Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters (15 page)

Ideally, she should set the sauce aside for a half hour to allow the flavors to blend, but she had run out of time and would have to serve it as is—if she managed to finish it at all. “What did I forget?” asked Anna, thinking aloud, not really expecting an answer.

“Thyme,” replied her favorite work-study student, almost at her elbow. “You added thyme when you made this for Junior Parents’ Weekend.”

“Of course. Thyme.” Anna measured the last of the herbs into the processor and punched the blend button. “Thank you, Callie.”

“Whatever,” said Callie, trying unsuccessfully to conceal a grin of pleasure. Unlike the rest of the crew on duty that night, Callie had a passion for food and was not simply putting in hours to earn textbook and beer money. She watched everything Anna did and asked admiring questions, making Anna feel almost as if she had a protégé. Sometimes Anna was tempted to encourage Callie to enroll in a culinary institute after graduation, but she worried that Callie might be insulted. Just because Anna had no idea what anyone would do with a degree in American Studies did not mean that it was not useful. What would she know about it? She had known she wanted to be a chef since the seventh grade and had never explored other options. According to her boyfriend, Anna had a disgraceful tendency to be skeptical of any education that was not immediately practical, but she was working on it.

“The provost set down his salad fork,” remarked another student, peering through the round window in the kitchen door instead of stirring the chocolate sauce for the raspberry tarts even though Anna had already asked him twice. He was a business major and considered such mundane tasks beneath him because he believed he was destined to become the CEO of a major international
corporation before reaching his thirties. He didn’t need to learn how to cook; he needed to observe the wealthy donors dining with the college provost because one day he would be among them.

Make yourself useful
, Anna silently ordered him, but she said, “Do they look like they’re ready for the main course?”

“I … think so.”

“Okay. Just a minute.” Anna took the pitcher of herb sauce and hurried to the gleaming stainless-steel counter where her assistants were spooning wild rice pilaf and sautéed vegetables onto warmed plates, assembly line fashion. “Where are the salmon fillets?”

“Here,” said Callie, removing the first of several trays from the broiler.

Anna gestured to Callie and the laconic observer by the door. “Callie and Rob. Get the salmon on the plates.” Something in her tone made even Rob promptly obey. As soon as each fillet was in position, Anna dressed it with sauce. “Okay. Servers, come and get ’em. And take care of the head table first this time, please?”

She had little time to talk except to issue instructions or urge a server to hurry. She had scarcely enough time to monitor the progress of the meal in the banquet room on the other side of the door, but she found moments where she could. Her position in Waterford College’s College Food Services could rise or fall depending upon the diners’ response to her entrée.

Occasionally Rob returned to the window in the door to describe the progress of the meal. “The provost just tried the fish. He’s smiling. So is the guy next to him.”

“On which side?”

“Um, his right. Our left.”

Anna closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief. That “guy” was the college’s most generous donor. If he was happy with the meal, she could consider it a successful evening even if the kitchen caught on fire.

She couldn’t relax until after dessert was served, when all she
had to worry about was keeping the servers circulating with coffee and making sure they refilled the cream pitchers and sugar bowls and didn’t confuse regular with decaf. Despite its inauspicious beginning, the banquet appeared to be a success.

Afterward, the provost came into the kitchen to congratulate Anna on a job well done. “Glad to help,” she said, and she was pleased when he continued on through the kitchen, where her student workers were busy cleaning up, to thank them as well. It was common knowledge on the Waterford College campus that working for food services was the lowest of the low as far as work-study jobs were concerned—minimum wage for menial tasks and, except on special occasions such as this, the indignity of cleaning up after their more fortunate classmates in the dining halls. A word of thanks and a handshake from the provost was a nice perk, and Anna was so relieved to have survived the evening that she intended to provide her students with another: all of the extra desserts they could carry back to the dorms.

Before leaving, the provost paused at the door, scrutinized Anna, and said, “Are you new here? I don’t think you’ve been in charge of any of my dinners before.”

“This is my sixth year at Waterford College,” said Anna. “I’ve worked some of your other events, but always as an assistant.”

“This is your first banquet as head chef?”

Anna nodded. “The head chef assigned to your event called in sick. I guess I’m the understudy.”

“Understudy or not, you’ve done an exemplary job,” the provost said. “I wasn’t even aware of any emergency. Your dishes were intriguing, and your response to the situation is the very definition of grace under pressure.”

Anna glowed. She knew that a successful banquet with delicious food and excellent service could mean that next year’s faculty salary increases would be paid for by donations rather than tuition increases. “Thank you.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Anna. Anna Del Maso.”

“Well, Anna Del Maso, I’ll be asking for you again.” He nodded a good-bye and left the kitchen.

As she walked home after the banquet, Anna wished she could share her triumph with Gordon. She wasn’t sure if she should call him. When she called off their dinner plans, they’d had—not a fight, exactly—more like a heated disagreement. “Can’t they get someone else?” he had griped when she called from her cell phone, already hurrying down the stairs of her apartment building on her way to the job.

“They could, but I don’t want them to,” she said.

“Don’t you all use the same recipes? Can’t they call that woman you work with—Sandra? Mandy? She’s worked there almost as long as you.”

“Andrea,” corrected Anna. “She started here two years after I did and I don’t think she wants the responsibility. I do. This is for the provost. This could be my big break.”

“Oh, come on. Big break? In College Food Services?”

Anna paused to wait for the crosswalk, annoyed by the sneer in his voice. “If I prove myself, I could finally get promoted to head chef.”

He was silent so long she thought the connection had broken. “Is that what you really want?”

It wasn’t her ultimate career goal, no, but it was a significant step in the right direction. The light changed and she hurried across the street. “Of course.”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea for you to be working more banquets? All those heavy sauces, the rich desserts—”

“I’ll renew my gym membership.”

“Don’t be so defensive. I’m just saying it would be easier to eat healthy if you’re working the dining halls.”

And easier still if she left the profession altogether. Gordon
had made that point before. “I’m almost there, Gordon, I’ve got to go.” She hung up without waiting for a good-bye and immediately regretted it. Gordon was easily offended and never accepted an apology unaccompanied by a humbling show of atonement. She would have to make it up to him tomorrow night with a dinner as impressive as the provost’s.

The central, bewildering puzzle about Gordon was that although he liked delicious food as much as the next person, he did not want his girlfriend to be a chef. Or maybe it was not such a puzzle—if she were thin, her choice of profession might not bother him at all, especially if she also had a Ph.D. to hang on her wall to impress his friends. Like Gordon, they were liberal arts graduate students and aspiring intellectuals with whom Anna had very little in common. Anna would never admit it to Gordon, but his friends intimidated her, and she was relieved that he rarely suggested they go out with them.

Anna had never dated anyone who wasn’t thrilled that she enjoyed cooking, not until Gordon came along. She thought Gordon ought to appreciate her job, if not for all the delicious, home-cooked, gourmet meals, then for the fact that her work had brought them together. They had met the previous year at a dinner given by the English department to honor a retiring professor. It was the first week of the semester and they had not yet hired enough work-study students, so Anna had to help carry serving trays to the buffet table. A bearded, stocky man not much taller than she had followed her into the kitchen to compliment her on the marinated mushrooms and had stuck around to chat. She was flattered by the attention of someone so well spoken and knowledgeable about world affairs, especially since most academics ignored her, so she accepted his invitation to go out for coffee the following afternoon. His topics of conversation differed so drastically from what she and her friends talked about that she feared she would bore him, but he did not seem to mind that she mostly
listened, asking occasional, carefully constructed questions to reveal as little of her ignorance as possible.

Apparently she had made a good impression because that date led to another, and soon they were seeing each other steadily. He was often too busy with his teaching and research to take her out, but several times a week he managed to stop by her apartment on his way home from the library for a late supper. It wasn’t an ideal arrangement, but he promised her things would improve once he had his degree and no longer had to hit the books sixteen hours a day. She was pleased by this hint that he thought they had a future together because he usually brushed off her hesitant attempts to discuss the direction of their relationship. Most often, he said that he hoped she agreed that modern relationships needed to throw off their patriarchal tendencies and allow all parties room to be. To be
what
, she wasn’t sure, and in this case she didn’t want to reveal her naïveté by asking.

She paused to shift her purse; the strap kept slipping off her shoulder and bumping into the paper grocery bag she carried, heavy with carefully wrapped containers of salmon in fresh herb sauce, grilled vegetables, and raspberry tart with chocolate glaze. College Food Services officially discouraged employees from taking leftovers home, but to discourage was not to forbid, and Anna hated to see all that food go to waste. It pained her to throw away good food when she had to monitor her own grocery budget so carefully. If she splurged on luxuries now, she might never have enough money saved to open her own restaurant.

She had the place all picked out—Chuck’s, a diner across the street from the main gate of campus. Its excellent location guaranteed it a steady business, even though the current owner was nearing retirement and lately had put only a halfhearted effort into running the place. He had sent his two children to Waterford College in hopes that they would take over the business, but they left Waterford for good as soon as they received their degrees.

Anna hoped he would hold off his retirement for a few more years, just long enough for her to have amassed a down payment. She had an excellent credit rating and ought to be able to get a small business loan to cover the rest. And then she would say good-bye to the dining hall and hello to her own menus and the freedom to work with ingredients that did not have to be purchased in bulk quantities.

The short walk from campus to her three-story red brick walkup on the eastern end of Main Street always seemed longer at the end of a grueling shift in the kitchen, and hauling the grocery bag up three flights left her winded. She set the bag on the floor outside her apartment door and dug in her purse for her keys.

A door opened behind her. “Oh, hey, Anna. Just getting off work?”

Anna glanced up. “Hi, Jeremy. Just going out?”

Jeremy shook his head, scrubbing a hand through his dark, wildly curly hair. “Not to do anything fun, if that’s what you mean. I have an exciting night planned with my dissertation. I’m going down to Uni-Mart for a snack and something caffeinated. Want me to bring you anything back?”

“Don’t waste your money on junk food,” protested Anna, reaching into the grocery bag. It was a wonder he had any taste buds left. “Here. I brought home extras from the provost’s party.”

“Any meat?” he asked, his eyes hopeful behind round, wire-rimmed glasses.

“Does fish count?”

“Fish always counts. Just please don’t tell Summer.”

Anna laughed and agreed, amused by his guilty expression. Jeremy’s girlfriend was a vegetarian, and although she didn’t insist that Jeremy also avoid meat, he did so when dining with her to spare her feelings. “Take this,” she said, loading his arms with College Food Services containers. “Salmon, veggies, plus dessert.”

“Chocolate?”

“There’s chocolate sauce for the raspberry tart.”

“You are the best neighbor in the world,” he said fervently, peeking in the container holding his dessert. “Thank you for this. Once again. I swear I wasn’t waiting by the door for you to come home.”

Anna smiled and found her keys. “You do seem to have a strange way of knowing which nights I work a banquet and when I’m just at the dining hall.”

“Can I at least get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks, I’m fine.” She unlocked her apartment and carried her bags inside. “See you later.”

Anna had hoped Gordon would be waiting for her, but she was not surprised to find the apartment dark and quiet. She was disappointed, but not surprised. Graduate students kept long hours, and she had not yet called him to apologize. Besides, she had already given away his share of the leftovers.

She flipped on the light with her elbow and placed her burdens on the kitchen counter beside the answering machine, whose light was definitely not blinking to notify her of a message. The kitchenette was wholly inappropriate for a chef—no bigger than a walk-in closet with a small refrigerator, a single sink, a two-burner electric stovetop, and an oven too small to accommodate her jellyroll pan. “Someday,” she said aloud. Someday when she had her own restaurant, she wouldn’t care what her kitchen at home looked like. Someday, when Gordon finished his degree, they could move in to a wonderful new home with a state-of-the-art kitchen where she would cook him romantic dinners and serve him marvelous breakfasts in bed.