With the Fire on High(56)
Don Alberto furrows his eyebrows, still holding my hand in his. He begins murmuring, still in Spanish. “Can I tell you the oddest thing about your hen? I’ve been having a bad day. Everything was going wrong, including my stove not wanting to turn on, which is why I came out for dinner, on a Monday of all days! But from the first bite of your food . . . it reminded me of my favorite aunt. Sitting at her knee when she told me stories and shucked peas.” His voice gets rough at the end and I give his hand a small squeeze.
Chef Amadí smiles at him. “I’ll bring your table another bottle of wine. I’m glad you enjoyed the special.”
I look around. Several tables have at least one person who ordered the hen. I see the bones and smile. The plates look licked clean.
“You did well, Emoni.” Chef Amadí looks at her watch. “Oh! But you need to go. You will miss your own supper with your group. We’ll clean up here, don’t worry.”
Winning
When I get to the rooftop paella restaurant where our group has a table, I see that everyone looks how I feel. Like a bulb has been turned on beneath our skin.
Everyone at the table is too excited to shut up. We play with our dinner forks and recount our days. What our chefs or sponsors asked us to do, what we cut and measured. Pretty Leslie is shadowing a line cook. Richard is working at a seafood market and Amanda is at a bakery. When Malachi asks what station I was working at, I shrug.
“You saw how small a place it was. No stations, really. Chef Amadí had me prepare the daily special.”
Even though Pretty Leslie is three seats away from me she must be ear-hustling hard because she leans in halfway across the table to ask, “The whole meal? On your first day?”
I shrug again and don’t answer. In the moment I didn’t even consider how much I was being challenged. I just put my head down and got to work. But I guess not all of us were being challenged in that same way.
Chef Ayden looks calmer and happier than he did in our classroom. “I’m glad you all are learning so many different things.”
I look down at my cold soup, a gazpacho, and try not to smile. Then I sneak off to the bathroom so I can use the restaurant Wi-Fi to FaceTime with ’Buela. Babygirl is at her daycare, but at least I can hear ’Buela’s voice and get an update on things back home.
The Roots
“Good girl,” Chef Amadí says as she peers over my shoulder. I clip the parsley leaves. “Now smell them, what next?”
I look at the other dirt beds in the backyard garden. Chef Amadí doesn’t have any of them labeled—she says their names don’t matter, only where they tell her they want to be.
“Are you listening to them?” I nod even though I’m not listening. I don’t even know what that means. I’m pretty sure the basil and parsley aren’t talking to me. It’s that something tugs at my hands telling me what needs to go where next. I walk a loop around the garden and snip a bit here, a bit there. When I finish my circle, Chef looks at the bundle I hold out to her.
“Muy bien. Today we have rabbit and mushrooms on the menu. What should we pair it with?” she asks, but she’s already stepping into the restaurant, opening the big refrigerator door. She looks at me.
“Rabbit with harissa,” I say, closing my eyes. “Rice with mushrooms, rich with saffron.”
Later, in our bedroom I tell Pretty Leslie about my day. Less because I think she cares and more because my FaceTime with ’Buela was really me cooing at Babygirl. Seeing her eclipsed any excitement I might feel about my day. Although it’s only been three days, I already miss hearing her small feet pattering all over the house, her high-pitched voice singing along to Moana.
But I still need to tell someone about my strange afternoon. There was no time at dinner to talk to Malachi.
“She has you doing what?” Leslie says as she parts her hair so she can Bantu knot it. I look at the lines between her knots and notice some of them aren’t straight. I wouldn’t let Babygirl walk out the house with such uneven parts.
“She sounds like a crackhead. I always knew that lady was crazy, got you sniffing herbs and shit.” The offer I was going to make to part her hair dies in my mouth.
“Don’t you think ‘crackhead’ is a strong word? You don’t even know her.”
Pretty Leslie still rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth every time she speaks to me, but I’m starting to think it has less to do with my friendship with Malachi and more that it’s just the way she speaks to people.
“Fine. She sounds crazy. Shouldn’t she be teaching you the basics? Chop and dice and mince. Devein shrimp. That’s what the rest of us are doing, not sniffing herbs.” She shrugs. “Definitely not talking to food.”
I massage my feet. Chef advised all of us to buy a pair of thick-soled clogs since we’d be spending most days on our feet, and now I wish I had listened, because my Air Maxes are not comfortable for all the hours I’m on my feet.
“Do you wanna be a chef, Leslie?” I ask without looking up. I can only imagine her screw-face. I wait for her sarcastic response but it never comes. When I finally do look at her she’s rolling a puff of hair into a twist and knotting it into a neat little stack.
“Leslie?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, girl. Everyone wants to know what I’m going to be. I’m the first person to graduate high school in my family. First person to ever get a passport. I been lucky to make it this far without dropping out or having a kid. No offense. My life at home . . . it isn’t the easiest. I just want to see how far I can get. But I don’t know if I’m made to be a chef—I can’t talk to plants and shit.” She smirks. “I just know whatever it is, I want it to be major. I want to be remembered for something great. I want to leave a skyscraper-sized mark on the world that reminds people: Leslie Peterson was fucking here.”