“Heard.”
I keep quiet this time and try to imagine making the cuts myself. When he’s finished, I take the knife.
It’s heavier than I expected, but balanced. I could be imagining it, but the handle feels slightly warm, as if holding on to the ghost of Jack’s fingertips. I reach for an onion and take a deep breath as I stare at it.
“Do the whole bag.” He starts walking away.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
He holds up his cell phone. “Permits.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, unwilling to admit I was hoping he’d stay and watch. I chop off one end of the onion, then the other. Cut down the middle. It’s not even, but at least my fingers are still intact. I sneak a look at Jack. He’s leaning against the doorway to the office, engrossed in a phone call. As I watch, he runs his fingers through his hair, an absentminded motion that just makes it flop back over his forehead.
“Well, can you expedite it?” he’s saying, a bite in his voice. “Seriously? How much?”
Where his cuts were smooth and precise, mine are tentative and uneven. I end up with a pile of onion pieces too, but they’re nowhere near the same size. My heart sinks. I move the pieces to the edge of the cutting board and start in on the next one, blinking away the small, irritating tears forming at the corners of my eyes. I never noticed before how strong onions smell. I bounce on my heels, determined to pay attention to the task and not give in to the multitude of distractions around me, like eavesdropping or trying out one of the other knives.
It’s a torturous process. By the time I finish them all, I’m about ready to chuck the knife across the room. Cleaning this place from top to bottom sucked, but this wasn’t much better. Jack, as if sensing my frustration, wraps up his phone call. He strolls over with a positively pleasant look on his face.
“How did it go?”
I just shrug. I’m sure my eyes are red; they’re still stinging.
He picks through the pile I made, examining individual pieces. He shakes his head.
“Hey!”
“They’re sloppy. Do you know what would happen if we used these during service?”
I fight the urge to lunge across the table and show him how much of a weapon “just a chef’s knife” can be. “No, Chef.”
“They’d cook unevenly.” Horror of horrors, he brings out another bag of onions. “Some would burn. Some wouldn’t soften like they need to. That would result in an incorrect, subpar dish, and subpar dishes don’t have any place in my kitchen.”
“You’re saying it’s about timing, again.”
“Timing, and uniformity.” He sweeps away the onions and skins, too, leaving a fresh canvas on the cutting board. “I used to chop onions all throughout service. Pounds and pounds of them. The smell would seep into my skin. My eyes would burn like hell.”
“So?”
“So, keep going.” He rinses off his knife, then dries it with a cloth. “Knife work is a skill. You get better by practicing. Prep onions we wouldn’t be embarrassed to serve, and then I’ll show you another skill.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I want to tell him where he can shove that bag of onions, but manage to keep my mouth shut. I haven’t walked out the door yet, no matter what he’s thrown at me so far, and I’m not going to today. He might’ve tossed my progress in the trash, but at least itwasprogress. Something I did on my own, with my own two hands. It felt good to have concrete proof of my efforts.
I pick up the knife again, and start in.
Chapter 15
Rush Order
Poppy
I’m nearly finished with the second bag of onions when I hear voices coming from the dining room.
I pause, knife hovering above the latest onion. I’ve gone slower this time, focusing on making my movements as precise as possible. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Hopefully it’s good enough to avoid the humiliation of the garbage can a second time in a row.
“—figured we’d drift into each other’s lives again,” someone is saying. “Although to be fair, it was shitty as hell, what you did, and I’d like to be in touch more than once a decade moving forward.”
“Fair enough,” Jack responds. To my surprise, he laughs deeply. Genuinely. He pushes open the door to the kitchen, another man in tow.
