Revised: Pain Management

Duncan and I work the weekend shifts here at Kerry’s Grill. Kerry’s is an expensive place, mostly because it looks like a hole-in-the-wall and it isn’t. Sure, it built a reputation on being a small restaurant, but once the Boss and his wife had enough money, they bought out the rest of the floor and now they’ve outgrown their kitchen twice. Duncan takes care of the back, making sure Cook—who is a diabetic, all good cooks are—doesn’t scare off too many newbies or anything, and that the food looks good on the plates as it goes out. Kerry’s is one of those places that puts little streams of sauce all around the plate to make it look fancy, though not quite one of those where they put a little sprig of parsley to garnish it.

Tonight one of the plates got sent back, the guy said it wasn’t up to the usual quality he was used to from Kerry’s. It was so bad I had to go out and smooth his feathers down, and personally take his plate back to the kitchen. Tonight had been going so well until now, too. That’s just how it is sometimes though.

“Duncan? Guy out there is flipping his shit over his fish. Says its dried ou…”

Duncan’s eyes are fixed on the paperwork in front of him on the scratched up stainless steel table. He’s got one hand pulling at his hair and the other crossed over his chest, the palm and fingers spread out over his ribs. I set the plate down, trying to be as quiet as possible. Duncan heaved a sigh, moving to put both elbows on the table. His long fingers threaded up into his hair, cradling his forehead in his palms.

“I’ll get Cook to fix it—he won’t be happy though, he was proud of that fish when he gave it to me. Lemme wash my hands,” he said in a gust of breath, finally straightening up without a glance at the papers in front of him. I caught his arm as he tried to get by me though, the scant muscles in my forearm attempting to ripple with power as I stopped him.

“Duncan what’s wrong?”

“Kate…drop it. I’m fine.” The world had ground to a halt around us, even though Cook was shouting obscenities concerning where his gaw-damn mushrooms were, making someone or other drop a pan of some sort—the shouting got louder. His onion soup would be off tonight, it always was when he started yelling this loudly. Duncan’s eyes, a hearty brown, wouldn’t meet my blue ones. He’d gone stock-still at my touch. I stared for a moment longer and then let his arm go.

Duncan was like a rock in this place. He could manage the kitchen and the dining room by himself, it was only because that running it every night alone was a tall order to fill that they had other managers like me brought in to help out. Duncan had always appreciated not being exhausted at the end of the day, he claimed to all of us, because he could go home to his wife and not fall face-first into his bedding.

I pushed a few flyaway red hairs from my face using the back of my wrist—a trick I learned when I got my first job selling hot dogs at the fair. Rule is you can’t touch your face or hair with your hand, “but wrists aint hands, Sis,” the owner, Norma, had said to me—Duncan’s shoulders were slumped, his back to me as he washed up, and I subtly tried to glance at what he’d been staring at. The hiss of the faucet cut off and I instead reached over to adjust the plate of fish. Duncan shook his hands twice and then waved his hand to get a couple towels out of the dispenser. His movements were slow.

I’ve always admired him for how meticulous he can be with his job while at the same time cutting more corners than a used-cars salesman. He’s warm and cold at the same time—cold to get his job done, but when he jokes around with Cook he’s warm and sweet. Duncan’s voice was low from his old love-affair with cigarettes. He doesn’t smoke anymore, though. He’d convinced me to quit smoking when I got here to Kerry’s—he’d offered to quit with me.

“You’re too young to fuck up your life like this, Kate-Kate,” he’d said just after we both lit up after our shift a year ago. His thin lips had pursed around his cigarette, drawing long and deep from it—I’d never seen someone inhale a cigarette before then, it was pretty unnerving to watch that ember burn down to the filter so fast. Once it was gone, he took mine from my fingers and had a puff before he started to cough and laugh at the same time.

“Shit, you smoke girly ones don’t you?”

“Hey, I like them!”

“No you don’t—these are minty for chrissake. Gimme your pack.”

He’d thrown both of our cigarette packs in one of the grease traps. It had been hell to work with him for a few months, but now we were okay. Except for when I’d made it weird, but we were getting through that too. Maybe.

Duncan was rubbing the paper towel over his hands still, scowling at the plate of fish. It was just salmon, too—not like it was halibut or pufferfish or lobster, something expensive. Salmon was salmon in all of our books. Salmon was a cheap fish, and hard to mess up. Cook would be furious—he never spat in anything, that was his rule. His only rule.

“Sounds like there’s a war on in there, everything okay?”

“Greg didn’t prep Cook’s area like he wanted it, poor guy’s been off kilter all night,” Duncan muttered, tossing the paper towel away and grabbing the returned plate. He eyed the fish closely, debating what he was going to tell Cook. I’m so glad I don’t have his job sometimes, our head chef is a crazy man.

“Couldn’t you just spritz it with water and nuke it, turn it around on the plate some?” Duncan laughs once, a dark huff of a chuckle.

“Nah, guy would notice where it was chewed on probably. I’ll get it fixed, you go and offer him some of that cake that we were gonna throw out tonight. The chocolate, got it?”

“Sure thing, Duncan.”

As Duncan passed by the steel table, he snagged the papers he’d been looking at and wadded them up in his hand, stuffing the mess into his pocket. I turned around to go back to the dining room putting on my most apologetic face as I made my way into the annex where the owner of the fish was seated. The music was loud tonight, to keep people from hearing the cussing from the kitchen. It was a bunch of sad, arty songs, with breathy women riffing on words that didn’t deserve such abuse. There was never music in the kitchen, there wasn’t room for it with Cook’s or Duncan’s egos. Arguments are their own kind of music, sometimes.

“Our chef agrees completely with you, Sir, and is remaking your meal. The kitchen manager and I would also like to offer you and the rest of your party a free slice of our gourmet chocolate cake…”

When I got back to the kitchen to start prepping the desserts—no one ever passes on Kerry’s Cake, especially when it is free Kerry’s Cake—Duncan already has gotten out the plates and dessert garnishings. His pocket bulges oddly from the papers he put there, and his thin lips are turned down into a deep frown. I got out another plate—party of seven—and pulled the cake over to sit between us on the cold stainless steel. There is a weird feeling in the air, the invented awkwardness I always get when the two of us are too quiet too long. I avoid silence around Duncan, because I blurt things into the silence that are better kept to myself. Right now I want to ask about the papers, but I can’t. I can’t because I won’t.

The plates sputter and hiss as Duncan turns them quickly by the edge as he drizzles sauce over the cake slices. I’m not as good at that part as he is, never have been—but that’s because his wife comes in every Tuesday night and orders a slice, and Duncan always makes it for her. Besides, I’m in the front more than the back and there just isn’t time to practice.

“My wife left me,” he says finally, breaking the silence I’ve been dreading. The plate he’s working on doesn’t break rhythm, still hissing along in the quick circle he turns it in. I put everything down and try not to gape. Duncan’s eyes are fixed on his work.

“I’m…sorry to hear th—“

“Don’t be, it’s fine. She served papers just before I left the house—says she’s moving out on Saturday.” He doesn’t stop working on the cakes, even as he admits his life is falling apart—I’ve learned how to be strong from watching Duncan, but even this would be beyond me.

What a bitch.

Duncan works six days a week, takes Saturdays off so he can spend the day with his wife, Addy. Sometimes Addy has him invite a few of us from Kerry’s over for a movie. I fell in love with him because of her, really. Getting to see who he was away from work was thrilling, to be part of his life as he sat on the floor in front of Addy’s chair so she could run her fingers through his hair. It was amazing.

“Do you…need somewhere to go? You could crash at Pip and I’s place…”

“Kate…” his low-fomer-smoker’s-voice draws out my name like he’s about to tell me the Boss fired me or something. Like I’m delusional, and need to chill out.

“It wouldn’t be weird or anything, I have errands and things to run—Pip would just let you in, nothing to it.”

He let the plate spin to a hissing halt, looking at me finally. Cook is swearing in the background, looking for a fresh apron so he can personally present the new fish to the customer in the annex. Duncan’s eyes are that kind of brown that is almost reddish, and there is a pinch to them that gives away the stress he’s under. Of course it would be weird, he says with that look. It’s the same look he gave me six months ago when I told him I was in love with him and knew that it wouldn’t ever work out because he was happy with Addy and that I knew that. We’d been on the bus, sitting in silence.

“You can’t come into work, and you can’t stay there, you’d go nuts, Duncan…” I pleaded with him. Duncan is not the kind of man who bargains for things, but I like to bargain. The poor man has been putting up with it this long, he could put up with it a little longer.

“This isn’t because—“

“Of course not, Duncan,” I lied, “I’m helping out a friend who is in a bad way. Now, you coming?”

Duncan looks away, staring at the stale cake we’re going to foist on the fishy party of seven in the annex. I can see the gears turning in his head, trying to think past the hurt of Addy. I’m not the one on his mind, I’m never on Duncan’s mind compared to Addy. Addy is his wife, she’s the woman who makes him smile, she’s the woman who trims his hair because she doesn’t like how his barber does it. I’m just Kate, I’m the woman who he forced to quit smoking, I’m the woman who notices that he needs a haircut before the Boss bites his head off for it. I’m the one who wants to be there for him no matter what.

“Sure thing, Kate. I’ll drop by you and Pip’s place. You’re right, I don’t want to be there when Addy slams that door behind her.”

Living with Addy. Married to Addy. Fucking Addy. Being divorced by ADDY.

Never Kate.