Sweetbitter (2 page)

“Mer…lot?”

“Yes,” he said. “That's one.”

“Cabernet? I'm sorry, I don't really drink Bordeaux.”

He seemed sympathetic. “Of course, it's a bit above the average price point.”

“Yep.” I nodded. “That's totally it.”

“What do you drink?”

My first instinct was to list the different beverages I drank on a daily basis. The noble grapes were back in my head, dancing, telling him all about my Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee.

“What do I drink when?”

“When you purchase a bottle of wine, what do you tend toward?”

I imagined myself purchasing a bottle of wine, not based on price or proximity to the checkout line, not based on what animal was on the label, but by an internal matrix of my own taste. That image was as laughable as my noble grapes, even if I was wearing a cardigan.

“Beaujolais? Is that a wine?”

“It is. Beaujolais, c'est un vin fainéant et radin.”

“Yes. That.”

“Which cru do you prefer?”

“I'm not sure,” I said, batting my eyelashes forcibly, falsely.

“Do you have any experience as a server?”

“Yes. I've been working at that coffee shop for years. It's on my résumé.”

“I mean in a restaurant. Do you know what it means to be a server?”

“Yes. When the plates are ready I bring them out and
serve
them to customers.”

“You mean guests.”

“Guests?”

“Your guests.”

“Yes, that's what I meant.” He scribbled on the top of my résumé. Server? Guests? What was the difference between a guest and a customer?

“It says here you were an English major.”

“Yes. I know. It's generic.”

“What are you reading?”

“Reading?”

“What are you reading right now?”

“Is that a job question?”

“Perhaps.” He smiled. His eyes made an unabashed, slow circle around my face.

“Um. Nothing. For the first time in my life, I'm reading nothing.” I paused and looked out the window. I don't think anyone, even my professors, had once asked me what I was reading. He was digging, and though I had no idea what he was looking for, I decided it was better to play. “You know, Howard, if I can call you that, when I was leaving for here I packed a few boxes of books. But then I really started looking at them. These books were…I don't know…totems of who I was….I…”

My words had a point, I had just felt the point coming, I was trying to tell him the truth. “I left them behind. That's what I mean.”

He rested his cheek on an aristocratic hand. He listened. No, he perceived. I felt perceived. “Yes. It's startling to look back on the passionate epiphanies of our youth. But a good sign perhaps. That our minds have changed, that we've evolved.”

“Or maybe it means we've forgotten ourselves. And we keep forgetting ourselves. And that's the big grown-up secret to survival.”

I stared out the window. The city passed on, obliviously. If this went badly I would forget it too.

“Are you a writer?”

“No,” I said. The table came back into focus. He was looking at me. “I like books. And everything else.”

“You like everything else?”

“You know what I mean, I like it all. I like being moved.”

He made another note on my résumé.

“What do you dislike?”

“What?” I thought I'd misheard him.

“If you like being moved, what do you dislike?”

“Are these normal questions?”

“This isn't a normal restaurant.” He smiled and crossed his hands.

“Okay.” I looked back out the window. Enough. “I don't like that question.”

“Why?”

My palms were damp. That was the moment I realized I wanted the job. That job, at that restaurant specifically. I looked at my hands and said, “It feels a little personal.”

“All right.” He didn't skip a beat, a quick glance at my résumé and he was on track. “Can you tell me about a problem at one of your last jobs? At that coffee shop, I suppose. Tell me about a problem there and how you solved it.”

As if I had dreamed it, the interior of the coffee shop dissolved when I tried to recall it directly. And when I tried to remember punching in there, tried to remember the sink, the register, the coffee grinds, the objects faded. And then her fat, gloating, vindictive face appeared.

“There was this awful woman, Mrs. Pound. I mean it, she was insufferable. We called her The Hammer. From the second she walked in everything was wrong, the coffee scalded her or it tasted like dirt, the music was too loud, or her blueberry muffin had poisoned her the night before. She was always threatening to shut us down, telling us to get our lawyer ready each time she bumped into a table. She wanted scrambled eggs for her dog. Never tipped us a cent. She was dreaded. But then, this was a little over a year ago, she had her foot amputated. She was diabetic. None of us ever knew, I mean, why would we know? And she would wheel by in her wheelchair and everyone was like, Finally, The Hammer is done.”

“Finally, what?” Howard asked.

“Oh, I forgot that part. We didn't have a ramp. And there were stairs. So she was finished, more or less.”

“More or less,” he said.

“But, the real part of the story. One day she was wheeling by, and she was glaring, I mean, hateful. And I don't know why, but I missed her. I missed her face. So I made her coffee and I ran after her. I wheeled her across the street to the park and she complained about everything from the weather to indigestion. From then on it was our thing. Every day. I even brought the scrambled eggs in a to-go container for her dog. My coworkers made so much fun of me.”

The Hammer's swollen, varicosed legs. Flashing her stump at me from under her housedress. Her purple fingers.

“Does that answer your question? The problem was not having a ramp, I guess. The solution was to bring out the coffee. I'm sorry, I didn't explain it very well.”

“I think you explained it perfectly. That was a kind thing to do.”

I shrugged. “I really liked her actually.”

The Hammer was the only impolite person I knew. She put me in that restaurant. I felt it then but didn't understand it. It was her niece's daughter who was a friend of a friend of my new roommate in Williamsburg. Our goodbye had been tearful—on my end, not hers. I promised to write her letters, but the weeks were eclipsing our small relationship. And as I looked at Howard and the perfectly set table and the tasteful hydrangea arrangement between us, I understood what he meant by
guest,
and I also knew that I would never see her again.

“Did you move here with anyone? Girlfriends? A boyfriend?”

“No.”

“That's very brave.”

“Is it? It's been two days and I feel pretty foolish.”

“It's brave if you make it, foolish if you fail.”

I wanted to ask him how I would be able to tell the difference and when.

“If you're hired here, what do you want the next year to bring you?”

I forgot that I was being interviewed. I forgot about my negative bank account, my pit stains, and the noble grapes. I said something about wanting to learn. About my work ethic.

I was never good at the future. I grew up with girls whose chief occupation was the future—designing it, instigating it. They could talk about it with so much confidence that it sounded like the past. During those talks, I had contributed nothing.

I had visions, too abstract and flat for me to hang on to. For years I saw a generic city lit up at night. I would use those remote, artificial lights to soothe myself to sleep. One day I was quitting my job with no sense of exhilaration, one day I was leaving a note for my father, pulling out of his driveway, slightly bewildered, and two days later I was sitting in front of Howard. That was the way the future came to me.

The vision that accompanied me on my drive was a girl, a lady actually. We had the same hair but she didn't look like me. She was in a camel coat and ankle boots. A dress under the coat was belted high on her waist. She carried various shopping bags from specialty stores and as she was walking, pausing at certain windows, her coat would fly back in the wind. Her boot heels tapped on the cobblestones. She had lovers and breakups, an analyst, a library, acquaintances she ran into on the street whose names she couldn't call to mind. She belonged to herself only. She had edges, boundaries, tastes, definition down to her eyelashes. And when she walked it was clear she knew where she was going.

As I thanked him and we reviewed my contact information, I didn't know what had transpired, whether it was good or bad. It took me a moment to even remember the name of the restaurant. He held my hand too long and as I stood, his eyes traveled down my body, not like an employer's, but like a man's.

“I dislike mopping. And lying,” I said. I don't know why. “Those are the two that come to mind.”

He nodded and smiled—what I wanted to call a private smile. The backs of my legs were damp with sweat and as I walked away I felt his eyes unabashedly on my ass. At the door, I rolled my cardigan off my shoulders, and arched as if stretching. No one knows how I got the job, but it's better to be honest about these things.

TASTE,
Chef said, is all about balance. The sour, the salty, the sweet, the bitter. Now your tongue is coded. A certain connoisseurship of taste, a mark of how you deal with the world, is the ability to relish the bitter, to crave it even, the way you do the sweet.

T
HE SPACE WAS
aesthetically unremarkable, even ugly in places. Not ragged by any means—the paint fresh, the dust banished—but defiantly past its peak. The art was dated, gaudy, some of it honestly preposterous, purchased in the eighties or whenever. The dining room had three levels, as if it had been built during different periods and linked together as an afterthought. Tables cluttered on one side of the room, sparse on the other. The cumulative effect was like someone hadn't quite made up his mind, but insisted on having you over anyway.

THE OWNER TOLD ME
at orientation, “There are many endeavors to bring pleasure to people. Every artist assumes that challenge. But what we do here is the most intimate. We are making something you take inside you. Not the food, the experience.”

TWO AREAS OF
the restaurant were flawless: first, three café-style tables in the front framed by a large window at the entrance. The tables were set in the day's changing light. Some people—I mean
guests
—hated to be next to the entrance, to be sectioned off from the main dining rooms. But some of them wouldn't sit anywhere else. These tables were often held for the most poised guests—rarely a sloucher or anyone in denim.

The Owner said, “Running a restaurant means setting a stage. The believability hinges on the details. We control how they experience the world: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch. That starts at the door, with the host and the flowers.”

And then, the bar. Timeless: long, dark mahogany, with stools high enough to make you feel like you were afloat. The bar had soft music, dim lighting, tinkling layers of noise, the bumps of a neighbor's knee, the reach of someone's arm by your face to take a glittering martini, the tap of a hostess as she escorted guests behind your back, the blur of plates being passed, the rattle of drinks, the virtuoso performance of bartenders slapping bottles into the back bar while also delivering bread, while also taking an order with the requisite substitutions and complications. All the best regulars came in and greeted the hostess saying, Any space at the bar tonight?

“OUR GOAL,”
he said, “is to make the guests feel that we are on their side. Any business transaction—actually any life transaction—is negotiated by how you are making the other person
feel.
”

The Owner looked and spoke like a deity. Sometimes the
New York Post
referred to him as the mayor. Tall, tan, handsome with perfect white teeth, effortless articulation, and gorgeous gesticulation. I listened to him accordingly, with my hands in my lap.

Yet there was a tension I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something false about making guests “feel” that we were on their side. I looked around the room and suddenly everything looked like currency to me: the silver, the wooden beams, the regal floral arrangement crowning the bar. Jesus, I thought, you can get rich by making people
feel
good about spending their money. We weren't on their side; we were on the Owner's side. All the emphasis on details, all the jargon—it was still just a business, right?

When orientation was over, I wanted to catch his eye and let him know that I got it. I wanted to ask someone how much of that money I would be taking home. Then I approached him at the exit and he looked me in the eyes. I stopped. He said my name though I hadn't told him. He shook my hand and nodded like he had already forgiven me for all my shortcomings and would remember my face forever.

He said, “We are creating the world as it should be. We don't have to pay any attention to how it is.”

WHEN I GOT
the job I didn't actually get the job. I got to train for the job. And the position was “backwaiter,” which wasn't the same as being a server. Howard led me up a narrow spiral staircase in the back of the kitchen and deposited me in the locker room. He said, “You're the new girl now. You have a certain responsibility.”

He left without clarifying what that responsibility was. In the corner of the windowless room sat two older Latino men and a woman. They had been speaking in Spanish but were now staring at me. A small electric fan shuddered behind them. I tried a smile.

“Is there somewhere I can change?”

“Right here mami,” the woman said. She had unruly black hair, held back by a bandana. Rivulets of sweat made track marks down her face. She pursed her lips. The men with their outsized, destroyed faces.

“Okay,” I said. I opened my locker and stuck my face into it, blocking them from my sight. Howard had told me to buy a white button-down shirt, and I put it on over my tank top to avoid undressing. The shirt was as breathable as cardboard. Sweat ran down my back and into my underwear.

They began talking again, fanning themselves, walking to a small sink and splashing water on their faces. The room was stacked with chairs in the back, and along the walls were pairs of Crocs and clogs covered in white splotches, with heels worn down to nothing. There was no air, my chest contracted.

The door burst open and a man said, “Are you not hungry? Are you coming?”

I looked at the three in the corner to make sure he was talking to me. He had an adolescent, tame face, but was irritated, his brows narrowed together.

“No, I'm hungry,” I said. I wasn't, I just wanted something to do.

“Well family is almost over. How much more primping do you have left?”

I shut my locker door and put my hair back in a ponytail.

“I'm done. Are you in charge of me?”

“Yes, I'm in charge of you. I'm your trailer. First lesson, if you miss family, you don't eat.”

“Well it's nice to meet you. I'm—”

“I know who you are.” He slammed the door behind us. “You're the new girl. Don't forget to clock in.”

THERE WERE
tables in the back dining room set with stainless steel sheet trays and bowls so big I could bathe in them. Macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits, an oily green salad with shredded carrots. Pitchers of iced tea. It looked like food for a large catered event, but my trailer handed me a white plate and started helping himself to family meal. He went and sat at a table in the corner without inviting me to follow. The staff had taken over the back dining room. They came from every department: the servers in aprons, people in white coats, women removing headsets, men in suits, tugging at ties. I sat near the servers, in the very last chair—it was the best seat if I needed to run.

Preshift turned out to be a turbulent affair. A frazzled, skittish manager named Zoe was looking at me like it was my fault. She kept calling out numbers or names—things like “Section 6” and “Mr. Blah-blah at eight p.m.” but the servers talked right through her. I nodded deafly. I couldn't touch my food.

The servers looked like actors—each perfectly idiosyncratic, but rehearsed. It all felt staged for my benefit. They wore striped shirts of every color. They were performing, snapping, clapping, kissing, cutting each other off, layers of noise colluding while I sank into my seat.

Howard walked up with wineglasses hanging like spokes from his hand. A young man in a suit trailed behind him with a bottle of wine wrapped in brown paper. The servers passed around the glasses with tastes of wine, but one never made it to me.

When Howard clapped his hands everyone went silent.

“Who would like to begin?”

Someone called out, “Pinot, obviously.”

“New World or Old?” Howard asked, scanning the room. His eyes fell on me for a second and I dropped my face to my plate. I remembered every time a teacher had called on me and I didn't know the answer. I remembered wetting my pants in the fourth grade and thought that if he called on me I would again now.

“Old World,” a voice called out.

“Obviously,” someone else said.

“It's old. I mean, it's got age—look, it's beginning to pale.”

“So we're talking Burgundy.”

“It's just a matter of deduction now, HR.” This man lifted his glass and pointed it to Howard. “I'm onto you.”

Howard waited.

“A little austere to be Côte de Beaune.”

“Is it off?”

“I was thinking it might be off!”

“No, it's perfect.”

They stopped talking. I leaned forward to see who had said that. She was in the same row as me, behind too many people. I saw the bowl of her glass as she pulled it away from her nose and then brought it back. Her voice, low, ponderous, continued:

“Côte de Nuits…hmm, Howard, this is a treat. Gevrey-Chambertin, of course. The Harmand-Geoffroy.” She put the glass down in front of her. From what I saw, she hadn't taken a sip. The wine caught the light rebelliously. “The 2000. It's actually showing really well.”

“I agree, Simone. Thank you.” Howard clapped his hands together. “Friends, this wine is a steal, and don't let the difficult 2000 vintage put you off. Côte de Nuits was able to pull off some stunning wines and they are drinking well, today, right now, this minute. As far as this gift goes, pass it on to your guests tonight.”

Everyone stood up together. The people around me stacked their plates on top of my full one and left. I held them to my chest and pushed through the swinging doors in the kitchen. Two servers walked by on my right and I heard one of them say in a false singsong, “Oh, the Harmand-Geoffroy, of course,” and the other girl rolled her eyes. Someone walked by on my left and said to me, “Seriously? You don't know what a dishwasher looks like?”

I moved toward a trough laden with dirty dishes that ran the length of the room. I set my stack down apologetically. A tiny, gray-haired man on the other side of the trough huffed and took my stack, scraping the food off of each one and into a trash can.

“Pinche idiota,” he said, and spat into the trough in front of him.

“Thank you,” I said. Maybe I had never actually made a mistake before in my life and this is what it felt like. Like your hands were slipping off of every facet, like you didn't have the words or directions and even gravity wasn't reliable. I felt my trailer behind me and spun around to grab him.

“Where do I—” I reached out for an arm and noticed too late that it wasn't striped. It was bare. There was a static shock when I touched it.

“Oh. You're not my person.” I looked up. Black jeans and a white T-shirt with a backpack on one shoulder. Eyes so pale, a weatherworn, spectral blue. He was covered in sweat and slightly out of breath. I inhaled sharply. “My trailer person I mean. You're not him.”

His eyes were a vise. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. He looked me up and down, indiscreetly.

“What are you?”

“I'm new.”

“Jake.” We both turned. The woman who knew the wine stood in the doorway. She didn't see me. Her gaze distilled the kitchen light to its purest element.

“Good morning. What time does your shift start again?”

“Oh fuck off Simone.”

She smiled, pleased.

“I have your plate,” she said, and turned into the dining room. The doors swung back violently. And then all I could see was his feet pounding the last few stairs.

THEY SHOWED ME
how to fold. Stacks of plastic-wrapped, blindingly white linens. Crease, turn, crease, fold, fan. Wrap with napkin bands, stack. The servers used that time to catch up, engaging in full conversations. Crease, turn, crease, fold, fan. I was lulled into a trance by the motions, by the lint gathering in my apron. No one addressed me. At least I can fold napkins, I said to myself, over and over.

I watched Jake and Simone. He stood at the end of the bar hunched over his plate with his back to me, and she talked without looking at him. She tapped the screen at the computer terminal. I could tell they were attached far underneath the surface of the restaurant. Maybe because they weren't laughing, or bantering—there was no performance. They were just talking. A girl with a button nose and a debutante's smile said, “Hey,” and stuck her chewing gum into the napkin on my lap, and the trance was over.

I DIDN'T LOOK UP
for weeks. I asked to work as many days as possible, but there was an alarming delay in money while the new paycheck cycle started. And when it came it was training pay. Nothing. With my first paycheck I bought a used mattress for $250 from a couple moving out a few apartments down.

“Don't worry,” they said, “no bugs. It's full of love.”

I took it, but that to me was more disturbing.

ON THE OTHER END
of the linen spectrum came the bar mops. Every new trailer opened the session with, “Did someone explain bar mops?” And when I said yes they said, “Who? So-and-so always fucks it up. I have a secret stash.” I learned four different and elaborate systems for managing what were essentially rags they kept under lock and key.

There were never enough. We could never attain healthy bar mop equilibrium. The kitchen always needed more, or the guy in the back never got set up before service, or the bartenders went on a cleaning spree. Invariably you forgot to save some for yourself. The victim of this bar mop negligence got to yell at you. When you asked a manager for more, they got to yell at you too, for burning through bar mops before service even started. If you begged—and everyone begged—the manager would unlock the cupboard and count out ten more. You told no one about the ten extra bar mops. You hid them, and then doled them out heroically during emergencies.

“THE KITCHEN IS
a church,” Chef screamed at me when I asked my trailer a question. “No fucking talking.”