Cal shrugged. “Whatever,” he said again.
Micah smiled, as if he didn’t notice the attitude. “Perfect. I’ll have Sailor lead you guys to your assignments.”
He nodded once more to Sailor and, without even a wave, left them to it.
Frida walked into the kitchen and realized she’d been imagining the one at Canter’s, which could serve two hundred diners if needed. They’d certainly baked that much bread and pastry each day. This kitchen, still dank in the gray morning light, was much smaller, and of course it wasn’t outfitted with industrial ovens and dishwashers. For washing dishes, there was a rusty trough next to a back door; the trough was presumably filled with water from outside, and the buckets waited on the floor nearby for such a task. Across the kitchen, a large woodburning stove stunk up the room. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling, and in the center of the room ran a long banquet table; for chopping and prepping the food, Frida guessed. One end was crowded with cooking tools: cutting boards, large mixing bowls, knives, slotted spoons.
As Frida walked in, a middle-aged woman with a gray streak in her hair was ascending from what had to be the root cellar. In one hand she held a basket of onions, and with her other hand she closed the two wooden doors that stuck open, vertical, from the floor.
She saw Frida and smiled. She was missing a front tooth, and the ones she did have were yellow and uneven.
The woman put the onions on the table. “I’m Anika.”
“Frida.”
“I know your name,” Anika said. She glanced out the window. She was checking the light, Frida realized. “You’re early. The others will be here soon.”
Frida nodded, unsure of herself. She remembered what Micah had said about her and Cal during the Church meeting: that they were strong and resourceful. She would have to live up to that promise.
Before she could ask if Anika wanted her to start on anything, the others on the shift arrived. There were seven of them in all, including Fatima, who was wearing the same outfit she’d worn since Frida’s arrival. It looked like she’d slept in the boxers.
To Frida’s surprise, Fatima came over and gave her a kiss on each cheek.
“Oh…hi,” Frida said.
“Don’t look so starstruck,” Fatima said. “It’s how I greet all of my friends.”
“That’s the thing,” Frida said with a laugh. “I haven’t had a friend in a while.”
Anika began her instructions. She wanted them to cut onions, she said, and peel carrots and slice potatoes so thin they were see-through.
“And I mean thin,” Anika said, “like skin.”
Frida quickly learned that Anika was on permanent duty, and thus in charge.
She was the team leader, Fatima said.
Most of the group was female, except for two guys who were as young as Sailor. They didn’t seem quite as na?ve or dewy as he was, though if they’d told her they played in the same band, Frida would have believed them: they were scruffy enough, skinny enough. One had a tattoo of a feather on his thumb and asked Frida if she could handle cutting onions. The other went right for the potatoes as if Anika’s instruction had inspired him.
When one of the women saw how slowly the boy was working through the first potato, she said, “It’s not easy to cut them as thin as we want them.” The woman had told Frida her name was Betty. Her hair was a cloud of dark ringlets, and her large brown eyes reminded Frida of a doll’s. “We need a mandoline,” Betty added.
“Noted,” Anika replied from the washing trough.
The boy shot Betty a fierce look, and both of them glanced at Frida. She immediately went back to her onions, which were making her nose run, her eyes water.
Eventually, she stopped resisting and just let the onions do what they would do. Her eyes were stinging so much they seemed to spasm, and the tears ran down her face. But she didn’t stop dicing. This knife was sharper than any she and Cal used, and she liked its weight.
Time slipped by. When she finished with the onions, Anika complimented her technique and handed her bulbs of garlic to mince. The guy with the feather tattoo had the same job, and they stood side by side, in silence, pushing the cloves with the flats of their knives so that the skins cracked open. Frida’s back began to hurt, the way it used to when she’d been baking all morning, but she didn’t even stop to roll her shoulders or hang her neck forward for a little relief, though she saw others doing so, even Anika.
Someone started humming a song. A lullaby. Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. After the first phrase, a couple of others joined in, including feather-tattoo man, which made his friend shake his head and snort like a pent-up animal.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
Morning Labor. Was that supposed to make her think of having a baby?