Turn Up the Heat

by Jessica Conant-Park

  When I passed Wade, who was on the patio wiping down tables, I held out my stack of pages for the memory book. “Hi, Wade. Would you do me a favor and hand these out to the staff? My e-mail and phone numbers are on here, so people can get in touch with me.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll make sure to have people give you something. It’s really nice of you to do this.” I hoped Wade thought it was so nice that he’d force loving memories out of everyone at Simmer.

  I was driving home when my cell rang. Adrianna.

  “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

  “Oh, Chloe! Where are you? Can you stop by?” She sounded distressed.

  “Of course. I’m on my way back from Simmer. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” The books I’d bought for her were in the car. This would be a good chance to drop them off.

  Ade pulled open the door before I had time to knock. She looked anything but happy. “The police are still pestering Owen! Can you believe that this is happening right now?” At least she wasn’t crying this time. But, boy, was she mad.

  “What do they want from him?” I stepped into her living room—or what was left of it. Boxes took up most of the space, including space previously occupied by air.

  “They made him go down to headquarters to give another statement. And he asked me to say that I’d spent Tuesday night with him. I can’t do that! Chloe, it’s not true. I told him he doesn’t have anything to hide, and he said it would just make things a lot easier if I gave him an alibi for this Leandra mess. I know he’s right about that. But I can’t lie to the police.” Adrianna paced the floor.

  “Does he have his truck back yet?” I asked. “Has he been making his deliveries at least?”

  “They still have the truck, but like we thought, his boss let him use another one, and Owen seems overly pissy about it, if you ask me. I mean, who cares what truck you use to drive fish around Boston? But he has lots of accounts and big orders, so he should get paid pretty well this week. At least there is that. Are you hungry? I made these seven-layer bars that I can’t stop eating.”

  I was always hungry. “Yeah, those sound good.” They weren’t exactly lunch food, but I wasn’t complaining.

  “Oh,” I managed between mouthfuls, “I got you something.”

  “You did?”

  I handed over the bag with the books on pregnancy and baby care. “I thought these might make you feel better. I know how upset about stuff you’ve been recently, and I thought it might be helpful for you to read what people who’ve actually had babies have to say. I didn’t really know what to pick for you. You can return them if you like.”

  “You’re the best!” When Ade flung her arms around me and squeezed me, I felt her belly push into mine. “I’m totally going to read them! You’re right. I’ve just been hiding out trying not to think about being pregnant, and it’s not working out for me. I’ve got to take charge here and be more in control. Knowledge is power, as they say, right?”

  “I’m so glad you like them.”

  “And I’m going to call your sister, too.”

  I gave Ade another hug. “She’d love to hear from you. And this mess with Owen will get straightened out. I promise.”

  I was going to make sure of that.

  ELEVEN

  BACK at home, I devoted the rest of Friday, including the evening, to conquering the DSM. I made piles of flash cards with symptoms and descriptions on one side, and diagnoses on the other. I did my best to follow Doug’s suggestion to associate the diagnoses with people I knew. So, had Kevin succumbed to kleptomania? Or to something more sinister? What about Snacker? For the purposes of the exam, I categorized him as suffering from hyperactive sexual desire disorder, a diagnosis I based on his need to flirt shamelessly with every woman in sight. I then decided that Gavin was having a major depressive episode consequent to Leandra’s death. Josh’s diagnosis was acute stress disorder—in response to pressure at the restaurant—and Belita’s was obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her need to clean? Yeah, I was stretching the categories more than was acceptable, but I was determined to do well on the test, no matter who got stuck with which diagnosis. My only regret was that I didn’t know people with the interesting or peculiar symptoms required to help me remember agoraphobia (with or without history of panic disorder) and dissociative amnesia. At this rate, I’d succumb to trichotillomania: the irresistible urge to yank all my hair out.

  I called Doug to see whether he had any brilliant advice for a struggling social work student.

  “He’s not telling you what’s on the test,” Terry said as soon as he picked up the phone. Stupid caller ID.

  “I wasn’t calling for that,” I lied. Doug must have warned his boyfriend to screen my calls. “Beware of students seeking classified information!”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.” He laughed. “Doug isn’t here, anyway. Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No. No message. Just called to check in.” Another lie.

  “I heard about our waitress from dinner the other night. Doug told me. What a traumatic experience you’ve been through! How are you handling it?” Doug’s attitude had evidently rubbed off. Or maybe Terry was good at interpersonal relations on his own.

  We talked for a few minutes about Leandra. Then I told Terry about my dinner with the chefs and about the archaic attitude toward women prevalent in the professional culinary world. “Listening to Digger made me want to scream!”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” he asked calmly.

  “What can I do about it? Change an entire profession? Yes. Find a job that consists solely of yelling at idiots about stupid behavior and forcing them to behave properly! That’s what I’m going to do about it.” There. Problem solved.

  “Chloe, let’s back up and rethink matters. After all, you’re basing your view on the words of a few chefs. Their stories and experiences are not the final word on what it’s like for a woman in that profession. Some of what they said may be valid, but some of it may not. Don’t get carried away before you have a lot more information.”

  I was silent for a moment. “Okay, that’s true,” I finally admitted.

  “And what about everything you’ve learned in this internship you’ve had this year? It’s a program that educates people about workplace harassment, right?”

  “Yes, and it’s a ‘field placement.’ Hasn’t Doug taught you that?” I laughed. Terry seemed as able as Doug would’ve been to talk down a fired-up social work student. I smiled, imagining Terry counseling me while shirtless and clad only in leather pants and hideous jewelry, his long hair teased high. “And I should figure out a way to educate both women and men in this crazy restaurant business and to teach tolerance and empowerment and equal rights and lots of other catchphrasey things!”

  As I spoke the words, the realization hit me that I was fired up! And about something related to school! I did want to be a social worker—and not because Uncle Alan had forced me into graduate school, but because I passionately wanted to tackle the injustices of the culinary world. I felt so much like the Grinch discovering the joy of Christmas that I wondered whether a cartoon heart was growing inside me.

  “There you go. I’ll tell Doug you called hoping to get cheat notes. Bye, Chloe.”

  I hung up. I was stunned. After a year of whining and complaining my way through school, I finally understood why I’d picked social work, which had not, after all, been a random choice. Far from it! All along, lurking deep inside some hidden part of me, there had been this drive to save the world! Well, maybe just to improve the world. Okay, just the culinary world. But at least I was now on the right track. I laughed at what Josh would think when I began preaching the nonsexist, nondiscriminatory gospel of social work to Boston’s restaurant employees. I’d give seminars about supporting one another and appreciating diversity. Ha! Or maybe I’d teach women chefs and kitchen employees how to handle moronic men in their industry. While I was at it, I’d encourage egalitarian male chefs to train their less-than-
perfect peers to behave like normal human beings! Naomi, my field placement supervisor, was a die-hard social worker who’d love my plan. She was dating the owner of a Newbury Street art gallery, Eliot, so maybe I could meet up with her in town one day soon. Feeling revitalized, I spent Friday night enthusiastically studying and writing.

  After a few hours of work, I did take one break to check my e-mail in the hope that someone had responded to my plea for memories of Leandra. My only message, however, was from my friend Elise, who lived outside Los Angeles. While not working as a lawyer, Elise spent most of her time fruitlessly trying to spot celebrities. Her e-mail announced that her husband, Brandon, while picking up take-out Japanese food, had found himself next to Jeremy Piven. (Jeremy Piven and Elise, by the way, both enjoy vegetable tempura.) Brandon’s encounter wasn’t the brush with fame that Elise was hoping for, but she regarded it as a start.

  Her e-mail went on to say that her husband, after getting two traffic tickets for minor violations, had received a guilt-inducing letter of admonishment from the state of California. According to the letter, the state understood that although Brandon believed himself to be a safe driver, his driving record indicated that he was, in fact, a much worse driver than most other Californians. The letter then switched to a tone of encouragement. The state of California, Brandon was assured, believed that he had it in him to change: to become a safe driver and to cease endangering the lives of others with his reckless behavior. While California hoped that he would change, the choice was his.

  I loved it! The state of California had studied social work! Taking this positive approach was much better than simply handing out fines and appointing court dates. Yes, social work was the route for me! I might even begin to apply California’s method immediately in my efforts to elicit positive memories of Leandra: You may think that you have nothing nice to say, but you could choose to put aside your residual hatred for the deceased and be a better person by digging deep and remembering Leandra’s better qualities. The choice is yours.

  I slept well that night in spite of a convoluted dream in which I was carrying a monstrous picket sign outside Simmer while simultaneously chanting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” and stuffing my face full of foie gras. In the morning, I took a steaming shower, blew my hair straight, flatironed it until I smelled burning hair, and slugged down a cup of coffee. Then I checked my e-mail, my phone, and my cell for contributions to the memory book. Nothing. I hoped that if I ever had the misfortune to turn up dead in a fish truck, there’d be more material in my memory book than what I had for Leandra’s. Here it was, Saturday, with the memorial service only two days away, and the only memory I had so far was Josh’s forgettable one, and two uses of the word bitch. I resolved that I’d make one last pleading attempt to elicit memories from Simmer’s staff. If the effort failed, I’d just have to invent recollections and sign them Anonymous. I couldn’t bear to think of Gavin opening the memory book only to see blank pages or, worse, pages filled with stories of Leandra’s horrible behavior.

  Later that morning, determined to complete the memory book to my own and Gavin’s satisfaction, I showed up at Simmer. When I was still in the dining area, even before I swung open the door to the kitchen, I could hear Josh yelling. I entered his domain just in time to see him dump a container of stainless whisks and ladles on to the floor, thus creating a metallic clatter that echoed off the walls. “Why don’t you take these, too? Go ahead!” He was screaming at nobody in particular. “Take whatever the hell you want! It’s not my restaurant, right?” Josh tossed his hands up in the air and looked around the room at his staff. Isabelle, Santos, and Javier were visibly shaken, but Snacker was trying to hold back a smile.

  Josh caught my eye and dropped his hands. “I’m taking a break outside.” He went into Simmer’s back alley to cool off.

  I’d heard many rumors about Josh’s temper but had rarely witnessed it myself. From what I’d heard, he’d calmed down quite a bit in the past few years. Before that, he’d been prone to explosions. Josh attributed his outbursts to a passion for his work and a desire for perfection in the kitchen. I appreciated and respected his dedication, but I still didn’t buy it as an excuse for throwing utensils.

  I asked Isabelle what was going on. “I guess that some pieces of expensive cooking equipment are missing. Josh is upset. Obviously.”

  “What’s missing? Does he think someone stole them?”

  “A mandoline slicer and a really nice eight-inch chinois, which is like a strainer that we use for filtering stocks and sauces.” In spite of my anger that the equipment had been stolen, I loved hearing Isabelle show off what she’d learned. “Also, a stick blender and Josh’s favorite knife, a Wüsthof chef’s knife. At least that’s what he’s noticed so far. He knew about the blender and the mandoline a few days ago, but he just noticed the other things, and he’s freaking out. And yes, he definitely thinks someone stole them. And I’m afraid he probably thinks it’s me because of my past.”

  I tried to reassure her. “I’m sure he doesn’t think it’s you. He’s just really upset right now. He was generally yelling at the world, not at you.”

  “I didn’t take anything, but I know who did, Chloe,” Isabelle practically whispered.

  “You do? Who?”

  Isabelle leaned in close to me. “Blythe.”

  “What? Why on earth would Blythe be stealing this random stuff? What does she need a chinois for?”

  “It’s awful, but she’s selling the stuff on eBay. Stuff that she’s stealing from Gavin! After everything he put up with from Leandra, now he’s got people stealing kitchen equipment!”

  “How do you know she’s selling all these things on eBay?”

  “Josh lets me use the computer in his office sometimes to check my e-mail. I don’t have a computer of my own, but when I started here, he offered to let me use his if I wanted. I’d never had e-mail before or anything like that, so I was really grateful. He taught me how to set up an account and everything.” I was once again reminded of how wonderful my chef could be.

  “Okay, so…?” I prompted her to continue.

  “Oh, well, the other day when I was taking my break, I went to the office to make a phone call, and Blythe was in there on the computer. As soon as I walked in, she clicked the mouse a few times and then left. I didn’t think anything of it, but when I got off the phone, I thought I’d see if I had any e-mail. The browser was already open, just shrunk down on the side of the screen. And when I clicked it, her eBay page opened up with her listed as a seller, and it showed all the items she was auctioning off, including a couple of Simmer’s things.”

  Holy crap!

  “Poor Gavin, right? It’s so unfair to him!” she complained.

  Isabelle really had to get over this Gavin thing. And if Blythe was stealing from the kitchen, Josh was the one who’d catch heat from Gavin. Everything that happened in the kitchen was Josh’s responsibility.

  “Have you told Josh or Gavin about what Blythe is doing?”

  “No! And you have to promise me you won’t, either! I don’t want to be the one ratting out my coworkers. I love this job, and I don’t want to screw it up. Please don’t say anything,” she begged me. The taboo on ratting out struck me as a legacy from Isabelle’s life on the streets.

  I was facing my first real ethical dilemma as a social worker. If Isabelle was in any way my client, then I had to respect her confidentiality. And I did feel that she was my client. I had met her through a social service agency, and I had helped to set up an interview with Josh. I’d taught her how to go about finding a safe, affordable apartment. I regularly checked in with her and followed up on what we’d talked about. She trusted me to be professional. I couldn’t betray that trust. According to the social work code of ethics, I was to break confidentiality only if a client was a danger to herself or others, or if I had the client’s permission. The larceny at Simmer was unethical, but it wasn’t causing serious harm to anyone. Damn ethics.

  Jos
h’s foul mood made this a bad time to talk to him about the problem, anyhow. He’d have to calm down before I’d even want to be around him. In any case, I needed to check eBay myself. As a novice computer user, Isabelle might have misinterpreted what she’d seen. Maybe Blythe had been searching eBay because she wanted to replace the missing items. And there was no point in bothering Gavin, who was in enough distress already about Leandra’s death and didn’t need to be confronted with a comparatively minor problem. Anyway, I had to respect Isabelle’s wish to be kept out of it. But if I stumbled on Blythe’s eBay merchandise myself, would the code of ethics allow me to tell Josh?

  Isabelle interrupted my thoughts. “Oh, Chloe, did you hear? The police told Gavin how Leandra died. Everyone here just found out. She was strangled with the ties of one of Simmer’s aprons. There was evidence found on her body that matched the aprons. Isn’t that gross?” She wrinkled up her pale face in disgust.

  A Simmer apron? Then Leandra hadn’t been killed by some random passerby in the alley. When I’d found her in Owen’s truck, she’d still been wearing a Simmer apron, so her own almost certainly hadn’t been the murder weapon. Who had access to the linens? Which employees? Probably all of them. Customers? Probably not. For some reason, I wondered about Belita. Belita hadn’t liked Leandra, but she was only one of a great many people.

  “But she wasn’t raped or anything, thank God.” Isabelle looked embarrassed. “I mean, I know she was strangled, which is terrible, but I guess it’s good that something else bad didn’t happen to her before that. You know what I mean?”

  “I do. I know what you mean.” I found myself disturbed and distracted by the news that something as innocuous as an apron had been turned into a murder weapon and that the murderer had been in Simmer. In Josh’s restaurant.