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Chapter One
One thing Rachelle knew about the culinary world was that there was no such thing as luck. Not in baking an extraordinary apple crumble, the strenuous preparation of a perfect roasted chicken, or any goat cheese tart. No, the secret was hours of practice and skill. It was planning ahead. And, perhaps most of all, it was teamwork. Any successful culinary worker, from pastry chefs to sous chefs to line workers to heads of entire restaurants, would tell you that.
“Don’t let any chef tell you they got to the top with luck,” her old teacher had spouted during all four years of culinary school in Boston. With this strategy in mind, she’d fallen easily into her career at the restaurant in Nantucket’s Historic District last year, working herself practically to the bone.
It was hard to believe nearly a year had passed since she’d left Boston. It was mid-March, St. Patrick’s Day, and Rachelle breezed through downtown Nantucket en route to work, already strategizing her night ahead at the restaurant. Spring sunshine spilled between clouds, and wind slashed through her hair, frizzing it despite her painstaking half hour of styling. Rachelle shrugged it off. As the sous chef of the prestigious restaurant, she worked exclusively in the kitchen, ready for orders from the head chef, Matthew. Nobody in the restaurant would see what her hair looked like anyway. “They have to feel your love for the food as they eat it,” Chef Matthew said repeatedly. “But it’s better for them if they don’t know you exist. If they can’t picture you. If they imagine this plate of food was practically dropped from the heavens rather than lovingly crafted behind the scenes.”
Rachelle was fine with that. She’d been through too much, suffered through too many slice-and-dice exercises, and learned too much about seasoning, fermenting, and foie gras to care much about what diners thought of her personality or looks. It all came down to the food: preparation, presentation, and taste. “Taste above all,” Chef Matthew liked to say.
As Rachelle crossed the road in front of the restaurant, her cell blew up with texts from the Coleman family. As descendants of Irish immigrants who’d arrived in the United States nearly two hundred years ago (so long ago that it was hard to imagine), the Colemans took St. Patrick’s Day very seriously.
“Wishing you so much luck, my darling Coleman grandkids!” Grandma Estelle texted all of them.
Rachelle beamed and pocketed her phone. A split-second later, her stomach lurched. What had she been thinking when she left the apartment? She wasn’t wearing green!
The minute Rachelle stepped into the back of the kitchen to hang up her jacket and don her chef whites, Eddie, one of the waiters, noticed her lack of green and jumped. His pinch made her spine tingle.
“Ouch!” she cried, laughing. “Eddie! Stop it!”
Eddie had chestnut brown hair, dancing dark eyes, and a smile that sometimes kept Rachelle awake at night. Like Darcy, she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend (they’d both decided, almost on a whim, that they weren’t good enough for their boyfriends), and she’d set her sights on Eddie—a feat that seemed impossible, given how professionally she behaved at work. Besides, Eddie always had a girl on the go. He took a different lady to Nantucket beach bonfires weekend after weekend and had a reputation for breaking hearts.
But Rachelle had a reputation for breaking hearts, too. And she was willing to roll the dice. That was a part of the fun of being twenty-four, wasn’t it?
“You’re Irish, aren’t you?” Eddie asked, still wearing that dangerous smile.
“You want to hear my accent?”
Eddie laughed, dropping his head back. Rachelle imagined they were somewhere far from the chaos of the restaurant, entwined on a beach as a fire crackled before them. She imagined they were about to kiss.
But then, Chef Matthew’s voice boomed from his office. “Rachelle? Are you here?”
Rachelle hurried to find Matthew behind his desk. In front of him were heaps of notecards upon which he’d written food pairings and ideas for future recipes. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows, and he did not smile when Rachelle sat down.
“We have a packed night ahead,” he said stiffly. “Apparently, everyone wants to celebrate tonight. Spring fever. All that.”
Rachelle bubbled with expectation. Although it was stressful, she liked nothing more than a packed house. She enjoyed the thrill of the wild kitchen, the tickets as they printed and printed, demanding more of her than ever before, and the howl of the servers as they buzzed in and out, looking for their food. It was a marathon and a sprint, all rolled into one. For whatever reason, Rachelle was drawn to the stress of it.
Many of her colleagues at culinary school hadn’t been able to take it. They’d dropped out or opted for office jobs. But there was nothing else in the world Rachelle was meant to do.
Matthew outlined the day ahead, giving Rachelle a strategy of attack that she would then translate to the line cooks beneath her. Rachelle jotted notes on her notepad, yet was sure she wouldn’t need them. She buzzed with efficiency.
“Rachelle?” Matthew asked as she got up to join the others in the kitchen. She could already smell the steam and the oil, and her fingers itched to dive in.
Rachelle paused at the doorway. There was an air of sorrow in his voice. “What’s up, Chef?”
Matthew rubbed the back of his neck as his eyes widened. “I don’t know if I ever fully thanked you for all your hard work around here.”
Rachelle’s mouth went dry with surprise. “Oh. I mean…”
“I wasn’t entirely kind to you when you arrived,” Matthew said, still looking her in the eye. “I just want you to know you’re a spectacular chef. You have wonderful things ahead of you.” He bowed his head with finality.
“Thank you, Chef,” Rachelle breathed before turning on her heel and heading back into the kitchen. Matthew’s strange tone lingered in her head long after, making her panic. She was missing something. Was she getting fired? Was the restaurant failing? Did it have to close?
From the kitchen and dining room doorway, it certainly didn’t look like a restaurant that needed to close. Starting at five thirty, it was jam-packed. The island’s fantastic Irish-descended population came out in droves, wearing fantastic green outfits, ordering too much wine, and laughing together. Their conversation bubbled and popped on the other side of the kitchen door.
Rachelle threw herself into the night. She sautéed scallions and drizzled glazes, watched the line cooks diligently, cooked meat to perfection, and ordered people around. She felt like a heightened version of herself who could do anything. Who’d never once doubted herself.
Twice throughout the night, Eddie popped into the kitchen to adjust his order. “I messed up that ticket,” he cried once, sweat bubbling on his neck. “The guests at table three are gluten intolerant!”
