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“Yes, chef?” she answered breathlessly.
At least someone around here respected me.
“Will you cube up the bread from yesterday and make some croutons to go with this soup? Garlic herb.”
“Yes, chef,” she repeated, like a doll with only one catchphrase.
“Thank you, Ronnie,” I called as I gave the onions another stir.
“Hope!” Thacker shouted from the office. I tensed up, hunching my shoulders around my ears as I fought the urge to scream back at him. Instead, I just ignored him. I wasn’t going to be spoken to like a child or a dog and I wasn’t going to walk away from this pot right now just so he could tell me another batch of caramelized onions was burned. I glared down at the sizzling translucent squares, waiting for that moment, that brief, fleeting moment, when they would be perfectly done.
But Thacker was not inclined to wait for me to finish what I was doing. He burst out of his office, looking around wildly and then fixing his narrowed eyes on me.
“I’ve got missing meat,” he growled. Inside, I was mildly concerned. Missing? How did meat just go missing? But my annoyance was winning today, so I just glanced at him and then pointedly let my eyes drop to the front of his pants.
“Well, that explains a few things,” I said drolly. As red blotches moved up his neck to his cheeks, I turned back to the onions just in time to dump the waiting pitchers of beef broth over them, swirling it all together into something that, God willing, would resemble a gourmet soup after a couple of hours cooking down. Dialing the flame to a simmer, I turned and crossed my arms over my chest, meeting his hard stare with one of my own.
“These margins are not adding up,” he snapped. I could tell he’d all but been chewing on his tongue to stop himself from biting back at me. Maybe he’d finally realized that clashing with his head chef was not the best way to do business.
Behind me, Ronnie dropped another plate. This one shattered. I glanced back to see her scrambling for the broom and dustpan. Gripping one in each fist, she hit her knees to clean up the mess. Mark, the sweet, pimply dishwasher hurried over to help her. The line cooks were intensely focused on their tasks, shooting anxious glances in Thacker’s direction every few seconds.
“Why don’t we go into your office?” I asked dryly. Thacker made everyone a nervous wreck. He might know food, but he clearly knew nothing about restaurant management.
He stood back, gesturing sarcastically with his arm for me to lead him inside. I brushed past him, and I could feel the tension pent up in his body like he’d given me a shock.
I hadn’t even settled completely into the chair in front of his desk when he slammed the door and stalked around to drop into his worn rolling chair. He slapped his ROI sheet down on the mahogany expanse between us. I gazed down at it placidly, unwilling to give him any indication that I gave a fuck. He jabbed at a line where the numbers didn’t add up.
“Chicken breast? That’s our lowest-value cut,” I said, leaning in to look closer, no longer able to fight my curiosity. “Who would steal that when we have long bone and prime rib right next to it in the walk-in?”
“I don’t think anyone stole it,” he said frostily. I looked up at him, confused, trying and failing to suss out his meaning. “You need to be using the food scales to make sure that every portion served is the exact right metric. I can’t keep hemorrhaging money like this.”
Now I was mad. I sat back in the chair, glaring at him.
“I use a scale,” I said simply, because everything else that sprang to mind was sure to get me fired. “Maybe your abrasive personality is the reason your restaurant is failing.”
He just looked at me, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Then he sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and rubbed them with his fingertips. I thought he would dismiss me but instead, after a second, he braced his hands on the desktop and pushed himself up to standing, fixing me with a withering look.
“My restaurant isn’t failing,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I’m starting to think that maybe if I had a head chef who was a team player, we’d be doing a whole hell of a lot better.”
I raised my eyebrows, staggered by his audacity.
“So you’re blaming me? Sounds about right.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can’t even accept responsibility for the way Speedgoat is run,” I said, and I too pushed myself to my feet. He towered over me, but I wasn’t afraid. The desk between us was enough of a barrier to keep him at arm’s length. “It’s a poor workman who blames his tools and a poor manager who blames his staff.” I looked him up and down as he watched me, the muscle in his jaw ticking away like a doomsday clock. “Seems to me you’re a whole lot of both.”
He swelled with anger. I braced myself, sure he was about to scream at me. Instead, he deflated like a balloon as he dropped back into his desk chair. He waved his hand at the door, all the fight gone out of him.
“Leave, please,” he said wearily.
I stood there, breathing hard. I wanted to continue yelling. Wanted to tell him all the mean things I’d thought about him since I took this job. Just how much of a failure I really thought he was. But I knew that doing so would get me nowhere but the unemployment office fast. Instead, I turned on my heel and stormed out, slamming his office door behind me even louder than he had when we went in.
Ronnie jumped at the noise like a scared rabbit.
“What was that about?” she whispered. I shook my head, snatching up the ladle and stirring the soup. I dipped a tasting spoon into the dark broth and raised it to my lips.
Perfect. Just like the last batch. That asshole wouldn’t know good cooking if it was the only thing keeping his restaurant afloat.
