First Impressions

Yvette slumped dejectedly amongst the cast-off outfits that littered her bedroom floor. It had been a long week at work and she’d overestimated what her energy levels would be like on a Friday night. A guy she’d been chatting to on an app had invited her to opening night at a new bar. Conceding it was too late to cancel, she eventually dressed down in an outfit that suited her mood: terracotta culottes and a simple olive skivvy.

At the bar she found a free table and ordered a merlot for something to do while she waited for her date — what was his name again? Tim? She opened the app and saw that it was in fact Miguel. Yes, of course — Miguel. She looked through his profile pictures again so she would be sure to recognise him. She’d forgotten he was very handsome, much better looking than the guys she normally dated. Suddenly she felt frumpy and inadequate in her baggy culottes and started ruefully contemplating the innumerable superior outfits that were currently lying crumpled on her bedroom floor.

A girl with a dark brown bob and square-toed ivory boots rushed past. Yvette watched as the girl called the bar staff into a huddle to explain something to them, pointing at a long wooden table in the centre of the room. At that point a guy dressed in a billowy shirt with slightly puffy sleeves, who Yvette thought looked a bit like a rather fetching pirate, rushed up to the girl and grabbed her arm to get her attention. He said something to her and showed her something on his phone.

At first the girl looked horrified. She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head as though in disbelief. She appeared to ask the guy some follow-up questions, pointing at the phone, and he raised his hands in what looked like a defensive gesture. The girl started to look a bit angry. Jaw clenched, she looked down and shook her head again. They both looked tense. As the exchange continued, the electronic swing track that was playing covered what Yvette was sure was some shouting and swearing.

Looking like she was about to cry, the girl gazed around the room until her eyes found Yvette. She reached out for the guy, who was looking in the opposite direction, and shook his shoulder. She said something to him as she pointed at Yvette, her eyes wide.

Thinking maybe they were annoyed to find her watching them, Yvette tilted herself in a different direction, looking down at her feet and making a show of sipping her drink. She was scrolling aimlessly through her phone, pondering the fact that Miguel had 3 more minutes to arrive before being late when, to her dismay, the girl’s square-toed boots and the guy’s exaggeratedly pointy snakeskin boots edged into her field of vision. She looked up slowly and with a sense of uncertainty and mild foreboding, but when her gaze reached their faces the girl was smiling, if a little manically. The guy, however, looked unsure and distrustful.

“Hello, I’m Kasia!”, the girl said blithely. “How’s your night going?”.

The guy didn’t give Yvette a chance to answer. “What does ‘en papillote’ mean?”, he threw at her. It sounded like an accusation. “Do you even know the difference between merlot and cab sav?”.

“Robert, please!” said Kasia, looking embarrassed. She turned back to Yvette. “I’m sorry.”

“Sotirios is going to ask her something simple — something about profiteroles or labneh — and she’s going to expose us,” warned Robert darkly.

Yvette didn’t know what sort of gimmick this was, but this pair were altogether too quirky for her to entertain with her Friday night fatigue. Admittedly, she was a little curious about this Sotirios character—and affronted that he should deem her uncultured or lacking in the culinary sphere. A few months earlier she’d prepared a blancmange which had substantially held its shape when removed from the mold — sagging a little around the edges, it was true. What kind of superchef must Sotirios be, to purport to wield the kind of authority that could diminish her breadth of experience, her trials and successes in the kitchen, according to a few arbitrarily selected criteria involving merlot and profiteroles?

“Well, it’s been wonderful,” she said coldly, “but if you’ll excuse me, I’m waiting for someone”.

She seized her barely-touched merlot, spilling a few drops, and started to head towards the bar, but Kasia called out to her. “Wait! I need your help.” Yvette paused and slowly rotated, allowing Kasia and Robert to bridge the gap between them.

“Just give me a few minutes to explain,” Kasia pleaded. “I’m an event organiser, and Robert here is a” — Kasia looked at Robert and finished the sentence with a question addressed to him — “an industrial designer?”.

Robert huffed a little. “Curator”, he corrected her sullenly.

Kasia continued. “Right. We’ve been working on the advertising campaign for this bar. Tonight is the pinnacle.” Here she paused and sighed, looking like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “There’s a chef and food blogger by the name of Anna Lefeuvre. She won a cooking show last year.”

“I know”, said Yvette. She had watched a few episodes.

“She knows!” parroted Robert to Kasia, looking a little hopeful.

“Anna was supposed to be here tonight”, continued Kasia. “The owner, Sotirios, still thinks she will be. She was going to be the guest of honour and cut the cake. She’s cancelled on us at the last minute after confirming a few days ago.” Kasia’s voice quavered a little at the end, and she looked inconsolable. Yvette felt genuinely sorry for her.

Robert had one arm crossed over his body and his right hand resting against his chin, surveying Yvette. “You know—what’s your name?”

“Yvette”.

“You know, Yvette, you look a little bit like Anna,” he concluded, as though this had not been suggested to him by Kasia five minutes ago.

Yvette opened her mouth and started to shake her head. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you both”, she started diplomatically, “but I really need to find my date”. She glanced around the room for Miguel.

Kasia looked at her with teary eyes. “Yvette, all I’m asking for is 15 minutes. Will you be Anna for 15 minutes? Sotirios isn’t even familiar with the show. When I said I’d booked Anna he had to google her.”

When Yvette didn’t shoot her down straightaway, Kasia seemed to become more hopeful. “Will you help us?”

Yvette looked from one to the other. “I’m really uncomfortable with this”, she said weakly. It was out of the question. “Anna is a household name! There’s just no way we’d pull it off.”

“That’s not a no”, observed Robert.

Yvette never had the chance to say no. Kasia’s head swung suddenly to the left. “Sotirios is here!”, she hissed, sheer terror in her eyes. Yvette turned and saw a short Mediterranean man in a very expensive looking, perfectly pressed three-piece tuxedo suit and bow tie approaching. He had shoulder-length dark hair and a deep tan.

Kasia was muttering expletives under her breath. Robert put his hand on Yvette’s shoulder. “Yvette, you’ll be fine. Just roll with it,” he said unhelpfully, and then strode forward to meet Sotirios with a welcoming smile.

“Sotirios! The man of the moment.” Robert and Sotirios shook hands. Sotirios smelled of expensive cologne and seemed sober and focused, if a little preoccupied. Kasia pulled herself together enough to greet Sotirios, and then Sotirios turned to Yvette, looking unsure. “Anna?”. It was definitely a question and not a greeting.

Robert and Kasia’s faces both snapped in Yvette’s direction. They looked unsure too. Yvette said nothing, but smiled insipidly. Sotirios took that as her answer and mirrored her smile. As they shook hands he said, “I’m so glad you could make it.” At that moment his phone rang. He glanced down at it and furrowed his brow a little. “I’m sorry, I’ll have to take this”, he said to the trio.

“That’s perfectly fi— ”, Kasia started in a high, nervous voice, a platitude that was lost on Sotirios as he answered his phone promptly and started conversing in Greek. Yvette, Robert and Kasia exchanged fleeting, tense glances.

In the minutes that passed while Sotirios was on the phone Robert looked like he wanted to say something a few times but stopped himself. When he started to utter a few syllables, “Try not to—”, he was interrupted by Kasia wringing his forearm and hissing ‘Shhhh!’. Sotirios had finished his conversation and was walking back over to them.

“Shall we?” Sotirios gestured in the direction of a long wooden table. Yvette followed him to the head of the table, where a decadent three-tiered cake decorated with gold leaf and red rose petals had been placed. Sotirios tapped a punch bowl with a spoon and the music died down. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Wonderland!”, he began to rousing applause.

As he delivered his speech Yvette felt numb, almost as though she was watching herself from outside of her body. She gripped the wine glass she was still holding. Sotirios spoke about his early years back in Greece and his lifelong dream of resurrecting the family business, a dream which would be realised decades later and on the other side of the world. He spoke of the difficulties he had encountered in getting the bar ready for business. No one had believed in his vision, he said. They had thought him foolish and extravagant.

Yvette felt her phone buzz in her pocket and discreetly looked down at it. Just walking in now, Miguel had written. She tried to breathe deeply and focus on the smooth heft of the glass in her hand. When she started to hear phrases that suggested Sotirios was winding up, she knew it was important to concentrate on the task at hand.

“I want to thank Robert and Kasia for all the work that went into tonight”, Sotirios was saying. “And now I would like to invite award-winning chef Anna Lefeuvre to cut the cake.” He turned to Yvette and smiled. To Yvette’s horror, all the eyes in the room followed his eyes.

Yvette inclined her head politely and sidled up to the cake. She placed her glass of merlot down on the table and accepted the knife proffered by a nearby waiter, trying not to read his furrowed brow as doubt about her identity.

She looked down at the extravagant cake, praying she wouldn’t mangle it. She wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to go for the upper, middle or lower tier, but she supposed Anna wouldn’t have been sure either. It was just one of those things.

“Is that her?”, she heard someone in the crowd ask quietly. “She looks different”.

As she cut into the lower tier, in her peripheral vision Yvette saw Robert loudly offering the interjector a glass of wine for the toast. Another helper placed a tray of champagne in front of Yvette and Sotirios.

For a few minutes there was a hubbub as trays of wine circulated and the guests chatted amongst themselves. After a polite pause Sotirios cleared his throat. He raised his glass and said, “To new beginnings”. As she raised her wine glass to her lips and tilted her neck back slightly to drink, Yvette saw Miguel’s unmistakably handsome features across the room, furrowed into an expression of utter confusion.