There had always been no way to know if that when the cool air finally came, that it meant the end of summer. Goddammit, you hoped it was the end of summer. It had been hot. And dry. And all the local produce was crap. It's hard to cook a fine meal when the produce is crap. Work had been long and hard. In fact you had had about had it and were considering a change. It seemed that way in the kitchen. Like any kitchen, you worked there for as long as you could until you got bored, or angry, or something better came along. The kitchen is like that. New jobs offer the promise of executive control over the menu and the freedom to create dishes that are more like art than the food that they are made out of. But it never goes like that. Some manager is in charge of the ordering. He orders crap produce from big distribution companies while the local stuff goes to rot on the shelf. Not that the local stuff was any good this season anyway. And then there's always that punk server who says, 'Michael, the woman at five, she says that her tomato soup is cold, and her sandwich has ham on it but she didn't want ham.' Tell her it's gazpacho. And tell her not to order the damn ham and cheese panini if she didn't want the goddamn ham. Life is like that in the kitchen.
The good thing about being a chef is that there is always work out there. Everybody has to eat, and most people are too lazy or too busy to learn how to cook for themselves. You can always tell the difference too. The lazy ones are fat and they order chicken wings or any other fried food on the menu. They wear football jerseys and ball caps and they smell like cigarette butts and beer. The busy ones, on the other hand, the busy ones, come in with their whole family and wear polo shirts and let their little shit kids run around the restaurant unsupervised. They're the kind that would call their lawyer too, if their little shit kid tripped and busted their little shit head open. If they watched their damn kids in the first place it never would happen to begin with. That is what Sheila always tells you. Sheila is a server. You like Sheila. She has a good head on her shoulders and she likes you too. You've started to hang out outside of work a bit. She lives with her mother in a nice little house in South Durham. You've been over there a few times to watch movies together. Her mother has all kinds of little pewter figurines of circus animals all over the house. It's nice. It smells clean. The couch that you sit on with Sheila has a worn floral pattern on it and it sags a bit in the middle which makes it easy to sit close. Maybe someday she'll come to your house. She's just about the only reason you're staying with this shit job. If you leave too soon, you'll miss her. It would be best if you could make it 'official' before you move on, so you know you'll still get to see her.
Your house is okay. You call it a house, even though it is a duplex. Your neighbor is never there which is good, because you never want to talk to him anyway. He's the kind of guy who you love to hate. A doctor. Or he's becoming a doctor which is why he is never there. He must be attending or something. Anyway, it's good he's never there. Why would he want to be there anyway? Your units are not that nice. The paint is chipped on the outside, and there is all kinds of pine needles built up on the roof. They have wadded up in the rain so that when it does rain they channel all the water towards the door. It hasn't been a problem, because it hasn't rained all goddamn summer, but it was today because it started to rain while you were at work. When you heard rain was coming you thought that it was going to be dead in the restaurant, but it was busy. It is a Friday after all, and both the lazy ones and the busy ones eat out on Friday. It sucked too because Sheila wasn't there. If she had been it would have been alright even though it was really busy and that the asshole manager Charles decided it would be a good time to reorganize the walk-in. As if turning new tables every 20 minutes wasn't enough. You gotta organize the damn walk-in too. You don't even know why Charles was there anyway. He mostly works days. But it was okay, you got the work done regardless. Then you came home and it was still raining and when you wanted to walk in your front door, there was a damn waterfall coming down in front of it. You had no choice. You stood there in the waterfall and unlocked your door, then walked into the living room. You stood there for a minute dripping wet. You would have looked like an asshole if anybody was looking.
***
Sheila wasn't at work again today. You thought it was weird because you know you saw her name on the schedule. But then when you looked at the schedule, you saw that her name was crossed off for the rest of the week. You hoped she hadn't quit. You hoped that she had strep throat or something. When you got to your station you realized you couldn't think. There were four orders already waiting for you. You looked at the first. The first was two chili dogs and an order of fries. The next, a Caesar salad. The third was a personal Chicago style pizza with sausage and pepperoni. You didn't even look at the fourth. Why wasn't Sheila there? She was the only reason you were still working there. You put the chili on the pizza, the pepperoni on the salad, and the Caesar dressing on the hot dogs. Then the punk server says, 'Uh Michael. What the hell is that?' You look down at what you did. It is like tunnel vision. Where the hell is Sheila? You walk out of the kitchen. You walk past the dish pit. And you walk out the back door. Punk sever yells, 'Mike, what the hell?' It's time to go home. But first you'll have to stop at the ABC and get some booze.
It has been two days since you quit. That prick Charles has called twice, but you don't bother calling him back. It feels good to be done with that job. You've been scanning the help wanted, but you're in no hurry to take another shit job. Maybe you'll go file at the unemployment office. No rush. Today you're going to get on top of the roof and kick off all those damn pine needles. The front office should do it but you've asked them for maintenance before and they're slugs. You do wonder about Sheila though. Why did she have such an effect on you? She's just a girl. Maybe she'll call. If she doesn't you'll go down to her mom's house. See if she's there. But first the roof. You don't own a ladder. You're certainly not going to buy one just to clean off the roof. But there is a tree close enough to the house where you could shimmy over and get on the roof provided the branches support your weight. It isn't easy going. The branches are kind of thick and they scratch your skin as you break them to get towards the roof. When you're up there you realize that the house is just a bit to far to step on. But there is a branch that gets pretty close and you're feeling brave so you decide to jump. You nearly miss, but you didn't so what the hell. The pine needles form a V that points directly at your front door. You wonder why the hell out of all the ways the pine needles could have formed, they formed in a way to spite you. You start to kick them off. It's pretty easy work. Then you stop. It's kind of nice up here and you get a good perspective on the whole neighborhood. You can see the water tower and how the main power lines stretch from East to West. You wonder why you've never noticed them before. You can smell barbecue being cooked. When you look off over the back of the house you get a good view of the back of the yard. There is smoke rising from the barbecue. Your hot shot doctor neighbor is cooking. You inch towards the edge of the roof and look down at him. He's bald anyway, so that makes you smile. He's on the phone, talking to some other hot shot.
'Man you shoulda seen the size of this trout I caught. Brown. Foot and a half at least.'
You realize that this guy might be good at fishing or doctoring, but he can't run a barbecue.
Yeah, I know I don't get that much time off, but when I do I sure as hell am going to head to the mountains.'
He keeps pressing down on his burgers and squeezing all the juices out.
'But yeah, I'll be back to work tomorrow.'
Plus his coals are way too hot and since he's jabbering on the phone he doesn't notice that his patties are burning
'You know. I put the time in now, but in two years I'll go private, and then I'll be at the mountains every weekend.'
You realize that in ten years, this guy's still gonna be a shit cook. He may work a four day week, and he may be raking in big time dough, but at the end of the day he still won't know how to grill a decent hamburger. He won't know why there are slots on some spatulas, but not on others. He won't know how to make a decent roux. He probably doesn't even know it when he's using a saucier. Yeah, he's nothing to envy. It makes you kind of smile.
***
Sheila hasn't called you. You can't believe that you never got her number. You had always meant to but it just never happened. You decide to drive to Durham and see if she is at her mom's house. On the way there you watch the cars go by. They all drive so fast. It is like that in the Triangle, everybody has someplace to go and they are in a hurry to get there. Not you though, it feels good to drive slow. You remember that when you were a kid your dad always told this same joke when you were on road trips. 'You see all those people?' he'd say. 'They're not American. No sirree, they're Rushin'.' Man he got a kick out of that. Every long trip away from Mom. Out to the mountains, or out to the beach. Wherever you could drive to in a weekend's time. He's the one who taught you to cook. You practiced in between visits, cooking for your Mom. Duck a l'orange with polenta, braised lamb, you name it.
When you get to Sheila's house no one answers the door. You decide to walk around back and see if anybody is there. Her mom is back watering the flowers and she nearly jumps a mile high when you say hello.
'Michael, goodness you startled me.'
'Sorry, I haven't seen Sheila at work and I thought maybe I would stop by to see maybe if she was here.'
'No… She's not. I don't know why she didn't tell you, but she moved. Went to San Diego with a boy she met.'
Your heart sinks down to the bottom of your sneakers and your stomach starts flipping around like a gastronomical trapeze artist.
'Oh, good for her.' you say, 'I hear the weather in San Diego is nice year round.'
'I'm sorry, Michael,' her mom says.
'Oh no problem. I should go. When you talk to her, say I said hi.'
You turn around to walk to your car. The gravel in Sheila's mom's driveway is crunchy, like it is made out of cornflakes. You really don't know why you are all bent out of shape about a girl. On your drive home the AC is on high. It is as hot as hell out again.