attention. “As you know, our country is in the midst of a sequester.” I caught a gleam in the eyes of a couple of the Saardiscans, giving me the impression that they wanted to ask more on that topic. We could save that for later. Right now I needed to establish order.
I went on. “Because the president is entertaining fewer guests these days, we don’t have an official dinner scheduled until the one for your country’s presidential candidate, Kerry Freiberg. From what I understand, she’ll be stopping by briefly to visit with President Hyden before she embarks on a tour of several North American cities. We’ll have more than a week and a half to plan for the dinner, and I think that’s plenty of time. What Bucky and I plan to do is to take you through the steps before big events, show you what we do in advance, and explain what methods we rely on to stay organized. We’re also eager for this opportunity to learn from pros like yourselves.”
“You Americans,” Tibor said, echoing his remark from earlier, “I do not understand you.”
“What don’t you understand?” I strained for politeness, but this guy’s attitude was getting old.
Tibor took a step toward me. His feet were planted shoulder width apart, his arms crossed in front of his chest, and his head tilted to one side in a signal I read as condescending. He offered what might have been a smile, but it was too forced, too harsh. His eyes remained tight. “We have come to visit, to learn about your country’s cooking methods, correct?”
I nodded.
“In our country, we feed our leaders using a traditional menu. Very little deviation. We order our ingredients in advance, and we prepare the food for consumption. We do not have a ‘main kitchen,’ a ‘chocolate kitchen,’ a ‘pastry kitchen,’ or a ‘navy kitchen.’” He shook his head as though the very thought of so many options disgusted him. “You may have six more kitchens you haven’t even revealed to us yet. I do not care. What I care about is pleasing our country’s leaders. We have been here many hours and have not prepared a single item yet.”
As Tibor was delivering his speech, Kilian grew visibly agitated. He pushed past his colleague, his attention defaulting, once again, to Bucky.
“My friend speaks out of turn,” Kilian said. “He is correct in that our country’s chefs do not have access to the tools and resources we’re seeing here, but he forgets that we are here to learn.” With that, he shot a pointed look at Tibor.
“How do we learn anything when all they do is talk at us?”
“Tibor.” Kilian’s voice strove for calm. “Have you no patience? We have not been here a full day yet.”
Tibor pointed at the kitchen clock as he faced Kilian. “Our day is almost over.” Then, with a sidelong glance at me and Bucky, he lapsed into Saardiscan, his voice rising.
Happy Hector and Neutral Nate watched their colleagues in what looked like horrified disbelief, saying nothing.
Kilian grasped Tibor’s forearms, hard. “Enough,” he said in English. Through clenched teeth, he added, “We are guests here. Stop behaving like a spoiled young child.”
Bucky nudged me. I didn’t look up at him.
“I would appreciate it very much,” I said, injecting authority into my voice, “if while we are working together in the White House, we all speak English.”
Tibor shot me a scathing look. “We are here one day and already you want us to forsake our home language?” If we were anywhere else, I believed he would have spat on the floor.
“I’m
asking
you to keep to English as much as possible,” I said, stressing the word
ask
, “because as of today, we’re a team. And in order to work together, we need to keep our communication open.”
“Bah.” He stared at the floor and scowled.
Kilian grabbed Tibor’s arm again and squeezed. “We will try our best to speak in English.” In a carefully modulated tone, he switched subjects. “One of the many