Page 10 of Starfish and Coffee
Alex was in the process of this check-and-balance system when Frank walked in back, looking over to Matt cutting tomatoes and shaking his head before he turned back to Alex. “All that shit is good, Hunter. Don’t start fucking up my food cost again. You and Will think I’m made of money.”
“Hey, man, whatever,” Alex said without remorse as he placed a tray of gray looking country gravy in the warmer. “You’re the boss.”
When Frank walked out, Alex made a disgusted sound and then proceeded to pull the gravy tray out of the warmer and dump the contents in the trash. “There’s your fucking food cost.”
“That shit’s gray.” Matt let out a horrified laugh. “I can’t believe he’d serve it.”
“He’d poison someone to save a buck. Mike and Jimmy closed last night, worthless bastards. It’s never like this when Will closes. The one benefit to having a neat freak for a brother—the kitchen’s denastified the next morning.” Alex turned around and gave him a smile. He looked at Matt’s progress and announced. “I think you’re done. Now we’re gonna get you set up on breads.”
“Breads?”
“Yeah, you’re making toast.” Alex gestured to a stack of bread in the corner. “You’re going to read the tickets, see what type of bread they’re having, and plate it before it goes out. I’ll go over all the ticket abbreviations with you while you’re setting up, because I need you to be double-checking everything if I’m gonna be cooking solo.”
Alex handed him an order pad and found a pencil. Then he proceeded to spout off the entire answer key for the waitresses’ tickets. Matt didn’t have the heart to tell him he wouldn’t know the difference between OM or OE. He had no idea what over-easy eggs were supposed to look like in comparison to over medium. Matt hadn’t realized people were so fucking intense about the state of their egg yolks, but they were.
He learned that real fast once they opened and the orders started coming in.
Matt had done a lot of difficult shit in his life and dealt with countless stressful situations, but making toast and checking the plates for the diners of Frank’s café on a Saturday was easily the most nerve-wracking thing he’d ever encountered.
“It’s not you; it’s the fucking toaster.” Alex turned from the grill when Matt cursed at the stupid contraption for burning an English muffin. He grabbed the burned bread despite it being steaming hot and threw it in the garbage. “He’s too cheap to get one that works.”
Alex worked with the dials on the side, because this wasn’t an ordinary toaster. It was a tiny conveyer belt that delivered the toast in approximately five minutes, which when timed correctly, was supposed to go on the plate Alex put on the deck, but everything about today was going wrong. The only thing that machine delivered when Matt worked it was all blackened past the point of being edible.
“Alex, it’s been twenty-five minutes,” said Melissa, a pretty redhead who was inspecting the deck that had plates lined across it. “Table two is about to leave.”
“Tell them to suck me.” Alex looked up from the toaster to glare at Melissa. “You see me sweating back here? Talk to Frank if you’re pissed off about the ticket times.”
“Okay.” Melissa held up her hands with shock on her face, making it obvious Alex didn’t lose his temper often. “Bad day, I get it.”
She took the ticket from Matt, inspecting the plates herself. “All you need is toast on these.”
Alex lifted his head and gave her a look of furious incredulity. Then he grabbed two more pieces of burned toast off the conveyer belt and tossed them on one of the plates before he turned back to the flattop without another word. Matt couldn’t help it, he laughed as he stared at that ruined toast on the plate. Then he met Melissa’s eyes across the deck. She clearly didn’t think it was as funny as he did.
“Why don’t you just take these and tell them the toast is coming up in a minute,” Matt suggested to break the tension. He grabbed the toast off the plate and threw it away before he turned back to the toaster. “I’ll get it working.”
Melissa gave him a look of disbelief before she turned to the fridge behind her and pulled out a carton of orange juice. “You know, Alex, this container’s feeling awful warm.”
“Fuck!”
Alex threw down the spatula and walked around the large silver counter that cut the kitchen in half and separated the cooks from the waitresses. He pulled open the industrial-sized refrigerator while Melissa worked on pouring two glasses of orange juice for her tables.
“Shit.” Alex huffed and wiped at his forehead now dripping in sweat. “The thermostat is off. This fucker’s broke again. We gotta move everything or it’s all going bad. Could this day get any worse?”
Matt had just gotten done loading some more toast onto the conveyer belt. He walked around the counter, hoping to be more helpful. “You cook. I’ll move the stuff and take care of the toast.”
Alex narrowed his eyes as if unsure he could manage all that.
“Look, I’ve got a college degree,” Matt reminded him. “I can handle moving some shit around. Go. Take care of your orders.”
“Okay.” Alex wiped at his forehead again and then looked at his hands and groaned. He walked over to the corner and grabbed a red bandanna off the shelf above the sink. He tied it over his sun-streaked hair. “Melissa, can you tell them to crank on the air? We’re dying back here.”
“Air’s still acting up,” Melissa kept loading the plates onto her tray.
“He didn’t get it fixed yet?” Alex gaped. “When I left on Thursday, Frank told me he’d get it done before the weekend.”
“He said it was either that or the payroll.” Melissa shrugged as she picked up the tray.
“Sweat my ass off or get paid. Wonderful.” Alex shook his head as he walked back to the flattop. “I’d grab a bandanna, Tarrington. When the air’s acting up, it gets well over a hundred degrees in this kitchen. Standing in front of those warmers and that toaster, you’re gonna be sweating come lunch time.”
