“You say many things with more confidence than evidence initially supports.”
I step aside to let her in. “You’ve come prepared to be difficult.”
She walks past me, and the faint scent of clean skin, florals, coffee, and something light I can’t name moves through the doorway with her.
“I have come prepared to observe.”
“That is worse.”
“It usually is,” she says.
I close the door behind her. She does not enter like a visitor. That’s the first thing I notice, and it should not please me as much as it does. She doesn’t stand at the threshold waiting for permission to be impressed. She moves slowly through the kitchen with the careful attention of someone reading a room before letting the room read her. Her eyes go to the pass, then the stations, then the storage doors, then the height of the windows, then the knives laid out on the cloth beside the board..
“This is smaller than it felt from the dining room,” she says.
“That’s the idea.”
She looks back at me. “Control without exposure.”
“Exposure where it serves the food,” I say. “Not where it serves vanity.”
Her mouth curves slightly. “That sounds like a sentence you hate because it is true and usable.”
“I hate most usable sentences.”
“I know,” she says.
I turn toward the pass before the silence can sharpen.
“You can stand there if you want the full view, or here if you want to see the actual work.”
She comes to stand beside the prep counter.
“I want the actual work.”
I hand her a clean towel.
“Then do not touch anything unless I tell you.”
She accepts the towel and lifts one brow.
“That sounded very natural for you.”
“Instruction usually does.”
“Does being obeyed ever get boring?”
“No,” I say.
She laughs softly, and I pick up the knife before I look at her mouth too long. I begin with the simplest thing on the counter: eggs, butter, herbs, heat. Not because it is impressive. Becauseit is revealing. Anyone can hide behind complications if the room is willing to be dazzled. There is nowhere to hide in a pan with too much heat, too little salt, or herbs added at the wrong moment.
Serena watches my hands. Not my face. Not my body. My hands. That should make the morning easier. It does not.
“You’re starting with eggs,” she says.
“I am.”
“Because they’re unforgiving.”
