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their
attention, but he reassured them, ‘I’ll be right back.’
    No, he wouldn’t. Not if he was as dumbstruck by that class’s
awfulness as she was.
    They practically bolted down the hall for the street door,
together.
    ‘You were going to leave me there!’ he accused as they fell out
into the street.
    She laughed as she skipped down the steps to the footpath.
‘Sorry. Every man for himself on the culinary Titanic.’
    ‘That was awful,’ he gritted. ‘Why would anyone put themselves
through that?’
    ‘They looked like they were having a good enough time.’
    ‘I can’t imagine anyone coming away from that actually appreciating food more.’
    Her laugh redoubled. ‘No.’
    ‘I take it the migraine was fake?’
    ‘As fake as his accent. I think we should just cut our
losses.’
    He halted her with a warm hand to her arm. ‘No. You came here
tonight wanting to discover what’s so special about cuisine.’
    God, was he warming back up to another invitation to see his
etchings?
    ‘Let me just make a call...’
    He made it. Brief and murmured, his back half to her. Then he
turned and smiled at her. ‘OK, all arranged.’
    ‘What is?’
    ‘We have a job for the night.’
    ‘A job?’
    ‘In a commercial kitchen. That’s where you’ll see what cooking
is really all about.’
    ‘I can’t cook in a commercial kitchen!’ She could barely boil
water in her own home.
    ‘Trust me, Georgia.’ He slid his hand around behind her back
and smiled. ‘We won’t be cooking.’
    * * *
    He wasn’t kidding. Within fifteen minutes
they were installed up to the elbows in suds in the back of the busy kitchen of
an Italian restaurant and they’d washed more dishes in less time than she’d even
dirtied in her whole life. But she didn’t even notice.
    The owner of the restaurant where Zander had called in his
favour elevated the usual dishwashers to kitchen assistants for the night and
had one of his demi-chefs explain everything happening in the kitchen for their
benefit.
    She and Zander eavesdropped on every word between suds.
    And his digital recorder—totally approved by the owner—captured
it for EROS’ segment.
    The kitchen ran like a ballet. Every item on the menu
choreographed; every technique a combination of hard-learned steps. Every
resulting dish a work of art, never the same twice.
    The chef—a real, proper chef this time, with a real
accent—yelled at everyone just enough to keep them moving, and didn’t hesitate
to yell at his trainee dishwashers if she and Zander fell behind. She felt more
welcome being yelled at in this kitchen than being fawned over in the last one.
The clunk and clatter of knives and pots and whisks merged with the hiss of
frying fat and draining pasta pots to create a symphony of experience that had
so much more excitement and interest than just how to cook a good cordon
bleu.
    And such language! The night was an education for more reasons
than one. She loved even that. Though she knew Zander’s editors would be busy
with the bleep button.
    The symphony and ballet went on for hours. She grew transfixed
trying to take it all in even as her feet started first to ache, then protest
and finally give up and just burn. But her sore feet were the least of their
worries. A whole dish went wrong and sent the kitchen into desperate chaos
catching back up and she felt the adrenaline of the race, the thrill of
contributing, the deep satisfaction of getting the replacement meals out in
time. Even if her role was only keeping the clean cutlery coming.
    And now the night was nearly over. The last customers were on
their desserts and only one big pot bubbled away in the half-empty kitchen. The
promoted-for-a-night assistants were more than happy to cook something simple
for the people who’d triggered their unexpected elevation, and Georgia and her
sore feet were more than happy to be cooked for by them.
    Who knew, maybe the two men would get to do it more often now
that they’d been