Right Down The Line 1/9
+masterpost
"The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live."
Joy Harjo from "Perhaps The World Ends Here" (1994)
::::
::::
It isn't the ringing phone that drags Kame up from darkness. It's the hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and a voice saying, "Hey, Nina. Yeah, hang on, he's waking up. Oh, yeah." A rough laugh. "You know. Late night. What? No. Everything's fine. Y- No. Kame's fine." He sounds baffled and more awake than anyone has a right to be after the night they've had.
Sanjay catches his eye, where Kame's staring up at him muzzily. Kame puts out his hand as he pushes himself up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. "I'll take it," he rasps.
"Here's Johnny," Sanjay sings into the phone with a smirk, and he tosses it to Kame who fumbles it into his lap. "I'll get coffee going," and he's gone with a flash of white teeth, his bare-footed tread fading into the quiet of the dark room.
"Hey, Nina, " Kame finally manages.
"Morning, sunshine," comes a throaty chuckle in his ear. "When'd you get in? You are at home, right?"
"What? Of course I'm at home. What time is it now?" Kame asks, squinting at the clock on the bedside table. Seven. Shit. "Three hours ago. And before you start, I'm fine."
"Really." Her clipped English-accented tone is even. "So, you and Sanjay had a late night, hmm?"
There's no hint of suspicion in her tone whatsoever, not a trace of judgment, nothing. But she knows him, and now she knows this.
"Yes," Kame says, short. He's glad she can't see him flush.
"Hmmm." There's a pause. One could almost call it significant. Kame's forehead prickles with sweat and he clears his throat. "So?"
"Right." Her voice becomes crisp and efficient. "I know it's a day earlier than you'd planned, but can you come up today? I think Andrew is terrified to call you, so he asked me to give you the bad news." She sighs. Kame knows he's not going to like this. "He's out two cooks for tonight's service, and he fell off his bike a couple hours ago, knocked his head. Out like a light."
Kame winces. "Is he all right?"
"He'll live," comes her reply, "but they're keeping him in hospital for observation."
"That bad?"
"Afraid so. You'll come up? Staff meeting's at noon, but they can push it a little."
"What's the event?" Kame asks around a yawn, scrubbing one hand vigorously through his hair.
"It's some VIP private party, one of Yamashita's friends. A big fucking deal. You know. If Andrew's out..."
She doesn't need to explain. If Andrew, the executive chef, is out, then the kitchen needs to be guided by someone else who can put in face-time with the VIPs - which automatically rules out the line cooks or even the sous chefs. It needs to be a heavy hitter. Someone who knows the menu, who can captain the ship.
It's Kame's lucky day. It needs to be him.
Kame doesn't bother to ask why fucking Yamapi doesn't rescue Andrew. Kame's the backup, while Yamapi is their public face and, more often than not, he's doing the celebrity thing somewhere else. Kame has the fuzzy idea that Yamapi's away at some conference in Amsterdam, but it doesn't matter. It figures that he'd end up working a VIP private party for a bunch of pampered, entitled types with over-inflated egos-
"Oh, my god, Nina." Kame flops backward onto the bed. "Just tell me they won't be ordering a la carte."
Nina laughs briefly. "No-o. It's more like a twenty course degustation menu for fifty - no, make that fifty-seven."
"We only have sixty seats!" Kame says in disbelief. He struggles upright again and sighs. This is his business. This is his job. Having employees just means more fires to put out when things go pear-shaped.
"Come on, cowboy," Nina says in a bracing tone, "you know you're good for it. Anyway, I'm looking at your agenda right now, and there's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow."
Kame considers the scant few hours of sleep he's had, and the hangover pounding behind his eyes. He tries not to think about Sanjay downstairs in the kitchen - in his bloody kitchen - and tomorrow night.
"Whose side are you on anyway?" Kame asks darkly.
He can hear her smile. "You know I'm on your side, boss, and if it were up to me, you'd still be sleeping. But, I know you remember that conversation we had a couple months ago. I let you sleep in because your cooks are a pack of children who want you to solve all their itty bitty problems. Do I need to remind you that when you woke up, you ripped my sodding head off and threatened to fire me? I love my job, and I'd like to keep it, thanks."
Kame chews the inside of his mouth, remembering. Not one of his finest moments.
"I would never fire you," he says absently and then he groans again. "I am so fucked."
"Mmm," Nina replies, not unsympathetically. "There'll be an Acela ticket waiting for you at Union Station, swipe your card, departure is at eight forty. I'll have a Red Top taxi pick you up at eight. Don't be late. And don't forget about tomorrow night."
Kame grunts. "Takki would have my balls if I didn't show up."
"Kame-" Nina begins, and her firm voice carries a note of concern. "You sure everything is all right?"
Kame presses the fingers of his left hand to his forehead and takes a deep breath.
"Yes, Mamma Nina," he says, trying to sound joky, "peachy."
"Sleep on the train," she says kindly. "And no social media, I mean it, boss, or I'll sic Meisa on you. I'll stop by Sesamo this evening. Ta!"
She disconnects. Kame drops his phone onto the bed and his head into his hands.
--
The kitchen is shadowy and cold, the only light a narrow beam from a spotlight aimed directly at the stove. Sanjay's back is to him when Kame pads into the kitchen about ten minutes later, hair still wet, but dressed now in a black button-down shirt, cashmere v-neck sweater, and dark-wash jeans. Sanjay's dressed, too, in the clothes he was wearing the night before, jeans and a tight vintage Rush t-shirt that nicely shows off the tats twining around both arms. His longish black hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail, an earring curled around one lobe. He turns when the chair Kame pulls out scrapes over the tiled floor.
"Coffee?" Sanjay's voice is sober now, not like before, and he's not looking at Kame yet.
Kame nods, making an effort not to grimace as he settles in at the broad heavy wooden table. It's ancient and scarred from decades of long use, a second-hand find that Kame loves nearly as much as his knives. He worries his thumbnail into one of the scratches. He's trying not to think about how Sanjay ended up at his house, in his bed. He's never let himself get drunk enough to make that mistake before. But here they are, and Kame stares at the table as he struggles to reconcile really good sex with, well, whatever the hell this is.
Sanjay pours coffee into two small cups from a silver-shiny Bialetti moka which he returns to the back of Kame's eight-burner Viking range before handing a cup to Kame.
Kame looks deeply into his cup for a second as if it's the recipe for his day, or, his life: one cup of coffee, black; carefully measure out two spoons of stress; a splash of cream; stir. He quickly drains the cup and watches as Sanjay fusses over two plates, wiping the edges down with the towel he pulls off his shoulder.
"Buon appetito," he says, presenting Kame's plate with a half-hearted flourish. Kame can't help a chuckle, ducking his head before he smiles, helpless before Sanjay's sincere hopeful expression.
"Come on, sit down. Eat your food. It looks great." Kame's stomach gives a violent lurch as he says this, but he ignores it. It's a colorful plate, a simple golden-yellow omelet sided by a glistening fan of pink smoked salmon and a small mound of intensely green spinach. A crisp pile of grilled leftover naan radiates heat from a blue plate between them.
They're quiet for a few moments as they dig in. Kame eats slowly, carefully, mindful of his uneasy stomach and aching head, but he's always better after he eats something. Food is usually his best hangover remedy.
"So why'd Nina call?" Sanjay asks.
"I have to go to New York. Today. Right now, actually. Andrew's in the hospital - no, nothing too serious, I don't think. She says he hit his head falling off his bike last night and the hospital wants to keep him. So-"
"-you're going to Sesamo," Sanjay finishes.
"Yup."
Sanjay just looks at him. Kame eats his last forkful and pushes his plate aside. He shifts, and crosses his arms over his chest.
"What?"
Sanjay shrugs. "It's just. It's what you do. What you're always doing."
"And what's that," Kame says.
Sanjay holds his gaze a little longer, and then breaks off with a sigh. He pushes his forefinger into a groove of the table. "Nothing," he says at last. "But. Kame, listen to me. Aren't you tired?"
Kame stares at him in swift irritation. He feels his spine stiffen, and his chin lifts. "I'm fine," he says. He stands up. "Thanks for breakfast. You didn't have to." His voice is all wrong, he knows that, frozen and blank, but he can't help it. He lifts his empty plate just as Sanjay's reaching for it, and he moves away, around the table, toward the dishwasher.
When he's done, he turns around, leaning back, his hands behind him gripping the counter hard. "Sanjay-"
"No," Sanjay is already standing, "it's fine. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Wait," Kame says.
"You should get a move on, right?" Sanjay says over his shoulder. "And don't worry about me. I need to get going anyway. I'll just clean up-"
"You don't have to clean up!" Kame says in exasperation as he pushes off the counter and walks around the table. Sanjay shoots him a look.
"I'll just clean up," he repeats quietly, "and I'll head out. Probably right behind you. What time's your train?"
"Eight-forty. Taxi'll be here in-" Kame checks his watch, "ten minutes."
"See? Go. Shoo." Sanjay looks back at him and flicks the towel at Kame, and his expression relaxes. "Go on. Git."
Kame raises his hands and walks backward. "I'm going, I'm going."
--
Just before Kame walks out to meet the taxi, he stops back into the kitchen where he finds Sanjay sitting at the table fiddling with his phone. "It's cold, 28 degrees," Sanjay says without looking up. "And it'll be in the teens and the 20s in New York for the rest of the week. I hope you dressed warm today."
"Yes, mom," Kame says automatically, pausing in the doorway. He waits until Sanjay looks up and meets his eyes. "So," he begins, hoping to strike the right tone, "You'll be there tomorrow?"
Sanjay's expression wavers for just an instant, before a smile snaps into place. "Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it. Cat will run Sez Two, Miguel will help her out. I got it covered, boss, don't worry. The restaurant will be fine." He shifts, sprawling his long legs out, and he carefully places his phone down on the table. When he lifts his chin, he's still smiling, eyes locked on Kame. There's something faintly disappointed in his expression, and also defiant.
Kame doesn't know what to do with that. "Ok," he says, resettling his backpack, "see you." He hesitates in the doorway, feeling oddly reluctant to walk away, like he's forgetting something. He keeps doing this wrong. Sanjay sitting in his kitchen makes him feel uncomfortable. As Sanjay looks back at him, his smile begins to slip. He stands, now looking as awkward as Kame feels.
"Right, I'm leaving," Kame announces and makes himself turn.
"I'll give you your keys back in New York," Sanjay calls after him, when he's nearly out the door. Kame doesn't respond.
--
Kame manages to draft a short blog entry, send a handful of tweets, and answers several of the more urgent emails in his inbox by the time they pull into Baltimore. Sometime before Philadelphia he drifts off, and he comes awake in the darkness of the tunnels approaching Penn Station where the train slowly grinds along. His eyes are grainy and he feels fairly awful. When he checks his phone he sees that he slept through about ten calls, three of them from Andrew. There's a text from him, too: Sorry, Chef. Stuck in hospital. Call me. Suze has game plan.
When Kame finally emerges from the ugly confines of Penn Station, he escapes onto the street, walks to Herald Square to take the subway towards Sesamo.
Sesamo is now their flagship enterprise. It isn't their first restaurant together but it's the one that convinced fans, haters, and reviewers that Zenzero wasn't a fluke. They wouldn't be just another flash in the pan. Sesamo turned Yamapi into a rock star and vaulted Kame into the company of chefs he'd always idolized. And yet, Sesamo's early success wasn't Kame's first brush with celebrity, even if Yamapi conveniently likes to forget how long Kame's been paying his dues.
The tv series offers, interview requests and proposals from developers began to roll in. All this Yamapi told him six years ago in a fit of drunken pomposity, comes with the territory. Better get used to it. Yamapi, long accustomed to a certain amount of attention, seems born used to it. Kame never bothers to correct him.
When Kame arrives, the street is quiet for the moment. It won't be later, but as Kame stands on the sidewalk, he looks down the street, up at the sky, and revels in the momentary stillness, the hum of steady traffic just a block away and the sting of the icy air on his face. He squares his shoulders and makes for the front entrance.
From the moment he enters, there's a flurry of motion. He calls Andrew from Andrew's tiny office in the bowels of the restaurant, and once he's been briefed on the menu and had a tour of the walk-ins and storerooms, including what the prep cooks have already begun, he has a chat with Suze before he gathers the kitchen staff. Andrew's forty-something Jamaican-born chef de cuisine is calm and serene, and doesn't seem too ruffled by being short-staffed two cooks, not to mention her missing boss. Kame already knows how Suze will react, but he decides to begin by offering to work a station on the line if she would prefer to run the kitchen herself. Her eyes pop as she stares at him, and she mutters under her breath. When Kame tries to speak again, she tosses her head almost angrily and fixes him with a glare that nearly makes him step back.
"Kamenashi-san," she begins carefully, and Kame winces at the emphasis on the honorific, "we are honored to have you with us today."
"Oh, god, Susanna," Kame says, "please don't do that." He pinches the bridge of his nose, and pulls a face.
Suze lifts one hand, palm facing outwards as if to forestall further comments. Her lilting Jamaican accent deepens as she shakes her head.
"No, Chef. This is your kitchen-"
"-was," Kame interrupts.
"-and it still is," Suze finishes with a sniff, "Andrew would say the same if he was here."
"No, he wouldn't," Kame says with a tired smile, folding his arms across his chest and looking up into her large, round, black-fringed eyes. Her brown cheeks are plump and her skin shines beneath the undimmed overhead lights. She looks fresh and well-rested, everything that he isn't.
"Andrew loves you," she tries again, a little less certainly.
"Maybe," Kame allows, thinking back to Andrew on the phone earlier, his awkward, stilted gratitude, "but he'd rather I left him alone. It's his kitchen now."
"Well," Suze says with a great deal of dignity, "I am not Andrew."
"Thank god for that. And Suze? Please, please, just call me Kame."
"I can't do that!" She looks scandalized.
Kame sighs. "Fine, just - there's no need to call me -san, then, ok?"
She fixes him with her warm brown gaze and nods slowly. "I can do that, Chef."
"Good. Now, for fuck's sake, find me some coffee."
--
Although it's been several months since Kame last worked in his former kitchen, his muscle memory is instinctive as the afternoon wears on into evening. His feet trace exactly the number of steps from this prep station to that walk-in, how high to reach for this four quart of preserved lemon, the weight and heft of a hotel pan piled with morel mushrooms. It's hard and physical and exacting, but it's familiar work, a well-worn groove that Kame slides into like he'd never left.
Suze keeps him well-supplied with tiny cups of Beppe's magic espresso that Kame knocks back like shots, and somehow it comes together. He can't resist tweaking the menu a little, swapping out the potato soup amuse bouche topped with bread crumbs and bacon bits for shrimp-foie gras croquettes with micro-cilantro and yuzu marmalade. Most of the changes are minor, sometimes cosmetic or seeking a different flavor balance: this garnish for that garnish or a different sauce. Major disaster never materializes, no one catches on fire, drops anything important or loses their temper. Even better, sometime around the third course, Kame hits his stride and the well-oiled machine of Andrew's crew absorbs him and the kitchen ballet flows like a perfectly-rehearsed performance.
Kame spends most of the evening concentrated on the food, plating and garnishing with two cooks, inspecting each course before it goes out to make sure it's perfect, while the rest double up on stations to cover for missing bodies. Nina slips in around course seven, appearing at his elbow with a smile and a cool drink. Kame straightens with a soft groan, back aching from being bent over the staging counter for so long, and he sucks Coke through a straw, listening to her quick update that his Wednesday four p.m. meeting has been shifted up to ten a.m. the next morning and her reminder of an overdue city inspection. By the time she leaves, a playlist of the Rolling Stones and early Black Keys is piping into the kitchen. Somewhere in the vicinity of the twelfth course, odd bits of Spanish, French and Italian trip off his tongue automatically as he beckons and gestures and conducts and Kame wonders how he could ever stay away.
It ends quietly, the last course sent out, and the kitchen has wound down. Kame rests his hands on the stainless steel work surface and tries to meet the eyes of each person, from the runners to the busboys, to the dishwashers, the line cooks, as well their pastry chef, Noor, Suze and the sous chef, Beppe. They all watch him expectantly.
Kame nods with a satisfied smile and, with his arms stiff at his sides, he bows his head slightly.
"Good job, everyone. Thank you for your hard work." He says it in English and Spanish, and he watches as they nod and shuffle their feet, repeating their thanks back to him. It's a ritual he's always enjoyed.
"Thank you, Chef," Suze says with an impish expression that says he should be grateful she's not rendering a more formal response. Tomás, the front-of-house manager, pops his head in and wonders if Kame will come out and say a few words to their guests. Kame nods. He's feeling somewhat limp, but a meet-and-greet with the guests is standard; everyone expects the chef to show his face, press some flesh and make nice with the big spenders.
Beppe, a burly Italian from Brooklyn, yanks at the high collar of his jacket, pulling the flap open to reveal a damp t-shirt. "We're all going to Ventuno when we get done." Kame nods, he knows the place. "You should come."
Kame thanks him without committing. "If I don't see you," he says, "have one for me, ok?"
Beppe chuckles as he turns away. "I'll have two, Chef," he rumbles over his shoulder.
Kame unties his apron before yanking off his bandanna and fluffing his sweaty hair. Only part of his job has to do with food or its preparation. The rest is all pure PR, schmoozing and flattery, just the right words to make them feel special, so they'll always come back. Kame slips into the persona like the fresh navy Sesamo uniform jacket he buttons up to his throat, tugging it straight and glancing down to make sure it's spotless and correct.
Game face on, he follows Tomás out into the dining room and goes back to work.
--
The guests keep him nearly an hour through two glasses of wine from their final round of bottles. Kame estimates that the restaurant made a healthy profit on booze mark-up alone, if the labels on the empty bottles at the sommelier's station are anything to judge by. He stays with Tomás and waits until every last man and woman have all departed. As he walks back through the dining room, Kame sees that the tables have already been cleared and the linens are being stripped away. He nods at the busboys on his way to the rear, their "good night, chef," accompanying him through the swinging door.
Kame heads to the tiny locker area where he slowly changes back into his street clothes and shoes. Nearly all the kitchen staff have gone; only a few are still cleaning up, wiping all the stainless steel surfaces down until they gleam. Kame bids them goodnight before he turns up the collar of his heavy wool coat, adjusts his scarf and pulls a knit cap down over his hair, and he steps out into the icy Manhattan night. When he exhales, his breath hangs in the air. The cold feels good on his hot cheeks and catches in his lungs. In his pocket, he feels his phone vibrate as he begins walking. He pulls off a glove to thumb the screen.
It's a message from Sanjay. how'd it go?
Kame can't help smiling. The adrenaline hasn't worn off and he feels fairly giddy with the evening's success.
-just finished. it was good, he sends back, really good. how'd you do?
-good, Sanjay returns. nothing burned down.
-that's a relief.
-250 covers. sold all the sweetbreads.
-good. i won't have to fire you
-as if. get some sleep. you deserve it.
Kame considers that as he scrolls through the five hundred emails in his inbox just from this evening: messages from suppliers, immigration attorneys, linen services and accountants, but there's also the large email roundtable comprised of all the chefs, cooks, bartenders and managers from all three Kayakuya restaurants, a kind of daily post-game analysis of what worked, what didn't, both in the kitchen and in the front of the house. Kame and Yamapi instituted the roundtable years ago as a way to keep everyone actively involved in improving the operation, and it's turned out to be one of their most useful tools.
Kame glances through some of the comments coming in about the day from Zenzero and both Sesamo restaurants in New York and in Washington, and his feet stutter to a stop on the pavement as he stops to read, immediately sucked into the free-for-all, heedless of the cold.
Eventually he forces himself to look up and takes a deep breath. He considers going back to his flat and crashing, waking up at ten or eleven after a luxurious eight hours. Kame can't remember when he last slept so long. He really ought to go home, so he can be up bright and early for that ten a.m meeting.
Kame pockets his phone and looks up at the orange-lit late-night sky. He feels the kiss of light snow flurries drifting down, more like a frozen mist than anything else. There was virtually no snow left in Washington, but in Manhattan there's snow everywhere, and another storm on the way. It's bad for business and bad for the city and yet the little kid in him is still charmed.
Kame thinks about the cold, empty flat he keeps in the city with a vague sense of distaste. The night's chill sinks into him, curling under his collar, reminding him that his back aches abominably along with his legs and feet from standing all those long hours hunched over rows of dishes. He should be exhausted. He should be passed out right now, a victim of no sleep and stress and fourteen hours of painstaking, concentrated labor.
Kame licks melting crystals off his lips. Beppe will still be there, probably Suze, too, telling war stories, growing loose and mellow. That's what he needs. When he walks in, the Sesamo kitchen crew will all still be there: Beppe, Suze, Eduardo, Junior, Jorge, Leonie, Jing, not to mention cooks from other kitchens. They'll wave him over and find him a seat, hand him a drink, because that's what they do. He'll thank his guys for making him look good and he'll buy them a round. That's how this goes, how the night will end.
He walks out to the main drag where he can see the faint bits of snow drifting beneath a streetlight. He shivers, stamps his feet.
Sleep, Kame thinks, is for the weak.
+part two
"The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live."
Joy Harjo from "Perhaps The World Ends Here" (1994)
::::
::::
It isn't the ringing phone that drags Kame up from darkness. It's the hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and a voice saying, "Hey, Nina. Yeah, hang on, he's waking up. Oh, yeah." A rough laugh. "You know. Late night. What? No. Everything's fine. Y- No. Kame's fine." He sounds baffled and more awake than anyone has a right to be after the night they've had.
Sanjay catches his eye, where Kame's staring up at him muzzily. Kame puts out his hand as he pushes himself up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. "I'll take it," he rasps.
"Here's Johnny," Sanjay sings into the phone with a smirk, and he tosses it to Kame who fumbles it into his lap. "I'll get coffee going," and he's gone with a flash of white teeth, his bare-footed tread fading into the quiet of the dark room.
"Hey, Nina, " Kame finally manages.
"Morning, sunshine," comes a throaty chuckle in his ear. "When'd you get in? You are at home, right?"
"What? Of course I'm at home. What time is it now?" Kame asks, squinting at the clock on the bedside table. Seven. Shit. "Three hours ago. And before you start, I'm fine."
"Really." Her clipped English-accented tone is even. "So, you and Sanjay had a late night, hmm?"
There's no hint of suspicion in her tone whatsoever, not a trace of judgment, nothing. But she knows him, and now she knows this.
"Yes," Kame says, short. He's glad she can't see him flush.
"Hmmm." There's a pause. One could almost call it significant. Kame's forehead prickles with sweat and he clears his throat. "So?"
"Right." Her voice becomes crisp and efficient. "I know it's a day earlier than you'd planned, but can you come up today? I think Andrew is terrified to call you, so he asked me to give you the bad news." She sighs. Kame knows he's not going to like this. "He's out two cooks for tonight's service, and he fell off his bike a couple hours ago, knocked his head. Out like a light."
Kame winces. "Is he all right?"
"He'll live," comes her reply, "but they're keeping him in hospital for observation."
"That bad?"
"Afraid so. You'll come up? Staff meeting's at noon, but they can push it a little."
"What's the event?" Kame asks around a yawn, scrubbing one hand vigorously through his hair.
"It's some VIP private party, one of Yamashita's friends. A big fucking deal. You know. If Andrew's out..."
She doesn't need to explain. If Andrew, the executive chef, is out, then the kitchen needs to be guided by someone else who can put in face-time with the VIPs - which automatically rules out the line cooks or even the sous chefs. It needs to be a heavy hitter. Someone who knows the menu, who can captain the ship.
It's Kame's lucky day. It needs to be him.
Kame doesn't bother to ask why fucking Yamapi doesn't rescue Andrew. Kame's the backup, while Yamapi is their public face and, more often than not, he's doing the celebrity thing somewhere else. Kame has the fuzzy idea that Yamapi's away at some conference in Amsterdam, but it doesn't matter. It figures that he'd end up working a VIP private party for a bunch of pampered, entitled types with over-inflated egos-
"Oh, my god, Nina." Kame flops backward onto the bed. "Just tell me they won't be ordering a la carte."
Nina laughs briefly. "No-o. It's more like a twenty course degustation menu for fifty - no, make that fifty-seven."
"We only have sixty seats!" Kame says in disbelief. He struggles upright again and sighs. This is his business. This is his job. Having employees just means more fires to put out when things go pear-shaped.
"Come on, cowboy," Nina says in a bracing tone, "you know you're good for it. Anyway, I'm looking at your agenda right now, and there's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow."
Kame considers the scant few hours of sleep he's had, and the hangover pounding behind his eyes. He tries not to think about Sanjay downstairs in the kitchen - in his bloody kitchen - and tomorrow night.
"Whose side are you on anyway?" Kame asks darkly.
He can hear her smile. "You know I'm on your side, boss, and if it were up to me, you'd still be sleeping. But, I know you remember that conversation we had a couple months ago. I let you sleep in because your cooks are a pack of children who want you to solve all their itty bitty problems. Do I need to remind you that when you woke up, you ripped my sodding head off and threatened to fire me? I love my job, and I'd like to keep it, thanks."
Kame chews the inside of his mouth, remembering. Not one of his finest moments.
"I would never fire you," he says absently and then he groans again. "I am so fucked."
"Mmm," Nina replies, not unsympathetically. "There'll be an Acela ticket waiting for you at Union Station, swipe your card, departure is at eight forty. I'll have a Red Top taxi pick you up at eight. Don't be late. And don't forget about tomorrow night."
Kame grunts. "Takki would have my balls if I didn't show up."
"Kame-" Nina begins, and her firm voice carries a note of concern. "You sure everything is all right?"
Kame presses the fingers of his left hand to his forehead and takes a deep breath.
"Yes, Mamma Nina," he says, trying to sound joky, "peachy."
"Sleep on the train," she says kindly. "And no social media, I mean it, boss, or I'll sic Meisa on you. I'll stop by Sesamo this evening. Ta!"
She disconnects. Kame drops his phone onto the bed and his head into his hands.
--
The kitchen is shadowy and cold, the only light a narrow beam from a spotlight aimed directly at the stove. Sanjay's back is to him when Kame pads into the kitchen about ten minutes later, hair still wet, but dressed now in a black button-down shirt, cashmere v-neck sweater, and dark-wash jeans. Sanjay's dressed, too, in the clothes he was wearing the night before, jeans and a tight vintage Rush t-shirt that nicely shows off the tats twining around both arms. His longish black hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail, an earring curled around one lobe. He turns when the chair Kame pulls out scrapes over the tiled floor.
"Coffee?" Sanjay's voice is sober now, not like before, and he's not looking at Kame yet.
Kame nods, making an effort not to grimace as he settles in at the broad heavy wooden table. It's ancient and scarred from decades of long use, a second-hand find that Kame loves nearly as much as his knives. He worries his thumbnail into one of the scratches. He's trying not to think about how Sanjay ended up at his house, in his bed. He's never let himself get drunk enough to make that mistake before. But here they are, and Kame stares at the table as he struggles to reconcile really good sex with, well, whatever the hell this is.
Sanjay pours coffee into two small cups from a silver-shiny Bialetti moka which he returns to the back of Kame's eight-burner Viking range before handing a cup to Kame.
Kame looks deeply into his cup for a second as if it's the recipe for his day, or, his life: one cup of coffee, black; carefully measure out two spoons of stress; a splash of cream; stir. He quickly drains the cup and watches as Sanjay fusses over two plates, wiping the edges down with the towel he pulls off his shoulder.
"Buon appetito," he says, presenting Kame's plate with a half-hearted flourish. Kame can't help a chuckle, ducking his head before he smiles, helpless before Sanjay's sincere hopeful expression.
"Come on, sit down. Eat your food. It looks great." Kame's stomach gives a violent lurch as he says this, but he ignores it. It's a colorful plate, a simple golden-yellow omelet sided by a glistening fan of pink smoked salmon and a small mound of intensely green spinach. A crisp pile of grilled leftover naan radiates heat from a blue plate between them.
They're quiet for a few moments as they dig in. Kame eats slowly, carefully, mindful of his uneasy stomach and aching head, but he's always better after he eats something. Food is usually his best hangover remedy.
"So why'd Nina call?" Sanjay asks.
"I have to go to New York. Today. Right now, actually. Andrew's in the hospital - no, nothing too serious, I don't think. She says he hit his head falling off his bike last night and the hospital wants to keep him. So-"
"-you're going to Sesamo," Sanjay finishes.
"Yup."
Sanjay just looks at him. Kame eats his last forkful and pushes his plate aside. He shifts, and crosses his arms over his chest.
"What?"
Sanjay shrugs. "It's just. It's what you do. What you're always doing."
"And what's that," Kame says.
Sanjay holds his gaze a little longer, and then breaks off with a sigh. He pushes his forefinger into a groove of the table. "Nothing," he says at last. "But. Kame, listen to me. Aren't you tired?"
Kame stares at him in swift irritation. He feels his spine stiffen, and his chin lifts. "I'm fine," he says. He stands up. "Thanks for breakfast. You didn't have to." His voice is all wrong, he knows that, frozen and blank, but he can't help it. He lifts his empty plate just as Sanjay's reaching for it, and he moves away, around the table, toward the dishwasher.
When he's done, he turns around, leaning back, his hands behind him gripping the counter hard. "Sanjay-"
"No," Sanjay is already standing, "it's fine. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Wait," Kame says.
"You should get a move on, right?" Sanjay says over his shoulder. "And don't worry about me. I need to get going anyway. I'll just clean up-"
"You don't have to clean up!" Kame says in exasperation as he pushes off the counter and walks around the table. Sanjay shoots him a look.
"I'll just clean up," he repeats quietly, "and I'll head out. Probably right behind you. What time's your train?"
"Eight-forty. Taxi'll be here in-" Kame checks his watch, "ten minutes."
"See? Go. Shoo." Sanjay looks back at him and flicks the towel at Kame, and his expression relaxes. "Go on. Git."
Kame raises his hands and walks backward. "I'm going, I'm going."
--
Just before Kame walks out to meet the taxi, he stops back into the kitchen where he finds Sanjay sitting at the table fiddling with his phone. "It's cold, 28 degrees," Sanjay says without looking up. "And it'll be in the teens and the 20s in New York for the rest of the week. I hope you dressed warm today."
"Yes, mom," Kame says automatically, pausing in the doorway. He waits until Sanjay looks up and meets his eyes. "So," he begins, hoping to strike the right tone, "You'll be there tomorrow?"
Sanjay's expression wavers for just an instant, before a smile snaps into place. "Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it. Cat will run Sez Two, Miguel will help her out. I got it covered, boss, don't worry. The restaurant will be fine." He shifts, sprawling his long legs out, and he carefully places his phone down on the table. When he lifts his chin, he's still smiling, eyes locked on Kame. There's something faintly disappointed in his expression, and also defiant.
Kame doesn't know what to do with that. "Ok," he says, resettling his backpack, "see you." He hesitates in the doorway, feeling oddly reluctant to walk away, like he's forgetting something. He keeps doing this wrong. Sanjay sitting in his kitchen makes him feel uncomfortable. As Sanjay looks back at him, his smile begins to slip. He stands, now looking as awkward as Kame feels.
"Right, I'm leaving," Kame announces and makes himself turn.
"I'll give you your keys back in New York," Sanjay calls after him, when he's nearly out the door. Kame doesn't respond.
--
Kame manages to draft a short blog entry, send a handful of tweets, and answers several of the more urgent emails in his inbox by the time they pull into Baltimore. Sometime before Philadelphia he drifts off, and he comes awake in the darkness of the tunnels approaching Penn Station where the train slowly grinds along. His eyes are grainy and he feels fairly awful. When he checks his phone he sees that he slept through about ten calls, three of them from Andrew. There's a text from him, too: Sorry, Chef. Stuck in hospital. Call me. Suze has game plan.
When Kame finally emerges from the ugly confines of Penn Station, he escapes onto the street, walks to Herald Square to take the subway towards Sesamo.
Sesamo is now their flagship enterprise. It isn't their first restaurant together but it's the one that convinced fans, haters, and reviewers that Zenzero wasn't a fluke. They wouldn't be just another flash in the pan. Sesamo turned Yamapi into a rock star and vaulted Kame into the company of chefs he'd always idolized. And yet, Sesamo's early success wasn't Kame's first brush with celebrity, even if Yamapi conveniently likes to forget how long Kame's been paying his dues.
The tv series offers, interview requests and proposals from developers began to roll in. All this Yamapi told him six years ago in a fit of drunken pomposity, comes with the territory. Better get used to it. Yamapi, long accustomed to a certain amount of attention, seems born used to it. Kame never bothers to correct him.
When Kame arrives, the street is quiet for the moment. It won't be later, but as Kame stands on the sidewalk, he looks down the street, up at the sky, and revels in the momentary stillness, the hum of steady traffic just a block away and the sting of the icy air on his face. He squares his shoulders and makes for the front entrance.
From the moment he enters, there's a flurry of motion. He calls Andrew from Andrew's tiny office in the bowels of the restaurant, and once he's been briefed on the menu and had a tour of the walk-ins and storerooms, including what the prep cooks have already begun, he has a chat with Suze before he gathers the kitchen staff. Andrew's forty-something Jamaican-born chef de cuisine is calm and serene, and doesn't seem too ruffled by being short-staffed two cooks, not to mention her missing boss. Kame already knows how Suze will react, but he decides to begin by offering to work a station on the line if she would prefer to run the kitchen herself. Her eyes pop as she stares at him, and she mutters under her breath. When Kame tries to speak again, she tosses her head almost angrily and fixes him with a glare that nearly makes him step back.
"Kamenashi-san," she begins carefully, and Kame winces at the emphasis on the honorific, "we are honored to have you with us today."
"Oh, god, Susanna," Kame says, "please don't do that." He pinches the bridge of his nose, and pulls a face.
Suze lifts one hand, palm facing outwards as if to forestall further comments. Her lilting Jamaican accent deepens as she shakes her head.
"No, Chef. This is your kitchen-"
"-was," Kame interrupts.
"-and it still is," Suze finishes with a sniff, "Andrew would say the same if he was here."
"No, he wouldn't," Kame says with a tired smile, folding his arms across his chest and looking up into her large, round, black-fringed eyes. Her brown cheeks are plump and her skin shines beneath the undimmed overhead lights. She looks fresh and well-rested, everything that he isn't.
"Andrew loves you," she tries again, a little less certainly.
"Maybe," Kame allows, thinking back to Andrew on the phone earlier, his awkward, stilted gratitude, "but he'd rather I left him alone. It's his kitchen now."
"Well," Suze says with a great deal of dignity, "I am not Andrew."
"Thank god for that. And Suze? Please, please, just call me Kame."
"I can't do that!" She looks scandalized.
Kame sighs. "Fine, just - there's no need to call me -san, then, ok?"
She fixes him with her warm brown gaze and nods slowly. "I can do that, Chef."
"Good. Now, for fuck's sake, find me some coffee."
--
Although it's been several months since Kame last worked in his former kitchen, his muscle memory is instinctive as the afternoon wears on into evening. His feet trace exactly the number of steps from this prep station to that walk-in, how high to reach for this four quart of preserved lemon, the weight and heft of a hotel pan piled with morel mushrooms. It's hard and physical and exacting, but it's familiar work, a well-worn groove that Kame slides into like he'd never left.
Suze keeps him well-supplied with tiny cups of Beppe's magic espresso that Kame knocks back like shots, and somehow it comes together. He can't resist tweaking the menu a little, swapping out the potato soup amuse bouche topped with bread crumbs and bacon bits for shrimp-foie gras croquettes with micro-cilantro and yuzu marmalade. Most of the changes are minor, sometimes cosmetic or seeking a different flavor balance: this garnish for that garnish or a different sauce. Major disaster never materializes, no one catches on fire, drops anything important or loses their temper. Even better, sometime around the third course, Kame hits his stride and the well-oiled machine of Andrew's crew absorbs him and the kitchen ballet flows like a perfectly-rehearsed performance.
Kame spends most of the evening concentrated on the food, plating and garnishing with two cooks, inspecting each course before it goes out to make sure it's perfect, while the rest double up on stations to cover for missing bodies. Nina slips in around course seven, appearing at his elbow with a smile and a cool drink. Kame straightens with a soft groan, back aching from being bent over the staging counter for so long, and he sucks Coke through a straw, listening to her quick update that his Wednesday four p.m. meeting has been shifted up to ten a.m. the next morning and her reminder of an overdue city inspection. By the time she leaves, a playlist of the Rolling Stones and early Black Keys is piping into the kitchen. Somewhere in the vicinity of the twelfth course, odd bits of Spanish, French and Italian trip off his tongue automatically as he beckons and gestures and conducts and Kame wonders how he could ever stay away.
It ends quietly, the last course sent out, and the kitchen has wound down. Kame rests his hands on the stainless steel work surface and tries to meet the eyes of each person, from the runners to the busboys, to the dishwashers, the line cooks, as well their pastry chef, Noor, Suze and the sous chef, Beppe. They all watch him expectantly.
Kame nods with a satisfied smile and, with his arms stiff at his sides, he bows his head slightly.
"Good job, everyone. Thank you for your hard work." He says it in English and Spanish, and he watches as they nod and shuffle their feet, repeating their thanks back to him. It's a ritual he's always enjoyed.
"Thank you, Chef," Suze says with an impish expression that says he should be grateful she's not rendering a more formal response. Tomás, the front-of-house manager, pops his head in and wonders if Kame will come out and say a few words to their guests. Kame nods. He's feeling somewhat limp, but a meet-and-greet with the guests is standard; everyone expects the chef to show his face, press some flesh and make nice with the big spenders.
Beppe, a burly Italian from Brooklyn, yanks at the high collar of his jacket, pulling the flap open to reveal a damp t-shirt. "We're all going to Ventuno when we get done." Kame nods, he knows the place. "You should come."
Kame thanks him without committing. "If I don't see you," he says, "have one for me, ok?"
Beppe chuckles as he turns away. "I'll have two, Chef," he rumbles over his shoulder.
Kame unties his apron before yanking off his bandanna and fluffing his sweaty hair. Only part of his job has to do with food or its preparation. The rest is all pure PR, schmoozing and flattery, just the right words to make them feel special, so they'll always come back. Kame slips into the persona like the fresh navy Sesamo uniform jacket he buttons up to his throat, tugging it straight and glancing down to make sure it's spotless and correct.
Game face on, he follows Tomás out into the dining room and goes back to work.
--
The guests keep him nearly an hour through two glasses of wine from their final round of bottles. Kame estimates that the restaurant made a healthy profit on booze mark-up alone, if the labels on the empty bottles at the sommelier's station are anything to judge by. He stays with Tomás and waits until every last man and woman have all departed. As he walks back through the dining room, Kame sees that the tables have already been cleared and the linens are being stripped away. He nods at the busboys on his way to the rear, their "good night, chef," accompanying him through the swinging door.
Kame heads to the tiny locker area where he slowly changes back into his street clothes and shoes. Nearly all the kitchen staff have gone; only a few are still cleaning up, wiping all the stainless steel surfaces down until they gleam. Kame bids them goodnight before he turns up the collar of his heavy wool coat, adjusts his scarf and pulls a knit cap down over his hair, and he steps out into the icy Manhattan night. When he exhales, his breath hangs in the air. The cold feels good on his hot cheeks and catches in his lungs. In his pocket, he feels his phone vibrate as he begins walking. He pulls off a glove to thumb the screen.
It's a message from Sanjay. how'd it go?
Kame can't help smiling. The adrenaline hasn't worn off and he feels fairly giddy with the evening's success.
-just finished. it was good, he sends back, really good. how'd you do?
-good, Sanjay returns. nothing burned down.
-that's a relief.
-250 covers. sold all the sweetbreads.
-good. i won't have to fire you
-as if. get some sleep. you deserve it.
Kame considers that as he scrolls through the five hundred emails in his inbox just from this evening: messages from suppliers, immigration attorneys, linen services and accountants, but there's also the large email roundtable comprised of all the chefs, cooks, bartenders and managers from all three Kayakuya restaurants, a kind of daily post-game analysis of what worked, what didn't, both in the kitchen and in the front of the house. Kame and Yamapi instituted the roundtable years ago as a way to keep everyone actively involved in improving the operation, and it's turned out to be one of their most useful tools.
Kame glances through some of the comments coming in about the day from Zenzero and both Sesamo restaurants in New York and in Washington, and his feet stutter to a stop on the pavement as he stops to read, immediately sucked into the free-for-all, heedless of the cold.
Eventually he forces himself to look up and takes a deep breath. He considers going back to his flat and crashing, waking up at ten or eleven after a luxurious eight hours. Kame can't remember when he last slept so long. He really ought to go home, so he can be up bright and early for that ten a.m meeting.
Kame pockets his phone and looks up at the orange-lit late-night sky. He feels the kiss of light snow flurries drifting down, more like a frozen mist than anything else. There was virtually no snow left in Washington, but in Manhattan there's snow everywhere, and another storm on the way. It's bad for business and bad for the city and yet the little kid in him is still charmed.
Kame thinks about the cold, empty flat he keeps in the city with a vague sense of distaste. The night's chill sinks into him, curling under his collar, reminding him that his back aches abominably along with his legs and feet from standing all those long hours hunched over rows of dishes. He should be exhausted. He should be passed out right now, a victim of no sleep and stress and fourteen hours of painstaking, concentrated labor.
Kame licks melting crystals off his lips. Beppe will still be there, probably Suze, too, telling war stories, growing loose and mellow. That's what he needs. When he walks in, the Sesamo kitchen crew will all still be there: Beppe, Suze, Eduardo, Junior, Jorge, Leonie, Jing, not to mention cooks from other kitchens. They'll wave him over and find him a seat, hand him a drink, because that's what they do. He'll thank his guys for making him look good and he'll buy them a round. That's how this goes, how the night will end.
He walks out to the main drag where he can see the faint bits of snow drifting beneath a streetlight. He shivers, stamps his feet.
Sleep, Kame thinks, is for the weak.
+part two