Chapter 1
Cass
“Not again,” I mutter under my breath as I try to stop the inevitable. It’s like trying to stop the tide outside. A hot flash doesn’t wait for an opportune moment. Or as my late mother always said: “Menopause is nature’s way of letting you know you’re not the boss of anything—especially your own body.”
I move away from the stove and shout for Kelly. She doesn’t need me to say anything. She’s used to it by now.
“Step out for a moment, Boss,” she says. “I’ll take over.”
“Thanks,” I manage to say as a heat wave crashes over me from the inside, drenching me, instantly, in a layer of sweat. I stumble out of the back door of the restaurant but, as I make my way outside, bump my hip against the edge of a shelf in the pantry.
“Fucking fuck.” Another bruise. Another way for my crumbling body to let me down.
I pull my chef’s whites away from my chest to let some of the cool ocean breeze waft over my skin—not that it helps.
I know it’s not true—highly irrational even—but for a few seconds I let myself believe that this particularly nasty and highly inconvenient flash is caused by Sarah’s presence in the restaurant. That she somehow controls my menopausal fate, which is bullshit—it’s just why she left me.
I try to control my breathing and repeat the mantra Suzy taught me. It’s just for now and now is already over.
Although always annoying and embarrassing and making me feel that my life as I always knew it is well and truly over, it’s also true that my hot flashes recede as swiftly and abruptly as they arrive. But the long minutes that they last are plenty to ruin a perfectly good evening.
I remove my chef’s hat and wave it in my face, trying to produce airflow. Why do I still have an open kitchen? I will find a way to close it off from the dining room for as long as menopause lasts. Not only is it highly unappetizing for customers to see me like this, but it’s also humiliating—despite what Suzy says. She keeps repeating that I’m a woman in her fifties and this is completely normal and natural. That it’s only our patriarchal society which has ingrained in me that this automatically renders me disgusting and over-the-hill. Someone who needs to hide in the shadows, especially when overcome by another fucking hot flash.
The patriarchy be damned, but right now I feel more like a sweaty mess than the owner and acclaimed head chef of Savor. The two don’t go together. It’s impossible to swagger into the kitchen feeling like this. Like I’m someone else—a far lesser version of who I used to be.
The heat drains from my body. It’s a chilly spring evening in Clearwater Bay with a crisp wind coming off the Pacific. I’ll get cold if I don’t make my way inside again soon. I don my hat, take another breath, and pretend I’m a chef in complete control of her kitchen.
My hip stings and my ego is a little bruised as well—I’m not sure if I’m ready for the jibes that will surely follow from my staff. While humor might soften the awkwardness for others, I can’t find the funny side of this yet.
“Are you good?” Kelly, my trusty sous-chef, asks.
“Yeah,” I say, which is a lie and the truth at the same time. I’m good for now; good to finish tonight’s service, but I’m not good in general.
I resume my place behind the stove and try not to look into the dining room. Sarah and I broke up three years ago. I’m over it—have been for a long time. But it’s what she stands for. It’s how she reminds me of all the things I’m not or couldn’t be for her.
We’re civil enough—her dining here with her new wife proves that—but we’ll never be those lesbian exes who become best friends. I never actually banned her, but it was an unspoken rule that, after we broke up, she would no longer frequent my business. It went without saying. It was the only respectful outcome. But time does heal most wounds and if not heal, at least makes them easier to live with. I can live with it—with all the things I’m not.
“Did you see?” Kelly whispers in my ear. “She’s here again, scribbling away in her notebook.”
“It’s Friday evening, so yeah.” My gaze is drawn to the Black woman sitting alone at a table by the window. She couldn’t look more serious, more studious if she tried. She never looks like she’s here to have a good time, although she keeps coming back, so she must enjoy my food.
“What the hell is she writing?” Kelly muses. “My money is still on her being a restaurant critic.”
“A critic who comes back every Friday night for three weeks in a row?” I shake my head. “That’s just too weird.”
“Or maybe things just change.”
“Coming through,” a gruff voice warns us from behind. It’s Johnny, my pastry chef. He looks like a boxer who goes a few rounds every week, but he makes the most delicate desserts I’ve ever tasted.
“Soufflé for table fifteen,” he says.
“Shall I ring it?” Kelly asks.
“You know what?” I examine the soufflé. It looks perfect but it can’t stay on the pass for too long. “I’ll take it over myself. Look that possible critic straight in the eye.”
“Ooh. Go, Boss,” Kelly coos. “Investigate the hell out of the sitch.”
I make my way into the dining room. The sound of forks against plates creates a familiar symphony, the kind that used to make me feel invincible.
As usual, heads turn. Up to a few years ago, I actually enjoyed the sensation of parading through the front of house, gorging on the admiring gaze from the people eating my food, but my body isn’t the same anymore. As my hips have grown in size, my self-esteem has shrunk accordingly. But still, despite the grueling hot flash, and my ex having a romantic dinner with her wife in front of my eyes, I grab the plate with the soufflé and saunter over to the stranger with the notepad.
