A few moments after Lorraine went back out to the dining room Bill started into the cleanup. He was running very late and knew it would easily be almost one o’clock in the morning before he was ready to leave, if not later. Even if there were no more orders, he still had a good hour’s work ahead of him.
Marie was already well into her routine. Bill had watched her for a bit, had seen her change the containers for all the salad dressings, wipe everything clean and make everything in her reach-ins ready for Bea for the morning. Tomorrow was Friday. Today had been crazy-busy. Tomorrow would be a lot busier. No matter how she looked at it, she was working later than usual.
“We’re gonna need rice pudding and chocolate pudding tomorrow,” she told Bill.
Bill was scrubbing down the steam table. She came over by him before he could answer, took up the beer he had left on the shelf and took a drink. She leaned her butt against the counter just past the steam table and crossed her feet at the ankles. She held the beer bottle in both hands and stroked it kind of suggestively, but kind of innocently, Bill thought, thinking she really wasn’t paying any attention to what her hands were doing. He had seen her make suggestive motions with her hands before, and this clearly did not seem as if it were one of those moments.
“How about giving me a beer?” Marie asked. It was more of a suggestion than a question.
“Sure,” said Bill. “Soon as a waitress comes in.”
They were facing different ways. Cleaning the steam table, he was facing the front automatic kitchen doors. Leaning against the counter, she was facing the charcoal grill.
“That heat feels good,” said Marie.
“Nothing I love more than that feeling,” said Bill. “That’s what I was telling Lorraine. I just love it when it passes through me. Ain’t nothing better.”
Marie sipped at Bill’s beer again. She stood there quietly, still did not put the bottle down. Bill, for his part, was scrubbing the steam table and wiping it with a dish towel. He worked more quickly and more sloppily the further he was from her, but as he moved closer to her he slowed his pace and was more careful not to splash any soap water. When he was really close to her, he dried his hands, warmed one over the charcoal grill then slipped it up her dress.
“See how nice that heat feels?”
“Feel better inside me,” said Marie.
“Now that we’ve started this shit, it’s not out of the ballpark. But I have a lot of work to do and not much you can do to help me unless you want to start changing the grease.”
“No thanks,” said Marie. She went back to her station.
“Don’t think there’s gonna be any more customers,” Lexi said a few minutes later when she came into the kitchen. She took a moment and looked around. Things were pretty quiet. She could see Marie futzing around on her station. She could see the dishwashers finishing up the dishes they still had there. From her perspective, all was right with the kitchen world.
Bill knew that the van driver who would be taking the dishwashers back downtown was due at any moment. He was glad they’d be gone when he actually started the grease. He was glad he didn’t have to watch over Jim, who was prone to going near the knife sheath, who always wanted a beer. He was glad he didn’t have to watch over Mickey. Mickey always managed to get himself drunk by emptying bar glasses into one glass and then drinking the contents of that glass. With them gone and with no late orders he would have a clear path to doing the grease quickly and efficiently.
