Chapter 22: The Cohort's Vote

I did kiss him, in the end, in front of twenty-three cooks and a man from Cleveland.

Rafe crossed the floor and stopped an inch from me, and he waited.

"Now?" he said.

"Now, Dillard."

His hands came up to my face, careful, and I pulled him down by the apron strings and kissed him hard.

The cohort made a noise that rattled the stockpots.

Bridget whistled through two fingers.

When I let go, Rafe's ears were red and he had a grin on his face I had not seen since we were eleven.

"Okay," Chef said, over all of it. "Enough. We have a vote."

The Cleveland chef pulled a stool up to the pass and sat.

He had a voice that did not carry, so the room leaned in to hear him.

"I came to meet eight names," he said. "I've been watching one of them since Saturday."

"Saturday?" said Chef.

"I phoned your office. I like to hear how a program handles its own mess before I trust its list."

He nodded to the slips.

"Write the name you would put on the line next to you for a year. Not who is nice. Who you'd trust at three in the afternoon with a full board."

The slips went round again.

The pencils scratched.

I wrote Bridget's name on mine and folded it small.

She had told me she was voting for me, and I thought that if I voted for myself I would feel like a thief.

One by one they dropped them into the stockpot.

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