Henry Lee helped Bill carry up the last of the meat trays. The baked potatoes were done. The rib was out of the oven. Here at Suburban they cut the rib down as opposed to standing. Bill would learn that no high-flying restaurant would ever do that. But Suburban had really great meat suppliers and especially wonderful prime rib, no matter which direction they cut it in. So as he was taught here, he set it on the long cutting board attached to the steam table and covered it with a damp kitchen towel straight from the clean linens. Every other cut, here, got the bone.
At five-thirty, before she went down to change to her civvies, Mary came on the line. Her dress was mostly open already. The air coming in against her skin felt delicious. She didn’t care that Bill could see her bra, even her slip. He’d seen all of her anyway. She checked everything, made sure there was enough of everything. Seeing that the line setup was complete, she took Bill to the back, like every night, and showed him the reserves. This night, because the Bordelaise sauce was freshly made, Bill would have to put it into storage containers. He would do that later.
While Mary and Bea were downstairs changing, Grandma and Jimmy came in. Marie was already up on the pantry station. She started at four and left at eleven unless it was still really busy.
Today, she spent her first half hour downstairs with Henry Lee. They locked themselves in the female staff bathroom and did what they did. Bill finished cutting the meat while they played, and he thought nothing of it since Henry Lee had covered for him plenty. Neither one of them could say anything about the other. People in glass houses…
Mid-week there was no Lillian. Jimmy and Bill had learned to do the dance, or play the ballgame, however one chose to image it. Each night, in effect, was a new ballgame and if they made no errors they would win the game.
Mary, Bea and Henry Lee came up at six. Mary surveyed the kitchen and asked Bill if he and Jimmy were okay. They said sure. Since there were orders working, Bill could not move away from the broiler. Henry Lee skimmed the orders up on the board then told Bill he’d left a tray of each type of steak cut downstairs in case they got really busy.
Another night, another dinner to put up. Despite them all being the same, they were all different. The orders came in, the rush came and went, the late eaters came in. Bill and Jimmy fed the dishwashers. They went downstairs to eat and for the time they were gone, the exhaust fan droning was the major noise in the kitchen.
Since it had not been extraordinarily busy and since the dinner orders began trickling in after ten, Jimmy left at ten-thirty. That’s when the waitresses started taking their dinners. Bill cooked them hamburgers or chopped steaks (really just bigger hamburgers with no buns) or fried fish. Norma came in for her filet mignon, which Bill cooked on the rare side, how she liked it. Later on, Bill would know waitresses who would get something special from a cook and then run out to show everyone else what they got, but Norma was cool. She sat in the hall on a milk case and ate there, where Bill could see her and signal her if Tommy were coming. She sat with her legs close together so she could balance her plate. Bill could not look up her legs though he tried. Tommy did not come in and she ate in peace, the steak, a baked potato and vegetables.
At eleven, Marie left. Bill was alone in the kitchen now since Grandma had gone out with Jimmy. He shut down half the charcoal grill. He got himself the scrubbing brush and a pail of grease-cutter soap mixed in water. He started on the Garland end of the line and scrubbed everything up to the steam table. Then he started breaking down the steam table.
The clean-up was a practiced routine. The final dance of the night, a slow dance it was, an intimate one, one to set everything in perfect order—the way it was supposed to be—to start the next day right.
Upcoming:
The Ghost Writer, Rose’s Story: A Look At The Worlds We Hide
