When I see her, I immediately think of her sleeping with Ernesto in my old bed. Mixing her clothes with his in the dresser I bought at the Salvation Army years ago. Both of them eating at the little beat-up table I found on Avenue C one summer. Keeping all these intimate details of their lives from me. I stand in the doorway, staring at her. As soon as she looks up, I blurt out, “Why didn’t you tell me Ernesto is living with you?” I throw my bag down on the counter. “Is it some kind of secret?”
“Well, hello to you, too,” she says.
I stomp across the room and stand on the other side of the counter from her. The vapors from the onions seep into my eyes, making them sting and water. “We had this whole conversation about you taking my place. I gave you the keys. I watched you haul your crap upstairs. Even held the door for you. You never once said that Ernesto was going to live with you. In my place!”
“First of all.” Franny lays down her knife and scowls at me. “It isn’t your place anymore. It’s mine. And secondly, what do you care?”
“I don’t care,” I say snippily. “Do whatever the hell you want. Don’t tell me.” I stomp off toward the office.
“Nice to have you back, Lemon,” Franny sneers. “What’s up your ass this morning?”
“Nothing’s up my ass,” I snarl at her.
“You walk in here, don’t even say hello, we had no idea when you were coming in again.”
I march back toward her. “You’re the one who’s keeping shit from me.”
“I’m not keeping anything from you. I’ve barely seen you lately or talked to you. If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been busy running your restaurant.”
“Oh, well, sorry, Franny. I’ve been a little preoccupied,” I say sarcastically.
“You know what? This is stupid.” She walks out from behind the counter and stands in front of me. “It’s not your fucking place anymore. I can have orgies up there with the entire prep staff, and it’s none of your goddamned business.”
“I know that!” I scream.
“Then why are you yelling at me?” she screams back.
What is my problem? I should be happy for Franny and Ernesto. They were both in awful living situations with long commutes, and now thanks to me they have a great place above the restaurant. I helped out two of my friends. I just came back to work. This is the first time I’ve seen either of them. So why am I starting out like this? Why is my heart beating so fast? And why are my palms moist? Why am I so furious with both of them, especially her?
“Because!” I yell. “You have my life!” Suddenly, looking at Franny, it all seems so clear. Everything I’ve lost. Not just that little life growing deep inside of me but an entire life that had taken me so long to carefully construct.
I pace the floor, gesturing wildly and yelling at the pots and pans and knives hanging on the wall. “I had exactly what I wanted for about five minutes in my life. I worked my ass off to get it. Everything was perfect. And then this.” I jab myself in the gut. “One careless stupid fuck ruined all that!”
“Lemon,” Franny says and shakes her head at me.
“No. Stop. I’m so sick of people shaking their heads at me. Looking at me with so much pity. Telling me to stop. This is the truth. I got pregnant, and everything changed. I changed, for God’s sake. I walked around for three months, convincing myself that I wanted a baby. That I could handle bringing another person in my life. That I could mold myself into the perfect mother and keep this place going. Only it was a joke. Clearly I couldn’t handle it. Then, I couldn’t even have the kid. I lost it, and now everything is falling apart in my life.”
Franny stands, staring at me, but she says nothing. I’m not surprised.
“And you didn’t even call me,” I say quietly, evenly. “I lost this baby, and you never once asked me if I was okay or how I felt or what I needed.”
She sputters. Looks down at the stained dishtowel tucked into her apron. “I didn’t know if I should call. I didn’t want to wake you up or bother you if you were in pain.”
“That’s bullshit, Franny. You just didn’t want to deal with how sad I was.”
She looks up at me, defiant again. I know that look in her eyes. The way she holds her mouth. I’ve seen it in every fight we’ve had since we first encountered one another. “I was busy trying to keep this place going. For you! You don’t even appreciate that!”
“Right,” I say. “Because I’m just so selfish.”
“You know what?” she yells at me. “You are. Everything comes so easily to you. Always has. In Europe, you got every job you asked for.”
“So did you!”
“They’d only hire me after they hired you. I was always second.”
“What’s it matter who got hired first? We both had jobs.”
“And every guy.”
“Not this again,” I say. “You cannot hold a grudge about Herr Fink for this long. He was such a jerk, Franny. You were lucky not to get mixed up with him.”
“That’s not the point!” Franny screams.
“Then what is the point?” I scream back.
“The point is that you knew I had a thing for him, but you didn’t care. You couldn’t stay away. You went ahead and started screwing him and left me in the back of that hell hole peeling potatoes with some shell-shocked Nazi who couldn’t even form a sentence. I was miserable, and you didn’t care as long as you were having a good time.”
I have no answer for this, because it’s true. But it wasn’t that I wanted to hurt Franny. I just didn’t know how to tell her that our friendship was smothering me. That I needed time and space away from her. Herr Fink was a very convenient way to make sure that I got it.
“Then you came back here,” Franny goes on. “And you sauntered from gig to gig while I fucked around in catering and corporate dining rooms, working my ass off to find any crap job.”
“My life was not that easy,” I say.
“Then you started this place, and well, look at that, surprise, surprise, you’re immediately The Shit. Do you bother to share any of it with me? With Ernesto? No. It’s your name in every article. Your face in every picture. On top of that, you’ve got a great guy who loves you and bankrolls your dreams. A family that adores you. And all you do is bitch about it.”
“How can you say all of this to me after what I’ve just gone through?” I ask her.
“Look, Lemon.” Franny holds out her hands to me and shakes her head. “I’m sorry that you lost the baby. I really am. But you can’t use that as an excuse to come in here and scream at me because I finally have something good in my life.”
I don’t want to listen to her words anymore. Don’t want to see her face. I turn and run out of the kitchen. I don’t know where I’m going, but I have to get out. Only I’m stopped because I smack into Ernesto, coming through the front door.
He catches me against his body with an ooph. “Whoa!” he says. “Hey, slow down. What’s going on? Where’re you going?”
I’m enraged and wild and need to get out. Need to get away from this place, from Franny, but Ernesto hangs on to me. Holds me tightly and pats my back. “Lemon,” he says quietly and soothing. “What’s going on? What happened? Why are you so upset?”
I’m in his arms, and I remember this position from years ago. Ernesto would hug me after long, hard days of work when I thought I’d never make it. When I questioned every decision I’d ever made and wondered if I should give up trying to be a chef and move back to Brooklyn to live the life my family expected. No matter how bent out of shape I was about my job or my family, Ernesto would ease everything. He never told me condescendingly that I was okay or tried to convince me that I was pushing myself too hard or talked to me with false patience. He just held on to me until I was calm. This is the thing that Eddie has not done for me. He hasn’t let me cry without offering me pity, advice, or his anger in return.
As Ernesto gently rocks me back and forth, I cry, and for the first time in weeks I start to relax a little. I�
��ve been working so hard to be strong (for my aunts, for my grandmother, for Eddie, for myself) that all my sadness has turned to rage. But now, here in Ernesto’s hug, I can do whatever I need to feel better.
I look up into his face. His expression holds no judgment or expectation like Eddie’s lamenting grimaces these days. No anger and resentment like Franny’s hard stare. Ernesto is the only person who understands what I need. The only one who really cares. I close my eyes and I tilt my head. I should’ve known this all along. Ernesto is the one to turn to. Ernesto will make things better. I rise to my tiptoes. I find Ernesto’s lips. I press my mouth against his and cross my arms against his back, pulling him closer to me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Ernesto pushes me away. I stumble backward and see Franny stomping through the dining room. She rips the Cubs hat from her head and throws it against the bar. “You get the fuck away from him!” she yells at me.
Ernesto holds up his hands, an innocent man, framed. “Franny,” he says softly.
“You!” She points at him. “Don’t fucking say a word to me.” She turns to me. “And you,” she says with disgust and hate. “You might get everything else you want in life, but you do not get him! Now get the fuck out of my way.” She pushes past me and out the front door, slamming it behind her.
I look at Ernesto. I’m horrified. What the hell have I done? What a stupid, thoughtless, juvenile thing! “I’m so sorry,” I whisper with my fingers pressed against my stinging lips. But he’s gone. Out the door behind Franny, calling her name.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
I close Lemon for the rest of the week and try to regroup. I come clean to the staff about losing the baby. It’s a convenient excuse for why we’re closed temporarily, since I’m not willing to admit what I’ve done to drive Franny and Ernesto away. Everyone feels sorry enough for me that they don’t ask questions. To Eddie I simply say that Franny blew up over long-held resentments, and we’ve decided to take a break. He thinks it’s a good idea and encourages me not to rush back into work until Franny’s calm and I’m ready. I figure by the end of the week, I’ll either have talked Franny into coming back or I’ll have found a new kitchen staff. Either way, I plan to open for Sunday brunch.
I spend long days in my office making calls, trying to line up new cooks, just in case Franny stays mad. The New York restaurant world is a transient universe full of vagabond chefs always looking for the next good thing, but I can’t find anyone I’d want to share my kitchen with. The more people I talk to, the more I realize how difficult it will be to re-create what Franny, Ernesto, and I had.
As the days pass and I get more desperate, I leave Franny contrite messages, practically begging her to call me or stop by so we can talk. Although I suspect Ernesto understands that what I did was a momentary lapse of judgment with no more true emotion attached than if I had kissed one of the dead trout in the cooler, I know that his loyalty is with Franny, and I can’t blame him. Neither one of them calls me back or answers the buzzer when I go to their door. One day, I sit in the dining room for hours, watching for them to come out of the building, but I never see them. I’m beginning to suspect they’ve taken off.
The rest of my time I spend grappling with the books, going over a year’s worth of finances, trying to figure out why Lemon’s never gotten on its feet. When I see how much money Eddie’s really sunk into my restaurant, I’m appalled. He’s the only reason the doors have stayed open. The scary thing is, I can’t figure out why. I’m sure there are efficiency experts who could come in and make this place profitable. They’d recommend a set menu with particular pricing points, cheap vendors who deliver food in industrial-sized cans, and watered-down drinks at double their cost. I’ve worked in those kinds of restaurants, and I hate them. I won’t own one.
By Friday night, I’m in a panic. I’ve got no cooks, no menu, no supplies. The ovens are cold, the countertops are desolate, and the pantry is bare. But I have a staff that’s planning to come back in for Sunday brunch and a sign on the door that says I’ll be open. As I stand in the middle of my empty kitchen, I feel an overwhelming sense of doom.
Maybe if things were different. If I had more gumption, more wherewithal, more stamina, I’d pull through. I’d find a way to persevere without Franny and Ernesto and let this be another story about how Lemon made it when so many other restaurants failed. The thing is though, I keep expecting Franny to come back. To walk in the door and berate me for kissing her boyfriend so I can give her hell about never calling me when I needed her most. Then we can forgive each other and get back to work.
What I realize now as I stand here with only the wheeze of the walk-in and the buzz of the lights for company is that Franny’s not coming back. She isn’t going to forgive me this time, because her anger isn’t simply about me kissing her boyfriend. She thinks I’m selfish and uncaring. Always has. Maybe she’s right. That’s the kind of single-minded determination it would take to get Lemon on its feet again, but I don’t have it in me anymore.
I slump down to the cold tile floor and rest my head against the hard edge of the reach-in. My reflection in the stainless steel appliances around me is vague and blurry. Nothing is in my control anymore. I think of my parents’ train. Of the brakes surely squealing. The passengers pressing themselves against the windows to see what the conductor could see. Jamming their feet into the floor to mimic brakes. The reeling lurch when the train made its final descent toward the river. How long did they fight against the inevitable? Did they try to kick open windows? Find a back door? Swim to the surface? When did they know it was over?
I sit here, and I cry. For myself. For what I’m losing. For all the years of cooking for other chefs, biding my time, gathering recipes, plotting, and planning. All the money Eddie and I sank into this place. All the press, the promise, the potential of what I could have been. And for how I’ve pushed away Franny’s friendship by lashing out at her in my anger. I cry until I’m exhausted, and as I try to calm down and catch my ragged breath, it dawns on me that I could let all of this go. The bills, the worry, the constant rush to keep up, stay on top, be the best, make everybody around me happy. It would be such relief to drift away, leaving the wreckage for someone else to clear.
Then the back door opens and I look up, half hoping and half fearing that it will be Franny. I don’t know what I would do. But I don’t have to decide, because it’s Makiko standing in the doorway.
“Lemon? Is that you? Are you crying?” She squints into the half-dark.
I rub my sleeve across my eyes and nose. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s me.”
“What’s the matter? Are you feeling sad?”
“We’re not going to open Sunday,” I tell her.
“That’s okay,” she assures me with a gentle pat to my shoulder. Makiko smells like sweet cake batter, and I regret all of the desserts she won’t be making. “There’s no hurry,” she says.
“Franny and Ernesto quit.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” she says and looks around the kitchen as if she’ll find them hiding in a corner.
“We had a fight on Monday,” I tell her. “Then they left. I’ve tried to get in touch with them but they haven’t called me or come by since.”
“Franny’s just mad at you,” says Makiko. “You know how she is. She’ll calm down.”
I shake my head. “She’s definitely not coming back. And if she’s not coming back, neither is Ernesto.”
“But why?” Makiko asks, blinking with disbelief.
I shake my head wearily. “It’s too much to explain.” I know this is a cop-out, but I’m too tired to admit any more.
“But what are we going to do?”
“Well, actually, nothing,” I say. “I mean, there’s nothing we can do now. The finances are a mess. I’m weeks behind. I lost my kitchen staff.”
“I’ll help you,” Makiko says. “Eddie will too. Melanie. Kirsten and Lyla. We can make it work.”
>
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Makiko,” I say. “I feel terrible for letting you down like this. All of you. Lyla. Kirsten. Mel. Manuel. I even feel bad for Mona. You’ve all been so good to me.” I cover my face with my hands. Franny’s words hit me again. I am selfish.
“You’ve been through a lot, Lemon, and Franny has a horrible temper.”
“Actually, I don’t want to do it anymore.” I look up at Makiko and shake my head. “I just can’t.”
“Do you really mean that?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I really do.”
Makiko slouches down beside me, and we sit silently for a long time. The only noise is the gentle whir of the walk-in. The old beast. “I used to love the hours after we closed for the night,” I tell Makiko. “When the place was empty and quiet, but the smells of what we cooked still lingered.”
“Like ghosts were eating,” she says.
“I’ll miss that.”
“I’ll miss a lot of things,” she says.
I look around at my kitchen. She’s right. There’s a lot to miss, but for me it’ll be a relief to let it go.
“What will you do?” I ask.
“Well,” she says and pauses thoughtfully. I watch her face as the reality of the situation gradually hits her. “I’ve been thinking for a long time about going home to visit my family. I haven’t been back to Japan in over two years. We were so busy here, I never wanted to leave.”
“You could’ve asked me for a vacation,” I say, and Makiko giggles. “Yeah, that was stupid,” I admit and laugh a little, too. “I would’ve fallen apart if you left. You’ll come back, though, right?”
She looks up at me. “Of course I will. I want to work for you again.”
“You’re far too nice to me, Makiko,” I say.
“You’re not nice enough to yourself, Lemon.”
Chapter
Twenty-Five
A unt Livinia and I watch Montel at four o’clock while we crochet. She insisted I learn to make doilies, and I’m getting pretty good at it. Otherwise, to her addled mind, watching television is a waste of time. I’ve found I like keeping my hands busy. Today I’m working on a star design. I’m thinking of starting a tablecloth.
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