French Pressed

Chef Rouille’s body went still. “You little putain,” she spat. “You’re the one undermining me with Chef Keitel, aren’t you?”

“No!” Joy’s head shook vehemently. “I’ve never said a word to him about you.”

“You’re lying!”

I desperately wanted to stop this horrifying scene. Yet I knew, as bad as this looked, it was still a workplace matter. I could see Joy was starting to defend herself now, and I didn’t want to make things worse for my daughter, who’d plainly told me to “butt out” of her business more times than I could count.

But then something happened that tilted my universe.

Chef Brigitte Rouille raised her arm. “I’ll teach you!” she cried. Something flashed in her hand, and Joy screamed. That’s when I realized this woman was menacing my child with a foot-long chef’s knife. Okay, that’s it! Butting out time’s over!

I lunged forward. “Get away from my daughter, you crazy bitch!”

I don’t remember exactly how I got myself in front of Brigitte’s slashing chef’s knife. One moment I was calm, the next livid. One moment I was standing still, the next I was on the move, grabbing a wooden cutting board off a prep table and shouting my own head off.

“Back off!” I cried, raising the cutting board like Lancelot’s shield. “I’m Joy’s mother! Je suis la mère de Joy!”

This failed to impress the woman. She was breathing hard, her eyes dilated, her lips curled into a sneer as she continued shouting in French and making stabs at the board. The line cooks remained huddled across the room; still no help from that quarter!

Before Brigitte could do any real damage, however, Napoleon Dornier crept up behind her, seized her wrist, and twisted it.

Brigitte howled in pain.

“Get hold of yourself, woman!” the maître d’ commanded, shaking the chef’s knife from her hand.

The heavy blade clattered to the floor, striking a spark when it hit the tiles. I kicked the knife. It slid away and clanged against the base of a metal cabinet.

Brigitte whirled, lashed out with a clawed hand that shredded the flower on the man’s lapel. “Mon Dieu!” Dornier reared back but continued to grip the sous-chef’s arm.

Though she was very thin, Brigitte Rouille was obviously very strong, and it looked like Dornier might actually lose this struggle.

“Ne me touchez pas!” Brigitte repeated again and again. “Do not touch me! Do not touch me!”

“Stop it, this instant!” Dornier demanded. “It is me, Brigitte! Il est moi! C’est Napoleon Dornier! C’est Nappy!”

“Nappy?…”

Brigitte stopped fighting, and Dornier released her. She blinked and looked around the room in a daze.

“Brigitte, what is going on?” Dornier demanded. “Are you—”

Before he could finish his question, Brigitte burst into tears. Covering her eyes, she fled the kitchen through the back door.

“Brigitte! Brigitte!” Dornier called, and followed the sous-chef into the alley.

With the disturbing scene over, the line cooks returned to their stations, picking up with their duties as if nothing had happened. I turned to face my daughter. Joy’s eyes were full of tears as she yanked off her stained chef’s jacket.

“Honey, are you okay?”

I didn’t know what reaction to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the one I got.

“Omigawd, Mom,” Joy whispered, then hugged me tight. “Thank you.”

My daughter had a good four inches on me, and she had to stoop slightly to bury her face in my neck. I could feel her shaking, and I held on to her, giving her time to regain her composure. The staff worked on, avoiding us with their eyes.

“Joy, what happened?” I asked softly.

My daughter pulled away, swiped at her tears. “Ramon,” she called to the older Latino swing cook, “can you take over my station?”

The squat, dark-haired man with a slightly pockmarked face nodded once. “No problem.”

Joy thanked him, then took my arm and led me down a narrow corridor lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. She sat me down in a tiny room next to a stairwell. Inside the room, a bunch of metal folding chairs was scattered around a wooden table. There was a TV, a computer, and a boom box, all of which were off.

“This is our break room,” she explained, avoiding my gaze.

My daughter was obviously dealing with feelings of embarrassment. I was feeling a very different emotion. “What’s wrong with those people out there?” I said loudly.

“Quiet, Mom, they’ll hear you—”

“No. You could have been killed, hurt badly at the very least, by that crazy woman, and nobody in your kitchen moved a muscle! You’re lucky the maître d’ was there to disarm her!”

Joy closed the door and sat down. “You don’t understand,” she said, much softer than I was speaking. “Brigitte accused me of messing up some of tonight’s plates.”

“Excuse me?”

“She said the sea bass should have gone out on a bed of ramps, but I was putting asparagus down instead. I wasn’t! I know the difference between a freakin’ locally grown leek and a spear of asparagus! She accused me of being incompetent, but I told her that I’d done it right. And since the plates went out already, I couldn’t even prove it. I told her nobody sent them back or complained—so she was just making it up to make me look bad in front of everyone. That’s when she flung the béarnaise sauce on me.”

Joy lifted the soiled chef’s jacket in her hand. “And then she said I was purposely bumping into her all night. I wasn’t. She was the one bumping me—and on purpose, if you ask me. Anyway, her little fit tonight was nothing new. Chef Rouille’s been throwing a tantrum almost every night now.”

“I’d call trying to slash your throat with a chef’s knife more than a simple tantrum.”

Joy sighed. “She probably wouldn’t have hurt me—”

“Probably!? Muffin, that woman’s certifiable. I think someone should press charges. Surely Brigitte’s guilty of assault with a deadly—”

“No!” Joy touched my arm. “My internship’s been going really well. I’m not going to mess it up by calling the cops on Tommy’s restaurant.”

“Okay…but you have to tell me more. What exactly has been going on with that woman?”

Joy shook her head. “It’s not like Chef Rouille singled me out for special persecution. Last Saturday she screamed at Henry Tso, the sauté chef, and Henry never makes a mistake. On Tuesday she came down on Don Maris, the seafood chef, for overbroiling a lobster. Then yesterday, she gave Vinny so much work he had to hide in the walk-in refrigerator until everybody went home last night, just so he could finish. She threatened to have him fired if he didn’t have it all done by the morning. You remember Vinny Buccelli, don’t you? You met him at that press party last month. It was the same night you met Tommy.”

I did remember Vinny. He was a nice-looking Italian boy—a young friend of Joy’s from her culinary school class. I had assumed (wrongly) that the quiet, slight young man was Joy’s boyfriend, something I still hoped could come true once she realized how wrong she was to get involved with Tommy Keitel.

Joy frowned. “Brigitte’s got Vinny so rattled he called in sick today. And nobody calls in sick at Solange unless they want to lose their job.”

“What kind of a kitchen is Tommy running?” I demanded.

“This isn’t Tommy’s fault,” Joy replied—too quickly, I thought.

“Mr. Dornier told me that Tommy hasn’t been around much lately,” I said. “Dornier doesn’t sound happy about it, and I can see why. Tommy’s the executive chef. If he’s not around, then he’s not doing his job.”

Joy’s face got tight. I recognized the look. I’d obviously struck a nerve.

“Is that man still sleeping with you?” I asked bluntly.

“Mom!”