A bone-shaking clap of thunder split the sky just as I emerged from underground. The man in front of me on the subway stairs screeched like a twelve-year-old girl and then cussed like a sailor at the sudden thunderstorm. And then he cussed at me because I accidentally jostled him from behind.
“Sorry,” I muttered as I left him fumbling for a newspaper, presumably to protect his elaborate pompadour. Another rumble of thunder sent me and hundreds of morning commuters rushing along the sidewalk. I’d slept through three snooze cycles of my alarm and had missed the last express train that would have gotten me to work almost on time. Felix was going to be apoplectic.
I sidestepped a black puddle that looked as though it contained curdled milk and kept my nose pointed toward the pavement. I wore my backpack in front of me, tucked underneath my raincoat like a lumpy baby bump. I tightened the strings on the hood of my raincoat. Sadly, my umbrella sat neatly rolled and dry on my kitchen counter, another casualty of the morning.
Every mishap this morning could be attributed to Avery Malachowski. Our conversation last night had rattled me. I was in a foul mood as I walked to L’Ombre in the rain. I splashed through a small creek I’d never seen before on Broadway and remembered how certain I had been of a good night’s sleep when I’d finally dragged my aching body through the door of my apartment the night before. I had barely stayed awake through all five steps of my skin care regimen. I’d scrubbed and exfoliated, cleansed and moisturized, and had nearly fallen asleep to the hum of my electronic toothbrush. Lights off and pajamas on, I’d climbed between the sheets, closed my eyes, and waited for deep slumber to descend.
And it had refused to come.
Instead, my head spun while all the things Avery had said looped on permanent repeat. Did I really hate New York? Was I sick of the traffic, the congestion, the noise? Or worse, had I gotten so used to the urine smell I didn’t even notice it anymore? Was all this my new normal? The thought made me shudder. After an hour of rotating onto my side, onto my stomach, my side, my back, I was nearly hysterical. I felt like a rotisserie chicken. I could not sleep, and it wasn’t only Avery’s offer that had brought on insomnia. I also couldn’t sleep because it was louder than a rock concert in my apartment. Clearly the new neighbors had a unique circadian cycle. I had never noticed it before now, but my entire apartment was in desperate need of soundproofing. We’re talking big, fluffy foam strips on the walls and ceilings, like the ones in fancy recording studios. How much did Coldplay pay for theirs? I found myself worrying about these things around 4 a.m. and decided I would research foam and custom-made earplugs and white noise machines the very next day. As soon as I got a little sleep …
I sighed as the restaurant came into view. When I trudged up the back stairs and heaved open the kitchen door to L’Ombre, a sheet of rain followed me in.
“Hey, watch the drips!” Iveta, a bus girl, stood with one hand on her hip, the other balancing a mop. “I just finished this floor.”
“Sorry,” I said, aware that I’d said two words aloud that day and they had both been apologies. My rain boots squeaked on Iveta’s clean floor as I hustled to the locker room. I hurried to hang up my coat, slipped into my clogs, smoothed my hair under a fresh chef’s cap. Felix was nowhere in sight, and I breathed a cautious sigh of relief. Maybe he’s late, too, I thought, hope welling within me. I was tying on my apron, walking to the fridge to start on the strawberry-champagne mousse, when I felt Felix tap me, hard, on my right shoulder.
“Nice of you to arrive at your place of employment today, Garrett,” he said. His voice was gravelly, and I could hear the disdain in his words. “You will never run a kitchen on your own. You are too sloppy and too disorganized and too irresponsible.”
I took a deep breath, bit the inside of my cheek. Arms full with a large bin of strawberries, I set the load down gently on one of the countertops I had scrubbed to perfection the evening before. Sloppy? Disorganized? Irresponsible? I tasted blood and stopped biting my cheek. Head down, just do the work, I told myself, shaking with blind fury.
“Garrett, did you hear what I said?” Felix was close enough to my face that I could feel the heat of his breath on my cheek. “In this kitchen, I require respect. I need a ‘Yes, Chef.’”
“Yes, Chef,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Louder!” he yelled.
I caught Carlo’s eye from across the kitchen. Concern flickered in his gaze.
“Yes, Chef,” I said, my voice unsteady but louder.