Romance Impossible(55)

"How does a working holiday sound?" Max glance at me just long enough to get a reaction, then turned back to his pie crust.

I wasn't sure how that sounded. Better than another Thanksgiving alone with a bottle of wine, I supposed.

"Do I have a choice?" I half-joked.

Max shrugged. I didn't know what that meant. "We have to whip the New York crew back into shape. The holiday week's the absolute best time to shut the restaurant down for re-training, it'll be dead anyway. I thought - if you didn't have any plans, I'd like you as my backup. But I'd understand if you can't get away."

"No, I don't see why not." A free trip to New York - even if it meant eighteen-hour days of yelling at an under-motivated staff - sounded like a pretty good idea right now. Despite what I'd said to Shelly about not wanting to witness the sure-to-be-epic takedown.

"Excellent," he said. "So that's settled."

We didn't talk about the trip again until he handed me my plane ticket, a few weeks later. I'd just finished brushing flour off of my hands at the end of my shift, and was headed into the back to change into my street clothes. It took me a moment to process what I was looking at.

"We fly out tomorrow night," he said. "I'll send a town car for you three hours before flight time."

I nodded, tucking the ticket into my pocket. "Sounds good," I said, since it seemed like he was waiting for a verbal acknowledgement.

Clearly, he wanted to say something else. It was on the tip of his tongue, but for whatever reason, he couldn't quite form the words. This was hilariously unlike him. I hid a smile.

"Don't be late," he said, finally, turning back to the sink.

Really? That was it?

Have I ever been late? was what I wanted to say. Instead, I just nodded again, even though he couldn't see me. There was simply no use in replying indignantly to Max.





***



Jostling through the crowds at JFK, I felt like I was in a waking dream. It was a short flight, but I'd drifted off into enough of a nap that I felt like I'd been transported into a different world. If I didn't work hard at keeping my vision focused, the harsh fluorescent lights, seemingly miles and miles above my head, appeared to swim in circles.#p#分页标题#e#

I was following Max as he powered his way through the crowd, and it took me a while to realize why he wasn't simply taking the opportunity of the many open spots in the herds that periodically opened. As long as he was shielded by other travelers, the paparazzi couldn't get a clear shot.

At first it was difficult for me to distinguish them from any other tourist with a giant camera around their neck, but I soon realized what was going on. A few spotted him and started calling out. They were trying to lure him into a clear shot, into interacting with them in some way - positive, negative, it didn't matter. A few snapped their pictures anyway, even though they were mostly getting blurry shots of the anonymous crowds that surrounded him. And, my foggy brain realized belatedly, some shots of me.

What an odd feeling. I didn't think an airport appearance by Chef Dylan rated much more than simply appearing on one of TMZ's side blogs, but still...

I smirked, suddenly imagining myself being referred to as a mystery woman or something equally ridiculous. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was quite likely to command at least a mini-feature of some kind. After all, it wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to piece the situation together. Shortly after losing his Michelin stars at his New York restaurant, Chef Dylan flies to New York. Drama ahoy!

Somehow, even as Max powered through the crowd like a locomotive, I managed not to lose him. There was a town car waiting to whisk us away to our hotel - well, "crawl" rather than "whisk," really, but that was hardly the driver's fault.

I was surprised when we pulled up to the curb of a pretty ordinary-looking chain hotel. Not that I'd been expecting The Plaza or anything, but didn't this guy have some serious money to burn? Maybe he was just tired of luxury hotels. I tried to imagine what that would feel like, and came up blank.

Mine and Max's rooms were directly next to each other. He gave me what I assumed was a "goodnight" nod just before disappearing behind his door, and I nodded back.

Well. The room, I had to admit, was pretty nice.

There was a chilled bottle of Evian on the coffee table - no doubt, cracking the seal would mean a $5 charge to the room - and they had switched on some of the lower lights in anticipation of my arrival. A card on the pillow let me know about the twice-daily maid service and how I shouldn't hesitate to call the front desk if I needed anything at all.

Okay, so it wasn't The Plaza, but it was definitely a few steps up from the budget business traveler places that Eric always booked for our trips together. I had to admit that.