Lost Art of Mixing (9781101609187) (4 page)

Tonight every window in the Bernhardt house was fully lit, like in some Rockwellian Advent calendar. A teenager sitting on the kitchen counter talking to the mother who was washing the last of the dishes. Three more kids in the living room, playing cards fanned out in front of their faces, their backs straight and tall with the importance of the grown-up hour. The father upstairs, holding a stuffed rabbit like a puppet, playing a game with a baby Chloe couldn't see.

Really, thought Chloe. It was too much—as if all the bits of happiness of everybody's lousy or simply average families had been siphoned off and given to them. And yet, she couldn't resist watching, the way they always seemed to be embracing each other, even when there was no one nearby. It made Chloe wonder, how much could you hold in your arms if they weren't full of the constantly falling pieces of yourself?

The suitcase bumped against her leg, almost like a dog. She shifted her grip on the handle and continued down the block.

•   •   •

CHLOE HAD FOUND
the suitcase in the back of Isabelle's hall closet, underneath a pile of old rain boots. It was red and hard-sided, with metal locks that shut flat across the top with a satisfying snap. Too dated for wheels, reminiscent of a time when stewardesses wore curve-hugging suits and pillbox hats. When Isabelle had seen it, her eyes lit, then saddened.

“That was my escape suitcase,” she said. “I got it for my honeymoon. Of course, I didn't call it an escape suitcase back then.

“You take it,” she continued. “It needs a spin around the block.”

Did everyone think about escaping? Chloe wondered now. Did everyone have their equivalent of a red suitcase, the list in their head of the things they would take if a fire started burning out of control in their family, if the earth shook underneath their marriage? She had spent most of her teenage years in her bedroom, staring at the posters on the wall, the books on her shelves, wondering which of them were essential parts of her, what she would take when she left—always when, never if. In the end, she had taken none of them when she moved in with Jake, so relieved to be away from what felt like the ever-diminishing square footage for her soul in her parents' house that she didn't even pause to make sure there was space for her in her new habitat.

There were places she could stretch into in Isabelle's house, though, and in Lillian's kitchen. And yet, Chloe realized, she still had no idea what she would put in the suitcase in her hand if someone told her she had to pack it. It was a good thing the ritual called for it to be empty.

•   •   •

AS CHLOE ROUNDED
the third side of the block, the Morgans' house came into view once again. She could see the spritzing white lights of sparklers skimming about in the darkness, held in invisible small hands, could hear the laughter of grown-ups well on their way to inebriation. She looked down the street, past the party, to the house where Isabelle slept. Chloe knew how quiet it would be when she arrived. She paused a moment and then turned and headed in the opposite direction, toward the restaurant, her stride lengthening with the familiarity of the route, the suitcase swinging in her right hand. People who saw her might believe she knew where she was going. A young woman, full of purpose and plans, setting off on an adventure.

She was a half-block from Lillian's restaurant, already feeling the happiness that proximity to its kitchen always gave her, when she saw Jake coming out of the sports bar across the street, his black hair curling, his arm casually looped around the shoulder of a new waitress from the grill where he still cooked. Jake's beauty was always a shock—even, or perhaps especially, when he had been hers. He had a way of moving through the world as if he was both caressed and untouched by it at the same time. He paused under the streetlight, his right hand dangling down from the woman's shoulder, just touching her breast. Chloe knew the conversation that was occurring between fingers and nipple—he'd be getting lucky tonight, no question.

And there Chloe was, with hair she hadn't washed in three days and an empty red Samsonite.

“Chloe!” Jake called across the street. Chloe remembered that smile from their last weeks together, the one that had more to do with his own impending cleverness than any joy at seeing her. He crossed the street, bringing the waitress with him. He spotted the suitcase.

“Finally get tired of the old folks' home?” he asked, grinning. “Chloe left me for a crazy old lady,” he remarked to the waitress.

“Seriously?” the waitress said, although whether her disbelief was about Chloe's choice of Isabelle or Jake's choice of Chloe was hard to determine.

“I have to go,” Chloe said.

“So do we.” The waitress smiled, hooking her hand into Jake's belt.

Chloe resisted the desire to make a gagging noise. There was so little dignity left in the situation.

“Hey,” Jake said. “Don't worry. You still have forty-five minutes to find someone to kiss you.” And then he was gone, the waitress's let's-have-sex perfume trailing behind them.

So far, Chloe decided, this ritual sucked.

She reached the restaurant kitchen door with a relief that quickly turned to concern. The lights were on; she could hear someone moving about inside. Too late for anyone to be there; Lillian had been the first one out of the door for the past week or two, and the rest of the staff should have gone home by now.

A burglar, then? Chloe thought of a stranger's hands touching Lillian's pots and pans, smashing a piece of the beautiful white china, sticking a finger in a crème brûlée. How dare he? Without thinking, she banged open the back door, propelling herself into the kitchen, the red suitcase held in front of her like a shield.

“What the . . . ?”

The new dishwasher, Finnegan, whipped around to face her, and the huge pot he was holding dropped to the floor with a loud thud.

“Shit,” he said, bending down to rub his toe. He picked up the pot and stood, his height unfurling until he stopped, erect. He really was tall, Chloe thought, as she watched him effortlessly place the pot back up on the highest shelf.

“I thought you might be a burglar,” Chloe said. He still might be, actually—nobody ever used that pot; Lillian just kept it there for good luck. Finnegan held up his empty hands and shrugged.

“As you can see,” he said.

“What are you doing here so late?” she asked.

“Cleaning the kitchen for the new year,” Finnegan said. “For Lillian.”

If anyone was going to make the kitchen feel special for Lillian it should be her, Chloe thought. Finnegan had been working there for just over a month. He'd shown up out of nowhere, the day Pedro cut his hand on a broken water glass in the middle of the lunch rush. They'd needed a dishwasher, desperately, and there, suddenly, was this incredibly tall kid—he couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, for all his height—standing in the rain at the front gate like some kind of waterlogged flamingo. He hadn't said much that day, and even less since.

She stared at him, unsure of what the next step should be.

“Traveling?” Finnegan said finally.

“Oh. No.” She set the suitcase down. “It's empty.”

“Did you come to—pack food?”

“No. It's just empty.”

Finnegan started to turn back to the sink, but he stopped.

“Why?” he asked.

Chloe looked around, as if the kitchen might give her the answer. After the cold outside, the room was warm, heated from the night's cooking and the steam of the dishwater, the air somehow cleansed. It seemed as if Finnegan had touched everything—the black rubber mats were not just rinsed but scoured, the vents above the stove, which always seemed to hold a matte finish of residue, were gleaming. Across the room from her, Finnegan bent forward slightly, the whole long length of his body listening.

Maybe it was the impending stroke of midnight, maybe it was the Bernhardts and all their perfect children, maybe it was the knowledge that Jake had probably been through six girlfriends in the year that she had been living with a seventy-three-year-old woman, or maybe it was something as simple as the urge to answer a suddenly reasonable question—but leaning back against the kitchen counter, the red Samsonite at her feet, Chloe started talking.

She told Finnegan about the first time she'd come to Lillian's restaurant, almost two years before. About the mess she'd made of all her previous jobs, and how Lillian had arrived in her life like a fairy godmother, hiring her as a busser even though she had no rational reason to do so. About how, once she was in Lillian's restaurant, even as she removed the plates and water glasses from the tables, she kept yearning toward the kitchen. The way, as soon as the knives and spatulas, the flour and spices, were in her hands, she felt calm and happy, as if the world was finally speaking in a language she understood.

It seemed odd, Chloe thought as her sentences spiraled out into the kitchen, that she'd never really talked to Finnegan before. Not odd in terms of restaurant protocol—no matter how small or intimate the kitchen, communication between cooks and dishwashers tended to be minimal and perfunctory. But odd in that now that she was doing it, talking to him felt as natural as moving a wooden spoon through a sauce warming on the stove, the way her words would circle out into the room and then back to him, touching base, set forth again by a nod, or a gesture of his hands.

She stopped then, a bit embarrassed at her volubility, realizing she hadn't even answered the question he had asked—but seeing Finnegan's expression, she understood that perhaps he already knew what she was trying to say, probably knew more about her than she thought. Which could have been disconcerting—and yet for some reason when she looked across the room at his face, the way he watched her speak, as if listening intently would shorten the distance between her mouth and his ears, it didn't bother her to realize that he had been paying attention even when she wasn't. She paused, looking at the height of him, the way his hands wrapped loosely around the edge of the sink behind him. She found herself wondering what his fingers would feel like resting on her shoulders, touching the underside of her chin.

Outside there was a sudden burst of commotion—hurrahs and whistles and the sharp crack of fireworks coming from the patrons standing outside the bar across the street, the sound broken only by the silence of sloppy, drunken kisses. Midnight. Finnegan's eyes met hers.

Oh for Christ's sake, Chloe thought to herself, what was she doing? She had promised herself no more restaurant guys, and certainly no teenage dishwashers. She could almost hear Jake joking about cradle-robbing and slumming with the help.

“Lock up, would you?” she said, and made a break for the door.

She raced home and found Isabelle awake in the living room, wondering if war had been declared because there was so much noise in the neighborhood. They'd stayed up for another hour, calming themselves, drinking tea.

“How was the walk around the block?” Isabelle asked.

“Fine.”

“And my suitcase? Did it bring you adventure?”

Which was when Chloe remembered she'd left it at the restaurant. Like Cinder-fucking-ella.

•   •   •

THE NEXT DAY,
she found the red Samsonite neatly tucked next to her locker at the restaurant. She glared at it as she hung up her coat and put on her chef's apron, cinching it tight in the front before going to work.

The dinner shift was long, everyone worn-out by the previous night's merrymaking, the dining room overflowing with customers from all the restaurants that weren't open on New Year's Day. But Lillian always said that people needed to be taken care of most on January first, and so here they all were. Except Finnegan, who had the night off. Thank heavens, Chloe thought.

“You okay?” Lillian asked as the smell of browning garlic filled the kitchen.

“Shit!” Chloe yanked the sauté pan off the stove. “Sorry.”

“Big New Year's?”

“Fine.” Lillian was the sort of person you could tell anything to, and most of the time Chloe didn't even need to; Lillian read people the way she did ingredients. Cooking next to her made Chloe feel graceful and smart for the first time in her life. But Lillian liked her kitchen to run smoothly; she encouraged a sense of family among her staff, not romance. “No throwing rennet in the milk,” she would say to her new hires. Chloe wasn't about to tell her about Finnegan.

“Did you and Tom do anything to celebrate?” Chloe asked, hoping to shift the focus.

“Celebrate?” Lillian's hand ramped up the speed of her mixing for a moment. “Oh. No—it was pretty quiet.”

Chloe cast a quick glance at Lillian. Lillian's life was her restaurant, although she hadn't been there nearly as much recently. Chloe would say love was pulling her out of the kitchen, but Lillian didn't look like a woman in love right now.

“You okay?” Chloe asked.

“Fine,” said Lillian. “Let's get that garlic back on track.”

At the end of what had felt like the longest dinner shift in history, Chloe took off her apron and picked up the red suitcase in preparation for her walk home. As she carried it down the path to the front gate, she could hear a rustling inside, like dead leaves or a secret. Curious, she set it down and opened the locks. Inside was a blue notebook, like one of those old exam books her mother kept from her single year in college. Chloe saw her name handwritten on the cover. She picked the notebook up and flipped through the pages; they were empty.

•   •   •

CHLOE ARRIVED
at the restaurant the next day and walked straight over to where Finnegan stood in front of the sink.

“What is this?” she asked, wielding the notebook in front of his face.

“It's a notebook.”