Sweetbitter(23)

“He’s got a hard job.”

“Really? The only thing I see him do is yell. I’ve never even seen him cook!”

“It’s different at that level. He’s not a line cook anymore, he’s running the whole fucking business. I know he misses cooking every single day.”

“The other day he told me to stab my fucking tickets or he’d stab me. I mean, how is that allowed?”

“He didn’t say that to you.”

“He did! I cried by the ice machines.”

“You’re a little sensitive.”

“He’s a monster.”

Will put his hands up, surrendering, smiling. I liked him. The truth was that he reminded me of people back home too—nice, open-book people. Thinking of Chef reminded me of the restaurant and that I could talk freely because I wasn’t in it.

“You know, Simone is kind of helping me with wine.”

“Ugh.” He scrunched up his face. “I would be careful with Simone’s help.”

“Why? She’s so smart. She’s so fucking good at her job. You ask her questions all the time.”

“Yeah, when I’m desperate. Owing Simone a favor is like being owned by the mafia. Her help is a double-edged sword.”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“I would just be careful what you tell her. She and Howard have this weird thing where she reports on all the servers. Everyone thinks they’re fucking. Once Ariel told Simone something about Sasha and then Sasha got written up. And she has these creepy relationships with Howard’s girls, and then they disappear in the middle of the night. I don’t know, she’s fine, but she’s been there too long, she gets bored, makes trouble.”

“I don’t believe that. I get the feeling that she’s genuinely interested in helping me.” It’s not that I expected Will to get her. She probably barely tolerated him. But the rest of it disoriented me. “What are Howard’s girls? What do you mean they disappear?”

“Never mind, doll,” he said. He finished his beer, and I knew I had to decide if we were staying for another round. It felt like a mistake to get drunk before four p.m., but it would be worth it if I could get him to keep talking.

“Maybe you softened her up,” he said and his eyes went past me. “Speak of the devil. I forgot this was her neighborhood.”

I turned and there she was, in a black shift dress, looking so petite I would have looked right past her. I flipped back into the booth, chafing. This wasn’t Park Bar; this was my day off. I wanted Simone to think I was nude modeling for painters or drinking absinthe with musicians, or at the Guggenheim, where she’d told me to go, or even that I was alone at a bar with a book being sophisticated. How could I have been stupid enough to be drinking with Will?

“Do you think she heard us?” I whispered. “We should go.”

“What? You were just saying—”

“I’m sick,” I said. “I mean, I don’t feel well. This beer isn’t sitting well. I have to go home.”

“Are you okay?”

“Will, I’m sorry, we can do this again, but I—” I could feel her eyes on us, there was no way to miss us in the four hundred square feet. I took a breath and felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Aren’t you two a lovely pair.” She held a paperback book with a French title in her hand and smelled like gardenias. I wished Will would die.

“We’re not. We were just talking about work stuff,” I said. “Sorry, hi Simone. I like that dress. Lovely to see you too.”

“So you’re off today, huh?” Will said, a little coolly, I thought.

“Yes, I’m just meeting a friend. And I think Jake will be by later.”

I finished my beer. “I—”

“I finally got her outside of work,” Will said, showing me off.

“Oh, is she so elusive?” Simone said with a derisive smile.

“I’m not.” I stood up. “I’m just, upset, I have an upset stomach, I mean.” I pulled up my purse and put five dollars on the table. “Will, I’m sorry, next time.”

I did not look back. Once I hit Second Avenue, I threw my arm up. I understood why taxis were so essential to life in the city, even with those of us who couldn’t afford them. Desperation.

—

AS I STARTED up the stairs to find more straws, Jake was coming down. He brushed the back of his hand against my hand. I stared at it, but my hand looked the same. There had been an explosion, but no collapse. I spent the next five hours sleepwalking, wondering whether he had touched me with intention.

—

EVERYTHING WAS over my head. The senior servers, the bartenders especially, had doctorates in talking shit to guests. They could skim any topic. You couldn’t stump them. The briefness of these interactions meant their casual expertise was never exposed as groundless.

As I overheard it, to be good at this job you needed to know the city, but also how to leave the city. Which was hard for me to imagine, since I found the idea of traveling to the Upper West Side daunting. Everyone had a cursory knowledge of the East Coast weekend retreats: not just upstate and Connecticut, but unlisted antiques stores in the Hudson Valley, small towns in the Berkshires, lakes in the Northeast Kingdom. Beaches were their own category, divided mainly between the Hamptons and the Cape, and again, the specific towns were identity badges.