19
On the fly: An order needed in a hurry; that is, a server realizes they’ve forgotten to put up a ticket and the table has been waiting twenty minutes for their food.
The order is put in “on the fly”
to indicate it’s needed ASAP.
2015
“So it was dessert that tripped you up.”
Regina thumbed her lower lip.
Gale tried not to fidget like he was in sixth grade and hadn’t done his homework.
“Inedible, I think was the word used.
I don’t think it was because it tasted bad.
It just kind of squished all over the place when cut into.”
“You overbaked the pastry.”
“Maybe?”
He did.
Gale knew he did.
“Dessert just isn’t my thing.
I did well before that.”
“A good chef does it all.
We’ll work on your dessert skills.”
“We will? Why?”
“Because it’s a good skill to have.
It’ll do you well in the future.
First up, we’ll do an edible napoleon.
How about Thursday afternoon?”
“This Thursday?”
Gale’s stomach twinged.
“I .
.
. uh . . . I can’t.”
“You pick up a shift at Marco’s?”
“No.
I have a date.”
Regina’s eyebrows rose.
“One of the contestants?”
“No.
The driver who took me home.
Jenara Bizzarro.
How’s that for a great name?”
More eyebrow raising.
The corner of her mouth quirked.
Gale wished she’d just smile.
This way, he couldn’t tell if amusement or derision hid behind the expression.
She resumed chopping carrots.
“So, you here to work, big shot? Or just to tell me how it went?”
“Both.”
“Great.
Start on the potatoes.
I’m doing cottage pie tonight.
Oh, and your mother will be here in about an hour. Did you call her yet? About yesterday?”
He hadn’t, but .
.
.
“Why’s she coming in?”
“I don’t know.
She called and asked if I could use her help.
We have a lot of mise en place to prep.
Should I have said no?”
“No, no.”
Gale tied an apron on.
“I just don’t .
.
. never mind. I’m not supposed to tell anyone the results, so don’t tell her I told you.”
“You told me, but won’t tell your mother?”
“You’re .
.
.
you’re Regina. You’re my mentor.”
She stopped chopping, back still to him.
“I’m your mentor?”
“Aren’t you?”
Gale brought the box of potatoes to the sink.
“I’ve learned more from you in the last few months than I ever learned in culinary school.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Regina’s knife snick-snick-snicked through the carrots.
“You were already good when you first came here.
Nothing I taught you got you your job as sous.”
Don’t argue, man.
Can’t you see you’re making her uncomfortable?
The “Shut up, Sean”
in his head stayed there.
“You’re amazing, Regina.
I mean it.”
A pause in the snicking, momentary and maybe imagined, was her only response.
Gale swallowed the sigh, ignored Sean still chastising him for making Regina uncomfortable, and started scrubbing the potatoes.
He was halfway through peeling when his mother arrived, out of breath and typically frantic.
“Hi, buddy.”
She kissed his cheek.
“I know, I know! You can’t tell me if you won or lost.
I won’t even ask even though it’s killing me.
Hey, Regina. What can I do?”
“I saved you the celery.”
She pointed with her knife.
“Wash it, then dice it.
You know how to dice?”
“That’s the little chunks, right?”
“Yeah, the little chunks.
Gale, show her.”
Gale grabbed a stalk and made quick work of it.
“Like that.”
“I won’t be as fast,”
Lucy Carmichael said, “but I’ll get it done.”
Listening to his mother slowly slog through the pile of celery it would have taken him ten minutes to do, start to finish, made Gale’s skin itch.
Regina didn’t seem to notice.
She chopped onions with the precision and speed of one who’d been doing so for so long, it was like walking.
More like running. Sprinting. By the time Gale had to leave for work, all the mise en place was done and ready to go into the pots. He untied his apron and hung it on the hook.
“It’s just beef stew, when you come down to it,”
Regina was saying to his mother.
“Ground beef instead of stew beef, and instead of the potatoes in the stew, they’re mashed on top.
Your husband is Irish, fercrissake.
How’ve you never had cottage pie?”
“For one thing, this is called shepherd’s pie in the freezer case.
Second, I’m sure my son has told you all about my cooking skills.”
“If it doesn’t come out of a can or box,”
Gale teased.
Lucy swatted him with a dish towel, but only half-heartedly.
“It’s true.
I was intimidated, I guess.
Remember what a good cook Nona was?”
“Your mother was not a good cook,”
Gale told her.
“She was just better than you.”
“Well, I thought she was a good cook.”
She sighed, slumping a little.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave.
I like spending time with my boy.”
She smiled, her lips turning down instead of up.
Gale put an arm around her shoulders.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
Regina moved to the sink, turned on the water, and pretended to wash what was in there.
“You look kind of sad.”
“Do I?”
Lucy touched his cheek.
“Maybe I’m sad because my boy won’t tell me if he’s ten thousand dollars richer or not.”
Gale jiggled her playfully.
“I signed an NDA.
The show airs pretty soon.
You won’t have long to wait.”
“I guess.”
She checked the clock.
“You’re going to be late for work. Scoot!”
Kissing her cheek, he gave her an extra squeeze.
The time he got to spend with her these days was good for both of them.
He needed to see his mother was okay as much as she needed to see he was.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Just let me know you got home safe.”
“Will do.”
Gale headed for the door.
“See you, Regina.”
She waved over her head, barely glanced his way.
Gale felt just a little bad about telling her but not his mother.
Regina is Regina.
“Yeah.
But I don’t like keeping Mom in suspense.”
He half walked, half ran from Regina’s to Marco’s, worrying about his mother.
She seemed older, and more tired, neither having anything to do with curiosity about how he’d done in the competition.
A heart attack, and she wasn’t even sixty.
The thought of losing her made his chest ache.
Maybe you should move back home.
Keep an eye on her.
“That’s the last thing she needs,”
Gale said.
“Me, under the same roof.”
You could help with the bills.
It’ll still be less than paying rent on your own place.
“But it kind of defeats the whole idea of having my own place, doesn’t it? No, Sean.
It’s a terrible idea.
What if I relapse?”
You won’t.
“You don’t know that.
And I won’t do it to them again.”
Kyle found us, man, not your parents.
“Just drop it, okay?”
Fine.
Be a tool.
“You’re a tool.”
Mature, man.
Real mature.
Gale took the mature road and didn’t respond.
It was easy for Sean to say he wouldn’t relapse.
Again.
Sure, it had been almost two years since the big one. He’d never gone that long without even a hiccup before, not in the dark decade of his drug abuse. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t. He feared it. Every minute of every day. Almost every minute of every day. The fear didn’t follow him into the kitchen. Maybe that’s all he needed to do, spend every waking minute in a kitchen, cooking. If not Marco’s, Regina’s. If not those places, another. Work until he only had enough energy in reserve to slough off his clothes and fall into bed.
It’ll kill you, man.
You’re okay.
Seriously.
Have faith in yourself.
But Gale didn’t.
Not enough.
Until the fear of falling wasn’t always waiting in the back of his brain, he couldn’t have much faith at all.
Lucy Carmichael’s knot of worry tangled around her so tight, Regina couldn’t pretend it was just her normal air of dejectedness.
The woman worried about Gale.
Constantly.
Regina got it. She’d been the focus of a lot of the same worry. She wanted to tell Lucy that Gale was going to be okay. Truth was, Regina worried too. There was just no telling which adversity would get weathered, and which one would send him into a tailspin. The longer weathering won out, the better equipped he’d be to avoid the tailspin. But less than two years clean? She’d gone as long as four without slipping. At least there’d been no major fuckups in more than ten. Most would consider Regina Benuzzi’s sobriety a success.
She never would.
That was the first step off a cliff she’d fallen—and leapt—from too many times before.
Drying her hands on her apron, she turned off the faucet.
“So, what’s really wrong?”
Lucy didn’t even pretend.
“I lost my job.”
“Lost it? How? Aren’t you union?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t get fired.”
She heaved a drawn-out sigh.
“I wasn’t fired, exactly.
The owners and manager at the grocery store love me, but I’m a liability now because of my ticker.
They won’t let me do full shifts anymore. They said I’ll make more collecting my pension than I would doing what partial shifts they’d agree to. I guess it’s for the best.”
Regina leaned on the table next to Lucy.
“But the pension isn’t as much as you were making before.”
“Nope.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.
I can’t sit around doing nothing, Regina.
That and the hit to our budget causes me way more stress than anything else.”
“What does your doctor say?”
“I’ve been told yoga would be great for me.”
They both laughed.
Regina had tried yoga.
Several times.
All those rehabs swore by yoga and meditation. She saw it work wonders for some; she was not one of them. Lucy, she could guarantee, wasn’t either.
“We’ll be all right.
We always are.”
Lucy picked up a huge wooden spoon, gave the aromatic, simmering mirepoix a stir.
“Is it insulting if I say this doesn’t look very appetizing?”
“It’s cottage pie.
It looks like it’s supposed to look.
Keep stirring.”
Regina added the rosemary and bay leaf and salt.
Nutmeg, mustard powder, a little Worcestershire, wine.
Nothing fancy or lovely to look at.
Nothing saying, Here is the creation of one of the greatest chefs in modern culinary history! Something in her missed that. More than she used to. Lately, her fingers itched, the glands in her jaw winced, and she had to pull back. Even so, this cottage pie wasn’t the usual nutritious and simple yet tasty fare served in her kitchen. She might have served it in one of her more casual restaurants, once upon a time.
It was Marco showing up, Queenie coaxing and promising.
But it was mostly Gale.
His help in her kitchen made it possible for her to be more creative.
He made her want to be more creative. He called her his mentor—Regina’s heart swelled exactly as it had when he said it—but Gale wasn’t just learning, or taking some of the burden from her shoulders; he inspired without meaning to. And now, she had Lucy, whom she was beginning to like when Regina made it a habit of liking no one. A year ago, she counted Troy as her only friend, and that was always problematic. How had it happened? Again, the answer was Gale.
“You know,”
she said, “I could use more help around here.”
“I’ll come in whenever you need me.
You know that.”
“I meant, regular.
Paid work, not volunteer, or those twenties I make Gale give you.”
Lucy stopped stirring.
“Come on.
This place can’t afford a paid staff.
I know the shoestring soup kitchens run on. I watch TV.”
Oh, if only she knew.
“There’s money in the budget.
Look, the one person I’ve been able to mostly rely upon is an elderly man with a drinking problem and I haven’t seen him in months.”
“You can count on Gale.”
“Gale has a job, and he won’t take money from me.
I’ve tried.”
He called me his mentor.
“He’s destined for better things, anyway.
We both want that for him.”
Lucy’s face pinked, her smile almost teary.
“That’s good for a mother to hear.”
“He’s a good man.
I don’t know how I got along before him.”
“But you did.
You can.
You’re making up this job because you feel bad for me.”
“Maybe.
But the truth is, I need help.
You need a job.
And you’re already doing most of what I’d need from you. I’d rather not have to scrounge for help when Gale’s not around. And, like I said, there’s money in the budget.”
“How much money?”
Regina reined in the impulse to go exorbitant.
“How’s ten an hour?”
Ten dollars an hour.
What a joke.
But Lucy only needed to supplement her pension, and Regina needed to stay under the radar.
“Off the books,”
she added.
Lucy thumbed her lip, eyes unfocused, her face that oft-mentioned open book running the gamut from happiness to worry.
Finally, her expression settled on something that looked like resolve.
“Before I say yes, I need to ask you something.
Well, maybe confess.”
“Okay?”
Lucy blinked, breaking eye contact.
She leaned into the steam coming out of the pot.
“It doesn’t look great, but it smells amazing.
You think I could take some home to my husband?”
“If I say yes, will you get to your point?”
Lucy stepped away from the pot.
“I’m no good at .
.
. at . . . subtle, Regina, so I’m just going to ask.”
She breathed in deep, let it out slow.
“Didn’t you use to be Queenie B?”
The floor vanished under Regina’s feet.
She stumbled, canting headfirst into the hole, through the barrel Queenie hailed her from, waving her arms, jumping up and down.
“I’m sorry,”
Lucy said.
“I figure you’re incognito, because .
.
. all that happened . . . we all fall on hard times . . . thought you looked familiar when we met . . . when Gale got on Cut! . . . bingeing cooking shows and there you were on my TV screen!”
Lucy Carmichael’s words jumbled and skipped, echoing from a great distance.
Booming.
Mingling with Marco’s.
It’s just a good hiding spot that’s going to bite you in the ass one of these days.
This couldn’t get her.
Not now.
A few years ago, it might have sent her scurrying.
It would have. She couldn’t let it. Not this time. The force of will she pulled from to survive—foster homes, poverty, drugs, ambition—reared up. Put Lucy’s words in the right order. Made sense of them.
“I’m sorry, Regina,”
Lucy continued, as breathless as Regina felt but comprehensible.
“I don’t mean to pry and I won’t.
I mean, I got a little obsessed, but I won’t do that anymore.
I totally respect your privacy. It’s been so hard, keeping my mouth shut. You have no idea. I have an idiot mouth sometimes, and I say things before I stop to think about it. It was hard enough as a volunteer, only here now and then. If I take the job, if you still want me, I mean, and don’t worry, that’s not, like, blackmail or anything. I swear. I’d never. But I’ll be here all the time and . . .”
Regina put up her hands still flailing for a handhold.
Queenie hovered, not triumphant, but wary, holding out a steadying hand for her to grab.
Trusting her scared the hell out of Regina, even as she reached, but the reality was, her slow slide from obscurity hadn’t begun with Marco.
It wouldn’t end with Lucy. It began as far back as Bova, the trail she’d left no matter how clever she thought she’d been, and Queenie knew how to navigate it.
“You’ve known since we first met, haven’t you?”
Lucy’s fingers entwined and untangled.
She shook them out.
“You looked familiar, that’s all.
I mean, you were everywhere when I was younger, and we both know I was no foodie. It didn’t click. Then I saw your name on the health certificate over there.”
She pointed.
“Regina Benuzzi.
Regina is Queen in Italian.
Click! Queenie B.”
“Did you start bingeing my shows before or after you looked me up?”
Lucy bit her lip.
“Okay, it was after.
If it’s any consolation, I’m sure Gale doesn’t know.
I honestly don’t know how he’d react if he did.”
The bigger reason for her silence.
There was that worry, underlying everything else.
But Gale would find out.
Inevitably. “Just don’t go telling anyone who I am. It’s no one’s business, is that clear?”
“Who am I going to tell?”
Lucy tried to make light.
Regina glared.
“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.
I won’t tell anyone.”
Another glare.
Measured, not ferocious.
Still capable of instilling fear—Regina had perfected it in a way Queenie never had—just to be safe.
Pulling hotel pans down from the rack, Regina tried to keep her heart where it belonged instead of pounding away at her throat.
“Help me get these filled.”
“Sure thing.”
Lucy took the pans from her, set them up on the prep table.
She took the giant spoon from Regina’s hand.
“I’ll load up the pans.
You do the mashed potatoes on top. I’m sure there’s a trick to it that I’ll totally screw up.”
She couldn’t cook for shit, but Lucy wasn’t stupid; she’d seen Regina’s shaking hands.
She was kind.
Good.
Fierce. A good ally. And, Queenie warned, a worse enemy.
“So, when can you start?”
Her voice snapped a little too harshly.
She leaned over the pot, inhaling deeply, as if to smell her stew and not calm her fraying nerves.
“When do you need me?”
“Mostly when Gale’s not here.
I’ll work out a schedule for you.
I’ll pay you for today, and going forward.”
“That’s not—”
“Ask your son how effective arguing with me is.”
“All right.”
Lucy chuckled.
“You know, I could say the same.”
Regina got to work on the potatoes to keep a retort she’d regret from spilling.
Mashing felt good.
By the time she was layering them—with a piping bag on top of the cottage pie, her hands no longer shook.
Something like . . . could it be pride? Maybe not quite, but close. Lucy’s confession hadn’t leveled her, even if it did send her reeling. She’d gotten her feet under her. The urge to run subsided, leaving behind the strangest lightness in Regina’s body. Like when she set up mystery crates for Gale, showed him where he’d gone right, and wrong. When he called her his mentor. And Marco. Not finding him in her garden; that had been as awful as Lucy’s confession. But afterward, thinking about him coming back for a long-overdue dinner, planning what she’d make for him.
There was that sensation again, closer, now, to pride.
Maybe a little like joy, fingering, clawing, glowing out of a barrel long ago and repeatedly cracked, but never splintered entirely.