10
Steep: The process of allowing dried ingredients to soak in a liquid until the liquid has taken on the flavor of the ingredient.
2015
Gale finally told his mother about the new position at Marco’s, sitting in her car in front of his building.
It would have been better if his dad was there, but Lucy’s enthusiasm almost made up for it.
“That’s huge, isn’t it?”
she asked.
“Sous chef? And you’re so young!”
“I’m thirty.”
“But you only graduated a few years ago.”
“Six, Mom.”
“Can you just let me be happy for my successful son?”
“Brian’s in Boston.”
She smacked his arm.
“Ow!”
“Next time it’ll be right across your face.”
And then she took both cheeks in her hands, smooshed them together so he looked like a fish.
“I’m so proud of you, buddy.
So happy.”
Don’t . . .
“Really? Are you?”
Her hands fell to her lap.
“Son . . .”
“No, really.”
He tried to maintain eye contact.
“It’s okay.
That whole .
. . those years . . . they were bad.”
“I don’t blame you, Gale. Sean—”
“Don’t blame him.”
She can blame me.
It was my fault.
“You never even drank in high school, like Kyle and the other boys.
Sean is the one who introduced you to .
.
. all that.”
It’s true.
“It’s not true.”
To Lucy.
To Sean.
“I made my choices, and I’m sorry.
So, so sorry.”
Again.
To Lucy.
To Sean.
“It just . . . it makes me really happy to hear you say you’re proud of me.”
“Sweetheart.”
Those hands on his cheeks again.
Softer.
Gentler.
“I’ve never not been proud of you. You were always a good boy. A good son. Those bad years don’t erase all the good ones.”
“But they overshadow them.”
“Only while we were in them.”
She let him go.
“But that’s all in the past.
You’re on to bigger and better things.”
I’m not.
Tears stung.
Low blow, man. Sorry.
Gale didn’t have it in him to stop their roll, but he did smile through them.
“Bigger and better.”
His mother pretended not to notice.
“Thanks for today.
I really enjoyed helping out and meeting Regina.
Why does she look so familiar to me?”
“I dunno.
She did to me, too, at first.
But I’d never met her before.”
Gale surreptitiously wiped his eyes.
“Actually, I should get going.
This’ll be my last Sunday dinner service with her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have left you there.”
“I didn’t want you driving through that area by yourself.
Anyway, this gives me time to relax a little.
Check my email.
I don’t usually go in until around now, and I’ve already set her up for lunch.”
“It’s really amazing, what she does.
And so clean.
I wish my kitchen was that clean.”
“She’s obsessive about it.”
Gale chuckled.
“I like being part of it.
And she’s really talented.
I’ve learned a lot.”
“From a soup kitchen cook?”
Lucy waved him off.
“Go.
Get some rest.
And don’t work too hard!”
Gale waved to her from the curb, waiting until her car turned the corner before heading inside.
The other guys would probably be up by now, but maybe only just.
It’d be nice to get a shot at the computer before Kyle got on his games.
Up in the apartment, all was quiet but for the sound of the shower running.
A quick peek showed Jimmy and Nando still asleep in the malodorous—garlic and onions, cigarette smoke and sweat—dark of their shared bedroom.
He didn’t hear them come in last night; it had to have been superlate.
Maybe not even until dawn, which would be typical. The two of them spent more time at work after work than they did on shift, drinking and clowning around with their co-workers. Gale grabbed the computer while he had the chance.
So.
Much.
Spam.
What good was a filter if it all got through? When had he ever bought anything from Pampered Chef? As if he could afford it. World Market. William Sonoma. Some political shit he vaguely remembered clicking on for the free sticker offered. Click, click, click. And gone.
Gale read the funny forward from his brother, who emailed him often but never anything personal.
Brian’s version of keeping in touch.
Regularly.
At a distance. Gale couldn’t blame him, after all he put the family through. Lucy Carmichael forgave. Danny Carmichael did, too, but with a sharper edge. Brian? He probably never would. It was pawning Lucy’s gold chain—the one that had been her nona’s—that sunk Gale deeper than Brian was willing to go. His brother had bought it back, put it in their mother’s jewelry box before she could go from wondering where it was to fearing it was stolen, and never said another word about it. But his brother remembered. Would always remember.
Brian’s a dick, anyway.
“No, he’s not.
He’s the good one.”
You gotta stop that, man.
“Shut up, Sean.”
More and more often, Sean’s voice in Gale’s head gave in.
It took cheap shots now and then, encouraged and admonished, but when asked to kindly shut the fuck up, he did.
“Sorry.”
Only you can prevent forest fires, man. Only you.
“What the hell does that even mean?”
Read your email so we can check out Insta.
See if VagabondVictuals dropped any new pics this morning.
Gale clicked through what remained of his email.
More spam.
Newsletter from his old culinary school.
Another forward from his brother. And . . .
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
Kyle stood in the doorway, towel wrapped around his waist.
“Good holy shit? Or bad holy shit?”
“I don’t know.”
Gale opened the email.
Read it.
And again.
“They want me to send a video. An audition video.”
Kyle came around to his side of the computer.
“Who does?”
“Cut! The application you sent .
.
.
to the . . . holy shit. Holy shit!”
Gale pushed out of his chair, holy-shitting himself around the kitchen.
“What do I do?”
Sitting behind the computer now, Kyle was all smiles.
“We make a video.
You have to do that vermouth chicken.
It got you a job as sous, it’ll get you onto the show. Dude. Dude!”
Gale’s stomach roiled.
Good, bad? He couldn’t say.
The email was old; he only had a week to respond.
Kyle was already on the site, figuring out how to upload the video once it was done, saying things like, “You have to,”
and “You could go out first.
Or you could win ten Gs!”
Not helping, Kyle.
Sean’s snicker echoed inside Gale’s skull and, for a moment, the always-haggard phantom blinked brighter.
Was he always this .
. . enthusiastic?
Nothing ever got Kyle down.
Not for long.
The eternal Weeble.
Gale wished he could be more like him in that way.
“I have to go,” he said.
“What? Where? Not now.
We have to do this!”
“Regina is expecting me.
Gotta jet.
We’ll do this .
. . later.”
“I’m not letting you back out of it!”
Kyle called after him.
Gale slammed the door, trotted down the stairs, and blew out the front door.
He had to tell Regina.
If it was a stupid idea, she’d tell him straight. If it was a great opportunity . . . ?
She wouldn’t.
It was a stupid idea.
One only an egomaniac would even think he had a shot at.
So, you’re really going to back out of it.
“I’ll bomb, Sean.”
Gale was already panting.
“I’ll embarrass myself, my parents, Marco, Regina.
Frances will torture me.”
Who the fuck cares, man? And, you know, you might win.
“I won’t.”
You don’t know that.
“I do.”
Okay, then, let’s make a deal.
If Regina’s for it, you do it.
If she’s not, you don’t.
“She’ll tell me to stop being an ass and hand me a pot to wash.”
Then you’re off the hook. Deal?
“Fine. Deal.”
If I had hands, I’d make you seal it with a handshake.
But I don’t, so I’ll have to take you at your word.
I have it, right?
Pant.
Pant.
Pant.
Gale was mostly running now, but not fast enough to evade Sean’s echo, chasing in his periphery. He’d get to Regina’s Kitchen sweaty and disgusting. Slowing, he put a hand over his heart. Felt it pumping anxiety-fast. “Fine,”
he said.
“You have my word.
Now will you shut the fuck up?”
The kid was late getting back, if he was coming at all.
He told her about the new position, but not when it started.
Still, he’d set her up for lunch.
All Regina had to do was serve. She hated serving, being out among the people too long. It gave them all time to look harder, place her face. It was why she never, ever smiled. If she did . . .
Setting sandwiches onto plates, plates onto a tray, Regina listened to those already in the dining room, gauging how many were out there by sound.
Twentyish, she guessed.
She filled bowls with vegetable soup.
“Hey, sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Gale was already putting an apron on.
“Take the sandwiches out,”
she said.
“Get a head count for me.”
Gale did as asked, without complaint.
It’s what she liked best about him.
Nice kid.
Without that ants-under-the-skin demeanor, she’d never have pegged him as an addict. Then again, the only kind she knew were those poor souls who came to her kitchen, and those wealthy enough to pretend regular spa visits rather than stints in rehab. Regular kids from good families? Unicorns, to her. Stories told and only loosely based in fact. People didn’t fall into addiction accidentally. It was always a symptom of something else. What was Gale’s something else?
They worked steadily until everyone was fed.
Most of Regina’s intermittent volunteers—and Troy, wherever the hell he was.
Dammit—served food easily enough, but only Gale could be of significant help with the prep.
The kid had skills. And instincts. She was able to do slightly more elaborate dinners when Gale was on hand. Tonight, lasagna, sauce made from scratch.
“Give that a turn, will you?”
She jutted her chin sauce-pot-ward, her own hands deep in the ricotta and egg filling.
Gale nodded, stirring the sauce and turning down the heat.
“It’s simmering a little too heavy,”
he said.
“Smells amazing.
Better than at Marco’s.”
Regina grunted.
“Marco never could make it as good as mine.”
“You know Marco?”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck! She folded more eggs into the ricotta. “Long time ago,”
she said.
“Don’t mention me to him. Got it?”
“Sure. Okay.”
That was all.
No question.
No prying.
“You’re a little distracted today,”
she said.
“You have words with your mother or something?”
“Mom? No.
Did you like her?”
“What’s not to like?”
Regina scraped lasagna filling from her fingers.
“Turn the burner off and set the lid on.”
She washed her hands clean.
There was still coffee left in the urn.
She filled two mugs and brought them to the prep table, gesturing to one of the stools.
“You nervous about your promotion?”
Gale sat, hands instantly curling around the mug.
“Not really.”
“Then what gives?”
His face scrunched, like he smelled something burning.
“Do you watch any of those cooking competition shows?”
I invented them.
“No.
Can’t say I do.”
“I applied to be on Cut! Three rounds.
Appetizer, dinner, dessert.
No? Anyway, I didn’t exactly apply.
I filled it out, but Kyle sent my application in. Now they want an audition video.”
“And?”
“And .
.
.
I kind of don’t want to do it.”
“But you kind of do.”
“Yeah.”
“Nerves,”
she told him.
“Don’t let that get in your way.
You applied for a reason, right?”
“Kyle—”
“No.
You filled out the application for a reason.”
“Temporary insanity?”
Regina smacked his hand.
“Don’t joke.
So, what are you afraid of?”
“Bombing out.
Making an ass of myself.
Embarrassing you and Marco and my family.”
Poor kid.
He had talent.
Definite talent.
The innate kind no one can teach or learn. He just had no confidence. The world of culinary celebrity would likely beat the shit out of him. Then again, the culinary world that had nothing to do with celebrity could do that, too. It was hard, unforgiving work one had to truly love to keep at.
“Do you think I should do it?”
Regina shook it off. “Huh?”
“The competition,”
Gale said.
“Should I do it?”
“I can’t answer that for you.”
Gale spun his mug one way, then the other.
Wait.
Wait.
He’ll come to it on his own. But she couldn’t. “How about this? I’ll make up a few mystery ingredient crates for you. See how you do.”
“Yeah? Really?”
“Sure, why not.
It could be fun.”
His smile momentarily cleared that ants-under-the-skin look from his face.
It was almost enough to make her smile in return.
Regina looked away before he could see even the hint of it.
“Clear these cups. I’ll start layering the lasagna.”
“Sure thing.”
Gale took their mostly untouched mugs to the sink.
Rinsed, washed, dried.
Putting them back in the wire rack, he said, “I thought you didn’t watch the show.”
“Huh? I don’t.”
“Then how do you know about the mystery crates?”
Regina lifted parcooked lasagna noodles from the water, layered them into the bottom of a massive hotel pan.
She could find no cranky response, and so she made none at all.