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He stares blankly at the timer behind her—its ticking, sauce-splattered face is a frantic countdown, but at least it’s not tear-stained.
“And now he won’t even look at me,” Donna yowls through her tears, snapping a dishtowel over her shoulder. “Michael! MICHAEL, get in here! Carmy is doing that fucking thing again—oh damn, hold on, hold this Carm-”
Something smooth, cold, and beaded with condensation is thrust into his hands; a chilled bottle. He holds it by the neck and blinks hard. The kitchen leaves an imprint in his eyes—white tile, shitty wooden cabinetry, clear oil splatters on the curtains, something gravy adjacent slithering between the cracks in the tile floor. He can smell it all—the beef fat, the garlic, the counter cleaning spray. He can hear it too. The clatter of pans. Donna swearing. Bubbling water. Hot, hissing fat. Muffled, coming from another room, Christmas music.
Silent night, holy night...all is calm, all is bright...
Silent night. Fucking silent night.
He opens his eyes.
“Look at your mother when she’s talking to you,” Donna growls, lined jowls aquiver. Her nails, pained red like raw meat, scratch his cheeks as she drags his face close to hers. “Carmen, were you raised in a barn? No! No, I know you weren’t. Does this house look like a barn to you? All our things? I know this kitchen is a big step down for you. Not as fancy as the shit in Copenhagen-”
He shakes his head. “No, Ma-”
Tick, tick, tick.
The timer, perched on the edge of the kitchen sink, will explode soon. Its shrill ringing will shake it over the edge and it will fall into the suds. Carm knows he should reach around his mother and perch it someplace less precarious so she doesn’t freak when it falls.
“Hey, hey. Carmen, look at me when I’m speaking to you. Do you see me?”
“I see you, Mom. I do-”
Donna silences him with a look. “Let me see some focus in those basset-hound eyes! What are you, on drugs? Ha! Okay, there! It’s not so hard to look at your mother. I told you to put the branzino on top of the toaster. We wanna free up oven space…for the...for the what?”
Tick, tick, tick.
“The broccoli, Mom,” he says very quietly, watching a ribbon of mascara drag a line of black down her cheek.
Like a basketball player with grease strips smudged beneath their eyes, runny mascara is her warpaint. Her game face.
Tick, tick, tick.
With the hand that isn’t holding Carm’s face, Donna lifts a tankard-like glass of red wine to her thin lips. She swallows some like a machine that needs oil to go into overdrive. “Oh! Fuck me, the broccoli. MIKEY! Fuck, where’s he gone? He should be in here helping me! What kinda cook are you, Carmen? Can’t help your own mother, what good you must be in those fancy fucking kitchens.”
Donna spins away, the scrape of her nails sending a shiver down his back.
He hears the oven door squeak open. He hears the condensation dripping off the bottle in his hands. He hears a glass break in the beige living room. Distant laughter. Clapping.
Tick, tick, tick.
He tightens his hands on the bottle just to make sure that he hasn’t dropped it; that the sound of glass breaking really is coming from a different room.
Tick, tick, tick.
Silent night rises to a crescendo, dozens of voices extolling the virtues of peace and quiet.
Tick, tick, tick.
Pause.
Carm braces himself, waiting for the second shoe to drop.
Then, it does. The timer blares to life. The sound stings. He can feel it burrowing behind his eyes. The wine bottle is becoming so slick. It’s slipping. Or maybe his grip just isn’t so good. Somewhere in the house, someone is thundering down the stairs. Someone is knocking on the front door. From the window, headlights beam into the kitchen and then the shadows fold in again. The timer is still ringing, it’s getting louder, louder, louder.
Or maybe it really isn’t. Maybe she turned it off already, and all he’s hearing is his own internal alarm blaring.
He blinks and blinks and blinks. Music. Lights. He tells himself to breathe, even though it hurts to do so.
Throat pain, chest tightness, stomach in knots. Always stomach. He won’t be able to eat this meal Donna has made. Too much roughage. Not enough softness. He lives on strawberry Ensures, Tums, and spoons of peanut butter now, not that she knows. He can’t eat, and he’ll catch shit for it. She’ll cry. Yell. Say her cooking isn't good enough for someone like him anymore and maybe she’s actually right. He’s grown out of this. But that makes him an asshole. So no matter how much it hurts, he’ll have to swallow down all his mother’s-
“FUCK,” Donna wails, hissing and retracting one bare hand from the gaping mouth of the oven.
He sees an immediate burn blistering her hand. Red splotch, rising bubbles of thin flesh. Carmen feels, suddenly, awake.
He sets the white wine down. His hands are so cold now, cold as a dead man’s hands as he takes her own. “Hey, it’s okay, Mom,” Carmen says, taking her palm and running it under the cold tap. “Hey, it’s okay. Look, that’s better. Right?”
Donna’s chest heaves. The towel slides off her shoulder and pools between their feet. The breath that she blows out smells like acidic wine.
Carmy ignores this. He’s careful with her hand. He adjusts the pressure of the tap and coaxes her clawed fingers apart. His heart is beating very hard. His temples are throbbing. He half-wishes someone would come into the kitchen, wishes someone would see him, and want to help him with her.
“There, look,” he says. “I’ll get you some band-aids. Are they still, uh, underneath the sink? In the downstairs bathroom? Mom? Mom?”
Donna looks at him, her eyes as vast and vacant as the snowy yard out back. Everything buried, inaccessible. “You only help me when I’m hurting, Carmy,” she slurs. “All of you, you only care about me when I’m wounded.”
He breathes her wine-stained words in. He holds them inside his head like a prayer, like a bad memory. Like this memory, the worst one: White light. Stainless steel. His clean fingernails plating a cold slice of salmon. A dispassionate voice, breathing down his neck. Breath on the back of his head. A slim shadow falling over his shaking hands.
The dispassionate voice is like a knife in his mind. The thing that cuts, hurts, gets inside. Can you not handle this, chef? Is it too much? Answer me.
Carmy’s own low voice, his answer: I can handle it.
I can handle it…what?”
I can handle it, chef.
No, you can’t. You’re not good at this. You’re no good.
Carmy comes back to his mother’s kitchen. He shakes his head. Blinks. Waits for the timer to stop blaring. For the night to actually be silent. For people to stop thundering up and down the stairs. For a breath to come, a full one. The kind that will fill his lungs.
I can handle it.
“No, Mom,” he says, embarrassed to say the words. To be so vulnerable. He’s like a fish, baring its fleshy belly to the knife that will gut it. “Mom, look. We care about you so much. We always do. I care-”
Donna pulls her hand away but lets the water run. “That's why you came back home? Right? Because I cried on the phone? Because you hurt me and now you feel fucking guilty?”
He clenches his eyes closed for a beat. “Mom, no-”
Her lower lip teeters, ticking like a timer. “Stop saying no. You hurt me. I’m telling you that you hurt me. You can’t just say no. You don’t get to decide what hurts me and what doesn’t. Maybe I’ll burn my hand again. I’ll burn it right through the bone and you can tell me if I’m hurting badly enough for you, huh?”
Tick, tick, tick.
He turns the tap off because it’s the only thing he can actually stop. “Sorry,” Carm tries again, even more gently this time. “Sorry. You’re right. You’re right-”
“Oh, and don’t you forget it! I know I am-”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mom. You’re right. I was—I wasn’t thinking. I get confused sometimes. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Donna softens at that, just as he knew she would. She's like beehive honey. To get to her sweetness, he must first suffer the stings.
“Oh, baby,” she coos. “You get confused, honey? About what? Tell me.”
Carmy lets Donna hug him. He lets her pat his head with her burnt hand.
With his mouth pressed against her shoulder, he watches the archway between the kitchen and the entrance hall. It’s so empty, wreathed in twinkling garlands. He feels himself waiting for someone to darken the doorway, but Mikey’s not coming. He’s probably on the stoop, smoking. In his childhood bedroom, smoking. In the basement, smoking.
No, Carmy is the only one who comes when Donna calls.
“I don’t know…I just got really good at comforting sad, drunk people I guess,” Claire says, smiling like it’s nothing, really. Like it’s easy.
Oh, yeah? Great. Me too. Wow, we have so much in common, Carm thinks.
It’s a biting, bone-dry thought. Sarcastic. Bitter, like soured butter on burnt bread.
Nothing is said aloud, but he still feels like an asshole. So, Carm stutters over something else. Something beige and boring and half-apologetic. He’s been catching himself doing that a lot around her. Not being boring, but the stuttering thing. S-st-stumbling over everything like a fucking jagoff.
Whatever he says, it makes Claire giggle and her drunk friend cry harder.
Is that normal? Is that fucking—why don’t I know what I said? I should be able to hear myself. Yeah, no, that isn’t normal. This is not the way normal people act.
Carmen smiles like he should, and averts his eyes like he shouldn’t. Thankfully, there is plenty to look at. They’re at a party (one she brought him to)—confetti, booze, stale pretzels in plastic bowls. The works.
Drunk conversation spills from every corner. Familiar faces made foreign with age kaleidoscope around him. These are people he knows…knew…from school, from town, from life before Mikey.
Claire is that kind of person, too. A before Mickey offed himself person. She knows more about who he was than who he is and maybe that’s why he is stuttering like he used to. She’s sending him back in time—bringing old things back up—stirring a delicate sauce that has just settled.
He’s nervous with her. She makes him nervous. He thinks it’s the stakes; they're high like the piles and piles of sketches he has stacked in some dark corner of his apartment. Colorless sketches of her, of course. Old ones, back when she still wore those big, thick glasses. Before she got braces. Before she started wearing that dark slash of makeup on her eyelids.
Over her eyes, not under. This is an important distinction. Claire (he’s forgotten her last name, and he’s too anxious to ask for it now) doesn’t wear warpaint. She doesn’t fight. She has no game face.
That’s something. That’s something, Syd would say.
But Syd isn’t here. She’s not saying anything about Claire because she doesn’t know Claire is a thing. Maybe that makes him an asshole, too.
So, Carmy stands and shakes off his annoyance. He takes a blind walk through the grey house. Traces the baseboards with his eyes like they’re the lights on a landing strip. He doesn’t look up, not until he’s closed in a walk-in-pantry. Surrounded by boxes, tins, nutrition labels, cooking instructions—numbers that count calories and time, he feels a little less lost.
Stop being so weird. I can handle it. Breathe, breathe.
A naked, honeyed bulb swings over his head like a miniature beehive. Breathing hard, he raises his head and watches it swing like a bear waiting for bees to spill forth.
For the second shoe to drop.
Not everyone understands this sense of urgent dread. He’s starting to think that Claire doesn’t. Maybe that’s okay.
Then, there’s a knock on the closed closet door. “Carm? Hey, are you in there?”
He flinches, cracks the door open, and she’s standing there. Claire. Claire Bear. Maybe that’s her last name? He used to pretend that it was. Claire Berzatto. Claire Bear-zatto.
He lets her in, and she’s standing before him. The light rests on her so gently, bathes her in honey. A sweetness he’s scared to taste, for fear that it’ll be too much. Sickeningly sweet.
“I…fuck—I was just going to get a beer…and um, yeah. I uh, got sidetracked. Thinking about…the, um, pretzels. They’re all fucking stale,” he laughs, screwing his face up. “I was going to get some fresh ones. Sorry, that’s not…I mean, that’s fucking so weird.”
“No, it’s understandable,” Claire says, nodding with mock seriousness. “I wouldn’t expect any self-respecting starred chef to eat stale, beer-splashed pretzels. Would you?”
He feels his face heat, so he laughs. Shakes a hand through his hair. “No. You’re right. Our host has…negative stars. No stars.”
“Obviously, Carm. Zero stars out of ten on Yelp.”
There is a pause, and they look at each other. The light stays swinging. It casts strange, dancing shadows across Claire’s face as she leans forward a little.
He stays still.
Somewhere in this stranger’s house, footsteps are thundering up and down the stairs. A glass breaks in a distant room. People laugh. A timer is ticking. Something is sizzling. Someone is yelling, every word muffled and distorted. Music.
Silent night, holy night...all is calm...all is bright…
Can you not handle this, chef? Answer me.
He blinks, squeezing his eyes shut.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
He turns. Opens his eyes. Starts rooting in the shelves for a crinkled bag of crunchy pretzels.
Behind him, Claire sighs.
Kicking himself, he just starts s-st-s-stuttering.
“I was w-wondering about your job? Claire? The, uh, the the taking care of drunk people thing. How did that translate to…the medical world? Drunk people and sick people are so, like, different.”
She moves to his side and begins to help him search. Their hands brush, and he thinks she’s doing it on purpose.
“Not really, Carm. They’re just people who need to be taken care of. I think there’s, like, a thing that makes some people believe that sick people are strong and addicts are weak. There’s this—I don’t know—idea that sick people fight. And, on the other hand, some people think addicts don’t deserve as much care because they’ll go back out into the world and ruin things all over again. Like taking care of them is a waste of time.”
Carm glances at Claire—brown hair, big eyes, skin speckled like a sparrow’s egg. He is acutely aware of the word addicts, and how she’s choosing to use it.
He retracts his hands, rubs one eye. He doesn’t want to keep accidentally touching her. It feels too intimate. Risky. “Okay. Uh, so what’s your angle? You think people need the most taking care of when they’re being strong or weak?”
In the little, honeyed room she watches him. “All the time, Carm. People need to be taken care of all the time.”
It’s not what she says that makes his chest tight, but how she says it. So tenderly. Like she really means it.
He huffs a bit. “Even when they’re being awful and drunk?”
“Drunk people aren’t awful. They’re just drunk.”
“But, like, alcoholics. Addicts-”
“They’re sick, Carm. There’s no morality to sickness. It just is. Kinda like hunger, I guess.”
He thinks about this. Runs a hand through his hair. “Some people would argue that there’s a morality to it. Vegans. Vegetarians. Morals have a place on their plate-”
“So you serve those people something special, that’s all. You treat them with extra care, right? That’s the point.”
“What? What’s the point?”
“Everybody deserves a seat at the table, Carm. Everybody deserves to be taken care of.”
He looks at her for a long time and then remembers that she’s waiting for him to answer. “Right,” he says, nodding. “Yeah. That’s right.”
And she smiles.
He likes Claire. Of course he likes Claire. Everybody likes Claire, and that's exactly what he likes about her. She’s a normal girl, and she likes him. Maybe that means he can be a normal guy. Plus, she’s digestible. Easy. Easy to understand and easy to be understood by. With her, he doesn’t have to think too much. She’s like a comforting, well-worn recipe. The only way he’ll fuck things up is if he actually tries to.
“Carm, I hear you, but you’re fucking up,” Syd says, blotting sweat off her brow with a paper napkin. “I’m not trying to be shitty, but look at this. Here, here’s the list.”
She practically throws the sticky note at him—presses it against his chest a little bit too hard. She holds it there, her long, lean fingers leaving blots of heat that sear straight through his white t-shirt.
He doesn’t look up from the green tape he’s cutting. He has to finish cutting this quickly so he can lay it out on the floor. He has to lay it out on the floor so they can pre-plan the positioning of the kitchen equipment. He has to pre-plan the positioning so the whole layout isn’t a fucking mess. If it’s a whole fucking mess, his chefs will be slow. Service will be sloppy. And if the service is sloppy, the restaurant will fail. And if the restaurant fails, he fails. And if he fails, Mikey’s ambitions fail too. And then all this was for nothing-
“Carm,” Syd snaps. “You need to call the fridge guy. Or let somebody else call the-”
Carmy slaps his knife down and snatches the note from her. He fishes around in his back pocket, his knuckles brushing over arid pens and crumbly dollar bills and a protractor (for some reason)...everything but his fucking phone. “I’ll call him. I can handle it. I’m already calling him-”
Syd bites her upper lip for a moment, the way she does when she’s worried. “Yeah, okay. Cool,” she shrugs. “While you’re at it, call everybody else on the list. The laminate guy. The plumber. You said you wanted to be there for the final phone interview for that new front-of-house hire but-”
“No, I trust you. Just finish that interview. Where—hold on—where’s my fucking phone, chef?”
“No clue, chef. Okay, so, Richie broke the mirror in the bathroom again, so unless you want me to learn how to install mirrors, I think you should call a contractor. Marcus is waiting for a callback, by the way. He just wants to talk to you, but I told him you’re busy. And um, weird one, but Claire texted me last night too? Asking where you were. She wanted to know if you had died or…um…whatever…”
Her words trail off. People always do this sort of thing. They try to avoid using the word died around him, or they get weird when they accidentally do.
Carmy squishes her list down into his pocket, the little jean graveyard for other important things. He turns back to the tape. To clean lines. Sharp, precise edges. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look up either.
Syd rolls her eyes. “Chef, come on. Isn’t she living with you now? Why is your girlfriend texting me wondering where you are?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“So, dude, what is she, then? Your mom? Wondering where you are in the middle of the night? It’s ten o’clock! Do you know where your children are? ”
He flinches and plays it off by running a hand through his hair. “Chef-”
“Not that I care. I mean, I just heard you say something to each other the other day and, you were all like, let’s go home. Like, that’s what people say when…look, whatever, I’m just saying-”
“I was out, Syd! I was fucking walking,” he explodes, slicing the tape harder, faster, more messily. “I took a fucking walk to the bridge. I wanted fresh air. I’m sorry she texted you. I’ll tell her not to. I’ll tell her to leave you the fuck alone.”
“No, that’s not what I’m getting at, dude. I just mean that it’s shitty that she doesn’t know where you were. You should have just communicated with her. She was worried and then I was worried and you weren’t picking up-”
“Oh, sure, I should have communicated! And told her what, Syd? That I was taking a nice walk out to the spot where my brother blew his brains out? Oh yeah, because that’s what she’d want to hear. I should so have communicated that I’m all screwed up and I think about him more than I think about her and it’s, fuck, it’s like she’s taking up so much space.”
Sydney bites her lip. “Okay, chef. Stop. Carm-”
He doesn’t stop. He peels more tape. Lays it down. Cuts, cuts, cuts. “No, you’re right. I should have told her that. I should have let her think that I’m a total fucking freak, yeah. Thanks, Syd, that’s great. I should have told her that it’s weird to have somebody in my apartment, putting her stuff all around, moving my stuff around. She’s putting fucking plants everywhere-”
“That’s enough, Carm-”
“Wants me to water them when she works late. I can’t fucking cope, Syd. I should have just told her that I hate her fucking plants. Who hates plants? It’s just a fucking plant for fuck’s sake—ah—fuck!”
He drops the big knife and rips his hand away. His longest finger is red at the tip. Another cut. Another bandage. Another week of diligently watching for infection. He turns to make for his office, to grab some gauze or something, but Sydney is already reaching for his hand, taking it.
Her face is focused as she blots his blood with the same napkin she used to dry her sweat, her eyes downturned. She doesn’t look up.
“Breathe, Carm. I got you.”
He does what he’s told because he knows she’s right. He watches her eyelids, how they have so many folds. He watches her dark braids, how they whisper around her waist. He breathes in through his nose and smells her patchouli perfume.
She’s so annoying. Persistent. She’s the most present person in his life and it’s so fucking frustrating.
He makes himself breathe. Cool down. He listens to the real things around him. The sound of a drill. A hammer on drywall. Beyond that, the sounds of the city: squealing tires, pigeons taking flight, shouts, trains leaving without him.
He’s here, in the restaurant that they’re building together. It’s a good thing; a good place to be.
“Sorry,” he says, surfacing as she pulls a band-aid from her pocket. “I was—that was a lot. I wasn’t thinking. I get—fuck—it was too much. That was too much.”
She peels the wrapping back and smooths the band-aid over the cut. There’s a breath before she speaks. “Yeah, but you stopped. You got out of it.”
“Only because I almost cut my finger off.”
She smiles a bit. Her eyes trace the golden chain around his neck. “Whatever works, Carm.”
His pulse, beating in his wrist. Her fingertips, lingering. Her eyes, still averted. For once, it’s not him that’s having trouble maintaining eye contact.
“Thank you,” his words come out low, like a whisper. At least he doesn’t stutter. Not around her. “I’m serious. You’re really good…at this. You’re incredible, actually.”
Syd’s eyelids flicker. Her thumb grazes the inside of his wrist. It feels sorta nice. “At what?”
“At taking care of people. You have a talent for it.”
She looks up at last. She says nothing for a beat, but she drops his hand. “Nah, I just care a lot.”
He still has Sydney’s resume tucked away in a drawer somewhere. It flashes in his mind’s eye sometimes, especially when they’re arguing about the chaos menu. She’d described herself as diligent, hardworking, and creative.
Creative.
That’s the difference between an uninspired meal and an inspired dining experience. Creativity. Innovation. Artistry.
So, when Claire suggests that he start drawing again, Carmen starts drawing again. Creating. It feels stupid at first—sketching out wobbly grapes and grainy cuts of veal and poorly shaded sage leaves.
It's a waste of time, a fucking waste of time. I could be cooking. I could actually be making something.
But isn’t making art actually making something, too? And the more he does it, the better the sketches get. Besides, if he cooked the chaos menu, he’d be cooking for Claire. Syd doesn’t really stop by anymore. And he doesn’t want Claire to taste any item on the menu until it’s perfect—plated and served up by real staff.
So, instead, he draws. He shows Claire his drawings, and she smiles because she doesn’t know that the drawings are really just another blockade, a wall.
He thinks about those early days, the time before the thing with Claire became a thing. Those afternoons where Syd would stop by and they’d cook until even the walls of his little kitchen were slick with steam.
They’d experiment. Paint the plate. Create and critique and run it again and again until the recipe was…unlike anything they’d ever had before.
That’s the thing about Sydney. She inspires invention.
When he cooks, when he sketches, when he creates, he’s imagining her mouth. That smile: the one she does when she’s experiencing something really singular.
Eleven Madison Park, New York’s best restaurant, overlooks Madison Square Park, one of the most beautiful parks in Manhattan.
He’d commute from his apartment in the Bronx to get there. His alarm would ring at three in the morning. He’d board the 6X at Parkchester. Get off at 23rd Street. He’d emerge from the subway station to the barest hint of sunrise in the sky. Then, he’d walk towards the restaurant.
He’d float across the pavement like a ghost. He wouldn’t look up at the buildings. He’d keep his head down, just another blurred-out body in the kaleidoscopic chaos of New York.
His walking route would take him past the edge of the park. Sometimes, if he had time, he’d take a detour into the park. There wasn’t much to the place—fountains, grass, a few benches. But in those cold, cool-toned mornings, it had always been empty.
Nobody had ever really been there to watch him heave the contents of his stomach into a shrub, into a to-go bag, or into his own hands.
One morning, he hadn’t even made it to the park. He’d puked inside the greasy, windy subway station. He’d leaned against the tiled wall—forehead pressed to the cool white, hands clenching and unclenching as his stomach tossed itself back up his throat.
Acid. That’s too much acid, he’d thought absurdly.
The sting had reminded him of home—of Donna’s breath after a long night of drinking, of Mikey’s pointed jabs, of the last sour voicemail Sugar had left him, asking him when he was coming home.
Can you not handle this, chef? Is it too much? Answer me.
He’d known that he’d have to straighten, walk away from the steaming pile of pink meal replacement he couldn’t keep down. Act normal. Be normal.
“I can handle this,” he’d whispered to himself. A single vote of confidence, a sentence that sounded so fucking lonely and false. “I can handle this. I’m good.”
But good wasn’t the point. He’d just had to have a good game face; one that he could wear like a mask through the day, through the week, through the rest of forever until he wasn’t just good, but the best.
They take a break from fighting over silverware, or taxes, or napkin folds, or some stupid thing Fak said. They leave the restaurant and walk down the block. It’s winter. It always feels like winter in Chicago.
Syd’s puffy coat brushes against Carm’s arm as they walk. They fall into step so seamlessly—matching Birkenstock slides leaving imprints in the snow that has sugared the sidewalk.
They go to a coffee shop—wood floors, paper lamps, chalk menu. He orders a coffee: no milk, three sugars. She makes fun of him for this and orders an extravagant caramel concoction.
They sit outside the shop amidst the flurries, catching frostbite off the metal chairs. They share a single donut: powdered, no filling.
She rips a bit off. Tastes it. Wrinkles her nose and pushes the plate closer to his hand.
“Marcus’ is better,” Syd says, sucking the blunt tip of her thumb between her lips.
“Good,” Carmy laughs, tearing off a section for himself. “Fuck, he’ll be even better when he comes back.”
Syd nods and sips her drink. He watches her carefully; the bob of her throat, the way he can see her thinking. He wonders, sometimes, if she has a thing for Marcus like he has a thing for Claire. It’s his job to monitor his staff, to make sure the dynamic is good.
Marcus and Syd have a great dynamic—so good that it excludes everyone else sometimes. It makes something inside Carm squirm for reasons he can’t quite explain.
“What?” he demands, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“Nothing.”
He jabs one between his lips and levels her with a look. “Syd? What? I know that look.”
“Oh yeah? You do?”
“Yeah.”
“So what am I thinking about?”
“Marcus.”
She scrunches up her nose, smiles, playfully slaps his arm. “Fuck you. Well, yes and no. I was wondering if you’d ever offer to send me somewhere-”
“Not now. I need you here. You know that.”
Her smile dims a little. It leaves her eyes. “Nah, you don’t. You could do all this without me.”
He cups his hand around his cigarette and flicks his lighter until it catches. He takes his time doing this, trying to think of something to say.
When he raises his head, she’s looking at him the way she did when she was a new hire. Tentative. Curious. Watchful as a baby deer—all liquid brown eyes and long lashes. The look made him nervous then, just as it makes him nervous now. He feels very…seen. Feeling seen and feeling watched are not the same.
Carm blows smoke up at the sky and meets her gaze. “No, I couldn’t. You…we’re partners now. We need to be in this together.”
Syd doesn’t seem satisfied with this.
He pauses. Thinks. Starts again. “I’m at my best when I’m in the kitchen with you. Everything turns out better when I make it for you. And I mean everything, not just food. Choices too.”
There is a long moment. The snow falls. It dusts her hair and her shoulders. She sparkles.
“Heard,” Syd says.
When they get back to The Bear, they fight and it’s awful. He bites her head off and she chews him up.
He doesn’t even know what it’s about. Fucking forks? A broken fridge door? Sloppy tape? A weird tone? Claire again?
“I don’t—fucking hell—I don’t have time for this, Syd,” he snarls, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I just can’t do this with you right now. Look around, this place is a mess-”
She scoffs her tight little laugh, her timing always kinda comedic. “Oh? You don’t have time for this? You? The dude who is hardly here anymore? I’ve seen you, what? Twice this week? I hope all that fun time with your girlfriend is time well spent, bud. Since we’re all here picking up your slack-”
“It’s not fun. She’s not my—fuck—chef, I can’t with you right now,” he bites out. “We’re two weeks to opening. I don’t have any time for this. Every second counts-”
“But you have time for Claire? Your girlfriend -”
“Syd, she’s not—she’s like a partner or whatever-”
Syd’s face falls into an exaggerated frown. She starts tugging at her braids—pulling them out of the bun she’s tied them into. “Oh, okay. Cool. Fine. Do it without me, then. Go get your partner.”
Carmy goes cold. The fist of his stomach clenches. “What are you doing? ”
She throws her scrunchie at him and it bounces off his chest. “I’m leaving. I need to cool off and so do you.”
He presses his balled fist to his chest. Makes a circle around his beehive heart—the thing in his chest that keeps everything in tightly packed compartments.
I’m sorry.
But her back is already turned.
Carm makes Claire some well-worn spaghetti and thinks about telling her to leave. The room. His apartment. His whole life.
He likes her, he really does. But he’s starting to think that he doesn’t like her enough. Or maybe he likes her too much.
He likes Sydney to the point of invention. He likes Claire to the point of distraction.
Which is worse?
Syd knows the stress he’s under, she’s under it too. Claire can only watch from the outside of their world, her breath fogging the glass that separates the chaotic kitchen from the calm dining space.
But wasn’t that what I wanted? Something that wasn’t work?
“Carm,” Claire calls. “I’ve been watching you stir that pot for ages. I think it’s done. Come here.”
When he eats with Claire, he feels his brother’s shadow hovering over his little kitchen table. Mikey would have been happy that Carmen has finally gotten with Claire. He knew her, after all. He liked her, and that’s important, right?
Mikey never knew Syd—will never know her—which also feels important, but not in a good way.
That’s something. It’s not nothing.
Carmy twirls the pasta around his fork. Chews, swallows. Ignores the burning weight in his chest.
10 garlic cloves.
Basil steeped in oil.
San Marzano tomatoes; two 28oz cans (the smaller cans taste better).
I love you, buddy. Let it rip.
Let it r.i.p.
Let it rest in peace.
Carm looks over his shoulder real quick, but there’s no brother looming behind him. No shadow.
Nothing.
He feels his chest constricting. His fork is beginning to shake against the plate. His underarms are dampening. The acid in his stomach is bubbling.
Tick, tick, tick.
Carmy stands, goes to the cabinet, and searches for a pink bottle of Pepto Bismol.
Claire keeps eating.
“I’m starving. Are you?” Syd asks.
Carm looks up and touches his tummy because yes, actually. He is hungry.
They’re at the restaurant, working late. But it’s good work. Everything's coming together. The new pans stack so satisfyingly. The floor doesn’t squeak. The fresh ovens shine like true silver and when he turns on the burner, the gas blooms like a hot blue flower.
“What will we make, chef?” she asks, already wriggling her apron over her head. “It had better be quick, or I’ll-”
“No,” he says. “Go sit out front. I’ll serve you. We’ve been here all day. You deserve it.”
She curls her upper lip over her teeth, but it doesn’t hide her smile. “What about you?”
“I’ll be fine, Syd.”
Her name warms his tongue like honey.
So she goes and he boils water, chops basil, and sautees onions in yellow butter.
While the pasta softens, he lowers the heat. When the skillet is radiating warmth, he tosses in some salt, a fat drizzle of garlic oil, and two cans of tomatoes. He spoons pasta water into the pan and watches it all simmer.
He only looks away for a moment. He glances out the glass that divides the kitchen from the dining room. He sees Syd waiting in a booth at the back, her face lit blue by her phone.
He wonders if she is texting Marcus.
All at once, he knows that pasta is not elevated enough. Not good enough. He can do better, he can make her something more impressive—something so good that she’ll be thinking about it later. Even when she’s back at her house, alone in her bedroom with Marcus’ name lighting up her phone screen, she’ll be thinking about him.
So, Carm begins again.
The plate shines like polished ivory when he sets it before her.
Syd puts her phone to the side, face down. She looks up, flashes her eyes at him, and then lowers them down to her dinner.
“Sesame crusted feta with aged balsamic and honey glazed vegetables,” Carmy says, as if it isn’t obvious.
His eyes stick to the way her throat bobs, to how her hands glide to her utensils.
“Fuck me. It’s beautiful,” she says, picking up one of the forks she labored over for weeks.
He tries to suppress his anticipation as she dips the tines of her fork into the feta. Still, he holds his breath. He clasps his hands at his front. It’s a strange ache; this need to impress her, to make her happy, to fill her up with food that he has put so much energy and attention into.
She meets his eyes as she swallows. Her body responds. Her shoulders sag in satisfaction, her cheeks thicken with a smile, and her eyes roll back in a delicate display of ecstasy.
“Okay, I see you,” Syd murmurs, nodding. “That's fire, chef.”
“Thank you,” he answers, holding her eyes.
They look at each other for a little too long, and his stomach folds into a familiar knot. He takes a step back. There’s peanut butter in the kitchen. Jelly. Bread. She was right. He should probably eat. He can't recall the last actual meal he’s had. He spends so much time sampling things now, running from station to station; a sit-down dinner is something strange.
“Don’t just stand there. Sit down,” she sighs. “Have some with me, Carmy.”
In this empty restaurant, in this restless city, he sits across from her.
She passes him her fork.
He thinks about it later, while Claire is asleep beside him.
I see you, Syd had said. Like he’d communicated something to her through his creativity. Like she’d tasted his desire to impress her. Tasted how much he cares.
Was it too much? Should I just have made the pasta?
Creating anything for anybody is vulnerable, after all. It makes him think too much.
Have I done enough? Is it okay? I just want you to like it. Do you like it? Say it. Tell me you like it. Tell me I’m good. I need you to say it’s okay.
“You know, most animals come out of hibernation nice and slow. Not bears though. If they get woken up during hibernation… BAM they’re up! And they’ll fuck you up, too! They’re fuck up machines.”
“You’re a fuck up machine, Richie,” Tina taunts pleasantly.
“Keep laughing,” Richie booms without any real malice. “You just watch. No fuck ups! We’re gonna rock this fucking gig. We’re a bear coming out of hibernation, fucko’s. Nobody’s gonna know what hit ‘em!”
Carmy can hear their voices on the other side of the kitchen doors. He knows he should probably go into the kitchen and make sure that everything is perfect. Instead, he’s here in the dining room.
It’s empty—chairs and tables still smelling of the plastic packaging they came in. The floor is unscuffed. There are no fingerprints on the glass door. Every bottle behind the bar is full to the brim. The stage is set. The plate is ready to be filled.
It’s family and friend’s night in five hours, and his stomach is burning with acid.
Carm hopes everyone will come. He hopes nobody will come. More than that, he hopes Syd will arrive soon. He needs her here. He needs somebody to shout at, somebody to tell him to tone it down. He needs his fucking partner.
He takes out his phone to text Syd. When he pulls their chat up, Claire’s name ignites the screen.
The neat knot in his stomach becomes a tangle.
His fingers hover over her name, frozen. He squeezes his eyes closed and lets the call ring out.
“Fuck you,” he whispers to himself. Because he’s being an asshole again.
No, it’s just nerves. I’m just anxious. I’ll feel more normal when this is all over. Everything will be fine. I can do this. It’s going to go great. Nobody is counting shoes.
He doesn’t open his chat with Syd. Instead, he flicks to Mikey’s name.
He calls the number, and a man with an unfamiliar voice answers.
“Hello,” the man mumbles. “Hello? Who is this?”
It’s Carmy. We’re doing it. We’re opening The Bear tonight. You would be proud of how far we’ve come, Bear.
He stands in the walk-in and watches his breath bloom in front of him. It looks like all the ghosts inside of him are rushing out between his teeth.
“Fuck,” Carm roars, slamming his fists and forearms against the frosted door. “FUCK! WHAT’S GOING ON OUT THERE?”
Nobody answers, but he can hear the freshly oiled cogs of the kitchen whirring away without him. Knives chopping. Liquid boiling. Oil hissing. Shouting. Feet against tile. Taps running.
Syd is taking control, he can hear the authority in her voice.
This should make him feel good, but it doesn’t. He should be out there. He should have called the fucking fridge guy. He should have gotten the damn door fixed. He should have been more focused. More present. But no, he’d been so caught up on Claire, on living out every boyhood fantasy he had of her. Now he’s fucking up. He’s failing. It’s the most important night and everybody needs him and if Mikey knew that he let this happen…
He pounds on the door in a blind, primal fit of rage. He rattles the walls of his enclosure. He stalks back and forth. He squeezes his eyes shut over and over again.
He wants to tear the place apart. To scream and rage and throw himself into his work until he has no more thoughts. Until he’s consumed. Until everything about him is wholly impersonal. Until he isn’t a man anymore, but a purpose.
Instead, he’s in here, surrounded by ghosts and raw meat. He’s a bear in a metal cage, and nobody can let him out.
Maybe, he thinks briefly, this is better. They sound like they’re doing so well. Maybe, if he says here, hidden away in the cold, he can’t hurt the delicate ecosystem they’re designing without him.
He has given everybody the day off, just this once.
The kitchen in his apartment is warm and still, everything dripping in the sunset’s shade of honey.
There’s more light in here now. Claire has taken all of her plants off his windowsills. She’s taken all her plants off everything, really.
When she left two weeks ago, he hadn’t even been there to watch her go. He’d been working.
“That’s sorta shitty,” Syd says, sipping from the beer bottle he has opened for her. “I mean…I know you know it’s shitty. I’m just saying…I…sorry. That came out wrong.”
Carmy stares at her blankly from where he leans against the oven. He swallows some beer without tasting it.
“Did you, um, call her? Remember? You said you were going to try to apologize-”
Carmy sets his bottle on the counter and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I called.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She didn’t want to talk.”
“Well…that’s okay, right? It’s still fresh-”
He squeezes his eyes shut for a second. “It’s done, Syd. It’s done. We’re not…it was never going to work. We’re…she…”
Claire understands everyone and that makes her special. But you understand me, and that makes me feel especially seen.
Syd gazes at him for a long while.
He wonders what she sees.
“I really am sorry,” she says gently. “I know you really, really liked Claire.”
He nods and then stops. It’s muscle memory to agree with Sydney, even when he actually doesn’t.
A pause.
“I…ah…I heard Marcus asked you out?”
She nods awkwardly. “He did a little.”
“And?”
Syd shrugs. “And nothing, to use your words.”
Carmy smiles to himself because she is funny. And because he gets it. He really does.
“I like him, I guess,” she continues, tracking Carm’s face with her eyes. “I just…he doesn’t feel like a partner to me. He’s funny and stuff, but when we talk I always feel like I’m working really hard to get him to understand me. He’s sweet, like, really sweet. But he doesn’t challenge me. That’s not…I don’t think that feels right, you know?”
Sydney stays. They linger in the kitchen, but they don’t make dinner. They eat chips and dip. They sit shoulder to shoulder on his countertop and drink beer. They watch the sun slide down and the city light up. Headlights pass by the window. The voices on the pavement start to slur. A neighbor begins to play loud music—a song that’s sticky and sweet like honey.
“The dinner rush would just be picking up about now,” Sydney murmurs, gesturing vaguely towards the window. “I…uh… I wonder what everybody else is doing right now. It’s weird…not to know where they are. What they’re doing.”
His eyes feel dry and tired, so Carm rubs them. “Probably out having a life. Wonder what that’s like.”
“You had a life for a while, Carm. You were out in the world. Seeing people. Doing fun things. Having a life-”
He flexes his fingers and grips the edge of the cool counter. “It wasn’t fun.”
Sydney inhales through her nose. “What wasn’t?”
“Seeing people wasn’t fun for me. Having a life wasn’t fun for me.”
“Because it got you out of the game?”
“Because it made me guilty. I knew my absence in the kitchen was deferring duty to you. I was putting a lot on your shoulders, Syd.”
“I didn’t mind,” she whispers, treading carefully around his feelings.
They look at each other for a long time. The muffled music begins to swell.
“I minded,” he says, resting his scarred hand against her knee. “I wasn’t being cool. I never really got to thank you. So, thank you for holding things down when I didn’t.”
Her brown eyes dip down to the place where his hand rests against her jeans. His gaze follows.
He’s suddenly aware of how close they are and how small the kitchen is. He can smell her perfume. He can feel the warmth of her flesh beneath the fabric. Her hair is tickling against his elbow.
He wonders if he’s being an asshole, but it doesn’t feel like it. This feels kinda good. Sorta normal. For once, there’s no ghostly Mikey watching him from the corner. No weird reluctance to be seen, to share something of himself.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Let there be no second shoe.
Slowly, Syd rests her hand atop his. “You’re good, Carm. I got you.”
“Even when I’m being awful?”
“Especially when you’re being awful.”
They’re so close now. He can practically taste the beer on her breath. He can see each fine line in her lips. He feels like he’s coming apart, like she’s cutting him open, milking the honey from his heart.
He gives her knee a squeeze and she gives his hand one too. “I know,” he admits.
“Good,” she says.
Then, just like that, she leans in.
It’s a kiss that keeps him busy. Her hands hold his face. Her tongue weaves around his. He can feel her pulse pumping in her neck. The hairs at his nape raise, a million minuscule flags of surrender.
His hand slides up her thigh, pulling her closer. But there is no closer. They’re already as close as can be. It’s soft, sweet, but not shy.
He slides his hand between her legs. Palms her over her pants. When she sighs, when she shivers, he moves his mouth down her throat to taste her pulse.
Syd lets her head fall back towards the white ceiling, eyes closed.
“Is that good?” he rasps against her neck.
Is it okay? I just want you to like it. Do you like it? Say it. Tell me you like it. Tell me I’m good.
She doesn’t answer for a moment, then she gasps. Presses her hips into his hand, needy and hungry.
“Why are we in the kitchen?” she asks, twining her fingers into the ragged mass of his hair.
He carries her to his bed. Lies her down. Braces himself above her.
Her fingers trace the chain that dangles above her face. She grips it and hauls his lips to her as if he’s no better than some sort of leashed beast.
His heart is in his mouth. He wonders if she can taste it when he sighs, when he says her name.
She arches beneath him and frees him from his shirt.
His skin, her hair. Her teeth, glowing in the gloom of his blue bedroom
His hand works its way back between her legs and beneath the band of her pants. His calloused fingers are so cool against the heat of her. A roll of his thumb that makes her legs fall open like her mouth. Her breath, the sound of her sigh. It’s all heady, like a stiff and bittersweet drink.
“Tell me you like it,” he demands, trying his best not to beg. “Tell me, Syd.”
“Yes, Carm.”
Not yes, chef. Not yes, boss. Not yes, Bear. Yes, Carm. Like he’s a whole person beyond all that.
She sheds her clothes like a snake sheds its skin. Smooth. Graceful. Everything all at once.
He moves his hands to hold her hips. The honeyed slickness on his fingers sticks to her skin, making her glitter.
I could do better, he thinks, lightheaded now.
So, he tells her to open her mouth. When he presses his slick fingers to her tongue, telling her to taste, she swallows. She stares up at him, trusting him, seeing him.
“All I taste is your fingers,” she whispers when he pulls them free.
“Your palette is fucked,” he taunts.
She giggles, squirming beneath him.
A ribbon of hunger coils around the knot in his stomach. So, he kisses down her body—between her breasts, over the slope of her stomach, all the way to the liquid sugar between her thighs.
He eats her as if through a haze, as if he’s a starved man at the very edge of a blooming cornucopia. Tongue. Teeth. Slickness. Salt. Syrup. His eyes rock closed as he presses closer, rooting down into her depths. His fingers dig into her thighs, marking the meat of her.
When he surfaces she’s melted, nothing but a heaving stain on his sheets. And he’s trembling, breathless and alive and so very present.
His ink-stained fingers work hard to free himself from his pants. As he drags his jeans down, his hooded eyes focused on the flush of her face, he hears his shoe drop off the edge of the bed. Then, his second shoe drops too.
He doesn’t even squeeze his eyes shut.