Page 8 of Bed and Breakup (Dial Delights #15)
Robin
By the time I finish my lunch at Counterculture, every customer and employee in the place has figured out who I am, even if they’ve never seen me on TV.
There’s no way I can keep a low profile after this.
I wave and smile politely at the queer twentysomething trying to discreetly take pictures of me with their phone, and step out onto the sidewalk.
Fuck. My plans to hide out in Eureka are ruined already.
At least I’ve got a full stomach. Jesse’s gotten really good since I last shared a kitchen with him. He kept the dishes coming for over two hours, and I didn’t even notice until the fourth course that everything was vegan. Complicated puff pastries, even, with no butter. He’s a goddamn magician.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous. Honestly, I never thought a restaurant with Michelin-star potential could survive in the Armpit of the Ozarks. But one table of out-of-towners told me while I was autographing their napkins that they’d come to Eureka just for Jesse’s restaurant.
Honestly? I’m hella proud of him. I knew from the beginning that he had the taste and determination to make it as a chef. All he needed was one mentor to give him a shot. I’m just the lucky bastard who said yes after all those transphobes turned him down.
But as I take the long way back toward the inn, visions of my own failed ventures throw off my balance, making the asparagus tartlets and piquillo-pepper canapés lurch in my stomach.
Jesse created a smash-hit experimental vegan restaurant in a tiny town in a red state.
I couldn’t keep a trendy brunch restaurant open in the most hipster city on the continent.
But eating Jesse’s food also reawakened something in me, a yearning to bust out of my comfort zone, to get my hands dirty, to create something that feels new.
Jesse’s black currant mousse gave me this idea for a trifle I’m dying to make.
God, when was the last time I felt this much genuine excitement about cooking something? It feels like years.
I make a detour to the nearest grocery, and by the time I make it back to the inn, I’m practically buzzing. I think I have enough fresh mint in the garden out back to make a—
“What the hell is going on in here?” I blurt, batting my way through layers of plastic drop cloths taped over the kitchen doorway. Once I’ve untangled myself, I find Molly on a stepladder carving an enormous hole in the wall with a jigsaw for some godforsaken reason.
Molly turns off the saw and pushes her protective eye gear to the top of her head. “There’s a leaky pipe in this wall,” she explains. “I need to repair it.”
I look disappointedly at the grocery bags in my hands. “It had to be fixed now ?”
“Would you rather it burst and flood the whole kitchen?”
“No,” I grumble. “But Jesus, you couldn’t warn me first? I just bought all these ingredients to workshop a recipe.”
“I noticed the water damage on the cabinets today,” Molly says. That’s when I realize there’s a chunk of cabinets missing from the wall next to the sink. I spot them spread out along the opposite side of the kitchen. “The pipe was a ticking time bomb.”
I pull off my baseball hat, ruffle my bangs, and put it back on. “How long do you think it will take to fix?” I ask, trying to hide how peeved I am by this leak ruining my plans.
Molly turns back to the massive hole, almost large enough to ride a bike through, and starts pulling off even more chunks of drywall.
“A couple weeks? Maybe more, if there’s damage under the tile.
” She shrugs. “Honestly, you’re lucky it’s stuff I can handle alone.
If we had to call in a plumber and contractors to fix it, it could take months. ”
I blow out a frustrated sigh. “Well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Bake scones over a bonfire in the backyard?” I ask, wondering if I’ve really fallen so far that I’ll have to return to the cooking techniques I learned as a kid at Girl Scout camp.
Molly pulls the trigger on the jigsaw, which makes a short buzz.
“Like I said yesterday, there are plenty of kitchens in Eureka Springs. Surely you can find somewhere else. Maybe a suite at the Crescent Hotel, unless that’s not classy enough for you these days.
” Molly pulls her goggles back down and fires up the saw.
There’s no time for a witty retort before dust starts flying and I’m forced to pull the neck of my shirt over my nose and mouth.
I throw the whole bag of groceries in the fridge, even the things that are shelf-stable, then stomp out the back door onto the porch for some fresh air.
Not classy enough for me these days. As if I haven’t spent the past few months eating ramen while watching the last dollars in my bank account circle the drain.
I make my way over to the gazebo in the middle of the backyard, muttering the whole way about the groceries I blew twenty bucks on and now can’t even use.
She couldn’t have sent me a text? Classic Molly.
Always focused on the next project, never thinking about who gets screwed over when she turns off the water or switches the breakers or takes a door off its hinges.
I listen to the birds sing for a moment, thinking about my options, then get out my phone to do the scary but unavoidable thing. I call my manager.
Edgar answers with a weary “Hey, Robin. How’s your retreat?”
That’s how I’ve been selling my disappearance. I didn’t run away to hide from my failure! I’m on a creative retreat!
“It’s, uh, something,” I say, unable to come up with a quick lie about how I’m thriving. “How’s L.A.?”
“Oh, you know L.A. in June. All the locals go out of town to avoid the tourists coming here for vacation.”
Edgar pauses for a moment, probably hoping I’ll tell him I’m ready to get thrown back into the mouth of the Hollywood monster.
He found me a couple guest-judge spots on some cooking competitions after Kindling closed, but I couldn’t bear to show my face in public, so I turned them down.
I mean, how would they even introduce me?
Please welcome our guest, owner of several short-lived restaurants, former star of various canceled and un-green-lit TV shows, chef Robin Lasko!
When I don’t say anything, Edgar asks, “So, any decisions on what you’d like to do next? We probably won’t get more TV offers until the market picks up again in the fall, but now could be a good time to start talking to potential investors for a new restaurant.”
“?‘Good time’ seems like a stretch,” I say, skeptical.
“Hey, even if Kindling never made it into the black, it got great media coverage and reviews. We could leverage that,” Edgar says, almost exactly the same wording he’s used every time we’ve talked since April. “It would help if you had an idea to pitch, though.”
“Still working on it,” I mumble. “But is there something low stakes I could do in the meantime to get some quick cash? Sell some recipes to some food magazines? Maybe a cookbook deal?”
“Honey, book deals are probably the slowest way to make money,” Edgar says with his signature sass, which lets me know, even if he’s annoyed with me, we’re still in this together.
After all, he only gets paid if I get paid.
“Would you be willing to do a gig short-term as a guest chef? Dinner for a charity gala or something like that?”
I’m not sure why I hesitate, but I manage to say, “Maybe in a few more months.”
Edgar takes a breath, then offers, “I could probably round up a few more social media partnerships.”
I groan, thinking about how my platforms have been nothing but sponcon for weeks. But I know he’s right. If I’m not willing to leave my hiding spot in Arkansas or commit to a bigger project, it’s my only option. “Yeah, that would be great. The sooner, the better.”
Edgar promises to keep me updated, then hangs up.
He’s a smart manager. Serving a fancy dinner at some fundraiser is an objectively good idea.
Low commitment, high visibility. Some TV appearances or conversations with potential investors would also be good career moves.
So why can’t I bring myself to do any of it, even with the threat of going broke hanging over my head?
I look back at the inn, admiring the pastel-painted trim and how the different stained-glass windows in the guest rooms shine in the afternoon sun.
From here, you can almost forget everything the management company did to ruin the interior.
But even with their bad choices, I’m grateful for a place to hide out and lick my wounds.
I feel weirdly safe in the Hummingbird, even though my ex is currently inside tearing through the walls because the pipes are threatening to explode.
It’s only then that I realize: I didn’t see any water stains on those cabinets.