Hendrix was good about giving Alvin a pro tip. Usually. Something to keep him from getting smacked, or from souring Coco any. One thing was made abundantly clear: this dinner was going to be crucial to Coco’s success.
“Yeah. Guess I’ll catch you later.”
The chef did not know what to do with that. He surely overstepped his role and got burned for it. No more probing. Unless a situation was begging for him to do so. He hoped he was still just a talented, but dim-witted twenty-something to Hendrix. He probably was.
Alvin decided to let the situation fade into another day’s worries. His bedroom was calling.
Ready for the other side of consciousness, the off-the-clock cook pulled back his bed covers, when his work phone buzzed to life. And Alvin hated he was alive.
He was exhausted, but early on, he realized anyone who was on Coco’s payroll was always working. At least always on call. Sure enough, Coco’s ID was showing on the screen.
There were about five different undeveloped reasons why she would have been calling at minutes to midnight. But before all those reasons went terribly south in Alvin’s imagination, he answered.
“Hi, Coco. Everything okay?”
“Do I have any Toaster Strudel around here?”
And then Alvin’s mind went to a more successful version of himself, slapping a bowl of Chex Mix out of his assistant’s hands. He wanted the seasoning flavor of the mix, but only on the Chex and on the pretzels.
“They’re in the freezer pantry. Third – fifth shelf.”
“Flavors?”
“Boston cream pie. Per your request, and per your other, I thought the apple-strawberry strudel would be a good complement. More of a fruity sweet, to the Boston cream’s savory sweet.”
“I enjoy your spectrums, Al. Thank you.”
“The toaster is just on the other side of the—"
“I know where the toaster is. You going to tell me how to operate one, too?” Coco chuckled.
Alvin was glad she was amused, if only for a second.
“Of course. Is there anything else I can help you with, while we’re on the phone?”
Coco spoke while reaching around in the freezer for the pastries. The sleepy chef could hear the electric hum of the major appliance.
“Do you listen to music on any of the streaming platforms?”
If it were not past his bedtime, Alvin would have been a little more intrigued to see how the conversation would eventually make its way to food. It was all Coco assumed he could or wanted to talk about.
She was good at taking the scenic route when it came to chatter.
The woman was always conceptualizing something. She would get to her destination eventually, but not without willfully losing herself to find the place.
“I like Pandora.”
“Ugh. Don’t you hate the ads?”
“They get annoying sometimes, yes.”
“Don’t I pay you enough to go ad free at least?”
“You do,” Alvin replied, fighting back a yawn, “but it’s a decent way to get to reality. Let’s me know I’m not dreaming, to break up the listening zone a bit. Helps me focus just a little more, actually.
“Sounds masochistic.”
Her deceptively benign question worked. He would bite.
“What do you listen on?”
“Tidal. Until the day I die. But the point is, these services are brilliant. Being all things to all people. You can choose what you want to listen to, but even if they don’t have something, they’ll give you something familiar to satisfy your sonic craving.”
Alvin genuinely pondered that.
“Yeah. Guess that is the trick to it.”
“I want to do that for the dinner. We’ll be all things to everyone. We’ll cover all the bases of favorites. Of things they would just die for.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’ll send you a list of ingredients this weekend. Keep your phone on you.”
Click.
Fun. He was going to oblige. Just meant there would be more things for him to listen for, which put an old-fashioned, pre-work knot in his stomach. There was no sense in anticipating what was going to happen tomorrow. Alvin only had control over himself, and about two-thirds of the food.
The following morning, the chef entered his work kitchen to find bowls of all shapes and sizes, flooding the breakfast bar. And that was hard to do, since it was a breakfast bar in a mansion.
Coco.
Surely an extension of her conscious sleepwalking episode last night. She was decent enough to put away the Toaster Strudel though.
She entered just as the cook was starting to put the bowls away.
“What are you doing?”
“I – wasn’t sure if all this was from your snack time last night or not. Still, I need the space for prep.”
Coco smiled. This was no doubt some doctored crime scene. Alvin could bet his boss was almost waiting around the corner to hear clacking from the bowls, just to stop him and turn the setting into some elaborate vision casting session.
“This was actually for you.”
“You don’t want this week’s Friday request?”
“Not today. For the big dinner.”
Alvin was not sure whether or not this was one of the times to play dumb and ask further, or look at his boss like a feeble creature and hope he would eventually look sad enough to rescue into an answer.
Coco was certainly exploding with superiority that morning.
“We make our mark with paying attention to the individual.”
“Right. You mentioned something like that last night. But I’m having trouble understanding what that means for the party.”
“Everyone should see something different on another person’s plate. I want you to make them jealous. But grateful they got the plate they were given.”
“How am I supposed to know what to cook for everyone?” Fifty people are still going to show, right?”
He needed to know. Now she was messing with his credibility as a craftsman of meal experiences.
“Just the upper management will be in attendance. Seven. I’ll give you the ingredients. They are very special. One is to be highlighted in every bowl. Doesn’t need to be soup. Just needs to be hearty. So what better than a bowl? “I’m guessing?”
“Can’t disagree with you there.”
The gathering was becoming interesting. A single, distinctive
