“Fuck, yes.” They squeeze each other like long-lost friends, swaying back and forth. “Except for the ‘had’ part.”
Ari finds her gaze dipping down to the other person at the table not involved in this hug. She can’t help it. He has a face that’s begging to be scrutinized. He’s looking at her, too, but not in a way that makes her feel at ease.
“You know each other?” Josh asks.
“He’s ‘Bye-Bye-Bi-Boy’!” Briar says, like this is a common point of reference. “We’ve been mutuals for years. Here, Josh, sit next to Ari, so we’re even.”
Does Josh look reluctant as he pushes his chair back? Annoyed? Ari takes three enormous gulps of beer as Josh takes the seat next to her, like they’re third and fourth wheels on an impromptu date.
THREE HOURS MUSTgo by while Briar and Gabe gleefully debate the finer points of Taylor Swift’sFolkloreand gossip about actors Josh has never heard of. Beyond a vague sense of unease, he’s no closer to understanding Ari’s state of mind. He pretends not to notice Radhya poking her head out of the kitchen every so often, looking increasingly frazzled as Briar’s followers pack themselves into the dining area.
But when Radhya suddenly appears at their table a rush of pure anxiety shoots up his chest. Her expression is strained, like she’s about to unleash a long-awaited tirade on him.
“I’m out of rotis,” she hisses, squatting next to Ari. “I needyou to help me griddle them. Please. It’s just like making grilled cheese.”
Ari is halfway out of her chair when Briar calls out, “Wait, Josh can do it!”
Radhya recoils. “God,no—”
“Absolutely not,” Josh declares at the same instant.
“He’s a professional!” Briar beams. “No offense, Ari.” Josh shoots her an unsubtle warning look that she pretends not to notice. The last place he wants to be is in a kitchen—and especially not with someone who’s been nursing a grudge for years.
Radhya looks like she’d rather sink into the beer-stained floor than accept Josh’s assistance, but she grits her teeth (literally, she makes an actualgrimace) and gestures toward the kitchen.
Josh pushes his chair back, letting the legs scrape against the floorboards. He follows Radhya past the other tables, into the kitchen, steeling himself and feeling conspicuous as fuck, even though he doesn’t recognize any of the other diners.
It’s clearly a beer hall kitchen, with multiple deep fryers and other pieces of equipment in which Josh isn’t exactly well-versed. Every surface feels like it’s coated with a fine mist of grease.
“Two hundred twenty-six grams of whole wheat flour in this plate,” she barks, pushing a wide metal dish toward him. “Then lukewarm water—gradually.”
Josh blinks at the plate for a few seconds, relieved to default into kitchen jargon instead of unwieldy apologies. He scrubs his hands in the sink. “How mu—”
“One-twenty mil, but you need to bring it together bit by bit. Watch me do the first batch before you fuck it up.” Radhya drizzles the water over her own plate of flour, mixing it together with her left hand until it turns into a soft dough. Shedips her hand in water and starts to knead it, keeping her hand a little more open than Josh remembers from culinary school. “Do you have any idea how aggravating it was to look at your stupid, smug face inBon Appétitlast year?” She says it without turning around, focusing on her roti-related tasks at the prep table.
Straight into it, then. Fine. “I want to clear the air about—”
“No. There’s no ‘air’ to clear. This isn’t one of the twelve steps. I don’t care about your personal growth.” Radhya finally turns her head to the left to glance at him, her hand still working the dough. “I’m happy to go on resenting you. It motivates me.”
“It was a heated moment,” he says, spooning the flour onto the scale. “We both went too far.”
“For months, I tortured myself, going over it again and again in my head. And every time I interviewed for another job, I’d have that fucking little inkling. The imposter syndrome. This inferiority complex because I didn’t get to go to culinary school and work abroad.”
“I never said your technique was bad.”
“Yes, you fucking did. You undermined me in front of the entire kitchen over that bullshit duck preparation at the lowest period of my life.”
“Believe me,” Josh says, “I’m familiar with the human cost of being humiliated.”
“No.” She leans in. “We’re not the same. I’ve spent ten years taking shit from white guys like you in the kitchen,” Radhya says, pushing the dough away from her, like she needs to focus on the argument without multitasking. “Watching them get promoted. Laughing off everything from microaggressions to outright sexual harassment. I’ve had to be twice as good and I don’t get the luxury of multiple chances.”
There’s a good response to this but it isn’t in his arsenal. “I’m glad we’re finally talking about it,” is all he manages.
“Wow! After five years?” Radhya takes a huge gulp from her water bottle. “What a sense of urgency you have.”
“The situation was mishandled,” he concedes.
“That’s a passive-voice non-apology.”
