Susan is still standing in front of the door to the pastry kitchen, anchored to the spot. Her emotions are so all over the place she isn’t quite sure what she’s feeling. Shame? Rage? Embarrassment? A certain determination to deliver a massive culinary “F--- you to Chris I’m-so-famous-now Baker? Maybe all of those things?
Gloria, too, glances up and her brow furrows. Susan realizes she must look awful. She takes a stumbling step back toward the pastry kitchen, mumbling about having a lot to do. Once safely inside, she closes the door, shutting out the rest of the interview. She crosses to the refrigerator and yanks open the door, letting the cold air soothe her for a few seconds. Then she returns to her strawberries.
* * *
The perfect end to the day: the goddamn jelly hasn’t set again. Susan glares at it. It glistens in its sheet pan, a mocking, gelatinous, Agent Orange–hued symbol of failure.
The rest of the staff has long since gone. She hardly noticed them trickling out, but now she looks up and realizes the main kitchen is silent, cleaned, and empty. And no wonder: it’s almost half past eight.
As she stands there, struggling not to cry, Gloria walks into the kitchen, spots her through the window, and does a double take.
“Still here?” she confirms, sticking her head through the door to the pastry kitchen.
Susan continues to brood over her ruined jelly. “It won’t set,” she mutters.
Gloria joins her, cocks her head, puts her hands on her hips. “Time to throw in the towel on this one, I think,” she concludes. “You gave it a good try; no use wasting more time over it.” She pats Susan on the shoulder. “Maybe we can reduce the juice down to a sauce or something, or use it in a vinaigrette.”
“Sure,” Susan agrees dully, taking the pan over to the dishwashing station and tipping the mess into the sink.
Gloria follows and watches as Susan hunches briefly over the sink, closing her eyes and trying not to get so worked up over something as stupid as a jelly. She realizes she’s sore all over from standing and bending for hours. Even her eyes are sore—they feel sandy when she blinks.
“Let it go, Suze,” Gloria urges in a gentle voice. “No use crying over spilt jelly.”
Susan barks a laugh.
“Right,” Gloria decides. “You need to replace jelly with alcohol. Come on—let’s get a drink.”
* * *
They settle in at a bar farther down the Mile. Gloria knows the bartender well enough to exchange nodding greetings with him and to request “that thing you make that I like so much? She’ll have one.” She indicates Susan before continuing, “And I’ll have an IPA. The one the hipsters all like right now.”
“Right,” Gloria says once the drinks are in front of them. “So what’s really up? Are you letting nerves get to you?”
“Of course I am,” Susan answers. “I’d be crazy not to. We are up against it, and if this place fails, that’s it. And we’ve got to find a way to create an entirely new reputation, which is pretty damn hard to do, especially when famous people are slagging you off on live radio.”
“Oh, there it is.” Gloria nods, sipping her beer. “The interview. Yeah, I have to admit I was a bit scunnered by that one as well. Bit of a low blow, that.”
“A bit! Calling my grandfather a sellout when Chris owes him his start. You know he just showed up at the restaurant one day and asked for a job? I’m serious—my grandfather went to open the restaurant one morning, and there was this kid there, lying in wait for him. And he somehow managed to convince my grandfather to let him come in and cook something, and he didn’t know anything—nothing at all. I think he made bacon rolls or something like that, but my grandfather was impressed enough by his enthusiasm to take him on as an apprentice and teach him what he knew. Chris owes my granddad everything!” Susan takes an angry swig of her drink, which tastes of about eight different kinds of alcohol.
Gloria waits for the end of the tirade, then comments, “He’s got some balls, Chris does. You have to give ’im that.” She sips her beer, then asks, “So, what happened? He and your granddad fall out or something?”
Susan toys with her glass and takes another sip while Gloria waits. Gloria’s face transitions from “What’s up?” to “Oh, I see,” just in those few seconds. Even so, Susan steels herself and says, “He didn’t say those things because of Grandad. It was because of me.”
Gloria nods. “It all comes together. Didn’t end well, I take it?”
Susan closes her eyes for a few seconds, wishing she could will away the past decade. But nothing can do that, and the universe seems determined to keep throwing it back in her face.
“No,” she admits in a voice that barely breaks a whisper. “No, it really didn’t.”
How to explain to someone who wasn’t there?
Elliot’s death had been a blow, but her mother’s was a bomb detonated among them, leaving the family torn and ragged, scattered and hollowed out. Without her to rally around, they fled, finding comfort where they could. For Susan, it was Chris, who felt like the one good thing left in her life. And he’d tried so hard to be there for her—she knew that now, looking back from the perch of greater maturity. He had also lost a parent; he understood. He held her when she cried all night and endured her silences, her clinging, her constant presence in his cramped, dingy flat.
But he had his own life. He had a career he was desperate to establish, and restaurants are as demanding as a grieving partner, if not more so. He came home later and later, as she lay in bed, staring into the dark. Panicking, imagining him dead or hurt somewhere, bleeding into the pavement. Or not dead—just tired of her. Out enjoying himself with some blonde with perky breasts, who smiled and giggled and cooed over his accent. And why shouldn’t that be the case? He was young and good looking—far too good looking for me, Susan always thought. Why shouldn’t he be out with happy young women, instead of dragging himself home to a depressive sad sack who could barely function?
After all, Chris seemed to have energy to burn. Most chefs got tired after endless double shifts, on their feet in hot kitchens simmering with urgency, but Chris seemed to thrive on it. He came home hyperactive, even on the days he was out until dawn. Susan, sleep deprived herself, found his energy exhausting. She was hardly able to take it in as he quick-fire chattered about his day and new dishes he was coming up with, new techniques, plans to travel. He hopped from one thought to another, pinging around from subject to subject, a pinball ricocheting faster than Susan could follow.
“Thailand!” he announced one day, bursting into their bedroom at three o’clock one morning. “We should go, don’t you think? You and I? Not the beachy bit that all the tourists go to, but the real Thailand, where actual Thai people live and work and eat. Wouldn’t that be great? You know, I think I might order some Thai. You hungry? I’m starving. You think that place we like is open? Nah, probably not. Are there others? Maybe pizza instead? Or I could go to that kebab place down the road—they’re always open. You think that guy ever sleeps? It’s the same guy there all the time—did you ever notice that? Last time I was there, they put some sort of sauce on the kebab. I really need to ask what was in that, because I think I could do something with it. Not on a kebab, of course, because we don’t serve kebabs at the restaurant, which is just snobby, I think. We should do a kebab. A really good one, with that sauce. I wonder if that guy at the kebab place makes the sauce too, or if they bring it in? Or I could get Thai food. How about we go to Thailand?”