2
AOIFE
Aweek after the gala, the only remnants are the bruises on my heels and the taste of cold citrus lingering under my tongue. I’m on station two at The Copper Clover, cutting breakfast roots into pieces so precise they could pass as molecular jewelry. The line cook to my left, Oscar, calls it “high-strung origami”, but he can’t even roll his own cigarettes straight, so his opinion is null and void. The clock reads 5:27 a.m., which means we’re officially behind, but no one in this kitchen actually believes in time. There’s only before service, during service, and after the last pan is dry.
If you’d asked me five years ago—hell, even two—I’d have said the kitchen was a penance. A way to pay down the debts of being a smart-ass in school, or of mouthing off to my mother, or of never quite landing the right balance of wild and likable. But now, standing at this battered steel table, slicing through produce like a surgeon with a God complex, I get it. The kitchen is the only place I’ve ever felt watched in the right way. Not for my mouth, or my skin, or what’s in my jeans, but for the way my hands move.
At exactly 5:40, the chef—the real chef, not the Instagram version—sweeps in with his hair still wet. He’s carrying a tablet loaded with menu updates and the existential dread of running a restaurant in a city where one bad Yelp review is a death sentence. He doesn’t look up until I plate the first round of breakfast toast—sourdough, perfect crumb, shavings of smoked radish and one six-minute egg, quivering like it’s afraid of heights.
He examines the plate, then me, then the plate again. “Did you tweak the salt cure?” he asks, voice low.
I nod. “Went heavier on the citrus this time. Cut the sugar by half.”
He raises an eyebrow—praise, in chef language—and slides the plate onto the pass. “Next run, I want them stacked higher. We’re charging fifteen for toast. Might as well lean in.”
“Copy,” I say and turn to the next set. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Oscar miming applause. I resist the urge to bean him with an heirloom tomato.
The next two hours are muscle memory—toast, garnish, toast, garnish, solve the riddle of the vegan hollandaise, run the ancient KitchenAid until it threatens violence, test the meringue by inverting it over my head (for luck), yell at the dishwasher for misplacing the micro-plane, forgive the dishwasher after he brings me a coffee that’s 70% cream and 100% sincerity.
By the time the sun is leaking through the grimy skylight, I’m two-thirds through the breakfast rush and thinking about my mother’s old clock, how it ticked so loudly, it drowned out the entire radio. Time, in my world, is a threat and a promise, but mostly a rumor.
Which brings me to the ten-year plan. It’s taped inside my locker, underneath theEmployees Must Wash Handssign and directly above the bottle of black-market vanilla. The plan is as follows.
1. Run my own kitchen by 28.
2. Publish a cookbook that is actually readable.
3. Get a name-drop inFood & Winewithout sleeping with anyone on staff.
4. Never, ever, ever have to fake-laugh at a donor gala again.
5. Learn to enjoy Christmas, or at least endure it without gin.
So far, I’m on track for item one, mostly because I don’t believe in failure as a long-term option.
When the delivery truck arrives, I’m elbow-deep in beet tartare, staining my nails red like a reverse murder scene. Oscar signs for the box but brings it to me, because only I am trusted with the knife that opens it. The box is small and plain, no return address, just a city stamp from somewhere in New York. It smells faintly of dirt and secrets.
Inside are two pounds of mushrooms, dark and creased, packed in shredded newsprint. I recognize them instantly—Cesare’s mushroom, the kind you can only find in certain forests if you know the trails, the kind my grandmother used to forage when she could still walk. There’s no note, but the handwriting on the shipping label is precise, the kind of deliberate script I’ve only seen once before.
I set the box on the prep counter, waiting for it to announce itself. The chef circles around, sniffing the air. “Where’d you get those?” he asks, eyes narrowed.
“Gift,” I say, keeping it casual.
He shrugs, not caring. “They’ll play on the lunch menu. Sauté with parsnip, hit them with sherry. You know what you’re doing.” It’s both an order and a blessing, the highest compliment in our dumb, competitive little family.
Oscar leans in, waiting for gossip. I hand him a single mushroom, and he eats it raw, chewing with the reverence of someone who’s never been allowed near a truffle. “You’re weird,” he says after he’s swallowed.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
By noon, the place fills with the regulars—freelancers who pretend to be authors, venture bros with half-baked business plans, one or two families who have never, and will never, buy a full-priced meal. The kitchen’s open concept means I’m always on display, but today I feel it more than usual. My skin hums and my hands can’t stop moving, even when there’s nothing left to prep.
When I see Declan, in a navy cashmere sweater, not a suit this time, I almost drop the pan. He’s at the counter, alone, reading the menu with the focus of a chess grandmaster. He does not look up right away, which means he knows I am watching.
The host seats him at the best view of the kitchen, which is both a flex and a test. He orders a coffee, black, and writes something in a tiny Moleskine, lips pursed. I watch him ignore three different waitstaff, all of whom circle back to report on the “suspiciously handsome Irishman in two,” as if we’re running surveillance, not a brunch service.
After a ten-minute standoff, he stands and strolls to the open kitchen, hands in pockets, posture relaxed but not lazy. He waits until I’ve finished pouring the vinaigrette before he speaks. “You’re still using cider vinegar for your pickling base.”
“Why mess with success?” I reply, not looking at him. “Besides, white vinegar is for tourists.”
