Page 1 of Go Cook Yourself
Chapter One
Ruby
You’ve never had a day like mine. I guarantee it.
“Happy six-year anniversary to you and Neil, baby sis,” Amber says. I tuck the phone between my chin and shoulder as I shove the key in the door of my tiny rented house. “Are you doing anything nice for it?”
Music blares from the television, but there’s no sign of the remote as usual. Bloody Neil.
“Oh, you know. The usual,” I stutter. The five new Xbox games covering the floor distract me from asking if all couples stop celebrating their anniversaries early on, as Neil told me. I hold in my sigh. No present for me and I’ll pay rent for both of us again this month.
I yank my hairband out of my ponytail and shake my blond hair free, cracking my neck as I do. “Yuck. Do you always smell of yeast after working in the cookery school, or is it just because I’m in a bakery?”
A cooperative bakery where I work all the hours I can to earn capital to make a success of my business, Naughty Treats. Fuck my life.
“No, I don’t. Speaking of which, have you thought any more about my earlier message about coming home to run our family’s cookery school?”
“Yes, but Amber—”
“You’d work with Chef Garett, your second favourite chef of all time and number one on your list of chefs you’d happily cook naked with… platonically, of course, with no sexual feelings.”
I roll my eyes as I chuckle. “I said that one time.”
“Just think what you could learn from him.”
As Amber continues her sales pitch, huffing and puffing sounds from my kitchen. Maybe Neil decided to cook something special for our anniversary after all. I can’t remember when he’s cooked for me before.
“I’ll think about it. But I have a life here with Neil.” I force a smile so she can hear happiness down the phone. “And there’s the business with Viv. They’re important.”
“But are you happy running Naughty Treats with her?”
“Sure,” I lie.
I feel a pull to return home. As my relationship has soured, I’ve thought more about the little cookery school in the Cotswolds and the troublesome family I left to move with Neil.
“Although, I bet there’s lots of things I could do at the school.” Ideas of cooking events we could run, especially with a chef as experienced as Garett, bake in my head. Halloween is at the end of the month. We could cook—
Something clatters in the kitchen, but it barely registers over the music channel playing something I don’t recognise.
“What about seasonal events? I’ve always wanted to do more of them, but I haven’t got your creativity. You could make it your own.” Amber’s cajoling displays the sales and organisational skills my younger brother, Jem, and I missed out on, but I can’t go.
“But I’m not qualified to run a cookery school. I’d spend all day catastrophising and probably burn the place down in the first twenty-four hours.”
Amber laughs. “You’re not still the teenager who left her recipe on the gas hob and set it alight, causing all of us to scream and run around the kitchen like it was the end of days.”
“Thank goodness Kath popped it in a metal bowl and ran it under a tap.” I giggle. “Is she still as calm as ever?”
“Yes, and she’s still the cookery school kitchen assistant. With her skills, you wouldn’t need to worry about being unqualified.”
“But—”
“Do you remember when I Facetimed you with a tour of the place four years ago when we moved premises to a new barn?”
I drop to the berry loveseat sofa—the one I picked out with Neil during happier times—finding the remote shoved down the side. “Yes…”
“You loved it. You suggested things about décor that made the place even more special. You could make this work.”
“I know—”