Page 10 of The Princess and the Nerd

Chapter 6

“Keep going,” Robbie says with a frown, as we sit around the kitchen island together. “I want to hear all of it.”

I swallow, as I continue reading the article: “Her so-called famous seafood chowder… had a texture reminiscent of my little nephew barfing up his rice cereal and applesauce. I am uncertain whether it tasted any better.”

“That’s harsh,” Destiny says with a frown.

“Doesn’t all chowder look a bit like barf?” Robbie asks. “Keep going.”

“I don’t have to read all of this,” I tell them. “It’s brutal. He brutalized us. That brutish brute has brutalized us brutally.”

“He was pretty cute for a brute,” Destiny responds. When I glare at her, she clears her throat. “Sorry. This is all my fault. I told you the critic was probably the other dude. We could have given the correct person the royal treatment.”

“We should have given everyone the royal treatment,” Robbie says softly. “We usually do—it’s my fault that everything was such a mess last night. Now finish reading!”

“Yes, sir,” I say with a deep sigh.

Miss Wintergreen’s restaurant and cuisine suffers from the same uptight, severe, strict adherence to the rules that her fashion sense does. It’s an almost neurotic restriction and obsession with perfection that stifles creativity. An impeccable dish that comes directly out of a textbook has no personality, no soul. No maturity. No place in the modern kitchen.

Food needs passion to be great. Something that Miss Wintergreen clearly does not understand. With a whole world of exotic spices available to tantalize the tongue, each meal should be an adventure that transports you away to the farthest corners of the earth. Each and every bite should be an opportunity to learn, and be delighted. Your tastebuds should be guided through generations of culture, history, and the traditions of the people who used those ingredients and invented those techniques.

But all I got was butter.

Butter in every bite.

Butter and salt.

Butter, butter, and MORE BUTTER! Everything inundated, soaked, drowning and soggy in butter. The poor lobster was screaming for help as it lay in a buttery grave. The vegetables were flooded. Now more than ever, with fusion cuisines taking the world by storm it’s a regrettable travesty that Willow and her crew seem only to have heard of the absolute basics. I left the restaurant DYING for a sprinkle of pepper. A splash of hot sauce. The texture of cumin or anise seed. A fucking Thai basil leaf. Any flavor at all!

I wonder if Miss Wintergreen bathes in butter? Is that her secret to having flawless princess-like skin? Does she cry butter? Does she put a stick of it in her coffee? Nevertheless, even if she is obsessed with the yellow stuff, she should learn some moderation and not subject all of her guests to an overdose.

“He called your skin flawless,” Destiny comments. “That’s a positive thing.”

“I wonder if I could pull an Ash and spin this scandal into a springboard for success,” I grumble softly to myself. “Maybe selling some sort of butter-enriched bath products. Is butter even good for skin?”

“Of course, girl. Shea butter, cocoa butter, hemp butter,” Robbie says. “We’ll figure out how to spin this later. Keep reading!”

“Okay,” I mutter glumly.

The Willow is aptly named after its owner, showcasing her self-aggrandizing attitude. Which is exactly what you would expect from the heiress to the Wintergreen fortune. She’s a spoiled rotten princess, in every classic sense of that description. She is too afraid to get her hands dirty. Too high and mighty to interact with us commoners. Too full of herself to improve on lackluster, bare bones, rudimentary recipes. There is absolutely no need for this young woman to be good in business or good in the kitchen. Not with a rich daddy like hers.

As for the atmosphere, much like Willow’s dreary outfit, the restaurant was plain and sterile, with miliary-like hospital corners to each tablecloth. The décor was as drab and lifeless as the restaurant owner’s hair, which was so aggressively flat-ironed and held perfectly in place, tightly wound into a boring, schoolmarmy-esque bun with so much hairspray that a tornado couldn’t have caused a single flyaway strand. This made me think that she must not allow her kitchen staff to breathe. I imagine that she would surely freak out if anything was ever out of order, and there was a single grain of rice not under her stringent, tyrannical, dictatorial control.

“Did he just insult your hair? Oh, hell no, he didn’t,” Robbie says.

“I believe he has insulted every inch of my person, my personality, my body, my brain, and my heart and soul,” I respond dryly, too exhausted by the emotional onslaught to feel anything anymore.

“Well,” Destiny says lightly. “Youcouldmaybe use a new hairdo, girl. And at least he complimented your skin…”

I groan, reaching up to touch my hair. “Is it really that bad?”

“Yes,” my two friends respond in unison.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I ask them.

“We know how much you hate change,” Destiny says.

“So you let me walk around at work looking like aschoolmarm?”

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