Expo. Trois

Fragments..more to come..no questions

*

It was one of those unexpected nights, those nights where I was expecting to clock out of the expo. system, change out of my kitchen infused jeans, white button up, chucks and apron climb into my car parked in the $5 lot across the street and drive the 15 minutes at 80 MPH on the highway back to Royal Oak. But tonight I’m pissed off and on an emotional high simultaneously. It’s not fair, I think, that while I’m ecstatic and happiest I’ve been in a while I’m also devastated and self-conscious.

Oil

And

Water

*

Rituals have become part of me, of my gestures, bent twisted carved burned into my existence, that once one ritual is changed I quickly must acclimate myself to a new one.

They sharpen their knives, spend time before us working long hours into their hands, chopping vegetables in prices shapes and configurations.

*

But my job isn’t easy either. F. asks how my night is going and I tell him the truth, I am tired and my feet hurt, and my eyes tell him I am tired, I have heavy heat and grease coating my brain today. Swallowing back tears and frustration, depression that comes seeping out of healing wounds of my soul is infesting and infecting my deliverance to my customers, I can feel it and it exhausts me. But he doesn’t get it.

“Oh you’re feet hurt? Oh you’re tired? I am SO sorry about that. What about you Dan? Do your feet hurt?

“Nah man I’m golden. You?”

“Perfect over here I feel GREAT. Only seared my hands a few times tonight. Only been on my feet since 6AM this morning. No way am I fucking tired.”

I can’t help but feel like the brunt of some immature joke.

I was already told tonight by a woman near my age that I didn’t have the experience to be working in a restaurant of this caliber yet. She was a customer, there with her boyfriend or pet on a leash, who demanded precise spacing between her courses so that the food before it didn’t “ruin the taste” of the next course.

She cut his filet.

She fed him wine.

She looked at me like I was some squished insect on the bottom of her red patent leather pump.

I smile. I get her what she wants. I space out the meal. I feel like smearing her lipstick across her face with my blistered fingers from hot plates.

*

“Sir…”

“Beer? Stella? Bam Noir?”

“Bam. Hit me”

I’m situated behind the expo screen, the sound of clinking glasses and shuffling feet, after hours again and I’m the last server to leave for the 4^th time this week.

I secretly love it.

It goes with the whole theme of being one of the boys. A throwback. Something comfortable and familiar like the shoes they wear, worn in clogs, scuffed and imprinted with infinite hours on foot from one burner to the next. It’s easier to be around people who love what you love, even more so when it isn’t women.

And its strange because in any other circumstance I would be nervous, forgetting sentences, stuttering, looking at my feet, wondering if I had enough lip-gloss or perfume on.

But here I am dressed androgynously, tie loose around my neck after I pull the knot while clocking out, white oxford sleeve rolled up to the elbow with fleck of various stains like pointillism on the cuffs, dark jeans and my black leather chucks. My face has a sheen like raw meat and the only makeup I wear is a swipe of mascara. I smell of sweat, salt and apple wood smoke. I am surrounded by men and have never been more confident.

Hey, did you call me?

Oh yeah? Is that what missed call means?

Ok sassy pants I was brushing my teeth what’s up?

We are at Loving Touch, what r U doin?

In my pajamas with my feet up writing

My phone illuminated in the darkened kitchen just beyond where Becca sleeps. She wakes up at 5 AM for her job. I don’t go in until 3.

“Hang on my roomie is asleep” Muffled Van Halen plays ambient noise on the other end.

“Dude you live like, 5 minutes from 9 mile. We just started a game. Come hang."

Well fuck. I had a mild attraction to him but was let down easily a few days before. I was trying to play it smooth, ignore him but not too much. Answer his questions but only in mild conversations that he began. And now he wants me to come play pool at 1 AM. Reading into this? You bet I am

“Alright alright give me 5 to clean up.”

“Dude we just got off work and we smell dank, who cares?”

“I do… I am a girl, you know.”

“See you in five.” Click. Dial Tone.

*

The rug underneath me hugs the curves of my back.

“What’s your favorite thing to cook?”

He inhales, ponders, his chest permanently risen filled with smoke and air then answers me, after a time, through slow exhales and whips of smoke

“Fuck…that pan roasted chicken.” His face explodes into a giant grin.

He sits up and open and closes his hands a few times.

“Damn my hands are sore today from choppin' all that cilantro and parsley."

He bends back his fingers a few times.

“Ew, Dan, stop that’s probably so bad for you. Here give me your hand.”

I don’t wait for him to stretch his arm out to me but instead guide his palm with my fingers toward me.

*

“So this lady at my table doesn’t eat meat. She hates olive oil and butter and she wants mushrooms on a piece of bread.:

Any looks at me with a blank, slightly annoyed stare.

“Jesus. She came to a MEAT HOUSE. He scratches his head, retrieves a plate of perfectly grilled and sliced filet from brad at the grill station and wipes the excess olive oil and fingerprints from the plate.

“Alright, tell her we can do steamed potatoes, crostini, some pickled onions and sautéed mushrooms if she gives us a little leeway on the olive oil. Tell her its better for you than butter at that we wont use a lot. Then come back here and talk to me.”

“Yes captain.”

“Punk”

“Thank you Andy!”

*

Ashley looks up at me from her 4”9 stature and throws a polished knife into the bin.

“People are assholes. Sometimes I go home, look at myself in the mirror and say all of the things I want to say to my reflection that I couldn’t to the customers earlier. It’s therapeutic, really.”

*

He scared me. Maybe because he is handsome in an awkward way or because he’s so damn good at his job and young enough to be my brother that, that kind of knowledge, passion and experience he secretes in subdued quantities. He is like a vintage wine, I bet, growing richer, deeper, more complex with age and his grapes were plucked, squeezed and bottled early on. There is a sheepish confidence to him that I almost wish I could claim for my own. Yes, people think he is pretentious, a little arrogant, bigheaded, and true he may be all of those things but what he is, to me, is a genuinely good person. A friend, he has become to me. Makes me smile in a way a girl smiles when everything has fallen into place. A smile that comes right before a collapse, a brief moment of euphoria.

When I first started he left a taste like tannins in my mouth. I hated how he seemed to treat me not like a child but a girl who couldn’t find her way around in the world, one who needed her hand held. I wanted so badly to tell him that I probably had more knowledge about food than he did about wine and beer, I wanted to show everyone that but the fear snobbery held me back. Not only did I have to suppress the knowledge that comes from passion but I had to do it in an atmosphere that fostered what I loved so much.

*

How to properly open and present a bottle of wine:

1. Show the bottle to your guests. Give the guest a chance to see the label of the bottle they will be drinking. In a restaurant, this has the added benefit of allowing the guest to verify that you will be opening the correct bottle. To present the bottle, support it on a linen napkin at a 45-degree angle with the label facing the guest and repeat vintage location and name.

I try that much and walk up to the table where Joseph is sitting, hands placed in front of him, legs crossed. I present the bottle and the black napkin slips out of my hand onto the floor. After retrieving it I regain my composure only to completely forget the information on the bottle. Joseph smirks then looks at me seriously. “No worries keep going.” My face is hot and I’m shaking

2. Wait for approval. As a restaurant server, always wait for the guest to give you the "go ahead" before you open the wine bottle.

Joseph nods. Approves of the wine, a red from Argentina, Dao it’s called. I remember the spice and tinge of pumpkin or other squash with a little cinnamon or allspice.