Summ: Alice works as a gourmet chef for one of Chicago's finest dining establishments. One night, her past arrives in the form of a man she only thought she never wanted to see again. It's not easy to run when you don't know exactly what it is you're hiding from. (This is a ficlet, only going to run for about 3 chapters if all goes according to plan.)
A/N: So this a new thing for me, the whole Jalice pairing. If it doesn't seem completely in character, it's because I've transplanted their personalities. Heh.
I want to – no, NEED to - thank my beta erosazul who puts up with my cracked out plotlines that I spin towards her like whirling dervishes. I guess one actually stuck. Enjoy!
"I am the best. Nothing will go wrong, because I AM the best." Her breath whooshed in an arc of steam into the cool night air. Cracking her white knuckles, and wringing them together to rid of the growing tension, she lifted her left leg and shoved it behind her. Striding into the back room through a double swing door, she quickly scrubbed her hands, turning the faucet with her elbow and hurriedly wiping them with the hand towel that hung from a wooden ring.
Metal clanged against metal, bright lights exacerbating the heat when Alice Brandon finally did up the second button on her chef's jacket, bearing the black embroidered title of Chef de Cuisine. Steadily making her way into the cogs of the kitchen, she was disappointed at what she first witnessed. It was not an auspicious beginning to her first opportunity covering for the actual head chef, who was currently running a workshop for culinary students in Nice. While Chef LaSalle had been unusually present and available for the bulk of the last few years, his promise of relegating more power to her finally came to fruition as she was placed at the head of the kitchen for his first three month absence. Starting tonight. It wasn't hard to believe that she was still greasing the bearings on her relationships with both the kitchen and front of the house staff.
"I've got only one chef working the meat station, what the HELL is wrong with this picture?" As of jolted by the sting of an electric prod, two white jacketed individuals scrambled madly, taking up their proper stations. One's hair escaped her toque and she wiped back the sweaty curl from her forehead as she dove into tenderizing a slab of veal with a meat hammer. She softened the blows with a cautionary glance from the chef standing to her right. He softly whispered instructions to the commis, urging her to work at a less frenetic pace if she wanted to follow the rhythm of the usually efficient kitchen. But today would be difficult: Chef Brandon was wound the tightest of them all and they weren't equipped to take her authority in stride. From dinner service prep almost three hours before to the time in which a steady flow of customers entered the dining room, there was little Chef Brandon didn't find fault with. Prior sous chef or not, she had them on edge and unfamiliar with her leadership.
"Weber, you're roundsman tonight. After you get that prepped, I need you in line at the vegetable station. Think you can handle it solo?" Weber, of course, didn't think she could, but she had little choice in her answer. There were three others assigned to vegetables, and she would hardly be pressed if she assisted even one of the others. But Weber was an apprentice, and Alice's words left little to be disguised. Weber's worth as a potential employee was being tested, and her future at the restaurant was being held in the balance. With Chef LaSalle gone, Alice was king. Nodding meekly with a halted 'Yes, chef', Weber finished pounding the veal with vigor, handed it over to the meat station, and commenced combining the spring greens and pre-roasted cherry tomatoes for a frisee salad.
Alice quickly rounded the usually spotless counters, picking up spills in the hasty movements of her chefs, eager to finish service in a timely manner. The white gold gleam of the kitchen fluorescents was already dampening the back of her exposed neck with sweat, but she didn't lessen her scrutiny. 'We endeavor to be the best' rung out in the forefront of her mind, in rustic, French accented tones she had grown fondly familiar with in the last two years.
Chef Laurent LaSalle was responsible for the creation of Le Bon Plat, a beautiful French haute cuisine restaurant that resided in the heart of Chicago. It was so elemental and derivative of what he had experienced as a burgeoning chef in Aveyron, that he had commissioned three different cheese, wine, and produce specialists of the southern region of France to dispense their wisdom on the quality of ingredients. It was not a simple task being under the employ of Chef LaSalle. There was no application process. In fact, you had to be specifically chosen.
Alice made it an integral part of her daily routine to remember this fact. Ever since the day Chef LaSalle chose her.
He never questioned why she had so abruptly left a lofty sous chef position at Le Deux, a three Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco. He was merely concerned with what she, a talented, young cook with a knack for discipline, could now offer him.
His ruddy features were complemented by a light coffee complexion and his wide, walrus mustache almost obscured an equally wide and good natured grin.
"Your demonstration of your preparation of coq au vin was sharp, meticulous; you are obviously very adept technically. But I am not going to pretend to be impressed with your credentials Ms. Brandon. It is not in my nature to fawn over the Le Cordon Bleu label." Alice, unequivocally cocky with the breadth of her experience at the age of twenty seven, furrowed her eyebrows at Chef LaSalle's statement. She had spent four years of culinary school at the French Culinary Institute in New York and acquired a grant for a year's apprenticeship in Paris at the acclaimed Le Cordon Bleu. She had trained under French cuisine experts unmatched anywhere in the world. She did however, take with a grain of salt, that while she was undeniably good, the grant may have been acquired more out of favor than actual merit. Her grandmother on her mother's side was after all French diplomat, Marion Benoit.
"But he couldn't know that," she contemplated with uncertainty. "Could he?"
His grin expanded at her confusion. "Ah, I see you are troubled by my lack of reaction."
"I don't assume anything of anyone, Chef." she clipped back.
Yes, of course she was upset. She had just attempted career suicide by resigning from a position she had desperately aspired to as a professional, without any ostensible reason. Any reason other than that, as far as the head chef at Le Deux could piece together, she was certifiably insane. And now, while interviewing for a career opportunity in which she was confident of her abilities, enough to acquire a position as a line cook, she was deemed unimpressive.
Alice wasn't above begging, though. She would turn over her experience, swallow back her pride and begin again as a commis in Chef LaSalle's kitchen. Any which way, she would commit to Chicago and work in any capacity. She would never return to San Francisco. Not now, when she had already fled this far.
Her chest tightened and she brought her back upright in the chair. If she had already screwed herself to the point of no return, then she would sell herself to the highest bid. Modesty be damned.
"Chef LaSalle, at the age of twenty five I was assigned as saucier to Le Deaux's kitchen. My Hollindaise and Bernaise brought in critics from Gourmet magazine by word of mouth. I was pegged as one of the top ten promising young chefs of the decade and was featured at least three times in their pages. Prominently." She paused to take in a breath and assess the stoic expression of the legend of a man before her. His eyes gleamed sharply though, scissoring their way through, and she continued. "In less than a year, I was promoted to sous chef. No kitchen on the West Coast could rival that of Le Deaux's when I was placed at the helm. I was THAT good." He still didn't speak. "Chef LaSalle, I have an opportunity to work alongside you, and that is an honor that can't be given or taken lightly. But I am always learning, always improving, and I do not operate under any bullshit. If you take me in, I swear, you will not regret it." Undoubtedly red faced and fighting off a speck of spittle that was threatening to fly out of her mouth in her frantic self-testimony, she sat back in her chair. She waited for a scathing review of how exactly her attitude had just cost her the position.
Instead she was met with a peal of amused laughter, punctuated with a grunt of approval as he set down her credentials.
"You are arrogant," LaSalle snorted, "More so than I expected. But that confidence is invaluable. It is true, I want you." She quirked her upper lip in pleasant surprise. "I'm not ready to promote anyone to sous chef from the inside. The staff is, how shall I say, not up to the task I feel. But you," he wagged a finger deliberately as he chose his next words, "you will be responsible for bringing them to that level. I am not a man fond of disciplining chefs who bask in their talent and refuse to improve. In addition, I am also a man of many pursuits. I teach as much as I cook. I am leaving you in charge, and when I am attending to obligations outside the country, you are the one running my kitchen."
Alice nodded in understanding. This was not new territory for her. She had managed kitchens single-handedly before, albeit on a smaller scale.
"You will be authoritative. You word will be final when I am absent, and therefore the consequences of your and the staff's decisions lie solely on you. While my cooks look to me for leadership and opportunity, you will essentially decide their fates. They will look to you for discipline and they will learn the need to impress you in order to impress me. Inevitably, they will come to hate you, Ms. Brandon." A joyous chortle escaped his mouth, and he assessed her smugly. "Is that something you will find difficult in handling?" he asked, already knowing her answer.
She radiated with absolute conviction when she stated, "Not even remotely."
"Ah, good. You know, we endeavor to be the best." He smiled and nodded at her confirmation.
Alice cemented her future in a dimly lit office on a red leather armchair that afternoon two years ago, sealing off the painful reminders of her past with a stiff handshake and stroke of a pen. Or so she thought.
When the front of house manager, Henri, cut in through the kitchen doors searching for Alice, she was at first unaware of his presence .
Instead, she was furiously concentrating on expediting the plates that were lined neatly on the stretch of counter reserved for service pick-up. Much to her chagrin, the presentation of each dish had been left a second priority by the nervous cooks, behind the rapidity in which they plated the food.
She clenched her teeth in frustration as yet another dish of salmon roulade clattered before her, edged with a splatter of brown sauce. Throwing down her rag, she caught the attention of the entire kitchen. They halted and anxiously anticipated her displeasure, conveyed by her unrelenting glare.
"These plates are coming in dirty. This is unacceptable -."
"Chef Brandon-." The manager made a futile attempt in capturing her attention.
"I want clean, contained platings." She demonstrated the dimensions she wanted with a sharp stroke of her flattened palm. "I don't want the entire dish falling apart at the seams, because you are too lazy to ensure proper placement of the food." She waved her hand over the minor spills and stains on the edges of the square dish. "You are professionals. I don't want to be the one finishing your plates for you. Check. It. Yourself!"
"Chef-."
"Focus on the aesthetics. If I find one more sloppy garnish, I'm having Henri send the front of house staff home, and YOU will be bussing tables. Understood?"
"Chef Brandon!"
"For fuck's sake, Henri, what!!?" Alice spun towards him and he flinched at her ire. She may have only reached the height of his chest, but the manner in which she bit out her response more than compensated for her short stature. The kitchen staff, no strangers to her invective, deigned to continue working and erred on the side of caution in positioning the parsley garnish.
Alice, registering the shell shocked expression on Henri's face, softened her expression. She reminded herself that she needed to win alliances with the front of the house through communication, not aggression.
"I'm sorry, Henri. This service has been a little taxing. What is it you wanted?" She held her voice firm, but nodded inquiringly at Henri.
He relaxed and explained his interruption.
"I'm so sorry Chef Brandon, but there is a gentleman outside in the front requesting your presence. He says it's urgent."
Alice was never prone to exaggerated gesticulations when people worked her last nerve. Instead, her thin lipped glare spoke volumes over what she thought of the gentleman requesting her presence. She had limited time into which to work the employees into a cohesive unit and Henri had the unfortunate task of dealing with…people. She rolled her eyes, her hands never ceasing in their precise movements, even as she gave her disdainful reply.
"You'll have to inform him that I am currently working and guiding a team of fifteen chefs and kitchen assistants. If he has either a complaint or compliment regarding the food, I'll be available to speak with him after the dinner service ends. Otherwise, he's welcome to throw on a spare jacket and lend me a hand back here." She edged past him to read over the orders for table five and make sure their appetizers were ready and plated.
But Henri continued, tailing after her as she gave a brief okay to the servers.
"But Alice," he lowered his voice to a murmur when casually addressing her. "This guy's asking specifically for you." She paused. "Not the chef. He says he knows you? He's being really persistent. I tried seating him, but he wouldn't…I just don't know what to do."
Alice's forehead crinkled in confusion, as she paused in her movements. Who was asking for her specifically? Maybe Bella and Edward? They sometimes stopped by on weekends, but usually waited until the end of her shift to hassle her about the filet mignon being a little on the rare side.
"Um, is the guy tall? Has reddish-brown hair? Looks like he maybe has his girlfriend or wife with him?"
Henri shook his head, none of the details registering with him. "Uh, no. I mean he's tall but he's blonde. And he's alone."
Alice jumped and turned, almost upturning a plate holding a blood orange and grilled endive salad, which she thankfully steadied. Her heart began pumping double time as she considered what Henri's description meant. It could mean that she wasn't as careful in covering her tracks as she thought. It could mean he…
There are a lot of single, blonde men in Chicago, she reminded herself. Tall, blonde men who dine in restaurants of this caliber on busy nights like this.
But how many of them ever come to see her?
She cleared her thoughts from the place they were streaming towards and managed to pull herself together. Her eyes remained wide and wary, though, when Henri pleaded with her.
"Alice please, I've already got five parties with reservations waiting thirty minutes apiece for a table. This guy's been backing me up for the past ten minutes, just…please." Alice glanced at Henri's exhausted face and the tie around his neck that had flown askew in his anxious rush.
Taking a deep breath, she reached her hands forward and straightened it for him. She promised herself that everything would run smoothly tonight, and everything would. No matter what.
"Yeah, okay, don't worry about it. Just send him to the east banquet hall." She patted his shoulder. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
With a relieved sigh and a thank you, Henri rushed out as quickly as he had come in
Unwilling to lose composure in front of her staff, she squared her shoulders and turned towards them.
"Alright, I have to step out for a few minutes. Cheney?" The sympathetic chef, who had assisted Weber with the meat hammer, lifted his head eagerly and awaited instructions. "You're in charge of finishing the plates until I get back." She addressed the rest of them while backing slowly towards the exit. "Cheney's in command, don't think he won't report back to me."
A chorus of "Yes, chef" followed her out through the double swing doors, this time into the dimly lit ambience of the dining room.
Her fists alternately clenched and loosened in anxiety as she meandered through the maze of cream linen tables and colored glass décor. However, she gave no sign of her distress as she paused at the occasional table and inquired of the guests and their food with a warm smile; satisfied when they showered her with glowing reviews.
She peppered one last welcome to a regular, seated at the mouth of the annex leading to the banquet halls. When Laurent had expanded Le Bon Plat to include the accommodating spaces, the restaurant's profits had increased significantly due to rentals for company luncheons and private celebrations. The only thing Alice had in mind when meeting her visitor in the empty room was to avoid causing a scene. Regardless of who it was, she knew she would have difficulty maintaining a sense of professionalism if she carried out an encounter with them by the maitre d' podium.
The wooden door leading inside was already propped half open, half of the ceiling lights already switched on for her benefit. She brushed aside the heavy, crushed velvet curtain that obscured access to the main hall from the small entry foyer and inhaled the mustiness of the room. It hadn't been aired for a few weeks.
As her stomach sank even further at the sight of tall, lean figure straight ahead of her, she took in a shaky breath and managed a few deliberate steps before halting.
He did the same.
If she was under any misconception of who it was before, she was most definitely not anymore.
His hair was a little shorter and darker on the sides than she remembered, and his face seemed slightly more composed as opposed to displaying the easy smile he usually wore. He donned gray tailored slacks and a thin black sweater over a white button down shirt. Fairly standard business attire for him, she knew.
What she didn't know was why he stood before her now.
"Wha-?"
"Alice." He spoke resolutely, her name almost painful and undeniably beautiful rolling off his tongue.
"Jasper."
The expression her voice brought to his face destroyed any pretense, and a relieved smile broke onto his face as he took her in. She attempted to hide the red stain on the cuff of her jacket by hesitantly crossing her arms.
"Wow." He took a few steps closer, about five feet now separating them. "Wow. You look so completely different, but the same, you know? You look…great." He grinned wider, exposing a row of gleaming teeth. "Your hair is different…I mean I like it. It suits you."
Alice had chopped off a sizeable chunk of her black locks after leaving San Francisco, personally citing the need to embrace change as a reason. However it had recently begun to grow somewhat, causing the ends of her usually spiked hairdo to curl.
She fought the urge to smooth her hand over it self-consciously, instead tightening her arms across her chest. Her face remained impassive as she reminded herself that he had just carelessly pulled her out of the one of the busiest and most important nights of her career.
His initially amused grin began to waver as he took notice of the stony silence she was maintaining.
"Al-."
"What are you doing here?" Her voice rang strange to her ears, authoritarian and cold as if she was speaking to a member of her staff.
He gazed at her, incredulous that she had even asked the question.
"I think it's pretty obvious why I'm here, Alice."
She became irritated with his refusal to answer her directly.
"No, actually it really isn't."
He huffed and ran a hand through his hair, rippling and shimmering in the light of the room. He muttered something under his breath, something that sounded suspiciously like 'I can't believe this', and glanced at her again to reassure himself that she was joking.
She wasn't.
"Fine. You know what? Fine." He clipped out the words and mirrored her stance, crossing his arms. "I'm here because work brought me here and I thought I'd stop by and say hello." Alice narrowed her eyes, squinting past his annoyance. "Obviously, traveling halfway across the country doesn't exactly warrant a warm welcome!"
"You came to say hello?" Alice's voice was now dangerously low and soft, a precursor to the rush of anger that was now steadily building within her. Her temper kept her from rationally approaching the hidden meanings in his words. It would hurt far too much to confront any larger issues at the moment, so she decided to take out her conflicting emotions over him being here in the worst way possible.
"Do you realize that this is my place of work? That I am responsible for an entire kitchen? That there are people depending on me to run this entire establishment?" She waved her arms violently towards the door. Jasper's eyebrows strung themselves together in concern, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility that she would be under enormous pressure on this night, of all nights. "Can you even consider for one second, how ridiculously unprofessional it was for me to step out during a Saturday night dinner rush to speak to someone in the banquet hall!? You couldn't wait!?"
Jasper opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped was a small break in his throat. While Alice had made her point, he seemed just as adamant in making his own.
With a sincerely abashed expression he explained himself.
"I'm sorry. I am. That was selfish of me. But I couldn't wait. I didn't want to talk myself out of coming- ." Alice started in on her own assessment of why he should have done just that, when he held up his hand to imply he had something more to say. "Wait. Just listen. I' m also here to give you something. If you'll take it," he added with a hint of resentment.
Reaching into the front, right pocket of his pants, he pulled out a folded white envelope. The edges were bent, as if it had been crammed into a small space for a long period of time, and only recently discovered and extracted. As if it wasn't meant to be found.
"I found this in Pete's things." Alice froze, her words no longer forcing themselves out of her throat to be hurled towards him. "There was this book stuck in one of the boxes I took from his apartment. I didn't even get around to going through it until now." He let out an awkward laugh, bending his arm at the elbow and sheepishly rubbing the base of his neck, as if he was the one at fault that the letter hadn't reached its intended target. For all Alice knew, maybe he was. "Anyway, I found it there."
Her anger tempering, Alice eyed the envelope with equal parts morbid curiosity and debilitating sorrow. This was not just another loose end of hers that she now had the responsibility of tying up. No, the onslaught of memories Jasper brought with him almost consumed her where she stood.
Peter. The name silently echoed, again and again, in her mind, and she felt the beginnings of a trembling sob collecting in her chest. But she swallowed it back. She had a kitchen full of employees that she had to answer to once she was done here.
Jasper, his sympathetic eyes trying to lock with hers, brought himself closer, barely a few inches separating them now. He carefully closed his hand around hers, lifting it slowly as she unfurled her fingers. She continued staring at the musty space over his shoulder.
He gently placed the stiff paper in her hand, bending her fingers into a fist over it, edging so close towards her that she thought his shadow would imprison her to the very spot in which she stood. She noticed he smelt clean, as if he had recently showered or shaved. Underlying that was a subtle hint of him. Of Jasper's skin and hair.
It was the remembrance of that embedded smell that nearly brought her to her knees. Mostly from the shame she felt in being so near to him when she had completely sworn to never be in that position again, from the day she had left.
Tilting her face downwards, to their clasped hands, she noticed a bit of familiar, thinly curved writing on the back of the envelope; the envelope that was addressed to her by the man whose face she would never be able to look into again.
To Alice
- Peter
Alice's breathing stuttered before she spoke.
"What is this?" she whispered. Her voice was comparatively insubstantial to what it had been before.
Jasper leaned his head down towards hers, twisting their fingers into knots.
"I think you should probably read it yourself." he replied softly, his breath lightly caressing a wayward curl on her forehead.
There was such implicit intimacy in his stance, in the way he protectively encased her hand, in the way his voice washed over her. If she stood in his presence for another minute, she felt as if the walls would tumble around them. And then she would explode from the burgeoning guilt and shame.
Backing away quickly, her hand left his and he stood perplexed, like he didn't understand the reason for her hesitation. Like there was absolutely nothing that tainted the moments they exchanged.
She glared at him, her rage at his presence making a full return.
"What is this?" she demanded again, this time furious. Jasper backed away, his features tightening. "So you came here to deliver me a letter from my dead fiancé? Am I supposed to be impressed or will this help you sleep a little better at night?" She shoved the envelope into the breast pocket of her jacket, planning to drop it off in her coat in the back room before she returned to work. She would deal with it like she did with everything personal when she was at the restaurant: Later. "It doesn't change anything, Jasper, for you or for me!" Nothing ever changed; her achievement and contentment caught in constant flux as she tirelessly sought ways to make it better. A step forward and clean slate had proved to be more difficult in sustaining than the guilt.
Jasper's tortured expression finally broke down into disbelieving anger. His hands went through his hair again, this time clamping down on the roots.
"Fuck! Fuck, Alice!" Alice just shook her head. "You don't get to be angry, Alice. Not about this."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Alice felt something awful seep through her. This time it was mortification at the words she anticipated he would say next. He shot a bitter laugh in her direction before raising his voice in incredulity.
"It means you left nothing for me. Nothing. No phone-call, no e-mail, not even a goddamn post-it stuck to your door with the word 'good-bye' written on it!" He stabbed a finger into his chest. "Pete was my best friend. Did it even occur to you that I was hurting? God Alice, I was hurting so bad. Did you even remember me?"
The words kept churning in the air between them and refused to leave. The room didn't breathe and neither did she. If she inhaled, she would be forced to answer.
"I guess not, because you left the fucking state. Like I was fucking nothing to you!"
His chest was heaving in exertion and this was the first time Alice had seen him become so unglued and reckless in his words. She wondered if he had changed that much in two years. And if maybe she was the one who had changed him.
Channeling her inner stoic, she set her face into stone once again. This had already gone on for far too long and she needed to put it to an end. She already knew how much she was at fault. What he refused to acknowledge was how wrong he had also been, indulging their mistake.
"First, you need to calm down." She waited patiently as his fuming tapered off. "And second, I think it would be a good idea if you left."
He gave her a tired stare.
Now." she finished quietly.
Jasper's face transitioned to that of a desperate man's when Alice turned and began stepping behind the curtain towards the door.
"Alice please, we need to talk. I'm here for another few days. I'm staying at the Hilton on Michigan Ave. My cell number's the same. I…" He struggled to catch her outside the room, but she didn't look back.
Alice didn't catch the remainder of his sentence as she strode out of the annex, this time not stopping to greet anyone when she marched back into the kitchen.
Later that night, Alice was applauded out of the kitchen after a successful dinner shift. As she bid goodnight to the remaining staff that were busy cleaning and closing up, she stopped in the backroom.
Weber was busy finagling her coat off a hanger and didn't notice Alice until she caught her gaze. "Angela?"
"Chef Brandon?" Weber wasn't sure why Alice had singled her out in this instance, and wasn't confident if she should be either honored or terrified.
"Great work tonight." Alice cocked a half smile as she stated her approval.
Weber fought the urge to blubber out a 'thanks' and commit a slightly juvenile fist pump.
"Thank you chef." she answered softly, a small bit of shock and awe coloring her voice.
Alice continued bundling a scarf around her neck as she made her way outside, attempting to ignore the object that weighed as heavily in her coat pocket as it did on her mind.
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