Charred was full of drama among the employees.
Here, there were hardcore cliques among the residents. Cattiness didn’t have age restrictions—I’d learned that on my first day of employment.
Before I reached the table, I caught sight of one of my favorite residents, and I took a sharp right, away from my section, and I knelt beside Leslie’s chair. She was a bit of a loner, often reserving her own table. Only sometimes did she buddy up with one of the solo men, but more often than not, she spent her meals by the window, usually with a book in her hands.
She didn’t care for the noise, and I appreciated that.
At least once a shift, I made an effort to spend a littletime with her. But today, I had an agenda, and while she set her book down and turned her focus to me, I noticed the navy paint that hadn’t come off her fingernails and the splatters of bright orange that were embedded in the gray strands that framed the front of her face.
“Hello, lovely.” She touched my cheek, the coldness of her skin almost jarring.
“I didn’t see you at breakfast.”
“Too busy doing lots of nothing, I guess. I had coffee in my apartment.”
I nodded. “I was wondering if I could ask for a favor. It’s a big one.”
“A favor, you say?”
I could almost feel the wrinkles in her fingers as she stroked my cheek. The lines where the pads were dented and folded.
“Ask away.”
The management allowing me to help out in the kitchen wasn’t the only reason I enjoyed working here. Many of the residents acted more like family than my own mother. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted that until I had it.
“Would it be okay if I came by your apartment after my shift? I’ll only have about fifteen minutes before I have to go to my other job, so I won’t take up too much of your time.”
“Only fifteen minutes?” Her brown eyes hadn’t moved from mine. “It’s going to take you a lot longer than that to explain why you’re smiling so hard.” And they were brown eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
“Did you forget that you work in a goddamn kitchen? That your sole responsibility is to make food that’s fucking edible?Potatoes can’t survive in an oven for three fucking hours. You should know that! What the hell is wrong with you?”
I’d just arrived at my employee locker at Charred, and my hand froze on the keypad as Walker’s screaming echoed throughout the entire kitchen.
“Not a single fucking potato is salvageable! What the hell are we supposed to tell our diners tonight? That we don’t have any baked potatoes to give them? What fucking steak house doesn’t have baked potatoes? Goddamn it!”
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t talking to me or that I couldn’t even see him from where I was standing. As his words blasted through me, my hands went over my ears.
My feet rocked, sending my body forward and back.
My eyes closed.
My chest became so tight that I couldn’t draw in any air.
“Are you fucking listening to me?”
I couldn’t take this.
His tone.
His anger.
“Chefs with a hundredth of your experience know more than you!”
I pushed even harder against my ears, the panic replacing the breath in my throat.
My stomach … churning.
My chest turning into ice that the yelling was threatening to shatter.
