Chapter 10: Another Retreat

Jason

I missed Tameka before I had managed to drive fifty miles, and if not for the threats of her mother's friends, I would have turned the car around. Her mother seemed to dislike me from the moment she appeared in town, and many of her friends appeared to come from a less than respectable part of the population. I never considered heading towards Phoenix, instead I traveled to the east for a week, wandering around until I stumbled on a small beach resort near the Georgia, South Carolina border. I would simply have driven on if I had not spotted the small Help Wanted Cook sign. Realizing that obtaining references from Nathan would be impossible, I decided to stop and see what might happen.

When I rang the bell at the desk the man who came out from the back flounced up to the counter and waved at me. I barely had time to register his all black outfit before he spoke. "Oh, do tell me why such a manly man stops at the Rock Crest Resort. You do have a reservation, right? But please don't tell me that your biker friend is just a few hours behind. Oh my heart couldn't stand it."

I stood there in shocked silence for an eternity. I think I finally realized that this resort must cater to the gay community, and debated backing out before a small part of my mind reminded me that some people considered gay men to be discriminating connoisseurs of fine food and drink. I decided to risk my dignity and spoke. "Well, I noticed that there was a help wanted sign for a cook out there and thought I might inquire as to your needs. But I get a feeling that I'm not the right person for your resort."

The man appeared a bit shocked. "Not right? A pretty boy like you will fit in anywhere. Oh, I can see the clients will just love you and want to eat you up."

I gulped. "If they want to eat my food, I won't complain. But there is a young lady in Mississippi who I promised to return to."

The man gave an exaggerated faint. "Oh, my hopes dashed. The young man has a sweetheart and will be true."

I was beginning to consider leaving when the man suddenly straightened and looked me right in the eye. He was silent for a moment and then spoke in a completely normal voice. "Well, you didn't run screaming, so I guess you have an open mind. If you want to audition as the head cook, you can, but I will warn you that to many of our clients you will be a pretty boy, and some might not want to accept when you say no."

I paused and then shrugged. "Not sure I belong as head cook. I don't have all that much experience, but as long as I have a room with a sturdy lock, and a promise that respect for my feelings will be practiced, I'm open to the tryout. I imagine that quite a few of your clients are used to fine dining, and while I have a good deal of experience, I might not meet their standards."

The man's eyebrow rose as I gave the speech and then he held out his right hand. "I'm Brent, and I work the front desk and am in charge of the living areas and dining. Later I'll introduce you to Ralph who handles the beach and activities. The room we can do, but I do advise you to grow a thick skin. Some of the clients come here to let off the steam from living mostly in the closet and can be a bit rough if you aren't careful."

I nodded, thinking that I was going to be spending many hours in my room when not at work. Brent smiled and led me back through a set of staff doors to a fair sized kitchen where two older gentlemen were engaged in some simple dinner preparations.

"Right now we aren't quite to busy season, but once we hit summer we usually see about one hundred covers a night," Brent said as he showed me the kitchen layout. "Wayne and Bruce are old sou-chefs, but neither wants to officially run the kitchen and our last head chef quit a week ago after a fight with Ralph. We do employ a couple of dishwashers, so your goal will be to maintain a quality menu and produce good meals. We mainly do breakfast and dinners, since most of our guests spend the day out and about. Think you can do it?"

I had grabbed a menu to review it while wandering through the dining area. The previous chef obviously loved French-style cuisine as the menu was filled with an assortment of pretentious sounding dishes. "Can I change the menu?" I asked. "This one sounds nice, but I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of this style, nor is it one I know well."

Brent laughed and then shouted to the two other chefs. "Wayne, Bruce, how do you feel about changing the menu?"

Having two older chefs offer a cheer for your idea is gratifying and moments later the four of us were sitting around a table discussing menu options and brainstorming some changes. It turned out that both Wayne and Bruce wanted to go with an Italian theme and once I convinced Brent that I knew some great light pasta offerings which would please guests who were watching their calorie and carb intake, he gave me a week to make the change.

Brent then got up from the table as Wayne and Bruce turned to me for a bit more formal introduction. He was about halfway to the door when I shouted. "I thought you wanted me to audition."

Brent called back. "You just did. I've been working at resorts for years and I've never seen a chef take command like that before. If you can cook half as good as you led the discussion on the menu, you'll do fine. Besides, Wayne and Bruce can handle most of the cooking. You just need to give them direction and you proved capable of that."

I was sitting there in silent shock, but Wayne and Bruce were nodding as Brent left the room. It was Wayne who spoke up. "Boss, he's right. I've been cooking since I graduated high school years ago, and it's not often that any chef just comes in and puts it all together like that. Bruce and I have wanted to get off that stupid French menu for nearly eighteen months, but every other chef Brent hired decided to wait. You just listened to our ideas, kept the ones you liked and immediately started planning the new menu. I think we can grow to like this."

Bruce laughed and added. "Yeah, a head chef that is not afraid to make decisions and cook good food. Well, shall we start cooking?"

We did not have time to switch over the menu before dinner. I did add two pasta items as chef's specials, a simple tortellini, which Wayne proposed, and a light chicken linguini with an orange sauce that I decided to test out. Since it was still only April the crowd was only moderate. I do remember being a bit shocked when I saw the wait staff. Instead of charming ladies, the all male wait staff was dressed up in extremely short and revealing French maid outfits. When I mentioned to Bruce that the outfits did go with a French menu, I drew a huge laugh from him and Wayne. During the preparation I had discovered that Wayne and Bruce had been working at the resort for years with their wives and had remained there as cooks after Brent and Ralph purchased the resort and started promoting it as a gay retreat. "They pay well, and I no longer have to worry about some rich yankee fuck trying to get a piece of Nancy when she's cleaning rooms," Wayne had replied.

I still had not met Ralph when dinner was about half over, but by then Bruce and I were frantically trying to whip up more of the orange sauce I needed for the chef's special. Word had gone out to try the new dish and orders were coming in faster than we could fill them for a while. When the last couple had been served and we were cleaning up the kitchen, Brent finally reappeared.

"I don't believe it," Brent said as he walked into the kitchen. "How old are you and where have you worked?"

I looked down and then looked up to see Wayne and Bruce looking at me. "I'm nineteen. I spent about seven months at a ski resort in Wyoming before moving to Mississippi to spend three months working at an old seafood diner. That's it, unless you count the parties and barbeques I cooked for during high school."

Bruce paused for a moment. "Wait, you ain't got no formal training?"

I shrugged. "Just a succession of nannies that let me help them cook, and often showed me what they knew. I believe a couple of them had formal training and experience. I loved cooking and when I was sixteen my family and friends started asking me to cook for all their parties and barbeques. Then I got lucky and twice stumbled on dying restaurants desperate for anyone to cook for them."

Wayne was looking at me in complete shock, before he turned to Brent. "He's a prodigy. Ain't that the word boss?"

Brent laughed. "After all the glowing comments about your linguini tonight, I was going to ask for your references, because I couldn't understand why anyone who could cook that well wasn't working at some major five star restaurant. I now find that I had your age right with my first guess. But that dinner, especially that linguini made me question how old you really are."

I shrugged my shoulders and continued to put the various clean utensils away. "I just love to cook," I replied. "And once this last handful of utensils is put away, I'd love to see my room."