Chapter 156
1046 Words
One month later
“Hey, Jenny?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you really learn how to cook at your Dad’s Polish restaurant?”
She raised her head off Chris’ bare chest, surprised. “How did you know that?”
His amazing eyes gleamed down at her in the semi-darkness of her bedroom. “I read some magazine articles about you.”
“Oh, right.” She smiled. “Yeah, I did talk about that in a few interviews.”
Chris stroked her long hair. “So tell me about it… how you went from working in a family place to becoming the owner of one of the hottest restaurants in the country.”
She laughed. “Is it? One of the hottest?”
“According to the foodies? Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But it is a long way from Polish fare, huh?”
“So… how’d it all happen?”
“Well, my Dad’s not Polish, as I’m sure you know. My Mom is. They met when he was at a culinary school in Chicago. Dad was doing well, but he was really struggling with finding his own unique style of cooking.” She looked at Chris. “Cooking is like anything else artistic or creative: you have to find your own voice. Dad just couldn’t find it with French cuisine, or Italian, or Greek, or any fusion of any of them. He just wasn’t passionate about the foods or flavors, even though he cooked them beautifully.”
“And your Mom gave him that passion?”
“She did, but indirectly. They met, and he started going over to her family’s place for meals. My grandmother is one hell of a cook, but she only ever makes traditional Polish food. You know, borscht and perogies and cabbage rolls. Real Polish cheesecake – called sernik – and apple pie. She even makes her own paczki.”
“Those doughnuts?”
“Yeah.” Jenny sighed. “Physically, I take after the Polish side of my family, you know. The peasant’s body with big hips and thighs, a wide butt. What my Mom’s always called ‘a breeder’s body’. But I have to say, all those years of eating Polish food and desserts didn’t help matters. And working around food all day, every day, just makes me fatter.”
Chris went very still. “Your body is beautiful, Jenny. I love it.”
“You do?”
He ran his hands over her back. “It’s curvy and luscious. I adore it. I love having my hands all over it. I can’t stop touching you, as you may have noticed.” He kissed her. “I don’t want you ever to put your body down again. You hear me?”
She looked away from the intensity of his gray gaze.
“Jenny?”
“Yes, OK. I won’t.”
“OK, baby.” He held her tighter. “So… your Dad got into Polish food?”
“Yeah. He spent hours and hours with my grandmother, learning all the recipes, and he was so happy and inspired. He loved everything about the cuisine, and when he and Mom got married, her parents gave them money to start a restaurant.”
“Wow.”
“I know. Dad and Mom started from nothing, and they worked twenty-hour-days for a while there, Dad in the kitchen, and Mom out front waitressing. They got bigger, they expanded, they hired staff. Then when I was born, Mom went straight back to work, and brought me to the restaurant with her.”
He laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She breastfed me in the bathrooms, and then went back to serving customers. The staff traded me off, and I was often asleep in my bouncy chair next to the cash register. I was literally raised among the sounds and smells of a restaurant.”
“I guess it was inevitable that you’d love cooking.”
“Not just cooking, but also cooking for others. There’s something so…giving about feeding other people. You know? Giving them something that they need. It’s amazing, really, if you stop and think about it.”
Chris nodded.
“So when I was a kid, I was always at the restaurant after school, and I learned how to run the business side of things. I got to help Dad and the other chefs in the kitchen, and I just went from there.” She traced the muscles in Chris’ chest. “Over time, I developed my own style of cooking, and it’s pretty far removed from traditional Polish, mostly. The one aspect I’ve really kept of it is in the desserts that I make.”
“They’re Polish?”
“No, not strictly. But the flavors – apple, plum, rose, poppyseed – are traditionally Polish.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “I remember having a piece of layered cake with rose jam in it at your restaurant… it was really unusual.”
“Yeah, I love using rose in my baking. It’s probably my favorite flavor.”
Chris was quiet for a minute. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“How did – I mean, what happened to you six years ago… how did you manage to keep working after that? And why did it not hit the press?” He touched her cheek. “You were known then, at least locally, but I never read one word about what happened. How’s that possible?”
Jenny closed her eyes.
“Jenny? You OK?”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes again. “Well… I kept working because I literally couldn’t do anything else. I was scared to stay home, I was scared to go to sleep. God, I was scared to even get into a bed, and I slept in a closet with a flashlight for almost two years after the attacks.”
Chris froze. “You what?”
“Yeah. It felt – safe. I could close the door, and nobody could sneak up on me. Getting back into a bed, in a bedroom? I had to relearn that. Lori helped.”
“Jesus Christ, baby,” he said softly.
- Writer
