by JD Hawkins
I continue eating the fruit, taking a couple of bites and then looking up at him, still standing there as if he’s waiting for something more, a vaguely concerned look on his face.
“That’s strange. Usually you know when a conversation has run its course, Charles,” I say, my misdirected irritation about Chow’s opening night now coming to the fore.
As if reading my thoughts, Charles’ next words are, “That new restaurant a few blocks away is called Chow, I heard. And it’s opening tonight.”
“Is that so?” I say, leaning back, noticing how he’s carefully not mentioning Willow by name.
“I don’t know how, but apparently it’s causing quite a buzz already. Got a lot of people excited.”
I feel my jaw clench. “Mm-hmm.”
“But then, I’m sure you already knew that,” Charles says, clearing his throat. “Just let me know if you need anything above and beyond the usual, to keep things running smoothly tonight. Since this…after-party…could be stressful for you.”
“I’m sure whatever comes up, I can handle it,” I practically growl.
Charles seems to take the hint, leaving the office quickly and closing the door behind him.
I cut another chunk of fruit but I can’t eat it with my gut tied up so tight, so I get up from my chair to pace a little, try and shake the anxious energy from my limbs.
All I can think about is Chow, and what’ll happen when it opens its doors tonight. I picture Willow moving around the kitchen like a dervish, barking orders and exhibiting more kitchen skills in a minute than most people learn over a lifetime. That determined, focused expression on her face—the same one I saw when she cooked for me…
They say if you love someone then you set them free, but I know that’s bullshit now. I’m beyond trying to delude myself into thinking I don’t love her anymore, but love unfulfilled can burn you from the inside. It can harden into a steel knife that twists with each memory, that digs into you constantly until the whole world becomes a collection of reminders of what you need so badly.
There’s a dark, twisted part of me that wants Chow to fail. Not for revenge over the betrayal Willow committed, but so she’ll come back. I know it’s wrong, and every time I think of her going through the same hardships I went through to build Knife, I want to root for her the same way I rooted for myself when I was attempting the impossible. But then what? If Chow succeeds and Willow gets everything she’s ever wanted in life, I’ll be just another chapter in her past, a stepping stone toward her happy ending. There’s no winning someone back when they’re doing so well without you.
I look up when I hear a knock at the door, striding across the office with a frown on my face to yank it open.
“Hello,” the young woman behind it says, beaming an innocent smile. It’s Maggie.
She steps back and Chloe shuffles forward, the girl looking up at me with her gap-toothed smile.
“Hi Cole!” she says excitedly, running into the office.
I turn back to the woman.
“What’s going on? The young chef program is done.”
“Yes I know,” Maggie says, with teacherly softness. “But Chloe finally competed in the finals of the statewide cooking competition, and she wanted to tell you how it went.” I nod, still bemused. “Plus, we were in the neighborhood and I really needed to run to the ladies’ room—do you mind? It’ll give you two a few minutes to catch up.”
“Of course,” I say, pointing down the hall, and she zips away from the door, leaving me alone with my former mentee.
“Cole, you’ll never believe it! Look at this,” Chloe says, holding something out toward me.
I look down to examine the bright blue and gold ribbon she’s got in her hand.
“Third place?” I say, trying to hide the disappointment I’m feeling for her.
“Yeah! Isn’t that great? I’m soooo happy!” Chloe says proudly, looking back at the ribbon and stroking it tenderly. “Thank you so much, Cole. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
She launches herself at me, hugging my side tightly while I give her a few careful, mentorly pats on the back and try to process the insanity of everything that’s going on right now. When she finally lets go I stand and rub my brow.
“Why not first place?” I say. “What happened?”
“Well, first place was amazing,” she says, without a hint of envy or anger. “It was this mustard and tar… tarregan—”
“Tarragon.”
“Mustard and tarragon chicken—so delicious. He deserved it. He was really nice too, and he gave me his e-mail so we could trade recipes! Plus it’s not really about the trophy or the ribbons anyway, it’s about showing everything we learned, and making friends with the other chefs, and seeing how other people cooked. The competition was the most fun ever.”
I suppress the urge to stop her, to look her in the eye like a bad chef and tell her third place is meaningless, that it is all about winning, all about the food, all about who’s best. That friends and learning don’t get you anywhere in this world, that only being better than everyone else will do that.
But she’s smiling so much, happiness expressed the way only a child can, without restraint or cynicism. Big brown eyes aglow, glancing constantly at her ribbon to remind herself over and over that she went, she saw, she conquered—and she had a great time doing it.
Seeing that kind of joy so vividly, I suddenly feel like I’m the ridiculous one. Like being disappointed that she didn’t get first place is the wrong perspective, rather than the other way around. Twenty years of hard standards, of having it all figured out, of pushing people aside to get to my goal—and all it takes is a kid with a third place ribbon to make it all seem shallow and frivolous.
I laugh gently, partly at the infectiousness of her elation, and partly because I don’t even know what to think anymore. Stepping back to the desk, I cut up the remaining pieces of dragonfruit and offer them to her on a napkin.
She gasps, eyes wide. “This is a fruit? It’s so pretty!” she says, taking it from me.
“You should try it. Careful, it’s got a lot of juice.”
“You have to come to celebrate with me tonight,” Chloe says, still eyeing the fruit as she takes it slowly with both hands like it’s a small animal.
“I can’t, I’m sorry to say. I’m busy here with a private party.”
The supervisor reappears in the doorway. “You guys done?” she says.
“We are,” I say. Chloe nods, popping a piece of fruit into her mouth and grinning.
“Come on then, Chloe. Let’s leave Mr. Chambers to his work. What’s that?”
“Dragon’s fruit,” the girl answers happily. “Bye, Cole. Thanks again for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” I mutter as they walk away, Chloe still waving over her shoulder.
A profound, deflated emptiness permeates the office now that her round cheeks and musical voice are gone. A feeling of being proven wrong about something settling deep inside my chest.
When the dinner shift starts there’s a sense of urgency and importance more elevated than it usually is on a typical night. Before the first diners even arrive, the prep work is done hurriedly, chefs hunched over their work with complete focus, communication curt and efficient, none of the usual banter that’s flung around during the pre-opening lull. This one is different, a calm before a storm, warriors readying for a siege. Everyone is tense, and I wonder if it’s my vibe they’re picking up on, or if Charles is more of a gossip than I realized.
I perform the final checks and preparations as best as I can, though the crew is well-whipped by this point, and my inspections are mostly perfunctory. I enter the freezer and check for the third time that we have more than enough of everything—if only to distract myself from the growing impression that something is wrong, manifesting itself as a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach.
“Doors are open!” Ryan calls as he passes the kitchen, and backs stiffen, hands move a
little more quickly. The orders start coming within minutes and the kitchen whirrs to life like some giant mechanism in which we’re all playing our part. Rich aromas of baking pastries, fresh herbs, grated citrus, and seafood all take their turn assaulting our senses before they blend into one giant masala of heat and energy. The sizzle of meat hitting hot pan, the clang of whisk against bowl, the thud of knife against wood forms a constant backdrop of sound for the chef’s dance, the music that we have to sing over in frenetic calls and requests.
And the sense of something awfully, terribly wrong gets bigger and bigger, until it’s threatening to make me double over in pain. An hour passes, then two, the orders coming in faster, my senses full but my consciousness somewhere far away—or perhaps not that far.
I fuck up a seared tuna steak, throwing it into a pan that’s not hot enough. Ordinarily that would be a major event the chefs wouldn’t let me forget for weeks, but this time they’re too busy to notice. I get the acidity of a tomato sauce completely wrong, which sets the grill chef behind precious minutes, but the kitchen is too hectic to stop and think about it.
“Chef?” Katy asks, breaking me from my rhythm. “Are you ok?”
“What?” I say, almost offended, without stopping what I’m doing. “’Course I’m ok. Keep your eyes on your filet and stop wasting my time.”
“It’s just that…” she continues, tentatively. “Well…maybe we don’t need that much.”
I look to glare at her, and notice a few of the other chefs look away quickly, but not quickly enough to hide their concern. I look back down again at the counter, a truffle in one hand, a grating board in the other, and in the middle a giant mountain of what must be half a dozen fully-grated truffles. More than anyone could ever eat, way more than we need for the recipe, and more than we could even use in a week.
I drop what’s in my hands and lean against the counter as I breathe in deep, recognizing once again the feeling that’s settling inside of me. Katy quickly turns back to her station and leaves me to try and regather whatever pieces of myself are still functioning.
I whip the towel from my shoulder and turn to the frantic kitchen.
“Can you guys handle everything here? I’ll be back in about half an hour.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes chef.”
“Katy, maybe when you’re done with those you can handle the egg whites.”
“Sure, boss.”
“Good,” I say, scanning the place one last time before striding out of the kitchen.
My veneer of composure disappears as soon as I’m out of view. I stumble out of the rear entrance, straight through the parking lot. Down a path I’ve been walking in my head for the past several hours, a path filled with inevitability, and an answer to what’s twisting inside of me.
22
Willow
It’s opening night, and if I stop to think about it I might just seize up and require smelling salts to reawaken. If I didn’t feel like the success of Chow was riding on this opening before, then I certainly do now, in no small part due to Tony acting as if we’ll go out of business unless it’s a massive, blowout success.
It doesn’t help that Tony forced me to read an interview with Cole where he was asked about ‘upstart restaurants with a mission statement of fresh, simply prepared cuisine’. His response that such restaurants ‘had their place’ but ‘didn’t value the artistry of food’ as much as he did and rarely lasted—in reality and in memory—stung. It was tamer than his usual, tamer than I would have expected, and I could tell he was thinking of Chow when he answered, but the dismissive judgment only added to my already anxious state. My nerves reach stratospheric levels when I overhear people talking about ‘that new place on the corner opening soon’ in a coffee line.
I spend the morning with Ellie, Greg, and their two girls, picking them up from LAX and having an all-too-brief brunch with them during which I try to sit still and act like a normal person despite my skin tingling with electricity and my mind buzzing with to-do lists and worst case scenarios.
After eating, I leave my sister and her family with Asha for a whistle-stop tour of L.A. and head back to Chow, checking my watch every twenty seconds, lamenting the fact that I only have five hours until opening at seven-thirty. The kitchen staff are already there, laughing and joking their nerves away, a camaraderie built up over the past few weeks of hard training I gave them. Five chefs, three waiters. Ideally, we had wanted seven chefs, a dish washer, and four waiters, but a combination of high standards, trepidation about initial business, and a lack of time to interview meant that we had to make do for now. With Tony and I doubling up on all tasks, we figured we could get by.
When I arrive at Chow just before three pm, Tony’s already zipping between his roles as organizer, table setter, and cook. I blast through the front toward the kitchen and immediately start helping the overwhelmed chefs.
I hear the click of a gas lighter repeat too many times behind me and turn to find Helen frowning at the stove.
“What’s the matter?” I say, without stopping my washing of salad greens.
“This stove…it’s not coming on.”
I finish rinsing and dry my hands quickly as I move toward it, inspecting under the cap and trying it myself.
“The guy told me this happens sometimes,” I say, frustrated as I look at the piping behind it, “and that it would clear itself up soon.”
I slam the cap back and try again, feeling a release of endorphins as it fires up.
“Thanks, chef,” Helen says as I check the clock and see that we’re only two and a half hours away now.
I get back to the veggie rinsing, so on edge now that it sounds like there are a hundred people chattering in my head, willing the minute hand on the clock to move a little slower. In the rush to prepare stations, check sauces, and ready ingredients, the time disappears…
“Uh…Willow?”
I turn to look in the direction of the trembling voice.
“Yes, Shane?”
“Are you sure we have enough squid?” he says, as he glances in the ice box uncertainly.
“Of course. We had a delivery just this morning.”
I hear Jack’s rhythmic knife-chopping stop suddenly, and look up again to find Shane and Jack looking nervously at each other.
“Uh…no. We didn’t,” Shane says.
“Yes we did,” I say, trying to stop the feeling of my heart plunging into my gut. “It would have come before nine-thirty.”
“I was here at eight,” Jack says. “And we haven’t gotten any deliveries today.”
I stare at them for a few seconds, mouth going dry, babbling voices in my head getting louder, then drop the salad and push past them on a desperate march toward the storage area at the back.
Nothing.
I yank open the industrial freezer, slimly hoping there was a mistake in storage, but find only the meager supplies left over from training last week.
“Fuck!” I yell. A primal scream that serves only to keep me from combusting with my own anger. I grab the door frame for support and breathe deep, not even the coldness of the refrigerated air able to cool off the lava of my furious blood.
I scramble to pull my phone from my pocket and call the distributor, about ready to tear him limb from limb over the connection, cursing out his entire lineage with every ringtone that he doesn’t answer, until it clicks over to his voicemail and I unleash a tirade of war-mongering proportions, gripping the phone as tight as if it were his neck.
The noise in my head is almost unbearable now, a background whine that sets my nerves jangling, my muscles taut. I march back through the kitchen to Tony, who’s hurriedly directing the waiters as he rearranges napkins and place settings.
“Tony!” I say, while I’m still crossing the room. “We have a problem.”
“You’re telling me,” he says, rising as I get near.
“The fucking seafood delivery is— Wait. What are you talking about?”
Tony’s face is a picture of rare concern.
“Well…remember when I said we didn’t have to worry about overbooking, because it’s not like every single person would show up for their reservation anyway?”
Suddenly it hits me. The voices in my head aren’t actually in my head. The thrum and chatter of a crowd…is coming from outside my restaurant. I can see a few people milling about through the glass, but now I move purposefully to the door.
“I honestly didn’t expect this kind of turnout, Willow!” Tony says apologetically as he follows me.
I slam through the entrance doors and step out onto the sidewalk, the scene stretching out before me like a punch in the gut.
“Holy shit…”
The crowd is thick, and stretches off down the entire block. It’s the sort of crowd that would have been an effort to handle even on a good night at Knife, more like a political protest than a line for a restaurant.
“What the hell, Tony?” I say, hands on my head as I struggle to find where the line ends. “Did you offer people free meals or something?”
“Of course not,” he says, shrugging diffidently. “I guess I just underestimated how good I am at promotion.”
I peel my eyes from the scene to direct my frustration at my business partner.
“It’s not going to be good promotion when we have to turn away two thirds of these people, and the other third has to wait over an hour for their food. We can only seat eighty people, for God’s sake!”
“A hundred,” Tony corrects me. “At a push…”
“We’ve got five cooks, and I must be looking at about two hundred and fifty customers.” I check my watch. “And it’s ten-to-seven. Shit. This is not good, Tony.”
I look at him for a moment, with a glint of hope that he might come up with an answer. Some batshit crazy idea for how this could work, the kind of thing he’s always been good at, the kind of thing that got us to this point in the first place.
But it doesn’t come. And for some weird reason I remember what Cole told me that day at the beach, about trusting only yourself. A slight sadness coloring my frustration as I realize how much I miss him, even in the midst of all of this.