Free Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina López Page B

I continued
     with my onion and made the best of it. As I cut the onion I fought back the tears. I think I was so moved by his touch because
     it reminded me of how long it had been since a man had caressed me. At that point it had been at least four months since Armando
     had had sex with me. He had stopped making love to me a long time before that.
    I continued cutting my onion until I couldn’t stand my watery eyes. I wiped my eyes and thought to myself, I want to be touched
     again and again and again.
    Just then Janeira screamed. She had cut her finger and had to let everyone know it. The chef pointed to the first-aid kit
     in the hallway.
    I proceeded to remove the ends on the haricots verts. After doing a few green beans I decided to cut off the ends by doing
     it to the whole bunch at once. This, I thought, was smarter than one by one.
    I saw an old onion, partly rotten on one side, abandoned on the marble counter in front of me and looked around to see if
     it had an owner. Everyone was done cutting his or her onion, it seemed, so I figured it was there for the taking. I cut off
     the rotten part and was about to cut it in half. I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to cut it horizontally, then vertically,
     or the opposite. I put it back in the center of the counter and figured, It’s just soup. Next time I will get it right.
    Janeira returned to the practical room with practically her whole hand bandaged. She reached for her onion and inspected it.
    “Who did this to my onion?” she demanded, wanting to shed someone else’s blood. I was about to say something when Chef Frédérique
     shot me a look. I kept silent, and we both smiled. I looked down and said nothing. He told Janeira that it didn’t matter how
     the onion was or who did what. She had more than enough onion to finish her soup. Janeira complained in Portuguese, saying
     how could there be thieves in such a refined school, loud enough so that anyone who understood Spanish or French could figure
     out what she was saying. I felt so ashamed of myself for messing up my onion, stealing someone else’s onion, and then not
     admitting to it. It reminded me of the times my mother would rub a chile pepper on my mouth for lying and swearing when I
     was a little girl back in our pueblo in Mexico. She did it so much that I began to love chiles and hot food. My mother stopped
     doing it when she saw me salivating just before she was going to punish me. She just cursed me by saying, “When you have children,
     I hope they do the same to you.”
    I told myself that after we graduated from Basic Cuisine I would confess to Janeira, give her a gift, and apologize to her
     for taking her onion.
    “Allez, allez,”
Chef Frédérique said to encourage us to work a little faster. The Korean woman asked the chef in French where the soup bowls
     were located. He went to the pastry practical room and came back with fourteen soup bowls. Everyone grabbed one and a few
     of the faster students proceeded to fill up the soup bowls and present them on the standard white plates, which they’d found
     in a cabinet above the sink, next to the cooking wines and spirits.
    Another student, Martin, a lanky American with thinning hair, called the chef over and said he was ready. Chef Frédérique
     went over to him and set up his grading station on the center of the counter between Martin and Bassie. He tasted Martin’s
     soup and said it was
“bonne.”
Martin smiled and turned to the side so the chef could inspect his ID badge and get his name right. Chef Frédérique wrote
     a score in the roster. Martin proceeded to clean up, and then Rick and the Korean woman presented their soups. One by one
     everyone took his or her plate to the chef. He tasted mine and said it was too salty. I didn’t want to admit that I’d added
     salt and forgotten to taste it. He took a spoon and swirled the soup. He uncovered an haricot vert with the tip still on it.
     He pointed it out to me