He rushed into his place, grabbed his knives and work Crocs, and was back out the door.
***
“I know you need to prepare my meals, but you need to be aware of this as soon as possible.”
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
“Shouldn’t you be using a writing pad? This is probably a good situation for notes.”
“I wasn’t planning to meet with you so early.”
There was a healthy amount of measuring in Coco’s silence. And then –
“How much experience do you have catering events?”
“Is that the info I need?”
“Answer the question.”
This was the first time in Alvin’s employ he saw Coco visibly occupied with something other than herself. She was not shuffling around a bunch of objects or had papers in her office she was working through. She was in her head about a get-together?
“We – um – always worked at least one per semester in culinary school. And the best money in the summers was working with caterers for corporate events. So I’ve had my fair share. Do you need me to cook for a party you’re throwing?”
“It is not a party, Al. That’s what I need you to understand. It’s a chance to transform.”
There it was again. Coco was not much older than Alvin. And yet, she spoke in such grandiose ambiguities. She assumed the big sister role immediately. Or a big sister playing auntie.
It actually made the cook work much harder to satisfy his employer.
Never mind that she already did much more than the average rich client did when it came to food. She took micromanagement to a new level, emailing meal calendars to Alvin every Friday – of the following week’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday dishes. Nothing specific. Just feelings and updates on her mood and her existence.
Alvin had to somehow be a time-traveling mind reader and console Coco with the few ingredients she managed to mention in her spiritual cries for help. So serving her on Tuesdays and Thursdays was a bit tricky. The food could not be juxtaposed to Monday’s, Wednesday’s or Friday’s meals, but Coco had the warmest receptions to bizarre dish complements.
Alvin dealt with affluent foodie clients before, but not to the extent they were adamant about their details. They were just happy enough to have their parameters met: allergies and intolerances and the like. Other clients simply enjoyed the prestige of a personal chef. It was not quite the same thing, but to them, the people without painstaking requests – they were eating at a white tablecloth restaurant within the confines of their home daily. They were certainly paying that way.
Coco wanted the simplicity of food to be full and strong and pure and satisfying without much else. She depended on the nutrients like Alvin had not seen with anyone else before. He had never felt so free and so challenged with his cooking.
“Then, what can I do?”
“I need you to cook like there was a bomb strapped to your chest.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me. I need you to cook!”
Alvin thought he understood, but the fragile urgency in Coco’s voice, and the meager widening of her eyes made it sound like this was connected to who she was involved with professionally. Matts would want him to push for more information.
“I’ve cooked for executive parties before and—”
“I’m not asking you to cook for executives now. Just listen.”
It was not hard for Alvin to bite his tongue. He would be filthy rich if someone paid on the silence. The life of a cook in service.
“The problem with dreams is, they’re so darn amorphous. It almost makes you envy people who don’t want to do much. You know what I’m saying?”
“As much as cooking has been in the limelight, it’s still a humble occupation for many. I can’t disagree.”
More staring and analyzing from Coco. A bit of ticking time bomb, but Alvin just needed to clock the blast. He did not need to go anywhere near it.
“What was the hardest thing you had to cook before you got into culinary school?”
“It wasn’t food. That came to me okay. And it wasn’t what I cooked, but how it was going to be received that held me captive. Even as a kid, I understood what food could do, but I always questioned what the best way to wield it was. As a kind of weapon.”
“You see food as a way to attack. To manipulate?”
Coco was genuinely curious. She was too proud to ask directly. But this way, she could keep it less shallow. This way, she could still understand.
“To disarm, I think.”
“Aaaah. That is it, isn’t it?”
“That’s what?”
Alvin’s boss had reached some destination. She seemed no longer on edge. For an unknown amount of time, she felt largely, cooperative. Maybe in the present instance, she would have given her employee something useful to the hidden operation.
There was more unnerving silence before Coco started. Alvin was sure she did not see him in the room for at least a minute. Then her first soft words felt as if they would have cut through any tornado of chatter in a room.
“For a very long time, I have given it my all to disarm people. I do not have to tell you how much we seem to be good actors because when people look at us, they see a black woman or a black man who would be perfect for countless roles.”
It was true. Alvin was being a double agent in that very moment.
He did not know how many cooks also played spies.
He probably would not have seen the movie that promised such an absurd position on screen. Too many opportunities for it to be a bad comedy. But her words certainly disarmed him.
Black people had been in the kitchen for centuries. And still, he continued to get those searching eyes once a night if
