Dinner at Fiorello’s

by Rick R. Reed

  He was hard, as he was every morning, come rain or come shine, and this erection was more insistent than any thought that could intrude. He spit on his hand and took care of himself quickly, not thinking of anything but delighting in the sensations his own body gave him, that delicious electricity coursing through him, and released into his boxer briefs. He pulled them off, balled them up, and laid them, come side up, gently on the floor.

  He would rinse them out before throwing them in the laundry.

  The respite was brief. Henry turned on his side, and reality intruded, reminding him that today was the day he must give Rosalie Fiorello his answer. He pictured the woman in her office, her stern yet kind expression, waiting. It was as though she had been frozen there since he left her yesterday, even though Henry knew the notion was absurd.

  Somehow, as he slept, the only realistic answer he could give her had come to him. Henry didn’t know if his dreams were filled with images and moments that led him to his decision or if common sense had simply crept in while he slept. Whatever the reason, he was certain about what he must do.

  Come hell or high water.

  HENRY RUSHED through his morning routine—shower, bowl of cereal, dressing—feeling slightly nauseated. He knew the butterflies in his stomach and the pounding at his temples were not due to a physical ailment, but he could ascribe them to what he would say to Rosalie Fiorello when he saw her.

  He was afraid he would be closing a door rather than opening one, but Henry knew there was really only one course to take.

  Carefully avoiding Maxine and his parents, Henry slipped outside into the warmth of the day. His parents always kept the house at a cool seventy degrees all summer long, and the humidity hanging in the air outdoors came as a shock to Henry. Although it was still officially spring for a bit, today could have passed for midsummer. The air felt almost solid, mired in close-to-ninety-degree heat and unrelenting humidity. Henry was glad he had decided to wear the avocado and cream linen shirt, but his tan jeans already felt heavy, as if they were made of something more substantial than denim.

  He headed south on Sheridan Road, determined to walk to the restaurant this time. The distance was just under two miles, and it was silly for him to ride the ‘L’ there, not when he was a fit eighteen-year-old with, really, nothing but time on his hands.

  Even as Henry walked right alongside the lake, it was still hot and sticky, the water a slate blue and flat, like a mirror, unmoving. There was no breeze.

  It took Henry a little more than twenty minutes to arrive at the front of Fiorello’s, and he despaired, because the restaurant had yet to open. He pulled his iPhone from the front pocket of his jeans and pressed the Home button. He had to laugh. It was only a little before ten in the morning. He glanced at the sign on the door where the hours were posted and saw that the restaurant wouldn’t open until eleven thirty.

  In his haste to get down here and speak with Rosalie, he hadn’t paid even one whit of attention to what time it was. He had to remind himself that Rosalie, and the world in general, were not waiting with bated breath for his response.

  He looked around the street for something to occupy a little more than an hour. He could go get coffee, but that would only make him more jumpy than he already was. But what other options were there? Across the street was a convenience store and strip mall containing a Laundromat, the alderman’s office for that ward, and a wash-your-own-dog pet care place. None of these offered much distraction.

  Henry decided his best course of action was simply to walk back down to the lakefront. He could take off his shirt and shoes, roll up his jeans, and sit in the sand. If he wanted even more distraction than surf and sand, perhaps a hunky lifeguard would appear. Henry could always fantasize.

  Henry started walking east, not too fast because he didn’t want to be a sweaty mess. As he approached Sheridan Road, he noticed a silver Mercedes in the line of cars stopped at the traffic light, headed south. Henry swallowed, angling his head so he could see around the glare on the windshield.

  His mother was inside the car. There was something distant in her expression, from what he could tell. When the light changed, she turned right, heading toward him, and drove west on Jarvis. She seemed completely unaware of Henry’s presence.

  Regardless, Henry looked around quickly for somewhere to hide. For some inexplicable reason, he felt deep in his bones that his mother shouldn’t see him.

  What was she doing? Henry didn’t understand why she would turn up two days in a row in a neighborhood Henry would have thought she wouldn’t have dreamed of setting foot in.

  Even though he didn’t need to, Henry moved quickly back behind a row of shrubs that fronted an apartment building. He stooped a little and watched as she parked in front of a red brick building about a block down. Typical of his mom, she first tapped the car behind her, then the one in front of her, before getting the Mercedes situated.

  His mother stepped from the car, and she looked to Henry like a young girl, pretty, not much older than he. She wore a small-dotted pale blue sundress with thin straps. Her hair swung and glinted in the sunlight.

  What struck Henry was not so much her looks, which he knew she worked very, very hard to maintain, but the carefree attitude that informed her stride. Henry thought of the expression a spring in one’s step and thought his mom certainly had that. There was rarely any evidence of that at home, so Henry peered hard at her, squinting his eyes to make sure they weren’t deceiving him.

  He emerged from behind the shrubbery and crossed the street so he could better watch his mother go into the courtyard of the red brick apartment building. Staying close to a fence on the opposite side of the street, Henry watched as she pressed some buttons on the intercom of one of the entryway’s doors. She inclined her head forward and then laughed.

  Henry could hear the buzz of the intercom from where he was standing. His mother went inside. For a long time, Henry stood outside, simply scanning the windows of the apartment building, hoping for a glimpse of his mother and some clue as to what she was up to.

  But none ever came. The windows remained either reflective of the sky, covered with blinds or curtains, or empty of humans. There was a calico cat sleeping on the back of a couch in one of them.

  After a long while, Henry started again toward the beach, uncertain if he would ever get an answer.

  HENRY GOT up and brushed the sand from the seat of his pants. It was a little after eleven and time to return to Fiorello’s. He whispered a little prayer to himself and set off.

  In front of the restaurant, the chef he had seen at the stove on his last visit passed him. Henry sucked in a breath. The guy was a big, gorgeous giant. Henry tried to make eye contact with him so he could at least say hi, but the man brushed by him as if he wasn’t there and ducked inside the restaurant. He left in his wake the scent of fresh-baked bread and something sour and spicy, like chopped garlic. Henry watched him, and there was something about him that gave Henry a chill, in spite of the heat and humidity.

  Henry waited a few minutes for the chef to get inside. And then, once again like an actor stepping into the footlights, he took a breath and entered the restaurant.

  The place was empty, unlike the day before. He supposed the lunch crowd wouldn’t begin for at least another half hour. He looked around for Carmela or Antonio, but obviously neither of them had arrived yet. Henry glanced down at the phone clutched in his hand like a talisman and realized it wasn’t quite eleven thirty yet. He was surprised the door was even unlocked.

  “So you’ve made up your mind?”

  Rosalie’s voice, coming from behind, startled him. Henry turned to see her walking in the front door. She looked almost exactly the same as yesterday, same black dress, same thick-framed glasses, same upsweep of salt-and-pepper hair with not a single one out of place. Henry had to wonder if she had even gone home or just magically reappeared here each morning just before opening.

  He smiled at her and decided he had nothing to lo
se—well, maybe a lot to lose, but he needed to be honest. “Good morning,” he said. “How are you today, Mrs. Fiorello?”

  She waved a hand at him like he was a gnat or something, annoying her. “You wanna come back to my office? I’ll put coffee on.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she brushed by him and headed through the doors Henry knew led to the kitchen and then her office, or maybe it could be better described as her lair. Henry followed.

  “Sit.”

  Henry did as he was told, watching as Rosalie made herself busy at a Keurig machine. Henry was surprised. He expected a little metal pot on a hot plate or maybe an espresso maker but not one of these machines, just like the one they had in his own kitchen. It was so, so… American.

  She didn’t turn but said, “I got Starbucks or Gevalia, both dark roasts. Which one you want?”

  “No espresso?”

  She turned to glare at him, but there was amusement in her gaze. “We don’t drink espresso in the morning. If you want something Italian, you have cappuccino, but I can’t be bothered. You want coffee or not?” She grinned. “Maybe you don’t drink coffee yet? You want a nice glass of milk instead?”

  “Coffee would be great,” Henry replied, more to stave off making his speech to her than he wanted a cup of the caffeinated beverage. “I’ll have the Starbucks.”

  “Of course you will,” Rosalie muttered. In what seemed like less than a minute, she set a cup and saucer with coffee in front of him. Steam rose from its surface. “You want cream? Sugar? If you do, I’ll have to go get it.”

  Henry wanted both but didn’t think it would go over well to ask. Rosalie seemed to be making a point about the effort it would take for her to go fetch the condiments. “Black is fine.” Henry held back a giggle as he thought of following up with, “I like my coffee like I like my men, strong and black.”

  He imagined Rosalie’s eyes popping out of her head.

  She sat down with her own cup of coffee and took a sip. “Well, what are you waiting for? I don’t have any biscotti. Nor do I got all day.”

  Henry surmised they would not have a preamble of polite chitchat about the weather. And he didn’t think she’d appreciate his pointing out how she didn’t beat around the bush. He figured she knew as much.

  Henry took a sip of the coffee, and it scalded his tongue. With a shaking hand, he replaced the cup in the saucer, spilling some of the black liquid over the side. The saucer clattered.

  “I want the job. That is, if you haven’t found somebody else.”

  “Nobody else.” Rosalie inclined her chin down so she could peer at him over the top of her glasses. “You sure? You gave this some thought?”

  “A lot.”

  “Well, Carmela should be in soon, and I’ll have her pull the forms you need to get started. You know, the tax stuff. We can start you out as soon as you want.” Finally, she smiled. “Today, even.”

  Henry sucked in a great quivering breath. “I do have one condition.”

  Rosalie cocked her head. “This isn’t a negotiation, kid. The pay is minimum. Staff’s supposed to share their tips with you. That’s the best I can do.”

  Henry held up his hand. “It’s not that.” He took a sip of his coffee; this one went down better. He took another sip, just to stall. He could see Rosalie was not long on patience.

  “I can only work for the summer.” There. It was out.

  Rosalie threw up her hands. “I thought I made it clear. This isn’t a summer job. I need someone full time.”

  She started looking through what Henry guessed was a stack of invoices on her desk, and he felt dismissed.

  “Would you at least hear me out?”

  Rosalie tapped her watch. “You got five minutes, tops. Go.”

  Henry swallowed and realized he didn’t really have a clue as to what to say. He knew he had a burning desire to work in a professional kitchen, to eventually become a chef and infuse what he thought of as “magic” into his food, just like Maxine managed to. He could tell her he would work hard, learn fast, and be indispensable within a matter of days. But what job seeker didn’t claim those attributes?

  This was a time when Henry wished he did possess some lawyerly powers of persuasion.

  “Give me just a couple months. I’ll stay for three. That last month, I will help you in any way I can to find my replacement, but I will also work hard to train them, so you won’t even notice the transition.”

  Rosalie smirked. “So then I’d have to pay, at least for a few weeks, two people instead of one? To do the same job. How does that make sense?”

  Henry let out a little titter. She was right. “It doesn’t.” He half stood up. “I shouldn’t waste your time. I shouldn’t have even come here. I could have given you a call. You were clear when you said this wasn’t a summer job.” Henry stood fully and started from the office.

  “Kid. Why did you come here?”

  “Because something tells me, deep in my bones, that doing work like this is something that’s right for me.”

  “Sit back down.” Rosalie gestured impatiently at the chair in front of her desk. “Talk.”

  Henry took his seat again. “But it’s true. I should probably go to school in the fall. I can always go to culinary school or work in a restaurant after that. If I want. And I will.”

  “Will what?”

  “Want to work in a restaurant. Cook. Maybe have my own place someday.”

  Rosalie said, under her breath, “God help you.”

  Henry pretended he hadn’t heard. “Look. I don’t want to lie to you and say I’ll take a full-time job when I probably will leave in the fall. But I have a choice—I can work in my father’s law office this summer, or I can work here. I so want to work here. This is me. This is who I am. This is what I want.”

  Rosalie chuckled. “You tickle me, kid.” She sighed. “Can you start tomorrow? We really need someone fast, and it’s not as easy to find good help as you might think. And hardly anyone comes in here for a job like this, wanting it so bad that it’s like winning the lottery.

  “Plus so many people in this job leave quick anyway. The guy you’d be replacing, for example. He was here all of three weeks. Then he just stopped comin’.

  “It’ll be fun popping your bubble. You’re gonna see fast that this is hard work, college boy. And maybe a summer here will teach you to hit the books hard in the fall and get your degree. You don’t want to spend your life in a hot kitchen. Me, I had no choice.” Rosalie shrugged. “So, even though it’s against my better judgment, I’ll give you a shot. We’ll call it a summer job.”

  “You won’t be disappointed.”

  “I’ve had people say that to me a thousand times, kid, and about nine hundred and ninety-nine of those times, I was. Let your actions speak for themselves.”

  “Sure.” Henry nodded, a feeling of jubilation seeping into him. “I’ll be here tomorrow. What time?”

  “Ten.”

  Henry was tempted to tell her again she wouldn’t be disappointed but instead got up once again, smiling, to leave. He extended his hand, and Rosalie looked at it like he was offering her a frozen pizza roll. “Carmela should be in by now. Tell her you need a W-2 and a direct deposit form.”

  “Will do!” Henry hurried from the room with one thought nagging at him. Getting the job is the easy part; telling my mom and dad will be hard. Hard? Henry wondered if he’d have a place to sleep tonight.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN HENRY got home, Maxine waited in the kitchen for him.

  “What did you do?” she asked. She said it as though he had done something unforgivable and irrevocable, like killing someone.

  “What do you mean?” Henry ignored her and her question. He waltzed into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the big stainless Sub-Zero. There were so many options, despite the fact that his mother hadn’t eaten since shortly after his birth and his father took many of his meals downtown in pricey restaurants. He pulled out some deli ham and Emmenta
l cheese. From the cupboard, he got a box of water crackers and, from the bowl on the counter, grabbed a banana.

  Maxine took the food from his hands. “I know you were on an interview or applying. What happened? Are you gonna take it?”

  Henry took the food back. “And this affects you how?” He grabbed a plate and put the food on it.

  She touched his face. “If you did, I’ll miss you. Who will I talk to in this house? I mean, after your dad kicks your ass to the curb.”

  She was joking, but the gravity of what she said made Henry immediately lose his appetite. He plopped down hard on one of the stools set alongside their kitchen island. He put his face in his hands for a moment. Then he looked up at Maxine and said, “I did. I took the job.” He let out a short burst of near hysterical laughter.

  The words didn’t seem real. Maxine stared at him, her mouth open.

  “You might want to stuff a banana in that gaping hole,” Henry said.

  “Shut up. You did not!” Maxine gave his shoulder a little push.

  She was right. It was unlike Henry to do anything rebellious. He was the good kid, always home on time, never a problem at school, didn’t do drugs or drink excessively. Sex? Well, he thought briefly of Kade and surmised that was a whole ’nother ball game.

  Out of the blue—and maybe to change the subject or to just go along with the rise of this wave of giddy hysteria he was experiencing—he spit out, “Oh yeah, and I’m gay.”

  Maxine let out a burst of laughter. “Yeah, right. You’re like my buddy Patrick who, when he went to come out to his mom and dad, told them he had a brain tumor first. Then said he was only kidding, he was just gay. They still weren’t relieved.”