Mistakenly Eaten

90. The Montage Part I (Stephanie)

Althea smiled, finally being done with the dinner cook off and signed off from the kitchen, excited within her heart that she would finally get to see Nicholas, who on the other hand, rubbed his hands with excitement as Serena presented her with the last day of the meal.

He dug in to the steak and rice dish that Althea had cooked and moaned in sheer pleasure, as the delicious taste rolled in his mouth, giving his sensory buds, a sense of satisfaction, he believed, nothing in that world could ever give him.

He didn’t know why but the food that Althea had prepared throughout the day, just tasted exquisitely better and delicious than he had tasted before.

There was just something ever so different about her dishes that day. He believed that the fact, he just didn’t know her as someone who just cooked food for him anymore. He knew her more personally and intimately and that was why her food tasted better or maybe, it was the fact that they had incredibly wonderful s*x the night before, which provided Althea with the zeal to cook with more passion.

In both ways, it was a win – win for Nicholas, who believed that he was having the most wonderful day, in terms of food.

Althea was about to step up the staircase and wait in her room for Nicholas to show up, excited to have their promised rendezvous of the night but stopped when Selena called her out.

“Hey! Gragnano.”

She called her from the name of the place, that her mother had told her about.

Althea turned around to find Selena standing and waving at her by the bottom of the staircase.

“Did you call for me?” she asked and Selena nodded.

“My name is Althea.” She stated in a little pervasive tone, finding Selena’s method of calling her out a bit condescending.

Selena could tell that Althea could be a little hot headed at turns as well and this gave her the edge of playing a bit with Althea’s emotion, in order to find a weak nerve that could help her have an edge in the situation and perhaps, find a solution to everybody’s problem on the island.

“Althea! A beautiful name, what does that even mean?”

“It means, either wholesome or a healer.”

Selena clicked her tongue.

“Wonderful! Actually, we were planning on shooting a little background story montage for the top eight contestants, that would show their struggle and how they worked hard in all those settings before getting to live their big dream.”

Selena wasted no time in getting down to her first step of scrutinizing and actually digging up on Althea’s history in her own little tricking method.

“Okay! So… do you want do it now?”

She asked and Selena simply shrugged, “Why not?”

Althea held back for a minute, before looking down the hallway, where Nicholas’s office was.

She only wondered if he was already in his room or still in his office, so that she could come up with a plausible excuse to Selena and simply go and be with Nicholas.

“Do you have something important do to?” Selena questioned, noticing Althea’s hesitancy to answer.

Althea knew that if she tried to come up with an excuse, Selena might get dubious and it would only worsen things not just for her and Nicholas. Besides, she needed to put the competition first and not let anything that was happening between her and Nicholas, lament things at the Secret Chef Hunters’ Society.

“No! I am free. Let’s do this thing.”

“Great!”

Selena guided Althea in to the living room and she gently sat over on the wing chair, that usually faced towards the large alcove window but Selena had already made the set up and set the wing chair facing towards the living room, with a camera set up on the tripod right in front of the chair, that was going to film Althea.

“I would ask you a bunch of question, so you can answer them facing the camera or me. It is your choice.”

Althea nodded, having a slight idea about those montages, since she had seen some of the previous contestants as well.

“So, introduce yourself a little and give a little snippet of your journey up till here in the competition.”

Selena asked, flipping through the pages in which she had jotted down everything that she had found out about Althea, through her father and Salva’s combined search on the girl’s background and had highlighted some questions that would help her grasp some weakness out of Althea, that would give them the courage to step out of their hard work to put up a façade and simply reveal to her who they were and offer her a job as Nicholas’s private chef.

Althea began introducing herself, by looking at the camera.

Once she was done with the basics, Selena rose her first question, “So, in your application…” Selena read the one that Salva and Anthony had obtained from the actual Secret Chef Hunter’s society who had sold Althea’s information and application to them, that she had given to the society while she applied over the course of last ten years, for a good price, “… it said that you work as a waitress but you also cook in secret at a restaurant that you work at. So, why not work as a chef to begin with? You clearly have a knack and latent ability to cook. What made you cook in disguise?”

The story of why Althea couldn’t cook at her uncle’s restaurant was definitely something that made her look pathetic and one thing that she had promised herself was the fact that she would leave her past behind her the moment she would get a chance to be a part of the society and the competition.

Thence, she decided to leave behind the perturbing part of her life and simply try and create something much more plausible where she can be proud of how far she had come in life and Secret Chef Hunter’s Society was definitely a part of her life that one day she would proudly be able to parade about to others.

“I worked as a waitress at that restaurant, cooking was not part of my job. Only a certified sous chef could do so. That’s why I used to cook in secret, in the hopes that as I kept on cooking in secret and kept on applying for the secret chef hunter’s society, one day a recruiter would show up, taste my food and look where that got me.”

She chimed and Selena only felt bad for how impudently lost the poor girl was, having no idea where she had actually ended up.

“Okay! So…” Selena flipped through the pages and finally landed on that one question that she only hoped to manipulate in her own favor.

“You couldn’t work at the restaurant as a chef because you didn’t have a certification. So, what about working as a private chef? You never got the offer for that?”

Althea scoffed a little, having expected the question to hit her, since it was something that entire town of Gragnano, who knew that she was good at cooking had asked her.

She shook her head, “Had I worked as a private chef, I would’ve never landed here at the Secret Chef Hunters’ Society, since they don’t recruit private chefs.”

Selena squinted her eyes keenly and sharply at Althea, making her realize that she was being scrutinized hardly by Selena.

“Oh come on now! You don’t want me to believe that. you had been rejected twice already by the Secret Chef Hunters’ Society. And you can not tell me that you had such a living passion for the society that you never even thought of becoming a private chef, that would’ve definitely paid you much higher than that waitress job of yours did, where you couldn’t even follow your passion with an open heart. So, tell me what was the real reason?”

Althea remained silent, as she looked between the camera and then at Selena.

She shook her head right away, wanting to stay mum at that question, “Do I really have to answer it?”

Selena scoffed with a grin resting on her face, having been proven right after anticipating that Althea would dodge that question.

“Yes! Because we need something to add to your montage, which is clearly very thin and pale already because of your basic introduction and a lame story about how you just made peace with being a waitress rather than trying to shift the pace in your life. We need to know why you decided to live in misery or perhaps why were you such a coward person, to never have the courage to go out in the real world and face reality.”

Selena splashed salt right on to Althea’s wound, who went silent for a minute and actually pondered hard on Selena’s question.

She scoffed as a deep pang of realization hit her and she finally began speaking, not knowing that she was releasing a burden that she had been carrying on her heart for a very long time and perhaps decided that it was for the better to finally slap back reality on the faces of all those who would ever judge her for deciding to choose a harsh path in her life.

“What else would you expect the life of a lower class girl to be?”

She stated those words bluntly, making Selena looked at her with suspicion.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” she took a pause for a second, postulating the right sequence in her head that she could describe that let her to where she actually was.

“… the life of a lower class struggling girl, who had always been on her own and never had anybody around her to take care of her and above all, those around her needed her help instead. So, a person like me has to make peace with the fact that there is nothing wrong in supporting those who need your help and God has created the virtue of selflessness for a reason. And I just knew that even if I would never have someone to ever appreciate my efforts for them, I would still continue pouring my energy and efforts in their way because at times, you just have to understand that God has simply created you for a reason and that is to serve others and make sure to put others before you.”

“So, what does it has to do with you not taking up the job of a private chef?” Selena pushed her agenda, wanting to dig the truth out of Althea.

Althea took in a deep breath, as she continued unleashing the truth, “When I was in high school, I had a friend. Actually, she was my best friend. Stephanie. She was a few years older than me. But we became friends when I used to work as a part time waitress for her mother’s restaurant and at the same time, I learnt a great deal of cooking from that woman. That’s how Stephanie and I also became extremely close. I would spent my days working with Stephanie and nights learning together about the art of cooking from her mother. Stephanie was the most gorgeous woman of our town. Radiant, kind, beautiful long hair and exceptionally amazing physique. It was like, she was God’s favorite and there wasn’t anything that God hadn’t blessed her with. Beauty, a kind heart and even a very nice body. Boys in our town were crazy about her. they would literally kiss the ground that she would walk on, if she would just promise to pass them a smile. So, you can imagine how delicate and rare her beauty was. And then when she was twenty, she got a job offer from a very elite family to be a private chef. Her mother didn’t want her to go, she wanted Stephanie to stay back in Gragnano and take up her business after her. but Stephanie had bigger and better dreams. Or at least that’s what she thought…”

As Althea continued narrating the story of her best friend, Selena wasn’t the only one who was learning about the truth. In fact, back in Gragnano, sitting inside a small house, located at the very peak of a hill, was Salva, who sat in front of an old lady, her hands wrinkled, most of the teeth in her mouth fallen and she could barely hear him without her hearing aide, that she had to put on the moment she opened up the door and Salva was standing in front of her.

He had landed at the house, after he had learned from his spy that Althea worked at a restaurant when she was in high school and was quite close to the old lady who was the owner of that restaurant and was also Althea’s mentor when it came to her knowledge in professional culinary skills. Salva was initially anxious when he had reached the house of that lady and had knocked up at her door. He just wanted to know a bit more about Althea that would help him understand the girl in a much more thorough and comprehensive manner.

The lady named Thessa, gladly welcomed Salva inside her humble double story house and offered him a seat, while she offered him some tea, coupled with her freshly home baked cookies. The moment Salva took a bite of those cookies, he felt being transported to another dimension.

Understanding, how Althea also developed and reached an expert level in the craft of culinary, he decided to reveal to Thessa that he was a friend of Althea and just like everyone in the town, he was also saddened about her sudden disappearance.

The first thing that Thessa blurted out of her mouth, took Salva by surprise.

“Oh God! I only hope that she didn’t accept the job to be someone’s private chef. I get that she was very anxious because of her uncle’s piling pressure on her to pay off her sister’s college tuition debt and then with her sister getting married in to a snooty and rich family, Althea must’ve felt extremely pressurized to take up a high paying job, in order to pay for her sister’s wedding expenses. Since, the groom’s family demanded that Althea’s family must also contribute equally to the wedding and they were going to carry out a grand reception.”

“Why shouldn’t she take up the job of a private chef?” Salva, being that the only intriguing thing in the entire story that caught his attention in particular.

He only wondered what so incredibly loathsome about working as a private chef that could have made the entire town turn towards the idea of ever being hired as a private chef.

Thessa sighed, as she began explaining to Salva, why the town, and Althea in particular was always afraid of taking up the job of a private chef and at the same time, Althea revealed the truth to Selena, who recorded everything on her camera.

“… Stephanie applied and tried out through a hiring agency, who got her a job at an extremely rich family’s house as a private chef. Her mother, Lady Thessa, obviously went against the idea, since she wanted Stephanie to take up her restaurant after her and didn’t want Stephanie to work outside Gragnano, she was her only child and she wanted to keep her close. But Stephanie wanted to spread her wings and wanted to get out of the town. She had big dreams, so she fought with her mother and against her better wishes, she left home and went ahead to serve as the family’s private chef. The family was one of the richest in the Italy and everyone thought that Stephanie would get to live a life full of luxury and joy but what happened after that is only a remanent history that every person in the town was even scared to discuss about.”

“What happened?” Asked Selena from Althea.

“What happened to Stephanie?” Inquired Salva from Thessa, who sighed, as tears escaped her eyes and flowed down her cheeks.

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This was a very long chapter, so I had to cut it short.

Thank You for always reading and supporting my work <3