Текст книги "The Coincidence of Coconut Cake"
Автор книги: Amy E. Reichert
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
• CHAPTER TWO •
Al Waters stood at the corner of St. Paul and Milwaukee Streets, a crisp, white note card in one hand, irritation on his face, and the wind at his back. The snow-white, thick paper had two imperfections: blue-gray engraved initials, DP, in the bottom right, and a suggestion, “Mr. Wodyski, Consider visiting Luella’s at 320 St. Paul Street.”
In response to such a succinct directive, Al had made all the arrangements so A. W. Wodyski could dine incognito at Luella’s tonight. Right now, he just needed to find the bloody place: “Three-oh-six, 312, 320. Here it is.” On the back of the card, he scrawled,
Hours
S, T–H 5–10
F+S 5–12
Al studied the entrance. He liked to scout restaurants before dining to see what they looked like without the hustle and bustle of other patrons as a distraction. Through the window, he could see a woman with ginger braids near the kitchen doors. The chef, most likely. Luella’s—dull name—probably a grandmother, thought Al. He looked at the menu posted in a small, bronze-framed box to the right of the restaurant’s entrance. His mouth grimaced at the laundry list of ordinary French dishes. The review practically wrote itself.
Al shivered and headed back toward Milwaukee Street, scowling at the chill wind whistling between the city buildings, a contrast to the bright, blue sky above him. He remembered seeing a Starbucks a few blocks away and could use a hot cup of tea, even from there. As he walked into the crowded coffee shop, the caffeinated air slapped him in the face. Coffee had no subtlety. It was bitter at best, mud from a rubbish heap at worst. He could manage a latte or mocha, but that didn’t count as coffee. Al shuffled to the counter to order his Earl Grey with a splash of milk. Starbucks had an absurd tea selection—Darjeeling and Earl Grey were the only reasonable options. The rest involved berries and herbs, which no self-respecting Englishman would order.
He waited for his tea at the pickup counter, tapping his foot at a rapid pace. Finally, he grabbed the hot drink and worked his way through the caffeine-deprived crowd toward the door, still polite and smiling at him as he pushed through. What were they so cheery about at seven in the morning?
Al left the coffee shop and crossed the street to the Milwaukee Public Market, the one small but bright spot in Milwaukee’s culinary scene. He had heard about an outdoor farmers’ market here in the summer, but after four months in the freezing, godforsaken city, he thought summer was a cruel joke locals played on new arrivals. It was supposed to be the first warm day of spring, which was why he’d left his winter coat at his flat. Foolish of him.
The Milwaukee Public Market consisted of one building the size of a small city block. Of the two stories, the first contained several booths for vendors ranging from coffee to beef to spices. All good quality and a decent variety for such a small market, though it was nothing compared to the meandering and never-ending food stalls of London, Paris, or even Vancouver’s Granville Island. The second story had a small seating area for people to watch the action below and sample their parcels. A few of the stands catered to the downtown lunch crowd—business folks looking for a reason to escape their cubicles for a minute of sunshine and fresh air. On the rare occasion when Al wasn’t eating out for work, he came to the Public Market to pick out the freshest ingredients for dinner. This morning, he just wanted to get out of the wind.
The queue at the newsstand where he liked to buy his newspaper was long, but Al had time. Because he worked afternoons and into the evening, he didn’t have to be in the office until noon. While waiting, Al rocked back and forth, from his toes to his heels, sipping the hot tea. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the familiar warmth and comfort. It almost tasted like home: fragrant, clean, just a touch of milk. Al took another deep breath to warm himself a little when coconut, vanilla, and bacon scents mingled with his Earl Grey. Al looked around, curious about the enticing smells, and nearly collided with a fair-faced, brown-haired woman standing right behind him, causing a few drops of tea to splash onto the pristine white box she held.
“So sorry,” Al blurted out as he turned toward her, catching the cup before disaster. The woman’s face warmed into a stunning smile—straight teeth, except one that was charmingly askew. Her nose crinkled a little when her grin reached its widest, making her faint freckles dance.
“No serious damage done,” the woman said.
Al couldn’t help but smile back—she had that kind of face. A ponytail, tied low on her head and not quite pulled through the last time, kept the hair away from her face. She didn’t wear any makeup and, more importantly, didn’t need it. She wore jeans—not too tight, not too loose—and a warm-looking brown quilted vest over a long-sleeve brown T-shirt. She eclipsed everything around them. He couldn’t stop staring though he knew he should, but he wanted her image seared into his memory.
Al shivered again, despite himself.
“Cold?” the woman asked.
“Bloody freezing. The weatherman said it would be seventy-five today; it can’t be more than fifty.”
The woman nodded with a little smile. “It’s the lake.” Al frowned. “You know, cooler near the lake,” she explained.
“What?”
“Cooler near the lake. I’m sure the weather report said that, too.”
“Maybe. But we aren’t on the lake.”
“We’re close enough. The lake’s not more than ten blocks that way.” The woman gestured over his shoulder. “Cooler near the lake can mean a few miles inland. Lake Michigan is so big, it does all sorts of crazy things to our weather. Wait until we get lake-effect snow.” The woman’s smile got even larger, with a hint of gentle teasing. “I suggest layers.”
• • • • •
Lou tried hard to not laugh at the poor guy. He looked frozen in his neatly pressed tan pants and light blue dress shirt. His shirt pulled against his fit shoulders and arms as he crossed them, trying to stay warm. He wasn’t very tall, so she could see his shocking blue eyes, the kind of eyes that would change based on how he felt. Right now, they looked like a blue winter sky: brilliant but cold. His frosty face said he spent too much time indoors, and his straight features reminded her of the private-school boys in movies like Dead Poets Society and The Chocolate War. His hair was a dark brown, short on the sides but longer and shaggier on top—the kind of hair you could bury your hands in during a really spectacular kiss. His scruffy face broadcasted he hadn’t shaved for a few days and would probably scratch while kissing. Perhaps she should offer to warm him up. Lou shook her head to focus as he asked her a question.
“So what’s in the box? Coconut?”
“A coconut cake.” She adjusted the dry cleaning and coffee to get a better grip on the box. She had almost dropped it when the man turned around so quickly.
“Where did you get it?” The man leaned forward to get a good sniff.
“I made it.” His eyes widened.
“Really? Someone is very lucky.” With that, he paid the cashier for his paper and disappeared down the street, turning back once before disappearing around a corner.
With a sigh, Lou bought the gum Devlin preferred and a local paper because she wanted to see what this A. W. Wodyski was like. Her phone buzzed with a text from Sue.
Harley ate a piece the size of a suburban raccoon. I’d say he liked it.
Lou looked forward to teasing him later. With a grin, she tucked the newspaper under her arm and slid the gum into her vest pocket, adjusted the dry cleaning so it couldn’t slide out of the plastic bags, took a little sip of Devlin’s soy latte, and picked up the cake box from where she had set it on the newsstand counter.
Glancing at the clocks behind the counter, she realized she had thirty minutes before Devlin left for work. Clutching all the items, she hurried the few blocks to Devlin’s apartment, arriving while the coffee was still hot, so hot she was thankful for her heat-callused hands. A little scalding coffee felt good on a chilly morning.
She hadn’t given Devlin an answer to the La Perla question (as she liked to think of it), so the lingerie sat unused in his closet. Moving in seemed more real than the engagement. Since they hadn’t even discussed wedding dates, Lou hadn’t felt much different other than owning a sparkly piece of jewelry. Nothing else had changed. She liked the idea of sharing a life with someone, always having a date on Valentine’s Day and someone to open presents with on Christmas, but moving in meant real changes. Leaving her apartment, melting her life into Devlin’s—combining their books, their music, their clothes.
While she wasn’t often home, she loved knowing her apartment waited for her, with her pictures, her cookbooks, her bed. She liked Devlin’s apartment well enough, but it had too many nice things. He always reminded her to be careful so she wouldn’t knock over a statue and asked her not to drink wine on his couch. All too often, she felt like an actor in a play, performing only actions outlined in the script. She needed her apartment as a place to spill food, be loud, break things, be herself.
But she also looked forward to sharing their days over a bottle of good wine, planning out Devlin’s next career step, and laughing over the ridiculous antics of opposing counsel. Yes, the comfort outweighed her concerns. They would work out their disagreement over her restaurant—maybe she could convince him to bring clients in to dinner, perhaps a private dinner after hours. People loved to get special treatment at restaurants. Lou smiled, her decision lifting the worry off her shoulders.
She quietly slid her key into Devlin’s lock and bit the twine so the cake box wouldn’t topple out of her hands. With the door slightly ajar, Lou moved the box back to her hand to free her mouth and bumped the door wide open with her hip.
“Surprise!” Lou scanned the apartment for Devlin but only saw Megan, the blonde intern from the gala, standing in Devlin’s living room and wearing Lou’s blue La Perla nightgown.
Lou’s jaw was still open and body frozen when Devlin ran out of his bedroom wearing only boxers and carrying an armload of clothes. He looked at Lou, then at Megan, then back at Lou.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, dropping the clothes and holding his hands out in front of him as if to stop a car crash. A pair of black lace underwear topped the pile. Her mind struggled to reconcile the scene before her with what she’d expected to find moments ago.
Then it hit Lou like an ice cream headache, cold and blinding. Lou dropped everything. Coffee splattered over the opened apartment door, dry-cleaning plastic slithered off her arm, the cake box broke apart as it hit the wood floor, splattering the frosted cake, soaking up the coffee, and staining the freshly laundered clothes with butter fat. Steaming coffee melted her beautiful coconut cake into slush.
Her heart lay in there somewhere, too, leaving an empty, lonely chasm in her chest. Lou closed her mouth to keep from being sick and took a step away from the open door and into the hallway, eyes still on Devlin. At last, she turned and rushed down the stairs and out of the building, bumping into a passerby as she reached the sidewalk.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, and disappeared down the street.
• • • • •
Al staggered back as a brown-haired blur bumped into him. It was the coconut cake girl again. Al watched Miss Coconut Cake rush down the street, the frosting smeared on the toe of her shoe leaving smudges on the pavement. The pain on her face left smudges on him. He had the urge to follow her, make her smile at him like she had in line at the newsstand. A gust of cold spring wind whooshed down the narrow street, shoving him in her direction. He followed the frosting trail down the sidewalk. When he reached the corner, it disappeared into a busy throng of people rushing to work, with no sign of the cakeless Miss Coconut Cake.
Al shrugged and turned down the street, faintly let down at having lost sight of her. Probably for the best, he thought—he didn’t plan to be in Milwaukee very long.
• CHAPTER THREE •
Hey, Harley, has Lou called?” Sue asked. “I thought she’d be back by now to open.” Now past noon, Harley had started baking bread and making the night’s desserts while Sue worked on prep.
“Nope.”
“I’m calling her cell—she’s never been this late. I don’t care what she’s giving that ass for his birthday.”
“Okay.”
“I’m telling her you ate half the cake.”
“Fine, I’m worried. Happy?”
Harley and Sue looked up as they heard the back door shut. Lou wafted in. Her hair looked windblown even though it wasn’t windy, her coat hung open, and her face was as chalky as the chef jacket she reached for. She missed it four times before lifting it off the hook.
“What did he do?” Sue rushed from behind the prep counter. Lou dragged her face up to look at Sue, but her eyes were fixed on the kitchen behind her.
“I dropped the cake,” Lou said.
“Ooooh, that sucks. Was he pissed? Harley will help you make another. Right, Harley?”
Harley grumbled a yes.
“There won’t be any more cake.”
“What did that jackhole say to you?” Sue asked.
Lou gave her head a little shake but couldn’t quite get the lost look out of her eyes. “It’s over. I don’t want to talk about it. Where are we on prep?”
Harley walked from the pastry station and—without a word—engulfed Lou in his bare, tattooed arms. Once inside those sugar-coated pythons, Lou soaked Harley’s T-shirt.
“I’ll put her in the Lair. We’re on our own tonight,” Harley said, walking Lou toward the office door at the rear of the kitchen. Inside, recipes, pictures, and scribbled menu ideas hung from every surface; a mountain of paper covered the desk; and stacks of cookbooks, files, and supplies filled most of the spare floor space. A small cot sat in one corner and an open door led to a bathroom complete with shower. When the restaurant first opened, Lou had spent hours alone in there, only to emerge with a gleam in her eye and a new idea for the restaurant. Sue called Lou an evil genius, hatching plots in her Volcano Lair. Now everyone just called it the Lair. As they entered the room, the phone began to ring. Sue shoved a stack of paper onto the floor to reveal the caller ID. She looked into Harley’s face and picked up the phone.
“If you ever bother her again, I will slice your bits off and serve it for the daily special.” She slammed the phone down.
“Too nice,” Harley said.
Lou took a deep, shuddering breath and unwrapped herself from Harley’s arms. She looked around at the clutter and shook her head.
“Thanks, but I can’t stay in here. I need to work. If I sit still, I’ll think too much.” Lou yanked off her chunk of an engagement ring and tossed it on her desk, then walked past Harley and Sue, entirely missing the concerned look they exchanged.
• • • • •
Eleven a.m. and Al arrived at work, hustling through the newspaper’s cubicle farm, passing faces he recognized with names he didn’t try to remember. When he reached his desk, his cube neighbor already sat at his desk, adjacent to Al’s.
“What’s up with this cooler-near-the-lake bollocks?” Al asked.
“Bit nippy this morning?” said John. John wrote the style pages for the paper, but Al thought his appearance left something to be desired. His stoner-meets-mountain-man brown hair and beard made it difficult to discern facial structure and looked as if they hadn’t seen water in a good month. John mentioned once he hoped to attract a girl who found facial hair sexy; a girl like that might be into some kinky stuff. He said there were websites.
Today, John wore a heavily wrinkled button-down shirt with a front pocket where he kept two pens (green and purple), wrinkly khakis, and red Converse All Stars. Al saw a little chest hair poking out the top of his shirt.
“Bloody frigid. What’s with the hair?” Al gestured at John’s neckline.
“I stopped manscaping.”
“They’re called T-shirts, mate.”
“No, the ladies love the chest hair. There are websites devoted to it.”
“Have you ever actually Googled any of those topics you mention, or are you all talk?”
“Not on work computers.”
During the four months Al had worked at the newspaper, he’d been unable to reconcile his colleague’s desk with his appearance. John’s bookshelf had all the current fashion magazines neatly filed alphabetically. He separated his bulletin board into quadrants, each with a theme containing swatches, pictures, and street photos. A sleek copper lamp with a pale green silk lampshade stood on his desk and a chocolate-brown cashmere throw was draped from his chair. Neat stacks of boxes under his desk contained shoes and clothing samples from local stores.
Al swiveled around and pushed the power button on his computer. As it whirred to life, he set out the stiff note card with the address and hours for Luella’s. His desk was gray and dull. The only clues to the owner’s personality were several books on food and criticism residing on the shelf. He tried to keep a low profile given his secret identity, and a spare cube discouraged coworkers from extraneous conversations—though nothing seemed to deter the nearest one.
“Wanna grab a drink after work?” asked John.
“I’ve a restaurant to review, sorry.”
“Which one?”
“Luella’s.”
“Can I come?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause you’ve a big mouth.”
“Some girls like that.”
Al rolled his eyes and turned to his computer. John smiled behind his back. The screen finally displayed all the correct icons and had ceased its noise, so Al opened a blank document and started typing tonight’s review, reveling in his scathing wordplay. He would fill in the details later, after he’d dined at the restaurant a few times to experience a variety of dishes and servers.
“Good morning, Al.” The smooth, melodic voice of Hannah, Al’s editor, spoke from above. Late thirties, blonde, and wicked smart. Semiframeless glasses perched on her nose, and her hair was tucked into a bun with a few pencils poking out at random angles. She’d taken a chance on hiring him as an unproven food writer, making her one of the few people Al respected. He’d been covering the royals, many of whom he’d attended school with at Eton, for the London Journal. While he hated the beat, the subject matter gave him room to hone his sharp-tongued writing style. After a few years reporting on vapid rich kids and their parents, he wanted out. With the goal of getting as far away from the royals as possible and, of course, following his passion, he applied for every open food writer position in the States. Hannah was the first to scoop him up. She knew talent when she found it.
“We’ve been getting some feedback on your reviews.”
“And?”
“I quote”—Hannah cleared her throat, holding an e-mail printout in front of her face—“ ‘I’ve never had so much fun reading a food column. I love Wodyski’s witty comments. Now I don’t need to waste my time trying bad restaurants.’”
“At least I’m helping someone.”
“I’ve got several more. A few think you’re a little mean, but you can’t please everyone. I’ve got more who love you. Keep it up, Waters—you’ve got fans.”
After Hannah disappeared into the maze of cubicles, John asked, “So why Wodyski?”
Still facing away, Al rolled his eyes to the ceiling and took a deep breath.
“I couldn’t use my real name, could I?”
“I get that—but why that name?”
Al whirled to look at him.
“Because it sounds Polish.”
“And?”
“It makes me sound more local, like I can be trusted.”
“You think us Milwaukeeans are that gullible?”
“It’s working so far.” Al gestured in the direction Hannah had gone, then returned to his work.
• • • • •
Al paused outside Luella’s, remembering Miss Coconut Cake. He couldn’t stop thinking about her infectious smile, freckled nose, and sad frosting trail. He shivered as a brisk wind blew from behind, nudging him toward the door. He entered two hours after Luella’s opened and was greeted by a quietly crowded bar and dining room with a distracted hostess. Unprofessional, he thought.
Crisp white linens topped small tables, looking like chess pieces on the black-and-white-checkered floor. Black-and-white photos of famous French landmarks broke up the plain white walls. The cliché thickened with each detail—baguettes stacked behind the bar, fake grapes spilling out of baskets, and taper candles melted over empty bottles of wine. He could have found a French restaurant like this one in any city in the world.
“Reservation?” Al looked up as the hostess finally acknowledged him.
“Yes, one for Waters.”
He dined alone tonight, as he did most nights. He hadn’t established a dependable and discrete group of people he could take out for meals, though John asked about once a week—probably looking for a meal on the paper.
“Follow me,” the hostess said, casting a glance over her shoulder.
The hostess sat him at a table with a view of the kitchen doors. He set out his iPad and typed, “Rude hostess,” then looked around the room. He couldn’t see into the kitchen, just glimpses when a waiter walked through. It looked clean and bright, but a clean kitchen should be the bare minimum standard. The hostess rushed off to a group of waiters near the coffee machine. While the restaurant had empty tables, it wasn’t dead, so it seemed odd for the waitstaff to congregate. He looked around and saw other customers noticing the group. A few tables had empty plates ready to clear, others needed refills on drinks, but the staff kept gossiping. He typed, “Distracted waitstaff.”
After more time than was strictly acceptable, a waiter appeared, took his order, and disappeared. He’d ordered the first item under each menu category: seared foie gras with a Bordeaux reduction, toasted-goat-cheese salad, sole meunière, and lemon soufflé. Al lifted his shirtsleeve to start the timer on his watch.
• • • • •
Focus on the orders, focus on the orders, thought Lou in a chant. She took a steadying breath, squinted at the tickets, called out the orders (two soles, three drunk chickens, and a special), and struggled to find her groove. The routine of the nightly rush started to kick in. If she kept moving forward, she wouldn’t have time to look back. She bent down to open the cooler near the grill station, which she was working tonight. Sue hadn’t let her near the sauté station, saying that too much could go wrong. She pulled out the chickens and a hanger steak for the special and tossed them on the grill, sprinkling them with salt and pepper. Lou noticed some plates waiting to go out, baking under the heat lamps—a pet peeve even on a good day.
“Why is table three’s food still sitting here?” Lou said, much louder than normal.
“It’s waiting on the grilled scallops.” Sue raised an eyebrow at Lou.
“It can start going out while the scallops finish.” Why can’t the waiters do anything without being told? They know better than to leave food sitting there. Lou buzzed Tyler, whose first day on the job was tonight.
Tyler’s head appeared in the window, and Lou pointed at the order with her silver tongs. “Get this food out.”
“But—”
“Get. It. Out. Come back for the rest.” Tyler grabbed the dishes and ran, looking over at Sue for reassurance.
“Little rough, don’t ya think?” said Sue.
“Not when I have customers waiting for food.”
Lou tossed up the finished scallop plate just as Tyler returned for the rest of the order. She stared at him until he took the food and delivered it, then she returned to the grill to pull the meat off. Instead of perfectly cooked chicken and steaks ready for plating, smoking remains poked at Lou’s already wounded pride.
“Damn it!” She grabbed the food with her bare hand and tossed it into the garbage, wincing at what she knew would be another burn mark in the morning.
After Lou’s outburst, everyone in the kitchen worked silently—college-library-during-finals silent. Sue and Harley flashed each other concerned looks. The dishwasher actually flinched when she tossed a pan in the sink. Her emotions roiled; anger, betrayal, and sadness all made her unstable, like two fronts crashing together on a stormy summer evening. She lit the air with profanities for every imperfection. Her glares sizzled and had the waitstaff avoiding the kitchen and gossiping by the coffee machine.
With each outburst, Lou hated herself a little more. What was wrong with her? This was her family and she was treating them abysmally. She wasn’t mad at them; she was mad at herself for trusting Devlin, relying on him to be part of her life, part of her family. Assuming he cared about her best interests. But he had never loved the restaurant. Looking back, she realized he had only tolerated it. He had even tried to talk her out of it right when she’d finally saved enough money to open Luella’s.
Lou remembered the night she told Devlin she had found her location. It was a year and a half ago, and they were dining out on one of the few nights she didn’t work.
“I found it.” Lou had chewed her cheek, head down a little so she had to look at him under her eyelashes, wrinkles forming on her forehead.
“My iPod? Great, I hoped you would.” Devlin watched the businessmen at the next table, trying to hear their discussion. His head hadn’t turned when she’d started speaking.
“No, my restaurant.” Lou’s voice barely carried over the restaurant din. Devlin turned now, his expression suggesting she’d just revealed she could fly using fairy wings she kept hidden using duct tape and gauze.
“I thought you’d given up on that. Besides, you don’t have the money.” His attention returned to the men.
“Dev, you know I—” Lou started to say.
Devlin held up a finger for silence, then a smile spread across his face. He turned to Lou. “Looks like I’ll be making some calls tomorrow. A merger is in the works. Now, what were you saying?”
Lou took a deep breath. “I want to try owning my own restaurant. Sue and Harley think I’d be great at it. I saved enough. I found the perfect place.”
“Why do you want to keep working in restaurants? I told you, I’ll take care of you. With your support, I’ll be one of the top attorneys in Wisconsin. That’s where our efforts should be focused.”
“Devlin, I need to try this. I’m sorry if you don’t understand.” He looked back at her, studying her face, her posture, as if she were a new car he might like to buy or a witness he wanted to break.
“Okay, Elizabeth, but I don’t want it to distract from our plans.”
End of conversation. For once, Devlin must have sensed her determination. But he’d ignored all her planning and had only eaten at Luella’s three times since she’d opened.
“Lou, you okay if I take a quick break?” Lou looked over at Sue to see blood dripping off her wrist.
“What the . . . ?”
“It’s just a minor cut, but I need to stop the bleeding,” Sue said.
“Go.” Lou waved her tongs at her, hearing Harley ask whether she needed help. Lou’s attention turned to another ticket for sole meunière. Lou started the fish at the sauté station, then returned to the grill.
“Chef?” a quiet voice asked from the window.
“Yes, Tyler.”
“Can you put a rush on the sole for table twelve? He’s been here a while.”
Lou saw red. She glared at Tyler.
“Fine.”
Four more orders arrived. Lou flipped the damn fish, started two more orders of sole, then rushed to the grill to turn all the items before she burned more food.
“Where the hell is Sue?” Lou shouted. She slammed a pan down on a burner and lit it to start the sauce for the fish. She tossed in the ingredients, but as she reached for the salt, her sleeve caught the cooking brandy, spilling it across the lit burners and sending flames whooshing to the industrial vents above the cooking area. Lou jumped back, but not before singed hair crinkled around her face and her sleeve caught fire.
Food first. She pulled the flaming fish and sauce off the stove and covered it with a lid to extinguish the flames. By the time she used a damp rag to douse her sleeve, the ignited brandy had burnt low, then flickered out. Before she could finish assessing the damage, Tyler’s face appeared in the window.
“Chef?”
She slid the rescued fish out of the pan onto a plate and dumped the butter sauce over the top.
Lou slammed the plate under the heat lamp and shouted, “Order.”
“And that’s enough,” said Sue from behind her, her wrist neatly wrapped in duct tape. She grabbed Lou’s hand and looked her straight in the eyes. “I say this as your best friend. You’re a raging bitch right now. While I’d like a little more sass from you, that’s not your thing. Go wash dishes until you can get your attitude under control. And what did you do to the food?”
Lou’s eyes widened as she stared at the sauté station. She saw one overdone and one half-cooked fillet, both charred.
“I grabbed the wrong one. Get that order back.” Lou peered out the pickup window, hoping to see Tyler holding it on the other side.
But it had already been served. Sue firmly pushed Lou toward the dishwashing area.
“I can handle it. The worst of the rush is over.” Sue turned back to the line of tickets and started a new sole to remedy the complaint.
• • • • •
And stop. Al pushed a button on his wristwatch. Thirty-three minutes since his salad. He looked at the plate. The fish looked wan, drowning in its sauce. The capers were scattered haphazardly. A pathetic wedge of lemon clung to the edge of the white plate as if for its life. He nudged the empty salad plate away from the silverware so he could pick up a fork. On his iPad under “Decent salad,” he typed, “Limp fish, poor presentation, slow service, no bread.” Al cut into the middle of the fish to take a bite. The inside looked underdone. Perhaps the edge would be safer. He took a bite and gagged. Somehow the fish was over– and underdone, with a heavy alcohol flavor. He wasn’t staying for soufflé.
“Check, please.”
• • • • •
Lou took over washing pots and pans for the night, embracing the heavy, repetitive labor. She scrubbed every pan immaculately, pretending each was Devlin’s lying face. Anger and hurt flooded her, blinding her to everything else. She scrubbed and scrubbed, expunging the indignation, the fury, the misery. Harley or Sue, she didn’t look up to verify who, put more pans next to the sink and she scrubbed. Then someone else put them away. She didn’t think, she just scrubbed, stopping occasionally to swab the damp off her face.
