Bread and Butter

by Michelle Wildgen

  “Do you want to shower?”

  “I don’t have any clothes here anyway,” he said. “I might as well shower at home and change.” He sounded so businesslike; it wasn’t what he’d intended, not after a night like that. He should have been up first, arranging some grand gesture. He set his coffee cup down, pulled her over, and drew her on top of him. She had the scent of clean sheets and warm skin. “I don’t care about a shower,” he told her. “That’s not what I’m thinking about right now, just so you know.”

  Camille grinned. “I do know,” she said. “I know exactly what you’re thinking about.”

  CHAPTER 13

  THEA THOUGHT MAYBE WINESAP NEEDED another big staff party. No one had thrown one since well before Britt went off to Stray—not that Britt had been so integral to the staff parties, which were more about the kitchen staff than any front-of-the-house people, but she could tell the staff was still recalibrating around his absences. Stray had been open for a couple of months now, and while it found its footing, Britt was at Winesap only one night a week. The front of the house had lost a little of their smoothness, asking too often for repeats on the verbals, forgetting to communicate with the back. And in the kitchen Jason and Suzanne seemed peevish and out of it. Even prep for staff meal seemed a little depressed, as if they were waiting until the last minute for a dinner guest to arrive.

  At staff meal one evening in March, the cooks clustered at one end of the table just as they always did, while the servers gathered at the other end, their ties tucked into their shirts, the women hunching carefully over their plates. Apollo sprawled picturesquely in his chair, long legs stretched out into the aisle while he tore pieces from a baguette.

  Thea took a seat in the middle, where she could get a good look at both sides of the table. Something was brewing between two of the servers: Annette had ended up sitting next to David, but she never looked at him. David was staring straight across at Alan and talking in a carrying voice about a recent guest: “So this lady asks me what a pork cheek is, like it might really be a tenderloin or something, and I finally had to say, ‘It’s the face of a pig, ma’am.’ Some people. They think they know everything but they don’t know a damn thing. It’s embarrassing.”

  Annette’s profile never shifted, but her posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. Thea watched David smooth his shirtfront and shake out a napkin. So that was what it was: David was pulling the same thing he did with every female front of the house. Sometimes he gave it a week, sometimes they worked there for six months before the moment arrived, but invariably there came a day when David picked a little battle about how they poured wine or whether they were overheard too obviously bullshitting on a menu item or had folded a napkin poorly during sidework. He waited till someone was promoted to be his equal, then he reminded her that in his eyes she wasn’t.

  Thea noticed that he never fucked with backwaiters, and he hadn’t bothered to give Apollo a hard time, either. He had some women issues, David did. Thea glanced over at Helene, to see if she was aware, and was pleased to see that Helene was observing David with a chilly expression. She wondered whether Britt just hadn’t noticed or David was emboldened in his absence.

  Leo had served himself with a plate of chili and salad and a few slices of baguette, then settled several seats down from Thea, among the cooks and one stray novice backwaiter, a girl in her early twenties who blushed when Leo said hello and then stared at her plate. New backwaiters were always intimidated by Leo and outright frightened of the cooks.

  Leo seemed to take pity on the backwaiter. “Ginny,” he said, and she nodded. “Remind me what you do when you’re not here.”

  “I’m in school,” she said, clearing her throat. She had brown hair pulled back in a bun and a dark sprinkle of freckles across her pink cheeks. “Zoology.”

  “Zoology?” Leo echoed, tilting his head. “So what’ll you do?”

  “Well, last summer I worked in the primate house at the zoo,” she said. “I’ll probably try to do more of that, I guess.”

  “The primate house,” Leo said. “That probably gave you good training for waiting tables.”

  She laughed, then took a small bite of her chili and frowned as she chewed. Then she swallowed and ventured, “I ate at your other place last week. It was awesome.”

  The cooks were watching Leo closely. Thea ate some bread, trying to look at Leo with only as much interest as everyone else displayed.

  Leo stabbed a few leaves of salad with his fork. “Oh, it’s not my place,” he said. “I’m glad it was good.”

  “Whose is it?” she asked, looking around from face to face. “I thought it was your brothers’?”

  “Exactly,” Leo said pleasantly, and Thea relaxed. “My brothers’, not mine. What did you have?”

  “I had the lamb’s neck and the salt cod,” she said. The cooks eyed her afresh. As if sensing it, she added with a note of defiance, “It was great. It’s some serious neck.”

  “It’s a terrific dish,” said Leo. “They’re getting a lot of press for it.”

  “They’re getting a lot of press, period,” said Suzanne.

  Leo paused, a bite of chili in midair, then resumed eating. He said nothing.

  “You know how it is with a new place,” said Thea. She was careful to address the table as a whole. “Always a feeding frenzy for the first couple of months.”

  “And anyway, it’s not all good,” said David. “I saw a couple blog reviews that said the service was shaky and the dishes were overworked.”

  Leo looked up. “Let’s not give credence to every moron with a blog and an immersion blender,” he said sharply. “The real reviewers haven’t covered it yet.” David looked away.

  Thea cleared her throat and picked up the menu from beside her plate. “Let’s start the meeting, shall we?”

  LEO WATCHED THEA RUN THROUGH the menu changes and additions, the items to push and the ones running low, while the servers took notes. Now and again she paused to tuck a lock of hair beneath her cap, revealing the pale underside of her wrist. Leo let his glance skate over it and back, in order not to stare at the twisting rope of muscle in her forearm, the violet thump of her veins. He felt he was becoming very Victorian, thrilled by the uncovering of a wrist or an ankle.

  It was nearly April, which meant that local produce would be available soon. When that happened the dishes changed more quickly, as small crops of new items appeared and disappeared. There would be two or three verbals each night instead of one or none. Thea would spend longer hours in the kitchen, working her way through new dishes for the evening ahead, and Leo would have to taste them, extending this amiable form of torture by a few more crucial minutes each day.

  Thea fell into step beside him as they all headed back to the kitchen, bearing empty dishes. She was carrying a hotel pan with the remnants of the baguettes.

  “I have a few potential interns coming through this week,” she said. Her eyes met his and slid away again as they neared the kitchen door, which Alan was holding for them. “Do you want to meet them?”

  “Sure,” said Leo. He nodded at Alan.

  “Really?” Her eyebrows rose and her head tilted. “I usually only ask you as a courtesy.”

  Leo handed her a roll of plastic wrap to cover the bread. Cooks and servers eddied around them, holding pans and knives and cutting boards. “Really,” he said, careful to keep his tone neutral. They were skirting awfully close to knowing banter. “I’d prefer to have a look at them.”

  The temptation to soften this with a smile was nearly overwhelming. This playacting was supposed to be hot, but being cool and professional with Thea made him nervous, as if they were always on the verge of a fight. He feared that even these gentle, silent admonitions of each other set a poisonous precedent for them the rest of the time.

  “Of course,” Thea said crisply. She tore off the plastic with a brusque movement. “I’ll let you know when they’re here.”

  Leo nodded and left the kitchen, rumin
ating on his dismissal. He was trying to recall whether, back when he was merely her boss, Thea had let him know so precisely the moment he went from necessary to unnecessary. Or had that been his prerogative, as the one in charge? Their interactions now had about three additional layers, and he was never sure which ones he was inventing. He’d have to ask her.

  An hour later she stuck her head into his office. Downstairs the service was flowing at a good midweek pace, everyone occupied but not frazzled. “We’re eighty-sixing the bison,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he replied. He’d pushed his chair back from his desk automatically, thinking to get up when he saw her, but now sat back down. Anyone might be behind her, getting changed or grabbing stock. So he just smiled at her. No one would hear that. Thea grinned back at him, leaning far enough into the office for the door to block any view of her face from the hall behind her. Then she disappeared.

  Leo returned to his work. His chest felt buoyant and full. There was no need for him to be told that they were out of bison. Her trip upstairs was a kiss hidden in plain sight, a little gift.

  CHAPTER 14

  HARRY HAD NEVER REALIZED that it would feel so much like pretending. The friends-and-family night had felt like a huge, unending dinner party he hadn’t adequately prepared for, but he felt that his lapses in it would be forgiven. But the next night, when he unlocked the doors at five p.m., turned on the sign, and went to his place behind the long zinc bar, he’d understood that now his folly was going to be absolutely clear to everyone. That the building and cooking and planning and borrowing had been unnoticed in the public sphere, just a fantasy he’d enjoyed all by himself, as a distraction from the things he should have been doing instead—finishing his doctorate, maybe, or learning to farm, or working an office job, as Britt had for years. At least you always knew what your paycheck would be.

  Next to him, Jenelle had jittered about, repositioning dishes and knives, glancing around at the servers clustered by the zinc bar, at Britt standing behind the maître d’ stand and reading a menu. Her mise en place was all set up; her pans were gleaming and clean; her knives were so sharp they severed the flesh of an onion or a chicken as softly and cleanly as a wish. She kept touching the flat of a blade as if to reassure herself.

  Harry had regretted being out in the dining room right then. It might have been better to be hidden away in the kitchen, where the staff would at least be divided and could not all keep one nervous eye on him as the clock began to move forward and the door stayed closed and untouched. He was about to say something to Jenelle, just because she was closest to him and because he was sure she knew that he was terrified—something to dismiss that impression of him and yet elicit a reflexive reassurance. But then he saw that Jenelle was cutting an onion with such a slow, petrified motion, her eyes trained so fiercely on the moving blade, that he knew she must be realizing what a gamble it had been to leave the Breakfast Bar for this place. She was seeing the unpaid rent and the unemployment he must have set her up for.

  Harry took a breath. He was the leader. It was his job to reassure her, not vice versa. “Hey,” he said. “You want to try out pig’s ear salad at staff meal tomorrow?”

  She grinned. “Josh will faint,” she said. Her shoulders lowered a quarter inch. “Let’s do it.”

  They never did do the pig’s ears—that evening the first wave of customers distracted him from ordering them, and the next night made him forget entirely. Harry soon moved on to exhaustion mingled with incredulity over the fact that this was what his life would look like for the foreseeable future.

  It had hit him on a Friday morning at the end of April, as he sat at the bar with a pot of coffee and the previous night’s receipts and the week’s orders. There had been surprisingly few customer complaints. That might seem good, but it could be bad too, if people just didn’t bother complaining because they knew they’d never come back. He poured another cup of coffee and pondered his failing Korean rice stick. He should be thinking of something to replace it, but he seemed unable to imagine any food that wasn’t right in front of him.

  Britt had had to be at Winesap the night before, so Harry had opened, cooked, and closed. He’d gotten home at two, slept for four hours, and then returned to work. Now he had a dull headache that would have gone away if he’d been able to sleep a few more hours, and his body felt limp and heavy.

  Of all the things he’d done, none had been both so tenuous and so complex to undo as this. He didn’t want to undo it. But it was hitting him that he had met a goal in opening the place and that the comfort of that next concrete goal was lost.

  No one else was in yet. He turned on his laptop and visited some food blogs and industry sites, on the off chance he’d be inspired, but he got distracted almost instantly, so in another tab he opened a travel magazine. Singapore had a lot to offer. Plenty of street food, endless inspiration. Apparently the beaches in Croatia were stunning. He checked to see if flying out of Philadelphia would get him anywhere close.

  The day before, Harry had discovered a few decent hotels in the Zamalek neighborhood of Cairo. Recently he had also, entirely by accident, memorized a list of autumn food festivals in Italy. He had his eye on the one celebrating the hazelnut. And even though he could not actually go—would not even think of going—imagining these escapes was so freeing that he couldn’t stop, either.

  Harry’s great fear was that after everything, he might not be cut out for this. He had worried over the location, the staff, the reviews, the financing, the local economy. It had never occurred to him that he might find the relentlessness of the restaurant so overwhelming, as if it were a hungry baby that never got past the demanding newborn phase, or that owning the place would be different from being its most dedicated employee.

  If they could make it to a year, their chances were good. Leo had been saying it since Harry was still in high school, and he was right. Most restaurants had a couple of months to find their way, but within weeks it was clear whose menu was generic or bizarre or poorly conceived, who couldn’t keep a staff, who couldn’t cook consistently, who had assumed that some magical presence would prevent them from doing this if they were unqualified. In just the time Harry had been working on Stray, he’d seen three new places open and close: a pan-Asian noodle house, an upscale diner, and a pasta place. The Texas barbecue joint was next. Everyone knew it. It had been six months and they couldn’t get a brisket right—really, they had no business staying open.

  Around ten a.m., Harry perceived a brown jacket two feet away and jumped, his body flooding with electricity. Hector had materialized at the end of the bar. “Jesus, Hector! Don’t do that,” he cried. “Whistle or something.”

  “Sorry,” said Hector. He poured himself a cup of coffee and settled his baseball cap over his cropped black hair. Now he would stand, saying nothing and drinking his coffee, for five minutes. He never sat down. Then he would square his shoulders and disappear into the kitchen, commencing the sounds of whirring blenders and the occasional gasps from a nitrogen tank. Later that afternoon he would reappear and place a dessert before Harry and Britt, if Britt was here. Yesterday it had been a single chocolate orb that shattered with the tap of a knife, revealing shards of crystallized whiteness. “Chocolate-menthol geode,” Hector had said, and watched them piercingly as they ate, the chocolate melting on their tongues while the menthol rose in vapors straight toward the tops of their skulls.

  Jenelle appeared soon after Hector had disappeared into the kitchen, bringing with her a faint whiff of cigarette smoke, and began cleaning her station. Periodically she took a bite from a turkey sandwich she’d brought with her. Harry couldn’t stand to look at it, the cold slick meat, the pockets of gristle and mayonnaise.

  He joined Jenelle behind the bar and started in on his own station, both to avoid looking at the turkey and to prevent her from cleaning his station too. He didn’t want her thinking she got treated like a lackey.

  “Any word?” Jenelle asked.

  “
Not yet,” said Harry. “It’ll happen pretty soon. I’m surprised they haven’t done it yet, but at least they’re not rushing in here to review us before we have time to settle in.”

  “Maybe they’ve already been coming for a while and just haven’t written about it yet,” said Jenelle.

  Harry froze. “Maybe,” he said. He shook it off. “Probably. I don’t know. I doubt a local paper can afford more than a couple of visits anyway.”

  Jenelle took a bite of her sandwich. “You want me to bring you one?” she said, chewing.

  “No, thanks,” Harry said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I can always make another stop,” she said. “I could bring you a burger.”

  “Nah,” he said.

  “The point,” Jenelle went on, scrubbing at the flat top, “is that you don’t really eat, ever. You never even join us for staff dinner. And you’re pretty skinny.”

  “There’s always too much to do. And I had a bagel today,” Harry said. “With peanut butter.” He was making this up; he had no idea what he’d eaten, and it was unlikely it had been anything more than coffee. It was true that he wasn’t hungry lately, and that when he finally got hungry he was too busy to eat. But he assumed that would pass. “I’ll eat when our review’s in.”

  “Okay,” Jenelle said dubiously. “Except what if it’s not good?”

  Harry looked at her. “Do you think it won’t be?”

  “I think we rock. But I’m not a reviewer.”

  Harry had been hoping that he was the only one worrying about this; it made him more anxious than ever to hear that Jenelle thought there was something to worry about too. “You know what? Even if it’s not great, we learn from it,” Harry said. “That’s my motto. We can’t see everything objectively.” He was trying for a boss’s Zen-like calm, but he could hear that he was speaking a little quickly. Nevertheless, his voice only got faster the more he tried to slow it down. “How could we be objective? We come in here and we just swim for our lives. I don’t see anything objectively anymore. I’m looking forward to the review. There’s no way we do everything perfectly. There’s probably a hundred things I should see but I just can’t, because I’m too close to it. A thousand. I look for it all, but I can’t tell anymore. We may as well find out what we need to do. May as well fix it. May as well get the truth.”