Chapter Text
Every morning, Carmen Berzatto had the same routine.
- Wake up after his alarm goes off at 8am
- Lay there and process being awake for 2 mins. No more than that. (There’s another alarm that goes of at 8:02am to keep him honest)
- Get out of bed and immediately hit the floor. Do 20 push ups.
- Go to the bathroom. Grab his toothbrush and toothpaste and go straight into the shower.
- After he showered, put on clean clothes.
- Work day? Go to work. Not a work day? Probably still go to work.
This wasn’t something he came up with on his own. Not even close. It was his therapist’s idea.
And the therapist had been his sister’s idea. The night he got himself locked in the freezer was the first time he’d seen Sugar look like she’d given up. All his life, he knew for certain that his sister loved him fiercely. That she cared if he was okay, sometimes a little too much. But that night, he’d gotten the apathetic side of his sister. One he’d never seen before.
She was the first person in the walk-in after Terry got it opened.
“Will you be okay until the morning?” That’s what she asked him, standing there in her coat, ready to leave.
His brain had long gone offline, his panic turning into an almost catatonic trance once he accepted his fate. But he was cognizant enough to know what she meant. If she left him here, would he still be here in the morning? She couldn’t identify a second brother’s body.
He looked at her and couldn’t miss the exhaustion etched into her face. She wasn’t even really looking at him. It felt like she was looking through him.
“I’ll be fine, Sug.”
The next morning she showed up to the kitchen and marched him into office just before back of house came in.
She gave him the ultimatum: He gets help, or she leaves.
“I can’t lose another brother, Bear. If this place is going to eat you alive, I can’t sit here and watch it everyday.”
She was right. It wasn’t fair to her for him to fall apart like this. She had her own family now, a little bear of her own on the way. He should be the one making her life easier. Her baby didn’t deserve to have a mom who was stressed out because her baby brother couldn’t figure his shit out.
So every Monday at 1pm, Carmy finds himself sitting across from Dr. Lindsay Walsh.
Dr. Walsh reminded Carmy of all the father figures in those Hallmark Christmas movies Sugar used to force him to watch. He had salt a pepper hair and wore a sweater vest during every session. He topped off the whole look with a pair of round wire rimmed glasses. Definitely a Hallmark dad.
Warming up to him did take some time. Carmy found that it was much easier to open up at Al Anon. Everyone there had a shared experience and the group setting took a lot of pressure out of the situation. This one on one thing? It took getting used to.
But Carmy needed this to work. He wanted so badly to stop fucking up. Stop sabotaging himself and the people he cared about.
Luckily, Dr. Walsh started small. Told him that getting himself back to an emotional stasis was the priority. That fixing these relationships would come in time, but first Carmy had to be able to breathe.
Together, they decided that establishing a morning routine just to get him through the next few weeks was a good start. And Carmy had nothing to lose, so he made it happen.
The goal of his morning routine was to get rid of what had been dubbed “the loathing hour”. This was defined as the 30-60 mins he often spent lying in bed until he willed himself to get up. His barely awake mind would fall into age old habits of negative self talk and dreading of the day ahead. All the ways he could fuck up. All the people he had to make sure he didn’t letting down.
His new routine didn’t even give him the time to loathe. He was in the shower before his brain was even fully aware that he was standing upright. Carmy didn’t have much faith in the idea, but he gave it a shot. It wasn’t until almost a month in where he noticed something had changed.
“This is gonna sound weird, but I feel like we are killing lunch service lately.” He standing across from Syd as she did her afternoon walkthrough.
He did this with her almost every day now. She used to do her walkthroughs alone, but after she kept having to yell questions about menus and vendors at him across the kitchen, he decided to just stay close by. He didn’t mind it. He liked it, even.
She stood up at his words, eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?” She asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know…I feel like everything is working together really well. I haven’t sent a plate back in like, three days.” Honestly, it was pretty impressive.
Sydney shook her head, her face breaking open into a grin. “Really Carmy? You don’t think it has to do with you recently deciding to be pleasant in the morning?” She laughed as she pushed off the table in front of her and headed to the walk in.
“What?” He followed behind her, confused “What are you talking about?” She opened the door and he reached above her to hold it opened as they both walked in.
“What am I talking about? Ask yourself!” She set her clipboard on the shelf in front of her and reached up to grab the carrot bin from the top shelf. He rolled his eyes. She kept putting the heavy shit up top. But it was her system, and he was happy to let her have it.
Carmy reached up to grab it for her so as to avoid her maiming herself when the whole thing inevitably fell on her head. Situating it in his arms, he held it for her while she counted. “Syd, I have no idea-“ he stopped short as she held her finger up to silence him while she counted. Finishing, she turned and marked the number on her clipboard. He hefted the bin back up as he started again, “-I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She rested her clipboard back on the shelf, eyes searching the walk-in. “I don’t know Carmy! Like, usually we have to let you ‘thaw’ until noon.” She found what she was looking for and shrugged past him to start count on the eggs. “And then like, two weeks ago, you started saying thank you before 11am or whatever.” Happy with her count on the eggs she looked around for her clipboard.
Carmy grabbed it off the shelf by his head and handed it to her. “And like, nobody said anything?”
She shrugged, looking down at her clipboard. “I mean, your sister said not to. She didn’t want to jinx it.”
And that’s when Carmy decided his therapist might just be worth the $30 co-pay.
Recently, he had an addition to his routine. After a failed attempt at replacing his staff’s supply of coffee with tea resulted in a near-mutiny, he gave them back the coffee and started picking up tea for him and Syd on the way to work. Every single day.
He could be honest enough to say it started out of pure guilt. The night he took Syd to the hospital was up there with some of the worst nights of his life. When he’d come out the back door and saw her on the ground, clutching the dirty bumper of the van for dear life, he was worried. When she threw up on him in the next moment, his worry became panic. When he found out her symptoms were the fault of his own shortcomings, the panic became guilt. And when she told him how his behavior made her question her own self worth, the guilt threatened to eat him alive.
He held on to that shame with a vice grip for almost a week. He got to therapy the following Monday and laid it all out for Dr. Walsh, head pointed down to the hands in his lap out of shame. But his therapist met him with grace.
“Carmen,” Dr. Walsh took off his wire-rimmed glasses and leaned forward, “thank you for sharing that with me. I can imagine it was difficult to hear her say all of that. But I am impressed that you were able to express your feelings to her so clearly.”
Carmy raised his head but couldn’t quite meet his doctor’s gaze. Instead he looked past him to the bookshelf behind him. Carmy found a giant purple book on one of the middle shelves. He focused on that instead.
“I’m tired of being sorry. I’m tired of apologizing. Letting Syd, Nat, everybody down.” He sighed and closed his eyes, considering his next words. “I know that actions speak louder than words or whatever. But I don’t feel like I know which actions are the right ones?” He opened his eyes and looked back at his therapist, desperation clear in his face. “I don’t want to just say I’ll be better. I want to be better.”
His therapist suggestion was simpler than he anticipated: If Carmy wanted to alleviate whatever stress he may have put on Sydney, he could find something he could take off of her plate that he could do instead. Something that he could realistically commit himself to doing.
At first, he was completely at a loss. The renovation was over. Hiring was done. And Sydney was a highly capable person. That night at the hospital was the first time he’d really seen her so vulnerable. Carmy couldn’t go back and change the past, but he also didn’t want to step on her toes.
He had brought her tea that first morning as a peace offering. But after watching her struggle without her morning caffeine fix for a week or so, he realized, this was it. He could caffeinate her.
The next day, he brought her another Earl Grey. When he found it half drunk in the office and asked her about it, she told him it wasn’t really her favorite tea flavor.
“So what kind do you like?” He asked
She swiveled Natalie’s chair back in his direction as she considered his question. “I don’t know…something lighter, maybe?” She turned her attention back to the vendor order she was reviewing while he considered her response.
The next day at the coffee shop, he ordered his earl gray and then asked the barista for a recommendation. “I’m uh…buying one for my partner. But I have no idea what to get her.” He scanned the list of teas on their menu, but came up short.
The man in front of him smiled kindly at his obviously discomfort. “Do you know what kind of teas she likes?”
“She said ‘something light’.” He answered. “Or at least something lighter than Earl Grey.”
Kevin, according to his name tag, nodded and thought about it for a few beats. “Well maybe a green tea? It’s much lighter than earl gray. And we have a really simple one she might like.”
Kevin’s guess was as good as any. But Sydney would be the final judge.
When she took the first sip he held his breath. “It’s…nice.” She said.
Which meant she didn’t like it.
Carmy rested back against the prep table she stood in front of, eyebrows raised. “Nice? What don’t you like.”
She smiled, shaking her head, “Carmy, it’s fine. Thank you, really.” She took another lack luster sip as an attempt to prove it. “And you don’t have to keep buying me tea, Carm.” She looked next to her, eyeing him where he stood. “I really should be getting my own tea on the way in. I just keep forgetting until I’m already here.” She sighed and moved the cup to her left as she pulled out a cutting board and placed it next to the giant bin of onions on the prep table.
“Syd, I don’t mind. Really.” His thumb worried his lip, unsure of himself. “But I can stop if you want me to.” The last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.
Sydney stopped her knife mid-cut and studied him. He did his best not to squirm under her appraisal.
“Okay.” She nodded.
“Okay?” His shoulders dropped in relief.
“Okay.” She gave him a small smile, returning to her dicing. “But I don’t think that green tea is going to be the one though. That stuff basically tastes like water to me.
It took him a few more episodes of trial and error, but he eventually discovered that Sydney was matcha fiend all the way. And now, two months later, delivering Sydney her beloved matcha was still the highlight of his morning.
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
Every morning, Sydney had to muster the will to get herself out of bed.
It wasn’t that she was trapped by the crushing weight of her responsibilities. At least not anymore. It’s was just that she really liked to sleep and getting out of bed felt like an act of violence.
Half awake, she could shuffle through her house without having to think even one intelligent thought. She had lived in this apartment her entire life and nothing had really ever changed. Their toothbrushes were always sitting in a glass cup with a retro Carnival Cruise Lines logo, a souvenir from her parents’ honeymoon. The soap dish could be found on the window sill in the shower, always pushed as far from the water stream as possible. There was always oatmeal in the pantry that she washed down with a cup of Milo, another Adamu pantry staple.
Her clothes for the day were always hanging on her desk chair, having been chosen the night before. This habit was a hold over from her childhood, her father’s solution to Sydney taking too long to get ready for school in the morning. She was a total sleep addict then too.
Dressed, fed, and out the door, she typically she woke up while she listened to music on the walk to the train station. Her “Anotha Day, Anotha Slay” playlist that she listened to almost every day had been artfully curated over the last several years. Every song was some version of herself’s favorite song. Probably one of the few playlists in the world where “Our Time Now” by Plain White T’s played immediately before “Cranes in the Sky” by Solange which was followed by “Amigas, Cheetahs” by The Cheetah Girls.
She used the train ride to scroll through her phone since she barely even saw her phone once she stepped into the kitchen. She’d check her Instagram, liking food pics from chefs she followed and general life updates from old friends or acquaintances. She scrolled through her tumblr, desperately trying to avoid spoilers from her favorite shows that she hadn’t been able to catch up on in the last few months.
Her texts were next. The “The Bear BOH” group chat was always lively. In between actual updates about who was sick or what had broken in the kitchen were memes and jokes, usually provided by Richie and Marcus. Sometimes they were funny. Usually, they were just dumb.
Today, she had two texts from Imani that had come in at 5:45am. Sydney could never work at a school. Those hours were simply egregious.
Imani: Hey! We have tickets to an exhibition opening at Gallery Guichard tomorrow night. You wanna come?
Sydney clicked the link her friend had attached. A black-owned gallery was opening an exhibit in celebration of a new slate of artists who had contracted with them. This latest cohort would feature work from young artists who were less established. It looked like something she would really enjoy.
There was a second text.
Imani: I know you are gonna tell me you can’t, because of work, but I would just like to remind that you’re the one who told me you haven’t had a day off in two months.
Sydney sighed, considering the text, but she had to pocket her phone before she could reply so she could exit the train at her stop. She considered her friend’s text as she made her way to the restaurant.
She hadn’t had a day off in two months. That was true. But there was a reason for that. The Bear had officially opened only two short months ago. It had taken a few weeks, but she was just starting to feel like they had found their footing. She was confident on expo. Marcus had come back from leave and had just gotten fully back up to speed. And Carmy was back on plating, which meant that she was sending less plates back and Richie could get tables turned over that much faster.
At a crosswalk, she pulled her phone back out.
Sydney: That sounds like fun. But taking a night off right now kinda feels like self sabotage.
The crossing light changed and she walked across the street. She hadn’t even completely gotten to the other side when her phone vibrated again in her hand.
Imani: Remember when I promised to help you with stress reduction? Well this is me doing that by reminding you that not taking time off is also self sabotage .
Alright. Imani had a point.
She broached the idea at the end of their senior staff meeting that same morning. Every Tuesday morning Sydney, Carmy, Natalie, and Richie met for an hour to go over the last week and prep for the next.
“I know it’s probably a bad idea, but do you think you guys could run dinner service without me tomorrow?” She was addressing the group, but her eyes were on Carmy who sat in a chair across from her own.
His eyebrows raised in surprised and then furrowed in concern. “Of course, Syd. Is everything okay?”
Geez. The fact that her taking a night off was met with surprise and concern made it very clear to her how necessary this time off was. “I’m fine.” She assured him, but when she looked to Richie and Nat, it was clear they didn’t believe her. “Really guys, I’m fine! I got invited to an opening tomorrow at a gallery and I was thinking about going…but only if you think it wouldn’t be a disaster.” Looking back at Carmy, she saw the almost imperceptible way stiffened at her words.
Her body language study was interrupted by Richie’s voice. “What? You got a hot date?”
Sydney rolled her eyes so hard she was shocked they didn’t fall out of her head. “No, Richard …I do not have a ‘hot date.’” She turned to face Richie where he stood, leaning against the closed door. “Some of us have these people called ‘friends’ that we do fun things with.”
Richie opened his mouth to lob back a reply, but Natalie cut him off. “Well whatever it is sweetie, you don’t need to worry about us.” Natalie smiled at Sydney from behind the desk. “You deserve a night off. We’ll make it work.” Her smile faded as she pinned Carmy and Richie with a glare. “Right boys?”
His sister’s question pulled Carmy out of wherever his mind had wandered as he nodded.
“Geez, Sug. Relax!” Richie pushed himself off the door, standing at his full height, smiling. “We’ll be fine chef. Enjoy your fancy art show.” He open the door behind him and headed into the kitchen.
With Richie gone, she looked back to Carmy wanting to judge his reaction. Any apprehension she had thought she saw in his face was gone and replaced with a neutral smile. “We’re good, Syd.” He said. “Have a good time.”
She texted Imani during a lull in the kitchen chaos.
Sydney: You win. I’m in for tomorrow.
Ever the speedy replier, Imani’s response was immediate.
Imani: Yay! I love winning! The four of us can meet there at 8:30? Maybe go have drinks later?
Imani: I know you will have strong feelings about the restaurant so I will use your list, lol.
Sydney smiled thinking about the list of acceptable restaurants in Chicago she had given Imani when asked for recommendations for date nights. It couldn’t be at The Bear every week.
Hold on, four?
Sydney: Four? Is someone else coming?
After a full minute without reply, she knew something was up.
Sydney: Imani…
Sydney: Is this an attempt to set me up with someone?
Imani: I have no idea what you’re talking about .
Sydney knew better than to believe that. Imani had decided that a sure fire way for Sydney to reduce some stress was to get laid. And after a very spirited conversation where Sydney explained all the reasons Carmy was not an option, Imani had begun shopping every decent unclaimed man she knew to Sydney as a potential partners.
Sydney: So the fourth person is not a friend of yours who is “a really nice guy” or “looks like he probably has a big dick”?
Imani: What?! I can’t invite my best friend to an event that I also happened to invite my husband’s fine ass line brother to without the accusation of ulterior motive?! Wooooooow.
Sydney: Are you really pulling the best friend card right now?
Imani: Maybe…is it working?
Of course it was working.
The “Best Friend” label was relatively new. And Sydney was still getting used to the concept. In her defense, she hadn’t had one of those in years.
But that changed three weeks ago when Imani called her out of the blue on a Monday asking if she could hang out because she “didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.” Sydney questioned how someone working at a school could take off in the middle of a school day, but she was game.
“Come down to the restaurant.” She told her friend. “I’m already here working on a new dish by myself. I’ll cook you something.”
When Sydney let Imani in the front door 20 mins later, she could see that her friend had been crying. Her usually bright brown eyes were puffy and red and her nose was looked raw from tissues.
Sydney tried not to panic.
This was why she didn’t do this radical vulnerability bullshit. Because letting people near your pain means getting near theirs. And Sydney wasn’t great at that at all. How could she fix the problem? What if her help wasn’t good enough?
She had very little experience at this. Which meant her only real choice at the moment was to follow her instincts.
She pulled her friend into a hug and just held her for a second. When she felt Imani relax, she pulled back and rubbed up and down her arms to calm her further.
“Have you eaten?” Asked Sydney.
Imani shook her head.
“Okay. Why don’t you freshen up in the bathroom and wait out here for me?”
Imani sniffled and nodded. “Okay…I can do that.”
Sydney fed her a lobster mac recipe she had been playing with for a couple of days. It was the ultimate indulgence. The shell pasta that she’d chosen that day perfectly hid pockets of a delicious cheese sauce that included about 5 different cheeses. The lobster pieces were perfectly tender but still had enough chew to contrast the soft noodles. And to top it all off, she’d sprinkled fried onions all over it.
“Ugh!” Imani moaned. “This is amazing.”
Sydney sat down next to her in one of their cushy booths. “Thanks.” She gave the other woman a small smile. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? It’s okay if you don’t!” She quickly clarified. Sydney didn’t want to force anything, but she did want Imani to know she could open up if she wanted.
Imani finished her bite before she spoke. “You remember how I told you I was appealing to the board for funding for that new program?”
Sydney nodded. Imani had been working on a presentation to the school board for funding of the overhaul of the mental health infrastructure in underserved schools in the district. She had already found $250,000 in grants from outside sources. She just needed $70,000 from the board to fund the salary of the new Program Manager. It should’ve been an easy decision.
“Well, they didn’t allocate the funds.”
“What?!” Sydney couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
The tears started welling back up in Imani’s eyes. “They…they said the money just wasn’t there.” She was full on crying now.
“But they somehow had the money to refurbish the superintendent’s office suite.”
She put her fork down on the table and dropped her hands to her lap. “I just really wanted this for these kids Syd. Every day I come in contact with kids who just need one person to listen to them. To validate their emotions. To advocate for them. But right now so many of them are falling through the cracks.”
“I want to help them all. But I can’t. Not with the resources we have now!” She took a deep breath to center herself. “I just don’t know what the fucking point is anymore. I feel like I’m fighting for these kids but the district just doesn’t get that a kid who isn’t getting the right emotional support is never going to meet their full potential in the classroom. I’m just tired of feeling like…like a failure!”
The tears were flowing freely again, Sydney feeling some of her own prick her eyes.
God. She wished she was better at this. She wished she was more like Imani. Or Natalie. That she would just know the right words. But she wasn’t going to become a new person in ten seconds, so she followed her instincts where they pushed her.
Scooting as close to her friend as she could, Sydney wrapped her arms around Imani’s middle and rested her head on her shoulder. Imani was slightly taller and she rested her head on Sydney’s while she cried.
They sat like that for 10 minutes. No talking. Just the sound of Imani’s sniffles and the traffic outside.
Not changing positions, It was Imani who spoke first. “Syd…I know that we just became close again in the last few months but…I think you’re my best friend.”
Sydney’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart rate sped up. She was somewhere between ecstasy and dread. Between wanting to run and wanting to hold on tightly and never let go.
“It’s fine if you don’t feel that way too,” Imani continued, “but I just want-“
“You’re absolutely my best friend.” Sydney interrupted her. “Are you kidding?”
They both sat up straight and looked at each other for a beat before breaking out into a fit of laughter.
“God, Syd. You’re the best.”
“No, you’re the best. And fuck the school board.”
Three weeks later and Sydney was still getting the hang of this “best friend” thing. But she was positive it wasn’t meant to be used for extortion.
Sydney: It’s fine. You will have to answer to god for your lies eventually 😂
Sydney: Send me a pic of what you’re wearing so I can figure out what to wear. I’m not above showing up to this “not date” in my chef whites just to piss you off.
Imani: Wear them! I think those little chef jackets are hot af 😂
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
The next morning Carmy’s day began exactly like the one before it.
He woke up, did his push ups, showered, dressed, and grabbed his earl grey and Sydney’s matcha on the way to work.
He walked in the back door expecting to find Sydney already in the kitchen like she was on most days. She never needed to come in as early as she did, but she insisted on being the first one in every morning and he did his best to never be too far behind.
But when he turned the corner into the kitchen, Tina was standing there instead.
At the sound of his footsteps, the older woman looked up from her prep station as he crossed the threshold into the kitchen. “Morning, Jeff!”
“Oh, uh, hey T. What are you doing here so early?” He asked.
She smiled at him and wiped her hands on the towel tucked into the string of her apron before walking over to where he stood. “I came in early to start prep.” She leaned against the counter in front of him. “Syd told me she had a thing tonight, so I just told her to take the day off and I would cover her for lunch too.” A slight look of concern clouded her face. “Was that okay?”
Carmy willed his mouth to open as he processed her words. “Uh, yeah, Chef. Of course that’s okay.” He smiled to make sure she knew wasn’t in the wrong. “That was really nice of you.”
Looking down, he realized he was still holding the cups in his hands. Giving Sydney her tea in the morning was part of his routine. He would walk in to the kitchen and hand her the cup. She would say, “thanks Carmy!” and smile at him before taking her first sip. He would watch to make sure she was happy with it. She would moan and then tell him “Kevin is a god among matcha making men”. It was his routine. Their routine. And he couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled at the thought that it wouldn’t happen today. He made a note to bring that up to Dr. Walsh.
He lifted the matcha towards Tina. “You drink matcha? It’s all yours if you want.”
Her face scrunched in disgust. “Nah. That shit tastes like grass clippings.” She walked backwards to get back to her prep station. “Besides, I’m not on a sympathy coffee strike like some people.” Her eyebrow quirked. “I already had two cups of coffee this morning.”
His lip turned up in a smile as he walked away from Tina’s station. This wasn’t the first time someone in the kitchen ribbed him on his choice to give up coffee. Everyone gave him shit for it, but he didn’t care. He had his reasons.
Carmy once had a boss who told him that “ the restaurant industry runs on the Three Cs: coffee, cigarettes, and cocaine.”
Their hard drug situation long sorted, all they had left at The Bear were coffee and cigs. He still had his cigarettes to keep him running on tough days, but Sydney didn’t smoke. So the way he saw it, she didn’t have much left to run on other than her version of sheer willpower, which was worth a kilo of cocaine if you asked him. Still, giving up coffee was a solidarity thing. To make sure she knew that he saw her. It was worth every overpriced matcha he bought.
He ended up putting the drink on the “free to a good home” shelf in the staff fridge. He’d worked in kitchens long enough to know someone would drink it.
*****
The day went fine without Sydney there. Sure, he kept turning to his right to tell her something only to remember she wasn’t standing next to him. And yes, maybe he did feel a little lost when Tina told him he didn’t need to shadow her for the after lunch checks. And, admittedly, he did have to resort to using a shitty sharpie to make labels because he couldn’t get the file cabinet drawer open where Sydney hid her sharpie stash. She kept telling him he “just had to jiggle it”. Well, he tried that. It wouldn’t open.
He was fine. Really.
The day didn’t really start to fall apart until just before dinner service. He was coming back to the kitchen from the storage room when he heard Tina’s voice coming from the office door.
“She really deserves to take the night off.” She sighed. “I keep telling that girl, she’s gonna run herself ragged if she doesn’t take a break!”
His sister’s voice followed, her excitement evident. “Oh, for sure. She’s young! She needs to go out! Have fun! Maybe she’ll hit it off with this hot Andre guy she said her friend is bringing.” He heard her shifting some papers around as she spoke. “If anyone deserves that particular form of stress relief, it’s Sydney.”
He felt his body heated up immediately. He didn’t need a mirror to know his face was pink, but he kept moving, hoping he could blame it on the heat of the kitchen. You know, instead of the image his brain flashed across his mind of Sydney getting her “stress relieved” by some faceless guy. That’s what he got for eavesdropping.
After that, he found it incredibly difficult to keep his brain from thinking about what she was getting up to on her night out.
For example, at this very moment, he was pouring a sauce onto a plate during service and then suddenly he was thinking about Sydney. Was she excited to meet this Andre person? Was she getting ready for this “date”? What did a Sydney who was going on a “not date” at a fancy gallery look like?
Carmy had never been with anyone long enough to know their grooming rituals, but his mind imagined Sydney sitting in front of a vanity, putting on make up the way his mother did before dinner parties. Or modeling a new outfit in front of a full length mirror like his sister did before every date she had with whatever guy Mikey hadn’t scared away yet.
It didn’t matter. It was actually none of his business. Literally not even a little bit.
Sydney was his friend. And he just really cared about her having a good time. She worked really fucking hard. Sydney deserved to have the chance to get dressed up and go out for a night on the town. And not have to worry about anything. He was just a little annoyed some faceless guy thought of doing it for her before he did.
“Chef!”
Carmy’s head whipped to his left, eyes on Richie who had yelled at him from expo stand. “Yeah?”
“What are you? Sleeping on your fucking feet? Syd’s gone one night and you lose your head in your ass?” His tone was serious, but his eyes gave away another implication entirely.
“What is it Richie?”
Richie raised hands in mock surrender. “I need those two bucatini ready for hands in 30.” He looked down to pretend to fiddle with the board in front of him, but the shit eating grin on his face was only for Carmy to see and the words he said next were whispered so low, they were only for Carmy to hear. “Daydream in your own time.”
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
There was nothing like the feeling of waking up and suddenly remembering you have the day off. Sydney had experienced many joys in life, but all paled in comparison to turning off her alarm and going right back to sleep.
It wasn’t that she hated being in the kitchen. It was the opposite. She loved it. In the two months since they opened she had found her stride. Running expo, running a kitchen wasn’t easy, but she was starting to feel like she could meet every challenge that the restaurant threw at her. But sometimes it was nice to know that she would not be on the receiving end of any restaurant related challenges for an entire day.
When she’d woken up at 7am out of habit, there was a text message from Natalie already on her phone.
Natalie: Good morning love! Please know that you are banned from texting anyone in this kitchen today for updates and if I hear you’ve been fishing for information I will fire you 🥰
Sydney rolled her eyes. The dramatics were off the charts with this one.
Sydney: You are not firing me. You love me.
Natalie’s reply was almost immediate.
Natalie: Fair. But I would fire Richie.
She would.
Sydney: Okay…I promise!
They actually very much needed Richie.
Hours later, she eventually got up and threw on a hoodie and some sweats before she went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. Rifling through the cabinet in the bathroom vanity that had been “hers” for the better part of the last 20 years, she grabbed a scrunchie and piled her braids haphazardly on the top of her head.
She had an entire day planned. Well, almost the entire day. It was already after 1pm.
First, she went to the corner store and got a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. Today was her day off. No need to mindlessly eat oatmeal with a mug of Milo. Of course, the bagel was delicious. It tasted exactly like it did when she was a kid and her dad would take her to Lehmann’s Deli on Sunday mornings. The entire bagel was eaten by the time she got back to her house. As god intended.
She would admit, she missed her matcha.
Giving up coffee had felt like the final “fuck you” from the universe after the last several months she’d had. She didn’t know that she had it in her to work in a kitchen without it. She earned her coffee addiction outright through years of long shifts in kitchens and running on minimal hours of sleep. And she couldn’t even have it anymore.
Until, like Prometheus himself, Carmy brought Sydney her very first matcha latte and changed her life.
She had been hesitant to rely on him to show up with the drink every morning. But she wanted to be able to trust him with big things again one day, so she decided to try trusting him with this small thing. And so far he never dropped the ball.
Without fail, Carmy would bring her a matcha latte made exactly how she liked it. He told her that all the credit went to Kevin, but deep down she knew he did it almost as much for himself as he did for her. He wanted to be better. So she let him.
There was one Tuesday when he overslept, and came barreling into the office after the other three had already started senior staff meeting. His hands were empty, which Sydney totally understood. Him being here was a lot more important than her tea. She could go get something after the meeting was over.
Minutes later, Carmy was talking about issues with the produce orders the week before when there was a knock at the door. Opening slowly, Fak poked his head into the room. “Here you go Carm.” In his outstretched had was a brown paper bag. Not missing a beat, Carmy stood up and took the bag, closing the door behind Neil. He put the bag on the desk as he kept talking.
“I want a new quote on the greens, Sug.” He opened the bag and pulled out two coffee cups. “I swear one out of every three heads of lettuce Sydney sorts through during checks is wilted.” He handed her a cup and then took the other back to his seat. “If we gotta do the quality control ourselves, then I’m not gonna keep paying them what we do now.”
Sydney tried to keep up with the conversation but she was in shock. She had wanted him to be more present, more dependable. But she hadn’t been prepared for how good it would make her feel to have his full attention. To know that he was so dedicated to doing this thing for her that he would get her matcha latte delivered right to her if he couldn’t get it himself.
But unfortunately, Lehmann’s was a corner deli, not a fancy coffee shop. So she would have to do without it today.
Her second order of business was to do some online shopping. Having just recently begun to get a salary of an adult human person, she had to teach herself to buy non-essentials again. Not that she was ever great at it. But once upon a time, she was known to buy an Etsy necklace here and an overpriced cardigan there.
She got into her favorite position, laid back into the seat of her father’s chair, her legs hanging over the arm. She used to read her Animorphs books in this position, despite her dad telling her constantly that she would give herself a headache. She’s been sitting like this for a couple of hours now. No headache. Her dad couldn’t be right all the time.
She ends up buying some new head scarves from one of several black women-owned companies she follows on Instagram. She revels in having the time to scroll through every listing on their site, comparing patterns and prices. If she likes it, she adds it to her cart, choosing not to worry about how high the total was creeping.
She picks a navy blue one with white daisies. She also gets a green bandana with palm trees that reminded her of something her Bajan grandmother would wear to go buy fish on Friday mornings. She throws a few solid color head bands in there for good measure. She’s about to check out when she sees one she can’t not buy. A deep purple one with little black bears on it? C’mon, the girl is only human.
$220 later, she’s done shopping and is on to the third event of the day: prepare for this not date art gallery thing.
She had roughly three hours to become a presentable person, worthy of fitting in to the artsy black millennial scene of Chicago. She could kick it with the most Blavity blacks of them all.
Imani had texted her the outfit she planned to wear that night. Jeans and a nice top. Casual, but cute. Very, “these are simply the kind of trendy clothing items that I have laying around in my closet because I am trendy person with clothes”.
Sydney heaved herself upright and walked down the hall into her room to assess the situation.
Her closet had seen very little action in the past year. Her uniforms of jeans/slacks and a button down/sweater fit nicely in her chest of drawers along with underwear, giant sleep shirts, and the odd hoodie from the niche food related clubs she joined in college.
Her closet, however, held some other person’s clothes. They were the clothes of a woman in her early 20’s who had just tasted a real paycheck from her first job in a kitchen and bought cute tops she would wear to happy hours. Never mind that she worked in a restaurant and would most likely be the one making the half priced apps instead of eating them. There were billowing wide leg pants. The kind someone bought if they believed they would become the kind of person who goes to AfroPunk with a gaggle of friends they just hadn’t made yet.
That closet had basically become a storage unit, but Sydney slid the doors open anyways. Chances are, it held her best bet at appearing to be a young, fun, cultured person. One who didn’t spend six of her precious seven days a week smelling like shallots because she was putting her heart and soul into a restaurant that could very well still be turned into a parking lot six months from now.
She had no idea what she was looking for. She pushed hanger after hanger of brightly colored polyester/cotton blends and was ready to give up when she saw it: the jumpsuit.
The most expensive article of clothing she ever owned.
She had bought it the night she’d officially shut down the Sheridan Road website. Sydney had moved back in with her a week and a half prior and her life was falling apart. It was rock bottom.
She had no business buying cute clothes, but the $358 in her bank account wouldn’t have even made a dent in what she owed Wells Fargo at that point. She had been scrolling Facebook when she saw the ad for the jumpsuit. The outfit was navy, but a green abstract pattern covered most of its surface. But the pattern wasn’t even what drew Sydney to the item. It was the picture.
The jumpsuit was being worn by an obscenely gorgeous woman with glossy dark skin and beautiful long braids. The model was sitting in a cafe, one that was decorated to look like a French bistro. She had an expensive-looking coat hanging off the back of her chair and a $4000 laptop on the table in front of her. In this particular shot, the model was looking off-screen in excitement. As if she had just locked eyes with a friend who she was waiting on. Or a lover.
Whatever. Sydney spent $200 on that jumpsuit. Somehow Mark Zuckerberg’s scary algorithm knew how desperately she wanted to just finally be a cool, successful person with people to spend her incredibly fulfilling days with. And if she was apparently never going to have that life, at least she could have the outfit.
She pulled it out and held it against her body. Sydney didn’t even know if the thing would fit. By the time she got it in the mail all those years ago, she was so embarrassed by the impulse buy that she hung it up in the back of her closet and ignored it.
Her body didn’t exactly look how it did a couple short years ago. Around the same time she started driving for UPS, those 20 pounds her aunties warned her would show up in her peak baby-making years arrived. Her hips had widened. Her breasts had grown.
She threw the jumpsuit on her bed and stripped down to her underwear. Turning, she faced her closed bedroom door where a floor length mirror hung on the back. Sydney studied her body for a beat, something she hadn’t done in a while.
She had always had a lean frame. Magazines at the library in the mid-2000s called it an “athletic” body type. Her shoulders were square and led to a muscular pair of arms, built from years of carrying very heavy shit around kitchens.
Her breasts, currently smushed into a sports bra from high school were…there. She’d never given their appearance too much thought. The most she’d ever considered their size was when she ordered custom chef whites with her Sheridan Road logo on the back and they needed bust measurements to make sure the buttons laid flat.
She didn’t know if they were “sexy”. She hooked up with a guy named Jacob at CIA who said “you have great tits” as she rode him on the couch in his incredibly messy Hyde Park studio apartment. He was her only data point.
“Would Carmy think I had great ti-“
Woah. What the actual fuck? Not Carmy. Car men . Carmen.
Shit. She meant Anthony? Aaron? Andre? Andre! Yes. The guy. The friend she was supposed to be meeting tonight.
Jesus. Fuck.
Days off were clearly not good for her brain. It didn’t need all this free time to think insane things like this.
It actually didn’t matter what anyone thought about her boobs. Not some guy she had never met nor was all that interested in meeting and definitely not her business partner that she had only just decided that she liked as a person again.
What the hell was she supposed to be doing anyways?!
Oh yeah. The jumpsuit.
She grabbed it off the bed and pulled it on over her hips. It fit.
And not only did it fit…it looked…great?
Nipped at the waist just enough. Hit her ankles at a not weird length. The colors complimented her skin tone and the gold highlights in her braids popped against the dark blue and green. She was no model in a bistro…but she looked good.
She put her hands in her hips and turned to one side. Then the other.
Okay…yeah. She could do this. She was Sydney Adamu, CDC at a really fucking great restaurant. And she had friends, okay, a friend, who invited her to fun things and set her up on dates with men. Men that were hot. She nodded her head at her own reflection, attempting to assure herself.
Well, if she was going to be dressed this well, she’d had to accessorize to match. And also throw some makeup on? Do her hair in some capacity? She looked around her room, grabbing her phone from her bedside table and checking the time
Sydney had less than two and a half hours until she needed to call her Uber. She should probably get moving. She didn’t even know where her makeup bag was.
*****
Sydney stepped into the art gallery feeling relaxed and confident.
Fifty percent of that could be attributed to her outfit. She had chosen to pair her jumpsuit with a pair of gold loafers she never wore in the kitchen for fear of destroying them. The gold theme carried up to a stack of gold rings on her right hand and gold huggie hoops in her ears. She had put her hair back into a ponytail save a few braids that she left to dangle in front of her face. Her make up was minimal, but she did make sure to give her cheekbones a little something extra with highlighter. Long story short, she looked good.
The other fifty percent of her relaxed confidence was absolutely the result of her eating half of the emergency edible she’d kept in her nightstand. Desperate times.
After showing her ticket to the man at the exhibit entrance, she walked into the gallery itself.
She was looking around for Imani when something caught her eye. A large painting hung on the far wall of the room, taking up the wall in its entirety.
What she saw first were the colors. Bright blues. Muted yellows. Deep browns. But as she got closer, she realized she was looking at a still life painting. A little girl sat on a blanket under a tree with dolls and toys scattered around her. A man reclined on the blanket behind her, facing the viewer as he rested his head on in his hand. The crystal blue water of the ocean could be seen in the distance.
The thing was, the man wasn’t really there. His shape was there. Providing something for the girl to lean on. Giving his clothes a frame to hang from. But he was actually a silhouette painted in yellow, with fruits scattered all over his “body”.
Sydney had never seen this painting before in her life. But it was the first time she had ever looked at a work of art and felt like she was literally seeing herself. As if the moment the painting portrayed was just a hazy memory. As if, once upon a time, her mother took a quick candid of Sydney and her father while they relaxed at the beach.
Her eyes searched the wall for the placard.
Akilah Watts
Barbados
“Picnic in Paradise”, 2021
Acrylic on Canvas
Barbados? Huh…what are the odds?
“There you are girl!” The sound of her friend’s voice pulled her out of her trance and she turned to her right just as Imani pulled up next to her. “You texted you got dropped off and I got worried you’d been raptured on the way in!”
Sydney smiled brightly and reached out to take the hug Imani offered. “I’m sorry!” She let the other woman go and turned back to the piece. “I just got so caught up with this painting, it’s just…it’s really good.”
Imani turned as well, taking the painting in. “It really is. I saw it when we came in and I was obsessed immediately. Almost made me a little…weepy?”
“Girl, me too!” Sydney interjected and they laughed together.
“You look amazing by the way!” Imani reached out to grab Sydney’s hands, stepping back so she could analyze her at arms length. “Kinda like, Issa Rae meets Odd Future, you know?”
Sydney snorted a laugh. “I absolutely do not know, but I will take the compliment nonetheless.”
“Y’know…” Imani hooked arms with Sydney and wiggled her eyebrows as she spoke, “Andre actually found the artist on Instagram. You should have him send you their profile.” She gently pulled Sydney as she started walking further into the gallery.
Okay. Sydney needed to manage some expectations.
She stopped suddenly, earning a backward glance from Imani.
“Imani…I know you are just trying to help, really. I do.” She sighed, hating that she had to foil her friend’s barely veiled attempt at matchmaking. “But I am honestly not looking for a relationship right now. You know that, right?”
Imani patted the hand Sydney still had tangled in her own. “Girl, I get it.” She pulled them to keep walking. “No one says you have to marry the guy. You don’t even have to date him. Hell! You don’t even have to fuck him. Or even want to! Just look at this as an opportunity to meet another person. If you decide to take each other’s clothes off later tonight, that would just be icing on the cake!”
Their walked continued through the gallery until they came to a room with several standing height tables and the occasional art case scattered throughout. Across the room, Sydney saw a familiar face.
Imani’s husband Devon was wearing the standard issue young millennial male outfit: a knit polo tucked into chinos. He even had the chain to match. Sydney had no doubt that his wife had dressed him given the fact that Sydney had rarely seen him in anything but basketball shorts and a tshirt outside of work and church. Good for him.
He was holding a glass of wine and talking to a man who stood next to him. The man next to him stood almost a head taller. A vintage-looking patterned cardigan hung on his shoulders and draped nicely over his slim, but muscular frame. His hands were tucked into the pockets of a pair of distressed corduroys which were cuffed just above a pair of Jordan 1s.
If Sydney was “Issa Rae meets Odd Future” he was “Damson Idris meets the greatest thrift shop on the planet”. Which was to say, he was a very attractive man who appeared to be effortlessly cool.
So okay. Imani was right this one time. Broken clocks, or whatever.
“Look who I found!” Imani exclaimed as they approached the table, the two men turned in their direction and Sydney smiled, using her free hand to give a sad little wave.
“Hey Syd!” Devon walked around the table to envelope Sydney in a hug. Standing back he exclaimed, “I can’t believe you let this lady convince you to play hookie. I know them people down there can’t survive without you!”
She narrowed her eyes playfully, “Devon, I work with incredibly capable individuals who I trust not to burn down my kitchen.”
He shrugged playfully. “Hey, if you say so.” He turned to his right where his friend stood and motioned to him. “Syd, this is Andre. Andre, Sydney.”
Sydney turned to face Andre, extending her hand across the table to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Andre.”
The other man’s face broke open into a smile. Wow. He had insanely white teeth, but not in that creepy veneers way. “It’s nice to finally meet you Sydney.”
Sydney’s eyebrows quirked in curiosity. “Finally?”
“Yeah!” He nodded. “Your reputation proceeds you. I once listened to these two talk about your oxtail recipe for an hour.”
“Hey man,” Devon crossed his arms defensively in front of his chest, “she makes some good ass oxtail!”
“Yeah, but you two didn’t have to bring it up immediately after tasting the oxtail that I made! It was my mama’s recipe!”
That got the whole table laughing. Sydney felt some of the tension in her body dissipate. He seemed nice enough. She could play along.
“Well, you’ll just have to come over to visit us in River North one day.” She shrugged playfully. “The oxtail isn’t on the menu, but I’m sure we can find something you’ll like.” Look at her! Bantering!
“I will take you up on that offer for sure.” Andre picked up his glass of wine and raised it to her before taking a sip. “So we established that there’s no oxtail, but what kind of food do y’all make?”
This was always a fun question because the answer was true, but entirely unhelpful. “Honestly, we kinda have a little of everything.”
Andre’s face did nothing to hide his skepticism.
“No, really!” She rushed to explain. “It’s literally called a ‘chaos menu’. I promise I’m not shitting you.”
Andre lifted his hands in surrender. “I believe you!”
“Alright you two,” Imani interjected. “Why don’t we keep this conversation going while we look through the exhibition?”
So they did. The four of them made their round through the gallery, chatting about everything including work, hobbies, and stories from all their different shared pasts.
Sydney had forgotten how much she loved doing stuff like this. Spending time with people and not having to think about work or any of the other related stresses that came with it.
She was…comfortable. She didn’t have to force any smiles. None of the lulls in their conversations felt awkward. It didn’t feel like some weird date thing. It just felt like four 20 something’s hanging out. Like some kind of HBO TV show.
And, it turned out, meeting new people wasn’t the worst thing ever. She liked Andre. He was her kind of people. Knew enough about enough to have a good conversation and over the course of the night, Sydney learned several things about her new friend Andre.
- He liked cooking and wanted to get out and try new restaurants but he worked long hours.
- He was lawyer at some fancy firm she’d never heard of.
- He liked art, but he was much more passionate about vintage clothes and furniture.
- She would not be sleeping with him tonight. And probably not any other night.
There was nothing wrong with him at all. He seemed to be nice enough, and he could carry conversation. He would make the 90th percentile on those stats alone. Hell, when Sydney made a very dumb joke about how one of the parrots in a painting looked like Terrence Howard (it did !), the man laughed. It might’ve been a pity laugh, but it was still a laugh.
She just…didn’t want to.
And that was allowed? Right? Like, a woman in her 20’s who hadn’t gotten laid in the better part of four years was allowed to not want to sleep with a hot guy she just met.
And sure. Yes. She would admit to herself that Carmy probably had something to do with it. What she would not do is investigate that admission any further.
As the night winded down around 9:30pm, the four of them found a two benches that miraculously weren’t occupied. Sydney took a seat, glad to be off her feet. Even though her leather loafers weren’t heels, they also weren’t her precious Birkenstocks and her feet hurt.
Andre sat down next to her and Devon went to sit on the bench across from them when Imani pulled him back ever so slightly.
“You two sit.” Imani said, trying her very best to keep a straight face and pretend she wasn’t scheming at all. “We’ll…uh, go see if there’s any brownies left at the dessert table.” Devon, ever the team player, just shrugged his shoulders as he followed his wife into the next room.
Her edible long worn off, Sydney was feeling a little anxious about the end of the night. She didn’t know what Andre was expecting, or if he even knew the secondary purpose of this whole night. All of that “not knowing” was stressing her out. She took a deep grounding breath and turned to her right to face him.
“You know this is a set up, right?”
He turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “What?” He cocked his head to the side.
Sydney scrunched up her nose, considering her next words. “Tonight…us. Imani and Devon sneaking off to ‘get us brownies’? It’s a set up.”
Andre’s face was almost completely neutral as Sydney explained it all. She couldn’t really gauge how he was feeling about it. God she hoped she hadn’t made this weird.
“Huh…alright,” he leaned back against the arm of the bench as he studied her. “So tell me Sydney…how would you rate this set up then?”
Sydney’s cackle was so unexpected she surprised herself. It took her a second to recover. “Rate it?!”
“Yeah, come on!” Smiling, he waved towards himself, urging her to continue. “Scale of one to ten! What’s the rating?”
“Are you serious?” Her eyebrows were raised in disbelief.
“Humor me, Sydney. You’re not gonna hurt my feelings.” He raised two fingers in the air. “Scouts honor.”
She laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Alright. Fine!” She sat up straight, putting on an air of exaggerated seriousness. “I would say…in terms of us being a match,” she saw his eyebrows raise and she hurried to finish, “based exclusively on the last two hours of knowing you. I’d give it a…seven?”
He nodded, considering her words. “A seven? I’ll take it.”
“But…” Sydney started.
“But?”
“But…in terms of viability...” Goddammit, why was he torturing her like this? “…a zero?” She winced at her own words, hoping he wouldn’t take it the wrong way.
This time, it was Andre’s laugh that surprised her. Sydney’s eyes went wide. She didn’t think he’d be mad or anything, but he was taking this…really well.
Wiping his eyes, Andre smiled at her and held his hand over his heart. “Sydney, I’m wounded!”
She laughed at his antics, completely giving in to how ridiculous this was. “I don’t know Andre, something about your current mood tells me you’ll survive.”
He scoffed in mock offense.
“Hey!” Sydney protested, “You’re the one who asked! Besides,” she continued, “it has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with being married to my job.” And that was the truth. It was!
The man had the decency to somber up at her words. “You’re totally good, Sydney. I’m just playing with you.”
Imani once told Sydney that her life was just one outrageous event after another. Sydney was starting to agree.
“Well, either way, I just thought you should know.” She explained.
“I appreciate that Sydney, really.” He assured her. “So, do you regret coming tonight?”
Sydney took a second to consider his question. She could give the man a real answer. “I really don’t.” She decided. “I probably do work too much. And it was nice to just have a night to hang out and do something different.” Her eyes lost focus while she thought about it.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I did tell Devon that set ups like this rarely work out.”
She eyebrows shot up and her eyes refocused at his admission. “Wait! You knew?!”
Andre leveled her with a teasing glare. “C’mon Sydney! Give me a little credit. Imani is the least subtle human being on the planet. Ever since my ex and I split a few months back she’s been moonlighting as my personal dating coach.” He shrugged. “But also Devon told me.” He grinned. “Don’t rat my man out though.”
Sydney didn’t expect to be knocked out by two full belly laughs in one night, but here she was, bent over in laughter. God, laughing felt good! She needed to be doing this more. “Don’t worry,” she said, recovering, “your secret is relatively safe with me.”
“So,” Andre started, “what are two people who have been set up but have a viability score of zero supposed to do now?” He looked around as if searching for ideas.
Sydney looked over her shoulder for the other two members of their crew, “Well, I’m pretty sure Imani wanted to go get drinks or something tonight.” Not seeing them, she turned back to him, shrugging her shoulders. “But I have no idea if that’s still the plan considering how long we’ve been here.”
“Well what do you want to do?”
“Honestly?” She asked, a bit unsure of herself.
He nodded.
“I hate to be an ‘I’m married to my job’ cliche, but I kinda want to head to the restaurant and work through a dish I’ve been brainstorming.” She look at him. “Is that embarrassing?”
He waved away her question. “Absolutely not.” He cocked his head, pausing to think before pressing on. “I think there’s a difference between a person who is married to their job because it’s all they’ve ever done,” he pointed to himself, “and someone who is married to their work because they are building something they really love. I’ve only known you a couple hours, but it sounds like you’re the second one.”
She nodded, considering his words. “I appreciate that. You are probably one of the very few people in this city who don’t think I work too much.”
“I mean, you gotta take care of yourself,” he countered, “but if you got that covered, I say full speed ahead.” He pointed to her “you said the place is in River North, right?” She nodded. “Cool. That’s on my way home. I’ll tell you what: If you promise not to tell Imani that Devon double crossed her, I’ll drop you off. Save you the Uber.”
Sydney snorted a laugh. “I already told you I wouldn’t say anything! You don’t trust me?!”
He raised his hands, in defense. “Hey, I just met you! You could be a liar!”
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
The kitchen was empty and dark, most of the lights turned off. The only sounds were the weird buzzing of the florescent light above the expo stand and the whirr of the white noise machine in the office that Sugar always forgot to shut off before she left. “Pregnancy brain!” She would say.
It was a Wednesday night and they closed an hour earlier so most of the staff had been out the door by 11pm. But Carmy hung back, not all that excited to go home and be alone with his thoughts. At least at the restaurant, he could scrub every surface twice in an effort to keep himself busy.
If the adjustment to his actual morning routine had been a shock to the system, knowing he wouldn’t be doing his nighttime routine tonight was something he’d been dreading.
His nighttime routine wasn’t anything his therapist had recommended. It was just one he had fallen into every night after work.
- Say some variation of “great work, chefs” to his staff as they left for the night.
- Find Sydney wherever she ended up and tell her she should head out. Offer to finish checks.
- When Sydney rejects the offer (she always did), he helps her finish instead.
- Chat with her about recipes and kitchen horror stories while she finishes.
- Offer to drive her home. When she rejects this offer as well, offer to walk her to the train station.
- Let her roll her eyes and give him some variation of “I’m fine. But thanks, Carmy.”
- Wish internally that she would just say yes.
This routine was maybe less healthy than its morning counterpart. It left a weird pining in his chest that he couldn’t really get rid of until he eventually handed her a cup of matcha the next morning.
He finished wiping down the work space in front of him for the second time when he saw a black SUV pull up in front of the restaurant through both sets of windows. He wouldn’t normally think twice about a car pulling up outside, but it wasn’t every day that an $80,000 Land Rover got parked on this street overnight.
He was about to turn around and pack up when he saw a figure hustling around the front of the car, just having exited the passenger’s seat.
It was Sydney.
She stopped on the side walk and turned back to the car as the driver rolled down their windows. It was a man he’d never seen before. Was this the Andre guy? He waved at her and said something to her that made her laugh. He saluted her and Sydney laughed harder, waving him away. She walked to the door and used her key to open it and step inside. Turning back around, she locked the door, and waved at him from inside. Only after he saw she was in, he waved one last time and drove away.
Carmy should be happy that this guy had enough manners to make sure she was safely inside before he left. And that he made her laugh. Those were good things, despite the way he could feel the way his emotions were tying knots in his chest.
She was looking down at her phone as she walked towards the kitchen door, but Carmy moved to beat her to it, opening the door for her before she could.
“Holy shit!!” She yelled, eyes wide, phone gripped in her hand. “Carmy! What the hell?!”
He raised his hands in surrender as she shuffled past him. “My bad, chef. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He tried to think of what to say next, but he was suddenly taken by how good she smelled as she moved past him into the kitchen. Like vanilla…and black pepper.
“What are you still doing here?” She asked. She had put down her phone and keys and was walking towards the back of the kitchen. “I thought you would’ve all gone home by now.”
“I..uh..” he was trying to use his words. Really, he was. But his brain was only able to focus on taking in the woman in front of him.
It was the shoes that got him first. They were gold. The whole thing. And they looked amazing in contrast with her outfit. Coveralls, maybe? He didn’t know the names of women’s clothing, but that was close enough. Whatever it was, it draped over her frame perfectly. It’s like he was seeing a part of her he had never really seen, despite her being completely covered.
“Carm?”
His eyes snapped to her face. “Yeah, yes?”
She had stopped at the handwashing sink and was wiping her hands with paper towels. “What are you still doing here?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, I just wanted to do a deep clean of the prep stations.”
She shook her head as she turned to walk back to the front of the room where he stood. “Carmy, you don’t need to do that. If we gotta get the guys to be more thorough, we can. But you are allowed to go home and sleep at night.” She put the neck strap of the apron she’d grabbed over her head and tied the strings around her middle.
Carmy nodded, dumbly. Yeah…sure…whatever she said…was he insane or did the high points of her face look “glowier”? And her eyes, always intense, were somehow more defined? And…
“ She’s wearing makeup you idiot.” He admonished himself.
Which made sense. Because she’d gone out tonight. And when people go out and have fun, they tend to dress up. Carmy knew this. So why was his brain making it so hard to process this information? This is why he needed his routines. Clearly skipping even one step yielded troubling consequences.
He watched her as she scurried around the kitchen grabbing supplies. Onions, peppers, and carrots from one of the low boys. Red snapper filets from the walk in. He had wondered why that had been in there when he saw it this morning. Now he knew.
“What are you working on, chef?” He asked, not recognizing the recipe from its ingredients.
She looked up from where she was cutting the vegetables into thin, long pieces. “Oh, uh, I’ve been thinking about how to play with escovitch fish.” She slid the chopped onions to the side and grabbed the red bell pepper. “Maybe do it like fish sticks and tartar sauce. Use red snapper for the fish and make an aioli with the oil from the escovitch. And add the diced veggies instead of relish.”
“Can I help?”
She looked up, eyeing him with slight apprehension. He understood. They hadn’t really worked on a recipe like this together in a while. Just the two of them. But she must have been willing to risk it because she nodded and pointed her knife to the filets.
“Sure…I, uh, need those cut into one inch strips. I still haven’t figured out how I want to fry them though. Any ideas?” She paused her knife, looking up at him.
Carmy moved to get started, opening a drawer in front of him and grabbing a knife. “Uhh…maybe keep it simple? A beer batter?”
She put her knife down and crossed her arms, considering his words. “Yeah…” she nodded her head in agreement. “That actually sounds great. You can use whatever we’ve got in the back. But maybe we can try it again with a Caribbean beer next time. Like Red Stripe? Banks, if we can source it.”
Carmy knew a beer guy. He’d get her the Banks. Even if he had never heard of it before.
He got to work, slicing the fish as directed. They fell into an easy silence. At least it seemed easy for her. He could still feel an odd hum underneath his skin. Again, his mind had a million questions. What inspired this recipe? Did her night go well? Why did Andre drop her here, and not take her back to her place? Or maybe his place.
Filets chopped, he walked to the fridge by the dish room and grabbed a can of beer from the six pack of Corona that Richie kept in there for “after hours.”
Back at his station he held it up to Sydney. “Will this do?” She looked up from where she was working. “Huh?” He shook the bottle. “Oh, yeah! That’ll work.”
She had already gotten out the ingredients for the batter. He bent over and grabbed a mixing bowl from the shelf below him and added in flour and the few spices she had laid out for him.
“Just ask her!” He told himself. “ It’s not weird to ask someone how their night went. It’s probably weirder that you haven’t asked at this point.”
“So, uh. How was your night?”
At the sound of his voice, Sydney’s head lifted from the work in front of her. “Oh! Um, it was nice. Really nice, actually.”
But that was all she offered him as she turned around to the range, placing a skillet on the burner in front of her. Carmy knew he should leave it at that. She answered his question. She had a ‘really nice’ time. Whatever that meant. She didn’t need to tell him anything else. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Did Imani and her husband drop you off?” He knew they didn’t. “I thought they lived in the opposite direction?”
As soon as he’d said it, he felt the crushing need to be distracted. Like, he knew he was going to hate whatever her answer was. He opened the Corona with the back of a mixing spoon and began pouring it into the bowl of spiced flour. She had already taken out a whisk for him and he picked it up off the table in front of him and got to whisking the batter as he poured.
“Oh…” he heard the apprehension in her voice, “no, actually. A friend of their’s I met tonight gave me a ride. He lives in those condos they just built over by the old mill. So it was on the way.”
Carmy nodded. “That was nice of him.” He hoped he sounded casual. Because that’s how he felt. Casual. Totally. “Sounds like you had fun.” And he would leave it at that.
Sydney filled the skillet with clean oil and tuned the burner on before she turned back to him. “Honestly, I did! The company was great, but also the art was really good.”
Now that piqued his interest. Aside from her comments about his menu sketches, he had never talked about art with her. But now he really wanted to. “Anything in particular catch your eye?”
“Yeah,” she smiled softly and her eyes lost focus while she remembered. “There was one painting, right up at the front that just stopped me in my tracks. It was a little girl and her father.” She shrugged, “I guess it reminded me a lot of me and my dad. I wish I could’ve bought it,” she admitted, “but the thing was like, $3,000. Plus, I had no way to get it home.”
She returned back to her task but Carmy kept watching her. Her movements were confident. Skilled. She put her finger tip in the oil for a brief moment and winced. The first time he ever saw her do that, many months ago, he’d called her crazy. She told him to “fuck off because her grandma does it all the time.”
Carmy loved the little crumbs of information she would leave him sometimes. Sydney didn’t talk all that much about herself unless it was in the context of food. A memory that inspired a recipe tweak. A prep skill she learned from a professor she hated. Carmy used to take them for granted, but lately, all he wanted was more. He wanted to know more about her. Food be damned.
“Do you like, collect art? Or did you just really love that one?”
She snorted at the question. “God, no!” She replied. “The closest thing I ever got to being an art collector was like, ripping posters of the cast of One Tree Hill out of magazines at CVS.” She started opening the drawers next to the range looking for something. Watching her search for things in the kitchen never ceased to amuse Carmy. She was the one who decided where it all went. She was the one who checked it was there every night.
“Second from the bottom, in the back.” He directed. She looked up at him just long enough to roll her eyes, but followed his instructions. Standing up, with the newly found oil thermometer in hand, she placed it into the skillet.
“Anyway…I’m no art collector. But that one was really great. It made me want to have a place nice enough to hang it. My own loft apartment. My own restaurant, maybe.” She shifted on her feet at the thought.
He hated even thinking about it. The idea that one day she wouldn’t be here. But it was inevitable. She would outgrow this place. Outgrow him.
“You will, Syd. I promise.”
She leaned against the counter, a shy smile on her face. “Thanks, Chef.” Her eyes quickly shifted from pensive to playful. “And hey, I might not have bought a $3000 painting, but the night wasn’t a total bust! I saw some really cool stuff. Discovered new artists. Made small talk successfully. All while avoiding the matchmaking efforts of one Imani Coleman. I’d call that a win.” She shrugged casually.
Suddenly, Carmy was not feeling casual at all. “Avoided?” He couldn’t help himself. He had to ask.
She nodded gently. “Yeah…Imani’s latest hobby is essentially parading every hot, single man in Chicago in front of me like some kind of dystopian male beauty pageant. Unfortunately for her, I don’t even have the free time to floss in the mornings, much less date, so…” her voice drifted into silence.
Carmy felt his chest relax at her words. But that relief was quickly followed by shame. He didn’t want that for her. He wanted so much better than that for her. She should have a life outside of this place. Maybe he didn’t deserve amusement or enjoyment. But she deserved it. She deserved more.
“Syd, that’s not how it’s supposed to be.” He looked at her dead on to make sure she really heard him. Her eyebrows raised in defiance, but he kept going. “I know I’m not one to talk, but, like…let me be the one with an unhealthy attachment to this place. Not you.”
Her teeth worried her lower lip as she considered his words. “Heard, Chef.” She conceded. “But! I don’t think it’s unhealthy…” he scoffed, “yet! I don’t think I’m there yet.”
He picked up the fish filets and batter and rounded the table so that he was standing next to her. Depositing the items next to her, he leaned back against that counter as he spoke. “I know Syd.” His hand went up to scrub his face as he pulled together a sentence he was really struggling to say. “Just…if you were interested in that guy…you should go out with him. Don’t let the restaurant get in the way of that.”
It was her turn to study him. She cocked her head to the side, dark eyes squinting ever so slightly. He wanted to look away, but he was trying not to be a coward anymore, so he held her gaze. He felt so exposed. Like if she looked hard enough, she would find something that even he couldn’t name.
The thermometer in the skillet went off, signaling that the oil was at her desired temperature. It broke Sydney’s focus and she turned back to the stove. He watched her as she took the smallest of the filet slices and dipped it carefully in the batter he’d made for her.
Carefully, she placed the filet into the hot oil. Her tester piece. She watched the fish as it began to brown. Happy with its progress she turned back to him, clearing her throat. “I appreciate that Carmy. Really.” She smiled. “But we don’t have to worry about that now anyway. At least not with Andre.”
“Oh. Okay.” He took a sharp inhale through his nose trying to clear his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all in your business, Syd. I just kind of assumed…”
“No, it’s fine…” She interrupted him before he could make a complete ass of himself. “he’s just…not my type.”
Not her type? Not that he thought she was shallow, but Carmy had to know what a man who made good conversation, drove fancy cars, and was “hot” by all accounts could have stacked against him to not make the cut.
“Your type?”
She reach for her tongs and pulled out the fish stick. She placed it on the paper towel lined plate on the counter next to her and then turned back to him. “Yeah. He’s too tall.”
Huh…Carmy hadn’t spent too much time in the dating scene of late, but he was pretty sure tall guys were still very dominant in that realm.
His confusion must’ve been pretty obvious because she shrugged and rolled her eyes. “What?! I don’t like men looking down at me! Makes it hard to assert dominance!”
Carmy still surprised himself every time he laughed as hard as she made him. He was so used to his uncontrollable outbursts being negative. It was weird to feel his body doing something joyful without him having to force it. But he loved it. And he was addicted to the way Sydney’s eyes lit up when he laughed.
“Hey! Don’t laugh at me!” She protested. “I’m serious!”
“I’m sure you are, Chef.” He said, his laugh dying down. This was one thing he loved about spending time with Sydney. She had a way of making work feel like it wasn’t work at all. He turned around to their work station and started cleaning up the supplies they’d used. “Why don’t you hurry up and fry this stuff so I can take you home.”
He heard the exaggerated sigh before it even left her mouth. Because he heard it every night.
“Carmy! For the last time, you don’t need to do that.”
He grinned, falling into their familiar cadence. “Alright, Syd. But I’m gonna walk you to your station just to be safe.”
She shook her head as she broke open her fish stick, checking the doneness. “Carmy. You aren’t doing that either.”
The corners of his mouth turned upwards as he smiled to himself. Turns out his routine wasn’t fucked after all. Thank god.