Made Marian, Volume Two by Lucy Lennox

Prologue - Sam

“Goddamned motherfucking jackass,” I screamed at the laptop screen. “That pretentious poser couldn’t have picked a different night for his review? Jesus Christ.”

My roommate, Jason, tutted some unintelligible words of reassurance I knew were bullshit. It wouldn’t be fine. The owner of the restaurant was looking for an excuse to fire me and replace me with a less expensive head chef. He and I had never seen eye to eye on what kind of entrees to feature anyway, and I’d been less successful at holding my tongue with him lately.

I knew this review would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Listen to this. ‘Pretentious, unaffordable farce’ and ‘gelatinous mousse-type substance.’ Is he joking? Does he have any idea how much gourmet ingredients cost and what soufflé is even supposed to taste like? I’ve never made anything gelatinous in my life. He probably wouldn’t know a delicate mousse if one landed airily on his upturned nose. And if he wanted affordable, he should have gone to McDonald’s, for god’s sake.”

I kept reading. The only consolation was the fact the night he’d apparently come in had been that insane day where anything that could go wrong did go wrong. Franklin was going to have to listen to reason when I explained the bad timing.

No such luck. It turned out Franklin didn’t give a shit that the day the reviewer came in was the same day all hell broke loose with our fresh food supplier and two cooks called out at the same time. What should have been choice poultry hand-selected for coq au vin was actually a crate of live chicks. The thirteen pounds of Kobe beef filet had been replaced by thirteen cases of giant eggplants for some reason, and we also received Jerusalem artichoke roots instead of globe artichokes. Not at all the same thing.

But I had adapted like a fucking boss and put out an amazing spread, even patting myself on the back for being so creative. Was it up to my usual standard? No, but it still tasted good.

The reviewer was entitled to call a spade a spade, I guessed. And, well, I couldn’t disagree with him on it looking like testes (testii?).

By the end of the day I was out of a job, and by the end of the week the highest-paying job I could get was tending bar at a gay club called Harold and Richard’s.

And it was all Monte fucking Mancini’s fault.