Chapter Text
Swipe left.
Swipe left.
Swipe rig- never mind, swipe left.
Carol groans, cigarette dangling between her lips as her back is pressed against the brick wall in the poorly lit alleyway behind La Ruche, the French fusion restaurant her good friend Koumba Diabaté owns, the restaurant she has been head chef at for the past three years. Her fingers are red and cold as she stares unimpressed at her phone. She had never anticipated dating at 39 to be so bleak, especially in a city like Toronto, but then again maybe her standards are too high.
Then again, again, the concept of an actual relationship is foreign to Carol Sturka. Especially since the one woman she had ever really loved, Helen, had left her to pursue her own culinary dreams in Italy because Carol, at 28, had been too immature and scared to commit to something real. Now all Helen is is an Instagram account that she pretends doesn’t exist. A story that she doesn’t watch.
She takes one final drag of her cigarette before she flicks the butt onto a mound of almost melted snow where it hisses and sizzles out. Her chef’s coat scratches at her neck as she shifts off the wall. It’s just after 6:00pm on a Friday night and Carol is bracing herself for the dinner time rush that is just about to begin. Her self allotted eight minute smoke break never seems long enough when she knows the next four hours are going to be an absolute circus.
As her breath puffs shallow, white against the gathering blue in the late April air that still holds a chill, she reminds herself that this is what she wants, has always wanted. To run a kitchen in a highly acclaimed restaurant in one of the most diverse cities in the world.
Now she is pushing 40 years old and living the dream she had sold herself at the ripe age of sixteen when she had already perfected how to cook a steak and a chicken with a sous vide. This is her passion, she tells herself again. Food. Feeding people. And if the words of Julia Child have ever rang truer, it is that people who love to eat are the best people. Carol holds onto that sentiment tightly because she hates most other people most of the time.
-
“Chef!” Takeo, one of her line cooks calls from inside. His voice is muffled through the slightly cracked open door but Carol hears him loud and clear. “We need you! We are running low on duck!”
Already. Fuck.
She takes one more look at her phone, opening Tinder this time because she decides she is no longer in the mood to look for a connection this weekend, to whisper empty sweet nothings to a pretty face only to lose interest after the second or third date. Instead, she wants something a little quicker and more impersonal. Simply, Carol just wants to fuck. And she is good at that, finding women to hook up with, that is, whether it be through an app or in person. Although she is good at fucking too and these same women would tell you that- she is something of a pussy virtuoso. She has done it for years and in many different cities. The women, they always flock to her like a moths to a flame.
‘Lauren, 31’ pops up. She is pretty, there are no glaring red flags on her profile, and she is only two kilometres away. Quickly, Carol swipes right and tucks her phone back into her pocket.
-
The moment she steps into the kitchen, heat from the grills and ovens press unrelenting against her back and the clanging of copper pans become one with her pulse. With ease she moves through the chaos like this is second nature, muscle memory. The dish towel she drapes over her shoulder is smudged with soy sauce and red wine and all her senses are on high alert. Her kitchen is a well-oiled machine; her cooks and servers dance around each other as if they had been choreographed by Alvin Ailey himself.
“Fire table four, mains up in six!” Carol hollers over a chorus of blenders as she edges past the pastry table. She taps Manousos on the shoulder as she passes him. “Hey, hey, watch the soufflé!”
“Shit, sorry.”
“That’s ‘yes, chef’ to you.”
“Si, pendeja,” he deadpans right to her face and she pinches him hard on the arm. This is just a typical exchange when her sous chef happens to be her best friend from culinary school- she probably would have dropped out after one semester had it not been for him.
Carol glances through the pass as she does every night. The dim dining room is already packed, not a single empty table, servers moving briskly between them. The bar is alive as small as it may be and it is all very normal, all very good.
Nearly ninety minutes go by without a hitch, save for Takeo nearly setting a whole rack of lamb on fire. Koumba has arrived with more duck from the Food Terminal and Carol takes precisely sixty seconds to breathe and check her phone only to see a match and message from Lauren, 31.
You look good on that motorcycle. Maybe you can take me on a ride one day? ;)
Carol smirks at it but her body doesn’t match it, doesn’t feel any remote spark to this very beautiful woman that she is about to lay her absolute finest words on.
How about you meet me at O’Malley’s Pub later tonight for a drink and then I can take you on a ride back to my place where you can ride something else?
She hits send before she has time to dwell on how embarrassing she is but she knows the line will work. It has worked before. Then she notices Laxmi, her hostess tonight, enter quickly into the kitchen and approach her with a careful look on her face that makes Carol uneasy.
“Uh, chef, Toronto Life is here,” Laxmi tells her.
Carol stops in her tracks, cocks her head to the side. She knows the magazine well. Koumba had a very small feature it in when he had first opened La Ruche, before he had asked her to be his head chef. “The editor in chief? Davis Taffler?”
“No.” Laxmi shakes her head, like what she is about to say is worse. “The food critic. Says her name is Zosia Nowak.”
Carol feels it, the subtle spike in her adrenaline, the way her senses sharpen that little bit more. She recognizes the name, but has never seen or met the woman before. She has read her articles though and they are good. Insightful and brutally honest and Carol is no stranger to the power that a single article or review can wield. She has been at both the low end of that spectrum, where it can bury your dreams alive; and the high end, where it can launch your career into the stratosphere.
Then the name rings again. Nowak. Nowak Estates. The winery up in the Niagara Wine Region. Oh, so this woman might actually be someone important.
“Where is she?” Carol asks, pulling Laxmi frantically by the arm towards the pass.
“Table seven.” Laxmi nods towards the corner table. “Green shirt.”
Carol scans her eyes through all the heads before she lands on the single woman sitting at table seven. Her seat is angled to the side so she can’t see her whole face, but when she tilts her head back to sip on her drink and her hair falls to the side brushing against her shoulder, Carol catches the sharp line of her jaw and high cheek bones.
“How long has she been here?” she demands.
“Long enough. Jamie just cleared her entrée and she just ordered dessert.”
Christ. Carol loosens her grip on Laxmi’s arm. A food critic sitting in her dining room for god knows how long, from one of the city’s most reputable culture magazines, and someone who might potentially be tied to one of Ontario’s largest wineries, eating her food.
An inexperienced chef might panic and buckle under the pressure but because Carol is a master of her craft, and some would say slightly (or very) neurotic, she remembers every single dish she has plated and sent out tonight.
It’s fine.
Table seven had ordered the seared Hokkaido scallops with tapenade, maitake mushrooms, and fennel to start. Carol had plated that one personally, arranging each scallop with immaculate precision. And then the entrée had been red wine braised short ribs, which Carol had spent hours on the sauce before opening today. She had not plated that one herself, but she remembers the way the dish had sat on the counter, the tender meat gleaming under the heat lamps. It had perhaps sat a moment too long, the vibrancy of the garnishes just barely wilting at the edges.
A normal patron would not have noticed. A food critic would. She had sent it out anyways.
Still, it’s fine.
“Emily!” Carol shouts over the noise of metal utensils scraping against pots and pans. “What did table seven order for dessert!”
“Uh- ” Emily glances up at the tickets. “Crème brûlée, chef!”
Carol whips her head over to where the desserts are being plated. She sees Aldo with the torch in his hand. “No,” she says walking over. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him, but she…doesn’t trust him. “I’ll do it.” She torches the dessert to perfection, waits the right amount of time for it cool before adding the berry coulis.
As she sets the dish back onto the counter of the pass, Laxmi is still standing there, hands clasped in front of her like some timid schoolgirl that still has more to say. Carol glances out again. The woman at table seven, Zosia she knows now, is typing furiously into her phone with a furrow between her brows. Notes, perhaps. Maybe a Google review. Carol can only hope it’s not something that will sink Koumba’s restaurant, which in many ways is also her restaurant. It’s not unfamiliar to have food bloggers and influencers in here, but this is different. The outreach and opportunities are different simply because of the name.
She stares for a moment too long, eyes fixated on what Carol can only describe as a perfect jawline. Zosia must feel it. She finally looks up, instantly locks eyes with Carol from all the way across the dining room, dim lighting and all, like she knew exactly who to look for and exactly where she would be. Then she flashes the smallest smile and the stupidest little wave that for all intents and purposes should not make Carol swallow as hard as she does.
Oh. She looks like that-
“She wants to speak to you, chef,” Laxmi says, pulling Carol’s attention back.
“Yeah, no, I got that.” Carol shoots her a look. “Thanks, Laxmi.”
Laxmi scurries out and Manousos sidles up to her. “No la cagues,” he says, whisking egg whites in a stainless steel bowl for a meringue. The sound of it immediately crawls under Carol’s skin.
“Excuse you? What makes you think I’ll fuck this up?”
“Because I know you. She is hot and you don’t take criticism well.”
Carol glares at him in a way that she has a million times. “Fuck you I don’t.”
“Case in point.”
“Also what makes you think she’s going to criticize me? Have you seen our Google rating? And need I remind you, you are half the brains behind this too, amigo, so if I go down, you go down.”
Manousos simply huffs, perpetually fed up with her. “Just put on your prettiest face and maybe smile for once. Y yo no sé, be polite.” He walks away and Carol rolls her eyes to no one.
She is fucking polite.
-
In one breath, Carol slips out of the heat and into the staff bathroom. The door shuts loud behind her and she has about one more minute to wash her hands and change before she has to plate a new dessert, to become some woman that La Ruche can trust to deliver a single dish with a grin instead of a scowl.
She scrubs at her hands until the skin feels raw, replaces her stained chef’s coat with a fresh beige blazer and practices a smile that does not feel fake. If anyone could see her right now, they might admit her into a psych ward.
The dining room muffles the kitchen noise into something civilized- a low tide of conversation, the clinking of glasses. Candles flicker at each table. Koumba stops her halfway, a gentle hand on her elbow. He may not know Carol as well as Manousos does, but he knows her well enough.
“Shall I join you?” He asks.
“No,” Carol affirms. “I got this.”
-
With a tray in her hand that carries the crème brûlée and a small French coffee, Carol takes a breath and approaches table seven.
“Hi!” She tries in her brightest voice and widest smile that physically pains her. “You must be Ms. Nowak. Thank you for dining with us tonight. I have read your articles and reviews. Pleasure to put a face to a name.”
“Please, Ms. Nowak is my mother,” Zosia says turning her phone screen down, looking up at Carol with these deep brown eyes that twinkle against the candlelight. She smiles. “Zosia is just fine.”
Huh. She has an accent. Cool.
Carol nods, swallows again. “Zosia,” she repeats. She had not expected someone younger than her, or so she assumes anyways. “Carol Sturka, head chef.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.”
“Here’s your crème brûlée and a French coffee. On the house.” Carol doesn’t realize her hand is shaking until she sets the coffee onto the table. “Double espresso, Chantilly cream and Armagnac. I hope you don’t have any allergies.”
There is one quick beat of silence. Carol expects a thank you or a nod of appreciation.
Instead, “just to mediocrity.” Zosia says it with such nonchalance that it borders on boredom but it still completely catches Carol off guard. It feels like she has reached up and across the table and slapped Carol in the face.
Carol bites the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes copper. “I- I beg your pardon?”
Zosia holds her gaze and Carol doesn’t dare to look away because she is no coward and she is not about to let some stranger throw the M word in her face like it’s nothing.
“I just mean you look better than some of the food I’ve seen tonight.”
Carol nearly scoffs, wants to laugh in her face. What is that? Flirtation mixed with criticism? That is a new one for her and in a situation where her career is not in the balance, it might work on her. She would lean into it.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she manages, voice strained.
“Don’t. I have seen some tragedies tonight.”
Now she really wants to laugh, wants to fire back and say something that she knows will make Zosia regret even coming here. She can feel her face contorting and the words are on the tip of her tongue but she can also feel Manousos and Koumba and the entire kitchen and waitstaff watching her so she grudgingly swallows her words back, clenches her jaw and presses her lips into a thin hard line.
She has not broken eye contact yet and Zosia only looks down for one moment to find a spoon and crack the sugar crust of her dessert before looking at Carol again as she takes her first bite. How erotic. Carol hopes she fucking chokes on it.
“So is my crème brûlée mediocre too or do I get a pass here?” The words are out of Carol’s mouth before she can even stop herself.
Zosia hums like she’s enjoying this, like she has definitely done this before. “It’s pretty hard for an experienced chef to botch a crème brûlée, although your coulis is a bit sour.” She takes another bite.
Normally, Carol would not do what she is about to do, but in her defence, no food critic or blogger has ever come in as hot and direct as Zosia has. She pulls out a chair and takes a seat in front of her, arms folded across her chest. Carol swears she can hear Manousos and Koumba gasp.
“Go on, then.” Carol challenges her and it is clear that Zosia does not expect it because she stops mid chew. “Tell me what else is wrong.”
A brittle silence settles between them. The restaurant is just background noise. Around them, some heads have turned. Two strangers that have just met are about to have a hushed feud in an otherwise very public space like a couple on the brink of a break-up. Carol’s spine has never been stiffer.
“What exactly is the identity of La Ruche, Carol?” Zosia pushes the dessert aside and leans both elbows onto the table. It’s small and she’s suddenly much closer to Carol than Carol had been ready for. But she doesn’t budge. “Because I have been staring at your menu all night and wondering why I can get duck confit, udon noodles, and gnocchi all at once.”
Carol balls her hands into tight fists. She is cool, she is fine. “It’s French fusion.”
Zosia shakes her head. “It’s fusion confusion. The flavours are all over the place.”
“It’s diverse.”
“It’s a mess.”
Truthfully, Carol doesn’t know what to say and she doesn’t know what Zosia wants to hear. Her composure cracks but just slightly. “Do you even have any idea how much work goes into- ”
“Mediocrity?”
Carol’s blood runs hot and she bites the inside of her cheek again, hard. She lets a long, deep breath out through her nose before she does something she might regret. Instead, she leans over the table just like Zosia is, until she can feel the flame of the candle hot against her face
“Wow. You are unbelievable.”
“And you are confident and bold,” Zosia says with a returning smile. “Unlike your dishes.”
The surrounding tables have fallen silent like they are watching something that they shouldn’t be. Carol is aware of it, the eyes. A man at the next table leans over and says, “I for one am really enjoying this steak,” but it goes completely unheard because Carol is exercising every single ounce of willpower she has to not verbally assault this woman. Zosia is lucky there is an audience.
Carol is halfway to opening her mouth to say something. What? She is not sure, but Koumba appears quickly out of nowhere and urges her to stand up. He says some overly kind words to Zosia but Carol isn’t really listening. Her heart is beating too loudly in her ears and she’s trying to not let her anger spill over. Even though Koumba is still talking to Zosia, Zosia is looking at Carol like he is not even there, like she knows she has pushed the right button.
-
“Oh, chef,” Zosia calls out in some sickeningly sweet voice before Carol has even made it three steps away. Carol rolls her eyes once before spinning around on her heels only to see that Zosia has vacated her seat and is standing right in front of her and fuck is she tall, another thing Carol had not expected as she takes in the way her silky green blouse is tucked neatly into her grey trousers before craning her neck up. Zosia holds a business card out to her between two fingers. “Call me or email me if there’s anything you’d like to discuss but otherwise I’ll be in touch.”
In touch? In touch for what? The business card floats in the space between them. Carol stares at it and then back at Zosia and she is already so annoyed at how symmetrical her face is. She reluctantly plucks the card out of Zosia’s fingers and Zosia looks pleased at that.
Before Carol can get another word out, Koumba ushers her away.
“What was that?” He says to her as soon as they cross the threshold into the kitchen. Koumba has never been an angry person and never will be. His voice is calm and he shows very little distress and Carol is thankful for that.
Manousos, on the other hand, is halfway across the kitchen with his arms folded, foot tapping, and a smug I told you so look on his face.
“She fucking started it."
*
It is just after midnight when Carol has Lauren on the back of her motorcycle.
True to her word, she had met her at O’Malley’s Pub and bought her a beer while Carol had sipped a mocktail only in the interest of getting them both back to her house alive and in one piece. The small talk at the bar just had been a formality, both of them knowing exactly what they were there for.
Now they are in Carol’s living room making out on the couch. After too much of Lauren’s tongue in her mouth, she pours them each a generous glass of whiskey- it’s sometimes the only way she can do this.
“Give me ten minutes. Fifteen tops.” Carol says as she places a fast kiss onto Lauren’s cheek, hands low on her hips, as she motions for her to make herself comfortable on the couch. She is acutely aware of the food smells that linger on her, like onions and garlic. “I’m going to shower.” She takes the whiskey with her.
As the hot water scalds over Carol’s body, she can’t help but replay all the things that Zosia had said to her. Mediocre in particular sitting like a cinderblock in her stomach. She has had awful reviews written about her, about how she should never step foot into a kitchen again. She has had many a male chef degrade her and reduce her to nothing but a ‘sandwich making wife’, but somehow, that was all something she could stomach because it meant she had been doing something passionately enough that it could evoke an equally passionate response. Misogynistic or not.
But being called just okay? By another woman? That sits in a painful in an unknown place behind her ribs. She throws her whiskey back in one smooth gulp and tries to push the thought away.
-
Not long after, they are both naked and in Carol’s bed.
Lauren has already come twice. Once by Carol’s fingers, then by her mouth. On the third time, Carol straps her while she thinks about Zosia.
‘What exactly is the identity of La Ruche, Carol?’
Fuck you, Zosia, fuck you.
Carol fucks Lauren harder.
-
Carol comes once. Although ‘comes’ is generous. She has about half an orgasm with Lauren’s tongue working overtime drawing circles on her clit. It fades away just before she reaches the full climax, when she thinks about the ‘tragedies’ that Zosia had seen.
But because Carol is a good host, she follows through with the motions, arching her hips off the the mattress and tangling her fingers in the head of hair that is in between her legs as she lets out a loud moan worthy of an Oscar
Shortly after, before Carol can even start to drop hints that she wants her to leave, Lauren is already snoring. Unreal. Carol rolls onto her side and stares at this woman she has hardly known for three hours and decides that tonight she simply cannot share her bed with someone she doesn’t know.
And it’s all because Zosia Nowak is living rent free in her head.
Quietly, Carol slips out of her bed, wraps her robe around herself and makes her way downstairs. She grabs the burgundy coloured business card that she had tossed onto her kitchen counter with little to no intent of ever looking at again and plops down onto her couch, throwing her feet onto the coffee table in the dark living room.
@WineMe_DineMe_TO. Carol scoffs. How original. She types it into the Instagram search bar anyways.
The first thing she notices is that Zosia has a story posted but she doesn’t look at it yet. She scrolls through all the posts and it's just as she had suspected. Endless photos of dishes and drinks from various restaurants, bars, pubs, and diners all over the city. Some scenic photos of travels she has been on, most of them alternating between Canadian and European cities, but nothing all that personal except for one photo of her holding a medium sized light brown dog with huge pointed ears from about a year ago. The dog has one brown eye and one blue eye and it looks just about as grumpy as ever but still Zosia is smiling brightly beside it. God, fuck her and her stupid fucking face. From the caption, Carol gathers that her name is Luna and she was adopted from Puerto Rico.
Cute. So she’s a dog person. Carol rolls her eyes.
She taps once on the photo and a few tags pop up. The shelter, a name she obviously doesn’t recognize, and @zosia.nowak. Carol clicks on it but the page is private. She frowns. She scrolls back up to the top of the page and refocuses her attention to her bio.
Writer for Toronto Life
Foodie @ heart
The Wine Lady
485 King St W
The Wine Lady. A lightbulb goes off in Carol’s head. She passes by it every single day on the way to and from work. She has never been but she knows that it’s a small wine bar that serves only enough snacks and appetizers to legally serve alcohol as per the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario. Zosia has been this close this whole time and Carol has been none the wiser.
Then, her thumb hovers over the illuminated story. She hesitates because she doesn’t want to give Zosia the satisfaction of knowing that she has been thinking about her. But with over 200,000 followers, would she actually notice?
Carol clicks on the damn story.
It is a photo of La Ruche’s restaurant front and nothing more, the name on full, bright display. The caption reads, ‘Finally trying this restaurant so many of you have recommended! Hope it lives up to its hype!’
Carol reads it with disdain and a sharpness in her chest knowing what the aftermath is. She grips her phone tightly realizing there is one more story to go. It’s a ten second video of the inside of the restaurant, panning from the front door, around the dining room, and then settling on the menu that has been placed before her on the table. ‘Very cute and cozy in here. 10/10 just for the vibes.’
Too bad vibes are not enough to make the restaurant world go by, though these days it’s what Instagram and TikTok posts are measured by. She frowns again, pushing her phone to the side, and looks up to the ceiling sighing loudly. All she had wanted tonight was an orgasm by something or someone other than her own hand and she could not even get that. Instead what she got was a fucking self-induced headache because she simply can’t let things go.
With another heavy groan, like there is an invisible gun pointed to her head, she re-opens her phone and types ‘Zosia Nowak Toronto’ into Google. She knows that she can just close her eyes and go to sleep, maybe fuck the hot blonde with huge tits upstairs again if she really wants to, but what is life without a little bit of masochism.
Carol learns several things.
Zosia is 37 years old so by all means they are the same age. She has been writing for Toronto Life for nearly ten years and has a Master’s degree in journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa.
Zosia is indeed very much linked to Nowak Estates, though it is unclear how much involvement she has in the winery itself. The vineyard had been opened in the early nineties when her and her family had migrated from Gdańsk to Quebec initially, then to Ontario. Her father, Janusz Nowak had been the master grower behind it all.
And The Wine Lady, which she had opened up all on her own five years ago with little help, according to one article she found, from an ex-boyfriend who is seemingly no longer in the picture, thrives in one of Toronto’s hottest neighbourhoods.
So, that is fucking great. Not only is Zosia Nowak one of, or the most strikingly beautiful woman Carol has ever laid her eyes on, she is also intelligent and successful as fuck.
Carol never wants to hear the word ‘mediocre’ ever again in her life.
-
It is nearly 4:00am now and Carol still can’t bring herself to go upstairs. She wonders if Lauren has even noticed or if she is still snoring like she lives here. Either way, Carol tucks herself into the couch and finally drifts off to sleep.
-
The sky is still dark and grey when Carol wakes up at 7:30am, the living room dull and lifeless. No alarm is needed, this is just her body’s natural alarm clock. She had not slept well, tossing and turning on the couch as she struggled and failed to turn her brain off. Groggily, she makes her way to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. For a moment, she forgets there is a stranger upstairs in her bed.
It is almost 8:00am now when Lauren finally makes her way downstairs in the same clothes she had been wearing last night. Carol looks at her like she doesn’t know what to say, but she has been living outside her body for twelve hours now.
“Did you…sleep down here?” Lauren says as she stands in the doorway of the kitchen.
“What? No.” It’s a lie, clearly, but Carol can’t be bothered to put on another Oscar worthy performance.
Lauren either seems to not notice or care. She enters the kitchen and rounds the counter and stands behind Carol, wrapping her arms low around her waist and nuzzles her face into Carol’s neck. Carol leans back into it, tries to feel something because Lauren is warm and soft but there is nothing there which is quite unfortunate for Carol because really, she is beautiful.
“Do you wanna get breakfast?” She asks, pressing her lips into Carol’s neck.
Carol entertains it. She could. She has the time, she doesn’t have to be at the restaurant until later this afternoon, and she is hungry. But there is nothing she would rather do less than look this woman in the face and get to know her while sharing a meal. So she lies again.
“I would love to,” Carol says, awkwardly shifting out of this strangers embrace. “But I have to get to work soon.” When she turns and looks at Lauren, she looks almost dejected.
“Last night was great,” Lauren says. “I’ve never been strapped like that before.”
Carol smiles at her emptily, the corners of her mouth never reaching her eyes. “Yeah, totally. It was super fun.”
“Are you sure you have to go to work? It’s Saturday…”
This is just the Carol Sturka effect. Seducing women like it’s nothing, fucking them within inches of their life, and leaving them begging for more, seeking an emotional connection. Ever since Helen, she has only given that to one other woman who ended up cheating on her with a man.
“The kitchen doesn’t sleep,” is all Carol says and Lauren, like the trooper she is, takes the hint.
Carol hands her her phone with the Uber app open on it. “Here, it’s on me.”
-
The next two hours are spent mindlessly cleaning and organizing. Carol washes her bedsheets and deep cleans the strap-on in the bathroom sink. She vacuums, she mops, anything to keep her mind occupied so that she doesn’t spiral into a pit of mediocrity.
At some point in time, Carol receives a text from Manousos. It’s a screenshot of a two star Google review from none other than Zosia Nowak, name and profile picture on full display. Posted four hours ago. ‘Puta’ is all that is attached.
She stares at it wide-eyed and unmoving while her heart sinks into her stomach. It’s a prank. It must be. She opens Google herself to make sure it’s real and sure enough, it is.
Two fucking stars and a comment that makes her want to vomit.
Had the opportunity to dine at La Ruche last night. The ambiance was great. Warm lighting, deep colours, simple but rustic decor that made me feel like I was in my own dining room. The waitstaff had been incredibly friendly and eager, but I wish I could sing more praise about the food. While it was good enough, I was never truly wowed. Each dish felt like it was having an identity crisis, unsure it if was French, or Asian, or Italian. I’m sure I also saw something Indian on the menu. Variety is the spice of life and fusion dishes have great potential to stand out but La Ruche felt like it really missed the mark.
The one saving grace is perhaps the peculiar charm that head chef Carol Sturka exudes. Speaking to her briefly, I felt her personality and passion. Eating her food, I did not. Owner Koumba Diabaté does well to manage his establishment, but something is sorely lacking. While they shot for the moon, they did not land among the stars.
Carol fumes. This fucking bitch. Every bit of self control she thinks she has is about to go straight out the window. She paces around her house, the house that being head chef at La Ruche and various other restaurants has helped her to afford, quaint as it may be. Her heels dig into the hardwood and her blood is about to boil out of her eyes when Manousos calls her. She declines it. A text follows shortly after.
Whatever you are thinking of doing…don’t. It’s just one review. Think about Koumba.
It’s just one review. Carol laughs maniacally into the air. A review from someone who might as well be the Beyoncé of Toronto’s restaurant industry. She is sweaty all of a sudden, heart beating in parts of her body that she didn’t know was possible. Why is her elbow having a pulse?
She snatches the business card from the coffee table and stares at the phone number on it, hand trembling. With a deep breath, she unlocks the screen, thumb hovering over the keypad. She types in half the phone number and then stops. What is she doing? Is she really going to call this woman and cuss her out for leaving her a two star review and ridiculing her in her own packed dining room?
No.
She is going to do worse.
Because Carol is Carol, and Carol is not exactly known for being demure and soft spoken, she decides she is going to go to Zosia instead because fuck a phone call. She wants to look Polish wishes-she-were Nigella Lawson in the eyes when she tells her to shove her two stars up her fucking ass.
*
Carol rumbles down Bathurst Street on her black and blue motorcycle. Her leather jacket is zipped all the way up to her chin, gloved hands gripping the handlebars tighter than she normally would. Usually she feels free when she’s riding her bike. Today she feels like revving it through a wall.
She arrives at The Wine Lady in ten minutes flat and finds the perfect parking spot right out front. Three years of passing this place almost every day and Carol can’t believe she has never once been inside. She pulls her helmet and gloves off and runs her hand through her hair. As she does, a woman passes by and smiles timidly. Carol, despite feeling the rage of a thousand suns, offers her a wink. The woman blushes.
Maybe she should have rehearsed whatever she had come here to say but she has been operating on pure adrenaline and caffeine since Manousos’ text message and she might not be able to feel her feet right now.
The sign on the door says they open at 3:00pm. Carol looks at her watch. 2:15pm. She tries her luck anyways, someone has to be inside. The door opens when she pulls on it so she steps in. It’s small. One long oak bar taking up the right side of the room and just an intimate amount of tables on the other side. Cozy. Carol can hear the radio playing from somewhere in the back.
“Sorry, we’re not open yet!” A voice calls from the same direction as the music. Zosia’s voice.
Carol braces herself. She has never something done this before and has one flicker of regret before it vanishes.
Footsteps approach and Zosia appears from around the corner in ripped jeans, Sambas, and a t-shirt with a wolf on it. There is an expensive looking chain around her neck and this is not the same Zosia that had showed up to La Ruche last night. This version is, and Carol hates herself for it, way hotter.
Zosia freezes, genuinely looks surprised to see Carol standing there. “Oh. Carol. You’re…here.”
Carol holds back a scoff. She quickly catches a glimpse of a thigh tattoo that flashes through the rips in Zosia’s jeans. Okay. When Zosia does not shoo her out, she takes another step inside. “You didn’t make it very hard to find you.” Her voice is short and curt and whatever words come out of her mouth next will be just as much a surprise to herself as to Zosia.
“I think I can guess why you’re here.”
“You think?” She invites herself further inside, setting her helmet onto the bar with a clunk.
Zosia glances at it and then back to Carol, eyes dragging down her body almost as if she were drinking in the sight of her in all black and leather, blonde hair slightly ruffled from the ride. Like she can’t believe it but that it makes sense that Carol would ride a motorcycle and not drive a Honda Civic. Carol lets her look, almost encourages it. This is fucking insane. Then Zosia looks out the window at the motorcycle parked out front. “You’re too close to the fire hydrant. You’re going to get a ticket.”
Carol lets the scoff out now. This is what Zosia is concerned with. She looks back once to check on her bike and then settles her gaze onto Zosia. “No I won’t. I won’t be long.”
“Suit yourself. What can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me?” Carol’s eyes widen, voice already one notch higher. “What the fuck gives? Two stars, really? What is that? One star per dish you tried?” A pause. “Nothing for the free dessert?”
Zosia, much to Carol’s dismay, does not react. Instead, she cocks her head slightly and if Carol had not already been staring at her, would have missed the infuriating little smirk that pulls at her lip. She steps forward, closing some distance and casually props herself onto the barstool directly in front of Carol.
It’s too close for comfort. Carol could and should step back, but she doesn’t. She will not give Zosia any satisfaction. From this close, she notices two things at once.
One: her irises are different colours. One darker than the other. Just like the dog she had seen on Instagram.
Two: her perfume. She recognizes the scent immediately, like a Mack truck plowing into her at full speed. She smells like the six months she had spent in Paris in her early twenties working an apprenticeship at a local restaurant while she had spent most evenings hooking up with rich and beautiful French women. It’s Le Labo Vanille 44.
This wealthy ass motherfucker.
“I’m not trying to be your enemy here Carol,” Zosia says as she folds her hands in her lap. Her voice is firm and steady, unlike the way Carol feels. The contrast of it only adds insult to injury. “But I’m also not going to lie and coddle you. That is in neither of our interests. You would be surprised at how many chefs think they are special until I tell them they’re not.”
“Wooooow.” Carol drags it out long and slow for dramatic effect, shoving her hands into her pockets. “You must be up to your neck in thank you cards. Who do you actually think you are? Jesus? Gordon Ramsey?”
Zosia laughs at that. A delicate, out of place giggle given the circumstance, bubbling out of her and Carol almost softens. “I’m not religious,” she says, as if they were having some friendly get-to-know-you conversation. “Though I do love a thank you card.”
Carol rolls her eyes right in Zosia’s face and Zosia almost seems amused by that. It’s just a goddamn figure of speech. Now Carol has words stuck in her throat. She had come here looking for a fight but Zosia is not giving her one. A door opens somewhere in the back followed by a scuffle of footsteps and then a very young man peaks his head around the corner.
“Everything okay, Zosh?”
Zosia looks at him and smiles. “All good, Evan. Can you start prepping the garnishes and ice bins?”
“You got it boss.” He disappears.
“Your review wasn’t fair, Zosia,” Carol says after a moment, when Evan’s footsteps disappear. She has adjusted her tone now, only slightly, realizing that she is arguing with a brick wall. “You sampled a fraction of my menu.”
Zosia stands up now and because she is already so close and so tall, Carol has no choice but to take a step back.
“So what? You want me to change my review because…? You came here and you’re upset?” There is no malice in her voice, just questioning. “Is that what you want? Because if you want more stars then you need to earn them.” She steps closer again, like this is the beginning of a bad porno where Carol is begging her professor for a passing grade and the only way she’ll get it is with her ass bent over a barstool.
Carol clenches her jaw so hard it could crack a tooth. Earn them. Like she is a fucking dog. “Tell me something, Wine Lady,” she says as she squares her shoulders. She feels ridiculous as she does it because Zosia is towering over her but it is too late so she has to double down. “What is it about my peculiar charm? Or is that just something you say to everyone to soften the blow?”
“You know what La Ruche lacks, Carol?” Zosia says coolly, still very much unaffected by Carol’s comical display of anger. “A theme. Coherence. You have pretty dishes, soft lighting and a head chef with a nice face. That’s your brand but your food is trying to be everything and committing to nothing.”
Zosia is flirting with her, she has to be, but Carol can’t prove it. She barrels her gaze into Zosia searching for something but she is not sure what.
“You are so pretentious,” Carol says, pointing a finger at her and glancing at the stupid wolf on her t-shirt.
“And you are talented. So if you want those extra three stars- ” Zosia reiterates, pressing one finger back into the space between Carol’s shoulder and chest, into the well worn leather, causing her to wobble slightly off balance and she is mildly offended by that, looks down at the finger and back up. “Impress me, then.” Another brief silence. “And Carol?”
“What.”
Zosia glances behind her. “You are getting a ticket.”
-
Carol pleads with the parking enforcement officer outside but to no avail. She is hyper aware that Zosia is watching from inside and she just about wants to bury her head into the ground. She can’t even bring herself to turn around but it doesn’t matter because she hears the door open and Zosia steps out onto the sidewalk with her helmet.
“I think you’re going to need this.”
Carol takes it, muttering a begrudging thanks. The officer leaves, handing her the ticket and she shoves it into her pocket like a used tissue before sliding onto her bike. Zosia follows, hovering next to her with her arms folded tightly against the cold.
“I meant what I said,” Zosia says with a shiver as Carol slips her helmet on. “Those three stars could be yours if you want them badly enough.”
Carol scoffs, but it is muted through the helmet. She is not a beggar and will never be a beggar and Zosia must be insane if she thinks Carol is going to grovel for a fucking Google review of all things.
“Keep your stars,” Carol says, pulling her gloves on. She turns her key in the ignition and the bike rumbles loudly to life and Zosia takes a step back. “Later, Zosia,” she shouts as she flips her visor down and kicks up the kickstand.
“Call me, Carol,” Zosia shouts back and Carol misses the way she smirks as she checks her blindspot.
Carol simply shakes her head and pulls out into the street. She flashes Zosia a peace sign over her shoulder and in her side mirror, Zosia gives her that same stupid wave from last night. Why the fuck did she even come here.
Maybe she will send Zosia the thank you card she so desires with the parking ticket inside and her email for an e-transfer.
“Fucking Anthony Bourdain wannabe,” she grumbles to herself as she flies down King Street.