Then Kiss Me (5 page)

All the unpacking, cleaning, and organizing done, I took a long hot shower (in my own place!!), set my new alarm clock, and slept better than I had in a long time.

Chapter Three

I
ARRIVED AT
work the next morning a few minutes early.  Ed was already there.  I found him outside the office near the front.  I didn’t know if he was waiting for me to arrive or if he was getting ready to do something else, but the timing was good. 
“Hi, Casey.
  Come on back.”

I followed him back into the kitchen area.  It was bigger than any other kitchen I’d worked in before.  He led me around, showing me where everything was located.  The first thing he showed me was the employee area.  There was one small table and some shelves and hooks for hanging personal items.  The schedule hung on the wall (pen and paper
in this day and age
!) as well as posters announcing minimum wage (which I’d be earning) and other
posters and papers letting us know our rights as workers.  There were also some personal notes on a corkboard…one was a note about cheap babysitting (an employee’s wife offering child care) and another about a concert at a bar downtown later in the week.  There was a small computer in the corner, and Ed showed me how to clock in and out.  Fifteen-minute breaks didn’t need to be clocked in or out but long breaks did, he said.

He asked if I had questions, but it was too soon.  There was too much and it was too overwhelming.  So he led me through the kitchen, pointing to the walk-in refrigerator / freezer combo, the food prep area, the dishwashing area, and the cooking area, the last place on our list.

I felt
the
breath pour out of my lungs like a waterfall as we walked back to the food prep area.  The fucking hot guy I’d seen yesterday morning during my interview was there.  He was walking out of the walk-in refrigerator, arms full of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes.  At this point, I assumed he wouldn’t be a stranger much longer.  Ed said, “Scott, this is Casey.  She’s our new cook.”  The man named Scott barely glanced at me as he walked to the
metal counter and placed the vegetables on it.  Ed looked back at me, apparently unfazed by the rudeness of his cook, and said, “Scott will be training you today, Casey.”  He
turned around to leave but look
ed back and said to Scott, “Be nice to her.”

What an odd thing to say, but I was already beginning to see why.  I stood next to Scott and watched him work, waiting for him to impart his wisdom upon me.  He muttered as he worked, telling me what I needed to do each day (he was getting the LTOPs done right now, he said; I asked what that meant—
l
ettuce,
t
omato,
o
nion, and
p
ickle, the garnishes for the burge
rs they made each day.  They
set up the garnishes
in advance
and when someone ordered a burger, they’d slap an LTOP on the plate).  Throughout the morning, all we’d be doing would be preparing for serving food all day long.  At ten o’clock, the salad and dessert staff would come in along with the lead dishwasher and two waitresses.  At fifteen till eleven, the bus staff and host or hostess would come in, along with the other cook and remaining waitresses.  In the meantime, though, the kitchen area was all ours (and that made me more than a little tingly), and he showed me the list of work we had to get done every day in our efforts to serve the hungry folks who walked through our doors.  Among other things, we had to get our grill heated up and ready to go—well, basically, we had all the equipment to prep, everything from fryers to a rotating toaster (and, apparently, vents that didn’t always like to work properly).  We had to get all the food
ready to go, and that included m
aking
baked
potatoes (and then they’d be held in a warmer drawer), gravies for chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, and other home-cooked sundries. 
We also had chili and barbecued beef to heat up where they would be held in steamer trays.  There was a lot to learn, and even though Scott seemed reticent, he explained what he was doing
and why he was doing it, and if he didn’t, I’d ask questions.  Once in a while, he’d get snappy but he’d still answer the question.  He reminded me that there were always two cooks scheduled to open and usually a third arrived at lunch time.  The cook scheduled for the longest shift got to choose what duties he wanted to do.  I chafed a little when Scott said
he
, and he noticed.

“Sorry, babe, but you’re the first girl cook we’ve ever had here.”

“So that means you’re
gonna
call me a guy even if I’m not?”

He actually almost smiled.  He didn’t, but his mouth thought about it.  He didn’t apologize, though, but I figured I’d consider the almost smile close enough.  Fortunately, even though I found all the information overwhelming, I knew I’d catch on quickly, so I didn’t have to ask too many questions.  Scott kept wavering between explaining himself thoroughly and then saying nothing at all.  He seemed aloof at times and sometimes almost hateful.  Sometimes I’d ask a question and he’d look at me like I was a fucking idiot.  I couldn’t understand why.  He was good looking, but what an ass.

Still, I’d
almost
made him smile, so there was a chance.  So the next time he gave me a cursory answer and a
God-you’re-stupid
look, I said, “What’s your problem with me anyway?  Is it because I’ve broken into your all-boys club?”

That time he actually
did
smile, but his expression grew somber again fairly quickly.  “No, it’s because I fucking hate training people, and Ed knows it.  I waste
all this
time teaching people how to do stuff and then they just go and quit.”

Well, I could understand why that would be a little maddening but it was not my problem.  And I didn’t appreciate receiving the hostility he was holding for people who’d pissed him off in the past.  Oh, and
my
attitude.  I told you about that before, right?  I had a bit of an attitude, and when someone pissed me off, they’d likely get a taste.  Well, Scott had pushed me there.  He probably wouldn’t have gotten under my skin if he hadn’t already gotten under my skin…if you catch my drift.  But he had.  So I said, “Well, maybe people quit because you’re an asshole.”

At first, I thought he was going to let me have it.  His eyes got dark and I even saw his jaw ripple.  But then his eyes crinkled up in a smile.  “Yeah, maybe so,” he said and started laughing.  Oh, it was a rich, hearty laugh.  Maybe I’d have a chance with this guy after all.

At lunch
time, I met another cook named Jim who seemed to be good friends with Scott.  He was also much friendlier than Scott, even though Scott was warming up a little bit. 
Jim was a good-looking guy with dark hair, dark eyes, a few
skeezy
tattoos on his forearms, with a decent build, but he was married and, therefore, off limits. 
Finally, I got to go home at three o’clock after meeting two other cooks.  I also met several waitresses, bus persons, and dishwashers, but there was no way I could keep all their names straight at first.  I was grateful to be going home.  I was grumpy; I smelled like grease; and I was tired.  I’d had to work the fryer section all day (probably because there was less chance of my fucking something up there) and just wanted to go home and take a nice warm bath.  But it was a living, I figured, and I needed the money.  I slept well again that night, this time from sheer exhaustion.

I got used to the work fairly quickly and start
ed feeling comfortable there.  But f
or some reason, it seemed like there was an initiation phase.  Will she put up with the shit or not?  Well, I’d made it through and was no worse for wear.  I caught onto the work quickly and even became proficient (it’s amazing how fast you can get back into food service).  But I was
learning new things too
.  I’d never
known how to cook steaks with the
ab
ility of
cook
ing
them rare, medium, or well and be
ing
able to tell without cutting them open if I’d succeeded.  The first few weeks, I was just settling in
and
getting to know the whole crew
.  Unlike most restaurants, this staff seemed to have some longevity
. 
It wasn’t a bad place to work for. 
A
nd a
fter you made it your
first month, some of the employees told me, you got a nice raise. 
After three months, another one, and so on.
  The owner rewarded good work and loyalty.  So, even though it wasn’t my dream job, I started liking it there.

I liked it so much that I forgot to check out the Center for the Arts.

Well, did I like the work or was I fascinated by a certain coworker?  When I
confirmed
he didn’t have a girlfriend, I became even more interested.

During those first few weeks, I worked every shift imaginable so that I would be versatile.  I worked short shifts and long; weekends and weekdays; opening, closing, and swing shifts.  I was trained to close and got that down too.  It really didn’t take much.  Because of the changing shifts, though, I didn’t get to work with Scott as much as I would have liked, but I did see him some.  And he soon relaxed.  He wasn’t as big a dick as he had been that first day.

I also met
David,
a guy who became a good friend.  He was a year or two
older
than I, but he was fun to joke with and pass the time with when things in the restaurant were slower.  I found out after a few days that he was also good friends with Scott.  He didn’t seem to care too much for Jim, but he never said why.  I also met a waitress named Carla who was sweet, but the cooks hated the wait staff.
  Ah, well.  I’d already broken a cardinal rule—typical Casey behavior.
  And, just like there were only male cooks (except for yours truly), there were only female wait staff.  I asked Ed about it and he said he would have no problem hiring a waiter, but no men who applied at Bob’s wanted to wait tables.  “So why’d you hire
me
as a cook?” I asked.

“
Because I needed a cook right then and there, and
you wrote on your application you would wait tables
or
cook.”

“I did?”  Ed nodded,
then
shook his head.  More than once, he’d told me I should have been born blonde.

Over time, I started
to fit in well with the cooks.  There were eight of us altogether, not including Ed and the night manager who would sometimes cook too.
  Most of the
guys
were fun to hang with.
  I also met Jim’s wife
Julie
. 
She
came to the restaurant two or three times a week checking on Jim.  The two of them would often start arguing.  I hated that, because it made me feel uncomfortable.

I started realizing how much I was starting to like Scott when, one day, he was
joking (and maybe
flirting
)
with a young waitress named Wendy.  She was a single mother with a little girl.  I’d seen her flirt with Scott off and on, and I wondered why he was breaking the
cook’s code.  Maybe they were involved or maybe they’d been involved in the past.  I wasn’t sure, but I needed to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone
else
’s territory.

Whatever the case, Scott seemed to relax around me.  He joked, but his unusual sense of humor took some getting used to.  In fact, I wondered if maybe he’d been joking on that first day when he’d trained me, and I’d just
been too stupid or
hypersensitive to appreciate it.

On the thirty-first day of my employment at Bob’s Southern BBQ, David slapped me on the back.  “You’re not a virgin anymore,” he said.  David was a roly-poly kind of guy.  His brown eyes should have been bigger than they were for the size of his head, but he smiled so much, they looked natural.  He was a tall guy too and made me feel tiny when I stood next to him.

I grinned.  “Haven’t been for a long time, pal,” I said, giggling, and he scooped me up in his arms and twirled me around.

Ed came around the corner into the kitchen. 
“All right, you two.
  No shenanigans.  You’re going to break something.”

David set me down on the ground as Ed continued walking the length of the kitchen.  He lowered his voice and said, “Yeah, what’re we
gonna
break in here?”

He had a point.  The plates were tucked away on shelves that would have been impossible to reach.  He would have had to stand on a chair and twirled me, and even then I didn’t think he
coul
d manage to pull it off.  There didn’t appear to be anything else breakable in that kitchen of stainless steel.

“So anyway…” David
said,
a conspiratorial tone in his voice, “I think we should celebrate your raise and the fact that you made it.”