Page 26 of Aftertaste

Kostya wished that he could have just asked her about it. He wished she would have consented to talk about his dad, or cook the foods he loved, or keep the clothes that still smelled like him. He wished that she could have found a way, however small, to keep his father alive. Instead, it was like she’d blotted him out in her mind, an ink stain where the man used to be. A redaction. Everyone had their own way of grieving, and hers was denial.

He’s no more, she used to say whenever Kostya brought up his father, the words bitter as a rind,and he never will return now.

Except now, maybe, with Kostya’s help, he might.

He spooned a thick dollop of softened butter into the pan. It skipped across the surface, sizzling hot, foaming, turning brown. He threw on the sliced onions, flicked his wrist again and again to coat them, watching them soften.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he willed them, “faster.”

“Who’s theVIP?” Fernando asked conspiratorially. “You know?”

“I gotta concen—” Kostya began, but then Tony was asking him what went on thegemelli.

“Gemelli, gemelli,” Kostya repeated, adding a splash of oil and the livers to the pan. “Meyer Alfredo! Beluga garnish. And then thefideo, with the Mexican meat sauce, cotija, and cilantro.”

That should keep the line busy for a while, and after that was just theanelliand theorecchiette—glorified SpaghettiOs and puttanesca—and they’d be home free.

“Konstantin, you gonna burn the liver, man.”

Fernando tried to help him move the pan, but Kostya shrugged him off.

“Michel saidkill it.”

Fernando shrugged and got to work on the nakedgemellitoppling into his station.

Kostya watched the outside of the liver fry and slid half—if it needed more time, he’d be able to try again without missing the window—onto a plate, seasoned it with Kosher salt, squeeze of lemon, sprinkle of dill, anda tiny pinch of parsley from Fernando’s newly organized mise en place. He turned the gas off the burner.

He stared down at the dish, a vibration kicking up in the back of his throat.

The waitstaff were pirouetting in and out of the swinging kitchen doors now, delicate test tubes ofgnudiandcavatappiglinting from the viper jaws of the Medusa-headed candelabras they were using to serve. (Talk about overkill.) The guys on the line were starting to boilfideo, switching to ultrafine mesh colanders to catch the hair’s-width noodles as they came steaming out of the water. That gave Kostya just a couple minutes before Tony needed another direction.

“Yo, Tony!” he called. “Next up’sanelli. Tomato broth, Parm crouton garnish.”

Tony nodded. “Heard!”

Kostya grabbed his plate and shuffled to the pastry station, which was dusted with confectioners’ sugar and flour and abandoned since dessert wouldn’t be for another two hours. It was almost eerily quiet, just the occasional bang or sizzle from the kitchen. His hands trembled as he speared a bite of liver and brought the fork to his mouth.

He closed his eyes.

Chewed.

Tasted.

Smiled.

The bite was, note for note, what his father’s ghost had slipped him. Only real.

Kostya swallowed, and something happened.

He could feel the aftertaste traveling down his throat, past his lungs, down into his stomach. He followed it deep into his gut, and somehow further, down into the chasm of his longing, to the lining between worlds. He could see it in his mind’s eye, the way the morsel of liver—chewed, half-digested—ate away at the whisper-thin wall, dissolving it like an acid wash.

It was so bright on the other side, the kind of blinding luster that burned straight through your retinas. Just as the aftertaste was about to break through, tiny pinpricks of light beaming right into his insides, Kostya heard a crash in the kitchen and opened his eyes.

There, hovering over the floured stainless steel, were hundreds of blinking yellow lights.

The rest of the kitchen—well lit by rows of heatproof fluorescents—seemed almost dim by comparison. Kostya bit his lip, watching the lights pulse and twinkle, unable to peel his eyes away as they coalesced into the shape of a head, a torso, a waist.

There were more crashes across the line as the lights drew notice—murmurs andholy shits peppering the air as the cooks glanced up and witnessed the uncanny over in pastry, their sauté pans dropping with a clang as they lost concentration, utensils skittering to the floor—but Kostya barely heard them.

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