I suppress the urge to stop her, to look her in the eye like a bad chef and tell her third place is meaningless, that it is all about winning, all about the food, all about who’s best. That friends and learning don’t get you anywhere in this world, that only being better than everyone else will do that.
But she’s smiling so much, happiness expressed the way only a child can, without restraint or cynicism. Big brown eyes aglow, glancing constantly at her ribbon to remind herself over and over that she went, she saw, she conquered—and she had a great time doing it.
Seeing that kind of joy so vividly, I suddenly feel like I’m the ridiculous one. Like being disappointed that she didn’t get first place is the wrong perspective, rather than the other way around. Twenty years of hard standards, of having it all figured out, of pushing people aside to get to my goal—and all it takes is a kid with a third place ribbon to make it all seem shallow and frivolous.
I laugh gently, partly at the infectiousness of her elation, and partly because I don’t even know what to think anymore. Stepping back to the desk, I cut up the remaining pieces of dragonfruit and offer them to her on a napkin.
She gasps, eyes wide. “This is a fruit? It’s so pretty!” she says, taking it from me.
“You should try it. Careful, it’s got a lot of juice.”
“You have to come to celebrate with me tonight,” Chloe says, still eyeing the fruit as she takes it slowly with both hands like it’s a small animal.
“I can’t, I’m sorry to say. I’m busy here with a private party.”
The supervisor reappears in the doorway. “You guys done?” she says.
“We are,” I say. Chloe nods, popping a piece of fruit into her mouth and grinning.
“Come on then, Chloe. Let’s leave Mr. Chambers to his work. What’s that?”
“Dragon’s fruit,” the girl answers happily. “Bye, Cole. Thanks again for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” I mutter as they walk away, Chloe still waving over her shoulder.
A profound, deflated emptiness permeates the office now that her round cheeks and musical voice are gone. A feeling of being proven wrong about something settling deep inside my chest.
When the dinner shift starts there’s a sense of urgency and importance more elevated than it usually is on a typical night. Before the first diners even arrive, the prep work is done hurriedly, chefs hunched over their work with complete focus, communication curt and efficient, none of the usual banter that’s flung around during the pre-opening lull. This one is different, a calm before a storm, warriors readying for a siege. Everyone is tense, and I wonder if it’s my vibe they’re picking up on, or if Charles is more of a gossip than I realized.
I perform the final checks and preparations as best as I can, though the crew is well-whipped by this point, and my inspections are mostly perfunctory. I enter the freezer and check for the third time that we have more than enough of everything—if only to distract myself from the growing impression that something is wrong, manifesting itself as a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach.
“Doors are open!” Ryan calls as he passes the kitchen, and backs stiffen, hands move a little more quickly. The orders start coming within minutes and the kitchen whirrs to life like some giant mechanism in which we’re all playing our part. Rich aromas of baking pastries, fresh herbs, grated citrus, and seafood all take their turn assaulting our senses before they blend into one giant masala of heat and energy. The sizzle of meat hitting hot pan, the clang of whisk against bowl, the thud of knife against wood forms a constant backdrop of sound for the chef’s dance, the music that we have to sing over in frenetic calls and requests.
And the sense of something awfully, terribly wrong gets bigger and bigger, until it’s threatening to make me double over in pain. An hour passes, then two, the orders coming in faster, my senses full but my consciousness somewhere far away—or perhaps not that far.
I fuck up a seared tuna steak, throwing it into a pan that’s not hot enough. Ordinarily that would be a major event the chefs wouldn’t let me forget for weeks, but this time they’re too busy to notice. I get the acidity of a tomato sauce completely wrong, which sets the grill chef behind precious minutes, but the kitchen is too hectic to stop and think about it.
“Chef?” Katy asks, breaking me from my rhythm. “Are you ok?”
“What?” I say, almost offended, without stopping what I’m doing. “’Course I’m ok. Keep your eyes on your filet and stop wasting my time.”
“It’s just that…” she continues, tentatively. “Well…maybe we don’t need that much.”
I look to glare at her, and notice a few of the other chefs look away quickly, but not quickly enough to hide their concern. I look back down again at the counter, a truffle in one hand, a grating board in the other, and in the middle a giant mountain of what must be half a dozen fully-grated truffles. More than anyone could ever eat, way more than we need for the recipe, and more than we could even use in a week.
I drop what’s in my hands and lean against the counter as I breathe in deep, recognizing once again the feeling that’s settling inside of me. Katy quickly turns back to her station and leaves me to try and regather whatever pieces of myself are still functioning.
I whip the towel from my shoulder and turn to the frantic kitchen.
“Can you guys handle everything here? I’ll be back in about half an hour.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes chef.”
“Katy, maybe when you’re done with those you can handle the egg whites.”
“Sure, boss.”
“Good,” I say, scanning the place one last time before striding out of the kitchen.
My veneer of composure disappears as soon as I’m out of view. I stumble out of the rear entrance, straight through the parking lot. Down a path I’ve been walking in my head for the past several hours, a path filled with inevitability, and an answer to what’s twisting inside of me.
22
Willow
It’s opening night, and if I stop to think about it I might just seize up and require smelling salts to reawaken. If I didn’t feel like the success of Chow was riding on this opening before, then I certainly do now, in no small part due to Tony acting as if we’ll go out of business unless it’s a massive, blowout success.
It doesn’t help that Tony forced me to read an interview with Cole where he was asked about ‘upstart restaurants with a mission statement of fresh, simply prepared cuisine’. His response that such restaurants ‘had their place’ but ‘didn’t value the artistry of food’ as much as he did and rarely lasted—in reality and in memory—stung. It was tamer than his usual, tamer than I would have expected, and I could tell he was thinking of Chow when he answered, but the dismissive judgment only added to my already anxious state. My nerves reach stratospheric levels when I overhear people talking about ‘that new place on the corner opening soon’ in a coffee line.