9. Flick
FLICK
Flick was lying in bed thinking about two things: the fact that the stupid job at the club was something he might actually want. And the girl. What was going on behind those green eyes when she smiled?
His phone dinged. It was his best friend from home, Mateo. Mateo had texted each night since Flick had moved away. The texts weren’t long or particularly interesting, but they were comforting: a small lifeline back home to Queens. A link to who Flick was in this strange wooded world of Massachusetts suburbia.
What’s up?
Nothing.
Get that job?
No man. Not my scene.
Why?
Rich white people scene.
Well now you’ve got the rich thing going for you.
Shut up.
A moment later, his phone dinged again. Flick stared at the strange number before opening the text.
Hi, Flick, Ned Birch here. It was nice meeting with you. The job is yours if you want it.
Flick stared at the screen to make sure he’d read it right. Wait until his mother heard this. Wait until Mateo did.
He barely hesitated before replying.
Thanks, Mr. Birch. I would like the job.
There was a pause followed by the line of dots as Ned texted back. Flick held his breath.
I’d hoped you’d say that. Go look on your doorstep.
Flick jogged downstairs, past the living room where his mother and Stan were watching TV, and pulled the front door open. There, folded neatly on the steps, was a blue polo shirt. Flick lifted it up: on the right breast was the Mayhaven pilgrim logo.
“Mom,” he called out, holding it up. “Guess what?”
Josie stared at the shirt with a look of confusion until Flick pointed to the logo. “I got the job.”
“You got it? Oh my God, you got it!” She leapt off the couch and hugged him hard. Stan managed to pull his gaze away from the screen long enough to grunt congrats.
“Wait. Where’d the shirt come from?” his mother wanted to know. “Were you saving this as a surprise?”
“No.” Flick shook his head. “Mr. Birch must’ve just dropped it off.”
“Birch?” Stan practically choked on a chip he was eating. “Are you telling me that guy works at the club?” He snorted. “Makes sense. So uptight and all.”
Josie looked confused. “Our neighbor, Mr. Birch, works there, too?”
“Yeah. He’s my boss.”
She looked to Stan. “Why do you say he’s uptight?”
Stan shrugged. “I’ve seen him around.” So he hadn’t told Josie about the night he slammed the door in Mr. Birch’s face.
“You’re going to have to be nicer, Stan,” Josie said. “Especially since Flick works for him now.”
“Nicer? I’m like the nicest guy around. Look at all the happy customers I served all those years. All those old ladies, all those suits…” The way he talked you’d think Stan had served his country.
Josie wasn’t having it, but she did walk over and place her hands lovingly on either side of his big face. “Baby, no one here knows who the Dry Cleaning King is. You’re new. We’re all new. Let’s play nice.”
Back upstairs, Flick tugged off his T-shirt and tried on the polo. It was a perfect fit. How did Ned Birch know his size? Moreover, how did Ned Birch know he’d take the job?
He texted Mateo back.
Guess what?
What?
You’re talking to the new kitchen assistant at a country club.
There was a long pause. Then his phone dinged.
Don’t turn into an asshole.
Flick smiled. No chance.
His phone dinged again. And don’t screw it up.
There were two shifts each day at Mayhaven: lunch service and dinner, and for his first day Flick would be working the lunch shift. On his way out, Josie stopped him for a good look. “Look at my little working man! So handsome.”
If Mateo could’ve seen him, he’d have ribbed him endlessly. Ned had said navy and khaki were staff uniform, and that they’d provide the shirt. Flick figured navy blue would be good for hiding stains in the kitchen, but he was a little worried about the khaki. Luckily, he did have one nice pair of beige pants from his mother and Stan’s wedding ceremony, so he’d thrown those on with a pair of dark Converse sneakers.
The whole way to the club his stomach fluttered. The first thing he noticed as he traipsed up the walkway were the clusters of kids: playing on the tennis courts, filing down the hill in swimsuits, finger painting at a picnic table under a white tent. Little kids were everywhere; and so were the teenagers who worked with them. Flick scanned their faces, trying to locate the girl from the hallway the day before—Darcy, she’d said. There were a couple of what Mateo would call Chads standing around instead of working, a handful of girls at the painting table, and a pretty blonde who laughed too loudly. But no sign of Darcy.
Inside the clubhouse was a stark contrast to the noise and energy outside. Flick trotted down the quiet hall, past the trophy case of serious faces, to Mr. Birch’s office. Mr. Birch looked up from his computer and grinned widely. Was this guy always this happy?
“You made it!” he said, and Flick wondered if there had been doubt.
“Yes, sir.” Flick paused in the doorway. “Should I go up to the kitchen?”
“Yes, Mossimo wants to start you out gently, with lunch service. Once you get your sea legs, he’ll move you up to dinner.”
Flick nodded.
“But, on occasion, there may be a need for you to fill in elsewhere. You may drive the drink cart out on the course or work the snack shack down at the lake. Sound good?”
The drink cart sounded good to him. And the lake sounded really good. He hoped there were some cute girls in bikinis, not just the older ladies he’d seen around so far.
Mossimo was pretty much what Flick had expected: meticulous and demanding. Not that his demands were unreasonable—there were just a lot of them. Clean workstations, timely prep, remembering the regulars , the recipes that were served almost nightly: seafood chowder, baby beet salad, the grilled focaccia with heirloom tomatoes. “That’s kitchen life!” Mossimo would sing out (not happily) across the kitchen when swiping carrot peels off an untidy prep counter and holding them up in his fist. “Keep your stations clear.” Clean workstations were just the beginning. Because the staff was small, everyone was on deck, whether you had culinary chops or not. “You will mop floors and do shelf inventory. You will chop vegetables and even prepare sauces.”
“Today?”
“Today we start with beurre blanc.”
Mossimo had to be crazy—the closest thing Flick had made to a beurre blanc was a package of powdered béarnaise sauce for a steak one Christmas. He was doomed.
But there was no time for self-doubt. The chef stood beside him, adding tiny cubes of chilled butter to the simmering wine in the pan. “You cannot stop whisking,” he explained. “If you stop, it won’t emulsify.” Flick had never used that word in his life, but looking into the bowled concoction in front of him it somehow felt familiar. “Keep blending, until you achieve velvet,” Mossimo directed.
Flick was not alone. Ricky, the sous chef, worked the more advanced dishes and seemed to be deputy to Mossimo’s sheriff. Ricky was lean and wiry and wore a Vans snapback backward, which surprised Flick. Mossimo must really like the guy. Wendy, the head server—he guessed she was in her early twenties—didn’t seem to be in charge of much in the kitchen but clearly ran the show in the dining room and snack shack. Flick watched her chew out a girl who showed up late. He’d try to steer clear of Wendy. Joe did dishes in the back, and Flick wondered what else—he rarely saw the guy.
While others darted about prepping lunch service, Flick manned his saucepan. Whisking over the gas range meant he had to wipe his forehead repeatedly: if he dripped sweat into the sauce he was DOA. Mossimo popped by twice to check in on the sauce. The first time he just looked. “No. I said velvet.”
The second time he tasted. “Next one, more white wine.”
But it couldn’t have been terrible, because he set it aside and told Flick to move on to salad station. “Lunch is a lot of salad.”
All through lunch Flick never got a chance to see who was in the dining room or how it was going. The kitchen was full steam.
“Mr. Flick, I need two chicken Caesars, one no dressing. Ricky, one halibut and two Wagyu.”
For two hours, Flick’s only job was to assemble salads and man the sauces. But it wasn’t easy. Learning to emulsify the beurre blanc sauce for fish was tricky enough, but if your sauce wasn’t ready in time for plating while the halibut was hot out of the pan, into the trash went the cold fish. And off your paycheck it came. “That’s kitchen life. Get it right!”
Get it right. Flick wiped his brow, thinking that’s what he’d been trying to do since he moved here. Turned out adjusting to small-town life was as complicated as a beurre blanc.
By two o’clock the orders slowed, and the kitchen went from clattering pots to a gentler hum. At two-thirty Mossimo announced lunch service was over. Everyone stopped for a beat. There was chatter and relief, followed swiftly by cleanup.
As Flick wiped down the salad station and brought his saucepans to the sink, Mossimo found him. “Mr. Flick, good work today.”
“Thank you,” Flick said. He was exhausted and his feet throbbed. He was pretty sure he didn’t smell so great, either. But he’d made it. Almost.
“Remember, you’re on until four-thirty,” Ricky said, maneuvering around him with a giant mixing bowl crusted with some kind of dough.
There was a lull between lunch and dinner at the club, but sometimes members wandered in for a drink or bar snacks. “Apron off and hands washed,” Mossimo said, before whisking Flick’s apron unceremoniously over his head. “There is no lunch served after hours, no exceptions. There is a light snack menu until dinner.”
Flick’s head was already spinning at the idea of taking someone’s order and not dropping plates. He’d never waited tables before; what about that beach snack bar Mr. Birch had mentioned? But he was too afraid to ask.
“Here.” Mossimo handed him a printed menu. Charcuterie. Small salads. Chips and smoked trout dip. “I don’t want to see you behind the bar; it is the bartender’s zone, not yours. Your zone is kitchen and dining. Got it?”
Flick wasn’t sure he’d gotten any of that, really. He looked through the service doors at the mostly empty dining room. There were a couple of older men finishing up their lunch. And that was it. “Traffic is light. Pay attention and smile.”
Flick forced a smile. “Got it.”
“I will see you tomorrow.”
With Mossimo gone, the kitchen felt instantly lighter.
“So Mossimo is done for the day?”
Ricky laughed. “As if. He’s going home to rest before dinner service. He’s back on from five to close.”
“Wow.” Flick couldn’t imagine the rush of lunch service followed by cleanup, and then gearing up to do it all over again into the night.
As he scrubbed a pot, Ricky shook his head. “Lunch is for lambs, kid. Dinner is for lions. Wait until you do a Saturday night event. It’s mayhem.”
Flick considered this. “Are the tips at least good?”
“Yeah. But the demands are high. Don’t get me wrong, some of the members are good folks, but some are real assholes.”
Flick peered out the porthole window of the service door to the dining room floor. Still just the two old men. He should probably go ask.
“Check, please,” one of the men said as Flick approached.
“Sure thing, sir.” Flick cleared their lunch plates carefully, then remembered what Mossimo had said about member tabs. “May I have your member number, please?”
The other man looked up at him, not unkindly. “You’re new here.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir. First day. I’m Flick Creevy.”
“Marty Robbins and Jack Gorman. I’m seven-twenty. Put it on mine today.”
“Nice to meet you both.” Flick smiled and took their plates to the kitchen as the two embarked on an argument about whose turn it was to pay.
As soon as the bill was paid (Marty won) the dining room was empty. Flick was about to find Ricky to ask about setting tables for dinner when he heard the thunder of footsteps coming up the stairs. A group of four guys, about his age, rounded the corner talking loudly.
Without waiting, they made their way noisily through the dining room and took the corner table by the windows overlooking the deck and the course.
Flick wiped his hands and made his way over.
The boys were still talking, ignoring him. Flick cleared his throat, awkwardly. “The kitchen is closed for lunch,” he said politely, “but we’re serving bar snacks.”
The one who’d led the group in eyed him like he was interrupting their conversation. “We’re ordering burgers.”
Had he not just heard?
“I’m sorry, we just closed.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared right through Flick. He had one of those preppy mops of hair that guys like him flipped out of their eyes by constantly tossing their heads. Hair-flippers, Mateo called them.
He looked ready to argue, but one of the others, who looked like he played college football, spoke up. “You said bar snacks. What’ve you got for those?”
Flick held his hands behind his back and recited the list from memory. “Charcuterie, pita chips and smoked trout dip, and a spring mix salad.”
“Smoked trout?” One of the guys laughed. “Gross.”
It was actually good, Flick had tried it; but he kept that bit to himself. “If you want chips, we could substitute guacamole for the trout dip,” he said instead.
The footballer nodded. “Okay, two of those. And also a spring mix salad.”
“Jesus, Trevor. What’re you, watching your figure?”
Trevor shrugged good-naturedly. “Gotta keep the girls interested, man.”
There was some ribbing and then the hair-flipper turned to Flick. “You said bar snacks. How about a couple beers for my friends?”
Flick felt his chest thump. No way were these guys a day older than he was. Mossimo had said card anyone who looks younger than fifty. That member kids get cheeky. But it was the last thing Flick wanted to do.
All four boys were staring at him now, waiting to see what he’d do. Flick swallowed. “Sure thing. I just need to see an ID.”
The hair-flipper made a faux move to reach for his back pocket. “Damn. Left it in the car. Look, I know you’re new here, but we’re good.”
Trevor nudged him. “Next time, Spencer.”
Spencer. So that was the hair-flipper’s name.
“No. We worked hard today, boys. We deserve a few brews.” Spencer waited, staring at Flick.
Well, Flick could play this game, too. He stared back, willing his hands to stay still by his side. “I’m sorry, the boss insists on checking ID’s.”
“Oh, he does, does he? Do you know who I am?” Spencer rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re a newbie.”
Flick blinked. This kid was the last person he wanted to know.
“My father is the chairman of the board, newbie. Does the name Delancey ring a bell?”
Now one of the other guys chimed in. “Let it go, man.”
But Spencer wasn’t that kind of guy, Flick could tell. “Look, I have to follow the rules.”
“No, you look.” Spencer Delancey narrowed his eyes. “Rules don’t apply to everyone around here. You’ll learn.”
Flick didn’t respond to threats. But he also had a job to do. He wished Mossimo was there.
“I’ll be back with your chips,” Flick muttered, turning on his heel.
He shoved through the kitchen doors so hard they swung back on their hinges. Ricky turned around. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Flick lied.
Ricky wiped his hands on a dish towel and went to look through the dining room window for himself. “Ah, Delancey. He’s a little prick. Ignore him.”
Flick tried. He served the table their bar snacks and refilled their waters twice, and he almost managed until he got to the bill.
“Put it on my tab,” Spencer said.
“May I have your member number, please?”
Spencer snorted. “Number one.”
No one said anything. Flick wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. He paused, his pen hovering over the bill.
Spencer glared back at him. “I said, number one.”
Flick handed over the pen, eyes averted as Spencer scribbled something in the tip line and signed the bill.
“My great-grandfather was the first member to join this club. I’m legacy here.” Spencer stood, letting his napkin slip to the floor, and pressed the bill hard against Flick’s chest. “Don’t forget it, newbie.”
As the group left, laughter following them out of the dining room, Flick stole a look at the bill.
The tip line: $1.
The signature line: Number One.