Chapter 10
Ten
MARISSA
E verything is going wrong tonight. At first it seemed like just a bad day, but now it feels like I'm being punished for something. I shove my order pad and pen into the pocket of my apron and head back into the kitchen, where I can hear my father yelling at someone. And if I can hear him, so can all of our customers. It’s not the best look.
“What’s going on?” I ask Shelly, another waitress, who’s been with us forever.
Shelly is standing with her hands on her hips, as she watches the chaos that ensues in the Little Italy kitchen right now. My father is standing at the back door, face bright red, screaming at someone out of my line of sight.
Shaking her head, Shelly says, “Your dad got the wrong produce order. He’s a little upset about it.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I say.
We watch as my father freaks out more. I’m worried that he’s going to have a stroke or something. Looking around for my mom, I don’t see her. It worries me that no one seems to be stepping in to calm my father down. I know that I’m not responsible for him, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to get him to stop. I have a whole host of concerns floating around in my head… I don’t want my dad to pass out; I don’t want people to hear him and bring the good name of the restaurant down; I don’t want to deal with this sort of stress for the rest of my life…
Deciding that I’m going to have to intercede, I take a deep breath and move toward my dad. “Hey, Pop,” I say. “What’s going on?”
My father looks at me as if he can’t see me. Then he blinks, and gestures toward an open delivery truck pulled up to the loading bay. The delivery driver is standing inside the truck, looking uncertainly at us. I don’t blame him. If my father was screaming at me, I would probably cry. He’s pretty scary when he’s mad.
“This idiot is trying to deliver me an entire order of jicama,” my father says. From the look he gives the delivery man, I worry about what he’ll do next. I step in between the two of them.
“I’m guessing we didn’t order jicama?” I ask, putting a hand on my father’s forearm.
He frowns. “No, we most certainly did not ,” he says. “We are supposed to have a larger order of eggplant for our special tonight: Eggplant parmesan .”
“Okay,” I say. “But why are you screaming at him? It’s not his fault that the order is wrong. Do we know who put the order in?”
“No, but I bet this has something to do with Venetian Dreams ,” my father says. He frowns again, but this time his expression turns thoughtful. “Mamma mia, you’re right; I should have checked that out.” He turns to the delivery driver. “I’m sorry. That was wrong and unkind of me.”
I leave him there to deal with the consequences of his over-reaction. As I pass Shelly, she nods at me in approval. Normally, that would make me feel good, but today it just makes me feel exhausted, even defeated. This kind of thing just cements the fact for me that I don’t want to work here anymore. I want to explore something else that will make me happy, that will be just mine.
My father raises his voice again. I glance over my shoulder at him, but I don’t stop walking. That’s when my foot hits a slippery patch. Before I can catch myself, I’m sliding and falling. I land with a thud on my back side. Pain shoots up my back. My teeth rattle. Shelly lets out a yelp as she sees me go down. My father stops shouting, and comes running into the kitchen.
The problem is that he comes in too fast, and he too slides and falls on the ground. He nearly collides with me, but manages to stop himself before he does. “Are you okay?” he asks me.
I nod, as I struggle to my feet. Looking down at the floor, I expect to see a patch of water or some other liquid substance, but instead all I see is an extra shiny floor. My father stands, too. He stares down at the floor, nearly apoplectic with rage.
“Who waxed the kitchen floor?” he roars.
No one answers. I don’t know if it’s simply because no one knows, or because they’re scared of my father. Finally a dishwasher named Leo says, “There was some guy in here earlier doing it. I don’t know him, but he was wearing a uniform and a hat?”
My father’s face reddens again. He has every right to be angry, if this isn’t something that someone else had planned to do or have done. We do hire cleaning people pretty much every week. This isn’t that odd, but I understand that, in context right now, it feels like a much bigger deal. I am ready to put my hand on his arm again to calm him down, when there is a sudden yelp from the other side of the kitchen. We all turn to see flour flying everywhere, billowing out of the stand mixer.
I suck in a quick breath. This is not ideal. Just then Chiara comes running into the kitchen. I knew that her shift started a little bit ago, but I haven’t seen her yet. I’ve been too busy dealing with Dad and the chaos of the kitchen. She looks panicked, and all I can think is that this is whatever she has to say is not going to be good right now.
“Someone screwed up the books,” she says.
“What do you mean???” my father roars.
“We have too many reservations. There’s no way we can turn over tables fast enough,” Chiara says. “I kind of wish that I’d stayed at the hospital, picked up some over time,” she mumbles so Dad can’t hear, but I certainly do.
I shoot her a dirty look. Why does she always have to rub it in, that she has a life and career outside of Little Italy ? Part of me wants to punch her, but of course, I won’t. I’m not really angry with Chiara. Mostly I’m just frustrated with my life circumstances.
“How can we have too many reservations?” I ask. “Jodie or I take them all down, and when I looked earlier, everything seemed fine. What am I missing?”
Chiara shrugs. “I don’t know, but the book now has reservations every fifteen minutes. And there are some pretty ticked off people out front.”
Before I can say anything to Chiara, our father pushes past us, heading for the front of the house. I wish my mother would pop up with some kind of explanation that would smooth everything over. I can’t remember what she’s supposed to be doing today and why she isn’t here. There is just too much going on at the moment.
“This has to be the doing of those creeps over at Venetian Dreams ,” my father bellows to no one in particular.
He has to stop doing this. Customers definitely heard what he just said, even with all the noise in here. He’s making statements that I think could be considered libel. On top of that, his behavior is just straight up embarrassing. I can’t tell my family why I don’t want them accusing Luca’s family, but I know that I need to get him to stop, nonetheless.
“Pop,” I say, coming up to him. “Let’s go back to the office. We can figure it out there. Where’s Mom?”
My dad doesn’t even give me a passing glance. He’s so focused on getting to the hostess stand so he can look at the reservation book, that he’s ignoring everyone around him. The door to the restaurant opens, and Luca walks in. I’m surprised, but ecstatic to see him here. And yet, I know all too well that this is not the time for my father to catch sight of him, so I veer away and intercept Luca before he can get too far into the restaurant.
“Marissa, hi,” he says, obviously delighted to see me. I grab his elbow and all but drag him out of the restaurant before saying a word. When we get into the bright sunlight outside he is perplexed and asks, “What’s up?”
I know that I must look like a wreck, but I’m so happy to see Luca that I don’t care. Heaving a huge sigh, I reply, “Nothing good. Everything is going crazy inside. Just one of those days, I guess.”
Luca looks concerned, and tucks his hands into his pockets. He definitely doesn’t know what’s going on. He isn’t part of all this craziness. If he knew anything about his family being involved, if they even were involved, I would be able to see it on his face. I don’t see anything there except true sympathy. He works in a restaurant, too, after all, and I’m sure he knows what it feels like when nothing goes right in a day.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks.
“No, not now; but thanks,” I say. “This is a good breather. I needed the break, but I think that I’ll be able to finish my shift after this, after seeing you.”
“When do you get off?” Luca asks. “I was hoping you’d let me take you out tonight, on an actual date…?”
“Three,” I say. “And yes, please! That will give me something to look forward to.”
“I'll be here at three sharp,” Luca promises, smiling from ear to ear.
I bite my lip. “Pick me up at the library,” I say. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for my family to see us together… not yet, anyway.”
Luca nods in understanding. “Library at three,” he repeats. Then he leans in close to my ear and whispers, “I can’t wait, Marissa.”
My heart flutters and butterflies are doing somersaults around my stomach. “Me either Luca,” I manage to say.
I watch, as he walks back to his car and drives away. I wait to go back into the restaurant, until he disappears from sight. Just seeing him for those few minutes, and knowing I get to see him in a few hours, suddenly revitalizes my spirit. I take another deep breath and head in to face the rest of my shift.