ROSE IS WRONG. MORE than half the North Shore is without power from last night’s storm. People’s homes are cold. No one can turn on their ovens or coffee pots this morning. Trees came crashing through front living rooms last night, leaving sopping messes of the carpets. The lineup goes out the door of the restaurant, along the sidewalk, and into the alley. Susan has to put on an apron and relive her serving days. She keeps sloshing coffee all over her tray. She and Rose dance around the room in an elaborately choreographed ballet. The bills come into the kitchen in a continuous stream — chk, chk, chk — long floating ribbons Charlie flourishes in the air, singing eggs benny, French toast, florentine, side of sausage, side of bacon, hash browns, hold the hollandaise. Charlie slides plates onto the pass-bar one after the other, lining them up, and Tara starts throwing down melon wedges. The din in the dining room makes it impossible to hear and Charlie has to shout his call times. “How long on fourteen?” Charlie mops his forehead with his sleeve as sweat pours off his brow.
“Minute left over-easy,” Rich says, fondling a couple of eggs. Charlie can see him starting to panic.
“Rich, where’s my bacon benny?” Tara shouts across the kitchen. “My crab cakes are up. I need it now.”
Rich stands frozen in the middle of the chaos, rubbing his chin. It’s something Charlie has never seen him do before. “What that?”
“The benny, Rich.” Tara’s voice is getting shrill.
Rich grabs a couple of English muffins and fumbles, almost dropping them on the floor. He grabs a ladleful of hollandaise and just as the golden liquid hits the eggs, Tara shouts, “On the side. Hollandaise on the side, dammit.”
“Aw, fuck it,” Rich says, throwing the ladle down and storming out of the kitchen.
Charlie follows him and finds him sitting on an overturned bucket beside the refrigerator, crying. There are new knuckle indentations, four perfect circles, in the fridge’s door. Several matching impressions adorn the stainless steel surface.
“I buried so deep,” Rich says, hiding his face in the crook of his arm.
“Come on, Rich,” Charlie says. A separation occurs in his brain; the response he expects from himself — shouts, expletives, threats — doesn’t materialize. His blood bubbles through his veins normally, his heart rate remains steady, his breathing calm. He grabs Rich under the armpits and yanks him upright the way you would a child who refuses to leave the birthday party. “We need you out there now,” he says, but his voice is gentle.
“Deep, Chef,” Rich says, tears wetting his cheeks. “I deep in shit. No way out.”
“Come on,” Charlie says. “We’ll get you out. You’re good,” he says, patting him on the back as he shuffles him back toward the kitchen. “You’re good.”
Rich turns to look at him, blinking a little in disbelief. “Thanks, Big Chef.”
Charlie and Rich stand side by side on the hot line and as the minutes tick by the streamer of bills gets shorter. Sweat is pouring off Rich’s brow and his normally gravity-defying hair is limp and plastered against his forehead, but his eyes are sparkling now and he’s slapping the English muffins on the plates with gusto. Charlie’s singing and Rich joins in and James keeps saying it’s the end of the world.
Despite the disaster, the feeling in the air is almost festive. The noise of people’s voices, the clank of cutlery, the dishwasher going in the back. He can hear the dish boy — Tim, it suddenly dawns on Charlie, Tim is his name — singing along to Metallica. Which means if he can hear the new stereo, it’s too loud — but for some reason this morning he doesn’t care. He pulls a bewildered Tim into the kitchen to make salads. Everything comes together inside the restaurant in a way that is purposeful and meaningful. The food looks more colourful and smells better. There are many mouths to feed. It’s their busiest brunch of the year, and for this Charlie feels happy.
As soon as the last plate goes out, Charlie takes off his apron and heads for the door. In the back hallway, he interrupts something between Rose and Susan as he rounds the corner, the two standing close with a crate of empty bottles at their feet. “Good work this morning, ladies,” he says cheerfully, bustling through them and enjoying their confounded looks.
He sits in his car for a minute and watches Rose skip down the steps carrying the milk crate of empty bottles, which she dumps in the recycling bin with a loud clatter. He rolls down his window and calls after her as she goes back up, taking the steps two at a time. She stops in her tracks and turns, squinting in his direction with a hand on her hip. “What is it? I’ve got a table.”
“Aisha had a girl.”
“Oh!” He can see by the way she moves down one step that she wants to approach him, extend a hand or a hug, but she stops herself. “Well, congratulations,” she calls out. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you here?” she says, shooing him, her arms batting the air. “Get going!”
“I’m outta here,” he says, starting the car’s engine. But once she’s up the stairs and back into the restaurant, he lets the car idle. The motor’s vibrations surround him and his face feels tight with dried sweat. He stares at his empty hands in his lap, strange in their stillness. He rubs the thick callus on his right-hand index, where the edge of the knife’s blade creates friction. Even if he gives up cooking, the callus is something that will be with him for a while, maybe even forever.
Over the ocean, the sun is breaking up the clouds and he blinks back the bright light. He pulls down the visor and the yellow envelope falls in his lap. After a moment of turning it this way and that, he rolls down his window and chucks it into the dumpster, sending a seagull into the air. “Take it with you,” he yells at the bird.
He pulls out of the restaurant parking lot and heads for the hospital — the barnacle needs a name.
THANKS TO CARIN
I EXPECT MY SISTER, Carin, to look surprised when I walk into the restaurant, but when she sees me she just smiles, almost wickedly, like you’re in for some trouble now. For a split second I want to leave, drive back down to the coast and my routine. It’s the same feeling I used to get when we were children and our desire for mischief became overbearing. I knew if I didn’t go play by myself, Carin and I would soon be covered in permanent marker or picking gravel out of our knees or lighting our dolls’ hair on fire. Retribution was always swift in our house, as Mom was on her own. Sitting on a straight-backed kitchen chair, I’d get the lecture — the one about being older and more responsible — until the tears ran down my cheeks and I got my back rub and glass of milk. Carin, in her defiance, always got the worse punishment.
I sit at a table near a window while Carin moves around the room, chatting up customers, dropping off beers for the afternoon drinkers. She makes waitressing look like fun, like a good career move, something you could be happy doing for the rest of your life. She glides by my table to set down a colourful drink and I get a whiff and glimpse of hair from her armpit — still a hippie. “I’ll be off in fifteen,” she says. “And by the way, June, what the fuck are you doing here?”
I smile and take a sip of my drink. It tastes like booze and strawberries. Out on the strip the squat motels sit up and down the sand-swept road, trapped forever in peach or sea-green paint. Nothing ever changes here. Mom is gone now, but otherwise everything is exactly the same, as though I’ve stepped into one of our round-cornered photos from the seventies, all the colours tinted gold-brown. The only new addition is a huge inflatable plastic mountain floating in the lake with kids scrambling and falling off the sides into the water. It looks so temporary, like it could disappear with the prick of a pin.