I pound my fists on the counter, and the other staff members indulge me enough to let out a few whoops. Taverne Toulouse had its soft reopening just over a week ago, and the kitchen is buzzing with the excitement of the recently reemployed. The bar was closed for three months of renovations after a change of ownership, and while all the staff were guaranteed jobs if they wanted to come back, it was only the OG employees—or ‘lifers’ as people less cool than me like to call us—who actually took the owner up on her offer. I got some pay to tide me over until we opened for business again since I’m kitchen manager now, but it feels good to be back on the clock.
Although technically I’m on salary now. I have benefits. I have responsibilities other than manning the grill and making the servers laugh when the customers get extra bitchy. Still, maintaining morale is at the top of my priorities, so I continue using my radio announcer voice as I check the stock in the freezer.
“We will also be joined by Montreal’s famous Pink Haired Princess tonight, whose regal dance moves will have you bowing down as she pours your drinks and pops your bottles.”
DeeDee flicks her trademark pink hair over her shoulder as she leaves the walk-in fridge with a carton of lemons in hand, hip bumping the door closed before jumping into a five second dance routine that has Zach’s jaw on the floor well before it’s over.
Then again, all DeeDee really has to do is breathe and Zach keels over. The dude has it bad.
“Bonsoir, mes belles,” she croons into the spatula when I hold it out, her Québécois accent thick. “Who is ready to party?”
I do my best impression of an air horn as she twirls her way out of the kitchen and into the front of house, where she’ll be handling the bar tonight.
We’re still running on skeleton staff until we get all the new hiring done, which will hopefully be complete in time for the grand reopening. The public is already going nuts for this place, and I know if I had anyone but the best of the best on with me tonight, we’d be screwed. Thankfully, these people really are the best, and despite our tendency to tease the shit out of each other and pull stupid pranks every chance we get, we are a well oiled machine of service industry efficiency. We make sure we have a good time doing it, but we always get the job done.
We’re a mismatched family, but we’re a family nonetheless.
“All right, listeners, let’s get this show rolling. We’re gonna start off with an oldie but a goodie, a true Taverne Toulouse classic to get you in the mood.”
I reach for the volume knob on the kitchen’s sound system, the song already cued up on the ancient iPod I use to play my music here. Our shift opening anthem starts pumping out. DeeDee pokes her head around the corner to give a characteristically loud and profane exclamation of approval in French while everyone’s heads start bobbing.
Zach and I hum the mhmm’s together as the opening to ‘No Diggity’ fills the kitchen.
“Let’s have a good fucking night!” I call out.
Then we get down to business.
Me and the other two cooks on for the night chop, scrub, and scrape the kitchen into shape, shooting the shit with each other as we go. This is the part of the job that always gets me hyped. We might be peeling potatoes and loading up deep fryers, but with the right music and the right state of mind, you can feel like football gods getting ready to run out onto the field to the roar of an adoring crowd or rock stars warming up to headline an arena.
The other part, the manager part—the spreadsheets, the calculations, the contracts, the staring at the total sales for the month knowing if you screw your job up the people you care about won’t be able to pay their rent—is turning out to be more of an acquired taste.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out of my pocket. I’d say being allowed to have your phone on the job is a manager perk, but if someone’s trying to get a hold of me during a shift, it’s rarely about anything good. I open up the new text in Monroe and I’s conversation.
I’m heading over to the bar to pick up some things. What did Renee say about the job?
Well, shit. There it is. Today’s fuck up.
For Renee to have said something about the job, I would have needed to actually call her and offer her the job—like Monroe asked me to do approximately four hours ago.
We interviewed her yesterday. I haven’t been able to get the sight of Renee Nyobé walking through that office door out of my head since.
She stole my breath.
She reached out and snatched the air from my lungs, and just the thought of her threatens to do it again every time my mind wanders back to that moment, so there’s no excuse or explanation for me forgetting to call her.
There’s no excuse or explanation for any of the mistakes I’ve been making as a manager. Most of them have been minor, small scheduling errors or messages I forget to return, but there’s always something. I look at the faces around me when I’m here, at the people I’ve watched go from dishwashers to line cooks or bussers to bartenders, the ones who’ve hauled through the shitty shifts with me and laughed through the good ones, and the weight of the responsibility is like a sack of bricks dropped square on my shoulders.
I’m walking around hunched under those pounds and pounds of people depending on me, just waiting for the second when I let them all fall.
“Behind! Sharp!”
Our busser shouts to let me know he’s walking behind me with a knife, and that’s when I realize I’ve gone stock still in the middle of a busy kitchen. Not a great place to become immobile.
I check Monroe’s text again. She’s already on her way, but I might have a shot at getting this call done before she arrives. First I need to find the damn phone number.
I book it to the office—the brand new, fully functional office, which is a huge improvement on the converted broom closet with a desk shoved inside that we used before the renovations. The room still smells like paint and sawdust, and it’s sparkling clean. It’s too clean. There are no stacks of paper lying around that might hold a resume or overstuffed filing cabinets with labels to point me in the right direction. Most of the desk drawers are empty, save for some meticulously arranged stationary supplies.
I curse to myself as I keep looking. Renee’s resume has to be here. It was sitting on the desk all day, and now when I actually need it, I can’t fucking find it.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” I announce to the empty office.
Then I drop to my hands and knees so I can start searching the floor.
I have the side of my face flat on the ground and my arm wedged under the desk, fingers inching toward what I hope to god or whoever else may be watching is the resume, when I hear the office door swing open. Footsteps approach faster than I can alert whoever it is to my presence. I get the corner of the paper I’m reaching toward pinned between my index and middle fingers just as a shriek rings out.
I whip my arm out from under the desk and try to sit up, my roar of pain joining the sound of a second shriek as my head collides with the underside of the desk.
“Dylan, what the hell are you doing on the floor? You scared the shit out of me!”
“Good evening, Monroe,” I greet my boss. Shuffling out from under the desk with one hand pressed to my throbbing skull, I raise the one clutching the resume to wave at her. “What’s up?”