One Way or Another_An absolutely hilarious laugh-out-loud romantic comedy by Colleen Coleman

Author:Colleen Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786814067
Publisher: Bookouture

Chapter Seventeen

After thanking Martha, I bid her goodnight just in time to start my shift downstairs. As I leave her room, I can’t help but try and process everything that’s happening in my head. I am bowled over by Martha’s kindness, her faith in me, and her wisdom. This menu feels right; this menu feels like a friend, a memory, a self-portrait. If I’m going to put my best foot forward with anything, it’s going to be this. I want to cook it right now!

But I need to steady myself and not let myself get carried away, because the reality is I’m a catering assistant at Parklands clocking on for the late-evening shift. I look around as I pat my way down to the industrial kitchen, pitch dark besides the humming bars of fluorescent blue light. It feels hauntingly quiet as always; there’s a thick oppressive stillness in the air that seems more claustrophobic when I am here all by myself. I let out a deep breath, stamp my feet, flick on every light switch, speaking my menu out loud so that I can hear how it sounds, play with the syntax, practice my pronunciation. I need some chatter or music tonight; I feel the need for company, for something to fill the atmosphere and help the time pass quickly until I can go home, collapse on to Alice’s sofa and wake up a grand chef finalist.

I reach into my bag to take out my phone, to turn on a playlist or tune into a comedy podcast… Or maybe, I could ring Rachel. I look up to the clock; with the time difference, she’d just be getting up around now and wouldn’t have to be at work for an hour or so. I smile to myself; what a perfect idea. I can’t wait to hear her voice, tell her about all the good things that are in the pipeline. I might even tell her that I’m planning on serving piccalilli to the most sophisticated palates in London; she will just love that, I know she will. I rustle around to the bottom of my bag, but I can’t feel my phone anywhere. I recheck my pockets, then the counters, drawers, shelves, my locker, and then back to my bag to empty the entire contents on the floor.

But there’s nothing. My phone is not there. It’s not anywhere in here, it’s nowhere to be found.

I rack my brains. I definitely didn’t take it out in Martha’s room and the last time I checked was at the Italian place – so I either left it there and it’s probably been stolen by now or I’ve dropped it whilst riding here and it’s smashed to pieces somewhere on the roadside.

I hold my hands in my head. Please. Not this. Not now. All of my contacts, hundreds of screenshots of desserts and cocktails and deli counters and everything that influences me and makes my heart skip a beat. But mainly all my photos; they can’t be replaced.

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