When I step outside, I’m briefly replenished by the gorgeousness of the weather, another nonsensical full moon. It’d be a perfect night to swim in the lake, but Emma’s not waiting for me outside the restaurant, and, without her, the urge to go there is muted.
I start heading home instead, try to remember what’s left in my fridge. I’m not sure I even have the energy to cook anything, but it’s become a habit I enjoy after my shifts, one that helps me fall asleep with ease. I’ll probably need it to push Emma out of my thoughts.
I hear steps coming behind me, and at first I assume that it’s Felix. I turn over my shoulder and see that it’s actually Elias, half jogging to catch up with me. “Hey, man,” Elias says. “Crazy day.”
“Hasta la madre,” I say.
“You up for some pool? I need a drink and everyone’s going to this guy’s party I don’t feel like going to.”
I picture going to my motel, looking up YouTube videos of cooks poaching eggs or dudes who can wash dishes with machine-like speed. A shower, more fantasies. Falling asleep with my phone on my chest.
So we go to The Crown. It’s a quiet night and there’s an open pool table. I get quarters from the change machine in the corner while Elias pays for beers. It feels like such a Felixian place that I scan the crowd looking for him. A couple of old townies are at the adjacent pool table, playing without exchanging a word. A thin woman with frizzy hair is half off her bar stool, talking loudly to the guy next to her, who looks desperate to escape the conversation. Felix loved places like this, windows into the lives of others.
Elias comes back and shoots first; the pool balls separate with a crack. “So, how’re you liking the job?”
I take a moment to think about it while I line up a shot. The sore muscles, the wandering thoughts, being the bottom of a totem pole with no ladder in sight. “I’m loving it,” I say, and I don’t think it’s a lie.
“No shit.” Elias drinks from his beer, a long first gulp that’s pretty standard after a hellish shift like we just went through. “I fucking hated dishwashing.”
“You did it too?”
“A year. It sucks.” We take a few quiet turns. The internet-equipped jukebox is playing something distinctly not-bar-like, something slow and mopey, which would never fly in Mexico City, where every establishment likes to blast pop and dance music.
“Shit, man,” Elias says after a while, “you’re not gonna say congrats?”
I look at him askance.
He looks up midshot, smiling wide. “You didn’t hear? Chef promoted me to sous.”
“Whoa, that’s awesome.” I walk over with my beer, and we clink glasses. He takes a tough shot between two other balls, but since the world’s on his side today he nails it.
He runs a hand through his hair, walks around to the other side of the table to line up another shot.
“So, what’s your story anyway? You just showed up like a hero in one of those old Westerns. The stranger no one knows. If I’ve learned anything from those movies, you’re either here with some sort of a plan, or you’re running from something.”
“A little of both, I guess.”
Elias laughs, one loud burst. “That’s exactly what those dudes would say.” I screw up my first shot pretty bad, grimace like I was expecting it to go in. Elias takes his time getting back up, savoring his beer. “You cook?”
I nod, excited that the truth is easy on this one.
“Work in restaurants before?”
I shake my head, bow it in shame.
Another crack of a perfectly hit ball. “Picked a damn good place to start,” Elias says with a grin. “I hear you’ve been working your ass off too.”
“Just trying to keep up,” I say, scratching the back of my neck.
Elias walks around the table. “Good, humility. Kitchens need that. Lots of dudes come in thinking they’re the shit, thinking they deserve to be on the line. No one likes to say they’re struggling when they are.”
I take small sips of the beer, which is some American microbrew that’s way stronger than what I’m used to, the flavors big and bold. Elias kicks my ass and then racks up again. Lisa the bartender comes by with another round, and since the bar’s mostly empty, she hangs out next to us for a bit. Her accent reminds me, like everything else, of Felix, those six months he spent in Brisbane, somehow starting a construction company before shrugging it all off and moving on. Sometimes I’m comforted by the thought of all the things Felix got to do in his life, and sometimes the thought of all he could have done with a normal lifespan comes crashing down on me.
“This is Carlos,” Elias tells Lisa. “From my hometown, just started at the restaurant.”
“Welcome,” she says. “How the hell did you find yourself here?”
“I have no idea,” I say, trying to shake away morbid thoughts.
Lisa laughs. I turn to Elias. “How’d you end up here?”
“Shit, that’s a long story.” He takes a sip from his beer, puts it down. “I hopped around the restaurant scene in LA and San Fran for a bit. Then a buddy of mine was opening up a taco place in Seattle, asked me to come with him. We didn’t stay open long ’cause we had no business running a restaurant, but our food was good. Chef found me there and saved my ass by dragging me onto the ferry with her when that place closed down.”
“Saved you from what?” I ask.
“I was up to my neck in debt and drugs, man. My buddy and I spent most of the investment money on speed and blow, trying to chase after some romanticized vision of being rock star chefs. We idolized Marco Pierre White, wanted to do all the crazy shit that went out of style when people figured out it was a stupid way to run a business. It didn’t go so well. The shape I was in when Chef found me—I would have never worked in a kitchen again.” He trails off, and I think I hear a note of fear in his voice, which makes me wonder just how bad it got.
The squeak of a stool being pushed back makes us both turn away from the conversation. The skinny woman at the bar drops a twenty on the counter and then stumbles out the door. A warm breeze pushes in from outside; dozens of stars are visible in just that brief opening, surreal and comforting.
I turn back to Elias. I want to hear everything about his journey to Provecho. I wanna know all the steps involved, what his life has looked like since. But he’s looking around the bar, losing interest, so I leave it for another time. We spend the next hour just talking about food: the best things we’ve ever eaten, the best things we’ve ever cooked. I haven’t talked with anyone like this since Felix died.
At around two in the morning, I get a text message from Emma, a picture of her shrieking at the camera.
Would you like to make a reservation? I text back, smiling at my phone.