When she came in, Arlene looked at Bill somewhat shyly. She was not the first girl in. Norma was in first and then Lexi and then Victoria. This meant Arlene was the last girl in and so Bill knew she would be the girl who worked straight through.
She came into the kitchen in her civvies with her coat already open. She wasn’t flashing anything and was careful not to. She drew herself a cup of coffee and went out into the side dining room after saying a quick hello to each of the kitchen staff.
A moment after she’d gone into the side dining room Bill followed out behind her. He found her sitting in a booth all by herself.
Before he sat down he scoped out the whole dining room to see that it was set up. From what he could see, Arlene did not have any work to do except maybe check that everything in both dining rooms was ready to go. He could see Norma filling salt and pepper shakers. She was standing at one of the bus stations, had all the condiments on one tray.
“I only have a moment,” he said. “Everything okay? Speak to your mother?”
Arlene sipped her coffee. “Everything’s okay,” she said. “My mother’s okay for the day. She has some help coming in and she told me she wasn’t in much pain. Her not being in pain is a consolation. I hate it when she’s hurting.”
“I spoke to Tommy. He’s gonna to see what he can do. He said it’s tight here, but he had some other ideas and some friends he said he could check with if he can’t find shifts with us.”
“Thanks,” Arlene said.
“I’m glad I could do something. I’m glad you chose to speak to me.”
“Maybe we can speak again.”
“Any time.”
“Good.”
“You don’t owe me anything, you know.”
“I didn’t think I did.”
“Good.”
Arlene smiled at Bill and reached out her hand to him. He let her take his hand in hers and stroke it as she did.
“You know I want to get with you,” she said.
“That’s one of the things we can talk about,” said Bill. Then, “I gotta go back to work,” he said.
“See you through the meal,” Arlene said.
Back in the kitchen Bill set up the steam table. Everything from the back was ready and waiting for him to put in place, so he quickly filled the bain marie with water and set the holders and inserts in place. Then one by one he carted the items Mary laid out onto the line.
That done, Bill went downstairs to start carrying up the supplies. The first few trips were the frozen items. Only when he was satisfied they were all plentiful, did he go into the meat room.
Henry Lee was busy making the hamburgers and bleus. He’d already ground all the meat needed and cleaned up the grinder, its parts and the blade. Bill took a sip of bourbon and then fell into place next to Henry Lee. Together, they weighed and formed the hamburgers, then stuffed the bleus with the smelly bleu cheese Bill could do without.
All those things finished, they went into the deep freeze to smoke a joint.
Mary was waiting for them on they came out. First thing, she told Bill he needed to take the baked potatoes out of the convection oven. Then, she asked if they had another joint. Henry Lee went with her into the deep freeze. Bill went into the walk-in box and started carrying up the meat he knew they needed for the lunch.
Before he made his last trip, before he even started to deal with the baked potatoes that were done, he took himself a long drink of bourbon. Then he popped another black beauty.
