Marie’s husband dropped her off at four. Marie was wearing sunglasses and her cheek was swollen. She didn’t get with Henry Lee but went straight from changing clothes to work on her station.
Alfreda drove Bill back east. All her prep was done. Robert said he would put the baked potatoes on for her and make sure the prime rib was okay. He said he would stir the Bordelaise sauce and pour it into the bain marie for the steam table. Meanwhile, he and Mr. Bowman locked Drenovis out of the office for nearly an hour. Only two things could possibly be going on. The second was money dealings with the numbers game. But truth was that both things went on and both things were why Drenovis had no hold on Robert or anyone Robert protected.
Locked out of the office, Drenovis started in on Bill, told him sooner or later he’d mess him up, told him he heard about him and Lexi and that he’d better enjoy it while he could because Lexi was a goner. Bill was tired. He didn’t bother with Drenovis. He broke down the steam table, cleaned and scrubbed the line, brushed the grills, greased them and emptied the grease drawer. Then he had a few moments free. He went out the back door and sat on the bench there to smoke a cigarette. He was thinking how Lexi had curled his toes and Drenovis would never get that. Lexi was freaky-deaky and she loved every minute of being it.
It was cold outside so he didn’t stay out long. He stopped by Alfreda in the back part of the kitchen. This kitchen was set up differently from on the east side, but the same things were cooked and served the same way every day. So Bill knew the cooking and what Alfreda was doing. He knew why sometimes she liked to go out east and talk with Mary. If there were any menu changes, they had to be coordinated. Sometimes they just talked about how they were going to do things. Then also she got to see her husband, and sometimes to see Marie, the girl she knew her husband was fooling around with.
In this kitchen which was situated directly behind the line there was a table for the staff to eat at. The dishwashers were sitting around drinking sodas. Alfreda was cutting onions on one of her cutting boards. Drenovis was not around. Robert and Mr. Bowman were still locked in the office. Lucy had come in to see what she could get to eat but not seeing anything she liked she didn’t hang around.
“You want something?” Alfreda asked.
“Nah. Just looking for a snack.”
“Ain’t nothing but the usual.”
“What did you do to Drenovis?” Lucy asked Bill.
“Be friends with Robert.”
Lucy smiled at Bill, shifted on her feet. “And then some,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“You know what it means.” Lucy looked at Bill coyly, wiggled her behind a touch as if to give indication of what she was saying. “Say hi to Mary and Bea,” she said as she walked out.
“Bet you’d hit that if you could,” Alfreda said.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“When you gonna do me?”
“I need to go back on the line,” said Bill.
“You need to give me a kiss.” Alfreda turned and kissed Bill but she didn’t touch him because she had onion-smelling hands. “Next time it’s tongue,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t go. I’ll leave you alone.”
“What?”
“How often that man of mine hitting it with Marie?”
“Like I said, I need to get back on the line.”
“Think I don’t know? Think I won’t get even? Cause I will. If it’s you, it’s you. If it’s someone else, then it’s someone else. Any way you slice it, it’s happening. You just make it easy and clean and you keep it in the family.”
“Like I said, I hear the line calling me.”
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