Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson

her first sip.
    “What a fucking mess.” Bernard exhaled. “Here I am, firing a damn good chef, the kind of chef Marco never was and never will be, and all because that dirtbag thinks the nineteen-year-old daughter of the woman who’s reviewing his restaurant is fair game. Of course he was so fucked-up at the time he probably didn’t even realize she was barely out of high school.” Bernard finished his Bloody and poured himself a glass of champagne. “Scratch that. I’m sure he knew exactly how old she was. Now the bastard can’t own up to it, and someone has to take the fall. ‘Heads will roll,’ he told me this morning. ‘Ax the chef-ette.’ Who does he think he is, Henry the Eighth?”
    “Or Gargamel,” Georgia said. “He really called me the chef-ette?”
    Bernard was way too worked up for questions. “His restaurant is a sinking ship. It’s the fucking
Titanic,
for Christ’s sake.” He poured the champagne down his throat and immediately refilled his glass.
    “Wow, Bernard. You’d think you’d been called chef-ette.”
    Ignoring her attempt at levity, he steamrolled on. “He’s going to have to deal with the consequences at some point. Even though no one can see it, it’s his name on the goddamn door. Doesn’t he realize?”
    The waiter walked over and Bernard paused long enough sohe and Georgia could place their identical orders: eggs Norwegian and croissants. He started up again the moment the waiter turned his back.
    Georgia refilled his glass for the third time and turned the bottle neck-side down in the ice bucket. They hadn’t started breakfast and had already killed a bottle of champagne. It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock.
    “So do you have any plans, Georgia?” Having finished his diatribe, Bernard reverted back to his all-business self.
    “Plans? No, I have no plans. I just realized I was getting fired yesterday. The day before that I thought I was heading for a major raise and some Food Network show Marco kept talking about. No, I have no plans.”
    The truth was, she felt lost without a plan. She always had a plan. She stabbed her fork into an egg, watching the yolk spill onto the plate. “And lest you think my life isn’t a total and complete wreck, my fiancé walked out on me last week and may never return. So not only am I unemployed, but I’m probably about to be unengaged too. Things are not looking up.”
    “Oh, Jesus, Georgia. I’m sorry.” He looked around for the waiter, who again miraculously appeared. “Let’s get some oysters.” Like most restaurant people, Bernard thought the right dish could cure just about anything.
    “Six Malpeques, six…?” He looked at Georgia.
    “Kumamotos,” she said.
    After their first shipboard rendezvous, she and Glenn had shared a dozen Kumamotos and a couple pints of Stella Artois at Scales & Shells, her favorite restaurant in Newport. Then they went back to his place, kicked his roommate out of the tiny bungalow, and had sex on the screened-in porch as the sunsank into the ocean. Glenn made some joke about oysters and aphrodisiacs that at the time was wildly funny and which they repeated often throughout the summer. She couldn’t remember it for the life of her.
    “You know, if you’re desperate, I could hook you up with a friend of mine uptown,” Bernard said.
    “Glenn’s been gone a week, Bernard. I’m far from desperate, but thanks anyway.”
    “I’m not talking about that kind of desperate, Georgia. I meant if you’re desperate for a job. My friend owns Lagoon on the Upper West. Though not exactly Per Se, it’s not the worst place either. He’s looking for sauté.”
    “Really, Bernard? Do you seriously think I’m going to have to accept sauté at a third-rate restaurant on the Upper West? Is that what it’s come to?” Though the highest station on the line, right below sous, sauté was a far, far cry from head chef at a white-hot restaurant. She hadn’t considered accepting anything less than sous, and