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“Makes sense. And how do you do them by hand?”
Kate almost laughed until she saw that Emile had a serious, studious look on his face.
“You’re not joking?” she asked.
“I’m really not.”
He seemed a little embarrassed. Kate guessed she would be, too, but she didn’t want him to feel that way. Everyone had to start somewhere. Still, that thought in the back of her mind niggled at her. Where had he come from that he didn’t know how to wash a dish? Maybe he actually was a model. There probably wasn’t much call for dish washing if you were backstage at fashion shows or on photoshoots.
Had she made a massive mistake in hiring him, given that he clearly had no experience in a kitchen, let alone in a cafe? She was rushed off her feet as it was, she didn’t really have time to be training someone new from scratch as well as running the show. But, as she looked up at Emile’s sheepish expression, she couldn’t help but remember her own start at this very cafe. Kate hadn’t beenquiteas useless as he appeared to be — she’d known how to wash a dish, at least — but she’d not been far off, and if she’d never been shown the ropes then she wouldn’t be where she was right now.
So, rather than making a joke of it, like she would with anyone else, she just patiently explained the process as best she could, showing him how hot to get the water, where to find the dish soap and how to position the plates on the dish rack. He nodded along enthusiastically as she said everything, and seemed so proud of himself when he’d washed and dried his first dish that she couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re a natural,” she laughed, taking the plate from him and putting it back in the stack of clean dishes.
“So it seems. What else do I need to know?”
“How’s your cooking?” Kate asked. She wasn’t surprised when he looked a bit uncomfortable.
“It’s not my greatest skill, I’ll be honest.”
“What is?” she asked reflexively. He couldn’t clean and he couldn’t cook, but there must be something that he could do.
He didn’t answer straight away, so she looked up to see him giving her a heated stare. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the workplace.”
Kate didn’t know what to say to that, but his words and the way he looked at her made her blush all the way to the roots of her hair and sent her imagination into overdrive. There was no mistaking his meaning and she suddenly regretted having asked. That was going to haunt her dreams for a long time…
She cleared her throat, trying to dislodge the thought. Professional. She was a professional business owner and not a teenage girl with her first crush.
“Okay, well, let’s start with an omelet. It’s a big seller at breakfast and pretty easy to get started with.”
Under her instruction, the two of them gathered the ingredients for the most popular breakfast omelet at the cafe — tomato and feta. They set up a little station next to each other, and Kate showed him how to chop the tomatoes and herbs, and prep the avocado to serve on top. Emile was a little clumsy at first, but he was a fast and enthusiastic learner, and Kate found herself genuinely enjoying teaching him.
“And then the most important part.” Kate handed him the box of eggs.
“Do you think I’m ready for such a task?” Emile joked, taking one out and inspecting it as if he’d never seen one before.
“It’s easy, promise. You just crack it on the side of the bowl and then we whisk it up ready to cook.” Kate grabbed an egg and demonstrated, hitting the egg just so and letting the contents fall into the bowl.
Emile didn’t hesitate, trying the same motion as Kate. Unfortunately, his inexperience and his obvious greater strength worked against him and rather than the shell simply cracking, it smashed all over the side, pieces of shell exploding over everything they’d just prepped for the omelet.
“I’m sorry…” Emile said, holding out his egg-covered hand and surveying the damage. “I didn’t expect that to happen.” He looked mortified.
“Don’t worry about it, it won’t take a minute to clean up.” Kate had had her own share of spillages over the years; this was nothing.
“You must be regretting your decision…” For a man who sometimes seemed so confident, she was surprised that he sounded so meek, and it made her pause in her cleanup efforts.
“This is not the worst mistake you’re going to make,” she said. She’d meant the words to be comforting, but Emile winced.
She carried on, grabbing a cloth so she could wipe down the sides where trails of raw egg were now running over the surface. “When I first worked here, I managed to spill an entire tray of breakfasts onto the mayor, just before she was due to make a television appearance. A national one. Seriously, until you ruin the day of a major political figure, you’re golden. Messes can be cleaned up. We can always try again. And each time you mess up, you learn how to do it better next time, right?”
When she looked up, Emile was staring at her, wide-eyed. She couldn’t read his expression, but she felt as if she’d just dropped a bombshell on him.
“I’ve never thought of it like that before,” he said, his eyes catching hers.
Kate didn’t know what to say, the moment stretching between them as she got lost in his gaze, before he seemed to catch himself, giving his head a little shake and looking back down at the mess Kate was clearing up.
“Let me help,” he said.
