Dinner at Fiorello’s

by Rick R. Reed

  The move up and away from the dishwashing station was progress, Henry supposed, but not what he really wanted. What he really dreamed of was, of course, being a chef, but that was a long way off. He tempered his expectations by wishing and hoping for something attainable: helping Vito out as his sous-chef. Currently that job was held by Sammy, a young Italian guy who was Rosalie’s great-nephew.

  Sammy was good, with great knife skills. He could keep up with Vito’s pace pretty effortlessly. Henry knew because he watched them all the time, and keeping up, especially on a busy weekend night like this one, wasn’t easy. And Vito was not the kind of guy to mollycoddle his assistant. You had to kind of sense what he wanted and do it, with no hesitation.

  Henry was grateful to be in the air-conditioned front of the house, especially on a hot night like this one, but what he longed for was to work alongside Vito, even though the man hadn’t said more than two words to him since the night Henry had foolishly followed him home. That night, Henry conceded, was not one of his finest moments. He had apologized to Vito, but the apology was accepted with only a grunt, barely an acknowledgment, let alone forgiveness.

  Henry cleared off one of the booths near the back, dumping plates and cutlery into his big plastic bin, thinking about Vito. He had tried to learn more about the man, but even the talkative Carmela was pretty mum about his history.

  All he knew was that something bad must have happened to him, but Henry had no idea what.

  But there was one area Carmela wasn’t mum about, and she had finally revealed something about Vito that gave Henry hope.

  She had let the cat out of the bag a couple of weeks ago, when the two of them were outside, taking their break together. They would often walk over to Greenview and sit in the grass beneath a big maple tree, where it was cooler. Henry was still smarting from what had happened when he had followed Vito home, so he took the shared break as an opportunity to ask Carmela a question. “Can you tell me something?”

  “Is this about Vito?” Carmela asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because you’re obsessed with him.”

  Henry opened his mouth to deny it but thought there was no point. Carmela spoke the truth. “Did he just break up with his girlfriend or something? Going through a divorce? He just seems so, so tortured. Don’t answer if you think it’s none of my business.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “Yes, or a wife.”

  Carmela covered her giggles with her hand. She stopped. “You didn’t know? I thought that was part of the reason you’re always staring—because you wanted to get in his pants.”

  “I do,” Henry blurted out and then laughed, feeling familiar heat rise to his face. “But I didn’t think it was possible. I thought he was straight.”

  Carmela shook her head. “You really are clueless, Henry.”

  “What?”

  “I guess it’s not that obvious in Vito’s case, but yeah, he’s one of youse guys. What do you call it? A friend of Dorothy? More’s the pity for girls like me.”

  “You mean he’s gay?”

  “I don’t know that he’s much of anything these days, but yeah.”

  Henry looked off into the darkness. And smiled.

  IT WAS near nine o’clock when Sammy got sick. Or, Henry thought, sicker, because he knew the guy came into work not feeling good. He’d seen him. His usually dark Mediterranean complexion had paled, and there was something dead in his eyes. Later, when Henry had seen him working at his station, he noticed how his ashen skin was coated with a shiny patina of sweat. Henry had assumed it was just from the heat.

  But when Carmela sidled up behind him just after he’d finished serving a very handsome gay couple on what Henry hoped was a date, he knew the sweat was from something else. Carmela yanked him away from the grouping of tables and pulled him toward the hostess desk.

  “Sammy’s got the flu.”

  “What? And he’s been prepping food all night?” Henry was horrified when he thought of all the people the guy could have made sick.

  Carmela rolled her eyes. “Okay. Let’s just say Sammy’s got the flu.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She grabbed his face and squeezed his cheeks together. Henry slapped her hand away.

  “That hurts.”

  She shook her head. “You really are young, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I have a table to bus.” He started to walk away from her. Sometimes she could be his best friend in the restaurant, and other times she was simply annoying. This was one of those other times.

  Carmela grabbed his arm. Henry stopped and glared at her.

  “I wasn’t finished.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sammy went home. And look around, bright boy. We’re slammed tonight.”

  She didn’t have to tell him. He didn’t need to look around. Friday nights were always busy, but tonight was a cut above busy, verging on chaos. This time talking to Carmela was putting him even further behind. The place was jammed, the waiting area was standing room only, and additional people waited outside. Henry supposed the heat brought them out. Who wanted to turn on a stove on a night like this?

  “I get it. I’m in the middle of it.” It still hadn’t dawned on Henry what Carmela wanted, why she was telling him about Sammy. And then it did and he grinned. This could be his break.

  “You need to get your ass back in the kitchen and up close to Vito. He can’t keep up with the orders. You think you can do that? You just need to chop stuff, pretty much.”

  “Who’s gonna take care of the front of the house?”

  Carmela rolled her eyes. “You’re lookin’ at her.”

  “What about Sammy?”

  “He’s gone! And let’s just say, Mr. Busybody, Sammy enjoys a good time a little too much now and then.”

  “I see.”

  Carmela gave him a little push. “Go! Andiamo! We don’t have time.”

  Henry was already heading back to the kitchen, already being assailed by nerves, already, like Sammy, feeling more than a little sick.

  This was his chance to demonstrate not only his willingness but also his passion for making food.

  He stood next to Vito, waiting to be told what to do. Vito glanced over his shoulder at him.

  “What are you waiting for?” He gestured with a wooden spoon at a cutting board to the right of the stove. There was a huge pile of yellow onions and a big wooden bowl of heads of garlic. “I need the onions diced and the garlic minced. You know the difference?”

  “I do.” Henry stepped up to the mise en place station and took up the chef’s knife. He looked at it in his hand for a moment, reveling.

  “Get busy! You can do herbs and olives after that. Then I need help plating. We don’t have time to daydream, kid.”

  Henry got busy, bristling at Vito calling him a kid. What was Vito, anyway? Twenty-six? Twenty-eight? Whatever. He was hardly old enough to be referring to Henry as a kid.

  But there was lots of work to be done, and he didn’t have time to ruminate. He took the first of the onions, peeled it, and then began slicing, being careful of his hand.

  Vito looked over at him, made a “tsk” sound, lowered the flame under his pan of chicken, and snatched the knife from Henry’s hand. “Not like that. Like this.” Vito grabbed another of the onions and sliced it in half lengthwise. “This way you leave the root at one end, which you can cut right up to. Like this.” Vito turned the halved onion on its side, cut off one end, and then cut planks into the surface, then thin lines opposite to the planks. “This way, when you cut through—” Vito demonstrated. “—you get a perfect dice.”

  And his dice was flawless. “Got it,” Henry said, taking the knife back from Vito. And because he wanted to please him so much, he cut the remainder of that onion into identical cubes. He did the same with all the rest. Then he moved on to the garlic, using the same technique on a much, much smaller scale, after smashing each clove wit
h the back of his knife so the skin would come off easily.

  Henry’s hands got into a rhythm, and although he worried he would cut himself with the supersharp knife, he never did.

  It seemed the time evaporated in the steam from Vito’s pans. Henry had never toiled so ceaselessly and was amazed when the work—the chopping, the scattering of herbs on plate edges, the spoon slides to artful effect—was done, that the evening was almost over. He glanced up at the clock, and his jaw dropped. It was almost midnight. It felt like only minutes had passed.

  “Wipe down the counters with bleach and water and take out the garbage.” Vito took off his black apron and hung it on the usual hook.

  “Hey. I know the drill.” Henry dipped a rag into a bucket of bleach solution and began wiping down all the surfaces. Vito had said maybe three sentences to him throughout the hours they had worked side by side, and each of those was to command him to do something faster or to inform him he was doing something wrong.

  What did he see in this guy, anyway? He was a jerk. And Henry, worn out and not feeling as elated as he might have expected after working his first night “on the line,” had had it. He probably should have censored himself, and he knew it as the words tumbled right out of his mouth to land at Vito’s feet. But regret was a luxury for the older.

  “You know, a thank-you might be nice.”

  Vito stiffened at the sink they used for hand washing. Henry watched him dry his hands, and then he turned to Henry. Damn. Those dark eyes! Even when I’m pissed at the guy, those things can’t help but turn my knees to water.

  “For what?” Vito asked.

  With the edge of his hand, Henry scooped a row of garlic skins and herb stems into a plastic bin. He slammed his rag down on the counter. “For what? Seriously? How about for helping you out all night? How about for saving your ass?”

  Vito laughed, but there was little mirth in it. “Saving my ass? I thought you were, just like me, doing your job.”

  “Yeah, but still—”

  Vito shook his head. “Should we get Rosalie in here, ask her to clear up your job description? I thought your ‘title,’ if that’s what you want to call it, was something along the lines of all-around help. That means a little bit of everything, kid. Sorry if you don’t get my effusive thanks.” Vito glanced down. “You got basil stems all over the floor. You need to pick those up before you go home.”

  Vito turned away from him, and Henry couldn’t help it. Even though he was burning up inside from the dressing-down, he had to smile. This was the most Vito had ever spoken to him.

  Maybe the key to opening the man up was getting him mad.

  “And stop calling me kid!” Henry said under his breath.

  He didn’t know if Vito heard him or not because when he turned around, Vito had slipped quietly out the back door.

  Henry hurried to finish cleaning up. By the time he was done, the front of the house was dark, and the rest of the staff had left. He headed out the back door and double-checked to make sure it was locked behind him. Henry took a small measure of pride in that, even after such a short time working at Fiorello’s, they entrusted him with this small but important task.

  Out front, on Jarvis, Carmela and Antonio stood together, sharing a cigarette. Henry shook his head. That girl spelled trouble; he just knew it.

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Carmela called out to him, “Hey, kid! What you got on tap for the rest of the night?”

  Henry turned. “I’m going home—to bed.” What else would one do after working one’s ass off?

  Carmela came close, smiling. “One thing you need to learn is that if you work in a restaurant, you gotta blow off steam after your shift. We all do it.” She cocked her head. “Sammy’s been taking that a bit too far of late, but you need some time to unwind.”

  Henry nodded. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Antonio and I are gonna go get a drink down in the city. One of the bars on Rush?”

  Henry shook his head. The singles bars on the Near North Side of the city were a complete mystery to him, and one he was very comfortable with leaving unsolved.

  “I thought he was married,” Henry said.

  “So? A married man can’t have a drink with a coworker? And who said Antonio’s wife isn’t meeting us?”

  “Is she?”

  “No, but that’s beside the point. What’s up with you, anyway? You’re acting like a little bitch.”

  Henry sighed. He could slap Carmela right now, for calling him “kid,” for calling him “bitch,” but he was just too over her to care at the moment.

  She was right on one count. Although he was weary right down to his bones, with burning eyes and muscles that felt like they had doubled in weight during his shift, he realized the last thing he wanted to do was go home.

  But where could he go? He was eighteen years old. He turned to Carmela. “Sorry. It was just a long night.”

  “But you got to work in the kitchen. That’s good, huh?”

  “Yeah, it was.” And Henry surprised himself by smiling. In spite of the silent treatment from Vito and, later, the chewing out, it had been fun. His hands and mind had worked in perfect synchronicity, and he could stand here now and bask in the feeling of not only a job well done, but also the fact that he had fed people that night. He had helped make them happy by putting food in their bellies.

  “Well, there you go. You wanna come with Antonio and me?”

  “You really want me to?”

  And for a moment, he saw fear in Carmela’s eyes and that, most certainly, she was only making the offer out of politeness. Henry burst into laughter. “I’d love to, but you know I’m too young to get in any of those places.”

  “Right.” Carmela laughed too, and in it, Henry could hear relief. “But go do something!” She made a shooing gesture with both hands. “What do kids your age do, anyway? Aren’t there parties on the beach? Cafés you can hit up?”

  “Sure.”

  Henry looked over to see Antonio take a last drag on his cigarette and then flick it into the gutter. “Carmela?” he said softly.

  She smiled at Henry. “I gotta go,” she said softly. She leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t hate me.”

  Henry shrugged. “Why would I hate you?”

  And for the second time that night, she grabbed his cheeks and squeezed, asking the same question she had asked earlier. “You really are young, aren’t you?”

  She gave him a quick peck on the lips, and he could taste lip gloss and cigarettes. He stepped back.

  “Have fun tonight, okay?” She winked at him and returned to Antonio. The pair of them walked off together, heading toward the ‘L’ station. Antonio’s arm was draped loosely over Carmela’s shoulder, and she rested her head against him.

  Henry shook his head.

  He turned and headed east on Jarvis, toward the lakefront. This was his usual route home these days. His father had cut off the allowance he’d had since he was in high school, telling him, “Hey, you’re a working guy. You pay your own way now, bright boy. See what it’s like to make ends meet.”

  So walking the two miles or so to his house in Evanston was the obvious choice over spending the money it took to ride the ‘L.’

  Besides, the walk, usually late at night, relaxed him and allowed him to wind down from the night working. Even though he was weary right down to his bones, it still felt good to walk in the relative peace of the late evening. Often a lake breeze would buffet him, and when he got along the lake’s ocean-like shoreline, he would sometimes stop to admire how the moon cast the waves’ tips in silver.

  He would never have this if he were sitting on a smelly ‘L’ train, surrounded by strangers who may be the source of whatever odor was on offer that night.

  Of course, there was some danger in walking home alone. Rogers Park was still a different world from just a few blocks to the north, where the suburb of Evanston also sprawled along the same lakefront. Evanston boasted big houses, some of
them rightfully called mansions, and the campus of Northwestern University, one of the finest and most exclusive schools in the Midwest. But Rogers Park, in spite of being gentrified over the past couple of decades, still had its marauding bands of gangbangers who, Henry knew, would find a rich blond boy like himself tantalizing sport. Henry always walked briskly and with purpose.

  Something tonight caused him to stop in his tracks. And it was not a group of gangbangers lingering at the corner of Jarvis and Sheridan Road.

  It was his mom.

  In the weeks since he had begun his new job at Fiorello’s, Henry had just about forgotten that he had seen his mother in the neighborhood, because the sighting had never repeated itself.

  Until tonight.

  Henry let himself drift back into the shadows as he saw her emerge from an apartment building across the street. Her head was thrown back in laughter, and Henry was once again struck by how young and carefree she looked, so unlike the staid persona she radiated at home.

  It was as though she was a different person, and Henry peered closely at her just to make sure, even though there was no doubt. After all, who doesn’t recognize one’s own mother?

  The apartment building had a little awning over the front door, and just behind her was a tall man who, for just a second, Henry thought was Vito. But this time, when he looked closer, he was certain it wasn’t. The man had the same tall frame, broad shoulders, and mass of dark curls that Vito had. But this guy seemed several years older than Vito and had a full, heavy beard. He was dressed in a sport coat, white shirt, and jeans. He was laughing too. The baritone chuckles floated over to Henry on the breeze.

  There were some bushes in front of the building Henry was nearest, and he moved behind them to shield himself more securely from view. He didn’t know if such a maneuver was necessary, since his mother and this man seemed to have eyes only for each other.