Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ALIGNMENT
CAMDEN
Chef Camden Whitman of Whitman’s in Denver, Colorado, discusses life as a restaurant owner…a Michelin-starred restaurant owner. Tonight at ten.
I wasn’t sure I could stand to watch myself on the news, even though my staff had stayed beyond their shifts to watch it with the rest of the working crew.
Just because we’d gotten a star didn’t mean we could stop working.
The restaurant was still full; in fact, my friends from the Colorado Mustangs were sitting at a large table out there right now, feasting on every appetizer we had, our finest steaks and lobster, and the risotto that melted in your mouth.
Life was good, and I wanted to keep it that way.
My cell rang, and it was my best friend, Jackson Fair. I seldom had the time to answer my phone when I was at the restaurant, but with the extra staff here tonight, I could make an exception.
“Hey, Jackson,” I said.
“My man. I heard the news. Your dad told my family about the star. Congratulations, man. I am so proud of you.”
“Thank you. I can’t believe it,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve barely come up for air since opening the restaurant, so it feels really good to know it’s doing this well.”
“Doing well,” he scoffs. “You’re knocking it out of the fucking park. Juju said no one has ever gotten a star so soon after opening!”
At the sound of Juju’s name, I felt a flood of heat and then a chill, like actual ice in my veins.
The regret with the way I’d left things with Juju the last time I saw her.
The things that came out of my mouth. And hers.
But still…the things I’d said had been lies.
All of them. I’d wanted to kiss her for as long as I could remember.
I couldn’t believe that the stars might finally be aligning, like my mom had said. Maybe this was our time.
What a crock of bullshit. She didn’t want me.
She never had. But that didn’t stop my heart from catapulting out of my chest whenever I heard her say something nice about me.
It had been a long time since she’d said something nice to me, and an even longer time since I’d said anything nice about her.
“Camden? You there?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“What are you doing to celebrate?”
“Uh, not much. I’ve done a lot of interviews today. We’re going to watch the first of them tonight. I think it’s playing now actually, but I don’t really want to––”
“Are you serious? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll let you go. Text me where we can see it too, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. I will.”
“So proud. I love you, man.”
“I love you too, Jackson. Hey, thanks for calling. It means a lot.”
“Of course. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Never.”
We hung up, and I stared at my phone.
I swallowed hard and sat down in the closest chair, slumping down until my ass barely fit on the seat, I was so stretched out.
This should’ve been the happiest night of my life.
I’d worked an insane amount of hours and was unhealthy most of the time with the way I ate and drank and barely slept.
I hadn’t gone the cocaine route like a lot of the friends I’d made in the food industry, but it didn’t mean I was that much healthier than them.
I was proud of what I’d accomplished, but what did it even mean if I had no one special to share it with? Someone beyond the people whose paychecks I paid…
It was depressing to be so alone.
I knew I always had my family, and I felt so grateful for them, but I wanted what my parents had had. Maybe I’d set them on too high a pedestal and had held out for the unattainable, but if I couldn’t have what was real and lasting, I supposed it was better to be alone. Even if it sucked sometimes.
It was a hard awakening to know that after traveling the world over, meeting hundreds of people, doing what I loved by cooking for a different crowd every night, I still only wanted to see one girl with long blonde hair.
I wanted to cook for her and see if she’d tell me what was missing.
I wanted her to fill the hollow part of me that had formed when our friendship broke.
Josue walked by and paused when he saw me. “Why are you sitting in here all alone? And where is your drink?” my sous chef asked.
He motioned for me to get up and follow him, and I joined the rest of the group where they were huddled around a TV.
“You missed the interview!” someone said.
I was handed a drink, and I took it down in one gulp and was handed another.
After four or five drinks, I stumbled to my office and shut the door.
I looked at my phone for a long time before I finally dialed Juju’s number.
I had a new cell phone, new number, and all that, but I hoped Juju’s number was still the same.
The phone rang twice, and when she picked up, my heart thundered so loud, I thought surely she’d hear it.
“Hello?” she said.
I swallowed, and in that pause, she said hello again. She sounded the same, yet different. I wondered if she looked different. I hadn’t seen her in over a year, and the last time I’d seen her, we’d avoided each other.
“Hello?” she said one more time and then hung up.
I sat there for a long time, kicking myself for not saying hello back.
I did that for three nights in a row. Drank, called Juju, didn’t say a word.
On the third night, she said, “Who is this?” And her voice broke. I wondered if she knew it was me. If I mattered enough to make her voice break like that or if I’d only imagined the sound.
On the fourth night, I didn’t pick up a drink or the phone, but it didn’t stop me from wishing I could hear her voice.
Whether she was mad at me or hated me or never wanted to see me again, I just wanted her back in my life. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
When my dad got sick a year later, I was forced to deal with what that might look like, and I quickly realized it wasn’t all I’d hoped it would be.