Just One Taste

by C. J. Birch

  “Why didn’t you ask him to stop?”

  “Since you’re here, can I get you breakfast?”

  He poured a few tablespoons of milk into his coffee. “I already ate.” He pointed to the sign in the window as he took a sip of his coffee. “I thought you’d already replaced Pete.”

  “The last guy didn’t work out.”

  “What happened to your finger?”

  Lauren looked down at the Chewbacca Band-Aid. “That stupid register keeps jamming. We need a new one.”

  “How come the last guy didn’t work out? What was wrong with him?”

  And that’s how it went with Aaron. He asked rapid-fire questions, rarely waiting for an answer or even expecting one. Lauren felt it was his way of proving he knew what was going on here, even though he stopped by only once a month, if that.

  “I’m handling the hiring. I’ve got a bunch of interviews lined up today.” She always made a point of seeming on top of things where Aaron was concerned, even lying if she had to. Otherwise he’d step in and make a mess of things. For the most part Aaron could forget he owned a diner. If you’d met him at a dinner party, you’d never know that his mother had left him this tiny place tucked beneath Trinity Bellwoods. But it was the times he did remember that worried Lauren. It meant he’d try to take charge and micromanage, and if there was one thing that Lauren avoided at all costs, it was Aaron micromanaging her diner.

  The last time he’d stepped in to take charge, they’d ended up with two dozen boxes of frozen, chocolate-flavoured bratwurst. They were still in the freezer, currently holding up part of the shelf.

  “Okay, but if you don’t find someone by today, I have a guy who’d be perfect for the job. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Lauren gave a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t worry, Aaron. I’ve got it handled.”

  Aaron stood, pulling his tie from his shoulder and smoothing it against his light-grey shirt. “Well, it can’t hurt to have a backup plan, can it?” He stooped to pick up his briefcase. “Oh, I stopped by to let you know I have a man coming in to inspect the place this week. His name is Civan Keyzer.” Aaron turned and left, leaving Lauren stunned and speechless.

  Lucy sidled up to Lauren with a pot of coffee in her hand. “Did he just say he was sending an inspector?”

  Lauren nodded, still too shocked to form actual words.

  “You know the only time someone hires an inspector is when they’re getting ready to sell.” Lucy clucked her tongue as she refilled a cup. She moved slowly down the line, refilling as she went.

  Lauren took a deep breath, pulled back her shoulders, and delved back into the chaos, hoping the noise and bustle of work would keep her mind off what Lucy had just said. It was ambitious, even if it didn’t work.

  Even if Aaron was planning to sell, it was unlikely the building would be torn down to make condos, like so many other places in the city. The entire block was attached, so everyone would have to sell, and that would never happen. But whoever bought the place would probably gut it. This neighbourhood didn’t want tiny little diners like this anymore. It was filling up with places like Grnds, or boutiques selling clothing made from paper, or vape stores. Aaron kept this place because it ran itself. At least to him it probably felt that way. As a lawyer he didn’t need the money. But what if he had decided to sell? He’d make a fortune. The building alone had to be worth a couple of million or ten.

  Chapter Five

  Lauren took a bite of her Jack Benny and wiped some of the gooey cheese from the side of her mouth. This was the first chance she’d had all day to get off her feet and eat something. Her stomach had been growling at her for the last hour.

  Lucy slid into the booth across from her with her ever-present Pepsi with a straw, no ice. Lauren figured she downed five or six full glasses a day. How Lucy didn’t have an ulcer Lauren had no idea. She wasn’t anyone to judge. A grilled cheese sandwich with bacon for breakfast wasn’t even close to healthy. She’d have to remember to have a salad for dinner, or get Ramiro to add a tomato to a burger.

  “It’s not the same without Pete,” Lucy said in her soft Jamaican accent.

  “He’s been gone a month.” Lauren took another bite of her sandwich. She didn’t want to admit that Lucy was right.

  “And this place hasn’t been the same since he left. Even Ramiro isn’t humming or dancing as much. I think he misses him too.”

  Lauren had noticed, but she’d tried to ignore the pall that had fallen over the diner. Pete was so happy right now. Every time she’d texted him, he’d been excited about everything. She didn’t want to ruin that for him by lamenting about how much they missed him around here.

  “It’s weird,” Lauren said, “how one person can change the whole dynamic of a place, isn’t it? Like a linchpin. And I never would’ve thought it’d be Pete.”

  Lucy had worked at the diner almost as long as Lauren. She’d started only a year or so later. If Lauren was going to guess at a linchpin, it would’ve been Lucy. She was like the mother of the place, especially after Greta died. Lucy was a caregiver, which meant she was in your business whether you wanted her there or not. She was constantly trying to set Lauren up, and she’d always scolded Pete for wearing fall jackets in winter and reminded Ramiro of everyone’s birthday. After ten years working together, he still couldn’t remember Pete’s was on the twenty-second of June or that Lauren’s was on March twentieth. She had a presence that said everything was going to be okay.

  Lucy took a sip of her Pepsi and said, “I always assumed it was you.”

  “Me?”

  “You’ve been here the longest of everyone, now that Greta’s gone. After she died I kinda felt like you took her place. You watch over everything.”

  Lauren couldn’t be more surprised if Lucy’d climbed on top of the table and done the cancan. “I…”

  “I think someone just took a bite.”

  “Hmm?”

  Lucy nodded toward the front window. On the other side stood a young woman with the richest dark-blue hair Lauren had ever seen. It must take skill to get it that colour. Also, she had the palest skin ever. The combination was startling. The woman was staring at the help-wanted sign like she’d found a water fountain in the desert.

  The door chime rang as she entered, surveying the place as if judging whether it was a cool enough place to work. She bent to look at a picture in the front of Queen Street from the 1870s, when horses were still pulling the streetcars. Lauren tracked her gaze as it moved from the archive pictures to the old ads to Ramiro cooking in the kitchen and finally landed on Lauren and Lucy in the last booth.

  She did a half wave, which was both awkward and adorable. “Hi. I saw the sign outside.” She chucked her thumb toward the front door. “Is the manager around?”

  “You’re looking at her.” Lucy pointed toward Lauren.

  The woman held her hand out and smiled. “Oh. Hi. I’m Hayley.” She fished out a resume from a leather satchel that looked like it had spent the better part of a decade wedged under heavy boxes.

  Up close her eyes were pale blue, but when she turned her head and the light hit them, they were almost azure, like the shallow waters off the coast of St. Maarten.

  “Do you have experience working in a kitchen?” Lauren scanned her resume.

  “In high school I worked in a kitchen, prep-work mostly.”

  Lauren nodded without looking up at her, still studying her credentials. “Do you have time to fill out an application?”

  Lucy got up, taking her Pepsi with her, and came back a few seconds later with a sheet of paper littered with questions and a pen. She handed both to Hayley.

  “Fill this out, and then I’ll introduce you to Ramiro, our cook. He’ll have some questions for you.” Lauren spent the next ten minutes tending to customers, but every minute or so her gaze would wander over to Hayley in her booth. She was wearing tight black jeans and a worn form-fitting leather jacket. As she filled out the form, she unzipped her jacket, revealing a T
-shirt with a small bomb with legs and eyes.

  “Something bothering you?” asked Lucy.

  Lauren shook her head. “Is that what you’d wear to a job interview?”

  Lucy put a hand on her hip. “To a diner? To apply for a job cooking burgers?”

  Lauren didn’t answer. Instead she busied herself by restocking the back counter with clean mugs.

  * * *

  Hayley couldn’t believe her luck. She was standing in a kitchen listening to the cook, Ramiro, detail what the job was. She might actually walk away with a job today. Forget the fact that she’d never actually cooked for anyone but her family before, but how hard could flipping burgers be?

  The guy had some serious girth. His arms were bigger than her thighs. He kind of reminded her of that God in that Disney movie, minus the hair and the tattoos. At five-six, Hayley wasn’t necessarily short, but she had to crank her neck to stare up at Ramiro.

  Ramiro peered down at her resume. “Says here you worked in a restaurant in high school. What kinds of things did they have you doing?”

  Hayley used the same lie she had with Lauren. “Prep work mostly.” When Ramiro’s face fell, she decided to embellish, sell herself a little. “But I can do burgers and pancakes, and I’m a quick study. Anything I don’t know I can pick up fast.”

  Ramiro fished in a bin under the centre island and produced an onion, set it in front of her, and nudged a knife her way. “Cut this for me.”

  Hayley held up her hands. “Should I wash first?”

  Ramiro shook his head. “No need.”

  Hayley grabbed the onion and sliced it in half through the onion root, like her mom had shown her. Then she flipped one half on its edge and made four slices horizontally and then five vertically, creating a grid. She then turned it ninety degrees and sliced along the onion, creating perfect cubes. She did the same to the other side and set the knife down. The whole thing had taken about a minute.

  Ramiro pursed his lips. “Decent technique, but you’ll have to be a lot faster than that to keep up with the rush.”

  Hayley shrugged. “I’ll get faster. It’s been a while.”

  “Okay, Pollyanna. How can you tell if a burger’s done?”

  “By the feel?”

  Ramiro rolled his eyes. “That’s guesswork. Whoever told you that didn’t know shit. Now what I do.” Ramiro took a patty from the fridge, pressed an indent in the middle of the patty with his thumb, and placed it on the grill. He adjusted the heat to high and grabbed a spatula from the counter. “I listen for the sizzle.” He bent down, putting his ear to the grill. “Hear that?”

  Hayley stared. Was this guy for real?

  “When it gets really loud, I flip it and wait for the sizzle to get loud on this side.” Ramiro took a bun from a bag beside the grill and placed it on the top part of the grill to toast. He flipped his burger. When the buns were toasted, he buttered them and placed them on a plate with lettuce, tomato, and two pickle slices. He knelt down to the grill again. “Hear that? All done.” With a flourish he flipped the burger onto the bun and shut it. “And that’s how you grill a burger.”

  “By sound?” Hayley asked, skeptical. The grin on Ramiro’s face told her he was trying to pull one over on her. “That seems about as arbitrary as using the feel method.”

  “You don’t like my method?”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  Ramiro roared with laughter. The sound that bubbled out of his chest, enchanting and contagious, made him less intimidating.

  He crumpled her resume and application up and tossed it in the garbage. “Tell you what, Pollyanna. I don’t believe for a second that you’ve ever worked in a kitchen, but I’m going to give you a shot. Be here tomorrow at five a.m., and we’ll try you out.”

  Hayley glanced at the garbage. “You just threw my application in the trash bin.”

  “Yep. I have a feeling your references are either your boyfriend or your roommates or a combination of.”

  “But you’re giving me a job?”

  “I’m giving you a chance, which may turn into a job or a life experience you can share during future dinner parties. The great part is, you get to choose which one you get.”

  It took a minute for Hayley to work through what that meant. He was giving her a job on a probationary term. When that realization clicked into place, she launched herself at him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She pulled back but didn’t have any other words, so she hugged him again. Ramiro stood there, seeming unsure what to do, with a smirk on his face.

  “Okay, Pollyanna. We get the picture. You’re excited.” He held up his index finger. “Just don’t let Lauren know you don’t have any kitchen experience. She’ll freak.”

  Hayley nodded. “I won’t. Thank you. See you at five a.m.” She bounded out of the kitchen and diner before Ramiro could say anything else.

  * * *

  “So you hired her?” Lauren rested her arms on the window between the kitchen and front counter, watching Ramiro slap three burger patties on the griddle. He twisted and laid out three plates with their garnishes. Watching him work was like watching a choreographed dance—hypnotic and soothing.

  “We hired her. She’s going to do great.”

  “How can you tell already?”

  “She didn’t baulk at the five a.m. start time. Didn’t even faze her. That tells me two things. She really wants this job, which means she’ll work hard to keep it, and two, I won’t have to listen to Ezra bitch about the early shift cutting into his womaning.” Ramiro turned three burgers in rapid succession without looking at them. “Why? You have a problem with hiring her? I thought you said Aaron was on your case about filling the position.”

  “No. It’s fine.” She waved him off. “I can handle Aaron. Chances are he’ll forget he was even here.”

  “Okay, because the way you say ‘it’s fine’ doesn’t sound like you think it’s fine. We agreed I get final say for kitchen staff.”

  Lauren bit her lip. She wasn’t even sure what it was about Hayley that made her so uneasy. “I know. And you do. I guess she just didn’t seem to fit in. That’s all.” She looked back at the booth Hayley had been sitting in earlier. That wasn’t it either. And uneasy was the wrong word for how she felt. It was more a sense of something she couldn’t even name, a sense of change coming. And if there was one thing Lauren didn’t need right now, it was change.

  Ramiro pointed his spatula at Lauren. “Trust me. I can tell when someone’s going to fit in.”

  “Like the last guy?”

  Ramiro flipped the burgers onto buns, added the tops, and set the plates on the counter in front of Lauren. “That was a favour for my girlfriend. I told you he was only going to be temporary until we found someone better.” His grin stretched his cheeks. “And we just did.” He shooed her away. “Go serve stuff.”

  Lauren grabbed the plates and delivered them to the three men at booth one. She spent the rest of the day with half her mind on the diner and the other on impossibly azure eyes.

  Chapter Six

  At four forty-five the next morning, Hayley stood outside the diner waiting for someone to open up. She was an equal mixture of nervousness and excitement. She loved a good challenge, and that’s what this would be because she was going in blind. She had no fucking idea what she was doing. But she’d found a job. To celebrate, last night she’d splurged and bought a bag of Doritos from the street meat vendor down the way.

  Was it a bad sign when the street vendors knew your order by heart? It probably wasn’t the healthiest of meals. With her first paycheque she’d make sure to buy some vegetables. Who knew what kind of meat they were using to make those sausages? When you drowned them in ketchup and sauerkraut, they tasted good enough though. Also, getting a job on her second day meant she didn’t have to spend today looking for one. Job-hunting sucked donkey balls.

  “You’re early.”

  Hayley jumped a foot. Her hand went to her heart. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit
out of me.”

  “Sorry.” Lauren offered a smile and brushed past her to unlock the door. She smelled like vanilla, honey, and coffee.

  “You came out of nowhere.”

  “I live above the diner.” She pointed up.

  Hayley stepped back and took a look at the windows up there, which had a little ledge under each one. “Cool. Best. Commute. Ever.”

  Lauren ushered Hayley in ahead of her. “But I get called in more often since I’m so close.”

  “And I guess, as the manager, you kind of have to set an example.”

  Lauren paused, and her polite smile faded a bit. “Yeah.” Then she shrugged and the polite smile was back in place. “But it’s why I get paid the big bucks.”

  Hayley doubted she got paid very much. She hadn’t enquired what they were going to pay her because at this point she didn’t care, but it couldn’t be much.

  “Feel free to make yourself something for breakfast. I’m not sure if Ramiro went over any of the perks, but you get meals for free when you’re working.”

  “For free?” The force with which Hayley spoke made Lauren take a step back.

  “I’m guessing Ramiro didn’t go over much with you.”

  To be honest Hayley had skipped out before he’d had a chance. “I get to eat for free?”

  Lauren laughed. She’d never seen anyone so excited about free food. “Yes, within reason. But from the looks of you, I doubt you’d be able to put away much.”

  “This has officially become the best job ever. Can I make you anything?”

  “No thanks. I don’t eat breakfast.”

  “I don’t usually, but I’m starving.” Hayley took a seat at the front counter and decided to wait a bit. It felt weird entering the kitchen without Ramiro there. “Do you know when Ramiro’s coming in? He said to meet him here at five, that he’d go over everything with me.”

  Lauren hung her cardigan up in the back and came out, turning on the coffeemaker, the stereo, and the lights all in three quick, practiced motions. “Unfortunately, Ramiro broke his ankle playing basketball last night. So for the first little while, you’re going to be on your own until I can get Ezra or Theo to come in. Is that going to be a problem?”