Livy drops her end of the doggy tug-of-war rope and rushes toward me arms open. “Can they buy me something? I want one of those kente cloth tote bags, or the native South American jewelry.”
“Oh, fine, they can spend up to fifty dollars on you.” I hug her. “You be good and listen to them.”
“Livy got Ate Choco good,” Brian says, laughing. “Can I get something too?”
“Keep Livy safe and I’ll buy you those Von Zipper sunglasses you’ve been eyeing.”
“Uh, Ate?” Genie smiles sweetly, which is a real departure from her usual snarky grin. “Remember you said you’d pay for my belly button piercing?”
Mama waves from the door. “Are we ready? Kids, have a great time and stay safe.”
“Sure, sure, sure.” I shrug. “Just give me the bill.”
“Oh, me, me, me too.” Livy bounces on her toes. “Please?”
“You’ll have to ask your father. I gotta go.”
“Aww …” Livy pouts.
“Sorry, I’m not your real big sister as you always say.” I have to put my foot down. That kid is manipulative and always playing my guilt. Even if she doesn’t know the exact reason, she must intuitively know I have a soft spot for her, that she has some sort of hold on me.
“But I love you, Ate Choco.”
“Nice try.” I pinch her cheek the way great aunts do while squealing how cute a baby is. “I love you too, Livy. Go have fun. I have a restaurant to save.”
Chapter 20
Mama and I arrive at Barrio XO just before noon. She strides to the hostess podium and greets Tita Gloria. I slink around the screen and arrange the napkins and placemats, staying out of their sight, but close enough to eavesdrop.
“Been slow this morning,” Gloria says. “You should have seen the mess left from last night.”
“Is she here?” Mama’s voice is barely above a whisper. The ‘she’ in question is obviously Miranda.
“Yes, she acts like she’s in charge. Did you talk to Rey about it?”
“Not yet. He stormed out this morning on a trip to San Francisco, and he hired her without asking my opinion.”
“She looks to be a bit of a tart,” Gloria says. “Flirting with one of the cooks. Batting her eyelashes and explaining the menu changes, why he has to use vegetable oil and steam the fish instead of frying it.”
“These changes will be the death of Barrio XO,” Mama says. “I’m going to make sure Miranda understands we can’t overhaul the menu overnight without pissing off the customers.”
“That’s what Carlos has been saying. You should have seen the fight he had with your husband last night. He’s threatening to quit.”
My hands jitter as I fold the napkins. Carlos quit? His visa is tied to our restaurant. If he quits, he has to leave the United States.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” Mama replies. “I can’t believe Rey would let him go.”
“Oh, Anna,” Gloria says in between a gasp. “Rey told Carlos he’ll fire him if he doesn’t go along with the plan.”
“It can’t be. Rey treats Carlos like a son.” Mama sounds surprised, and if I hadn’t heard it straight from my father’s mouth this morning, I wouldn’t have believed it either.
“Everything changed once Johnny Dee appeared on the scene. Did you know Rey allowed Johnny to kiss Choco and he didn’t bat an eye?”
“That’s ridiculous,” my mother snaps. “I don’t believe it. When?”
“I saw them with my own eyes,” Tita Gloria says, sounding self-righteous and smug. “He introduced Johnny to Choco and that boy bent her over and kissed her square on the lips. Rey walked away. He walked off! I’m telling you, Anna, something strange is going on here.”
No shit. Papa’s usually suspicious about any boyfriend I bring home, not that I had many. So why did he let Johnny kiss me? What’s so special about Johnny and now, Miranda?
“Well, well, well,” Miranda says, coming toward me and pointedly looking at her watch. She’s wearing a slinky gold metallic mini dress and shiny gold heels a mile high. Even her horn-rimmed glasses are trimmed with golden accents. “Your father’s away and the mice play. Did you forget you were supposed to give me orientation this morning?”
I’ll give you orientation all right. Right into the oven.
“Sure thing, let’s go to the linen closet.” I lead the way to the laundry room, lecturing along the way. “All staff except for the host or hostess must wear black. We don’t want the customer’s attention to be drawn to the employees. The expeditor works with the back-of-the-house staff to optimize the ticket times. Say you have a table where everyone orders things that take different amounts of time to cook. You can’t have one person getting his food while the others wait around, so you figure out the order in which the food is cooked and assemble the entire table’s dishes, add the finishing touches, garnish, flower blossoms, sauces, before tapping the wait staff to bring it out.”
“Hold it, hold it.” She sniffs at the black barong and jeans I hand her. “That’s the way you used to run it. But not in the new Manila Cloud. I’m primarily customer service, so my appearance is very important. I’m the ombudsman and I make sure the customers have the quality of service and food they demand.”
“Ah, yes, that’s part of it, but my father can handle that. He typically walks around chatting with the customers. You. Put on these clothes and meet me in the kitchen.” I turn quickly without giving her a chance to talk back.
Her heels clip-clop after me. “I will not wear a uniform. Rey darling approves of this outfit.”
My stomach grinds at the endearment attached to my father’s name. I stop suddenly so she runs into me and almost trips.
“You’re not going to last long on your feet wearing those stilts. Maybe you should be the bar fly you are and park your ass behind a cosmo.”
“Leveling insults won’t help.” She struts toward the kitchen.
The pick-up area is piled high with steamy dishes and tickets are scattered on the wheel. Carlos peeks from the window and yells, “Get this food served. What the hell’s going on here?”
“New expeditor.” I rush to the counter and shuffle through the tickets. “Oh, shit. The bangus room hasn’t been served. Miranda, grab a tray.”
She doesn’t move.
Where are Susie and Sarah, the new waitresses? I assemble the dishes for a party of four. Pancit, steak, a mango salad, and vegetable. The salad was placed under the heat lamp and is now wilted.
“Thomas!” I call for the salad chef. “Make up another mango salad, quick.”
Miranda hasn’t lifted a finger to help.
“If you’re not going to serve, find the waitresses,” I say to her. “Where are they?”
“I was never introduced to them.” Miranda shrugs. “If you’d been here earlier to give me orientation, maybe I would know.”
“Argh! Never mind. Jake!” I grab the nearest cook. “Help me serve the tables in the bangus room.”
“Sure thing.” He wipes his hands on a towel and rushes to fetch the tray stands.
Carlos comes out of the kitchen with the mango salad. He sets it on a tray and helps me organize the rest of the dishes. “Table one, extra dressing. Table five needs bagoong on the side. Ack. This steak’s bloody. Victor, slap it back on the grill.”
For the next twenty minutes, Carlos, Jake, and I shuttle between the pick-up window and the bangus room, smiling and apologizing to the customers for the delay. Unfortunately, one of the tables emptied out without paying their bar tab, and another one’s complaining of the cold food.
Mama calls in Amelia and Vivian, two backup waitresses, and Tita Gloria runs around serving drinks. Meanwhile Miranda takes it upon herself to stroll around acting like she’s the owner. Whenever someone complains, she hands them a flyer with a coupon for the all new Manila Cloud. Unbelievable.
I don’t have time to deal with her right now. Julia shows up, dressed in the Barrio XO black barong and jeans.
“Tita Gloria asked me to help, what can I do?” she says.
“Great. Take a pitcher and refill the water glasses. After you’re done, take the checks at tables four and eight in the bangus room. I’ll cover the kare kare room.”
I hurry back to the kitchen to return a plate of limpy lumpia when an ear-piercing scream emits from the ladies’ bathroom.
“Who the hell left that log in the toilet?” Sarah, one of the wayward waitresses runs out. “It’s so yucky. It’s stuck.”
I rush into the bathroom. Sure enough, one of the toilets is backed up. A huge lump of excrement is wedged. Who the hell has an asshole that big? The monster poop is as wide as an eggplant.
“Ew, ew, ew,” Sarah screams. “I tried to flush it and got splashed.”
“Don’t just stand there,” I say. “Get a plunger.”
She flutters her hands and runs out of the bathroom, but doesn’t return. I march toward the janitor’s closet and open it. The light doesn’t flick on.
There’s a putrid odor, like curdled milk and urine slathered inside. I yank at the paper towels, but my hands gets tangled with string. I hear a ripping sound and poof! I’m covered with white powder.
“Ahhh!” Screaming, I streak from the closet and run right into Carlos.
“You’re covered in flour.” He dusts me off and blows on my face.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What’s going on here?” Mama appears from around the corner. “Sarah’s complaining about a stuffed toilet and some more customers left after Susie served them calamari. One of them spat it out saying it’s pork intestines.”
“Who says that?” Carlos’s muscles bunch up. “I’ll kill them. I go down to the fish market every morning and pick it out myself.”
At that moment, Miranda struts by. “My, my, my, look what trouble the kids get into when the boss is away. It’s only a matter of time before Barrio XO’s name is mud. Fortunately Rey brought me in to do a makeover.”
“You bitch!” I shove her and she totters in her spike heels. “How dare you come here, mess with our menu, and screw up our workflow?”
She dusts the flour imprints off her golden dress. “Ahh, the spurned woman. What happened to the fabulous Miss Concha of last night? Did my son throw you out after sleeping with you?”
All the cooks and the staff are gathered around me, their mouths open in shock, eyes popping. Mama holds her stomach as if in pain while Gloria smirks with an “I-knew-it” shake of a head.
“I never slept with him. Never,” I yell, shaking my fists.
“Never ever?” Miranda swishes past me to the line of cooks. “I don’t blame you for denying it in front of all your boyfriends. You boys are so handsome, especially you, dear Carrr-los.”
Whatever residue of friendliness Carlos had helping me serve food disappears with Miranda’s accusations. He narrows his eyes to slits, his nostrils flaring and spits in disgust my direction.
“Back to the kitchen,” he growls at the line cooks.
Mama wipes my face with a dishrag. “Don’t listen to her. She’s way out of line. I’m going to call Papa right now and get this straightened out.”
“Huh!” Miranda sniffs. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, raising such a tramp.”
Tita Gloria’s eyes bounce from Mama to Miranda and back. She wrings her hands and smiles greasily. “Miranda, perhaps we can go back to the front and see how the customers are doing?”
“What a fabulous idea.” Miranda primps her bobbed hair and flutters down the corridor.
As soon as they’re out of earshot, I set Mama straight. “Some friend Gloria is. She’s a traitor. See how she took her side?”
“Hush, she’s diffusing the situation. Let’s go to the kitchen and get you cleaned up.”
We walk by Carlos. He nods to my mother, but keeps his face turned away from me. I go into the laundry room and dust my hair off as best as I can, then change into another waitress outfit. I’m not going to slink out of here and admit defeat.
Something strange is going on, and it all correlates to when Johnny Dee appeared at our restaurant. Speaking of the bad penny, where is Johnny? Could he have left the giant log of shit in the women’s restroom?
I catch Carlos as he’s out in the back lot pouring grease into the recycling container. He tries to sidestep me without speaking, but I poke his arm.
“What now?” He glances over my shoulder, refusing to meet my eye.
“You have to help us.”
“No, I don’t.” He wipes the back of his hand over his brows. “I have work to do. Lots of it.”
“You don’t understand. It’s about Johnny.”
“How dare you ask me to help him.” He glares at me, lowering his face to mine.
Now I have his attention and it isn’t good. “It’s not that. I need you to find out about him—”
“Cut it.” He jerks himself away. “In case you haven’t noticed, I work for your father as a cook, not personal servant or errand boy.”
“Carlos,” Julia calls from the door. “We’re out of pork intestines. Shall we chop up the calamari and put it in the batchoy?”
Carlos grins and waves at her. “I’ll be right over, sweetie. I’m so glad you came over to help us.”
Chapter 21
I seethe, my teeth grinding and my hands clenched in tight fists. If Carlos isn’t going to help me find out about Johnny, I’m going to take matters into my own hands.
After a quick trip to the bathroom where I unplug the toilet after thirty minutes of strenuous plunging, I fix up my makeup and change into a hostess gown.
Suitably transformed, I glide past the kitchen with my nose in the air, lest Carlos thinks I care, and sweep into the bangus room. Ah, my luck is in place. Mr. Dee, Johnny’s grandfather, and our loyal customer is sitting there with Tita Clare. They’re usually with the Sunshine Retirement crowd, but today they’re alone, looking suspiciously cozy.
I’m torn about interrupting their meal, but I pick up a pitcher of ice tea and head their way.
“Hey, Mr. Dee, Tita Clare, refills?”
“Yes, thanks,” Mr. Dee says, twirling his mustache. “I was just telling Clare here how each time I see you, you get prettier and prettier. What’s your secret?”
I blush and pour the tea. “You’re just being nice, Mr. Dee. How did you like your food today?”
Always the gentleman, Mr. Dee tilts his head toward Tita Clare. “How did you like your salad?”
“It’s absolutely fabulous.” She spears a shrimp from her mango salad. “Your Carlos came by and exchanged it. Such a gentleman.”
“Exchanged it? What happened?”
Tita Clare and Mr. Dee swap glances.
“You don’t know?” Mr. Dee wipes his mouth with a napkin.
Uh, I hate to admit I’m in the dark, because I’m usually the one everyone turns to when there’s a problem.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Tita Clare says. “This one is great. Spiced just right.”
“My apologies.” I press my palms on my skirt. “Would you like some dessert? On the house.”
“Oh, we couldn’t do that to you,” Mr. Dee says. “You have your hands full with my daughter and grandson making changes.”
“So, you’ve heard all about it? What do you think?” I try to keep my voice casual.
Mr. Dee adjusts his glasses, his eyes big and bugged out behind them. “They don’t involve me with their business.”
“True, but do you like the changes they’re making to Barrio XO?” This is about as forward as I can get without hinting there is anything wrong.
His lips purse and he gives a barely perceptive shrug. “They’re always up to some scheme or other. I suppose Miranda has some sort of deal with your father, and Johnny’s trying hard to do the right thing.”
A chill drills its way up my spine. What has Johnny done wrong? And why is Miranda making deals with my father? Could she be an ex-girlfriend? But why would my father want any d
ealings with her now? Unless she was threatening to expose him? My imagination runs to secret babies and pregnancies. Could Johnny be? Oh, no! But then why hadn’t Papa said anything when Johnny kissed me?
My face must have taken on a horror stricken mask because Mr. Dee pats me reassuringly. “Your father has a good business head. I’m sure everything will work out.”
“Yes, thanks. So, how about dessert? Some ube ice cream or buko pie?”
Ube is a brilliant purple yam which lends its purple color and sweetness to delightful desserts.
“The ube sounds great,” Mr. Dee says, rubbing his belly. “Clare?”
“Oh, I’ll pass on the dessert. A cup of tea will suit me just fine.”
I rush to the kitchen and fix the desserts, dropping two calamansi muffins onto the plate. If Miranda knew my father from way back, this is worse than I thought. I can’t believe my father would bring an ex-girlfriend back into his life, unless he was planning on dumping my mom. This is awful. Horrendous. Disastrous.
When I return to the bangus room, I almost drop my tray. Mr. Dee and Tita Clare are kissing in the middle of a busy restaurant. What are they thinking? I’m not sure if I should interrupt or back away. I set the tray on an empty table and grab the water pitcher to check on the other customers.
Talk about bad timing. Just as I’m about to return to Mr. Dee’s table, Johnny saunters through the door. He grins widely at me. “Concha, my beauty.”
His wolf whistle amuses the family sitting in the corner. Their little boy bounces up and copies the whistle.
Oh no! Last thing I need is the guy who gives me a C+ in kissing. I duck when he leans in, and twirl myself under his arm to escape his puckered lips.
He places his hand over his heart and pouts. “My lovely rose, what have I done to earn your scorn?”
Now, all the customers in the bangus room are looking at us with varying degrees of glee.
“Psst, Johnny.” I jerk my head toward his grandfather’s table. At least the pompous entrance of slick-haired Johnny has stopped the elderly necking show. Sheesh, you’d think they didn’t have private rooms at the retirement community.
Claiming Carlos Page 14