“Ew, ew, ew!” I said as I set down my burger and stopped chewing, a small piece of bread falling to the table from my mouth. “I don’t need details.”
“I wasn’t giving you details,” Annie said, “I just was glossing over everything by telling you he’s the best—”
“Dirty sex you’ve ever had. Got it.”
“How was Aidan?”
“Remarkable stamina. Acrobatic. That sort of thing.”
She laughed. “You ever think we’re kind of like Sex and the City?”
“We tried to be all Sex and the City in college, even going as far as using your two suitemates as fillers.”
“They weren’t very good fillers,” Annie said.
“I can’t be a Sex and the City character. I’m fashion challenged.”
“You’re right, you’re a hipster.”
“Watch it,” I said. “Okay, confession time?” She nodded and I went on, “Aidan and I might have been in cahoots to get you and Caleb in the same place. Caleb apparently was very smitten with you. Or at least smitten with the dirtiness of you.” I waited for Annie to blow up. Caleb was the first repeat guy in years and that alone said something.
“I know,” she said.
“What do you mean you know?” I demanded.
“Caleb already told me.”
“Full disclosure? Sounds like boyfriend material to me.”
“And Aidan? Is he boyfriend material?”
I stared at her for a long moment. “You going to eat all those fries?”
I answered the door and immediately jumped into Aidan’s arms. He caught with me ease. “You smell like a restaurant.” I pecked his lips in rapid succession.
“It’s an aphrodisiac,” he said against my mouth. “I can lose it, if you let me use your shower.”
“Yes. I just changed my sheets. I don’t want that fried oil smell to linger. I’ll get you a towel.”
“You’re going to have to disentangle yourself from me if you want me to shower.”
“In a minute,” I mumbled.
He walked out of the doorway and into the apartment, managing to shut the door. I reluctantly released my grip on him. “You look tired,” I observed as I headed to the linen closet and pulled out a clean towel.
“It’s one in the morning. And be glad you weren’t working tonight. It was hell.”
“What happened?”
“The computer system crashed. We couldn’t print checks or process credit cards. People were stuck at the restaurant until we got the system online. They were pissed.”
“Oh, man.”
“Yep. And the kitchen lost three orders. Pure pandemonium.”
“Oy.”
“You can say that again.”
“Take a shower,” I said. “I have some left over Thai food I can heat up for you.”
Aidan grinned. “Chicken Massaman curry?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s my favorite. But I know it’s not your favorite. You ordered me my favorite?”
I rolled my eyes. “Go shower.”
After he showered, we settled onto the couch. Aidan wore nothing but boxers, since it was the only piece of clothing that didn’t smell. “I like your apartment,” he said, pushing the finished plate of food away from him. “What’s with the weird paint splattered wall?”
“I needed a change after Matt, but I got tired and gave up after one wall.”
Aidan smiled and shook his head. “You’re a ridiculous person.”
“Glad you think so.”
“Did you find this place with Matt?”
“No. I’ve lived here since I moved to the city. I’m subletting from a friend of the family. Rent controlled. Only way I could afford it on my own. Of all the crappy things that happened recently, I’m just glad I didn’t have to find a new apartment.”
“Moving in this city sucks. It’s so hard.”
“I know.” I scooted closer to him. “You tired?”
“A little.”
“You full?”
“Sort of.”
“You want to dirty some clean sheets?”
“Absolutely.”
Chapter 10
Arancini [ah-rahn-chee-nee]:
1. Fried risotto balls. Small, tapas size.
2. Ha. Balls.
“Hello, Sibby,” Katrina greeted in a thick Russian accent as she clocked in. She sounded more like Boris than Natasha, and I knew it was cliché, but it was true.
I stared at her for a full fifteen seconds before I replied. “Hello. You’re talking to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You’ve lasted two months. I can speak to you now.”
“Two? Everyone told me it was three.”
I swore her eyes twinkled with humor, but she didn’t smile. “You have proven yourself.”
“Thanks, I think.”
She continued to stare at me with shrewd blue eyes.
“You need something,” I said in sudden realization.
“I have date next Wednesday. Can you work for me?”
My calendar was wide open, what with having no real aspirations at the moment. “Sure.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
She smiled. It transformed her face—it made her look almost…warm. Less Siberia in winter, more like Siberia in summertime. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “You like chocolate?”
I took a square. “Thank you.”
It felt like the equivalent of spitting on our palms and shaking hands. Friend for life.
Jess entered the dining room and logged into the computer. She fiddled with buttons and counts of dishes, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “Did you iron your shirt?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
She fixed my cockeyed collar. “Then what’s with all the wrinkles? Did you use a rock?”
“I swear I ironed it,” I said, “but I had to put it in my bag to bring it.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll redraw the floor plan and put you inside where it’s darker.”
“You know,” I said, “if you guys sprung for an iron, we’d be able to be wrinkle free all the time.”
“Logic, Sibby, what did we say about logic?” Zeb piped up.
“It has no place at Antonio’s,” I recited.
“Julian wants you guys to push oysters,” Jess said.
“You give me cookie, I sell oysters,” Katrina stated.
Three hours later, it was the rush and my entire section was full. “Why do they do that?” I asked Zeb when there was a brief moment to catch my breath.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Seat my entire section when they could have easily rotated the sections. Like, you’re half empty, but I’m totally full. Why?”
“Because that’s the Antonio’s way.”
“Another one of those things I shouldn’t ask questions about?”
“Yep.”
“Excuse me, miss!” a woman in my section called, getting my attention.
I went over to the two women who had just gotten their entrées. “Hi, do you need something?”
“My steak is raw.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you ordered it rare,” I explained slowly.
“Yeah, but it’s raw.”
“You ordered it rare,” I repeated. She blinked at me like I was the moronic one. I took a deep breath. “Would you like me to cook it more for you?”
She smiled. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”
“How much pink?”
“Oh, uhm, just a little pink left.”
I picked up the plate and headed back to the kitchen. I was terrified of Julian’s reaction. I avoided the kitchen at all costs on the nights that he worked. Why couldn’t it be the sous chef running the line?
“What’s wrong with it?” Julian demanded. “That is a beautiful steak. A perfect steak!”
“She wants this cooked more.”
; He frowned in confusion. “She ordered it rare, no?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh my God! Sibby? Sibby Goldstein, is that you?”
I didn’t immediately recognize the voice. When I looked at the owner of it, I realized it was one of the bitchy mean girls from my high school days.
“Blakely!” I chirped with fake enthusiasm. “What are you doing here?”
“Eating,” she tinkled with a laugh, tossing her long, thick blonde hair. The dim light caught the winking diamonds at her ears and on her finger. Princess cut. Large. Figured. “Do you work here?”
Blakely. Never the brightest bulb. “Yep.”
“So random. Life’s funny isn’t it?” She ran a hand down her belly. Her slightly rounded, pregnant belly.
“I didn’t know you lived in New York,” I said.
“Yep. Went to college at NYU, where I met my husband. He’s a very successful lawyer,” she bragged. “I had no idea you lived in New York! I would’ve looked you up and we could’ve gone out for soy lattes and caught up.”
“Yeah,” I grimaced before forcing a grin. “That would’ve been swell.”
“So you work here.”
“So you’re pregnant.” I hoped Blakely still liked to talk about herself.
I was right.
She smiled like a woman who had never had any real problems. “My second,” she explained. “The first is three. Are you married? Do you have kids?”
I looked at my wrist despite the fact that I didn’t wear a watch. “Gosh, will you look at the time? I gotta get these drinks to the table. Good seeing you,” I lied.
Blakely rummaged around in her Coach purse, pulled out a business card, and stuck it in my apron pocket. “Call me, I’d love to catch up.” With a wave, she glided out of Antonio’s, leaving me with a tray of drinks and a complete lack of self-worth.
I was dejected and depressed the rest of the night. I smiled and faked enthusiasm, but when I wasn’t performing for customers, my mind was completely occupied with thoughts of Blakely and my direction in life. Or lack thereof.
It wasn’t that I wanted what Blakely had—a husband and kids and a house in Long Island, but I wanted to figure out my dream.
I didn’t have a dream.
What I had; a chef yelling at me to sell oysters, a sexy manager who I was trying not to drool on, at least at work, and what was rapidly turning into a potential drinking problem. My head wasn’t screwed on straight, not at all.
“You okay?” Nat asked at the end of the night. “Even your ponytail looks sad.”
“I ran into a mean girl from my high school.”
“Ah, let me guess. She made you feel bad about where you are in life?”
I nodded. “Why is it life seems to work out so easily for nasty people? There’s no justice in the world. She was head cheerleader, prom queen, and all that jazz. She was awful back then. Now, she’s married to a successful lawyer and wears a huge diamond on her finger. She has kids. She has what she wants.”
“So she says,” Nat said with a shrug. “She says she’s happy, but you don’t know. Maybe her husband is sleeping with his paralegal. Maybe her parents are getting a divorce. Maybe all the stuff she doesn’t show people is really what keeps her up at night.”
“Damn.”
“What?”
“You’re really good at this.”
She grinned. “You have to stop looking at your life wondering why it doesn’t look like anyone else’s. I’m a graphic artist, trying to break my way into illustrating children’s books. It took me a long time to be okay with the starving artist thing.”
“Thanks, Nat.”
“Go home, get some sleep. In the words of Scarlett O’Hara, ‘Tomorrow is another day’.”
“Are you hydrated,” Zeb asked the next night.
“Yes,” I said.
“Have you eaten?”
“Zeb, I’m not running in the marathon.”
“No, you’re only working in an Italian restaurant the night before the New York Marathon. You have no idea what we’re dealing with. No appetizers, no drinks, all pasta. Four hundred people. It’s going to be bad. Very bad. Prepare for Armageddon. Prepare for Julian losing many tickets, breaking many plates, and cursing in a mixture of French and English.”
“Why do you work here?” I demanded.
“You still ask that question? Have you learned nothing?”
Seven hours later, I sat in between Zeb and Natalie in our usual after work hangout, Johnny’s. They were reliving the night while I sipped on bourbon. Zeb had attempted to warn me, but nothing came close to the experience.
“Sibby?” Natalie asked. “You okay?”
“Shell-shocked,” Zeb surmised.
“Totally,” Nat agreed.
“Well, it’s good prep for the holiday season. The insanity gets even worse,” Zeb said. “Large parties, people’s high expectations even higher, and I get even bitchier.”
“What!” I yelled. “I can’t handle it. I could barely handle tonight.”
“You did fine,” Nat soothed. “Better than fine. You handled it like a champ!”
My left eye spasmed. “This was my night, ready?” The question was obviously rhetorical, since I didn’t even pause to take a breath. “Do you have frozen margaritas? Do you have pizza? Do you have eggplant Parmesan, veal scaloppini, or any other clichéd Italian dishes? Can I get one hot pepper to see how hot it is before ordering them? What’s Al Dente? Are you in college? How long have you worked here? Can you tell me every item in your chopped salad, even though I’m going to order the roast kale salad? These seats are too hard, do you have seat cushions? It’s hot, can you turn down the heat? It’s cold, can you turn on the heat? I’m a vegan, but I want to eat something that isn’t a salad. Why is my dish bland? Is your salmon farm raised? Can I have my tiramisu decaf? Why have you stopped answering my questions? Why are you twitching? Why are you walking away? Miss? Miss!”
I fell silent. My co-workers stared at me for a long moment before they burst out laughing. I didn’t think I was being funny, just honest. I dropped my head onto the table and let it rest there.
“I just want to go home.”
“Drink some more bourbon,” Natalie suggested.
“Okay,” I said, lifting my head and taking an obligatory sip of my drink.
“Aidan seems different, doesn’t he?” Natalie asked.
I snorted my drink and started coughing. Oh, the bourbon burn. Gah!
“Yeah, he was acting weird.” Zeb looked at me.
“Really? I didn’t notice anything different about him,” I said. I was lying. I noticed everything about Aidan. I noticed his blue button down shirt, every smile he threw at a customer, and how I had to actively not drag him into the wine room and have my way with him.
“He hasn’t been himself all week. He didn’t flirt with me at all,” Natalie said. “Think he has a girlfriend?”
That was my cue to leave. “I gotta go home. I’m exhausted,” I said, standing up. I threw a few bills down. “See you guys later.”
“You’re turning me into a night owl,” I complained, though it wasn’t really a complaint.
“Me? You’re the one who won’t leave me alone,” he teased, wrapping a naked arm around me.
I closed my eyes, drifting in and out of consciousness. “Should you go home?”
“You’re going to make me do the walk of shame at three a.m.?”
I laughed and snuggled deeper into the bed. “If only you weren’t such a good spooner, I’d be able to kick you out of my apartment. I think I need a list to remember this is casual. Number one, always kick you out, no matter what. Number two, no compliments. Not your size, eyes, or spooning abilities. Number three, don’t feed the animals.”
“You hungry? Let’s order a pizza.” Aidan climbed out of my bed and threw on his t-shirt and boxers.
“That violates rule number three.”
“I’m not good at following r
ules.” Aidan winked. I was glad he couldn’t follow the rules. He was fun to have around, even when we weren’t doing the dirty stuff. We laughed constantly. Every night that week, no matter if we worked together or not, he had come over to hang out. He always texted first, asking permission, and I always buzzed him up.
It was a very secret affair.
“So, what sort of perks do I get for sleeping with the manager?” I asked him when we were digging into the hot pepperoni pie. I’d grabbed us a few paper towels and two beers, and we sat on the living room floor and ate.
“You want a better schedule?” Aidan asked.
“Really?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“You’re new, you get the crappy schedule.”
“It’s not that crappy,” I said. “What about wine at cost?”
“No.”
“Why not? You guys get it in bulk and stuff!”
“Sorry, can’t do it. Inventory, ya know? Can’t hook you up.”
“So sleeping with the manager gets me absolutely nothing, huh?”
“Hey, I bought you a pizza.”
I grinned. “That’s something.”
“It would get you dates at cool restaurants and stuff, but you refuse to be seen in public with me. I think you’re ashamed of me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have you seen you? Restaurant manager my ass. More like scruffy GQ model. And you actually have a great personality. Most hot guys are just that and nothing else. Oops, I broke rule number two—compliments.”
“You already broke rules two and three. You might as well break rule number one. Can I stay the night?”
Chapter 11
Barolo [bah-RO-lo]:
1. Wine produced in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. Considered one of Italy’s greatest wines.
2. Prestigious, expensive, and worth it.
“Watch my section,” Katrina commanded.
“Only if you ask nicely,” I said to her.
“That was me asking nicely.”
“All right then,” I said.
“You’re lucky you’re cute and small. I could crush you with my bare hands.”
Tales of a New York Waitress (The Sibby Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
