“Okay,” I said.
“Thanks!” She lifted her glass to me, then disappeared back through the doorway, letting it swing shut behind her.
For a moment, I just stood there, right in the middle of the hallway, alone. In the kitchen, some bouncy dance music was playing, and over it I could hear the clanging of utensils, the squeaking of shoes on the damp floor, and the grill sizzling, the soundtrack to the beginning of a rush. All things I knew well. Almost as well as the tone in my dad’s voice just now, finally accepting the councilwoman’s offer. It was as familiar as the set of his jaw as he sat next to Opal earlier, even as she celebrated unknowingly beside him. Something had shifted, changed. Or, actually, not changed at all.
“Hey, Mclean,” Dave called out through the screen door. I looked over to see him surrounded by white: on the ground at his feet, blown onto the wall behind him, and flakes still falling. “You ready to go?”
I looked back at my dad’s door, now all quiet behind it. No, I thought. I’m not.
Ten
“Do you hear that?”
I looked up from the fire station I was trying to get straight on the model base. “What?”
Dave, who was across the room, cocked his head to the side. “That,” he said, holding up a finger as the sound of voices, loud, in the restaurant below rose up the stairs behind him. “It’s been going on for a while now.”
“It’s probably just everyone setting up,” I said, moving the station again. It was just a small square that needed to go neatly into another small square, but for some reason, it would not cooperate. “Isn’t it close to five?”
“Four forty-six,” he said, still listening. “But that’s not setting up. It’s someone yelling.”
I put down the building, then walked over to where he was standing, peering down the stairs. I couldn’t see anything but the deserted side dining room, but now, I could hear the sound loud and clear.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s just my dad.”
Dave raised his eyebrows. “Your dad?”
I nodded, listening again. This time, I was reasonably sure I made out a bullshit, the word inept, and a mention of a road, and a suggestion that whoever he was speaking to consider hitting it. “Sounds like he’s firing someone.”
“Yeah?” Dave squinted as if this would help him decipher better. “How can you tell?”
“The volume,” I replied. “He never really gets that loud unless he knows the person isn’t going to be around much longer.” Just then, equally loud, there was a stream of expletives.
Dave raised his eyebrows.
“That’s whoever just got the hook.”
“And you know that becaus . . .”
“My dad doesn’t use those words. Even when he’s firing someone.” There was a crash. “I would wager that’s whoever it is throwing something. Sounds like a bus bin.” A bang. “And that’s the back door. It was probably a dishwasher.”
“Why?”
“Girls usually don’t bang out or throw stuff. And kitchen guys yell more.”
Dave was just looking at me as if I was insane. “What are you? The restaurant whisperer?”
I shook my head. It was quiet downstairs now, that heavy silence that falls after someone gets axed and everyone else is tiptoeing around, extra careful to keep their distance from the boss in case unemployment is catching. “I grew up in a place like this. After a while, you start to recognize things.”
I walked back over to my sector, picking up the fire station. As I knelt back down, focusing on the square again, Dave said, “Must have been pretty cool, your parents having their own place. Did you, like, have the run of the joint?”
“I guess.” I centered the piece, then realized it was crooked again. Damn. “It was either be there or never see them. Or my dad anyway.”
“Busy job, huh?”
“Full-time and more.” I sat back again. “My mom was around in the evenings, at least, and she was always on him to come home for dinner or take a weekend off to hang out with us. ‘That’s what we pay managers for,’ she’d tell him. But my dad always said even the best-paid employee is still that: an employee. They’ll never be as willing to Clorox the walk-in, mop the bathrooms, or empty the fryer when it’s all clogged.”
Dave didn’t say anything. When I looked up, he was again studying me as if I was speaking another language.
“They’ll never be dedicated the way you are when it’s your restaurant,” I explained. “As the owner, every job, from chef to bar back, is your job. That’s why it’s so hard.”
“And it was hard on you,” he said.
“I didn’t know any different. I think my mom had trouble with it at times. I mean, she loved our place. But she did call herself a ‘restaurant widow.’ ”
“You think that’s why she ended up with Peter?”
I blinked. I was still looking at the fire station, but suddenly everything seemed askew, not just that. “I . . .”
“Sorry,” Dave said quickly. I swallowed. “I just . . . That was stupid. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just talking.”