Page 2 of Shades of Red

I kissed her on the cheek, thanked her for everything she’d done for me, and accepted the job.

After working at the bistro, I moved on to my first Michelin star restaurant. The atmosphere was different—harsher, more exacting. I was an outsider. I wasn’t classically trained, I didn’t speak French, I didn’t follow the rules, and I had the very great disadvantage of being American. It was a complete hazing to put it lightly. But I survived, and when I finally earned the respect of my peers, I thrived. I earned chef de partie by the time I left to pursue a new opportunity.

My last restaurant was world-renowned. It had an incredible three Michelin stars, served celebrities and public figures from around the world, and it fucking ate at my soul. There was no creativity, no room to experiment. Everything was austere, precise, boring. The kind of place where you spend an entire day using tweezers to place three microgreens alongside a wafer thin slice of wagyu and a puddle of aerated foam and call it an entrée. I held out for six months before taking the first enticing escape I could find. And turning in my resignation last Friday was one of the most rewarding moments of my life.

There’s a new restaurant in the heart of Paris with a fresh concept being trialed by one of the most respected executive chefs in the country. Dix.No menus. Everything is cooked from ingredients locally sourced that morning. Dinner only. Ten courses. Limited reservations that max out at one hundred diners. And Dixwas fully booked for the year before the last brick of its foundation was even laid.

The only obstacle to their opening in the fall—there is no sous chef.

Chef Matis has chosen ten chefs, all with various skill sets and backgrounds. I’m lucky enough to be among them. We’ll be trained and tested over the course of the summer. Given challenges. Expected to innovate and improvise on the spot. And when the summer is over, one of us will be Dix’s new sous chef. It’s all very Roman gladiator, battle to the death. You’d think there wouldn’t be any actual casualties, but you never know. Chefs are vicious, and kitchens are full of knives.

It’s going to be me, and I’m not speaking out of pride. My appetite to succeed is insatiable—it will never be enough until I’m perfect. And even then, I’ll keep working to improve. This challenge was made for me. And I was made for being the sous of Dix. There simply aren’t any other outcomes.

“Are you nervous?” comes a rich, deeply accented voice beside me. I look up to see Sophie carrying a café crème from her personal espresso machine in the back and my usual croissant aux amandes. She sets both on the flat top of the glass display, and my mouth is already watering. Croissants are good, but croissants with almonds are a harmony fit for heaven.

“Why should I be nervous?” I scoff before biting into the tender pastry and listening to the satisfying sound of the flaky layers crackling against my teeth. No matter how many of the world’s top restaurants I eat in, very little compares to the simple perfection of Sophie’s handcrafted pastries.

“Because you’re about to cook for one of the most well-known executive chefs in Paris. And you’ll be competing against chefs who are far more skilled and educated thanyou.” Sophie rests her bony elbows on the countertop across from me and looks at me with doubt in her brown eyes.

“Fuck me,” I groan with a heavy dose of my usual dramatics. “Tear out my heart, why don’t you? You may look like a sweet old lady, but you’re a stone cold killer.”

Sophie scowls at me, the expression making the crinkle between her brows more pronounced. “Call meoldone more time, and I won’t make a liar out of you.”

She’s not bluffing. The woman wouldn’t think twice about going Mrs. Lovett and baking me into a pie.

I reach across the counter, take her thin hand in mine, and hold it close to my chest, “Soph, you are as beautiful as La Seine sparkling in the moonlight and as youthful as the dewy bulbs of spring bursting into bloom.”

She can’t help but laugh—my skills at poetry are about as finessed as my skill with pastry. But it gets her to smile, and that’s all I need.

“Such a Casanova,” she tuts, smacking me in the chest before crossing her arms and staring me down. “I mean it, though. Are you worried?”

“Not at all,” I answer her, mirroring her stance with my arms crossed over my chest. “There’s only one chef in that kitchen who matters, and you’re looking at him.”

She gives me a knowing smile at the confidence that would come across as arrogance to anyone who doesn’t know me. “We’ll see. One of thoseotherchefs might surprise you.”

“It’s a kitchen, Soph. Nothing surprises me in a kitchen.”

Everything is white, pristine and shimmering in the light of the early morning sun streaming in from the wide windows surrounding the Dix kitchen. White ceilings, white floors, white marble countertops, spotlights streaming soft white light from above. There are ten prep-stations set up across three large counters and three huge stainless steel cooking stations with double ovens and gas stoves separating each counter. Each station has its own collection of perfectly sharpened knives, the razor edges glistening in the overhead light. Beautiful, stainless steel cookware hangs from three rectangular racks built into the ceiling.

As I survey the new surroundings, I’m not nervous. I’m fucking orgasmic looking at the high-end cookware, stoves that have never known a boil-over, and virginal knives that have yet to even puncture the skin of an apple. If I was alone, I would run my fingers over each little thing, familiarizing myself with the cool marble, the burn of metal as it warms beneath the flames, the weight of the knives in my hand. Promising tomake each mine.

Unfortunately, the kitchen is crowded, so instead of caresses, I shuffle silently toward my station. There aren’t any names used. We don’t have identities yet, not until we’ve earned them. For now, we’re numbers. I can appreciate the emotional detachment of being reduced to a figure.

I walk to the last counter—the one with only two prep-stations instead of two on each side of it. I stand before the number nine handwritten on a piece of white paper. I contemplate the second to last number with an air of contempt. It’s a mind fuck. There’s no rationale to the numbers; we aren’t ranked based on skill. Hell, it could be alphabetical placement for all I know. Still, this is a challenge, and you’re left with the instinctive urge to be number one.

I look over at the number ten beside me, the very last of the group. The station is empty, and whoever it belongs to is late. I breathe a small sigh of relief at not being dead last. With no partner beside me to talk to, I look around the room, gauging the level of competition. There are six guys, including myself, and three girls. Not necessarily surprising given the male dominance in the culinary industry. Still, for the sake of appearances, most people tend to at leaststartwith even numbers before narrowing down to the crème de la crème. Clearly, Dixdoesn’t give a fuck about appearances.

I’m also surprised to see that French isn’t the only language being spoken in the kitchen. At my last restaurant, French was mandatory, no matter how bad mine was. Here, I hear British-accented English, Italian, and very loud Spanish coming from a boisterous chef at the front of the room. He’s the only one almost as tall as I am, and from the dexterous flick of his wrist as he tosses and catches a fileting knife in his hand, alternating from handle to tip, I would say he’s my competition.

Chef Matis walks into the kitchen, and a collective silence sweeps over the room. He’s not your standard Frenchman. He’s fair-skinned,clean shaven, and his blonde hair is silver streaked in that appealing way that would have most girls with daddy issues dropping their panties for a taste of him. His eyes are grey, stern and calculating. Even though he’s arguably the most famous chef in Paris at the moment, there’s no arrogance in his stature. Only precision.

“Please do not play with the knives, One. They are not toys,” Chef Matis scolds in a bored tone that is thickly French, no flicker of emotion in his eyes as he looks at the chef making sport with the expensive cutlery.

“Yes, chef,” the tanned chef at the front responds, his bright mood not diminished in the least as he takes the knife and places it in the row of others at his station.

“Now, before we begin, it seems we are one short,” Chef Matis announces in disapproval right as a girl, presumably my missing partner, races into the room, her golden hair windblown and her perfectly pressed chef’s uniform not buttoned all the way to her collar bone.

“Désolée, chef,” the girl mumbles softly as she looks for her station in the kitchen.

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