Drenovis did not hurry off. He did not say anything further but stood there and watched as Bill finished his coffee, as Henry Lee told Bill he’d meet him downstairs. Bill stood there and watched Bea as she putzed around on her station.
“I’ll take a case of lettuce over here any time you feel like carting it over.”
“I’ll do it in a minute.” Without being obvious, he checked if Mary needed to make any of the desserts, the jello or the pudding and rice pudding. But he judged there was enough for the day. Then he went over to the reach-in freezers and checked the supplies there, the fried foods and French fries. He noted what he needed to bring upstairs.
Only then did he go out into the hall to get a case of lettuce for Bea. Bea had already filled her sink with cold water so that he could just dump the lettuce into the sink. That done, he carried the empty cardboard case into the hall and threw it outside.
Next, he went back to washing the potatoes. Once the potatoes were washed, he dried them with a clean kitchen towel and made sure they were all perfect enough to bake. Then he turned on the convection oven, set the timer and slid the tray inside.
Next thing for Bill was to go downstairs with Henry Lee. But before he did this he took a trip out through the dining room and knocked on Tommy’s door. Tommy opened up even though he was counting money.
“You better get Drenovis out of that kitchen,” Bill said. “Mary untied her apron walked out. I’m not doing her job because of him. I’ll do it to cover for her, but not because of him. So if you want it lunch to be ready I suggest you find a way to redirect him.”
“Why can’t any of you get along with him?” Tommy asked.
“You know why. He’s an asshole.”
“You should’ve become a manager,” Tommy said.
Like every other morning, Bill went down to the meat room where he would spend some time cutting steaks with Henry Lee and then making the hamburgers and bleus. Last, he would set up what needed to be brought up for the lunch service and carry it upstairs.
He found Mary in her usual spot on the counter, sitting as she always did, her legs crossed at the ankles. She was swinging her feet more furiously than she normally did. Bill could see immediately how pissed she was.
“You better not have done any of my work,” said Mary.
“I wouldn’t touch anything,” Bill said. “Only thing I didn’t was finish washing the potatoes and put them on to bake. But I did tell Tommy to get Drenovis out of the kitchen. I told him you’d walked out.”
“What he say?”
“He said I should have become a manager.”
“Well, stupid, you should have.”
Bill stepped up to Mary and kissed her. After the first kiss, he kissed her a second time. “I should’ve done a lot of things. I know I’m young, and stupid, but I also know I should have done a lot of things differently in the few years I’ve had.”
“You are stupid,” Henry Lee said.
Bill was gonna say something but held it back. “I better put the pot away,” he said instead. He opened the bourbon drawer and retrieved the baggie with weed in it and the Bambu. Then he disappeared out of the meat room and went to his locker where he locked it up carefully. While he was in there, he popped himself a black beauty.
Henry Lee was setting up the grinder when he got back into the meat room. Mary had not moved. She did not look as if she was about to.
“You know you got to go back up there,” Henry Lee said.
“I ain’t got to do nothing,” Mary said.
