She almost seemed to deflate as she turned to look at my tables, trying to catch me in a lie. My stomach clenched, and I even felt sweat at the nape of my neck.
Please don’t find a missing spoon.The last thing I needed was her scolding me in front of Gabe. I mean, how much embarrassment could I possibly suffer in the span of thirty seconds?
When she seemed satisfied, she turned back to me. ‘Well, I see you’ve met Gabriel.’
‘Yes. We just met.’ For the first time ever, because we never swapped food in summer camp or anything.
‘Gabriel here parked his car out front,’ Natalie said.
Rookie mistake, Gabe. The front parking lot was reserved for residents – and the formal dining room host, Doris, who at the tender age of four hundred and eighty-sevenshouldhave been a resident – while the rest of the service staff parked in the back by the dumpsters. ‘Would you mind quickly showing him around to the staff parking lot?’
‘Of course,’ I said, taking any excuse to get away from her. ‘We’ll be quick. This way, Gabe.’
I led him through the kitchen, where Chef Roni and her sous chef, Dante, were finishing up their last round of prep work. The kitchen smelled like the white wine/lemon/butter sauce that Roni was stirring on the stovetop.
‘Oh my God,’ Gabe whispered. I barely heard him over the hiss of water coming from the dish room. ‘Who is that?’
I followed his gaze to the tall Jamaican woman as she poured the butter sauce over white fish in a shallow chafing pan.
‘Chef Roni. She’s the head chef.’
‘She looks like Grace Jones,’ he said, as though I was supposed to know who that was. ‘I love her.’
We continued toward the dark private dining room as Roni called out a checklist for the evening’s dishes to Dante. I was nervous and silent the rest of the way, still a little rattled from Gabe not recognizing me. Like, how awful is that? To be a nobody to the person who was kind of the building block to me realizing I was gay?
‘Why don’t we use this room?’ he asked when we got to the private dining room. What was up with the questions, and why were none of themWhere do I know you from?
‘It’s for special occasions only,’ I said. I held open the door that led out to Sunset Estate’s main hallway. The plush dark-green-and-gold paisley carpet beneath our feet looked like it was probably from the late nineties but was still pristine. Residents walked past us toward the dining rooms, some of them leaning on walkers, some spry and power walking.
‘Good evening, Judge,’ I said as a tall, thin Black woman strode past.
‘Hello, Thomas,’ Judge Fredericks said. ‘See you in there.’
I waited for Judge Fredericks to get out of earshot – much farther than the other residents, because the judge, in her early eighties, had even better hearing than I did – before I whispered, ‘That’s Judge Fredericks. She always sits in the formal dining room at table twelve. You’ll probably get her on your first solo shift. Whatever you do, never let her water glass get more than half empty. She’ll get up and try to refill it herself at the service station.’ Telling him my learned knowledge of Sunset Estates made it easier to pretend I wasn’t obsessing about how he had forgotten me.
We continued toward the front entrance, but to the right of the reception desk I saw that the lights in the social activities room were on. I tried to remember what was supposed to be happening tonight but couldn’t.
A frazzled-looking white woman in her forties popped out, wearing a plaid button-down and jeans. I wrinkled my nose at her.
‘Dressing down today, Mother?’ I teased. That’s something else you should know. Everyone who gets a job at Sunset Estates either knows someone who works here or is related to someone who works here.
My mom smiled and crossed her arms. ‘Try “not even supposed to be here today”. Effing TV isn’t working, and no one could figure it out.’
Oh, right! Movie night.I feigned worry. ‘Oh no! What will they do if they can’t watchCasablancafor the millionth time this decade?’
‘It’s actuallyA StarIs Borntonight!’
Gabe jumped in, ‘Judy, Barbra or Gaga?’
My mom closed her eyes. ‘I really don’t care.’ Gabe laughed, and she turned her smile to him. ‘Hi, I’m Tommy’s mom, Sandra.’
‘Gabe.’
‘My mom’s the activities director. You’ll usually see her here trying to convince the residents to sign up for trips to Atlantic City or Pure Barre for the over-fifty crowd.’
‘First day, Gabe?’ Mom asked.
‘Yes, ma’am’.
