Work Text:
“Mr. Adamu?”
“Do we know each other?”
“Sort of?” he answers, watching the older man slowly approach him across the parking lot holding a sack lunch in one hand and a thermos in another. He's trying not to fidget. “I'm Carmen. Carmen Berzatto,” he says, extending his hand. “I work with your daughter?”
It's hard not to feel like an idiot while he stares at his hand until he puts it back into his jacket pocket.
“Maybe if you say it louder?” he suggests. “As if you're yelling. Like you're back in the kitchen?”
“Oh, yeah, right,” says, feeling color come up in his face at the disapproval. He was there on Friends & Family night. “That's, um...things are different now.”
“Is that so?” he answers, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He feels like he's being x-rayed or dissected. “Did you know I work here because-” he starts to say, thumbing back towards the garage.
“Because of Syd,” he lies. I mean, technically, it's not that much of a lie. He knows that Syd has a dad, and that her dad works in Chicago. He started a Facebook account. Syd thought that was weird, and asked him what year it was and then rolled her eyes at him when he didn't take the bait.
“Alright,” her father says with a familiar shrug. “What have you got for me?”
“I was, uh, wanting to surprise her?” he tells him. “I thought that maybe you could help me with that. Can I...can I buy you lunch?” he asks, looking at the brown paper bag in his hand.
“It is around lunch time,” he concedes. “I have roasted quinoa salad,” he adds distastefully. “If you can believe that,” and then sucks his teeth. Just like Syd.
“Okay,” he nods in answer.
“I was going to eat right over there on that bench under the tree,” he tells him pointing the way. “Not sure I have enough to share, but-”
“I'm good.”
They walk together in the sunshine over under the shade of the tree as he tries to not sweat through the jacket.
“Is this normally how you dress in July?” her father asks him.
“No, I was...I have a meeting.”
“So, trying to make an impression,” he answers, like he's not convinced and sits down on the bench and takes the tupperware and spoon out with an apple and sets them on the seat between them next to his thermos.
“Yeah, you could say that,” he says, watching him open the quinoa salad. “Syd made that for you, huh?”
“How did you guess?” her father answers. He can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not.
“The knife cuts. She...that's how she cuts carrots,” he goes on, and sighs, then feels the other man's eyes on his and sits up straighter.
“Oh? High praise, then. Since you're a carrot cutting expert, I'm told. Now, what information do you need about my daughter?” he asks, and digs his spoon into it, and takes a bite.
“I was putting together the idea for a cookbook,” he starts to say. “To illustrate. And I wanted to know if there was anything important, about family-”
“I'm sorry, I feel underdressed?” her dad says, wiggling his shoulders. “Can you just try to relax a little, and take off the jacket? I can tell you're nervous.”
“Yeah...yeah.” He stands up to slip off the jacket, and folds it over the back of the bench, while Syd's father watches him. So far, it's not going terrible, he thinks, and decides to unbutton and roll up his sleeves as well, then remembers his arms are covered in ink. But it's too late now. He sees her father eyeing the variety of images, and he sits down and rubs his hand along his arm.
“This cookbook. Is it for the restaurant?” her father presses on.
“Yes. It's...it's about The Bear. But it's also, about Syd, too.”
“And how wonderful and talented she is, I hope?”
“She's definitely all of those things, sir,” he agrees with a smile.
“She must be. After all, you made her a partner in your family's restaurant,” he declares, and presses his lips together in a thin smile as he stares back at him.
“Sydney is...one of the most talented people I know,” he says, doubling down. “In fact, she told me that you...that you both, used to come to the restaurant when she was little? On Sundays?” he asks, squinting when he realizes he's not saying it right. “When-when it was The Beef.”
“Ah,” he answers, poking around at the quinoa salad again, mulling it over. “What do you think?”
He smiles genially, caught off guard now. Like he set himself up for a trap and then walked right into it. “I don't know?”
“You don't think, or you don't know?”
“We were closed on Sundays,” he admits.
“And we...were in church,” her dad answers, and takes another bite, then pops open his thermos for a drink. “Sydney really wanted to work with you, I think?”
“She told me about Sheridan Road,” he says, trying to organize his thoughts, closing his eyes for a moment, and Syd is there. On the very first day they meet. “That she knew who I was.”
“Did she tell you she went to eat at that restaurant you worked at?”
“What?” he asks, taken completely of guard now.
“Yeah. Imperial, or something. All the way to New York City. Said it was expensive, and I asked her how expensive, and she wouldn't say. So, I know it had to be that expensive.”
He feels the color come up in his face again. “It was that expensive,” he quickly admits.
“She didn't tell you that?” her dad asks, laughing a little at him now, setting the tupperware down. “Don't tell her I didn't finish it, okay?”
“I-I won't,” he replies.
“Promise?”
“She's just trying to take care of you, you know,” he says, defending her work.
“Now you sound like her mother,” her dad answers with a laugh, raising his eyebrows. “She ever talk about her?”
“I know that she passed. When Syd was really young,” he says, noting the other man's wistful expression. “My dad...my dad left, too. When I was the same age,” he says, frowning. “I mean, he didn't die. At least not that I know of? Sorry, I don't know why I said all of that-”
“That's okay,” he tells him as he secures the tupperware lid. “You're sworn to secrecy now,” he goes on, wrapping his hands around his knee and getting comfortable in the bench seat. “So, what exactly are your intentions towards my daughter, Carmen?”
His mouth falls open, completely at a loss for words.
“People don't go handing out partnership agreements for no reason. At least, back in my day-”
“No, they-they don't,” he agrees, trying not to stammer. “I can see-”
“Or co-signing apartment leases?” he asks.
“Well, that was because of the deferred pay situation, and I-” he goes on, digging a deeper hole for himself, as he rubs his forehead.
“And since we're on the subject of deferred pay,” her father interjects, swiping a finger at him. “Since you brought that up-”
“I-I wasn't going to bring that up, sir-”
“Sir?” he asks. “As in, the walls of that apartment are very thin, don't you think, sir?”
“I-I are they?” he asks him, not following at all now. He feels sweat slip down the inside of his shirt. “I don't know, I've never been invited over-”
“Oh.” Her dad looks positively relieved now. If only he knew. He has zero game, there is nothing to fear here. “But you gave her a partnership agreement.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you're illustrating a cookbook for her? Of her?”
His eyes roll heavenward as he thinks of the best way to answer this, and rapid blinks. “Okay. I see what you mean. I think, sort of...both?” he says with a nod, meeting the other man's eyes again.
“Because,” her father says, gesturing to urge him on. “Your feelings about her are-”
“I love her?” he announces, and then remembers to breathe again.
“Are you asking me?!” her father says, pointing at himself, bouncing a little in his seat on the bench. “Look, if you don't know-”
“No, I-I know!” he assures him. “I know. It's just...I've messed up? And I didn't do things the right way. She said I was trying to prove that I was talented, but I was just in her way, and she wants a star-”
“Oh, that sounds like my Sydney. Sounds just like her mother, too,” he says with a happy sigh. “A star.”
“And I couldn't do it,” he tells him, letting the guilt wash over him again.
“Could she do it? Did you ever ask yourself that?”
He blinks as he thinks this over. “Yes. She could. Absolutely. But then, what does she need me for?”
“Oh, I don't know,” her father says, taking a drink out of his thermos. “Maybe you've been looking at this the wrong way? Just...speaking from experience here.”
“Yeah?”
“You just...you're there.”
They both sit there together in silence for a moment. Listening to the birds in the tree above them. At the wind through the trees.
“Now, her mother, she used to love my cola ribs,” her father starts to tell him with a smile that lights up his face. Just like Sydney.
“I...I Syd didn't give me your work address, sir,” he confesses, just to clear the air now. He feels safe to do that now.
“I know,” her father says with a sigh. “And stop calling me sir. It's Emmanuel.”
“Carm,” he tells him, extending his hand.
This time, he takes it, and holds onto it, staring at the ink on the back of his hand, at the knife stabbing through the center of it.
“You chefs and your knives,” he says with a laugh. “Do you all have tattoos?”
It takes him a moment to catch up.
“Wait. Does Syd?” he asks, surprised at the revelation.
Emmanuel laughs.