I came to New York because I thought I could cook my way into a new life. I thought if I sharpened my knives enough, if I let the kitchen heat blister my hands, I could carve myself into someone unrecognizable from the girl I was. Howard restaurant...
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CHAPTER (...) FOUR. to sundown.
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Her silhouette came into the kitchen the way some women arrive at a ballroom knowing the eyes would follow, even if she pretended not to notice. The double doors swung open on a hush of hinges, spilling her into the warmth and noise. The air was already thick with the chatter of boiling stock, the hiss of oil as it kissed the bottom of a pan, the metallic sigh of knives meeting wood.
Gianna shrugged out of her coat, hanging it on the hook without ceremony, but there was nothing hurried in her movements. Her hair was swept into a loose knot, tendrils falling at her temples as though she had just stepped out of some winded coastal walk. The whites of her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, exposing the strong, precise lines of her forearms, the sort of arms built not for softness but for craft.
On her station, the fish waited; not the pale, flaccid kind you see in supermarket chillers, but a creature that looked as if it had only just surrendered to the net, silver skin still taut and glistening, eyes black as onyx and almost alive. Sea bass, line-caught, laid atop crushed ice that steamed faintly in the heat of the kitchen.
She touched it first with the backs of her fingers, the way one might touch a sleeping child's cheek. The skin was cool, slick, carrying that briny breath of the ocean; in her mind, she could already see the way its flesh would flake under the fork, the way the skin would blister to gold under flame.
A blade appeared in her hand without her looking for it, the motion practiced enough to be unconscious. She began with the gills; clean, efficient cuts that lifted them away in a single sweep. The sound was a whisper of steel through silk. She drew the knife along its belly, opening it with the same unhurried certainty as someone reading a familiar letter. A slick slide of roe and organs fell away, and she rinsed the cavity under a gentle stream, the cold water running pink for a moment before clearing.
Around her, the kitchen moved on. Pans were slammed down, orders were called, the pastry mixer whined in the far corner. But in her square of counter space, time seemed to obey her pace alone. She salted the inside with fingers that pinched just enough, tucking in a braid of thyme and a few sprigs of fennel fronds; the green frills curling like seaweed against the pale flesh.
The skillet was already heating, oil shivering in anticipation. She laid the fish in skin-side down, and it sang, the first sharp hiss swelling into a steady crackle. The smell bloomed instantly, salt and fat and something faintly sweet from the fennel. She pressed the back of a spoon along the skin to keep it flat, coaxing that first kiss of sear into a full embrace.
White wine was poured next, not in a splash but in a slow, deliberate ribbon. It hissed up, carrying a steam that smelled of citrus and open water, swirling around her like perfume. She basted the fish with the pan's juices, tilting it so the hot liquid ran in shimmering sheets over the flesh, letting it drink its own aroma.
