followed.
Hendrix had to keep her goal of having her own bakery foremost in her mind. She would do anything for her dream.
They disconnected and Hendrix called her mother next. Her parents were world travelers searching for unique items for their import-export business. Currently, they were in Tanzania on a buying trip. She couldn’t reach them, her call going straight to voice mail. She tried to calculate the time and figured her parents must be sleeping. She left a message telling them the good news. Her mother would get back to her when she had time.
* * *
The night manager had given her a white jacket and a toque with the hotel logo