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“Not really,” I said. “I’m at a loss for what to do. It seems like every time I think I’m making progress with speaking up for myself, I wind up sliding backward.”
“Are you really sliding, or are you being pushed?” he asked, nudging a tray of huli huli chicken in my direction. “I didn’t see you come eat, so I know you must be hungry,” he said.
He was right. I was starving. I took the tray happily and made a seat at the table, patting the chair beside me for him to sit with me and visit. He did as I requested.
The chicken was amazing. It was perfectly grilled and sweetened from the pineapple just enough to elevate the hint of garlic in the marinade. “This is perfect,” I said. “You are such an amazing chef.”
He smiled at me sweetly, but his expression was far off. I could tell he had something else on his mind.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, gently prodding for him to speak up.
He sighed, letting loose a small groan. Whatever he needed to say, the words were not coming easily for him.
“It is about your friend, Jessie,” he said. “She has been quite rude not only to you but also to some of my wait staff. She is not well-liked in the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry,” I answered. “I know she can be a lot. I would offer to try to talk to her, but as you can see, that never goes well for me, either.”
He nodded.
“I am bothered by what she yelled earlier,” he admitted. “She said something disparaging to you about dishwashers. What was that?”
“Oh,” I said. “She was asking me if I was going to become a dishwasher since I told her I didn’t want to run the fashion line. She was being very cruel about my choice and insinuating, I guess, that I didn’t have skills for much else.”
“Like skills to be a dishwasher?” Matteo asked.
The room filled with an awkward pause. I suddenly realized what I had said—and how it must sound to him. Matteo, himself, had got his start working in kitchens as a dishwasher. He knew intimately what it meant to work his way up from the bottom, and, in his book, the dishwasher was every bit as valuable as head chef in the kitchen. Not only had Jessie insulted the staff, she’d insulted him, too. And I had added insult to injury by questioning the skill involved in that line of work.
“I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” I tried to explain.
“Then how did you mean it?” he asked, allowing me a moment to collect my thoughts.
“Well, I never went to college or anything,” I said. “I never did anything else with my life because all my life I’ve just known that eventually I’d take over my mom’s fashion line. And I had plenty of money to work with, so it never occurred to me that I needed to learn any kind of skill. Jessie knows this.”
“What does skill have to do with being on a wait staff or working in the kitchen, though?” he asked. “Do you not believe these jobs also require skills?”
“Of course, they do!” I said. “But, you know, being a dishwasher isn’t difficult. You clean the plates and dry them. You set them aside for the next meal. It’s not like being a chef. You don’t have to know the chemistry of combining flavors or what temperatures to use. You don’t have to have the knife skills or the ability to eyeball a mixture and tell if it’s correct.”
“You don’t dry them,” Matteo said.
“What?” I asked.
“Dishwashers do not dry the dishes. They scald their own hands, cleaning them under the hottest water possible, then set them aside to air dry. No towels. Towels contaminate.”
“I see,” I replied, confused by his response.
“Dishwashers stand on their feet for hours each day and end the day with hands hot like boiled crabs, and they do what they do so you don’t get sick. So you have a pretty plate of food to look at and take a picture of before you start your meal. So you don’t have to wait. There are 200 people on this cruise. We have 100 plates. My dishwasher stays busy through meals to make sure when someone comes to be seated, they have a clean plate to eat from within moments. My server girls keep the tables cleared and the glasses full. My kitchen staff does the prep and cleaning around me so that nobody has to wait. Those are all skills.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply they don’t have skills. I was just trying to explain what Jessie was suggesting when she blew up at me earlier.”
Matteo nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “But I do wonder if you will allow Jessie to talk in such a way about other people and you will allow her to talk in such a way about you. Then how can you truly be sure you won’t go back to your old ways at any moment she asks?”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I am saying I do not see any kind of future for me and you. Not long-term or even for the remainder of this cruise.”
He got up with a heavy sigh and turned, walking out of the door.
