Chapter 1 Tarragon
Tarragon
Jack
One Year Later
Five hours until service, and the kitchen is quiet.
I take a swig of tap water from a quart-size prep container, the chef’s version of a water bottle. Eye the clock. I’m elbow-deep
in herbs, my fingertips stained green. Tarragon—tricky to work with, because of its tendency to overpower any flavors you
pair it with—fills my nose.
If I close my eyes, I can feel my pulse in my skull.
I love the rush of service. The crushing pressure that cuts through the chaos and forces me to focus. The rhythm, the beauty,
the moment a dish comes together. Some people do drugs or street race or jump out of fucking airplanes to reach that level
of serenity. I cook. It’s been that way since I was fifteen, watching the line cooks at the Sailfish crush service like an
army drill.
Today, I need all the quiet I can get before the show gets underway. I went out last night with Jorge and Hazel and Martinez.
We met up with other kitchen crews, drank our way through a few bars. Hazel tried to convince me to add another tattoo to
the tapestry on my skin. Martinez flirted his way into an Uber with a woman from a bachelorette party. Jorge finally dropped
me off at my apartment; told me to set at least five alarms to make sure I’d haul ass uptown on time.
I made it—not a given lately—with a monster hangover that hasn’t been eased by aspirin or the beer I chugged in the alleyway an hour ago, all while eyeing Jorge’s cigarette enviously. He ground it out underneath his sneaker before going back inside, patting my back with a pinched expression.
Despite the haze of nausea that feels at least forty percent tarragon-induced, in the gleaming silver kitchen of Pastiche,
I can breathe.
Cooking is mostly about preparation. There are rules to follow. Systems in place to ensure consistency. Diners won’t be coming
into Pastiche until the evening, but we have a million things to do before the first reservations walk in. There’s meat and
fish to be butchered and portioned out, sauces to complete, components to finalize. A million garnishes to prepare, which
is what I’ve been doing while contemplating the merits of puking in the graffitied staff bathroom.
Across from me, Jimmy, our sniveling dickwad of an executive chef whose idea of getting fancy extends only as far as adding
a smear of purée to the plate, fiddles with options for the special. We have fresh snapper today, the flesh firm and gleaming;
he’s thinking of doing a take on al forno. It’s tomato season, after all. Hazel passes by with flour on her hands. She’s working
the pasta station, focused on making the homemade cavatelli we’re known for. Jimmy stops her, offering a spoon for her to
taste.
“Delicious,” she says. She glances sidelong at me. “Douglas is here.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugs. “You know, Jimmy?”
Jimmy ducks his head. I think I catch a smirk, but I have dark spots swimming at the edges of my vision, so it’s possible
I’m imagining it. Hazel purses her lips, tucking a dark curl back underneath her bandanna.
Douglas Winfield strides into the kitchen.
He looks as impeccable as he did the morning he accosted me outside the French Laundry, asking how much it would take to get me to work for him.
Full suit, knotted tie, salt-and-pepper hair parted with precision.
His pale blue eyes find me first. He looks a little like Jorge did outside, on the edge of a grimace.
“Sir,” Jimmy says, making a big show of wiping his hands on a towel before reaching out for a shake. “Thanks for coming in.”
“Always a pleasure, Scazzero.”
Douglas does a visual sweep of the kitchen, nodding at what he finds. The stainless steel is spotless. Everyone is quiet,
efficient, and focused. Then again, anyone can make the daytime prep seem fluid. Never mind that Jimmy does a shit job running
the kitchen during service, that he’ll disappear into the office after finalizing the special and argue with his ex-wife loudly
enough we can all hear, then do a few lines of coke in the bathroom. Not that I haven’t done the same—minus the ex-wife part.
But my name isn’t on the menu.
Maybe Douglas is here to tell me that Green Street is moving along faster than planned. When I agreed to come work for him,
it was with the promise of upward mobility. In a few months, Green Street will be the latest jewel in the Winfield Group’s
portfolio of restaurants—and I’ll be its chef de cuisine. Once I’m there, I won’t have to pretend that Jimmy’s food is anything
special, or fire people on his behalf, or any of the other shit I’ve been grinding through for years, same as at the dozen
other places I’ve worked since culinary school. When we first agreed to the promotion, Douglas promised me free rein over
the staff, the menu, even the wine list. Everything.
“Hartman, can we have a word?” Douglas asks.
My stomach knots. That doesn’t sound very congratulatory.
I follow Douglas into the cramped office. The fluorescent light overhead flickers ominously. He leans against the wall. Peers
at the whiteboard, which is covered in chicken scratch—mostly mine—and several unfortunately realistic dicks. Uncut. Probably
Hazel’s doing. She has an art degree. Got into cooking to pay off her student loans.
“What’s up?” I ask, after a minute or so of him staring. “Sir?”
Douglas scrapes his hand over his jaw. “Jack, I have to let you go.”
“Let me go,” I repeat. The words take on meaning slowly through the haze of my headache. “As in . . .”
“As in we’re moving on from you.”
“You’re kidding.” I wait for Douglas to laugh, say something about razzing me, but he doesn’t. He looks as serious as a doctor giving a patient very bad news.
He grimaces. “No.”
“But—”
“We’d like you to ride out another few weeks to help the new sous acclimate. And we’ll offer severance, of course.”
My head throbs as I take a quick mental tally of the three months since Sal’s death. I’ve been late more than I should, but
I’ve only missed one full shift, the day of the funeral; it was easier to get drunk than face what I was missing. I’m not
the first or last chef to drink a little on the line. I’m not okay, but I’m functional. Mostly. I’ve been remembering to take my Adderall. I know I’ve fucked up, but I’m a good cook. A great
cook. Better than Jimmy, or anyone else on this staff. I have a James Beard award underneath my belt, for fuck’s sake.
“Jimmy says—”
A red haze seems to descend on my vision. “You’re going to believe Jimmy over me? Fucking Jimmy Scazzero?”
“You’ve been a mess for months!” Douglas finally snaps. “You’re late constantly, if you show up for work at all, you smell
like the floor of a goddamn bar, you made that server quit—”
“She was as much a server as Chili’s is fine dining.”
“That doesn’t fucking matter!”
My mouth snaps shut. If I was covered in gasoline instead of sweat, Douglas’s look would set me on fire.
“Look,” he says finally, with immense patience. “I didn’t want it to come to this.”
Ice slithers down my spine. This is really happening.
“You’re talented as hell, Jack. Truly. You have a special touch. But I can’t keep you on like this. Not here, and definitely
not at Green Street.” My face must look like a fish right before its head is chopped off, because he continues, “I know you’ll
land on your feet. Maybe in the future, once you’ve had some time to get your life together, we can talk.”
I’ve left restaurants unceremoniously before.
There one day, gone the next, hopping ships like a harbor rat.
But that was before Douglas. I bought into everything he said about my potential, put my head down and worked hard and kept my mouth shut when it came to personnel like Jimmy.
I’m not stupid; I knew I was trying to replace what I lost with Sal with Douglas instead.
He couldn’t be like a father, but I didn’t deserve a father anyway.
A mentor would do. The thing is, I thought it was working.
“I know I haven’t been handling things well.” I swallow past a sudden lump in my throat. “I’ll be better, I promise. I’ll
handle my shit.”
“I’m sure you know Sal wouldn’t want this for you,” Douglas says softly.
“He died,” I say, voice raw. Dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones, and it feels like Douglas just stabbed one into
me, old and rusty, and twisted it. “We don’t know what he’d want.”
“Listen.” Douglas squeezes my shoulder. I resist the urge to flinch. “Jack, you’re a good kid. This isn’t the end. I hate
to do this, but it’s business, okay? Just business.”
“But—”
“Stay for the shift, end things on a good note. We’ll talk about severance tomorrow.” Another sad, tight smile, and he side-steps
out of the office, leaving me alone.
Somehow, I make it to service without throwing up or punching Jimmy in his smug mouth. He must have known that Douglas was
about to fire me.
I’ve been fighting the urge to leave, let him figure out this dinner rush on his own—but I don’t want to screw everyone else
over. And truthfully, there isn’t anywhere to go. I don’t spend much time at my apartment. It’s just a box that holds secondhand
furniture and my collection of cookbooks. I don’t have friends so much as coworkers; Hazel is the closest I’ve been with anyone
lately, and still, it’s not much deeper than a friendly work connection. The last conversation I had with someone outside
of work? It was with Gilbert, the old guy who runs the pretzel cart I like best in the city. A girlfriend? I haven’t had a
girlfriend since the disaster that was Jessica Danes, and that was three years ago now, when I worked on her father’s yacht
as their private chef.
I rub my aching breastbone. When things get difficult and I’ve overstayed my welcome, people cut me loose.
It went that way for years, bouncing between foster homes in the county, having case workers and teachers take an interest in helping, only to abandon me after one incident too many.
It was that way with Jessica, whom I should have known was too good to be true.
And now it’s that way with Douglas, willing to shut the door in my face despite all my talent and grit.
I did this to myself—I always do—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. The only person who ever wanted me to stay was Sal,
and I messed that up too.
I should have known that Green Street was too good to be true.
So, I stay. Service begins. I settle in at my usual station, poissonnier, turning over seafood dishes with speed. The hum
of the kitchen fades away, reduced to the shouts of the expediter keeping us on track, the sizzle of fish in the pans in front
of me, the tick of my multiple timers as I take on tables—two, three, even four at a time. People are loving Jimmy’s special,
which I’m cooking; he’s by the pass, fiddling with garnishes. We’ll run out of snapper soon. I dab the sweat away from my
hairline. Take a deep gulp of water, studiously ignoring the part of me that wishes it was a beer instead.
All the while, anger simmers in my bones like stock on the back of a stove. I roll my shoulders, grit my teeth. I finish a
lobster Thermidor, one of the first classic dishes I ever learned to make, and pass it down the line. It’s a staple at Pastiche,
something I could make in my sleep. Normally I smile whenever someone orders it. Not tonight.
Across the kitchen, Hazel is a blur of activity. Jorge hums to himself as he sears off steaks. Jimmy passes two dishes to
a server, a pretty woman whose name I don’t know, with a wink. Hazel somehow catches the action and mimes vomiting into the
vat of boiling water she’s overseeing. I try to laugh but can’t manage more than a pathetic wheeze.
“Um, Chef?” Another server pokes his head out from the pass. “We’ve got overcooked lobster. Table Nineteen.”
Jimmy takes the plate, poking at it with his fingers.
“It’s not over,” I say. “I checked.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
He nods—and then throws the dish, plate and all, into the trash.
The kitchen goes quiet.
“Re-fire Nineteen,” he says after a long, awful pause. There’s a smirk on his face.
I manage to keep my hands from shaking as I take out a fresh pan. Select another portion of lobster. I remember something
about the pre-service meeting, suddenly. Bret Whittaker, a reviewer for The New York Times, was likely to come in. He knows what I cook here, and he’s never reviewed me well.
My ears hum with energy. An angry buzz that means I’m about to do something really fucking stupid. When I was a teenager,
it was usually a fight. Now . . .
I don’t give a shit. I don’t work here anymore.
I shove past Jimmy into the dining room with fire in my veins.