“Why are we really here?”
“I told you about the confit de canard. It was delicious wasn’t it?”
“Leila, I swear to god, you’ve got to stop calling it that,” he says. “Just call it candied duck. You’re not French.”
“Whatever,” I tell him, dismissively waving my hand.
“See?” he says incredulously.
“What?” I ask, sipping my virgin tequila sunrise. Without the tequila, do I just call it a sunrise?
“Why are we really here? It’s not for the duck.”
“Canard,” I say, not deigning to dignify him any more by actually looking at him while I’m talking.
“Leila.”
“Fine,” I tell him. “I heard Dane on the phone making a date to come to this restaurant.”
“So what?”
“I just want to know if he’s two-timing what’s-her-name.”
“Wrigley,” Mike says. “Why do you care?”
“Mike,” I start.
I don’t know where to go from there.
“Yes?”
“How are things at work?”
“Skillful,” he says. “Things at work are fine. Why are we spying on your roommate?”
“I just want to know,” I tell him. “Isn’t that enough? I’ve lived with the guy for over a month, and I really don’t know anything about him other than the fact that he’s not really a musician.”
“How do you know that?”
“Have you ever met a musician who doesn’t subject you to their dreadful caterwauling on a daily basis?”
“Come to think of it,” he says, smiling, “I don’t think I have.”
“I’ve never heard him play or sing. I want to know what’s going on. He told me last night that he’s losing his job, whatever that actually is—besides, if he was making $120,000 a year as a musician, wouldn’t I have heard of him?”
“I don’t think you’re the musical aesthete you think you are,” Mike says.
“Whatever. Just help me keep an eye out.”
With the wicked smile that climbs up Mike’s face, I know I’ve made a mistake asking the favor.
“Don’t embarrass me,” I tell him.
“From the sound of it, you don’t really need my help in that area.”
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
What he’s doing is holding up his spoon and using it as a crude mirror to look over his shoulder at the people behind him.
“I’m helping you spy on your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snap.
Mike just smiles that adolescent smile of his and I’m starting to regret inviting him along.
Our waiter, a man with very little patience and a thick English accent, approaches.
“Will you be requiring anything else this evening?” he asks.
“I have a question,” Mike says, alternating eyes as he continues to pretend like he’s doing something useful with the spoon in his hand.
The waiter lets out a sigh. This isn’t Mike’s first question of the evening.
“Yes?” the waiter asks.
“Why a French restaurant?” Mike asks.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Mike, leave the man alone,” I say, trying to get my oldest and dearest friend to stop being a jackass.
“Well,” Mike starts, “you have quite the British accent.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter answers.
“So, why work in a French restaurant? Aren’t there any good English restaurants in the city?”
“Will you be requiring anything else this evening, madam?” the waiter asks, doing his best to ignore Mike’s idiocy.
“No, I think that will be all,” I tell him. “I do apologize for my companion. He doesn’t get out much in proper society.”
“I will have you know,” Mike butts in, “that I have personally attended many a silent auctions where I have placed bids alongside many of New York’s cultural elite.”
I’m starting to wonder if our food came to the table clean.
“Yes,” the waiter says, “well. If there’s nothing else.”
I take one more look around.
The waiter’s going to kick us out if we don’t leave soon and Dane is nowhere to be found.
“Actually,” I start, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to compliment the chef. I’ve only had confit de canard like that once before in my life.”
“Very good, madam,” the waiter says. “Perhaps your friend can fetch your coats while I take you back.”
He glares at Mike, and I’m having a little trouble keeping a straight face. I get up from the table and lead the waiter away before someone throws a punch.
When we get to the kitchen, the waiter asks me to wait outside. He’s not in there for five seconds before I can hear the chef yelling at him.
The waiter comes out, saying, “The chef will see you now, but I’d make it quick.”
I just kind of stand there for a minute.
On the other side of the door is the most talented chef I’ve ever come across since my father died, and I really don’t know if I can deal with him screaming at me. Things have been tense enough in my life.
Oh well, here I go.
The room is hot, busy. People are talking over each other, somehow keeping everything straight in the process.
It reminds me of my dad’s kitchen.
“Will you fucking look at this? It’s supposed to be braised, not reduced to soggy shit!”
“Dane?”
“What?” he shouts.
He turns around and, once he sees me standing in his kitchen, the murderous expression falls from his face.
“Leila,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I don’t have a good answer for him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I respond.
“I, uh…”
“Chef?” the man standing to the left of him says.
“What the fuck do you want, Cannon? I’m talking to someone here.”
The man goes back to his work without another word.
“So, you’re a chef.”
“Yeah,” he says, “about that—”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that? Wait, is this the job you’re getting—”
“Hey guys, I’m taking a break,” Dane interrupts.
“Chef, we’re in the middle of dinner service.”
“Shut the fuck up, Cannon,” he says and walks over to me. “Yeah, we should probably have this conversation outside.”
A minute later, we’re standing out back and he’s lighting up a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I tell him.
“I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I’m a chef from you, it’s just—”
“Just what?” I ask. “Oh, let me guess: You’ve got it in your head that if you were a professional musician, I would be that much more inclined to sleep with you?”
“No,” he says. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that, well, people kind of treat a person differently if they know he’s a chef.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
This whole situation is surreal and only growing stranger.
“It’s really not important,” he says. “But yeah, this is the job that I’m going to be losing.”
“After hearing the way you talk to your people, I can see why.”
“Oh, that’s just Cannon. He’s only ever useful if you’re flat out abusive to him. That doesn’t matter, though. Listen, I’m sorry that I—”
“I came back to compliment you on the confit de canard,” I tell him. “Did you make that?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been kind of dreading making that dish ever since you interrogated me about it.”
“I didn’t interrogate—”
“You kind of did, Leila, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” I ask. “Why are we even out here?”
“Other than the fact that you were about to announce to the grunts that I’m getting fired?” he asks.
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t know why I lied to you—well, the truth is that I didn’t want you asking me to make you French cuisine every day. I get enough of that at work, I assure you. When I come home—”
“Dane?”
“I don’t know why I kept lying.”
“Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” I tell him. “It’s not really a big deal, though.”