Page 23 of Cakes for the Grump

At the bottom of the card is a handwritten message.

Treat yourself!! You deserve it!!

An assistant has written it.

I am sure.

Imagining him personally using exclamation marks without straining his vision from rolling his eyes vigorously is impossible. And I bet bribing is a reoccurring workplace activity, and he’s only had to let loose an afterthought of an errant instruction, and my name got added to the revolving roster.

I consider the name of the restaurant. If I search up the menu, I know my stomach—stocked only on cheap meals these days—will gurgle. And whine.

Can I…? Should I…?

Putting the “gift” into my purse, I start my shift.

Later that evening, I don’t go straight home but take a detour through rambling streets stuffed with locals and tourists until I finally reach a secluded door punctuated by a Viking handle. It’s heavy wrought iron and clinks to announce my presence.

Within seconds, a waiter gathers my coat and ushers me inside a cocoon of high ceilings, somehow both elegant and clean, lit like clouds full of moonlight. Soft music plays. There are gold accents everywhere: candelabra holders, the ribbon holding the cutlery together, bows wrapped around the chairs.

Nervously I produce my paper invitation, and it is like a golden ticket, how that little thin sheet equalstendishes and a bottle of red wine full of such velvet decadence that it brings tears to the corner of my eyes.

I keep saying “thank you” to the attentive staff and privately to the meal, bowing my head in front of regionally sourced oysters, hibiscus salad, confit cod with a mustard and kale side sauce, prawn and pomegranate squid ink pasta, salted beet risotto, perfectly poached egg yolk to add creaminess to a spiced green onion broth…

Ingredients I’ve never thought of pairing like this before.

It is lightning bottled in a meal for me. Potent inspiration, frenetic and juicy enough that I can barely keep still, and yet, also, like a dream-like hallucination of what I want to achieve in my life. A place like this is the reason I want to be a chef.

Discreetly, I ask my waiter if they are hiring. He looks at me closely, and says no. A very faint voice in my head wonders if anything is based on myforeign looks, how I’m heavier in build, the fact that my clothes aren’t expensive, or how I don’t speak the language.

Despite the rejection, I go home drunk, belly satiated to the maximum of degrees, not even caring when I see the new cleaning instructions Janice has pinned to my door.

It is the best evening I’ve had in a really long time.

And it is all thanks to him.

The next day, I spot another gift, and immediately feel weighed. It’s the promise of more fine-dining I don’t have to pay for.

With great effort, I ignore it as I work through my shift. Meals get prepped, and a cake gets baked, and it is only at the very last minute that I hesitate. After a long interval of hovering and huffing, the paper is safely tucked into my purse.

I refuse to feel guilty, knowing that Luke Abbot is immensely wealthy and this kind of expense is like a footnote scrawled in the margins of a ledger somewhere no one cares about.

Still, that night I don’t use it, but look up the menu on the internet, fantasizing about risotto with sea urchin, Peking duck with plums, and foie gras with green apple. Stars shaped out of cinnamon sugar hang around in my head.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll give in…or next weekend so there is more time lapsed in-between indulgences and I can feel I’ve marginally balanced these freebies with my own hard work and diligence in meal prepping and cake baking.

That’s such a good plan.It’s what I’ll do.

Wait and use these gifts as treats.

EIGHT

My overzealous,impatient, heavy-handed briber of an employer can’t even let me take advantage of him properly!

For the next day, I spot another gift, and immediately feel more weighed down by the one in my purse, and now this third one sitting on the counter.

It’s an embossed voucher printed on thick stock paper, the text shining in twinkling gold, cursively inviting me to visit Barcelona’s foremost luxury spa for an experience that ispure pleasure for all the senses.

I search for it on the internet.