Sweetbitter(96)

“Tess, don’t you worry about old Mrs. Neely. If you ever reach my age you’ll find that death becomes a need, just like sleep.”

—

I KNOCKED ON his office door at ten p.m. after tracking his movements all night. Howard was such a minor element of service for me but I had unconsciously memorized his habits. I realized that he always came to the coffee station at seven and then spent two hours on the floor and then by nine, barring any emergencies, went back up to his office in order to get out by eleven. Two hours on the floor felt like nothing, a cushy job by our standards, but then I thought about all my lunch shifts, and how he was always here before we got in, and nine a.m. to eleven p.m. on a good night sounded awful. It never showed on him.

“Come in,” he said. Howard was settled back in his chair, reading glasses on his head, a stack of papers in front of a desktop computer from the Paleolithic era.

“Tess!” He sat up. “What a surprise.”

“I know I should have made an appointment, I’m sorry, I just saw that you were still here—”

“My door is always open.”

I took a seat and I looked at him. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew that I had exhausted my resources downstairs. The phase in which I had existed so happily was over. Howard had put me in stripes, and I needed him to tell me what was next.

“I’m curious. About opportunities. In the company.” I was hesitating. With the door closed I felt oddly vulnerable even though the dinner crew was still finishing up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t plan a speech.” I saw a bottle of Four Roses on his bookshelf. “Can I have some of that?”

He took his glasses off his head and retrieved the bottle without standing up. His eyes never left me. On his desk were random samples of glassware, some of them quite dusty. He picked up a rocks glass and used his blue-checkered tie to wipe it out.

“I don’t have ice,” he said as he passed it to me. He didn’t pour himself one.

“No need,” I said, and took a big sip. “You said that I could be a server.”

He nodded.

“So. I want to be one. I’m really good at this job. I’m better than all the other backwaiters, and most of the servers.”

“You are gifted. That’s why I have you first in line.” He hedged, not sure where I was going. I wasn’t sure where I was going. “Tess, we are totally transparent at this company. You see the server schedule, you know how it works. There’s no space available right now.”

“Okay,” I said. I drained my drink. “Maybe you can make space. Or maybe you can place me.”

He raised his eyebrows and reopened the Four Roses. He poured more for me and some for himself.

“I’ve made a considerable investment in you. I’d like to see you grow with us.”

“I would too. Honestly, I don’t want to leave, even when I am so fucking sick of this place I could die. It’s my home. But I also know that you don’t really run this place. Simone does. And she would never allow me to be on her level.”

“Don’t pass that along to the Owner.” He wasn’t insulted. He was interested. “You and Simone…don’t tell me this is a story about a boy.”

“It’s not. It is, but it’s not. It’s about me. Come on, Howard,” I said, leaning back, trying it out. “I know you don’t like Jake or he doesn’t like you or whatever. And I know you and Simone are whatever, friends. But I should be a server here. I know plenty of people doing things that they could be fired for immediately. It’s not even the drinking and the drugs and the theft. It says in the handbook that if you’re more than fifteen minutes late three times then you are to be fired. No one would blame you. Certain people who have been showing up thirty minutes late for years…”

“Tess!” He laughed. “You’re out for blood.”

“I’m not. I know you won’t do it. Firing him would be firing two people. But let me tell you, Howard, from the inside, that stagnant water stinks. It’s just a fact. And this restaurant isn’t getting any younger. We have real problems, the walls are crumbling, the food is stale, and yes, people still come, but because of nostalgia. They aren’t excited to eat here. Now some fresh blood—some unjaded servers who actually fucking care—wouldn’t hurt the atmosphere, the reputation, or the bottom line.” I finished my drink again. “But you know all this.”

“I like to hear you say it.” He refilled me.

“You might be the only restaurant manager who has leather-bound Freud in his office.”

“I consider it an instruction manual.”

We were silent while I scanned his books.

“You wanted to be something else? An analyst? Anthropologist? Architect?”

“Why do you ask?”

“The same reason everyone asks. You couldn’t possibly choose this job, you must have fallen into it accidentally.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Here we are.”

We fell into silence again and I felt like I was running out of time. All my wants crowded forward. I wanted an ally. I wanted my job. I wanted to hurt them. Someone knocked—Misha poked her head in.

“I’m leaving,” she said awkwardly, looking at me.