The Billionaire’s Full Figured Desire

This was the argument that Frida had been having with herself seemingly every spare second since Terrence had discovered he was to critique L’Ultima Cena. And it was a prime example of Frida’s tendency to overthink and complicate situations that, in actuality, were quite straightforward. Because make no mistake, this predicament that she had found herself in was straightforward. It might have been problematic, and yet it wasn’t complicated. Like, at all.

Frida glanced at the clock on her wall, which was ticking away noisily. It seemed to be ticking a lot louder than it normally did if that was even possible in any way. I wonder what the time is? she wondered internally. The clock read half-past eleven, but Frida knew that it was about a quarter-hour behind, something that she’d been meaning to rectify for the best part of a year, but she’d never gotten round to. Frida decided to fix it at that exact moment; anything to take her mind off of what was to come.

Frida looked around her office for another chair that she could use to stand on; hers was a swiveling one, and she was not about to stand on that again. The first time had taught her both the futility and stupidity of standing on a swiveling chair. She’d made sure that it was also the last time. Frida ended up using the end of her long metal ruler to lift the clock from the nail off of which it hung.

As she took the clock in her hands, she marveled at how good that idea had been. Better remember that one. But as she was turning it in her hands, she heard muffled footsteps, rapidly increasing in both volume and urgency. Next second, her office door was thrown open, and Andrew stood in the doorway, a look of annoyance on his face.

“Andrew,” Frida said testily, setting the clock and ruler down on her desk. “We need to have another talk about you knocking on my door, because it’s getting ridiculous.”

“Sorry,” Andrew said monotonously. “But you’re needed out front.”

Frida’s heart skipped a beat. “Why?” she asked, in something of a panic. “Is there…uh…someone to see me?”

Frida had no idea what was going on! Terrence couldn’t be in already, could he? And if he was, there was no way that he’d actually ask to see her, would he? According to Terrence, it was best that they weren’t seen together for the entire day, because people saw things and tongues would wag. Perhaps he’d changed his mind about the whole thing?

“No,” Andrew said, killing Frida’s thunder almost immediately. “It’s a customer.”

Frida rolled her eyes. “Andrew…seriously? You can’t deal with one customer?”

“Hey, I followed the procedure!” Andrew said indignantly. “And they’re demanding to see the Head Chef, so I don’t know what you want me to do, my hands are tied here, boss.”

Frida sighed. To voice the truth of it, he was right, and she knew it. If the customer demanded to see the Head Chef, as Andrew was so adamant that they were doing, then the procedure dictated that Andrew comply. Just as she was now going to. But if there was one thing that Frida hated and had always hated in the business, it was dealing with customers. In the cuisine industry, customers came in a variety of flavors.

There was the stupid customer, perhaps her least favorite, who didn’t know what they were ordering and constantly made it Frida’s problem. There are the ones who are angry over a number of possible reasons that included but were not limited to: food taking too long, food not being hot enough/not cooked right, portions of food being too small, or food not looking like how they imagined it in their heads.

Frida had to hand it to herself for putting up with customers like these through the years; it wasn’t easy to resist the urge to sock someone in the jaw for tearing you a new one because they didn’t realize that eggplant parmesan had actual egg in it! But it was true that the higher up the pecking order you went, the less you actually had to personally deal with customers, despite what one might think from watching Gordon Ramsay verbally tussle and throw down with unappreciative diners on Hell’s Kitchen.

But less was just not enough for Frida in this regard. If she never had to personally converse with a customer again, it would be too soon.

As soon as the customer himself came into Frida’s line of sight, she knew what kind of situation this was going to be. This man was a “the food isn’t cooked right” kind of guy. He had it written all over him, not by his appearance, but by his stance. He was visibly older than Frida, by at least fifteen to twenty years. He had tufts of grey hair on his shiny, balding crown, and wore a black anorak, jeans, and runners. His face was screwed up into a scowl, and his arms were crossed defiantly. In front of him, on the counter, was a plate of half-eaten eggs on an English muffin and drizzled in hollandaise sauce.

The sight of the Eggs Benedict suddenly snapped Frida right back to that morning, and her heart sank again. She hoped it wouldn’t show through her face as she fought to force her expression into a polite smile. “Good morning, sir, how can I help you?”

It was all Frida could do to stop herself rolling her eyes as soon as she said it. She sounded like she was working in a call center!

“You can take this back,” the man growled, already in a bad mood as he gestured disdainfully to the half-finished plate of breakfast. “And get me a new one.”

“Can I ask what’s wrong with this one?” Frida asked, struggling to keep her tone even.

“I ordered my eggs well done,” the man said. “I’m very specific about that, I don’t want no runny eggs. And I told your waiter this, and you’re still sending me runny eggs. Now take them back and bring me well done eggs.”

“We always do well, sir,” Frida couldn’t stop herself from making the quip.

Beside her, Andrew snorted with derision at the joke, but the customer was not impressed, and he wasn’t exactly hesitant to say as much. “I’m not impressed!” he said, his ears near smoking. “I’m sure the people on Yelp would be interested to know how seriously you take customer satisfaction.”