The Billionaire’s Full Figured Desire

Chapter 4

After the praise was over, Eli assured them that his review in the paper would be favorable. He paid his bill promptly, leaving Frida with her usual fifty-dollar tip, and then left. That night, as they shut up shop around eleven o’ clock, O’Malley cornered Frida as she made a beeline for the door, and thanked her for all she’d done that day.

“It’s no problem,” she said magnanimously. “We’re a team here, we help each other out, right?”

O’Malley nodded, impressed with her work ethic. “Well, one thing is for sure, and I should have done this ages ago. But you, young lady, are so fired. We can find another waitress. I hope you still have that chef’s uniform because starting tomorrow, you’re going to be my new apprentice.”

Frida could have screamed with joy at the mention of her becoming an O’Malley’s apprentice. She hoped that when she took the waitress position, she could work her way up into the kitchen, but she hadn’t expected it to be so soon. She had planned on working hard, harder than ever to get the approval of moving into the kitchen. Needless to say, she was over the moon that she had finally gotten to where she wanted to be.

*****

Three years later.

The Present Day

You’d be hard-pressed to have lived or worked in the general Seattle area over the past few years and have not had heard of L’Ultima Cena. A considerable general consensus among foodies proclaimed it to be the best restaurant in Washington, perhaps anywhere on the Western coast of the entire United States of America. It was certainly the most famous, at least it was these days; L’Ultima Cena was the name that had every tongue in America wagging, at least those who yet held the profession of fine dining in the highest esteem.

And twenty-eight-year-old Frida Carter was finding that the popularity of such people was definitely on the rise. And this was good news for her, of course, because it expanded her ever-growing list of regular clientele, a boon to the cause of any and every Head Chef. At not even thirty years of age, Frida was the youngest Head Chef of any restaurant in the city, not to mention the only black female Head Chef in the city. Frida had never thought of herself as an icon of representation, or any kind of pioneer in her field. Something she was quickly learning, however, was that the mainstream public didn’t care what she thought of herself.

Regardless of her own self-image, her “adoring” public was more concerned that she was the person that they thought she ought to be, as opposed to the person that she knew she was. And as such, they’d all but branded her as the lantern-bearing pioneer in the field of culinary cooking and fine dining, not just for plus-sized people, but for women everywhere and, of course, black people. Or “people of color” as was the politically correct terminology to use these days.

Not that Frida had any kind of issue with being who the public wanted her to be, but she would be lying if she didn’t admit, at least to herself, that it was very unnerving to have to put on one face to the public and another behind closed doors. She felt like Janus, the two-faced God of Doorways. And speaking of, that was another thing she was pretty enthusiastic about; Greek and Roman mythology. But, of course, nobody knew that because it didn’t fit with the agenda that the public wanted to push. That week alone, Frida had seen her own picture on several lists whose themes were “top 50 feminist icons.”

Again, it wasn’t as though she had any kind of issue being a feminist icon, it was just that that was never how she had intended to portray herself, and it got Frida wondering whether the people who claimed to be her fans had actually got the measure of her at all. Frida’s agent, Lucius, had firmly advised her against setting the public straight in this regard, and Frida would be lying if she said she couldn’t see where he was coming from. The tags that the public had…well…tagged her with had already done so much for her public image, even when against her intent and knowledge. To steer into the skid, and let people believe whatever they wanted to believe (which was what they seemed to have their heart set on doing anyway) seemed a much more favorable option than setting the record straight and causing a mutiny!

Frida often felt as though she was being vain, pretending that she was more important than she actually was, but facts were facts at the end of the day. Now that she thought on it, Frida supposed that she was pro-black and pro-woman, in away. How could she not be, as a black woman? And she preferred not even to get into the whole “pro-plus-size” thing. Professional cooking was perhaps the one profession on the planet where being on the chunky side was an advantage, and if not, it was certainly the best!

But as much as Frida appreciated the hundreds, even thousands of people out there that showed their support for the person that they thought she was, it’d be lying to say that she didn’t wish that people could see her for who she was for once, instead of the person that they thought she should be. Because Frida hardly recognized that person. Even though she walked, talked, and acted just like Frida did, that woman was not Frida Carter. She couldn’t be.

The feminist icon, the icon for people of color and plus-size people everywhere. Who was she supposed to be to them, their champion? Their hero? Their Guardian Angel from on high? Frida often felt like Abraham Lincoln if he’d been forced into trying to free the slaves by social media and propaganda. But to even think a thought such as that just took Frida right back to her point about vanity. Here she was, getting her very first taste of fame that was a completely new experience, and yet barely reached outside of the State of Washington or the Pacific Northwest coast. And she was already comparing herself to the sixteenth President of the United States of America!

Frida would never have guessed that second-guessing herself would come with the job of being…perhaps not famous, yet, but certainly very well-known, at the very least. But, contrary to what she had thought she’d known, Frida found herself second-guessing herself at almost every turn. It was a very familiar feeling, being out of one’s depth, especially after so many months in a kitchen, but out of the spotlight. Sadly, the familiarity of the feeling didn’t make it any less crippling, or any easier to manage. What a tender world that would be, were it true.

What a tender world it would be if a lot of things were true, come to think of it. When Frida really reflected upon it, she wasn’t sure that being a “pioneer” for people of color, plus-size people and women (etcetera, etcetera) was even a good thing! What did it say about plus-size people or women of color if they got overexcited every time that a black woman was promoted to Head Chef? What did that say about the number of “pioneers” that they’d had?