“I give to Gemma. She like this honey.” Mebel finally locates house number 4.
It’s a small terraced house sandwiched in the middle of a row of houses, its stone walls bare. The front yard is tiny but well maintained, with a row of asters growing along the fence. The door is painted a navy blue and the knocker is in the shape of a cat. The house number has been hand-painted onto a ceramic plate that is decorated with painted flowers. Everything about it screams Gemma, and the sight of it unexpectedly makes Mebel nervous. What if Gemma isn’t here? Or worse still, whatif she is, but she doesn’t want Mebel here? There is, after all, a reason why Gemma has chosen to leave the school without a single word.
“It’s not too late to turn around,” Alain says, reading her mind.
“Nonsense.” Mebel doesn’t give herself time for second thoughts before reaching up and ringing the doorbell. The sound reverberates through the house, and as Mebel stands there waiting for the door to open, her heart rate doubles, then triples. She forces herself to take a long, deep breath for six seconds. Then she holds it for another six seconds before releasing it slowly. She’s read somewhere (or watched a reel, more likely) that this is how snipers slow their heart rate down.
The door clicks open and there, finally, is her dear friend Gemma.
Chapter 16
“Gemma!” Mebel says, rushing forwardand engulfing the girl in a hug. She’s missed Gemma so much, and also, she doesn’t want to give her the chance to slam the door in her face.
“Mebel,” Gemma says, shock apparent in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I come to find you,” Mebel says. She releases Gemma and takes her in. To her surprise, she feels tears moistening her eyes. After all this time, she can’t help but see Gemma as an honorary daughter, and the sight of her standing there is bringing up so many emotions.
Gemma’s expression softens for a moment, but then she glances over Mebel’s shoulder and tenses. “Look, Mebs, I left because I just—the atmosphere at the school just got so toxic, and it was wreaking havoc on my mental health. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“What?” Mebel’s head is swimming. She tries her best to parse through these terms that Gemma is saying. Toxic? Mental health? Sammy has said these words before, but Mebel has always dismissed them as a “young people thing.” She scours her mind for any signs of toxicity in the culinary school. Well, she can’t deny that there’s certainly a lot of it recently, but it only happened after the competition was announced. Before that, they were doing just fine, weren’t they? They’d created their own little friend group, and the camaraderie was wonderful.
“I don’t understand,” Mebel says. “We talk about it over tea. I got clover honey for you, I know you like it.” She hands Gemma the bag of honey and takes off her shoes before letting herself into the house. “Oh, and Alain is here also.”
“Uh—” Gemma says, struggling with the bag of honey and hurrying after Mebel. “I really don’t think—”
“This is a nice place, is very you,” Mebel says, plopping down on the sofa and looking around her appreciatively. It is the tiniest house Mebel has ever been in. The ceiling is so low that if Mebel were to stand on tiptoes and reach up, she would be able to touch it, and she is barely five foot two on good days. The living room can only fit a two-seater sofa plus a chair and a coffee table the size of a wine crate. In fact, Mebel realizes, the coffee table is made out of a wine crate. Gemma has taken care to put a vase of fresh flowers on it, which makes the whole thing look rather charming. The walls are painted a muted dusty pink and hung with watercolor paintings.
“Um, thank you. Sorry, it isn’t very big. It’s not a very good place for guests, I’m afraid.” Gemma stands there, her wide-eyed gaze bouncing back and forth from Mebel to Alain. “Mebel,I just don’t think there’s very much to discuss. I’m quite a lot happier since leaving the school.”
“Why?” Mebel says, confused.
Alain sits down next to her. Gemma glances at him, and Mebel kicks herself for bringing Alain in here. She should’ve told him to wait in the car. Of course Gemma wouldn’t want to talk bad about the school in front of him, especially with the knowledge that he holds so much power there.
As though sensing their discomfort, Alain says, “I’ll wait outside. Take your time.” He stands and plants a kiss on Mebel’s cheek. As he leaves, he reaches out and gives Gemma a single pat on the shoulder. “I hope you work out whatever it is that’s been bothering you.” With that, he leaves the house.
Mebel turns back to Gemma. “Well? You explain yourself.”
Gemma hugs the bag of honey to her chest. “Wha-what’s there to explain?”
“You leave without telling anyone!” Mebel cries. “Why you don’t even tell me?”
Gemma’s eyes roam the room, as though searching for an escape route. “I don’t know—I just—it all got too much. I struggle with anxiety, and it was getting worse in the school.”
“Anxiety?” Mebel says. She has no idea what “anxiety” means in this sense. “You mean like stress?”
“Something like that, but more persistent. It’s something I feel most of the time, whether or not there’s something worth getting anxious over. Obviously it gets worse when there are triggers, like the competition,” she says, her words coming out faster and faster as she speaks. She stops herself, and as she looks at Mebel, her face falls. “I’m sorry, Mebs. Oh, I hope they let you partner up with someone else after I left.”
“They don’t,” Mebel says. “I am doing the duck course all alone. You need to come back. This anxiety thing, I will give you some Chinese ginseng, it will cure for sure.”
Gemma laughs, but there is no humor in it. “I don’t think it’s something that can be cured with ginseng.”
“How you know? You never try before.”
“I just know, okay, Mebel?” Gemma cries, frustration bleeding through her usually soft voice.
The anger in Gemma’s voice reminds Mebel of Sammy when he says things like, “Ma, you just don’t get it, okay?” She’s always felt so hurt when he says stuff like that, because she’s always prided herself on being understanding, on being one of the more open-minded parents in her generation. She listens when he tells her things, she got herself familiarized with social media so she can have a peek into the lives of youths nowadays. She really does try to keep her mind flexible so it can accommodate the new generation’s needs and quirks. The ones who don’t get it aren’t her; it’s them. They don’t get that old dogs can learn new tricks, if the old dog is appropriately motivated, and Mebel is very much motivated. She digs deep and draws from her experience with Sammy, draws from the times where she did manage to reach past their generational gap and get to him.
“You’re right,” she says to Gemma. “Maybe I don’t understand. But I know one thing, and that is you belong at the culinary school. You are talented cook, Gemma. Everyone knows. Your technique is very smooth, you learn all the method so well, and you have good instinct for flavor.”
