What Happens to Goodbye(68)

I walked back over to my sector, picking up the fire station. As I knelt back down, focusing on the square again, Dave said, “Must have been pretty cool, your parents having their own place. Did you, like, have the run of the joint?”
“I guess.” I centered the piece, then realized it was crooked again. Damn. “It was either be there or never see them. Or my dad anyway.”
“Busy job, huh?”
“Full-time and more.” I sat back again. “My mom was around in the evenings, at least, and she was always on him to come home for dinner or take a weekend off to hang out with us. ‘That’s what we pay managers for,’ she’d tell him. But my dad always said even the best-paid employee is still that: an employee. They’ll never be as willing to Clorox the walk-in, mop the bathrooms, or empty the fryer when it’s all clogged.”
Dave didn’t say anything. When I looked up, he was again studying me as if I was speaking another language.
“They’ll never be dedicated the way you are when it’s your restaurant,” I explained. “As the owner, every job, from chef to bar back, is your job. That’s why it’s so hard.”
“And it was hard on you,” he said.
“I didn’t know any different. I think my mom had trouble with it at times. I mean, she loved our place. But she did call herself a ‘restaurant widow.’ ”
“You think that’s why she ended up with Peter?”
I blinked. I was still looking at the fire station, but suddenly everything seemed askew, not just that. “I . . .”
“Sorry,” Dave said quickly. I swallowed. “I just . . . That was stupid. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just talking.”
I nodded slowly. “I know.”

We were both quiet for a while, the only sound the voices of the waits, now talking downstairs. I’d learned, over the last few weeks of putting in time on the model, that the rhythm was different depending on who was working alongside me. When it was Deb, or Deb and Dave even, we kept up a pretty constant chatter, talking about music and school and whatever else. But when it was just me and him, there was a different ebb and flow: some conversation, some silence, always something to think about. It was like another language I was learning, how to be with someone and remain there, eve Wh the conversation—and I—got uncomfortable.
From the restaurant below, there was the final touch before opening as the music came on. As a rule, my dad believed in keeping whatever played similar to the food: simple and good. He also wanted a low volume (so as not to blast out the early birds), instrumentals only (so words didn’t compete with conversation), and up-tempo (to keep the staff from moving too slowly). “Fast beat, fast service,” he’d say, something he claimed to have learned during a disastrous stint at a folkie organic place where he worked in college.
In a good restaurant, you’d never notice these things, which was exactly how it should be. Eating out is about just that: eating. The meal is what matters. As a customer, you shouldn’t have to think about details like this. And if someone like my dad is doing their job right, you don’t.
Dave and I had been working in silence for a while before he finally said, “What is that they’re playing down there?”
“Cuban jazz,” I told him. “My dad swears it makes people enjoy the food more.”
“That is so weird,” he replied. “Because I hate jazz. But I’m suddenly starving.”
I smiled, adjusting the fire station one last time before pulling off the sticky backing. Then I pressed it down and felt it click into place. Done.
“You want to grab something to eat?” I asked Dave as he wiped some dust off the main road with the tail of his shirt.
“Only if you tell me what’s the best thing to order right after opening,” he replied. Then he looked up at me. “Because I know you know.”
I smiled. “Maybe.”
“Cool. Let’s go.” He got to his feet, starting over to the stairs, and I followed him. “I’m thinking fish.”
“ No.”
“Ravioli?”
“Getting warmer.”
He glanced back at me, grinning, as I reached over to turn off the overhead light. From this distance, in the dimness, the model looked surreal, made up of parts filled with buildings, bordered by long stretches of empty space. It reminded me of the way cities and towns look when you are flying at night. You can’t make out much. But the places where people have come together, and stayed, are collections of tiny lights, breaking up the darkness.
The next day, I came home from school and my dad was at home. Which was strange enough: with an hour or so until opening, he was always needed to oversee prep in the kitchen. Then, though, I realized he wasn’t just there, but sitting at the kitchen table—not on his phone, in constant motion, or on his way out the door—just waiting for me.
“Hey,” he said as I stepped inside, the side door easing shut with a click behind me. “Got a minute?”
Only one thing came to mind: AHBL. I was in big trouble or someone was dead. Maybe both.
“Sure,” I said, my mouth going dry as I pulled out the opposite chair and slid into it. “What’s going on?”
He cleared his throat, smoothing one palm across the tabletop as if checking for stray crumbs. Finally, after what felt an excruciatingly long time, he said, “So . . . I need you to fill me in on what’s going on right now between you and your mom.”
Hearing this, I felt two things simultaneously. Relief that everyone was still breathing, replaced immediately by a flare of anger so familiar it was like an old friend. “Why? What happened ? ”