Texts from Jen to Sam...
Hey! Any chance you're free this Monday? I'm going to this shindig downtown and apparently there are still seats available and my Residency Director said that I could bring a friend.
I assume Andy is busy?
Yeah, he's got a work thing. But I do miss seeing you and I thought you told me that you sometimes had Mondays off.
Happy to be your fall back pussy.
Hmmm, lemme check...
Looks like I'm actually going to be catering some party downtown. Where's your thing at, maybe we could meet up for drinks after?
Dunno, I'll look
It's at Soundwell, not sure where that is...
Hahahahahaha.
Are you kidding me?
Uh, no?
The event I'm catering is at Soundwell, so I guess I'll see you Monday?
Sweet! I love your cooking. Can I come and see you at work in the kitchen?
Only if you promise not to touch anything. Or taste anything. Or put your hands pretty much anywhere.
On second thought, no, you'd better not... you're pretty fucking handsy, if memory serves.
What can I say... I solemnly swear I am up to no good?
~~
I don't know why I had agreed to this gig. Monday was my only day off and I still had some moving-in shit I needed to take care of. The money was nice, but I really didn't need it. My rent was low and I had long since paid off my motorcycle... I kinda just liked the idea of putting my nose to the grindstone.
The kitchen was the only place where I felt like I had my shit together. Aside from the recent one-night stand with Blue Eyes, my personal life was non-existent. I enjoyed running and kick boxing, but neither of those gave me the kind of high that I got at the end of a busy day in the restaurant. I'd done a lot of drugs growing up, trying to escape my life, but honestly, nothing compares to the high you get working a busy shift at a high-end restaurant. It's an interesting mix of intense stress, physical pain and artistry or craftsmanship.
I know that sounds crazy, but it's true.
When I first started working in kitchens I would party with the staff, but when I got serious about pursuing a career as a chef I had to let that life go. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed drinking and smoking pot occasionally, but my heart wasn't into the hard stuff anymore.
The job I was doing tonight was pretty straight forward. We'd prepared most of the food earlier this morning and only needed to make some of the vegetables onsite and then reheat the rest. Besides, I had my two favorite cooks with me, Miguel and Diego. They were both older than me by about ten years and had been working in the restaurant industry since they were teenagers.
Some guys in kitchens got really fucking weird working for a woman, some handled it by being passive aggressive, others flirted, some were assholes. Miguel and Diego just showed up and did the fucking work. Ok, maybe they flirted a little bit too, but it wasn't #metoo at all, just, like, cool flirting, the type that you do with buddies you work with who you think are funny and cute but who you have no intention of sleeping with.
We packed up the catering van, which I drove, and all three of us squeezed into the cab like we were in a clown car. When we got to the venue, Miguel got the ovens set up and Diego started unloading the trays from the van with the entrees. I walked into the dining space to check out the layout and then walked back into the kitchen, dropping my knives on the counter.
Let the games begin...
~~
"Oh.My.God. Sam, this is incredible. Like, I don't even have words. Did you put crack in this? Seriously, what *is* this?" Jen looked like she was having an orgasm in the middle of my kitchen.
"Keep your pants on. It's a cherry balsamic reduction. I'm working out the kinks... my bosses think it's too 'fruit-forward," I said, crossing my arms in front of me.
"I know that those words are English, but I have no idea what that actually means."
"It means that my boss is a pretentious fucking asshole and doesn't want a woman working in his kitchen," I said, rubbing my hand over my chin.
"Things going ok at work?" she asked, looking over at me.
"They're fine, I'm just pissed-off because they don't like my sauce. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my tits." I poured some of the cherry reduction over my finger and put it in my mouth. Maybe it was a little fruit-forward...
"Ok, I've got to go back out there, but seriously, Sam, this is amazing. You have a standing invitation to come over and hang out at my house... you can meet my dog, Max. Really, he's more like Andy's dog, but whatever. And, you know, if you just happen to wanna cook, that's ok too. I won't stop you." She leant over to hug me and then walked back into the main event space.
I walked over to one of the walk-in refrigerators and grabbed a flat of strawberries and brought it over to my workspace and started to de-stem them one by one to use as a garnish for the chocolate lava cakes. The steady rhythm of the monotonous movements allowed my mind to wander, and as it did so often these days, I thought about the night I had spent with Blue Eyes...
~~
As we'd walked out of the club he pulled out his phone and ordered an Uber. We waited near where the line of people was queuing up to get in to the club and started chatting. It was cold out, but I had my camel suede jacket which was lined on the inside. He had a sports coat, but I could tell that we were both feeling the cool October air.
"Can I ask you a question?" he said, looking a little shy. He'd tucked both of his hands into the pair of grey slacks he was wearing.
"Sure, I said, ask me anything."
"Do you do this a lot? Go home with random guys you meet at clubs?"
"Not recently, but I've done it before. What, are you having second thoughts? Wished that you'd picked the bottom bill, instead of the top?" I laughed and pulled on the edges of his button down shirt.
"No, I just, I don't usually do this and I'm hoping that you know what you're doing, because I sure as shit don't."
"What?" I said, "you promised me that you were like a world-class champion darts player?? Was that all a lie?" I tried to look as incredulous as possible but couldn't stifle a little chuckle.
He laughed at me and smiled, "No, I'm pretty sure I've got the darts down, it's just, I don't know, it seems weird to pick up... "teammates", for the darts, on a dance floor."
"So where do you usually select your team members? Wait! Don't tell me... let me guess." I stood back and looked him up and down. He was clean cut but kind of in a dorky way. Like I had the distinct impression that he played a lot of D&D in high school and didn't really get his dick wet until college, if you know what I mean. "Well, for starters, I'm positive that you're well educated. You've got this pale glow about you, which tells me that you spend a lot of time indoors."
"Too fucking right I do, but go on, what does that tell you about the type of, uh, darts players I look for?" He crossed his hands in front of his body and looked at me studiously.
"I bet you have a younger sister," I said, moving over to a bench a few feet away from where we were standing and sat down.
"What makes you say that? And you don't think that I'm looking to play darts with my sister, right?" He raised his eyebrow worriedly.
"No, no, not that. The way that you wanted my friends to know that I was ok, that you weren't going to hack me up. That's something a big brother would do. But, am I right, do you have a younger sister?"
He smiled and nodded his head, "yeah, she's a senior in college. And I would fucking kill her, by the way, if she played darts at any level – collegiate, intramural, Olympics – no darts for her for sure."
I laughed out loud at this. "Oh man, I guarantee you that she is probably hitting a bull's eye as we speak."
"Christ, I know, I don't even want to think about it... so, what else can you tell about me?" He moved over to where I was sitting and sat down, draping his left hand on the bench behind me and opened his legs into an impressive man-spread, but didn't touch either my back with his arm or my thigh with his leg.
"Let me see your hands," I said, and he moved to lay both of his hands in mine. His nails were cut short, and they were very clean, but they looked irritated, like he washed them a lot. He had calluses on his palms that I recognized as those belonging to someone who lifted weights. He wore no rings, but he was wearing a watch, but he didn't have a "watch" tan, which told me that he didn't wear it all the time.
"Your hands are too clean for manual labor and you've got the calluses of someone who lifts weights, which explains these lovely things," I said, raising my hand to rub along his upper arms. "But they look almost raw, like you wash them a lot, so you could be a dishwasher, but that doesn't really fit with your vocabulary. You're not a lawyer or a banker, I'm pretty sure about that. Honestly, even since we kissed I've been imagining that you are a librarian."
"A librarian??" he guffawed, "that doesn't sound very interesting."
"What have you got against librarians?" I said, punching him in the tree branch that he called an arm.
"Nothing, I just... I'm not a librarian."
"You said that you don't do this a lot, which leads me to believe that you don't go out much... but you do know how to dance and how to kiss, so clearly you've done this before."
"You think I know how to kiss?" he smiled... or smirked, rather, it was definitely a smirk.
"Apparently you like to have your ego stroked too. Which means, on second thought that you could be a lawyer, or maybe a real estate agent?"
He shook his head.
"We'll come back to your profession in a minute, but let's focus on the one other thing that we know about you," I said
"What's that?"
"You're surprised that you're attracted to me, I think it's caught you off guard. This tells me that tonight, you're playing darts with the enemy..."
"I wouldn't say you're the enemy," he said, "but I'll grant you that you likely play for a visiting team. Do you give up?"
"Not remotely. As Vinzini would say, "Wait 'til I get going!"
"Vinzini?" he asked, looking quizzical.
"Princess Bride? Seriously?"
"Never seen it," he said.
"WHAT?? YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THE PRINCESS BRIDE?" I shouted, jumping up and standing between his legs
"No?" he said, and at least had the decency to look sheepish about it.
"Dude, I don't know if I can play darts with you. You've never seen the Princess Bride."
"Well, maybe if you told me your name, we could go out again sometime and, you know, Netflix and Play Darts."
"Well played, Blue Eyes, well played."
Just then his phone buzzed to announce that the Uber driver had arrived and he stood up.
"Last chance to turn back," he said.
"Not a chance Blue, not a chance."
"Well then, your chariot awaits madame..."
~~
I was immediately brought out of my silent reverie of the memory of our conversation by a sudden, sharp pain in my right thumb.
"FUCK" I screamed, rather loudly. I looked down and there was blood everywhere. I immediately moved away from the food, strawberry and pairing knife in hand, and dropped them both in the sink. I turned on the water and started rinsing out the wound. There was a lot of blood. Like, a Quentin Tarantino amount of blood. I called out to Miguel and told him to move the other berries away from where I had cut myself so that they wouldn't get contaminated. Diego had heard me scream and came over.
"You ok boss?" he said, looking at my thumb in the sink.
"I fucking cut myself cutting strawberries. Shit! It really fucking hurts." I looked around to see if I could see a first aid kit. "Diego, go ask that lady who we saw earlier, the one who is the manager of the event space and see if she has a first aid kit, I don't see one. Miguel, can you go into the dining room and see if you can find that lady who was in here earlier? The one who had an orgasm over my cherry sauce?"
"The one with the tight skirt and the amazing fucking tatas, boss?" he gestured to his own chest to indicate the sizeable cleavage that Jen took with her everywhere she went.
"The very one, Miguel, and when you bring her here, you should definitely make that gesture, she'd really get a kick out of that. Now hurry the fuck up and go get her."
They both dispersed at my order and I turned back to my thumb which had begun to throb a little. I pulled it out from under the water and immediately it was covered in blood. It looked bad, and for a chef to say that, it basically means that your thumb is falling off. I shook my head, cursed silently, and put it back in the water.
Diego returned first with the pretty blond who had showed us to the kitchen, and she was carrying a small plastic container which looked like a glorified box for band-aids and nothing more. Miguel and Jen arrived a few minutes later and I smiled as Jen walked over to me.
"So how are you with severed limbs," I said, showing her my bloody thumb.
She bent to look over me and smiled. "Jesus Fucking Christ Sam, what did you do?"
"I was cutting strawberries and I just got distracted, can you fix it? I've still got shit to do."
"Hold on," she said, "let me wash my hands and I'll take a look at it." She moved over to one of the sinks on the other side of the kitchen and scrubbed her hands with soap and water. She dried them off on a fresh towel and came over to where I was standing.
The blond lady had put the band-aid box on the counter next to the sink and Jen rummaged through it to see if it had anything useful. She found a square looking thing and opened it to reveal a small, square gauze pad.
"Ok, let me see it," she said, gesturing for me to take it out from underneath the water. As soon as I did she immediately wrapped it with the gauze pad and squeezed hard.
"Fuck Jen, that hurts." I yelped.
"Sorry, I've got to try and stop the bleeding so that I can see how deep the cut is." She held it tightly like this for about 30 seconds and then released her grip and opened the gauze just a fraction. The wound immediately filled with blood."
"Oh sweetie, this is deep. You definitely need stitches. We're going to need to take you to an urgent care I think."
"What? An urgent care. No way. First of all, I don't have insurance yet and there's no way that I'm paying $350 just to have somebody stich this up. You do it, you're a doctor. Stitch it bitch!"
"Sam, I'm at a fucking dinner party, I don't have suture material on me. Besides, this is really deep, you might need to see a hand surgeon."
"Now I know you're fucking with me. I'm definitely not going to the hospital, don't you have some shit at home? I promise that if you fix this for me I'll be your best friend..."
She wrapped it up with the gauze again and bade me to squeeze it tightly to try to get the blood to stop gushing.
"I think I know someone who can help... he was actually here tonight, he's an acquaintance of mine, lemme go see if he's still here."
And with that, she went back to the sink, washed her hands again with soap and water and left me standing in the kitchen holding pressure on my bleeding thumb.