Page 40 of An Island Summer
“Thank you,” Meghan replied.
“You look like you’re ready for the runway,” Meredith added, her gaze sliding up and down Meghan, making her self-conscious.
“Meghan, there’s Darren Fields,” Tess said, interrupting them to point out the inn’s chef. “We should go say hello and make sure you get to talk to him.”
“Does Meghan have a thing for the chef?” one of the staff members teased.
“Definitely not, but she might have a thing for his food.” Tess set down her empty champagne flute and waved a hand at the pathway.
Meghan didn’t know what Tess wanted her to say to Darren, but after mentioning it to the group, she figured she should probably at least go say hello. They walked over to the middle-aged man as he stood next to the railing with the sapphire sea at his back.
“I haven’t had a chance to really meet you,” Meghan said to him, holding out her hand. “I’m Meghan Gray and this is Tess Fuller.”
Darren shook her hand and then greeted Tess.
“Are you cooking tonight?” Tess asked, grabbing a glass of lemonade from a tray on one of the serving tables.
“I’m not,” Darren replied. “Boss had the party catered and gave me the night off so I could enjoy it.”
Tess sipped her lemonade and twirled the straw around, making the ice cubes clink together. “Our Meghan here loves to cook and if you ask me, I think she has the makings to be a chef.”
Meghan waved her comment off. “I have a few dishes, that’s all. I’m definitely not a chef.”
Tess’s straw-swirling stopped cold and she looked at Meghan like she’d just blown the opportunity of a lifetime. Darren was pulled toward another partygoer, and after he left, Tess jumped in front of her friend. “What the heck, Meghan?”
Meghan looked around to be sure Tess wasn’t making a scene.
“That was the perfect moment to strike up a conversation about your dream job. You could’ve said anything—asked about where he went to school, what his favorite dish to cook is, how he ended up in the Outer Banks—but instead, you said you weren’t a chef.”
“I’m not,” Meghan said, taking a long drink of her rum and Coke, hoping it would relax her.
“And you won’t ever be with that attitude.”
Tess had never spoken to Meghan like that before and she didn’t know what to say, so she turned toward the wind and closed her eyes, feeling lost. “Let’s just enjoy the party,” she said, turning back to Tess, who was shaking her head. “I’ll have other chances to talk to Darren. We work with him.”
Tess squinted her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s another reason that you brushed off Darren. What is it?”
Fear crept in, and Meghan locked her jaw, not wanting to say anything. She didn’t want to say it out loud because actually telling someone what she’d heard would make it real and she didn’t know if she had the guts to do that… A caterer walked by with shrimp cornbread cakes on skewers and offered them to Meghan and Tess, but neither of them took one.
“I need you to tell me right now.”
Meghan sucked in a chestful of briny air. “After I spoke to Vinnie, I overheard him on the phone with someone…” she said. “Hedidtry my chartreuse hollandaise sauce. He said it was ‘middle-of-the-road’ and that I was deluded if I ever thought I could be a chef.”
“He’s completely off his rocker,” Tess said. “Everyone loves it. Why would you choose to believe him over your friends?”
Meghan fiddled with the bottom of her glass. “Sometimes friends are blind to the facts because they see the person behind it.” She set her drink down on the wooden railing.
“Vinnie wanted a big name. That’s it. His decision had nothing to do with your cooking. You know how he is—all flash. He’d rather go in a different direction than take on a no-name chef. I guarantee it.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I just like to cook because it brings me back to the one place in my life where I didn’t feel any pain. What if I got into it and it wasn’t what I thought?”
Tess smiled at a passer-by before turning her attention back to Meghan. “Well, I’m not going to talk you into it. It’s up to you to know what you want.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what I want. I don’t have a clue.”
