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The last guest finally leaves at eleven PM, and the clean-up game begins. With the number of guests we had today, I am not leaving any time sooner than two AM.
“Vas.” Sisi places her hand on my arm. “Go, we can take care of this here,” she tells me with a pained look in her eyes because she knows what it means for me to stay out this late at night.
Sisi, who is one of our line cooks, is closer to my mom in age, and she certainly loves to act as one in here. Always trying to look out for my well-being, and I would love to take her offer and simply leave my team to clean up, but I won’t ever do that to them.
I don’t leave my people behind. That is not who I am, so I wordlessly shake my head and pick up the rug with a cleaning solution to take care of the vents, which were clogged up with the grease from tonight’s service. Sisi gives me a tired exhale but doesn’t push anymore. She knows it’s fruitless.
I am stubborn, and I admit it.
A lot of times, people don’t pursue their dreams in the kitchen industry simply because dedicating your life to it quite literally takes it all away from you. Normally, we eat, breathe, and sleep in the kitchen, rarely seeing the light of day, and it’s only those who really love it—or those incredibly desperate for money—take it up.
Lucky for me, I qualify for both.
But really, I love the hustle and bustle of a busy kitchen just as much as I love that first strike of a food pairing in your head, going through the process of creating something beautiful and seeing someone enjoy it. That’s why I do it.
My Greek parents made sure I knew how important feeding others was the moment I could walk. They loved to connect through food and taught us to do the same.
Somehow, we managed to finish everything in record time, and by one-thirty, I was dumping my coat in the laundry bin.
“Good service, everyone,” I call out to my crew, clapping my hands together. “Now, let’s go rest up and do even better tomorrow.”
“Yes, Chef,” they all give me a tired chorus together.
I might be only a Sous-chef, but I am the one who gets down and dirty with them all the time. I am the one who will take a beating for any one of my cooks, and for that, I’ve earned their respect.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about my boss. It seems no matter how perfectly I do my job, it is never good enough…
At least at this time, New York is quite peaceful, and I am able to get home to Brooklyn without any more hold-ups. Forty minutes of subway train joyriding, and I am sliding my key into the front door keyhole, twisting it with a tiny jerk to the right because the old garbage glitches and won’t open otherwise.
You’d think working as a Sous-chef in one of the world’s best restaurants grants me a lavish lifestyle…think again.
Yes, I earn enough. But that enough is not enough when your mother is fighting for her life. When your little sister was on the brink of quitting college because she couldn’t afford it anymore and when you are a single parent to a beautiful, smart-as-a-whip five-year-old angel.
And an egotistical, self-centered bitch of an ex-wife didn’t help matters either when she filed for divorce and asked for everything we had, in return for not taking my daughter from me.
So, an old apartment with glitchy, rusty keyholes will do for now. Does it also come with a leaky shower, barely-there windows, and crazy neighbors?
Yes, yes, it does, but we will not concentrate on the fact that we live in the worst building in the whole of Brooklyn at this time. We won’t be looking that horse in the mouth and be grateful we get to live in this area. I simply can’t afford another luxury. Dreaming of some other life when I am needed in the now is unacceptable.
Slowly, I crack open the squeaky front door, and no matter how many times I oil up the damn thing, it refuses to shut the hell up. My little sister immediately snaps her head up from the couch where she is sleeping, covered by my daughter’s Little Mermaid blanket I got her for her Christmas, and rubs the sleep off her eyes.
“Hey,” she croaks out quietly, because yeah, this apartment also has paper-thin walls, and sharing a secret in here can be equated to yelling it out to the whole complex.
“Hey, Soph,” I greet her, narrowing my eyes to her identical dark ones. Our Greek roots are very prominent in both of us. “I distinctly remember telling you to take my bed at least a million times in the past year that you have babysat.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves me off and goes back to sleep on the damn couch that gives her backache and bruises every night.
Stubbornness is also something that is very prominent in us. You see, my little sister Sophie thinks she is my slave forever since I took over her school tuition, and she is determined to kill herself by paying me back. But who exactly that is benefiting is yet to be determined.
In reality, I am beyond grateful for her. Not only is she excelling in all of her engineering classes, but she is also saving my ass every night while I work, babysitting Victoria, doing her kindergarten homework with her, and feeding her somethingother than cup noodles. I offered to take the room I am sharing with Vee a million times, but she refuses. I even offered to buy her a better couch or even a small bed we could somehow fit in this living room, but I’m sure you guessed it, Sophie refuses that as well.
And yes, I tried to pressure her into a new bed, but the last one I bought she hauled down the stairs all by herself as soon as I left and returned it. The same was done to the desk and chair I got her. My sister is the most selfless soul in this life, and it is hurting her greatly that she needs to depend on me for survival.
She is the giver in every scenario, yet she is forced to accept.
After our mother’s cancer diagnosis, everything had to change. We were all forced to adapt to a new norm while I was already living through my own catastrophe. But I am alive. My daughter is alive, healthy, and as happy as I can manage to make her. My sister is almost done with school, and mom is still breathing, still giving us hope to hear her laugh and play with her granddaughter for more than a fleeting moment.
“Stubborn girl,” I murmur under my breath.
