Chapter 4 #2
“Girl, are you okay?” Jean-Rémy chuckles into my hair.
My behavior is definitely strange for 2009 Sabrina, even if 2024 Sabrina feels totally justified in acting like a sentimental fool.
“Yeah, fine,” I lie. I discreetly wipe away the tears that had threatened to spill over. “I, uh, was worried I was gonna be late. Antoine’s always a bear about it this time of year, ya know. I just cut the timing too close.”
“Don’t you worry, sweetheart. I got you.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder, warm and avuncular, as he used to do.
I remember now, he’d been traveling to New York to see his daughter Melisse, who is roughly my age, perform The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet.
She was one of the ensemble dancers, but it was her first role as a professional, and he wasn’t about to miss it.
He’d had to threaten to quit to get Antoine to let him take the time off in the middle of the holiday rush.
Even Antoine and his massive ego knew he couldn’t run the kitchen without his sous.
The sous-chef really is the backbone of the kitchen in most restaurants.
Executive and head chefs are essential for providing vision, sure.
The head designs the dishes and creates the menu, but the sous-chef has the impossible task of taking sometimes-whimsical dreams and making them a reality.
Or they have the even harder task of telling their boss that their vision simply isn’t workable in a mortal kitchen bound by the constraints of time, finances, and physics.
We find Jean-Rémy’s car in the garage, and he maneuvers onto the streets of New Orleans with practiced grace. “Something isn’t right, Princess. You’d better tell old JR about it.”
I smile despite everything I’m trying to process.
The only one he allowed to use the nickname JR was himself.
His family had been in the city for literal centuries, rising up and down the social ladder as the fortunes of the Black elite waxed and waned.
Many of his forebears had ties to the NOLA food scene as well.
With such lineage, he embodied the soul of Créole culture—and its food—more than anyone I’d ever met.
His daughter Melisse was one of the first to move away, and he was immensely proud of her career.
And for good reason. She’s a rising phenom in the dance world and has brilliant prospects.
“It’s just been a very weird day after a very long week.” I hope it sounds believable. It is true, just not in the way he thinks it is.
“Don’t I know that. You’re in hospitality in the holidays. No weirder days or longer weeks to be had, Princess. I don’t think that’s everything, though. But you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
“Thank you.” He had always been like this. Never pushing, always open. I remember wishing Robin, with her incessant prying, would take a few lessons from him. “It’s a little complicated. Nothing serious, though.”
“Is that Edward fella treating you okay?” Jean-Rémy’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.
I wish I could open up to him about the mess of an encounter Edward and I had in Denver, but that would be impossible to do without sounding insane.
“Um, things are fine.” It sounds stupid, even to my ears. How can I explain to Jean-Rémy that fifteen years down the road, Edward will pose a threat to me holding on to the job I fought to get for so long? There’s no way to make it sound like I’m not crazy.
“He taking you to the big to-do at the Esmeralda tonight?” Jean-Rémy takes his eyes from the road to glance over at me.
“That’s the plan.” Edward is the newest sous-chef at Hotel Esmeralda and fought hard to get the job.
Their holiday party is a huge deal on the New Orleans food scene, and as a key employee, he’s expected to be there and be charming.
And as his girlfriend, I am lucky enough to score a place as his plus-one at this top-tier event.
“Well, that’s good. He needs to take you out and show you off.
Don’t let him treat you like anything less than the princess you are.
Got it? I’ll be keeping an eye on the pair of you tonight to make sure he does.
” With one of the best reputations in the industry, Jean-Rémy is a perennial fixture on the guest list. I didn’t see him there the last time, but I’m glad to know he’ll be there if I need him this go-round.
Past me had been elated to rub elbows with the who’s who of the NOLA restaurant scene, but present-day me knows how the party ends. I overheard him making a derogatory comment about my work at La Fontaine Mirabeau and called him out on the spot.
I didn’t say anything he didn’t deserve, and I’ll defend that even after years of replaying this night when sleep wouldn’t claim me.
What I do regret is doing it publicly. It’s not that he didn’t deserve to be embarrassed either.
His behavior merited a good dose of humiliation, but making a scene is beneath me.
Perhaps fifteen years of maturity has made me see it, but the public shaming was a lot like junk food.
Enjoyable in the moment, a little cathartic, but leaves more regret than satisfaction in its wake.
Maybe if I’d done things differently, my career wouldn’t be in peril.
But the party is still hours away, and I have to survive the lunch shift before I can figure all that out. I’ll have to let the question percolate in my brain as I work. I find myself both intrigued and terrified at the prospect of a “redo” on this lowlight of my life.
We finally arrive at the staff parking near La Fontaine Mirabeau, and Jean-Rémy glides his wheels smoothly into his assigned spot. I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Thanks for saving my rear.”
He chuckles. “Anytime, Princess.”
Antoine gives me the evil eye as I arrive ten minutes past staff call and a full thirty past when I usually arrive. But Jean-Rémy shoots back a look of his own. “She came to get me at the airport. Saved me at least an hour.”
Antoine nods, expression softened. Losing ten minutes of my time is nothing compared to an hour of Jean-Rémy’s.
It’s a lie, of course. And it occurs to me that Jean-Rémy never questioned why I was at the airport.
Bless him for that. There is no excuse I could have concocted that he would have believed anyway.
There’s no time off for a grunt like me this week.
If I’d postured turning in my notice like Jean-Rémy had done, I’d be currently unemployed. I am utterly dispensable.
But over the years, I’ve been working as hard as I know how to make that less true.
Jean-Rémy deposits me at the fish station, where Marc, our lead poissonnier, points wordlessly to a heap of oysters that need shucking.
I glance at the menu posted and see we’ll need them not only for the gumbo and the charbroiled oyster platter, but for the lunch special of southern-fried oysters as well.
As I pick up my knife, I can already feel my fingers ache from the effort of shucking the eleventy billion oysters for service.
And I can’t wait to get started.