Cullen's Patisserie - Chapter 1
Hi everyone,
This is my first story, I hope you all like it :)
Starting a new job is always stressful. I've only had one job in my life, but that one was while I was in high school, and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't count. Working in a shop that sells hiking equipment really doesn't prepare you for a career in hospitality.
My name is Bella Swan. My parents divorced when I was young and I lived with my mum for a while in Phoenix, Arizona, before moving to Forks, Washington, to live with my dad. After high school I moved to Seattle to go to Patisserie School. I studied for four years to become a Pastry Chef. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed studying, but now I'm in the real world, which frankly is scary.
After I graduated applied for all the jobs I could find with the words 'Pastry Chef' in them.
I got a call for one, was interviewed (a far as I'm concerned, not very well) and I got the job, much to my surprise. I don't interview well generally, but since the interview was practical, I interviewed better than I usually do.
So here I am, about to walk in to the kitchen for my first day on the job.
Taking a deep breath, I walked in, looking for my new boss, Carlisle Cullen. Carlisle was tall, blonde and far too attractive for a pastry chef.
When I got to the office where the 'chat' part of my interview took place, I found not Carlisle, but someone else. He was sitting in a chair, hunched over a piece of paper on the desk. He was wearing the usual chefs uniform – black and white check pants and a white jacket with black buttons.
I felt it was safe to assume he was a Cullen. Carlisle had said in the interview that it was a family business and that they only employed family. Carlisle did the paperwork, his wife Esme managed the front of house. They had five adoptive children. Two of the boys were pastry chefs, the other boy delivered orders, helped with the paperwork and did anything else the needed. The two girls helped out with front of house, but had their own careers.
They were interviewing for a new pastry chef as Carlisle was busy with the paperwork side of the business and his two sons couldn't handle the amount of order they were getting. They needed an extra pair of hands, which was where I came in.
"Hello" I said in what I hoped was a friendly tone.
The stranger looked up, gave me a once over, and turned back to his paper.
"Is Carlisle around?" I waited for a response, but I didn't get one.
"I'm the new pastry chef, Bella. Is there somewhere I can put my bag?"
Still no response. I decided to have a look around and see if I could find somewhere for my bag.
After a couple of minutes of poking around I gave up and went back to the office.
I saw in the corner some cubby holes, so I squeezed past the desk and shoved my bag in a cubby hole.
I then turned back to the stranger, noticing he had messy hair in a strange but attractive bronze colour. I had noticed when he looked at me that he was quite attractive, or would be if he didn't sneer.
I decided to be a bit more forceful this time. If we were going to be working together, he had to at least speak to me about work, even if he didn't want to talk to me about anything else.
"Is there anything you want me to get started on? Any orders or items you need for the shop made up?"
The stranger looked up at me again, and stared at me for a good minute.
The more I looked at him, the more attractive he was. I tried to say something, but my breath caught in my throat. Wow, he's gorgeous!
"Ah Bella, you're here!" Carlisle walked in carrying three coffees and a bunch of paperwork. He was smiling and after he put the paperwork down he handed me a coffee.
"Hello Carlisle, how are you?" I found my voice once I looked away from the strange man.
"Well, thanks. I am so glad you decided to join us! I see you've met my youngest, Edward." He smiled at Edward and I. I scoffed to myself; 'met' isn't exactly the word I'd use.
"Yes Bella and I are well acquainted. I was just going to ask her to get started on this order." I stared at Edward in shock, my mouth hanging open slightly.
I wasn't sure what I was more shocked about; the fact that he'd spoken, or the fact that he had a beautiful voice. I was in trouble here. I couldn't be attracted to him, I was sure he didn't like me. That didn't stop me from staring at him out of the corner of my eye.
When Carlisle glanced at me and I quickly smiled and nodded as though I knew what Edward was talking about.
I had a bad feeling about this.
I was sitting in the kitchen five minutes later, staring at the piece of paper I had been given. I'd been asked to make a croquembouche. I'd done one before, of course, but I knew that I could easily make a very large mistake.
Toffee was used to bind all of the profiteroles together and I knew I was going to burn myself. I always did. I was so clumsy.
The first step had been to make the choux pastry for the profiteroles, and I was working out how many I'd need. It worked out to be 100, and I had no idea how I was going to get that many on one tower. It was going to be a very large croquembouche, and I was petrified that I was going to mess this one up big time.
I decided to get started. I made the first batch of choux pastry for the profiteroles, and got it in the oven as quickly as I could. This was going to be a long day. Edward glanced over at me occasionally, and when I noticed him looking, I seemed to make a mistake. Concentrate, Bella!
Throughout the day Carlisle checked on me and seemed pleased with how I was going.
About halfway through the day, I noticed Edward looking at me. I dropped the bowl I was carrying and cringed as it hit the floor. Luckily for me, it was metal. When I ventured a look over at Edward he sneered at me.
"If you keep dropping things you'll be out of a job."
Well actually, he spat it. Literally. I could see spit flying in my direction.
I spent the rest of the day alternately wondering what I'd done to make him hate me, and stressing about the croquembouche.
Thankfully the croquembouche turned out beautifully. Looked like my training had paid off.
Edward, of course, said nothing about the croquembouche. Carlisle and the rest of the staff however, were lovely.
Carlisle called Esme to have a look at my creation and she smiled, took a photo and hugged me.
"Welcome to Cullen's Bella, I know you're going to fit in just fine."
"Thanks Esme, I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity"
"Oh it's nothing dear, we're thrilled to have you! I can't wait to see what else you can do."
It was a slow day, so the rest of the Cullen's weren't working, but I was assured they would be in the next day, and were all excited to meet me.
"Well that sounds ominous..." I thought to myself as I walked to my car at the end of the day.
The next day started much the same as the day before, Edward was hunched over in the office, but this time I just said "Morning" and dumped my bag in the cubby hole.
I found a sheet of paper on the bench that I worked at yesterday, and as I looked it over I heard voices. Loud ones.
"Here we go!" I knew the Cullen's were coming.
My first impression was that Carlisle and Esme must choose their children based on attractiveness.
Esme had told me yesterday that their five children are adopted. They were unable to have children, but instead of adopting babies or young children, they adopted pre-teens. The pre-teens were now in their twenties and all but Edward were in relationships with each other. I couldn't decide whether it was weird or romantic.
A short, beautiful, pixie-like woman burst in first, she looked at though she was on springs with the way she was bouncing. She bounced over to me, hugged me tightly and introduced herself and the tall blond man who sauntered over behind her.
"Hi! I'm Alice, and this is Jasper, we're so excited to meet you! We saw pictures of the croquembouche you did, it was so beautiful, way better than the one Edward did last!" I glanced over in the direction of Edward and saw scowl, but otherwise he gave no reaction.
Jasper smiled and nodded, saying "Hey" before dragging Alice away.
After they left I was recovering from Alice's compliment when a beautiful, tall, blonde woman walked up to me.
"Hi, I'm Rosalie." And walked off. She didn't smile, just made her statement and walked out of the kitchen. Lovely, the model hates me too.
"Sorry about Rosie, she doesn't like new people. I'm Emmett."
I shook hands with Emmett, who was tall, broad and had curly brown hair.
"Hi, I'm Bella. Are you a pastry chef?" I was having trouble keeping up with who did what.
"Nah nah I'm too masculine for that!" His big booming laugh almost drowned out the sounds of Jasper and Edward yelling at him.
"I help Carlisle out with all the paper work, run out orders and that kinda stuff.
You need anything, I'm your man."
"Great, sounds good." I smiled at Emmett.
Jasper must be the other pastry chef. A couple of minutes later I saw Jasper walking out of the office in chef clothing.
At least one of the people in the kitchen seemed nice. I was proved right when Jasper volunteered to show me where everything was in the kitchen. I gratefully accepted. Yesterday I'd had to sneak around trying to find everything I needed.
"So yeah, that's pretty much everything. Did I miss anything?" We'd finished the tour and were drinking the coffees Alice had made for us.
"I don't think so. I'll ask if there's anything I can't find." I liked Jasper. He was quiet, but really sweet. Especially around Alice. It was plain to see that he adored her.
"Awesome. So tell me a bit about you."
"Not much to tell. Finished high school, studied patisserie for four years, applied for jobs, interviewed, and started here yesterday. That's pretty much it." I shrugged. My life really wasn't very interesting.
Jasper frowned a little but let it go.
"I guess we should so some work now, huh?" I nodded, looking forward to a better day. I hoped it would be a better day.
Jasper showed me the day to day tasks of the patisserie and we were soon working on what needed to be done for the day.
Thankfully Edward and I avoided each other for the rest of the day and I escaped at the end of the day, feeling better about working at Cullen's.