by Adi Alsaid
I don’t want to be the guy who lies to the people he loves. But I don’t want to make what we have about anything other than joy, don’t want it to unravel because of such a small thing. Emma splashes into the lake; an aura of electricity surrounds her. Her friends laugh nearby, and she swims over toward them, the glowing water harder to see in the distance. So I follow.
The night’s so warm, the water just as nice. I think: What a world. All of this feels unearned, sudden. It feels like it can be undone. I know everything can be, all too well. I splash over to Emma, catch my reflection in the water, whole despite the ripples. We float on our backs, looking up at so many stars it feels like the Milky Way is bearing witness to us.
CHAPTER 20
CHICKEN SKEWERS AL PASTOR
6 pounds chicken breasts
3 red bell peppers
3 green bell peppers
3 red onions
For the adobo:
2 cups orange juice
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup guajillo peppers, rehydrated
1 head of garlic
6 chipotle peppers, rehydrated
2 tablespoons oregano
2 tablespoons cumin
METHOD:
On my tenth day of training with Chef, I’m making another omelet. I rushed the first one and it fell apart before I could plate it, making Chef snort derisively and put me back on onions for the day. The second one looked good to me, but Chef stopped at the first bite, reached for the nearby ramekin of salt and dumped it over my head. I’d been so focused on the cooking time that I forgot to season.
This one, though, looks perfect. Not a tinge of brown, perfectly shaped and fluffy. I garnish it with a sprig of parsley on top. Even if she finds some fault in it, I hope she eats the whole thing, I’m so sick of eating eggs. Aside from the staff meals, it’s all I’ve eaten the last three days. I cook them back at the house constantly, for anyone that wants one. I beg them to.
Matt says the omelets are awful, but he eats them anyway. He’s toned down his insults in the kitchen when Chef’s around, but he still blames me for the other day. At work he simply doesn’t talk to me, including when he drops off hot pans, so I reach for them and burn myself. At home it’s a constant barrage of insults, most of them involving the word "crazy," which tells me he for sure heard me talking to the clouds that one day. Worst of all, when he saw Emma come over the first time he smirked and said, “I see what’s going on now. Chef playing favorites with the son-in-law. Smart move, rich boy.” It felt like I’d roped a noose around my neck and given Matt the other end.
Now Chef is examining the omelet, lifting it up with her fork to inspect the bottom. She lets it drop with a sneer, and pushes the plate back toward me. Her eyebrow’s raised. “You expect me to eat that? That’s not how you make an omelet.” Then she grabs the parsley sprig and pops it into her mouth. “Don’t waste a garnish on shitty food.”
When she’s gone, I pull out a squirt bottle of hot sauce I made at home, write out “fuck off” on top of the omelet. I’ve been buying ingredients out of pocket, bringing them for the staff meals in the hopes that it’ll impress someone. I had to stop buying Emma coffee in the mornings, partly because it looks too suspicious, partly because I’m running out of money. My first paycheck disappeared into rent and onions. I take a few bites of the omelet before pouring on the sauce, trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, why Chef pushed it away. The eggs are still runny, or I over-seasoned or, in the few seconds it took me to transfer the omelet to a plate, it lost all its warmth and I just served Chef a cold omelet.
I have no idea what’s wrong with it.
* * *
On my break, I take my phone outside. The messages from Mom have started to pile up, and my guilt has reached a breaking point. Today I realized when I think of my parents now, the first thing that comes to mind is no longer Dad’s parting words. There’s enough of a distance to it all finally, and I don’t even care that Dad cut off the credit card. Mostly.
Instead I just want to share things with my parents, tell them about everything. About Emma, about Chef, about how I’ve actually been cooking in the kitchen. I want them to know what’s going on here, want them to know I’m okay.
Taking a seat on a wooden crate outside, I scroll until I find Mom’s number and then dial, actually looking forward to the phone call.
“Carlos?”
“Hi, Mom. Sorry it’s taken me a while.”
There’s some background noise as she steps away from a conversation, maybe leaves whatever restaurant she’s having lunch at to talk outside. “It’s okay. I just missed your voice.”
“Voices aren’t a thing people miss, Mom.”
“I miss you, you idiot, that’s what I’m saying.” She sighs, and then there’s the sound of someone honking nearby. Just one honk at first, but then it’s answered by a choir of other cars, as if people think whoever acted first really had a good idea going and needs some support. Strangely enough it makes me miss Mexico City.
“How are you?” she asks.
“I’m great,” I say, somewhat struck by guilt by how quickly I say that, and how long Mom is quiet for. “How are you guys?”
Another pause. This is why I don’t like phone calls. You shouldn’t be able to tell through a pause in a phone call that the mood is about to shift, but you can, and there’s nothing to do but to sit there and just wait for it to fucking happen. I sit back down on the crate and wait.
“It’s your dad,” she says after a while, and I’m preparing my retort for whatever Dad’s complaint is when she adds, “he’s not doing well.”
I feel my stomach drop. I lean my head back against the wall, closing my eyes to the sun. “What’s wrong?” Felix appears in front of me, the afternoon sun dropping behind him, flaring over his shoulder. He’s more silhouette than person.
“He’s been getting tired easily, stressed. He says it’s work but I’m worried about him. His blood pressure has been high.”
I breathe easy. “I guess he’s gotta take it easy on the quesadillas then,” I say with a forced chuckle. At first, I want to complain to Mom for making it sound so scary at the start. But I can kind of see what she’s trying to do. With a son in the grave, it’s probably hard not to want the other one near you, where you can keep him safe.
“What’s this about dropping out of school, Carlos?” she asks, just as Lourdes opens up the back door, and motions for me to come back inside. “How long is this going to go on for?”
I hesitate. Does she really want to make me say the words out loud? Then the side door opens up and Lourdes pokes her head out, looking around. “Roberto te necesita,” she says.
I nod at her.
“Mom, I have to go.” I get up, brush myself off. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m doing great here. You could even come visit in a while, maybe.” A pause on the other end again, no sounds of traffic, though. I wish there were, because I think I can hear her stifling a cry, maybe moving the mouth piece away. And for some reason, even though I don’t know for sure whether Mom is stifling a cry or just ordering the check or something, I feel like I’m suddenly having to suppress a cry too.
“Send my love to Dad,” I say, and hang up before my voice can break.
CHAPTER 21
PLAIN OMELET
3 eggs
Who the fuck knows?
METHOD:
Alright, so, I don’t know what an omelet is supposed to taste like. That’s the only conclusion I can draw as Chef pushes away another plate. The omelet I just served her is so perfectly yellow that it’s the first image you’d see if you looked up the word online. It’s so fluffy that a cloud just passing by felt threatened and scurried away. An egg in the fridge just wrote a blog post about how it aspires to be an omel
et just like this one when it passes into the afterlife.
Felix’s face appears on the omelet, takes a big bite out of itself, shrugs to the best of an omelet’s shrugging capability. “I don’t know, man. I taste pretty good to me.”
Since the other day, Felix hasn’t been showing up as often. It makes me feel a little saner when he’s not around, especially when Emma’s around. He gives me space with her, which I’m happy about, even if, more than once, I expect him to chime in with a comment and his absence feels like the whole world has been muted. I expect him to try to guide me toward doing the right thing with Emma, convince me to be up-front with her. But he offers no advice there.
Matt, on the other hand, seems supernaturally ubiquitous, appearing at every turn at work and already on the couch at home when I arrive. He accuses me of bribing Chef for the lessons, of having cartel family members threaten her into letting me work in the kitchen. “You’re a moron,” I say.
“A moron who knows how to make an omelet and works on the line,” Matt says and smirks back. At work, he’s constantly doing that towel-whipping thing that only assholes in locker rooms on TV do. To be fair, a lot of the other cooks do it too, but he seems to take special pleasure in snapping at my arms and in the stinging red welts that show off his good aim.
As Chef disappears to her office again, throwing another insult my way, I sigh and spoon some salsa on the side of the plate. I chew carefully, trying to find the flaw, begging the omelet’s faults to speak to me.
“Seriously, no idea,” Felix says.
I finish the omelet, clean up after myself. I go outside to wait for my shift to start, walk a few blocks away, looking to intercept Emma before she arrives to take reservations. Cup of coffee in hand, scanning the street for her, I realize how quickly I’ve gotten used to this. The early mornings, coffee, watching these tourists jogging toward the boardwalk, the soreness of my body. Just being here, not in the grips of my life in Mexico.
Emma appears from around the corner, her work shirt folded over her forearm. When she spots me, she pulls her earphones out, wraps the cord around her phone. We kiss hello, and I’m in awe that she’s part of my day. That I’ve found this place at all.
“I think you’ve conditioned me to think of you every time I taste coffee,” she says.
“Yup, that’s been the plan all along.”
“I guess if that’s as scheme-y and evil as you get, I can live with it.” She smiles and takes a sip of my coffee. A knot of guilt forms in my stomach. I look around for some wispy version of Felix to give me that nudge I need, to push me toward action. That’s when I see Matt and Elias round the corner. Matt spots me at the same time, and he shouts out halfway down the block, “Hey there, lovebirds.”
I wince, looking around to make sure no one heard him. Elias rolls his eyes. “Why are you always such a tool, man?”
“What?” Matt says. “I’m just congratulating my friend Emma and our roomie here on their budding romance. Is that so wrong?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Emma says. I know it’s directed at Matt, but I can’t help but feel I’ve put myself in the words’ path.
“Come on, man,” Elias says. “Leave them alone.”
“Is this a secret or something?” He smirks at me, and I know right away. He’s practically waving it in front of my face. Chef doesn’t know about me and Emma and he could tell her at any moment. If he feels I’m getting too far ahead in the kitchen, if he’s getting sick of seeing me around, if he just feels like it.
I’m gripping my coffee cup, envisioning throwing it in Matt’s face. Emma picks at something on her bag’s strap, looks at the ground. No one says anything for a second, until a silver-haired couple walks through our little semi-circle on the sidewalk.
“Sheesh, fine,” Matt says, raising his hands up. “I’m late anyway.” He gives me one last smirk, and then he and Elias head off in the direction of the restaurant, leaving me and Emma alone.
“Is it a secret?” Emma says, biting her lip. It looks like maybe she’s already thinking that I’m not worth it, that the drunken makeouts were more fun.
I try to regain my footing, try to sense if the world feels the way it did on the Night of the Perfect Taco, like things were about to irrevocably change. I feel like an asshole for even comparing this to my brother’s death. I take a deep breath, preparing for the confession.
“Your mom,” I say, squinting in the morning sun. I feel like I should be memorizing Emma’s features, clutching as tightly as I can to her memory. “When she said she wanted to start giving me lessons, she also said I couldn’t keep working at the restaurant if I dated you.”
Emma’s jaw sets. “She said that?”
“Yeah.”
Emma raises an eyebrow. “And you’re still seeing me.”
“Well, yeah.” A family walks past us, the dad accidentally bumping my shoulder as he chases after a golden-haired toddler who’s giggling as she waddles down the sidewalk. I don’t want to picture my days without Emma.
“But you want to stop?” Emma asks.
I meet her eyes, furrowing my brow. “What? No! Hell no. I can’t stay away from you.” This makes her smile, and the effect is like the first taste of something sweet, like thirst quenched. But she suppresses the smile, still making up her mind how she feels about this. “Isn’t that obvious?”
She shrugs, not amused. “So, what are you saying?”
“Just that maybe we can’t make out at work anymore.” I look up hopefully at her. She moves her glasses to the top of her head, and I know she does it all the time, almost a tic, but there’s something I adore about it. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
Emma crosses her arms in front of her chest. She’s quiet for a second, either upset or just absorbing the information. I guess I don’t know her well enough to be able to tell. We walk in silence for a little while, until I hear her mutter, “She’s such an asshole.” I’m not sure if it’s meant for me or just for herself.
“So, what? You want to sneak around?” Her jaw is still set. I can practically see her weighing her options, all the other joys available to her, easier ones.
“Is that okay?”
Emma sighs. She kicks a pebble hard, so that it bounces off the sidewalk and onto the street, still rolling along when I lose sight of it. “Sure. Whatever.”
We don’t say another word until we reach the restaurant and head to separate entrances with nothing more than a parting smile.
When I get to my station, Elias is in there waiting for me. “Hey, man, sorry about Matt. I swear he’s not always that bad. You just bring it out of him.”
“Great,” I say, laughing. “I only have to see him every second of the day.”
“Yeah, about that. You busy tonight? I think it’d make shit at the house a lot less dramatic if we all hang out a bit, unwind. Gonna tell people to spread the word, get a good scene going.”
The news of a party spreads fast in the kitchen. Elias doesn’t so much ask our roommates’ permission as announce the fact that a party will be happening, and the words bounce around the kitchen like living things.
I try to get a read on Chef all day, to see if Matt’s given anything away. I know deep down that she would not be the kind to react subtly if she found out I was going directly against her orders, but I still fret about it the whole day. By the time shift is over, it feels like the whole restaurant is coming over to our place, including Chef. I’m gonna have to stay away from Emma.
Earlier, I had swung by the hostess stand to tell her to meet me down the block so we could at least walk to the party together. Now I sneak away from the crowd, pretending to make a phone call so I can wait for her. I look forward to slipping my hand into hers, to stealing a few quiet moments with her among the fireflies and moonlit woods. But ten minutes later she still hasn’t shown. D
owntown is too small a place to lose someone in, so I figure she got caught up in a group of people leaving and couldn’t think of an excuse to slip away.
I can hear the convoy of loud-mouthed cooks a few blocks ahead of me. I think about jogging a little to catch up to everyone, but then I notice my shadow is doing things it’s not supposed to. “You’re still hanging around, huh?”
“You think I’d leave you alone?” It’s not even a full moon and still the light is stronger than the spare streetlights. This place is so ridiculous.
“You don’t think I’m doing fine here on my own?” I ask.
“That’s not what I said,” Felix says. “I’m actually pretty proud of you, Carlos.”
God, why do those words feel so great, even coming from a ghost? It’s hard to remember that I wanted him gone so badly a few weeks ago.
I keep walking up the street, following the voices up ahead. Felix follows at my side, though the light dictates he should be shifting with each passing lamppost. “I miss parties,” he says, when we get closer and can hear the sound from the house reverberating down the block. “I miss that level of drunkenness where you’re just curious to know everyone. Death doesn’t have that.”
I sigh and look up at the sky. It’s too beautiful here to rage at his death. How can a night sky like this exist in a world full of grief? A couple of shooting stars streak across the sky, and I suppress my rage with wonder.
“Why would you say something like that?” I ask, not sure if the question is directed at Felix or myself. “You can stop reminding me you’re dead. It’s not like I’ve forgotten.”
Behind me I hear someone call out, “Again, man? What the hell is wrong with you?” Mierda. It’s Matt, carrying a case of beer, clearly overhearing my one-sided conversation.
I turn away from him, not wanting to deal with his shit. He calls out a couple of times in between fits of laughter, but I half jog the rest of the way up the block, ignoring him.
