Way to Go (6 page)

He switched on the gas stovetop, tossed some oil into a pan and in a matter of what seemed like seconds, he'd chopped up some garlic and thrown it onto the heat. I was hypnotized by the unfamiliar aromas. Working smoothly, almost in time to the music, and occasionally reaching over to take a healthy swig from his wineglass, JP added vegetables to the pan, tossed in white wine, cream and some cooked pasta. Before we knew it, he was filling our plates, topping them with ground pepper and sliding them across the stainless steel counter toward us.

I took a bite, and for a moment all I was aware of was the food. It was like nothing I'd ever tasted—rich and smooth and absolutely delicious. For a few minutes, there was complete silence as we devoured the pasta.

Lisa let out a deep and satisfied sigh and said, “Aren't you going to eat anything, JP?” He waved her off.

“You'll soon realize that JP survives on cigarettes and red wine,” said Denise. “Now why don't you kids get out of here? Tomorrow's a big day. You should go home and try to get some sleep.” I started to gather up the dishes and take them over to the sink to wash, but she stopped me. “Don't worry about it, Dan. JP and I will finish cleaning up. Lisa, can you give Danny a ride home?”

“Sure.”

I'd been hoping something like this would happen. Until now, Denise had driven me home every night after work. Maybe some time alone with Lisa would help me figure out what she really thought of me.

In the parking lot, as Lisa rummaged around in her bag for her keys, I could hear Denise and JP laughing on the deck. The faint aroma of sweet-smelling smoke wafted toward us on the summer breeze.

“Is that pot?” I asked, hoping I didn't sound like a supernerd.

“Yeah, big surprise, eh? I bet those crazy old hippies couldn't wait to get us out of there so they could blaze up. Aha!” She pulled the keys triumphantly out of her bag.

I waited outside the car for a minute while she quickly threw tapes, books, makeup and clothes into the backseat.

“Sorry! I've been pretty much living out of this thing. Hop in.”

“Did you drive this car all the way up from New York?” I asked as I wedged myself in amidst the clutter.

“You mean Old Bessie here? No way. I never would have made it all the way here in this piece of shit. It's my aunt's. This thing has been rusting out in her backyard for years. She's letting me use it for the summer.”

She turned the key, and the engine made a horrible grinding sound before finally turning over.

“Good girl!” She patted the dashboard appreciatively.

I gave her directions to my house, and she peeled out of the parking lot. I tried not to pay attention to the erratic clanging and rattling noises that seemed to come from all corners of the car.

“Man,” I said as we headed out of town, “that pasta was delicious!”

She shrugged. “Yeah, it was okay. JP is a decent chef. Definitely not the best I've worked with though.”

Maybe she was right, but the meal JP had prepared was easily the best thing I'd ever eaten. I couldn't wait to find out what else he could do in the kitchen.

“So,” she said, “tell me about your love life. Got your eyes on anyone special?”

My heart fluttered. Was she asking just to be polite, or did she have deeper motives?

“Wha—me? No. I mean, I dated this girl, Michelle, for a while, but it didn't really work out.”

She nodded and kept driving.

“How about you?” I asked.

“Nope.” I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't say anything else.

She pulled into the driveway.

“Here ya go, sailor,” she said. “Big day tomorrow.”

I turned to her and smiled, and she smiled back.

For a brief moment, I imagined reaching over and putting my hand on her face, leaning in and kissing her. Maybe all I had to do was make one little move, and everything else would fall into place. Instead, I opened the door and jumped out of the car, and she pulled away with a short honk of her horn, her hand waving cheerfully out the window.

I stood and watched as Old Bessie clattered away.
What's wrong with me
? I thought as her headlights disappeared into the night.

EIGHT

The next morning, after I got out of the shower and came back to my room, Alma was sitting on my bed.

“What's up?” I asked her.

“Do you think that I could get a job at the restaurant? As a waitress?” she asked me.

“Maybe in a few years, Al,” I said, drying off my hair. “You're kind of young. Trust me, having a job isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

“Yeah, but I've been thinking about running away to Hollywood in a couple of years to become an actress,” she said. “It'd be good to have some skills, like waiting tables. I'll probably need to make ends meet for a few weeks, until I'm discovered. God knows I don't want to end up like Peg Entwhistle.”

“Who's Peg Entwhistle?”

“Oh, just a tragic ingenue from the thirties,” she said. “She couldn't catch a break, so she climbed up to the Hollywood sign and—ack!” She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, holding an imaginary noose above her neck.

“Yoinks,” I said.

“Yoinks indeed, but what did she expect? Who the hell is going to hire someone called Peg Entwhistle? She might as well have called herself Velma Turnipgarden. I'm going to stick with my original stage name.”

“Oh yes,” I said, “Betsy Worthington. Well, in a couple of years, I'll put in a good word with Denise. In the meantime, enjoy the free ride while you can, Betsy.”

“Can you guys come down here?” Mom called from downstairs.

“I have some news,” she said when we were sitting down. “Your dad's going to be home at the end of the month.”

“What?” said Alma. “That's awesome!”

“I don't understand,” I said. “I thought his contract lasted till Christmas.”

“Well, that's the thing,” she said. “His company is laying off a bunch of people, so it's not really good news.”

Great, I thought, another opportunity for him to lecture me about the importance of education. Same old story, blah, blah, blah.

“He gets to come home for the rest of the summer though!” said Alma. “
That's
good news!”

“Yes, that will be nice, for sure,” my mom said, reaching over to run her fingers through Alma's hair.

“Mom!” Alma said. “‘Take your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!'”

“He's very impressed that you're working so hard at the restaurant, Dan,” Mom said, turning to me.

“Oh yeah? Cool.” It actually
was
cool. For once in my life, I could prove I was thinking about my future. So far, I'd only had one payday, but I'd put most of it in the bank, and I planned to keep saving. By the time Dad came home, I'd have a few hundred bucks. I was sure he'd have lots of ideas about how I should spend it.

WHEN I ARRIVED
at the restaurant for my shift later that day, Denise was giving a tour of the place to a couple of people. One of them was a university student named Ken who I recognized as a DCHS grad from a couple of years earlier. He was taller than me and well built, with an earring and bleached tips. Denise introduced him to everyone, and he barely glanced at me and JP other than to give us a quick nod. I noticed that he was a lot friendlier to Lisa, cracking cheesy jokes and reaching out to touch her on the arm a couple of times.

The other server turned out to be Maisie Thomas.

“Hey, Maisie! I didn't know you were going to be working here,” I said.

“Yeah, it's awesome, hey? I'm super excited!” She giggled. “It's going to be a super fun summer!”

Behind Maisie's back, Lisa caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, smirking. I really liked Maisie and figured she'd be great with customers, but I had a feeling that she wasn't really Lisa's kind of person.

My suspicions were confirmed a bit later when Lisa came into the kitchen to help me polish some silverware. “So are you like,
super best friends
with Anne of Green Gables back there?” she asked.

“You mean Maisie?” I shrugged. “I don't really hang out with her or anything. She's really nice though.”

“Nice,” said Lisa. “Nice is what people say when they can't come up with a better word to describe someone. Maybe you mean boring. Or dumb.”

“I didn't say that!” I said, surprised at her suddenly nasty tone. Then she snapped back to her normal self, laughing and flicking a dishcloth at me.

“Don't get your knickers in a knot, I'm sure she's a really sweet person. You and I just have a lot more in common.”

Denise yelled to us through the window to come out to the parking lot, and I followed Lisa outside, wondering what she'd meant. Was she jealous of Maisie? I decided to take it as a promising sign.

Denise and JP had hung the new sign over the door, a colorful painting of a sunset with
The Sandbar
painted above it. JP passed out plastic cups, and Denise walked around filling them with sparkling wine.

Denise raised her glass and said, “To a lucky first season. Let's hope it all works out!” We clinked our glasses and cheered, and then JP clapped his hands sharply, twice.

“All right. We gotta get goin' or there won't be any food for the people.”

We snapped into action, and soon I was in the kitchen tying on an apron, facing a deep sink full of soapy water and a counter that was ready to be stacked with greasy dishes.

By the time the restaurant had been open for a couple of hours, I was already wondering what I'd gotten myself into. To begin with, the place was packed, and although Lisa, Maisie and Ken were all waiting tables, it seemed as if they couldn't get to people fast enough. Denise was doing triple duty, trying to pick up the slack in the dining room, running in to help in the kitchen whenever she had a second, and ringing customers through at the front counter.

The orders came piling into the kitchen in an endless stream, and soon enough the dishes followed. For every carefully arranged plate that was taken away, it seemed as if three came back piled high with garbage. More than once, I had to force myself not to gag as I scraped chicken bones, congealed piles of cold pasta, even spit-out pieces of gum into a revolting pile in the garbage can next to the sink. I did my best to keep up, but it was a tough battle, and I didn't really know what I was doing. Denise had promised to give me a lesson, but we'd been so busy, she hadn't gotten around to it. Thankfully, JP was totally cool under pressure, and he helped me stay on track by calling firm, clear orders in my direction.

“I'm gonna need two fry pans and a big stainless bowl in a couple of minutes!”

Before I knew it, I was up to my eyeballs in dirty dishes. I had just started to get a routine going, stacking dirty plates and dinnerware to the left of the sink and pots and pans and cooking tools to the right, when Denise marched up behind me, picked up a huge pile of dishes and dumped them all into the sink. Then she reached around me, grabbed a bunch of pots and tossed them in as well.

“You're wasting time, Danny. This isn't rocket science. You take the pots and pans, you drop them in the water as fast as they come, you scrub, you hustle them back to JP's station. You take plates and glasses, you give them a quick rinse, you throw them in the dishwasher, you repeat.
Capiche
?”

I nodded, and she stalked away. I dropped my head, focusing on the water as I furiously scrubbed at the dishes, taking out my frustrations on the grease. It wasn't like I'd done this kind of thing before, and she sure hadn't given me much of an intro. I didn't have time to think about it, though, and so I tried to just keep getting stuff to JP as he needed it.

Unfortunately, it was easier said than done. The dishes kept coming at me twice as fast as I could wash them. Although he stayed calm, I could see that JP was trying to keep things moving and that every time he had to stop to wait for dishes, it ruined his flow.

The only enjoyable thing about the kitchen in full work mode was the smell. One mouth-watering aroma after another wafted by me from JP's workspace near the stove. Whenever possible, I tried to turn around and see what he was doing, but I was so busy that I only managed to grab a few glimpses: chicken on rice, smothered with a yellow sauce—curry, maybe?—and topped with chopped nuts and a sprig of herbs; steaks with a pan sauce and a pile of potatoes under a teepee of green beans; golden seared scallops covered with finely diced mangos. I wished I could just stand next to JP and watch what he was doing, instead of being stuck in the disgusting dish pit.

Lisa came into the kitchen and stuck her head over my shoulder.

“Having fun?” she asked.

“What does it look like?” I said. “This sucks.”

She laughed. “You'll be fine, don't worry. Nobody out there is complaining. I don't think anyone in this town has ever eaten real food before. They don't mind waiting for clean dishes.”

Ken wasn't as accommodating. Every time he had to wait for an order because the dishes weren't ready, he stood behind me with his arms crossed, sighing deeply. The only thing it accomplished was to make me tense. At one point, while waiting impatiently for four orders of mussels, he actually reached behind me and grabbed plates from my drying rack.

“Get it together, guy,” he growled. “You'd think you never washed a dish before in your life.” I had a feeling he and I weren't going to be best friends.

The next few hours were about as much fun as a nail in the forehead, but eventually things quieted down a bit, and the pile of dirty dishes diminished. JP stepped outside to grab a smoke while there were no orders on the line, and when he stepped back into the kitchen, the dish pit was clean for the first time all evening.

“Look at you, kid. Maybe you've got some skills after all.”