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The grillman was grilling the fish, the pantry chef was plating the salad, the tempura was coming along nicely, and those poachers had just dropped 100 quail eggs into the poacher. Crunch time in the kitchen.
The boss, usually a picture of composure and correctness, said something they had never heard him say before.
Don't fuck it up.
"It must be someone really important!" cried the pantry chef, who was on his first shift without his trainer by his side.
The tempura sizzled, starting to turn that perfect golden color.
The eggs were nearly done. The poachers stood at attention with their slotted spoons hovering over the simmering pans.
Everything was ready. It was time to plate the fish.
The grill person lifted the fish carefully from the grill. It was perfectly striped and perfectly cooked. Everything was going along smoothly, a beautiful thing in the kitchen.
Until the pantry chef cried out "I quit!"
And the fish landed on the floor.
Don froze as an eerie silence descended over the kitchen, despite the hum of song, conversation and laughter drifting in from the restaurant outside. A deathly, chilling silence that seemed to go on forever. All eyes were glued to the fish – perfectly cooked, but now unusable – and he knew, without needing to glance at his co-workers, that they were too terrified to look at the boss.
They all stood, immobile, until Amanda – a server Don had liked for a long time, though he'd never had the courage to speak to her for longer than a few seconds – stuck her head in the door. Smiling, oblivious to the drama, she called out, "Hey! Table three are asking for their fries."
Then all hell broke loose.
The boss lunged across the floor at the pantry chef, who, in his haste to get away, backed into the grillman. The grillman stumbled, his foot landed on the fish, and he fell backward, his arm hitting a stack of empty pots as he went down.
Above the terrible din of clashes and bangs, Don heard the boss yell: "What the fuck are you playing at?!" Striding across the floor, he grabbed the pantry chef by the scruff of his collar. "You fucking quit? Today? Do you have any idea who's out there tonight It's the goddamn vice-president!"
Don stared at him, open-mouthed. If his boss' earlier use of the f-word had seemed shocking, it was nothing compared to this.
He glanced at Amanda, who was still at the door, her light green eyes now wide with shock.
Don was a kitchen porter (cooking wasn't his responsibility, as the boss had snapped at him once, when he had tried out a pancake recipe during one of the restaurant's slow times) but he knew what fries looked like when they were perfectly cooked. He could do that much for Amanda, at least. He hurriedly grabbed two plates and headed to the fry pan, determined to fulfil table three's order.
"Amanda?"
She turned around, startled – as soon as her eyes were on him, he almost lost the ability to speak, but managed to hold his nerve. He held out the plates of fries, noting as he did so how nice her hair looked today. It was long and fair, and she had chosen to wear it in ringlets, with the front pulled back into a loose half-pony.
"I, um ... I have the fries. For table three."
Her face cleared. "Oh, right! Shit, I forgot. Thanks, Don." She took one last appalled glance at the scene before her – the boss now puce, yelling at the top of his voice, the grillman rubbing the back of his shoulder and being helped to his feet by a couple of the poachers – then took the plates and hurried back outside. "Okay. Yes. I'll take care of table three, then deal with ... whatever this is."
Don watched her go a little wistfully, cursing himself once again for his inability to string together a complete sentence around her. Turning back to the kitchen, he tapped a nearby porter on the shoulder. "I think I know where we can find more fish. We'll see if the grillman can get it done quickly..."
Amanda soon returned with a fresh order. Things had calmed down a bit by then: the pantry chef, complaining about his wages, had stomped out via the back door, while the boss had been talked down and was now grumbling about the impossibility of finding reliable staff these days, how they just didn't understand the pressure business owners were under, how he couldn't believe he had been let down, today of all days...
"Amanda," Don asked her quietly, "do the customers know? Can they hear what's going on?"
"I don't think so." She laughs a little shakily. "Good thing it's karaoke night!"
"Where's the vice-president?"
"At the front, near the stage."
"Good. So we think we might be able to fix things in here" – he gestured at the brisk activity that had now resumed around the grill – "so it shouldn't be too much of a disaster tonight."
"Fab." Amanda beamed at him, then – after a moment of hesitation – reached out to squeeze his arm. "Hey. You're a great guy, Don. I've seen how you get pushed around in here – I know what the others are like – but you're kind. You think about others. I've always liked that about you."
Blushing, Don lowered his head again ... but couldn't stop a grin spreading across his face.
Image: Marco Verch/Flickr