"Martinez!"
I don't flinch. Years of Gordon screaming my last name across a kitchen have trained that reflex out of me.
"Yes, Chef?"
He's standing at my station. He picks up one of my petit fours — perfect, gleaming, the fondant rose so detailed you can see individual petals — and holds it up.
"What is this?"
"Petit four, Chef. Chocolate ganache with—"
"I know what it is. I'm asking why it looks like this." He turns it over in his thick fingers. "This isn't what the client ordered. They wanted simple. Elegant. This is... fussy."
Fussy. Two hundred and forty individual handmade fondant roses is fussy.
"The client's spec sheet said floral design—"
"Simple floral. A piped buttercream rosette. Not this." He drops the petit four on my station. It lands on its side, the rose crushed. "Redo them. All of them. Buttercream."
"Chef, the event is in six hours. Reglaze and—"
"Then stop arguing and start piping."
He walks away. Stops. Turns back.
"And Martinez? This vanity project bullshit?" He gestures at my station — the fondant tools, the modeling chocolate, the careful work of three hours. "Save it for your hobby baking. This is a professional kitchen, not an art school."
The kitchen is silent. Everyone very carefully looking at their own stations. Sarah's eyes are on me, steady, waiting.
I scrape two hundred and forty perfect fondant roses into the trash and start buttercream rosettes. My hands are steady. My jaw aches from clenching.
Vanity project. Three hours of work that was exactly what the client spec said, tossed because Gordon can't stand it when my work is better than his. And it's always better than his. That's the thing we both know and neither of us says — I am the reason this catering company has a reputation, and Gordon isthe reason I come home some nights with shaking hands and a smile that hurts to hold.
At lunch break, I sit in the walk-in and text Vaughn:Making buttercream roses. 240 of them. My hands are going to be permanently claw-shaped.
Light. Funny. The version of my day that's safe to share.
Then I text Toby:Gordon threw my petit fours in the trash. Said my fondant work was "vanity projects" and "fussy." Made me redo 240 pieces six hours before service.
Toby:Robin, that's not normal.
It's the industry. Chefs are temperamental. That's why they call them "temperamental artists."
Toby:Nobody calls them that. That's not a saying.
It should be. I'm coining it.
Toby:How's the bruise?
I glance at my left forearm, where yesterday a falling sheet pan caught the edge of my arm. It wasn't Gordon — it was gravity and a badly stacked shelf — but the bruise is purple and ugly and I've been wearing long sleeves to cover it. Not because of the bruise itself, but because if Vaughn sees a mark on me, he'll ask questions. And I'll have to decide between the truth and the version.
Healing. It was just a shelf thing. Not a big deal.
Toby:Stop saying "not a big deal."
Not a medium deal?
He sends me a row of unamused emojis and I put my phone away and go back to piping two hundred and forty rosettes that are worse than what I scraped into the garbage.