“I have a question, Chef,” she said. Her voice was low and calm. “What if I told you that you were wrong and the sweetbreads are better this way? What would you do to me? Would you send me to my room?”
Laurens stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. He didn’t move. He had no expression at all.
Mick inhaled sharply and choked on some spit and began coughing hard. He bent over, low down, so he didn’t spray the food.
“I disagree with you, Chef,” said Consuelo. “The way I make them, they come out both tender and delicious-tasting. Look. Try some.”
While she spoke, she sliced off a piece of sweetbread with her eight-inch chef’s knife’s razor-sharp blade, impaled it on the tip of the knife, and dipped it into the sauce waiting to coat each serving, a rich-looking tomato sauce. She held it out to Laurens, stuck on the point of the knife, right in front of his face. It dripped red.
He looked at her. His face was white, and his voice held no emotion at all. “We will discuss this when dinner service is over,” he said. “Now, back to work, everyone.”
Consuelo winked at Mick and carefully ate the bite off the tip of her knife. “It’s fucking perfect,” she told him with a cold smile.
“Back to work, you heard him,” said Mick, not smiling back. No point in saying anything. The damage was done.
His ears thudded with his heartbeat. In the back of his throat, he felt the itch of another cough, but he suppressed it.
It had all happened in one minute, at the most, but he felt as if the waves of energy that powered the kitchen had been profoundly disturbed. For the rest of his shift, the rhythms were off. Laurens was tightly wound, and the tension in the room caused everyone’s movements to slow, bodies to fight for balance. All the other chefs seemed to be trying to stay on top of things and be perfect to make up for Consuelo’s unthinkable, terrible insurrection.
The rest of the dinner shift was as weirdly tense a night as Mick could remember in all his years working in a kitchen. People looked at one another furtively, grimly. No one looked at Consuelo. Mistakes turned into minor catastrophes and were surfed over, corrected, dealt with. Mick and Kenji, on opposite sides of the galley, exchanged quick eye contact a couple of times, telegraphing irritated bewilderment to each other with a flick of their eyes. Kenji’s fish station hit the weeds several times. A tray of charred cod had to be thrown out when black smoke churned from the salamander. A pot of béarnaise sauce was scalded beyond repair. On the meat station, Mick had to micromanage Rodrigo and Tony in addition to keeping his own stuff going. Consuelo was the only one in the kitchen who had been letter-perfect all night. Her sweetbreads, the waiters reported, were generating raves.
“Compliments to whoever made these,” one of the waiters had said, loudly, so that everyone could hear. “From the old lady who doesn’t like anything. The one who sent back her filet mignon the other night.”
Consuelo didn’t respond. She barely acknowledged the compliment or looked at the waiter. And she didn’t look at Mick once all night. Of course she knew he was baffled and upset with her, that he was watching every move she made. Her insolence surrounded her; he could feel it bubbling, hot, rash, triumphant. The piece of sweetbread dripping with sauce at the end of her sharp knife, extended toward Laurens’s face, was seared on his memory.
Goddamn her, he thought, even though what she’d done wasn’t so bad in itself. She’d disagreed with Laurens’s assessment of her technique and offered him a sample of her work as proof that it was up to snuff. But in reality it was far worse: she had challenged and even threatened the executive chef in front of the whole galley. They had all seen it, and they all knew what it meant. And Laurens knew it too. That was the unforgivable thing. Not the letter of the act, but the spirit. In the old maritime days, on an eighteenth-century ship, the captain might very well have had her thrown overboard. Instead, Laurens would put her off the ship as soon as they came into port in Honolulu.
As well he should, Mick thought. Although Mick wouldn’t necessarily have run a kitchen the way Laurens did, he preferred working under a control freak like Laurens to a chef who was more lax and volatile. He liked rules, liked knowing where he stood. The harder and more exacting the work he was required to do, the more comfortable he felt. This only doubled his anger at Consuelo: Laurens wasn’t even that bad! And yet, in spite of himself, Mick couldn’t help worrying about what would happen to her now. And this combination of protectiveness and anger reminded him of the way he’d worried about his younger sister, Beata, with her buzz-cut hair and tattoos and blackout drinking and stash of drugs and all-night raves in the ruin bars, stupid girl, coming home totally fucked up, defying their father to hit her the way Consuelo had defied Laurens to fire her. Authority, male: not their favorite thing.
Mick had simply wanted their father to run a more orderly and efficient household, to be an effective head. Beata had been emotional, egotistical, whereas Mick was always pragmatic, interested primarily in survival. Beata had died in a motorcycle accident at nineteen. She had been sparky and charismatic, just like Consuelo; they also shared outsized pride and temper and a cavalier refusal to play the game, a self-defeating stance that only ever bit them in the ass. And it made Mick sad. He liked Consuelo. He wanted her to do well. She was a talented chef, bright, skilled.
But then he remembered that she’d fucked things up for him, too. Whatever ground he’d regained with Laurens after his faux pas at the captain’s table dinner was lost. He had failed to keep Consuelo in check. It wasn’t his fucking fault, but he couldn’t tell Laurens that when he and Laurens inevitably discussed the incident later. Instead, Mick would have to take responsibility for her, apologize, act contrite. It made him seethe with frustration. It was one thing to watch someone torpedo her own job, another thing entirely to be implicated in her behavior and held responsible for it.
He managed to get through the shift by going from one thing to the next, trying to focus on what was at hand, immediate. And when it was finally over, the last meal served, the last tray of leftovers stored, the equipment clean and wiped down, the floors swabbed, they all straggled over to the pass and gathered around in their usual raggedy ranks for the end-of-night meeting. Most nights had gone extremely well, which meant that this gathering was usually short, sweet, punchy, and even festive, with bottles of beer handed around, maybe a pan of leftovers passed with a fork, everyone exhausted, sweaty, relieved. But tonight the galley was silent. The tension from earlier had deepened to a blanket of smog. Kenji raised an eyebrow at Mick, who answered with a shrug so small his shoulders barely moved.
Laurens had been in his office for the last few hours, between service and the closing staff meeting. It was a power move, like everything he did. He never fraternized with the other chefs or staff. He wasn’t given to lingering. As always, his arrival in the galley caused the room to go quickly silent. Everyone stood still. Consuelo waited next to Mick, holding her knife case, though she breathed evenly, her arms loose by her sides. Mick was impressed in spite of himself at her cool. His own hands were clenched.
“Hello, everyone,” said Laurens. He looked very pale. His eyes were rimmed red. He held one arm across his stomach as if he were protecting it. He stopped at the head of the pass and looked around at their faces, stopping on Consuelo’s while he spoke, looking directly at her. His voice sounded a little weak, but he didn’t hesitate. “We had a situation tonight. It could not be handled during service without disrupting the passengers’ dinner. I am going to deal with it now. Consuelo, from the beginning you have been a problem in this kitchen, and what happened tonight was inexcusable. You will be put off the ship in Hawaii. Please leave my kitchen now and do not come back.”