And he fixed Mick with a direct, challenging gaze. Mick was sure now that he wasn’t imagining it: Laurens was considering him as a potential hire for his new restaurant.
Until he’d proved himself and given Laurens something to be impressed by, Mick resisted articulating it consciously in the privacy of his own skull; but maybe, his subconscious hummed with percolating urgency, maybe, if Laurens liked Mick’s work, he might have a place there for him. The prospect of working on land, in a restaurant, with a regular schedule, living in an apartment, was so tantalizing that at the moment he felt that, if he had to do so in order to leave the cruise industry and work for Laurens van Buyten and live in Amsterdam, he would slice off his left nut, stick it on a skewer along with his left pinkie finger and his right ear, roast it all to dripping perfection, and feed this kebab to a starving dog in a cage. Luckily, Mick had skills and experience, and generally, that was all getting a new job required. But he had to shine. He had to dominate. He could not fuck up.
This was his first chance to distinguish himself after the initial success of the lobster thermidor. Chef hadn’t said a word to Mick about it until the following day, when he’d taken him aside and informed him that this dish would be one of three entrées on the menu for the second of the five captain’s table dinners for the cruise.
“Make it exactly as you made it for me. Do not alter one molecule. It was perfection. We’re also offering filet mignon with a red wine reduction, and for the vegetarians, a truffle risotto. It’s a beautiful, classic menu and the lobster is the pièce de résistance. It’s also the only entrée we won’t be offering on our general menu. It will be exclusive to this dinner.”
“Oui, Chef.” Mick, jubilant, watched him walk away, then turned back to the duck à l’orange he was working on for tomorrow’s Home Cooking Night in the restaurant, to be offered along with boeuf bourguignon and paella, a dish Mick loathed both to eat and to cook because it was complicated and labor-intensive and in the end a waste of good seafood, because the rice just took over, but luckily the guys on the fish station were in charge of it.
“What the fuck did he want?” Consuelo asked when Chef was out of earshot. The question was rhetoricaclass="underline" she had heard every word.
“More lobster thermidor,” said Mick. “Get ready to outdo the last one.”
“We’re meat, not seafood,” she said, tipping a tray of roasted bones into a hotel pan in a hollow clattering rush.
“Not for the captain’s table dinner. He also wants filet mignon with red wine reduction.”
She grunted. “Easiest thing in the world.”
“Then it’s yours,” he said.
She cocked her hip against the counter edge and folded her arms and fixed Mick with a sideways, hooded glare.
“So you’re his butt boy,” she muttered.
“What?” said Mick.
“Nothing,” she said. “Congratulations.”
“No,” he said, advancing toward her, making her back up to get away from him. He stopped when they hit the end of the station. His face was right in hers. “You do not talk to me like that on my station.”
He held his face close to hers, so close their breath commingled in the short air between them. His eyes pinned hers. She stared back at him. Her irises were the color of cinnamon, reddish brown, flecked with the pale gold of ginger. He could smell that scent she wore, very slightly, rising in fumes from her warm neck, emanating from the thrum of her elevated pulse. It had no effect on him here. He felt clear, unconflicted. He was management. So be it. That was how you moved up in the world, you took opportunities when they came, and you acted with authority when you had to.
“Do you understand me?” he said, his voice even. “I want an answer.”
“Yes, I understand you,” she said clearly. “Chef.”
He stayed there for a few beats to make sure she got his point.
They moved apart, got back to work. Rodrigo arrived, took his place on the line, the meat station swung into high gear, and the night went on, like any other night.
chapter ten
Christine opened her stateroom door to find Valerie at the small table by the window, in her bra and underwear, painting her nails.
“It’s almost time,” Valerie said. “We have to go up in ten minutes.”
Somehow, by befriending the Brazilian lounge singer who was the girlfriend or mistress of one of the senior officers, Valerie had finagled invitations for herself and Christine to the captain’s table dinner. It was black tie, and apparently the two or three celebrities on board would be there, as well as the captain and senior officers and ship’s owner. All day, Christine had been half dreading the stuffy formalities and enforced small talk, but Valerie had insisted that she come along.
Well, at least she had the right clothes for it. Before the cruise, Christine had bought a strapless emerald-green gown with a low bodice and a tight mermaid skirt in a vintage thrift store in Portland, a vaulted former bank where the rouged-and-mascaraed old woman behind the counter always made everyone check their bags because “hoboes” liked to come in, she said, and “steal my wares.” Trying on the dress, looking in the store’s warped mirror, Christine had felt a rare shock of pure pleasure. It had been so long since she’d dressed up. Along with a gauzy gold shawl and a rhinestone necklace to go with it, her haul had cost almost four hundred dollars. She had charged it to the farm credit card, and she hadn’t told Ed.
Now she imagined his face when he got the bill. Well, it was her money too.
After a quick shower, self-conscious as always under Valerie’s frank gaze, but now more accustomed or at least inured to it, she slid on the satiny, well-cut gown, zipped up the short side zipper, and bent forward to nestle her heavy breasts into the bodice. She brushed her hair and put it up in a loose knot with a hairpin.
“No makeup?” Valerie asked.
“I look like a cheap whore in makeup.”
Valerie studied her. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Put on some lipstick, that outfit is begging for it.”
“It’ll just smear all over my tooth and come off on the rim of my glass.”
Valerie shook her head. “Put on some lipstick.”
To appease her, Christine uncapped a tube of dark red lipstick and ran it over her mouth. She grinned at Valerie. “See? Cheap whore.”
“You look perfect,” said Valerie with a sigh.
The captain’s dining room was off by itself down a short private hallway from the fine-dining restaurant. There was a small crowd already in the teak-paneled lounge, which had a hand-painted mural of a jungle scene above an inlaid mother-of-pearl mahogany bar. Behind the bar stood Alexei, the bartender who made Christine’s martini every afternoon. The captain held court in the center of the room in his whites and insignia and brass epaulets and buttons, clustered with three similarly attired senior officers, an intimidating scrum of nautical authority. Christine recognized a young female Disney star standing by the bar holding a champagne flute, talking with theatrical self-awareness to another young woman Christine also recognized, a hip-hop singer named Tameesha. So these were the cruise’s celebrities.
Valerie strode up to a gorgeous woman who could have been a foreign movie star.
“Beatriz,” said Valerie, “hi!”
“Valerie!” Beatriz hugged Valerie, then looked her up and down. “You look stunning.” She pronounced it “stoning” in a husky voice and an alarmingly sexy accent. Her skin was flawless; she exuded a heady warm scent so potent, Christine found herself leaning closer to breathe her in.