by Nikki Chase
I sigh, looking down at his angelic, sleeping form . . . I guess our conversation can wait until morning.
He handled a crisis today, so he deserves a good night’s sleep. Although, as I lie next to him in bed, I can’t help but feel annoyed—if he’d listened to me earlier there wouldn’t have been a crisis in the first place!
Claire
The only times a grocery store is really swarming with people is the exact moment you’re also in a hurry, rushing through aisles and grabbing things off the shelf like you won one of those free shopping spree promotions they had in the 90s.
Even in my comfortable work shoes, I have trouble weaving through the inexplicable afternoon rush at the store. My arm is weighed down with a basket full of emergency ingredients, and nobody else in the store seems to be aware of anyone but themselves.
“Excuse me, I just need—Ma’am, sorry, I just need to get through—”
It’s not even dinner time yet, how are this many people out and about doing shopping?
I finally make it to the eggs and grab as many dozens as I have room left in my basket, then take an extra three and carry them under my free arm while I make the long trek back to the self-checkout aisles.
I never like going through anything else, if I can avoid it. Having a cashier have to work for me feels weird. Especially when I’m ringing up an unholy amount of eggs.
This whole morning has been a whirlwind.
I woke up in the morning to find that I’d left the headlights on, meaning my battery was dead, and I didn’t have a set of jumper cables around. Ben loaned me his car, and now I’m hurrying through a grocery run with a car even more valuable than the one that got me made fun of in high school.
Normally, I don’t mind errand runs like this. Getting out of the kitchen for a while gives me a little much-needed alone time, which is in short supply these days. I tend to get lost in my head while I’m driving around with nobody else to chatter at me. And the convertible, I have to admit, gives me a feeling of freedom that my regular car just doesn’t.
Unlike Ben, though, I’m careful not to cut anyone off in traffic.
I race through the self-checkout line as fast as I can, trying to bag things as evenly as possible, moving so fast that I can feel the employee attending the kiosk peering at me with a raised eyebrow. Whatever, I don’t have time to be self-conscious.
The subtotal is a hell of a lot higher than it would be buying from a bulk supplier, but we don’t have a choice today. A table of fifteen all ordered almost the exact same thing unexpectedly right around opening time, and we have several more big tables coming in later this evening, so we need to be prepared.
Running low on supplies at any restaurant is a crisis, but at a gourmet restaurant like Ocotillo where the experience is most of the bill, being unable to fill an order is an apocalyptic catastrophe.
I hurry out of the store with arms full of groceries and tear out of the parking lot, weaving through traffic in Ben’s car to get back before the dinner rush starts in earnest.
While I drive, my mind wanders.
I have a dozen different logistical things to worry about for work today, like whether I picked up the right vinegar and whether some of the brands I chose were things Jorge is going to turn his nose up at.
On top of that, I’ve felt tense ever since the ordeal with Ben yesterday. It’s something unnamed and uncomfortable, like having some vague indigestion that’s making something hurt for no apparent reason. I did this to myself. I knew he was going to end me, and still I can’t help myself.
I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that I barely pay attention to the traffic around me, and it isn’t until I hear the sound of someone screeching to a halt and leaning on the horn that I glance up and notice the bright-red light I’m running on a busy intersection.
I gasp so loudly that it almost drowns out the sound of the police siren I hear hardly a second later.
“Shit!” I hiss.
Of course it would be my luck that a police cruiser happens to be sitting at the red light I run.
My whole body seizes up as I see the red and blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror. I can’t help it—it’s a natural instinct when I feel like I’ve been caught for something.
I pull over at a gas station, and as I watch the officer get out of the car, I let my head fall back on the rest behind me.
There’s going to be no way to hide this ticket, because the car isn’t registered to my name. Ben’s not just going to find out, he’ll be the first to find out.
“Ma’am, do you know how fast you were going when you ran that light? Hope there’s a fire somewhere,” the cop says as he stands by my window.
“Sorry, officer,” I say, nodding down to my work uniform. “The customers don’t wait for anyone.”
“Neither do traffic lights,” the cop grunts. “License and registration, please.”
I reach over to the glove box and pop it open, and to my surprise, a thick stack of papers spill out onto the passenger’s seat. I jerk my hand back and stare at them for a moment, because they look familiar.
Then I realize what they are.
They’re the domestic partnership dissolution papers.
My mouth falls open, and I narrow my eyes at them.
“What the hell?” I frown.
Ben was supposed to have those in long ago. What are they doing here?
He couldn’t have forgotten, could he?
Did he print an extra copy?
My mind bubbles with a hundred different thoughts until I get interrupted.
“Ma’am?” the cop asks, reminding me of the trouble I’ve gotten myself into.
“Oh gosh, sorry!” I say, scrambling for the actual registration and digging through my purse for my driver’s license.
Suddenly, the ticket doesn’t seem that pressing or terrible. Maybe it’s just because Ben is already on my mind, but I find my anxiety going on high alert after glancing at those papers, so much so that I just go through the motions to finish my business with the officer and get my hefty ticket.
I might not be in the best position to negotiate anything with Ben now, but one way or another, I have some questions for him when I get back to the restaurant. I’m sure he has a good explanation for it, in any case.
I mean . . . he should.
Surely, he does.
Right…?
Ben
This is not how I was hoping today to go.
Getting a call from a police officer in the middle of one of the biggest unexpected rushes in the restaurant’s short history isn’t ideal, to say the least.
I don’t blame Claire for running that traffic light, and I didn’t care for the officer’s tone when he chided me about letting her take my convertible for a “joyride,” and I told him as much.
I can take care of the ticket when Claire gets back and let it all be water under the bridge, because right now, we don’t have time to drag things out and talk about them.
I’m standing near the bar when one of my waiters comes up to me in a flustered hurry, which seems to be the default way to be this evening.
“Sir, table nine is saying one of the orders is overcooked and they—“
“Remake it and give them a round of wine on the house, their choice,” I say without missing a beat.
No sooner has he hurried off than one of the cooks sticks her head out from the kitchen. “We’re almost out of cilantro and chives, where—”
“She should be back any minute, Lacey,” I snap, heading into the kitchen. “Just hang tight until—”
As if on cue, the back door to the kitchens swings open, and Claire bustles in with so many groceries in her arms that she looks like she’s bound to tip over at any second.
I hurry over to her and take the bags from her arms one by one, to her relief.
“Thank God,” both of us say to each other at the same time, and I’m too distracted by the chaos of everything on my mind to laugh at it.
“Not a second to spare.” I carry the groceries over to a free counter, where Jorge already has some of the sous-chefs hounding me and picking the bags apart like ravenous wolves. “It’s been pandemonium in here since you left, Claire.”
“I hurried over as fast as I could,” she says. “Sorry about the ticket, I was so focused on getting back here that I must not have noticed the red light.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’re safe and sound and here, and that’s all that matters right now,” I rattle off twice as fast as I usually speak. “Now I need you to—shit, hold on. Chef Alonso!”
Jorge looks over his shoulder, a wild look in his eyes as he hovers over one of the sous-chefs to correct the way he’s seasoning a fish fillet.
“Table nine is sending a dish back, saying it’s overcooked—whatever the problem is, I need it fixed.”
“The order said rare, I—” he starts, but then he takes a deep breath and gathers himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, fine. This is fine. Adam, Adrian, the two of you see to it. Lacey, get those ingredients to their homes. Come on, everyone, drinks are on me if we pull through this evening alive!”
“Yes chef!” comes the shout from the entire kitchen staff, including Claire.
“Don’t worry about the ticket. I’ll cover it,” I tell Claire, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze, ready to hurry off to the restaurant floor again.
But before I can leave the kitchen, Claire’s hand wraps around my wrist. I turn around, surprised, and I see a deeply concerned look on her face.
“Claire, can this wait?” I ask in a low, urgent whisper. “If you can’t tell, we’re slammed right now.”
“I know,” she hisses, “but we really need to talk.”
I clench my jaw, glancing back to the front for a moment. There could be any number of problems requiring my personal attention right now. I look back to Claire. “Five minutes.”
Claire looks offended when I pull away from her and hurry out of the kitchen.
The waiter has just finished pouring several glasses of different wines, and he’s just about to pick them up when I reach him and gently push him aside.
“I’ve got this one,” I say. “Make your rounds and make sure everyone else is happy, I don’t want any unexpected fires tonight. Literal or figurative.”
The waiter leaves, and I carry the tray of wines over to my customers. After about five minutes of implicitly apologetic schmoozing and appeasing, table nine seems content with my peace offering, and I make my way back to the bar in long strides to touch base with my bartender.
But before I can reach him, Claire’s face appears out the kitchen door. “Ben!”
I let out a sharp sigh. “What is it, Claire? I told you not to worry about the ticket.”
She comes up to me and pulls me aside near the kitchen doors, away from eavesdroppers. She speaks to me in an urgent whisper. “Ben, I opened the glove box when I was handing over the car’s registration. Why are the domestic partnership papers still in there? Didn’t you already get the ball rolling on that and turn it in to city hall?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
This is the absolute last thing I need right now, and it’s a battle to keep my face from showing that.
“Can we talk about this another time?” I ask.
“Ben, what the hell?!” she hisses back.
“I haven’t had a chance,” I half-lie. “Things have been such a storm the past few weeks between the business getting off the ground and us . . . doing our thing, and it just slipped through the cracks.”
“Slipped through the—” she splutters, an incredulous look descending on her features. “Ben, this is a pretty big thing to let slip through the cracks!”
Right then, my waiter appears out of thin air. “Table nine’s order is ready to go out, sir, do you—“
“Yes, I’ve got it,” I say hurriedly, thankful for an escape route.
“Wait!” Claire interjects. “Ben, you could have at least told me you didn’t have a chance! We’ve been together non-stop. Why didn’t you just ask me to run them over for us?”
“You’ve been buried in just as much work as me,” I say as I take the platter full of food from the waiter.
“Not that much!” she protests. “And besides, I sure as hell would have made time if we’d talked about this at all.”
“Claire,” I say, frustration welling up inside me, “I’ve got to go make sure this table full of banking executives doesn’t leave this place with a bad taste in their mouths, and that’s something that both our jobs depend on, so I’m going to ask you as your partner to let me put a pin in this right now so we can come back to it later, okay? I don’t want to have to ask you as your boss.”
I see color rise in Claire’s face, her mouth falling open. I turn around and make my way toward the table anyway, but from the corner of my eye I can see her spin around on her heel and storm back into the kitchen, furious
My heart pounds as I make my way over to table nine. I have to work hard to fake a calm, collected demeanor as I personally serve the guests their food with a smile on my face—something that’s normally second nature to me.
In the back of my head, I know I’ve crossed a line.
Claire caught me red-handedly stalling something that really did need to be done. If I’m totally honest with myself, I don’t even have a good answer for why I haven’t put the papers in yet. I have a few ideas, but none of them are easy or quick to explain—definitely not anything I want to deal with in the middle of this crisis.
I’m going to have to make this one up to her . . . somehow.
And the sinking feeling in my gut tells me it’s not going to be easy.
Claire
“You okay, chiquita?” asks a gentle, concerned, accented voice from my right.
I break out of my reverie, blinking in surprise as I jolt back to reality and look over at Chef Alonso, who’s standing next to me on the assembly line.
He’s got one dark, bushy eyebrow quirked and his head tilted to one side, looking at me like I’m some fascinating science experiment. Or like he’s a curious bystander trying to make sense of a car accident as he drives by.
I shake off the layers and layers of deep-seated anger covering my whole body like a gigantic cobweb at the moment. Forcing an awkward smile to my lips, I nod, feeling my cheeks grow warm. “Yes, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
He gestures to the chopping board and knife in my hand. “Because you’re chopping esa cebolla like you have a personal grudge against it,” he quips. “What is it? Did an onion steal your identity and plunge you into credit card debt?”
Despite how frustrated and down I feel, I can’t help but chuckle at the bizarre imagery he just put in my head.
“Oh yeah,” I nod, playing along. “This onion is personally responsible for every jury duty summons I’ve ever received.”
Jorge chuckles, a deep belly laugh that makes everyone happy. Although he can be a little sarcastic or harsh sometimes, I know he’s a good man underneath it all. A good friend.
He pats me on the shoulder. “Well, whatever it is, better you take it out on that onion than on a person. So, let it all out, my angry little mujer. Just don’t get carried away and chop your own finger off or anything, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” I assure him, giving a mock salute.
“Perfecto,” he says with a wink.
He trods off to plate yet another dish for a customer, leaving me to stand there stewing over my admittedly brutalized onion. I heave a sigh, feeling heavy and exhausted.
I’m physically wiped out from the long hours in this kitchen and from the stress of having to rush out for last-minute ingredients, but my heart is in much more in pain than the rest of me.
I just can’t seem to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do in regards to this increasingly strange and difficult situation with Ben.
On the one hand, I adore him. I’m really starting to fall for him. When we s
leep next to each other at night, when we kiss in the morning, when we hold and caress one another in the shower—all of that feels so natural. So right. Like we were destined to find each other. Like maybe it really was the mystical hands of fate that caused us to accidentally sign a domestic partnership form instead of the business form.
But then I remember that he never went back to unravel the mess we made. He just stuffed the evidence into his dashboard compartment and went on his merry way without even telling me.
As much as he seems to genuinely care for me, I’m starting to get the sense that he won’t make me a priority. He’s married to hos job, and I’m his mistress.
He leaves me out of all the important decisions, refusing to let me help at work, refusing to let me weigh in on how to break the news of our relationship to our parents.
He ignores me and does what he wants, then doesn’t seem to understand when I get rightfully upset about it. Ben promises to do better, to communicate better, and then he just goes on acting the same way as always.
I wanted him to treat me like a regular employee at work and like, well, I guess like a girlfriend when we’re not at work.
But instead, he treats me like a nuisance at work and hides all kinds of secrets from me when we’re supposed to be an item—a two-sided item. Not just this weird, one-sided situation in which I give my all and he holds back.
This is not how a true partnership is supposed to work; not romantically, and not professionally, either.
If he doesn’t think I’m trustworthy or competent or important enough to truly share his life, if he wants me to just stick to being a silent side character, then maybe we shouldn’t be together.
It’s a good thing I’m chopping onions. Because the more I think about how messed-up and unfixable my relationship with Ben is, the closer and closer I come to tears. I can feel it burning and stinging in my eyes as I stand hunched over the counter.
Soon, my vision is so blurry that I can hardly see what I’m doing. I sniffle and swipe at my eyes as one of the sous chefs, Rita, walks over to ask if I’m alright.
