Chef hears her wants before she speaks, it’s all over her face, like easy read literature. And he knows her fairly well now, they spend nearly 13 hours a day together and have for months.

She came in one day, early in the restaurant’s history, looking for work and now she practically lives with this older man who feeds her, listens to her; they laugh, fight, talk occasionally about outside matters.

“You drink, I’ll get high,” says Chef after the service, and he hands her the opened bottle of red she was wanting. It had come in off a table 3/4 full.

Chef smokes his mahlo under the hood, the Black and Mild’s tobacco rolled out, mixed with marijuana, and stuffed back into the tobacco leaf shell.

He takes a long drag, then slowly French inhales it.

She drinks the wine, like its cute, like she’s adorable and doesn’t smell of alcohol and cigarettes, the beverage satisfying her hunger and then, suddenly, they’re flirting.

Not obnoxiously, not playing each other, just a bit loose, like two people comfortable enough to have weaknesses in front of each other and it had been a considerably longer day since, K., the dishwasher had been arrested and jailed during the midday break.

That left the dishes unattended for service.

A panic ensued in the kitchen, the small crew jumping around stations, general pandemonium buzzing about, and service was soon.

She hadn’t wanted to do them, wash the dishes. Nobody wanted that gig, but she saw the wine accruing that was off limits to the waiters, she liked the extra money, and Chef had control over those options. He was looking for a dishwasher.

E., that waitress who would let her thong show just above the waist of her jeans after service, flitted about hungover, not wanting to work that shift. She was given the night off but stuck around, chewing it out with the other front of house staff and because of that she was asked, persuaded, to wash the dishes.

Washing dishes in one of Chef’s extra large coats that hung, draped over her red cocktail dress (she had changed when her name was taken off the night’s server list) loosely, she was funny and they, her and Chef, related differently in these shared hours, joking more, talking about the times she expressed sad musings on her high life and her reckless, passive aggressive desire for more of the same. A cigarette dangled from her mouth most of the night, she puffed on it, smoke trails escaping her breath as she arranged the dishes from the busser to the waters for cleaning and back again on the line for plating.

She was young, but only a couple of years from, not so much anymore, if she didn’t turn it around. She had dropped out of college, was living at home again and wanted to escape with drunken escapades. Chef could empathize, he told her, but she’d regret later, not respecting herself, is how he’d finish the conversations.

People hurt, and while Chef was in his element, his wait staff and much of the kitchen crew were waiting out tomorrow. That tension permeated the environment and gave way to many of the days stories that imbued kitchen life with an entertaining kind of tragic heroism. It was mostly immaturity though, the kind experienced when high pressure environments momentarily let up and the inhabitants vent their emotions through vulgarity, pranks, and the like.

Tickets slow until the last orders go out and the evening is coming to a close. The kitchen, all day smelling of fresh, cooked foods, churning out expensive fare, now, at closing, has a fog, slowly pulled toward the vents, the drifting cloud comprised of and smelling like cherry tobaccos, Marlboro reds, and reefer.

Finally, only E. remains finishing up the last of that station and the work day ending, Chef doffs his white coat. It’s heavier now, stiffer with grease and bits of food matter from prep, cooking at service. He takes her jacket when she finishes and throws both of them into the dirty laundry bin.  

Chef stands at the line in his white t-shirt and faded black cargo pants and pours a half glass of the red E. had been nursing, finishing the bottle. She comes over, kind of presses up against him and smiles in an awkward gesture of, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t read signals well, thanks, maybe. They both laugh a little nervously and the kitchen is quiet.

Tomorrow, she’ll be a waitress again, he’ll be Chef, and they’ll both act like nothing of this sort ever happened.