Bread and Butter

by Michelle Wildgen

  “Well, you would be dressed,” Thea said. She resettled her feet against his skin and Leo cupped them, through his shirt, with both hands. Anyone else would just put on some socks. “When that time occurs. If it occurs.”

  “I would,” he’d said, rubbing her feet. “I’d wear a three-piece suit.”

  Downstairs he heard the volume of the music rise and Britt’s voice joining in the chatter. Leo opened up the books for Monday night. He recognized most of the names but checked their blue cards anyway. Apparently the husband of one couple had stopped drinking and wanted no alcohol in his food either. A pharmaceutical rep hadn’t wooed a crew of doctors here in months, but another had taken her place and had been here three times in the past six weeks. Another couple had divorced. Don’t mention Alice, the card warned.

  He opened Britt’s card, half wondering if there’d be a snide reference to his brother’s absence. But it was the same pithy two-word joke it had always been, Mouth breather. And yet just below Britt’s name he now saw his own. Of course he had always been aware of the fact that the servers had never made a blue card for him, not in all the years they’d had the system. He’d never known if they skipped him because they didn’t think of him as someone to joke with or because they thought he’d be angry if they got it wrong. Or maybe they’d just never given him much thought. He opened the file, feeling weirdly trepidatious. It would probably be something about the temperature he liked his steaks.

  Likes his desserts traditional except when he doesn’t, Leo read. He smiled, then started to laugh as the lines scrolled up. Vehemently believes bar is for boozing, not dinner. Too modest to admit his past as a professional synchronized swimmer—but note the grace, the grace!

  CHAPTER 26

  WINESAP’S ANNUAL STAFF HOLIDAY PARTY was traditionally held during the doldrums of mid-January, when everyone had recovered from the holidays and the restaurant could afford to close for a night. What the event lacked in Christmasy effervescence it usually made up in sheer alcoholic fortitude. This year it had doubled in size and potential for mishap, for Britt and Leo had insisted on combining the parties for Stray and Winesap into a single melee at Leo’s house.

  The party always helped take Leo’s mind off a slow business moment that he loathed and enjoyed in equal measure. The guilty sweet spot arrived every year in early January, after the preholiday parties and between the cash-cow amateur nights of New Year’s and Valentine’s Day. As a matter of pride, Jason and Thea had tried for years to prevent the tasting menus on New Year’s and Valentine’s from settling into nothing more daring than lobster, cream, and warm chocolate cake, but the brutal truth was that those items sold. The guests who came out twice a year were there for lobster with chanterelles and saffron-scented cream, for oozy chocolate cake and flutes of champagne. And so they did their best to lend the stalwarts some interest and accepted the necessity of charging sixty-five bucks a head for a menu that they could produce and serve almost without coming in at all.

  A part of Leo always feared that the crowds would not return. But they always had in the past, and so this year he was doing his best to enjoy the two-server weeknights, the last reservations arriving at eight thirty instead of nine forty-five.

  Harry had been having a difficult time attempting to take the same approach. He had become accustomed to a full house, had staffed up for it, and now he faced the drop in numbers as if someone had thrown a rock through the front window. All of Leo’s and Britt’s assurances that this was normal, recommendations to take it as a breather, had failed to reassure him. There was nothing to be done but let him ride it out, as everyone had to do in his first year. This was just how the business went. He’d manage.

  Right now Harry was standing with Britt and Camille in a corner of Leo’s living room. All three were consuming steamed pork buns with pickled vegetables and heroic dollops of chile sauce. Leo happened to know that Harry was on his fifth.

  Thea was turning the pork buns out by the dozen in Leo’s kitchen. Jason stood at her side, splitting the soft, steamed rolls and adding a squeeze from a bottle of hoisin before layering on the sticky glazed pork and the pickled cucumbers.

  Leo had had three himself, healthful diet be damned. There was a sort of creepy eroticism to those pale, yielding steamed rolls, the sheer ease and silkiness with which they pillowed up, and the deceptive, infantile lightness that suggested you could and should eat half a dozen. All around his living room, cooks and servers were tearing into them, shaking their heads in disbelieving pleasure. Even vegan Josh looked delighted with his roasted mushroom version.

  It was always disconcerting to see these employees outside the confines of the restaurant, dressed not in whites or in work clothes but in their jeans and sweaters, to see who wore motorcycle boots and who knotted scarves prettily around their necks. Helene had exchanged her swishing skirts and spike heels for tight jeans, flat brown boots, and an artfully dilapidated violet T-shirt. Apollo, who’d recently cut his surfer’s hair and gotten new tortoiseshell glasses in a vain attempt to downplay his looks, was hovering near her, amplifying the glow from an adjacent lamp. Despite wearing faded jeans and a bright sweater, Jenelle somehow still gave the impression of being dressed for the line. She was awaiting her moment to produce the next course, lurking near the kitchen doorway, where Leo was loitering as well.

  Jenelle was on noodle duty, having spent the previous weekend simmering the thigh bones of a pig with kombu into a cloudy ivory broth. Harry had warned them it smelled like a stockyard during simmering, but some alchemy had occurred, and the broth warming on Leo’s stove now smelled less like pork than some savory, rich emulsification of everything meaty in the world.

  Britt materialized next to Leo. “Shouldn’t we get these things catered?” he said. “All the cooks are working when they’re supposed to be relaxing.” His gaze wandered over to Camille at the other end of the room, where some of the Stray staff were hoisting up their clothing to display their new tattoos.

  “I tried,” Leo said with a shrug. “I offered, I had Thea offer in case they were just being polite, I even circulated a few caterers’ menus so they knew I was serious. But you know these guys. They think caterers are hacks, and they couldn’t stand to miss a chance to show each other up. I think that’s what makes it a celebration to them.”

  “Yeah, I tried too. Jenelle got pissed at me for even mentioning a caterer when she’d already sourced twenty pounds of pig femur. Hector just stared at me as if I’d insulted his entire matrilineage. I haven’t been permitted to know what he’s doing.”

  “Harry wouldn’t have minded a caterer,” Leo said. They both looked once more toward their brother, who had finished his pork bun and was now looking furtively around, clearly considering a sixth.

  “No, but now the poor sap has to pitch in anyway,” Britt said heartlessly. “Can’t let your cooks do all the work at their own party. I mean, we are, but we bought the alcohol.”

  They shrugged in unison, content with their contributions. This was the one time when a decent boss had to know his place: they did what they were good for, supplied drinks and a venue, and even went so far as to close their restaurants on a dead winter Monday just to be sure the employees didn’t feel burdened by their own party on the one day the restaurant was closed. Then they got out of the way for the rest, allowing Leo’s kitchen to become as densely packed with secrecy and competitiveness as any palace kitchen. Hector and Kelly had arrived at the same time, or maybe they had arrived together, bearing coolers draped with tablecloths for extra discretion. They set the coolers just outside Leo’s back door and now hovered near the entrance as if to guard them.

  Leo made his way into the kitchen, gently displacing a number of the Winesap cooks, to where Thea was stationed at the counter beside the stove, slicing the last of the pork belly. She’d brought her own knives—all the cooks had brought their own knives; the counter bore a neat row of black knife rolls—but Leo had sharpened his anyway, for credibility. He paus
ed, enjoying the sight of Thea at work, the smooth motion of her knife through the strata of fat and meat, the curl of her fingers, her mouth turned down at the corners in concentration. Thea could cook an entire meal and barely shift her feet, she was that good at her setup, that efficient in her movements. Even the coil of curly hair gathered at the base of her neck barely shivered as she worked. Already Iris was the same: Leo had given her a small cutting board of her own, a dulled butter knife with a red handle, and a flat-ended wooden spoon that no one else used. When they set her up with a banana to slice or herbs to tear, she got the same expression Thea did, suggesting grave responsibility and faint wariness of her ingredients, as if they could not be trusted to become delicious on their own.

  He laid a hand briefly on Thea’s shoulder. Even this small acknowledgment, he knew, was bold. They might not be actively hiding anything anymore, but neither did they allow themselves a demonstration. Nevertheless, Leo decided, it was a party. Jason’s gaze strayed to his hand against Thea’s black-shirted shoulder, settled there, and then shifted discreetly away. But Thea merely glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled, and Leo felt relief and delayed adrenaline race through him, as though he had just come through some perilous event. Her hands, slick with mahogany glaze and pork fat, stayed where they were above the cutting board, but she lifted her shoulder just long enough to let her jaw rest on his hand before she went back to work.

  When the steamed buns were finished, Harry and Jenelle took over the kitchen to dish up the ramen. Back out in the living room, Thea watched the two restaurant crews mingle exuberantly, prodding one another with chopsticks, slipping out front to stand on the porch, smoking cigarettes and waving through the windows. The age disparity seemed to be no obstacle to bonding, whether because of the pleasures of industry kvetching, the products of an afternoon’s competitive cooking, or just the fresh sexual possibilities in cross-restaurant socializing. Earlier that evening, one of Winesap’s servers had even sidled beerily up to Harry and stood very close, just about to hit on him, until Britt saved them both with a specious question about pork broth. It all made Thea feel a little parental and affectionate.

  Leo watched her head back to the kitchen, since the noodle course had been served and Harry was now seated there with Jenelle and Britt. Harry was holding up a piece of pork between his chopsticks and examining it, probably considering the fat-to-meat ratio and whether he liked the purveyor, whether the sticky, savory marinade had penetrated a sufficient few millimeters into the flesh. His brows were drawn together, his jaw working meditatively as he chewed.

  Leo thought perhaps he too should use every day, even a party, as a chance to improve his culinary understanding. Harry devoted this same concentration to everything from Saturday morning scrambled eggs to staff-meal chicken tacos. Britt had mentioned it with some admiration, for it had begun to dawn on both of them how all Harry’s exploits had had a gustatory purpose, from the raw Alaskan salmon to homegrown goat. Yet Leo hadn’t felt the same pure admiration as Britt seemed to. Instead he felt—both then and now, as he watched Harry dip the pork into the broth and take a small, considered bite—a sort of vexed tenderness, a wish to give his brother some respite from his striving.

  HARRY HAD HIS THEORIES ABOUT Hector and Kelly’s dessert, and they involved fire, shards of iced substances that had never before been iced, or maybe mochi. After the demise of the Korean rice stick dish, Hector had gotten very into glutinous rice flour; several of his desserts had taken on a chewy edge that was terrifically satisfying. And yet Harry really had no idea what they were serving, nor was he concerned about it beyond the pleasant expectation any guest might feel awaiting dessert. For once, whatever Hector wished to do had no real bearing on him, on customers, or on the restaurant. Hector could candy a rat if he wanted to—it was all fine with Harry.

  He’d never gone so long without socializing, and he hadn’t realized how essential it was, and not just to the restaurant business, which thrived on it. Even at the salmon plant there’d been a certain level of lightly armed camaraderie at the bars after shifts. Now Harry regretted the fact that this party was not his doing or even his idea. At first he had resisted combining the two staff parties, in case Britt and Leo’s offer was only polite, but he ended up sounding pissy and ungrateful, and he had understood that he had to stop slapping down every attempt his brothers made, that he was being not self-sufficient but petulant.

  Harry looked into the kitchen, where his brothers had gravitated once more. “Any idea what they’re making?”

  “Not yet,” said Britt.

  Leo reached behind a cooler and brought out a single pork bun on a paper plate.

  “Take it!” he cried. “It’s all we have—take it and leave us alone!”

  Harry accepted the plate. “You think you’re shaming me, but I will indeed take it.”

  “I told him you would,” said Britt. “Leo doesn’t see you at staff meal every day.”

  “Hey,” Harry said a few minutes later, pork bun now a memory. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I found a place. You don’t have to look quite so surprised. Mom and Dad were always temporary.”

  “It always starts off temporary,” Britt said. “Then next thing you know it’s thirty years later and you’re still there, sharing a truss.”

  “Where’s the apartment?” asked Leo. “I’m assuming you rented an apartment and didn’t buy an old warehouse to renovate in your spare time.”

  “You know where the Stray neighborhood stops being crappy and gets almost totally unscary? I rented a place about one foot over that line.”

  They tapped beer bottles and drank. After a moment Leo added cheerily, “I’m not helping you move.”

  “I have it down to a science. Also I don’t own anything.”

  “True. You’re as monastic as it is possible to be while still eating duck-fat-fried potatoes once a week,” Britt said.

  Harry poked around the cooler and found a bottle of porter. At the counter by the stove, Hector and Kelly were placing the last layer on a towering stack of crepes, aligned with an architectural precision between layers of dark chocolate and topped with what looked like salted almonds. Harry had expected to see something spectacular and aflame, but the sheer technical care of the cake seemed more impressive to him somehow, even moving. He loved a cook who could embrace the sheer repetition and minute attention of the process. They made it look simple: all you had to do was execute a task flawlessly, then do it a hundred more times.

  Next to the crepe cake sat a platter of caramel-brown, disk-shaped pastries, glistening with sugar and what Harry assumed must be huge quantities of butter. Kelly glanced up at them and said, “Kouign amann.”

  “Holy shit,” he said. Britt and Leo looked blank. Kouign amann, which he’d heard of once or twice but never tasted, was an unspeakably fussy and arcane Breton specialty, essentially a means of incorporating as much salted Brittany butter into pastry as the laws of physics allowed. The recipes he’d seen had required such care in ingredients, temperature, and precise handling to achieve the right layering of pastry that he’d never considered trying, but the rounds before him were stunning, rich, glossy, and crisped.

  He was so busy advancing on the kouign amann that he was startled when Hector turned from the counter bearing a grand pâte à choux ring, split in half and filled with what looked like a tawny-colored mousse of some kind. It looked magnificent and ridiculous, like the Sun King’s take on a doughnut.

  “What is that?” Britt murmured. Hector and Kelly drew themselves up with an identical air of hauteur.

  “You disappoint me,” said Kelly. “At least Harry recognized a kouign amann! This is a classic Paris-Brest, I’ll have you know. We filled it with cinnamon-scented cream instead of plain whipped cream.”

  “It’s named for a bike race,” Hector said.

  “Jeez, you guys,” Leo said in wonderment. “They’re mind-boggling. They’re so traditional.”

  “I can do traditional,” H
ector said, shaking his head. “Everyone forgets that.” He nudged an almond back into place.

  They all went silent, as if waiting for someone to dim the lamps or light a candle and sing, and then Kelly shrugged and broke the moment by sinking her knife into the heart of the crepe cake. Harry almost laughed, because all three of them had flinched, as if the last thing anyone would expect for a cake was to slice it.

  The rest of the party surged in to get their desserts, and the three backed over to one wall to let them through, listening to the exclamations over the desserts (“A Paris-Brest!” Alan cried) and the remnants of conversations that carried on as people picked up their plates and forks. The little kitchen was humid and loud, there were great piles of dishes to be washed, and the staff moved like one animate mass of hunger, swarming the table and then dispersing more quickly than seemed possible.

  Harry, Leo, and Britt waited until all the employees had returned to the other room amid conversation about the glazed fruit, the light pastry, the richness of the cream, and then they stepped forward to serve themselves.

  The table was empty, its platters cleaned of all but a scattering of crumbs. They looked around to see if any further desserts might be lingering on a counter or above the fridge, but there was nothing but empty plates, beer bottles, and utensils. On the stove, two stockpots each held a half-inch of pork broth, and nearby sat an extra tray of naked steamed buns without filling. The kitchen was finally quiet, but the rest of the house swelled with a comfortable volume of laughter and the clinking of china and silverware.

  There was one lone swirl of cinnamon cream left on a platter, just enough for each of them to taste a dollop of it. Harry managed to collect a few shards of pastry from another serving dish, enough for each of them to manage a bite. Even the remnants—the faint tang of salt, a shattering medallion of browned caramel clinging to a shred of soft dough—were enough to incite a murmur of appreciation and contentment from each brother. Then they sat at the table, slouched peacefully in their chairs. The three of them listened as their guests, oblivious, devoured the last of their meals.