He winced and nodded. “Do I still have a job?”
“Of course you do,” she said warmly. “I understand you are distracted. Who wouldn’t be? But I can’t have you doing a job with such big ramifications when a mistake gets made.” She laughed and tried to put him at ease.
He nodded. “I was trying to get it right, then, after finding a mistake, I’d panic. In the course of trying to fix it, half the time I just made it worse. Way worse.”
She looked down at his notes that had been scratched out and written over and scratched off again, and the order forms looked a bit like a kid’s messy homework paper.
She nodded and said, “You need time to clear your head, so you can do whatever needs to be done around here that doesn’t require this stuff.” She held out the papers. “Let me see it.”
He handed her the clipboard with a new ordering sheet in front.
“Do you have any idea what we need?”
He stared at her, then sighed. “Not really.”
She nodded. “Okay, let’s go then. The two of us can walk through and see what we need. Grab the old sheets so we can see what we ordered over the last couple weeks.”
She already knew that she needed fresh mushrooms and green peas. She needed another shipment of flour. Making notes as they walked, the two of them went through the stock slowly and carefully. Not like an inventory but making a list of what they would need going forward. When that was finally done, she’d missed her coffee and realized she hadn’t delivered any to Keith either. But she did have her order sheets done.
She quickly faxed in one of them that she needed today, hoping it wasn’t too late, then sent the other two off for tomorrow’s deliveries. With the lists in her hand, she walked over and readjusted the week’s menu based on the different ingredients they were bringing in now.
When she turned around, Ricky just stood there, staring off into space. She gave him a gentle shake on the shoulder. “Go home. If your family needs you, that’s where you should be.”
He looked at her in surprise.
She shrugged and said, “We can handle this while you look after your daughter. Just go.”
He didn’t waste any time and quickly grabbed his jacket and was gone.
Gerard looked over at her, asking, “What was that all about?”
“He’s a mess right now,” she said, explaining about his daughter going in for leukemia testing. At that news, everybody winced.
“Well, that explains the orders for the last few days.”
“Yes, I’m just sorry he didn’t tell us before we ended up with whatever it is. Twenty-four extra gallons of milk?” She shook her head at that. “We need ways to use it, people.”
“Puddings,” one of them said immediately.
“Cream soups,” another one said.
“Good. Keep those ideas coming,” she said. “We’ve got a seven-day window for the ‘best before’ dates, so let’s book out something every day that’ll use up what we have. Twenty-four/seven. Dividing that up, it looks like we’ll need to use an extra three gallons a day.”
They nodded and turned back to the work they each were doing.
She walked over, finding the coffee was once again gone, and put on a fresh pot. As soon as it had dripped, she poured herself one and another for Keith, even though it was two hours late. She slipped out of the kitchen and headed toward his room.
When she walked inside, he was sitting up and looking a little worse for the wear. He had a sheet thrown across his leg, but the other leg she could see was purple and black. She stopped and winced. “Man, I hope the other one doesn’t look quite so bad.”
He stared down at the puffy-looking mess. “It does, unfortunately. Maybe worse actually.”
“Can you walk at all?”
“I can,” he said, “but not very far, not very fast, and not very long.”
“Still, being ambulatory is huge,” she said, putting the coffee down. “Sorry, things got crazy in the kitchen.”
He looked at the coffee in surprise. “I’d forgotten. I fell asleep and didn’t remember when I woke up that no cold coffee waited here for me.”
She grinned at that. “In that case, it’s a good thing that I got sidetracked.” Just like that, she turned to leave again.
“Wait,” he called out.
She turned to look at him. “What’s up?” She saw him hesitate and then shrug.
“Nothing really, but thanks for the coffee.”
Knowing he was trying to say something else but wouldn’t now, she wished she had given him an opportunity to speak before she left. Aware that the moment was lost, she shrugged and said, “You’re welcome.” And, with that, she headed back to the kitchen.
Keith didn’t even know what he should say. She was going out of her way every day to say hi first thing in the morning, to ask him about coffee, and then she came by and brought him one. He wasn’t used to this special attention, certainly not from a chef in a place like this. She was also super friendly and approachable. He always figured chefs were these six-foot-tall men with massive chests and beer guts, hacking out orders like a command center in a big kitchen. She was the complete antithesis to who he thought would run a kitchen here.
But, from the food that he had tasted, it was absolutely exquisite. And lots of it, which was not that easy to do. Institutional food was well-known for being bland, overcooked, and completely tasteless. But not here. Not here at all. Yet another bonus of his visit. But, like he’d said to her, so far nothing was happening. It was just testing. And that was frustrating.
He slid off the edge of the bed, grabbed his crutches, and supported himself on the aluminum “sticks” while he tried to stand. He had told her that he could walk, and he could—but only in an emergency. One step, two steps. In the meantime, getting from point A to point B without crutches was a major trauma to his system. The right leg still dragged more than he would like. But he managed to make it to the bathroom, and, after using the facilities, he wondered about a quick shower, then decided to go for it, regardless of whether it was the thing to do or not. Of course his shower was equipped with all the bars and seats needed for people like him.
He turned on the hot water and made his way under the heavy stream and just sat here, letting the heat beat down on his head and body. He stared down his body, at the one leg that she’d seen, studying it, as if with her eyes. He’d become so used to the scars that crisscrossed his body that the purple welts and the new tissue never looked the same as the old tissue.
He was like a Frankenstein put back together again. Modern medicine had done a heck of a job, but it hadn’t left him in very pretty shape.
By the time he was done with his shower and got dressed and back to his bed, he was shaking. He swore lightly.
Just then a man spoke around the corner. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Keith glared at the open door. “It’s not bad though,” he said to Shane.
Shane walked in, frowning at him. “What exhausted you this morning?”
“I just had a shower,” he said.
Shane looked at him in surprise. “Did you get there under your own steam?”
He nodded.