by Claire Adams
His face goes a little red, and I can only hope it’s from the realization that he just equated what I do with organized crime. I might just end up going home alone tonight.
“I’m very sorry,” he says. “I was only joking.”
“Right,” I say, and turn back toward the bartender. “Could I get another tequila sunrise?”
I turn back toward this handsome, if a bit precocious rogue, wondering if he’s going to pick up the tab for that one as well.
He doesn’t.
“You know,” he says, “I had a roommate once who loved tequila sunrises, too.”
Oh, watch your step.
“Yeah?” I ask. “She sounds utterly delightful.”
“Oh, she is,” he says. “I mean, she was.” He leans in close to me and says, “Do I go present or past tense there?”
“I really don’t care,” I whisper back.
For a man so evidently skilled at picking up women, he’s really putting on a lackluster performance. And I was so hoping to find out exactly what it is that he said to those women to get them to go home with him so quickly.
Then again, I don’t really want to be just another pickup to him.
I may have unwittingly placed us both in a quagmire.
We sit awkwardly a moment.
“You know,” he says, “I think I’m doing you a disservice here.”
“Are you, now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I came over here trying to be Mr. Polite while trying to spare you some of my more potent charms.”
I can’t not laugh.
“Oh, really?” I ask. “So, you’re telling me that if you were to really turn it on, I’d be sexual putty in your hands. Is that about right?”
“No about,” he says. “That’s exactly right.”
“Now this, I have to hear.”
“All right,” he says, “but it’s probably going to take another approach. If I just keep sitting here and turn it on, it’s going to make this whole conversation lopsided. Therefore—”
“Therefore, you want to start an entirely new conversation?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says, getting up from his bar stool. “We’ll give it, say, five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
Either he’s really this clumsy or this is just another part of his play. It doesn’t really matter to me; I’m finding this rather amusing.
Dane is barely out of my sight when I feel someone tapping me on the shoulder. I turn around, ready to ask how he made it so quickly to the other side of me, but it’s not him standing there.
“You’re Leila, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, using nearly all of my focus and willpower to prevent my eyes from rolling. “And you’re Wrigley.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”
“Well, seeing a person’s vag before seeing her face has a way of leaving an impression,” I answer.
She smiles.
“I just wanted to let you know that I know you and Dane are having a thing right now, but he really dropped the ball with me,” she says. “I’d really prefer to leave you out of it, but I’d keep my head down if I were you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Whatever happens, just stay out of my way: that’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“Listen, razor burn,” I start, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t get to tell me anything about anything. I get that you and Dane used to be fuck buddies or whatever, but maybe it’s time to open your legs for someone else.”
I don’t usually talk that way, but I can’t help but feel a bit proud of myself.
Then it occurs to me that I’d probably lose and lose terribly in a fight with this chick.
Now, I’m not feeling so well.
It takes her that long before she reacts. “You’ve got quite the mouth on you for a virgin,” she says. “Anyway, I didn’t come over here to threaten you. I just wanted to let you know that whatever happens to Dane, you might want to keep your distance for a while.”
“In what way is that not a threat?” I ask. “Just what exactly are you planning to do to him?”
“Nothing he doesn’t deserve,” she says. “I told him to find out whether his feelings for you meant anything or if he was just hard for the roommate experience. I didn’t tell him to fall in whatever and stop attending his responsibilities.”
“His responsibilities?” I ask. “And just what in the hell might those be?”
I’m starting to wonder where Dane is.
He’d better have a really solid excuse for leaving me to deal with this skank bag.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He may not take me very seriously, but he will. You should probably start taking me seriously, yourself.”
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” I ask. “You were classier when you weren’t wearing pants.”
She smiles at me again, and I’m thinking seriously about smashing my glass over her stupid head.
“I think we’re getting off to the wrong foot here,” she says. “After all, I was rooting for you. I just don’t like that Dane thinks he just gets to up and abandon me in the process.”
“What did you expect?” I ask. “Did you think he’d just start seeing me and not bother breaking up with you?”
“Oh, we weren’t in a relationship,” she says. “Not really. It doesn’t matter. What we did have was the kind of thing a person only finds a few times in a lifetime if they’re lucky.”
“And what was that?” I ask.
“A sexual relationship that didn’t bore me after a couple of weeks,” she answers. “I get that you two are all googly-eyed or whatever, but that’s not what makes a relationship last.”
“Oh? And what, oh great love guru, does make a relationship last?” I mock.
“Fucking sexual compatibility,” she says. “Finding someone that knows exactly how to get you off—that’s what makes a relationship last. It’s not something that a person just has with everyone. It’s like emotional compatibility, only less full of the lies and nonsense and all the bullshit expectations. Sex is honest. Emotions are the fucking lies.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” I tell her, “but for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell away from me.”
She holds up her hands, palms toward me.
“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not here to ruin your evening.”
“Bye.”
She finally stops trying to teach me what’s really important in life and walks away.
As for me, I’m fuming as I down the rest of my drink. I think about ordering another, but really can’t see the point. Knowing me, I’ll just end up doing something embarrassing and tomorrow I’ll be twice as upset about everything as I am now.
When Dane walks over, I try to be attentive, to seem interested, but that redheaded idiot has succeeded in ruining my mood.
He asks me what’s wrong, but I’d just as soon forget that beast ever walked in here. I just tell him that I’m not feeling so well and ask if we can do this another time.
I’m not mad at him, though, even though that would make my life a little easier in the extreme short-term. Wrigley made it pretty clear that the two of them are no longer seeing one another, and that’s really all I need to know about it.
Still, I’m not about to forgive her for ruining what was supposed to be a fantastic evening.
He takes me home, and I tell him that I just need some sleep.
I don’t close my eyes longer than a blink all night.
Chapter Eighteen
Borders
Dane
So, last night was a bust.
I don’t know what happened, but I’m pretty confident it didn’t have anything to do with Leila suddenly becoming ill. For now, though, I’ll just let it slide.
She’s already off to work by the time I come out of my room—I should really ask her whether she thinks we really need to sleep in separate rooms. With as close
as we’ve been over the last few days, it doesn’t make much sense to create that artificial barrier.
C’est la vie.
I shower and shave and perform the rest of my morning ablutions. I’ve been doing the purchasing, but today Wilks loses his training wheels.
I’ve done my best to get him good and nervous for haggling with suppliers, but in reality, so long as he can put on a smile and chat without making a total ass of himself, there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve already put in a good word with some of my favored suppliers, so today should go pretty smoothly.
I give Wilks a quick call to make sure he’s up, moving, and ready to pee his pants when I tell him that he’ll be taking the lead negotiating prices today. It’s nothing personal; I just love fucking with the guy.
He’s suitably tense by the time I hang up the phone, and I smile my way to the apartment door.
When I open it, a small envelope falls to the ground. Curious, I bend down and pick it up.
The front of the envelope has my first name on it, but no postage. I open it up and find a Polaroid inside with a very familiar redhead, legs spread with the caption “Wish you were here” written on the bottom.
This might be funny or arousing if it weren’t so sad.
The idealist in me wants to figure out a way to help her realize there are other things in life worth exploring, but the pragmatist in me realizes that I’m not fucking Superman. She’s been a coitus aficionado long before I ever met her, and while I would love to think that I’m capable of bending women’s wills with my mind, I’m not stupid enough to believe it.
I didn’t ask for the picture, and I certainly didn’t take it myself, but I’m not about to just toss it on the kitchen counter for Leila to find either, so I put it in my pocket and lock the door as I leave.
Wilks is waiting outside his building when I come around the corner. He sees me from a distance but still doesn’t have the confidence to just walk up to me.
This has to be stopped.
While I am effectively useless at influencing women’s actions, I am a savant when it comes to molding people in a kitchen. Wilks is technically my boss now, although I have a feeling that particular fact might slip my mind while I’m trying to build the guy’s confidence.
I get within 10 yards of Wilks and stop.
I know he sees me. After all, the guy’s waving.
Our destinations lie in the opposite direction, and this is the perfect time to impart lesson number one of having your own staff:
If you can’t approach
Someone, you can’t possibly
Utilize their gifts.
Yes, lesson one is a haiku.
Yes, all of the lessons are haikus.
When I got my first head chef job a few years back, I had to learn all of these lessons the hard way. The haikus just help me remember them ,and I feel, give me the air of a guru whose every word must be followed.
Okay, that and I find the practice hilarious.
Wilks isn’t coming, so I turn around and start walking toward the first stop on our itinerary.
He catches up in a matter of seconds.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Lesson number two,” I tell him with no explanation whatsoever. “Questions whose answers you know are a complete waste of my fucking time.”
That one was particularly helpful in building staff resilience, or occasionally, weeding out people who can’t bear hearing one of my very favorite words on a frequent and often hostile basis. This was a must for my kitchen.
“Lesson number two?” he asks. “What are you talking about? What was lesson number one?”
“We’ll cover the lessons as the need arises,” I tell him. “Didn’t you write down our shopping list?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling a notepad out of his breast pocket.
I tell him, “We’re going to start at the top and make our way down to the bottom: simple.”
“All right,” he says. “I just didn’t know if you had a particular order in which you liked to make your stops.”
“I do,” I tell him, laughing. “It’s the order I gave you. But hey, lesson number eight: it's your restaurant. Do things the way they work best for you. Screw the staff.”
He chuckles, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Sadly, he’s still too anxious to ask the question.
This should be a fun morning.
As we’re walking, I remember the contraband in my pocket and I deposit it in the next trash can we pass.
“What was that?” he asks.
I take a moment to count the syllables before I answer.
“New lesson: if it's coming out of my pocket, it's none of your damn business, Wilks.”
“Oh,” he says, “okay.”
“Wilks, for God’s sake, loosen up, will you? You’re the fucking executive here. I’m just the washed-up bastard who’s filling in the gaps for you,” I tell him. The glory of always being that unassailable character starts losing its luster. “If you’re going to run a kitchen and keep it running, you’re going to need to work on your confidence.”
He lifts his head a little as he walks, but just as quickly lowers it again.
“All right,” he says.
“Okay, we’re coming up to our first stop,” I tell him. “Now, we’re going to go in there and get some fresh monkfish, and whatever he quotes you on price, I want you to talk him down by at least 10 percent. I’ll help you a little on this first one, but you’re taking the lead.”
What he doesn’t know is that I’ve done almost all of the shopping for the next day or so, only leaving the items which absolutely must be same-day fresh for him to find his sea legs.
A lot of chefs nowadays like to set up contracts with suppliers that will ship wholesale ingredients right to the restaurant, but it’s a lot better for everyone if you take the time to give a shit what you feed people. Fortunately, Wilks already knows that much.
“Shit,” he says just loudly enough for me to hear. “All right.”
We walk to the fishmonger’s shop and walk up to the counter.
“Ah, Mr. Paulson,” Martin, the 60-something, perpetually scale-flecked proprietor says. “Come in for to teach the new chef today, huh?”
“You know it,” I tell him. “Don’t go easy on him, Marty. He’s got to learn how to deal with crooks and swindlers like you.”
“With all the fish I give you so cheap, you should be nicer to me, Daniel.”
No, Daniel’s not my name, but for the finest fishmonger in the city, I’m willing to suffer a few small indignities.
Wilks, naturally, is unaware of this.
“I thought your name was Dane,” he says.
Now, Wilks has gone and pissed Martin off.
This was expected.
Most of the time, these people are really easy to work with, once you get to know them. Everyone has bad days, though. In order for those bad days to not transform into profit-margin-killing price hikes, one must learn how to negotiate a sour mood.
“You let him talk this way to me, Daniel?” Martin asks. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
The only difficulty I’m having in this moment is keeping a straight face.
“Don’t piss off the seller,” I tell Wilks, “or it’s caveat emptor to a degree which I seriously doubt you can even imagine.”
“Isn’t it always caveat emptor?” Wilks asks.
“Make the buy,” I mutter, and nudge him.
“Why doesn’t he answer?” Martin demands.
I just shrug my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Wilks says. “I must have been mistaken.”
Martin eyes him, but slowly unclenches his fists.
If Wilks knew exactly how ferocious Martin can get, and how close he came to getting his ass kicked by a senior citizen, he probably would have run out of the store screaming.
Never—and I mean never—mess with a fishmonger.
“Eh,” Martin says, “it’s all ri
ght. What do you need?”
“What do I need?” Wilks asks me, and I’m about ready to kick his ass myself.
“Monkfish,” I tell him.
“Monkfish,” Wilks repeats. “Fresh monkfish.”
“Now you’ve done it,” I mutter in Wilks’s ear as I walk past him for a better view of the action.
“You think I sell anything that’s not fresh?” Martin snaps. “You think I sell garbage?”
“That’s not what I—”
“I build this business from nothing. Everyone who comes in knows I sell the freshest fish in the city. This is why I’ve been here 35 years. Why are you so stupid?”
I can’t contain my amusement completely, but I try to keep my snickering at least somewhat quiet.
Wilks hears me well enough, and it’s not doing his confidence any favors. He’s got to come to some sort of détente with Martin, though; otherwise the old fuck won’t sell to him.
This is one of those baby-bird-out-of-the-nest moments. I’ll step in if Martin starts swinging. Other than that, Wilks is very much on his own.
“That’s not what I meant,” Wilks says.
He’s getting frustrated, but he’s not mad yet. The key is in finding just that right dose of anger. It has to be enough to convince Martin to chill the fuck out, but it can’t be so much that it just escalates the situation.
Let’s watch.
“You come in here and tell me that I call my customer the wrong name and you tell me that you want fresh monkfish when there is no other monkfish that I sell!”
Martin’s screaming now, and I’m laughing my balls off.
Wilks tries to reason with him, but he’s not getting through.
And then, like a miracle, it happens.
“Listen, you ornery old prick,” Wilks starts, “you know very well that I wasn’t saying your fish wasn’t fresh, I was just repeating what Dane told me to get when we came in here! Now, you can put it back in your pants and make a sale or you can keep screaming and lose a solid customer! Now, what’s it going to be?”
He hit all the relevant points, and with the exception of insisting the proper form of my name, he didn’t go overboard.
You can’t teach that.
Martin’s face grows a few shades redder, but in the next moment, he’s got Wilks in a bear hug that’s sure to ruin the latter’s nice, clean shirt.