The rest of the night went by quickly after that. There were no other complaints or requests to speak to the chef, thank God, but she took her time closing down the kitchen, her thoughts whirring. It was only as the last of the waitstaff waved goodbye that she noticed the time.
Wait, eleven p.m. Shit!
Cierra immediately checked her phone and saw that she had two missed calls and a frustrated text from her boyfriend. Lost in the chaos of the Prep School Mom situation, she’d completely forgotten her promise to meet him, along with some couple friends, at ten. Usually, she would call or text with an apology,but Cierra was too drained. Whatever Harry would have to say, it wouldn’t be anything she hadn’t heard a million times before. Besides, there was one more thing she needed to do before leaving.
After finishing her shift, she grabbed her leather backpack and military green parka from her locker and left the restaurant, making her way to the subway.
It had been a long three years at Terra.
When Cierra made the switch from her cushy corporate career in product management to head to culinary school, she hadn’t known what she was signing up for: the physical toll of full days on her feet, the unpredictable schedules, iffy health insurance. Her feet and lower back ached as she hauled herself down the stairs to the subway. At thirty, she felt closer to fifty. And she couldn’t stop thinking about what her manager had said.
Even Lana gets crazy flak.
Cierra hadn’t realized she’d still be taking orders from the same assholes she used to work for, just in a more chic setting, for far less pay. She let out an involuntary, spiteful laugh before taking her hard plastic seat under the fluorescent subway lights. In the window across from her, she balked at her reflection.
All her life, people had commented on how cute she was. Was that still true? At 5’5” with thick thighs, she wasn’t a supermodel like her best friend, Mia, but she would describe herself as a solid seven and a half. An eight on a good day — which today was not. The space under her dark almond eyes had become hollower, but she couldn’t tell if it was aging or lack of sleep. Even her skin, normally a warm shade of burnt honey, had more of a sickly yellow hue to it. And she felt tired. So, so tired. All the time. Clutching her backpack to her chest, Cierra closed her eyes, savoring a few moments of peace before arriving home.
As she slowly trudged down the gray hallway of her apartment building, the familiar smell of pork lo mein hit Cierra’s face before she reached the flat she shared with Harry. They had met six years ago, when she was still at the hot tech start-up. That was two years before her career change, which had become the source of many arguments in the four years since.
Harry was a stable guy with medium looks and came from a “good family.” His parents owned a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard and were family friends with the governor of New York. If her modest middle-class background hadn’t impressed them, her no-show for the anniversary certainly hadn’t scored her any additional points. Harry was a strategy consultant for McKinsey, following in his father’s footsteps, and had worked his way up from analyst to senior vice president in the six years they had been dating. Meanwhile, she was making a third of his salary and on a completely different trajectory compared to the rest of their social circle.
Part of the reason she had taken the job at Terra — with its Michelin Star glory — was to justify her decision. To prove she was still excelling, even if it wasn’t quite in the same way. It wasn’t like she had left it all behind to cook in a run-of-the-mill restaurant.
And landing her position as senior chef hadn’t been easy — there weren’t too many young, brown-skinned women in her position in the city, let alone the country. But, at least in the beginning, it had all been worth it. The job gave her purpose; she loved the feel of a freshly sharpened knife in her hand, surrounded by ingredients like a maestro looking upon her orchestra. The combination of flavors and sensations was limitless, and she was in full control.
But Harry didn’t get that. He loved her meals, sure. But she felt like he enjoyed telling his friendswhereshe worked more than what she had done with her life.
Are you really just going to cook for people the rest of your life?
He had asked her that during an argument a couple of years back, and that brief sentence had packed so much meaning. Cierra always heard those words echoing in the back of her mind. And since that moment of clarity in the freezing alley, she had been doing a lot of thinking. So, when Cierra opened the door to their apartment, she was quietly excited to share her decision with Harry. She needed a fresh start.Theyneeded a fresh start.
Nothing changes if nothing changes, right?
They lived in a new “luxury” building, but their one-bedroom couldn’t have been over seven hundred square feet. Harry was sitting on the couch watching a nature documentary, drinking a beer and eating his greasy noodles, which were usually reserved for bad days at work.
Briefly, looking at him on their unnecessarily large couch, she saw the version of Harry when they first met. Back then, he was boyish, with no facial hair and a smile that came effortlessly. That was back when they’d talk about who they’d be when they were thirty, and he thought her ideas about alternative ways of living were exciting and daring.
But now theywerethirty. Harry still had the adorable constellation of freckles highlighted against cool beige cheeks, but a receding hairline now framed his face. And Cierra’s eyes, which he’d once called the most beautiful he’d ever seen, had bags underneath them from exhaustion.
“Hey, babe, didn’t end up going out tonight?” she asked unassumingly, placing her clogs on the shoe rack. She stuffed her jacket into the coat closet, the only one in the small apartment, which was bursting at the seams.
“I went out for a bit, but Amber and James were tired. Once we figured you weren’t coming, we called it a night.” Harry saidall this without taking his eyes off the TV screen and took a sip from his Stella.
Cierra moved toward the little island separating the kitchen and living room — a weak attempt by the architects to make the space feel more like a proper home and less like an overpriced saltine box.
“I’m sorry for not calling earlier,” she said feebly. Just two weeks ago, they had to cancel these same plans because she’d ended up having to pick up an extra shift.
“Yeah, me too,” Harry replied flatly. He placed both of his hands in his lap and faced Cierra with those keen, dark blue eyes. “Is it always gonna be like this?”
After cracking open a Diet Coke, Cierra moved over to the couch and sat next to him. “I must have forgotten to set my smartwatch again. I’m sorry, I’ll remember next time. Actually”—she squeezed his shoulder and leaned back into the grayish blue couch—“I have tomorrow off!” Her pitch heightened. “Maybe we can go to lunch? So I can make it up to you?” she asked.
Harry didn’t seem certain. “I thought you had work tomorrow.”
“Well, I did.” Cierra had been hoping to omit her minor episode at work, but that seemed like an unavoidable topic at this point. “I kind of got into it with a customer. So, Jesse told me to take tomorrow off . . . clear my head. Which will be good! I’m tired of this schedule, too. And I’m tired of the customers we get. You should have seen this woman tonight. I swear she was sent from the devil. Shesnapped her fingersat me.”
Cierra improvised the woman’s gesture with dramatic wrist flinging. Harry laughed a bit, which helped her shoulders drop an inch.
“Seriously, babe. I don’t think I can handle working at this job much longer. I can’t stand serving these entitled pricks. My schedule is what we fight about half the time. And the pay is . . .”
