“‘North America’s culinary stalwart,’” Ben says, without thinking. Then, as he realizes it probably makes him sound like a brown-nosing, obsessive weirdo, heat begins to prickle at the back of his ears.
Before he can rush to correct himself, though, Pete’s saying, “Stalwart? Really? That can’t be right—what does that even mean?”
“It’s like a—reliable supporter,” Ben says, figuring he might as well go ahead now. “It’s an old-timey word, but it’s been the slogan since the magazine was founded in the twenties.” When Pete raises an eyebrow, Ben feels the blush spill from the tips of his ears onto his cheeks as he admits, “I may—may—have been, um…a bit of a big fan. Of the magazine. As a kid.” When a grin begins to break out across Pete’s face, Ben holds up both hands and protests, “Go easy on me! Think of the hair dye! You can’t expect me to bear mockery under-caffeinated; I won’t be able to take it.”
Pete laughs and shakes his head, but he does, encouragingly, start pulling out various items that look as though they might, eventually, produce a cup of coffee. “Is that why you’re in here,then? To throw yourself on the mercy of whatever test cook arrived first in exchange for caffeine?”
“Oh,” Ben says, sitting up slightly straighter as he remembers. “No, actually. I’m in here because—I had an idea. You know how you said, the other night—” He pauses, noticing Pete’s sudden wild-eyed glance around the still-empty room, and, taking pity, changes course a little. “Just…I was thinking about what you told me, and I thought—three Thanksgiving videos in a week is probably not the best for you, is it?”
Pete’s brow furrows, his expression flickering as though unsure where to land. Eventually, he says, “It… No, to be honest. It’s not.”
“Right, so,” Ben says, and shrugs. “I sort of thought—why don’t we just, you know. Shoot it all today? We’ve got two Thanksgiving videos due this week, and one next week, so what if we just…barrel through all of it? I know it’ll suck, but, plus side, then it’ll be over, and it’s like ripping the Band-Aid off, right? And I figure maybe we can give some of the staff the extra food, a surprise Thanksgiving feast, and—uh.” Ben pauses, clears his throat, aware that he’s probably been talking too long and also that Pete’s face hasn’t moved at all since he began. “Anyway, if you hate it, we don’t have to. Obviously.”
“No, I,” Pete says, blinking. “It soundsgreat, but don’t you have to turn in the first video tomorrow? If we’re shooting all day, when will you…edit it?”
“Oh, whenever,” Ben says airily, waving a hand. “Tonight, tomorrow during the day—it’ll be fine.” In fact, Ben rather suspects it won’t be fine, that he’ll end up working into the wee hours and will, by tomorrow, regret ever having had the whole idea in the first place; he’s made his peace with that. There is a little Post-it note already stuck to his pillow, in case of moments of weakness, which reads,STICK TO THE PLAN. You chose this!
Pete frowns. “You’re sure?”
Ben thinks of the long comment threads laughing at the antics and mishaps of Pete in what he now knows as the early stages of a panic attack, and swallows. What’s a sleepless night or two, really? It’s not like he’s going to be getting much sleep, anyway. “Totally sure. Honestly, it’ll be easier for me, too—the sooner these are in the can, the sooner I can work on them, and that gives me more time to build up a buffer. Less stress all around. Look, I even pulled together a rough run of show—I mean, technicallyrunsof show, since it’s multiple videos, but we’re going to do it all as one big shoot, so who’s counting—and a shopping list. I figured we could send someone out while we’re shooting the early stuff, since everything for that should be around here already.”
He turns his computer towards Pete, who bends in to look at it, leaning against the counter. He’s abruptly so close that Ben could tip forward the barest inch and snatch off Pete’s beanie with histeeth; he wouldn’t, of course, becausewho would, but the proximity is upsettingly intoxicating. Hoping it doesn’t show in his voice, Ben scrolls through the agenda as he says, “So the first thing here is the vegetarian/vegan-friendly options one—we talked about that last week, so I pulled the casserole you suggested and that stuffed pepper—and then there’s two more we hadn’t roughed out yet. One video of standard sides, and then one for entrees, which I think they probably mean for us to do a turkey for? But Miranda didn’t specify, and turkey sucks, so I vote chicken. Game hens, maybe? But we can do ham if you want.” Realizing, for what must be the millionth time in a long, embarrassing life, that perhaps he has become carried away, Ben finishes, awkwardly: “Anyway, I…I have some thoughts on all of it, obviously, and that’s what I pulled together here, but you can switch out whatever you want. I pretty much used your recipes anyway, since I figured you’re probably already familiar.” Pete’srecipes have also, especially for the last few months, tended to be the most highly trafficked on the site, according to Ben’s new buddy in data analytics, Findley, who he met while drinking an entirely unnecessary afternoon coffee at Brew a few weeks ago. Ben is not interested in approaching anything related to fame or audience right now so he doesn’t mention it.
Pete is silent for a moment, scrolling through the document. Ben considers several options, including letting out a long, uncontrolled yodel of anxiety, or jumping out of his own skin in anticipation, but none quite seem to suit the moment. When, eventually, Pete speaks, his tone is hard to parse, distant and faintly disbelieving, like someone trying to remember a dream: “When…when did youdoall this?”
“Oh, yesterday,” Ben says, shrugging. “You know how sometimes you just get an idea and run with it?”
“I mean,” Pete says, shaking his head and laughing slightly, “no, dude. Not really. You know, sometimes I get an idea like, ‘What about baklava but with the syrup from torrejas instead,’ but that’s, you know, a pretty straightforward next step. This is likehomework—it would have taken me a week and it wouldn’t have been half as detailed. There’s aningredient listfor each shoot and for the wholeday… Oh my God, wait. This link—is this an actual list of the ingredients we have in stock? In the test kitchen? Right now?”
“Oh,” Ben says, and blushes slightly. This is the sort of thing he struggles to do for himself but learned young to do for others, because it was the only way to keep the restaurant running smoothly. He prefers to do tasks like this unnoticed, the way it was when he was a kid; being spotted at it always makes him feel unaccountably embarrassed. “Yeah, I put it together a couple of weeks ago? It was just easier, you know, to keep track of everything, and I used to do inventory for my folks at the restaurant and I couldn’t find yours?—”
“We don’thaveone,” says Pete, in reverent tones, as he scrolls. “No one’s been able to keep up with it since Miranda fired Josie, and that wasyearsago. We don’t even do normal ordering anymore, we just run on ‘who kills it, fills it’ and have everyone expense it—oh my God, you havebrand namesin here! Listen, can I print this out?”
“Oh,” Ben says, blinking. “Sure, if you want to, but it’s updating in the document, so it won’t be accurate for?—”
But the printer is already whirring, and Pete bounds off towards it before Ben can finish his thought. It’s at the other end of the test kitchen, near the far door, and Ben watches in bemusement and, if he’s honest, a little fondness as Pete bounces on the balls of his feet, waiting for the last sheet to spit out. When it does, he clutches the little sheaf of papers in his hands, raises it over his head, and lets out a long, reverent note, an “aaaaaah” sound that carries on long enough that Ben walks over to investigate.
Before he can say anything, like, “What are you doing?” or “Have I, in attempting to balance out some of the damage I have caused here, driven you past your breaking point?” or “You know that’s just paper, right?” the far door opens, and Adina walks in.
“What are you doing?” Adina says, and then, “You know that’s just paper, right?” which is, at least, handy.
“It’snotjust paper,” Pete says, wild-eyed, without dropping his arms. “Ben made aninventory. An up-to-date, accurateinventory. Of everything in the test kitchen.Everything, Adina. Thebrandsof thesaltsare in here, okay, it’s better thanJosie’swas, and this is just a printout! It’s a document! An editable document!”
“You’re joking,” Adina says, with overly brash confidence that indicates a sliver of doubt.
Pete shakes his head, grinning at her. “I’m reallynot.”
Adina stares at Pete for a second, then whips her head around to stare at Ben, then turns back to Pete. Then, to Ben’s astonishment and slight horror, she too raises both hands in the air, as if in worship of the paper, and joins Pete in another long, reverent “aaaaaaaaah.”
“Good Lord,” Ben says, trying not to laugh. “If I’d realized an inventory was going to be such a hit, I would have sent it over to you weeks ago. Here, if you come over, I can show you my basic system and share it out.”
Adina is so eager for access to the file that she refuses to take off her coat or put down her bag, which is half her size and looks like it weighs about seven thousand pounds, until she’s watched Ben send her the link. Then, as the other test cooks start trickling in, she oohs and aahs over Ben’s level of detail and organization, the way he’s set it up to track intervals of time between refills, and any changes to those intervals. This tips off the rest of the staff to the fact that the inventory exists, and suddenly Ben is being showered with promises to be taken out for a drink, or a few drinks, or to be given Brogan’s firstborn as a tribute, although that one is quite clearly a joke.
Ben isalsobeing inundated with compliments, which is somehow both incredibly nice and deeply embarrassing. He keeps trying to explain to them that it’s nothing, that it’s just a slightly updated version of the system he created for the restaurant when he was thirteen, but this makes Pete stare at him with glassy astonishment and say, “You could do this when you werethirteen?” which doesn’t help things at all.
“I just wanted my parents to stop accidentally double-ordering the imported tomatoes my mom insists on,” Ben says, shrugging. He keeps to himself the reason he’d wanted that: to avoid the doubled bill arriving, and the subsequent screaming fight his parents would have in the walk-in, which had never in Ben’s lifetime been as soundproof as Daniel and Lucia imaginedit. Sometimes he and Renata could hear them at it even from upstairs, going back and forth about whose fault it was and then, eventually, about who was at fault for everything else either of them felt was wrong in their lives. “So it wasn’t like a great act of organizational altruism or whatever.”
“Still,” Pete says, shaking his head in what appears, to Ben’s amazement and confusion, to be admiration. “Still.”
