Page 17 of The Second Chance Year

I wish I could confess everything to Kasumi, but I honestly don’t know how. She’s been my best friend for ten years—eleven, if you count the one I’m living all over again—and I can usually talk to her about everything. But this second chance year goes beyond normal best friend problems. It’s literally cosmic level.

I stand there, folding and unfolding my apron, and Kasumi watches me.

“Never mind,” she finally says, grabbing a tray of vegetables and moving back to her prep space on the other side of the kitchen.

I put my head down and go to the break room to change into the server’s uniform. And then I hand my cakes over to Doug and make my way out to the floor, just like Xavier told me to.

I am a terrible server. I get in the way, I accidently slosh water on some guy’s lap, and I mess up the point-of-sale system, forgetting to add all the expensive bottles of wine to the bill. The real servers have to keep jumping in to fix my mistakes, and I can tell they’re growing increasingly frustrated with me. I don’t blame them. The only person who seems to enjoy my presence in the dining room is the older man who booked the VIP table. He’s quite happy to request that I reach across the table to pour more wine, and I suspect it’s so he can get a look down the front of the shirt Xavier picked out for me.

Even though the servers and I are friends when I’m in the kitchen, it’s obvious they resent my presence in the diningroom. At one point, after the water-in-lap incident, Marianne snaps, “What the hell are you doing here, Sadie?”

I honestly don’t know how to answer that.

When the dining room finally clears out, I return to the kitchen, sweaty, exhausted, and with a deep appreciation for how hard the servers work. All I want to do is go home and fall into bed, but first, I need to check out Doug’s handiwork.

He’s nowhere to be seen, but I find Kasumi standing in front of the pastry prep table, her features arranged in an almost cartoonlike cringe. I follow her gaze to the chocolate-covered… something… on the table, and I gasp.

“Yeah.” Kasumi nods in agreement.

“Are those my…?” I can’t even finish the sentence.

“I’m afraid so.”

“They’re—”

“Awful?” she supplies helpfully.

Awful doesn’t even begin to describe what Doug did with my cakes. Instead of four perfect cylinders coated in shiny chocolate ganache with a wave of delicate candied oranges frolicking across the top and down one side in a seemingly random but completely intentional manner, Doug has made…

Well.

Doug has made four enormous poop emojis.

“Oh my God,” I wail. “I’m going to be here for hours fixing these.”

Kasumi shakes her head. “I think the only way to fix these is to throw them in the Hudson River.”

I sigh, exhausted to my bones, and begin a slow shuffle to the supply closet. “I guess I’ll have to start over. Xavier needs them by eleven a.m. tomorrow.”

“Do not despair, friend. The other sous chefs and I have your back.” Kasumi takes my arm and leads me over to the speed rack. She waves her hand at twelve round pans, each containing one perfect layer of chocolate orange cake. “We made them when we saw the havoc Doug was wreaking. They won’t be as good as yours, but they’ll be edible. All you have to do is layer and decorate them.”

I throw my arms around her. “Thank you. You’re the best friend ever.”

“It wasn’t just me. Everyone pitched in. We’ve got to stick together in this business.” She leans back from my embrace to look me in the eyes. “Is everything okay with you, Sadie?”

“Sure.” For the second time today, and about the hundredth time since January first, I’m tempted to tell her about this wild second chance I’ve been given. But I have a mountain of cake decorating ahead of me, so instead, I give Kasumi a shrug. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

“You just don’t seem like yourself.” She bites her lip as if she’s debating whether or not she should say the next thing. “A couple of months ago, you wouldn’t have let Xavier get away with parading you in front of a table of VIPs just because they wanted to look at a nice face and a perky pair of tits.”

“Oh my God, Kasumi.” I turn and grab a pot from the rack, banging it on the stove with extra force. “That’s not what happened tonight!” Except it’s exactly what happened.

My face burns with humiliation. I keep my head bent over the pot as I measure out the chocolate squares and heavy whipping cream for another batch of ganache. Kasumi is silent, watching me, and then finally, she says, “I’m sorry, Sadie.I didn’t mean to make you feel used. I’m just worried about you.”

“I know.” I pull the cakes Kasumi and the other sous chefs made from the rack. She’s a good friend, and she’s only saying what I would have said to someone in my position a year or two ago. But that was before I knew what it meant to lose everything.

I’ll never forget the day I had to pack up my entire apartment and ask Owen to haul it out to storage. I love that apartment, and I was so happy the day I signed the lease. So excited to decorate it with a quirky mix of affordable IKEA furniture and vintage flea-market finds. So proud to show my parents that even if I wasjust a bakerwithout a college degree, I could make it on my own.

And I’ll never forget the mortification of ending up homeless, a charity case for my little brother’s best friend. The desperation of looking for a job—anyjob—and fearing I’d never find work as a pastry chef again. I’ve been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hold on to everything I lost in my Very Bad Year. I can do this.

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