French Pressed Read Online Free PDF Page A

this struggle.
    “ Ne me touchez pas !” Brigitte repeated again and again. “Do not touch me! Do not touch me!”
    “Stop it, this instant!” Dornier demanded. “It is me, Brigitte! Il est moi! C’est Napoleon Dornier! C’est Nappy! ”
    “Nappy?…”
    Brigitte stopped fighting, and Dornier released her. She blinked and looked around the room in a daze.
    “Brigitte, what is going on?” Dornier demanded. “Are you—”
    Before he could finish his question, Brigitte burst into tears. Covering her eyes, she fled the kitchen through the back door.
    “Brigitte! Brigitte!” Dornier called, and followed the sous-chef into the alley.

     
    W ITH the disturbing scene over, the line cooks returned to their stations, picking up with their duties as if nothing had happened. I turned to face my daughter. Joy’s eyes were full of tears as she yanked off her stained chef’s jacket.
    “Honey, are you okay?”
    I didn’t know what reaction to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the one I got.
    “Omigawd, Mom,” Joy whispered, then hugged me tight. “Thank you.”
    My daughter had a good four inches on me, and she had to stoop slightly to bury her face in my neck. I could feel her shaking, and I held on to her, giving her time to regain her composure. The staff worked on, avoiding us with their eyes.
    “Joy, what happened?” I asked softly.
    My daughter pulled away, swiped at her tears. “Ramon,” she called to the older Latino swing cook, “can you take over my station?”
    The squat, dark-haired man with a slightly pockmarked face nodded once. “No problem.”
    Joy thanked him, then took my arm and led me down a narrow corridor lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. She sat me down in a tiny room next to a stairwell. Inside the room, a bunch of metal folding chairs was scattered around a wooden table. There was a TV, a computer, and a boom box, all of which were off.
    “This is our break room,” she explained, avoiding my gaze.
    My daughter was obviously dealing with feelings of embarrassment. I was feeling a very different emotion. “What’s wrong with those people out there?” I said loudly.
    “Quiet, Mom, they’ll hear you—”
    “No. You could have been killed, hurt badly at the very least, by that crazy woman, and nobody in your kitchen moved a muscle! You’re lucky the maître d’ was there to disarm her!”
    Joy closed the door and sat down. “You don’t understand,” she said, much softer than I was speaking. “Brigitte accused me of messing up some of tonight’s plates.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “She said the sea bass should have gone out on a bed of ramps, but I was putting asparagus down instead. I wasn’t! I know the difference between a freakin’ locally grown leek and a spear of asparagus! She accused me of being incompetent, but I told her that I’d done it right. And since the plates went out already, I couldn’t even prove it. I told her nobody sent them back or complained—so she was just making it up to make me look bad in front of everyone. That’s when she flung the béarnaise sauce on me.”
    Joy lifted the soiled chef’s jacket in her hand. “And then she said I was purposely bumping into her all night. I wasn’t. She was the one bumping me—and on purpose, if you ask me. Anyway, her little fit tonight was nothing new. Chef Rouille’s been throwing a tantrum almost every night now.”
    “I’d call trying to slash your throat with a chef’s knife more than a simple tantrum.”
    Joy sighed. “She probably wouldn’t have hurt me—”
    “ Probably!? Muffin, that woman’s certifiable. I think someone should press charges. Surely Brigitte’s guilty of assault with a deadly—”
    “No!” Joy touched my arm. “My internship’s been going really well. I’m not going to mess it up by calling the cops on Tommy’s restaurant.”
    “Okay…but you have to tell me more. What exactly has been going on with that woman?”
    Joy shook her head. “It’s