Page 23 of Aftertaste

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he repeated. “We’ll give this a shot. Against my better judgment. You start tomorrow.”

ON THE STREEToutside Saveur Fare, Kostya felt lighter than he had in weeks.

His bank account had been wearing dangerously thin, and though he’d picked up a few extra shifts on Vanya’s truck, he couldn’t take on any more hours without the risk of it getting back to his mother. And that phone call—Why you not tell me about job? You get fired and I must hear this from Vanya? I your mother! I always want help, and you never tell me nothing! You should do more with life! Be doctor! Be lawyer! Building super, at least!—was a conversation so foul he’d rather eat dirt. But now he’d never have to have it. He’d preempt it with news of a new job—a respectable one! with health care!—which might even buy him a few weeks without his mother’s daily calls to make sure he was still alive, the obsessive check-ins her way of overcompensating for the months she’d spent bereft in bed.

Kostya bought cheap coffee from a cart and made his way east. It was a pitch-perfect summer day, the sky cloudless blue, and still early enough that the haze of humidity hadn’t descended to drown them all in their own body odor.

He texted Frankie the good news, then crossed Central Park West and walked a few blocks south to the nearest park entrance—72nd Street, near Strawberry Fields—where he wandered until he found an empty bench and melted into a lazy pose.

Frankie texted him back with three trophy emojis and three bottles of beer and a wolf and a puppy and a drunk face and a question mark, and Kostya was in the middle of responding that, yes, hewouldlike to get drunk tonight at Wolfpup to celebrate, when he saw the little boy and his dad.

The kid was catalogue cute—blond and curly, dimpled, old enough to have control of his limbs but only just—and he ran down the path with his arms flailing, squealing delightedly as his dad—soft body, Yankees cap, embarrassing cargo shorts, and the kindest laugh Kostya had ever heard—ran after him.

“Sashen’ka, wait for me! Sasha! You’re going the wrong way!”

Kostya watched as the dad caught up to his tiny son, swept him into his arms, and threw him in the air. The rush of breeze and height and speed cast a delighted look on the boy’s face, and his dad mirrored it, caught him, set him gently down, and took his hand.

Kostya’s heart was pounding. He could almost feel the fissure within him squirming, straining the seams, hairline cracks forming from the pressure behind his eyes, and he braced himself for the aftertaste that he was sure would pass across his tongue at any moment—the same one that had set his whole life askew. But it didn’t come.

He tasted the sour remains of his coffee, but that was all. The liver dish—the liver he’d failed to re-create even with Frankie’s help, the liver that could have given him just a few minutes of that kind of weightless joy, like a kid being tossed into the air, knowing that someone would be there to catch him—that liver was conspicuously absent.

Kostya felt afresh the disappointment of that night in Wolfpup. In the gleaming, stainless kitchen, surrounded by Frankie’s gear, he’d tasted failure again and again. The problem, of course, was simple. Without being able to taste the dish himself, Frankie was shooting blind; if he hit upon it, it would have been more miracle than skill, no matter how good a chef he was. When he said as much, Kostya just shrugged one dejected shoulder and muttered that it probably wasn’t meant to be, to which Frankie had repliedthe way his Irish grandmother would have, and told him that in this life, and probably the next, a man makes his own luck.

“If you knew how to cook instead of going through me, you could probably nail those flavors. You’d knowhowit was made, not just what was in it.” Frankie had wiped his hands matter-of-factly on his apron, as if washing them of the whole conversation. “You want that ghost? Get your ass in a kitchen.”

Kostya deleted his text reply and wrote instead:Not tonight, honey.

Frankie shot back:You washing your hair?

Gonna see if I can watch dinner service. Lot to learn.

Frankie sent through a laughing emoji, tears in its eyes. Then:

Oh, you got it BAD. Welcome to the jungle. Don get burnt.

FARINEAUXThe Konstantin Duhovny Culinary Experience

IMPRESSIVE, RIGHT?

Now speaking as a cook, Saveur Fare’s just The Dream. Clean. Efficient. Top-of-the-line everything. Crew performing at their absolute peak. An eating experience second to none.

But speaking as your tour guide, lemme pull back the curtain. Even a place like this can have some unsavory shit in the kitchen. Not rodents—though you’re kidding yourself if you think an A rating means no mousetraps—but people. Way some folks run things can leave you with a bad taste, and Saveur’s no exception.

Matter of fact—and if anyone asks, I will deny, deny, deny—there’s a Big NDA about what went down here with our guy. You won’t believe this shit—this biz is ruthless! But, uh, I didn’t sign the paperwork, so I’ll go ahead and spill some tea.

Let’s head up to the dining room—tell you ’bout the service from a real special night. And I hope you like drama, because this part—it is jui-cy!

FAMILY MEAL

SIX MONTHS LATER,grey city snow slushed into sewer grates, string lights twinkled from every retail display, and Konstantin grew quietly desperate for burns.

Getting burned would mean that he was working the grill or sauté or even the fryer, for crying out loud. That he stood an actual chance of accumulating oozing blisters and shiny scars up and down his arms, the kind of badass injuries real chefs wore like badges before tattooing them over with expensive, elaborate sleeves. It would mean that he was cooking with fire.

But Kostya was stuck on garde-manger—the salad station!—and the only thing that could burn him there (maybe?) was ghost pepper oil, though even that would only be able to eat away at him from within—something his insecurities already had well in hand.

He knew he should feel proud of what he’d accomplished, and grateful three times over. And he did, for the most part. To make it to a station—any station—at a place like Saveur Fare, with zero culinary cred and well under a year on the job, was almost unheard of. He’d gotten lucky—absurdly lucky. One of the busboys had quit his first week, and Kostya stepped in to pull doubles, bussing at lunch and then doing dishes at dinner, which turned into bussing at both, and then a stint on the finishing station, and on togarde-manger. Michel hadn’t exactly taken him under his wing, but his sous, Tony, had seen something in Kostya, an eagerness he’d liked enough to let him learn.

---