Emma just stood there with her mouth wide open; still shocked that Regina just invited her to a party at her house. She didn't really know what she'd say, but she was definitely not turning this down. Anything to see more of Regina, Emma wasn't passing up. As Emma finally gathered her thoughts, she finally began to open her mouth and talk.
"A party? At your house? I'd love to come! When is it?"
Regina smiled softly at Emma and then continued to explain more.
"It is this weekend, and yes, it is at my house. I am cooking lasagna. That is my special entrée. I put a little something in it to give it more of a kick. You could always come over Saturday morning and help me prepare the entrée. You will get to be one of the lucky few to know my secret ingredient. I can show you how I make it, and I'll even let you be the first one to try the first bite at the party! How does that sound?"
"That sounds great to me. I will ask my mom if she could be so kind to drop me off at your place and be able to pick me up later. That way, I don't have to take the bus. I only learned the bus route for work and back home. I haven't learned any other bus routes to go anywhere else yet. I'm still learning all the different bus routes with the best connections to save time."
Regina then raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Oh really? You seem brilliant, Emma. I think you can master the whole city's public transportation network in a heartbeat. I'm sure that if you had already committed to do so, you'd have figured out the whole bus system by now, you are a fast learner. I can tell by what I have observed. You've gotten the hang of things here in the kitchen just by being here for one day. I know there is still much to learn about the way the kitchen works, but you grasped what I taught you yesterday with ease. But I understand completely. Maybe your mother could drop you off, and I could always give you a ride home to simplify things for both of you. My parties sometimes end pretty late, and I don't want you to have to leave too early. That is if you and your mother are alright with that!"
"Well, thank you, Regina. I appreciate that. I always seemed more normal, and I knew that. Yet, no matter how normal I may look or act, I still have a slow learner's disability. But again, thank you. I know my mom would appreciate you driving me home, so she won't have to waste gas to come to pick me up. She's running the household on a tight budget these days, she's saving money to buy a new car."
Regina then smiled and gave Emma a seductive little look. Emma could see the look, and she actually liked it. It just made Emma more and more curious if Regina was into women, yet she knew she couldn't just come out and ask. That'd be pretty rude and blunt, and Emma wasn't like that. She'd just have to figure it out over time.
"Well, I guess this means you're going to need my cell number. You're going to need to know the address for your mom to be able to drop you off on Saturday."
Emma just smiled widely at that and then gave Regina her number. After Regina saved Emma's number in her phone, she started dictating hers to Emma. She quickly started pressing numbers on her phone's keypad making sure she input them in the correct order. Once that was done, she pressed 'save' and raised her eyes from her phone screen to meet Regina's. They both smiled at each other before Regina insisted that they get started on their workday today. Knowing that Regina said she'd challenge her today, Emma wondered what Regina would have her do. Yesterday, Emma had no hat on, just a hair net. Emma told Regina that she wanted a chef hat to put over the hair net like everyone else. She felt a little silly being the only one in the kitchen without a hat on, so that day, to Emma's surprise, Regina pulled another chef's toque from her bag and gave it to Emma.
"I brought this for you to wear and to keep. I have many chef hats in different colors so I can pick and choose according to what color I choose to wear. However, I mainly only wear black or white chef coats, pants, and hats. Though, I have a few in other colors like pink and blue. I brought you this red one. I figured it would complement your look nicely. Maybe you can wear a red chef coat with it one day when you're not in the job training program anymore." said Regina. Emma just smiled softly as she took the red chef hat from Regina's hand, and as their hands touched, Emma could feel a little slight spark of electricity from the touch, almost like an adrenaline rush, which made Emma's heart pound faster in her chest. Emma then grabbed a hairnet and put it on her hair before putting the hat on, and to her surprise, it fit her head perfectly.
"Thank you very much, Regina! I promise to take good care of it!"
Regina then smiled at Emma, and Emma smiled back, and for a few seconds, they just stared into each other's eyes as if there wasn't anything else that needed to be done in the world. Emma could feel herself getting lost in Regina's gaze, and she again started feeling her heart pound quicker in her chest. She wondered if Regina could hear her heart pound. She wasn't sure if she could or couldn't, but either way, Emma couldn't help but feel this way towards Regina, and they literally just met yesterday.
"We should get started on our day, Emma! We have a lot to do today."
Emma heard Regina speak, but she didn't catch what she had said. She was too focused on staring blankly into her eyes. Emma then shook her head out of the haze she was in and suddenly realized that Regina had obviously said something important.
"I'm sorry, what? I didn't hear you."
Regina then smiled and shook her head at Emma and gave her a look that told Emma silently that she knew Emma wasn't listening.
"Oh my dear, please stay focused. We got a lot to do today. Let's get started."
Emma definitely heard that, and so she immediately nodded and ushered Regina to show her what to do. Regina then slowly walked out of the chef's office, and Emma followed her to the kitchen. Regina grabbed a white cutting board and one pineapple from the cooler and set it on the cutting board. She then grabbed a decent size chef's knife and put it on the cutting board. She then grabbed another cutting board and set it right next to the other cutting board she just put down and again grabbed another pineapple from the cooler and another chef's knife. Emma just watched her enthusiastically.
"Alright, this cutting board right here next to mine is yours, and this is the chef's knife you'll be using for this. It's not hard to use. I promise you; I'm going to guide you through everything step by step."
Emma nodded in agreement and immediately stood in front of the cutting board that Regina laid out for her.
"Now, follow my lead."
Regina cut the end of the pineapple off, turned it around to the other side, and cut the pineapple's head off. Then, she set the pineapple upwards so it would sit up straight on the cutting board.
"Now, repeat what I just did. Hold the knife just as I did and make sure your grip is good and firm so you don't cut yourself."
Emma then grabbed the chef's knife from her cutting board and held it very firmly. Then, she repeated precisely what Regina had done. Just a tad bit slower especially knowing this was her first time using such a knife.
"Excellent, Emma. You did well. Now, we need to cut the skin off of the pineapple with the knife. Watch what I do."
Regina then took the knife and started peeling the pineapple skin off slowly, little by little. Once she was done, she looked at Emma to instruct her to do the same, and Emma did just that. Just slower than what Regina had done. Once Emma's pineapple was all peeled, Regina showed her how to take the core of the pineapple out by cutting the pineapple in 4's and slicing the core off one by one, and once that was done, Regina then showed Emma how to dice the pineapple and for Emma's first try, it wasn't half that bad.
"For your second day, you're not doing bad at all, Emma. You're already holding a chef's knife and cutting pretty well. This was the challenge I was going to give you today. I wanted to see if you could use the knife according to how it's supposed to be used to do a simple task such as cutting fruit. You did very well. Now, if you can cut this whole box of pineapples and dice them all up, and put them in a bowl, that'll be greatly helpful. It is for the breakfast buffet in the restaurant. The bowl that's already out there is getting low. It must be refilled." Said Regina.
Emma immediately nodded and got to work. Once she was all done, Regina took her out to the restaurant area to replace the old bowl with the new bowl and she instructed her to wash the old bowl just to fill it right back up with more pineapple again for backup. Emma did just that. Emma's day was pretty fast-paced throughout the day, knowing that the hotel was pretty busy today. There were many people eating breakfast and then many more would arrive for lunch, but Emma didn't mind the pace. She kept up and was doing everything correctly.
After Emma's workday was finally over, she said goodbye to Regina and made sure there was nothing else she needed to get done before she had to leave. Regina smiled at her and gave her the okay to go ahead and start heading home. Once Emma finally got home from work, she immediately took her hairnet off and let her hair out of the messy bun she had all day. She had forgotten to take the hairnet off before leaving work. She put the red toque on top of her dresser so she wouldn't forget to take it back to work the next day. She felt pretty beat and tired. She needed to get some sleep. It was a quarter to 8 pm before she finally arrived home. It had been a very productive day, but a long and exhausting one no less.
Before Emma went to her room to undress and get into her pajamas, she made sure she packed some lunch for her to eat tomorrow. She plugged her phone to the charger and crawled into bed under the covers. As soon as she placed her head on the pillow and got cozy enough, she started drifting off into dreamland. Meanwhile she started thinking about Regina. Yet again, Regina was haunting her thoughts. Right before she could drift away to sleep, her phone buzzed with a text message. Emma opened her phone with sleepy eyes to see who had texted her, and to her surprise, it was Regina.
I hope you made it home alright, Emma. After the hard day you had at work, I just wanted to text you and tell you how well I think you're doing. I might even consider hiring you if you keep up the excellent work. I will see you tomorrow: Goodnight and sweet dreams.
Emma couldn't believe that Regina just texted her out of the blue. She thought that she wasn't supposed to text Regina until Friday to get her home address for the party, but she guessed Regina didn't mind texting in general, and this right here made Emma's night even better. She sleepily texted back, making sure she didn't have any typos in her reply before hitting the send button.
Thank you so much. I hope you do. If you hire me, I promise you won't' regret it. I'm going to be one of the best co-workers you've ever had up to now. I can't wait for tomorrow, Regina! Goodnight and sweet dreams to you too!
I'm glad I just motivated you into working even harder. I can't wait to see how well you do tomorrow, Emma. Xoxo
Emma read that and just smiled widely. No matter how sleepy she was, she couldn't help but smile. As Emma finally drifted back off into sleep, she dreamt of none other but Regina.