Christmas dinner

   As always for that time of the year, Adele had to out on her best clothes when working. It wasn’t really well seen if the hostess of a very prestigious restaurant dressed in any kind of clothing. She had to have some nice dresses for every single type of occasion, as she was the face of the hotel on the evening people had chosen to come. She represented everything for them and was the go to person if anything were to happen during one of the many dinners the hotel hosted all along the year. It was always vey busy, a successful business.

 Christmas time was especially hard on the hotel workers. For example, Adele had to wake up very early in the morning every single day leading to Christmas. For a week or so, she would have to put on her best coat to resist the fierceness of the weather and also because she really needed to get warm as soon as she arrived at the hotel as many things had to be checked. And in Christmas this was done in the most exact way, as everything had to be in line with perfection that night, as they always promised their guests the most lavish dinner ever.

 The kitchen staff consisted of several men and only a few women. There weren’t many women trying to breakout in the business and she was only closely related to everything they did on the actual restaurant. Adele was only a hostess and she would never be able to grow much more than that in her line of work. It all depended on very well paid jobs in certain events and parties, which he had hosted occasionally but not as prolifically as the events held on the hotel. There, she knew she was prepared to resist anything and everything.

 In the days leading to the Christmas dinner, the menu was checked several times and many testing lines were done. It was Adele’s job to taste everything and determine if she needed to change something in order to have some more time or make it a more successful menu. Two days before, she even thought it was going to be necessary to change the dessert because it wasn’t very well achieved but the person in charge of confectionery convinced her that he could make it more attractive with some superficial design.

 The day before Christmas he presented his corrections and he was lucky enough to be congratulated by Adele. The rest of the dishes were done and they only needed to cook them early on Christmas Eve in order for everything to be on point for the dinner. Many cases of wine were ordered from around the world, as well as many other alcoholic beverages. They also bought lots of cheese for after dinner and had to go to the market to buy the best and most fresh products in order to cook everything they needed for the menu.

 The night before the party, Adele was not able to sleep properly. She had gone to bed intentionally early but it didn’t work out at all. Not only was she worried about the dinner and the results the hotel was going to get with it but she also doubted her personal capacity to resist everything she was going to be held against. After all, the dinner was practically her show and if anything went wrong, it was her skill which had to come to work in order to fix whatever that needed to be fixed. All those thoughts did not let her sleep for a minute.

 When she arrived in the hotel, she checked every produce than had arrived and gathered the staff around her in order to tell them a few things before beginning. Not only the kitchen staff was present during the speech but also the rest of the hotel employees, as most guest were going to stay the night after dinner. Adele asked for everyone to do their best, to make it an experience that none of them could be able to replicate anywhere else. They needed to make that night one of the most special nights ever for every single guest.

 Rooms began to be cleaned and final details were being put on all over the hotel as flowers in every floor to make it smell divine. The kitchen went into full gear from very early in the morning, as they also had to cook for the rest of the guests in the hotel that were not going to participate in the dinner. It seemed to be chaos in the kitchens but the chef, and to a lesser extent Adele, knew how to make it all seem so peaceful, to always have a certain order that may not be obvious but with which every single person can work with to achieve the goals.

 Adele also had to check every single bedroom in order to personally see that the other workers had done a good job. She had to check first the ones where people had the intention to arrive earlier and then she moved on to the rest, checking for the bed to be perfectly done and for the furniture not to have a spec of dust. She also checked the bathroom, as that had always been very popular after dinner. People loved to have a bubble bath at some point so it was better to be prepared. Anything people wanted while staying had to become a reality.

 As she was checking the top floor, Adele received word that something had gone wrong with the dessert. Apparently the ingredients had been on a refrigerator that wasn’t working very well and they had become useless. Many melted and others were simply not the quality needed for the dessert. Adele ordered for all of that to be stored away and demanded the pastry chef and the confectionery guy to come up with something very fast as her customers couldn’t go without desert.

 Dinner was scheduled for nine o’clock at night. At seven, some of the guests begun to arrive and the desserts were not really done yet. Adele was very pleased to escort the first couple upstairs and tell them everything about the dinner, the usage of the bathroom and of the rest of the hotels features such as the swimming pool, the steam room and the spa, among others. She was lucky enough to check that room beforehand because she had discover dirty towels in the bathroom, so she changed that before anyone noticed.

 She didn’t join everyone to their room as, at eight o’clock, many more people started to arrive and she certainly didn’t have any time to waste. She used that moment to go back to the kitchen and see what they had come up with for dessert. As expected, they weren’t having many ideas. The people in charge were not as imaginative as they needed to be and they were really relaying on clichés to make a proper dessert. But the same old pastries and ice cream were not nearly goo enough for Christmas dinner. It would be an insult to the guests!

 Adele decided to come up herself with a new dessert. She knew they didn’t have much time, so she decided to reuse some of the ingredients they had from past parties. She decided to reuse the chocolate balls that melted when hot chocolate was poured on top of them. She decided to change the liquid chocolate for caramel and told the staff to come up with some sort of truffle at the center of the ball, in order for people to have a nice surprise when having their last dish. She put everyone to work and told them they had minutes to come up with a tasting plate.

 She decided to visit the lobby as they prepared, in order to let in the first guests. It was decided they should wait at the lounge bar, as she preferred to know first if the dessert was a go or no. She returned to the kitchen briefly to taste her idea and approved it when she realized it was good enough. Half of the kitchen staff had to help do all the desert plates needed for the evening. Adele left them again in order to open the restaurant and let everyone inside. The music had been carefully chosen as well as the design of the menus.

 The dinner started with applause when the guests saw their first plate, which was absolutely gorgeous. Then came the other dishes and finally the dessert. People didn’t say much about it but, when coming out of the restaurant, they praised the idea for being “simple but effective”. As some guests headed towards their beds and other towards the bar, Adele went to the kitchens and declared the night a complete success. She wasn’t going to sleep much that night either but at least she wasn’t going to be worried.

Friends & Secrets

   It was very problematic for Sean to admit that his life had improved dramatically since he had joined the gym. He didn’t want to tell anyone about it and only went there once a day, six days a week. Of course, sometime people would ask him where he was and what he was doing, but he had created the illusion that he was attending cooking lessons at a school that happened to be in the neighboring building of the gym. The smell of warm and fresh croissants was almost constant and made almost impossible to focus on one's obliques.

 Sean had never been the kind of guy that went to the gym and cared about his body. Earlier in his life he openly mocked those who took too much care of their bodies and looks. To be fair, he still mocked only that he refrained himself from saying anything out loud because he would really look like a hypocrite if he said something. The difference was the he didn’t exercise because he wanted to look better but because he wanted to feel better, which were too different things. Most of the people there were just show offs that already had a great body.

 Since he was a little boy, he had loved eating candy. His favorites were salted caramel and chocolate. His life wasn’t complete when he was at school if he didn’t have a piece of chocolate with his lunch. It was kind of a ritual, a weird tradition that he had with himself. He kept that for years, until very recently. Actually, some of his friends had begun wondering what had happened to the chocolates he always ate and also about the ones that he kept all over the house in case he wanted something sweet to enhance his day.

 All of those chocolates had disappeared and no one really understood why. Some were not idiots and had realized Sean had lost some weight and, weirdly enough, he looked as if he had grown taller and bigger but not in a bad way. They asked him about it and he only answered he didn’t really knew why and that he partially blamed work and the classes because of the tension he went through every single day. Stress could be a powerful force and could certainly be blamed for many things, so it was a nice save that not everyone bought.

 One of those who hadn’t bought into the story was Billy. He had noticed something really strange one day they were at Sean’s apartment watching a movie. At one point, they were having popcorn and Sean asked if they wanted more. Of course, everyone said yes. To be funny, Sean raised his hands in the air and exaggerated a positive response. It was then when Billy saw it: Sean’s shirt had been raised and instead of a normal belly, he saw a body in the process of getting really ripped. He knew his friend had never been like that.

 Many times before they had taken trips all together. Billy knew his friends bodies, not because he had an obsession with them or anything but because he had seen them in their trunks and bikinis. He knew what they look like. So the new appearance of Sean’s body was a very big surprise for him. Now that he was thinking about it, he remembered that Sean had not attended their last trip to the beach. He had told them that he didn’t feel quite right but when they came back he looked exactly the same, like a normal healthy person.

 Billy decided to follow Sean one day. He worked for his father so he asked him for a day off from the office in order to attend some personal business. His father never asked many questions and agreed almost immediately. They following day, he woke up really early and decided to follow Sean by bike. He decided not to take the car as he suspected Sean would know it was him if he saw it. The first time he saw Sean that day was at seven o’clock, time he left at for work. He stayed in his office until midday, when he came out to lunch.

 It was then when he saw the first red flag: Sean had never been the type to eat big pieces of meat or a large portion of anything. He knew how to choose what his body was capable of consuming. However, he had never been the type to refrain himself from eating something delicious, even if hat something was not especially good for you. Billy remembered fondly the time the two of them had eaten a big plate full of spicy hot wings by themselves, no beverages or carrot sticks with ranch sauce. That had been a fun day.

 But now, he noticed that Sean had bought a salad for lunch, a salad that didn’t even had a piece of chicken or bacon or anything. And the worst part of it all was that he really seemed to be enjoying himself while eating it. Sean stopped looked from a distance and thought that maybe he was been too judgmental and a tad exaggerated. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all if Sean was taking care of himself. He was trying to feel better or maybe it was that he wanted to look hotter or even that he was dating and he wanted to look great for that person.

 That all went to the mental garbage when Billy saw Sean pulling a bottle of water from his backpack and drinking from it. That was just ridiculous. One thing was to take care of his body and all of that but drinking plain water with a lunch that consisted mostly on a bunch of leaves only a turtle would eat, was just insane. Billy thought that there was something really wrong with his friend because he had never seen him like this. Something had to be wrong, that was clear. But what could it be or why could it be?

 After waiting for several hours in a café across the street, Billy followed Sean again and the next destination, to no surprise, was the gym. Granted, it was not the type of gym that had many windows and looked more like a giant fish tank than like a human building, but nevertheless it was a strange thing. Billy decided to go in, as he would see nothing from outside. Of course, he had to pretend he was interesting in joining because otherwise he wouldn’t have been allowed entrance. A trainer showed him round but he didn’t really listened.

 He only saw Sean many minutes later, working out on a huge machine that seemed to be used to help exercise the abdominal area. He had no trainer besides him and seemed to be focusing a lot on what he was doing. For Billy, the sight was really strange but not because it was his friend but because he had never seen someone so focused to do something like that. For a moment, he even thought it was quite admirable that Sean had decided to take on such a challenge, but moments later he felt betrayed again, as a friend.

 He decided to confront Sean. He ditched the trainer telling him he would join after walking around alone and then walked, almost ran, straight to where Sean was. As expected, Sean was quite taken aback when he saw his friend standing there. But then he decided to finish his exercise and then finally stand up, sweating more than he would have wanted to in that moment. The two friends looked at each other and didn’t say a word, not until someone dropped a weight somewhere, slamming his foot. They both laughed, which eased the tension.

 Sean explained to his friend that he had always had self-esteem problems, going back to his high school days. He had always felt fat and ugly and he recently had realized he could actually do something about it. He had begun exercising over a year ago but the change in food had been done very recently. He didn’t call it a diet because he ate as always on weekends and he couldn’t say he was going vegan or vegetarian because his favorite meals consisted of pork chops in a pineapple sauce. Anyway, he was trying something to help him achieve his goal.

 He told Billy he was sorry for lying but Billy interrupted him saying he was a bad friend for never having really talk about their past in a much more open way. If they had, he would have known his buddy’s struggles and could even have helped him. He told Sean he was sorry and then hugged him, which was a first for the two as they had always been the kind of buds that only shake hands. It was a new beginning to their friendship, a much needed one.

Several adventures

   From the entrance of the cave, the storm looked somewhat beautiful. Rain covered every single plant in the forest, as well as every rock, leaf and animal, if they hadn’t found a proper place to wait out the storm. Tony and Gabe had found the cave just in time and had been there for at least three hours. In that time, the rain hadn’t stop falling and it didn’t really seem like it would stop anytime soon. It was as if it was the perpetual state of that corner of the world. Both men decided to take out their sleeping bags and rest, instead of waiting for something that might not come.

 The next morning, sure enough, the storm was still going strong. According to what they had read before going into the forest, it wasn’t that uncommon to have storms that lasted for several hours. According to one book, the record was five straight nights of rainfall. It was simply insane but that’s how nature worked in that place. So both guys decided it was best for them to wait. They didn’t fear the rain or anything like that. The problem was that they could get lost and that was a real problem that they wouldn’t be able to solve easily.

 They had brought food, and sleeping bags and several other things but they had forgotten a simple compass. Besides, their satellite map on their phones didn’t work there, as the forest had no Wi-Fi. So, in a way, they were trapped by rain. The physical map they had borrowed from the park ranger’s office was the only thing they could use to navigate the forest but there was no real way of doing that because the map was not precisely up to date. According to the bottom left corner of it, the design was copied from another map dating from the 1980’s.

 It was best to sit down on their sleeping bags and have a couple of energy bars, which would help them stay alert. Tony and Gabe rarely talked to one another. They were not really friends but they weren’t enemies or anything like that. The reason they were together was that they had originally plan to come with several other friends. The original group had around fifteen people but then the park made them cut off some of them because the limit was eight people. Then some of the ones remaining dropped out and only Tony and Gabe remained.

 They had decided to go together because they didn’t want to miss the opportunity of entering the forest. The government had announced recently that it was going to be closed indefinitely as the passage of people through the park was apparently damaging it. Tony and Gabe were practically the last two people to ever set foot there in, probably, many years. But they were so mad at their friends for not going that they hadn’t really thought about that amazing fact. It was practically a historical event in which they had been caught up.

 The second night in the cave, they decided to play a card game. It was one of the simple ones, nothing too fancy. It was Tony that had proposed to play, as he was getting crazy by just waiting to see if the weather got a little bit better. Gabe was also very disappointed in that trip. He had come because he really wanted to get away from people and things after he had finished the process of divorcing the woman that was supposedly the love of her life. He had found her having sex with another woman in their brand new apartment.

 Tony’s reasons were kind of similar. He wanted to get away from his family. He was an adult that still lived with his parents and had serious money problems. The trip to the forest had been his idea and he had designed it to be a perfect getaway with his best friends. That hadn’t come to pass and it made him rethink his relationship with them because he didn’t really knew anymore if they were really his friends or if they were only close to him because he was good with other people’s problems but no one helped him with his problems.

 The card game went on for several hours, until they had to drop it because one of their flashlights turned itself off. Apparently, the battery had run out. After all, it had been on for several hours a day, being in a cave and everything. They decided to sleep instead but they just couldn’t so they started talking. They first did so about the rain and the forest and how cool the first few days had been, taking pictures of animals and beautiful plants and discovering a whole world they had never even imagined that it existed so close to their homes.

 However, the conversation migrated soon to their problems. First, Gabe got to tell Tony every single detail about his divorce. He even told him exactly what he found his wife and now girlfriend doing in his own bed. Gabe’s voice sounded bitter, so Tony tried to make him fell better by reminding him that it was for the best that he had found out the truth. Gabe didn’t know if that was correct because he had spent a large amount of money in that marriage, from the ring to a holiday he had planned for their first anniversary.

 Tony insisted: at least he hadn’t lived decades a decades in a lie. He had found out in the first year and that meant he had saved himself years of suffering and lies. That was something most people would want to have in a relationship. Most never get to know any of the truths that lie beneath their relationships until it is too late. Gabe began to realize Tony was right and really assimilated the fact that he hadn’t done anything wrong and that he was still young, if he ever wanted to marry again.

 Then, they moved on to Tony. Gabe asked him, rather bluntly, why did he still live with his parents? It was a difficult question to answer but it all came from the fact that Tony didn’t really have any real skills. He had gone to school, he had gotten diplomas and so on, but no company seemed to be interested in hiring him. As he explained to Gabe, companies were not looking for people that had a vast amount of knowledge. They were looking for people to exploit and someone that knew his worth wasn’t going to accept anything like that.

 Besides that, he found jobs that paid him a little money at a time but never enough to actually save anything. In his parents house, he had to pay the electricity bill and had to help with the groceries too, so there was no way he could ever get his own place that why. He lived with his parents not because it was the right thing to do but because it was the safest thing to do. He thought going out into the world blindly was not a solution to anything. Going out from home and then failing fantastically, only to come back, wasn’t really something he looked forward to.

 Gabe told him that, at some point, he was going to have to risk it, in one way or the other. Maybe he did need to take a risk like leaving home for working away from his parents. Or maybe he needed to let a company exploit him, letting them know that what he wanted was experience and that they could pay him whatever they paid others in order to be able to work. Tony was not very convinced by Gabe’s advice but then he said that Tony could also do his own thing; create his own business with all his knowledge at the center of it.

 That seemed to get to Tony because he was silent for a moment and then confessed to Gabe that he had always imagined having some sort of library, where he could help all sorts of people with all sorts of books. It could be in an old house, with a small cafeteria and a certain ambiance that would make it attractive to every single person around. He would offer all kinds of titles, from novels to poetry, from cooking books to big ones filled with artistic pictures and paintings. He knew it was hard and that his dream required a lot of money.

 Gabe told him he liked his idea. Furthermore, out of nowhere, he told Tony he would love to help to get that dream become a reality. After all, he had gotten some money out of the divorce and he had a stable job that gave him more than enough to live comfortably. He could afford investing those earning from his failed marriage. Tony was overwhelmed. They both sat on their sleeping bags and, in silence and with only the rain as witness, they hugged and agreed to become partners in a new adventure.