Wax - Chapter 18: Chapter 18

I had expected a minimum wait of thirty to forty minutes outside the restaurant, judging by the length of the queue I'd passed on my way in. The hostess, however, had by some magic of her own, managed to clear half the guests waiting in line minutes into my decision to stay for the soup. Initially, she'd very naturally offered me a table ahead of the queue; and needless to say, I had turned her down politely.
"Just the soup, please." I said to the server who'd chanced a total of four glances in my direction on the way to my assigned table. He'd then very quickly retracted the menu he was about to place by my arm and hurried off to the kitchen with my order.
Past the floor-to-ceiling glass divider that kept the dining area and kitchen in separate spaces, I caught the brief, dissatisfactory gaze of a certain child at his play stove. This, I returned with a practiced smile, earning a prompt turn of his back.
Already, I was re-assessing my level of expectation.
It would be foolish of any seasoned food critic to expect the same level of detail, mastership and care in a bowl of soup ladled out of a vat meant to serve a massive crowd looking for some everyday excitement. Servers had to be bringing in at least three soup orders per minute and had Andre's restaurant been several feet smaller, the entire dining area would have been the equivalent of a well-frequented bar on a Friday evening.
The noise did not matter very much. Within seconds, I'd produced a notepad and penned down my response—a list of ingredients—derived entirely from the memory of taste.
It is perhaps a common misunderstanding to assume that all geniuses with a superior memory could somehow store every bit of the world's information right up in their head. No, that is not how it works. That which separates a versed mind from the ordinary was its ability to assess the importance of every piece of information and rank them accordingly.
For instance, I would not be able to accurately recall the taste and flavour of the mediocre scone I had this morning on the way to the office but could very well shudder at the vile remembrance of last week's watered-down chai I'd unfortunately purchased as a last resort at some gas station on my way home. It is unfortunate that food of poor taste tended to occupy the same sort of space in the mind as does that which tastes good.
The only exception being those that were of phenomenal quality; dishes that weren't just food but stories disguised as one—capable of rippling the surface of an otherwise still pond.
My godfather's strawberry shortcake was perhaps the first of the select few gems I'd kept stored away in a category of its own. To say there were less than ten dishes (out of the thousands I'd tasted and stomached) of such level was no exaggeration. But to have that number nearly double in a single evening: the egg cocotte, herb-crusted scallops, chicken soup, the skirt steak, added to the previously short and exclusive list of dishes I'd found myself thoroughly impressed by was nerve-wracking.
The question was who.
"Mr. White." I looked up. It was the sous chef. "Welcome back. I did not expect to see you again so soon. Chef Andre said you left in a hurry last evening. So I guess even people like you would be swayed by a challenge like this?" He appeared genuinely curious, placing the bowl of chicken Harira soup on the table and allowing the aroma to sizzle in the air.
Already, I had my expectations lowered by yet another bar. It did not smell of fireworks and flames.
"I was not aware that Chef Andre thought so highly of myself," I offered a polite smile in return, sliding the list of ingredients across the table and gesturing for the sous chef to take a look. "There are times when a critic is in the mood for play."
Turning my attention back to the soup, I picked up a spoon for a sip. As expected, it was as much a yes as it was a no.
"Sir..."
I looked up once more, reluctant and disappointed to have the moment interrupted. The sous chef was standing by my table, stock still, with his jaw slightly loose. He had the list of ingredients in hand and could not seem to keep his eyes off my penmanship.
"Yes? Is something the matter?"
The sous chef hesitated; unsure if this was some sort of joke I was miraculously capable of making. "... you wrote this before you tasted the soup."
"Well, not exactly, no. I tasted it yesterday," I went on to explain with a smile, turning back to the bowl of soup before me. "The ingredients should be correct, now that I've somewhat confirmed it. So? Will you tell me, or is this something only Andre can do?"
Silence was all that I received in return.
I sighed. "Granted, there are a couple of... misgivings in this particular serving of mine," my gaze dropped to the reflective surface that promptly dissolved upon a single stir. "Would the head chef like to hear the feedback to a dish he was given specific instructions to recreate and yet, still achieve sub-par results?"
The sous chef snapped to attention, responding with a frown that spoke only of confusion. "No, it's just—I don't understand. If you already knew the answer, then... why did you order the soup? Just to confirm your answer?"
I hummed once, averting my gaze.
"Sometimes human beings come back for what they like." Then smiled. "And critics happen to be human too."
*
He had spent a total of the next twenty-three minutes begging me not to submit the list of ingredients on Twitter, which was apparently the proper way of participating in the challenge, according to the hostess. A corresponding hashtag was to be used; which, upon a quick and harmless search, revealed a significant number of participants. Unfortunately, none of them were correct.
"It's our chance to make up for last month's shortage," the sous chef had gone on to explain, accounting for Andre's lack of hostility towards the mystery chef who, by now, clearly had no relation to the Michelin-star celebrity. "If you put this list up online now, it would end our surplus and it's barely been a day since the whole thing started. Chef Andre would lose it."
Quite frankly, I empathized. Having someone like Andre to report to wasn't a very pleasant experience for the majority of the human race. Keeping him in a decent mood was critical to the general operation of things.
All I said in return was that I'd consider the proposal. After which, even the most simple question regarding the actual promised reward could not be answered without assumptions and maybes.
"It was not stated in the instructions, Mr. White... I'm sure Angie told you about this but we're assuming it would involve a free meal. Or in the case of someone from the media, an interview with the mystery chef."
Naturally, the latter would've done wonders for both GLACE's readership and partner pool; at the very least raising our standards and perhaps close the sought-after deals with established culinary experts in the field, thus elevating the journal's standing in the culinary industry. Trust in a reliable source of information would further translate into a solid foundation of loyal readers.
Yet, there seemed something almost wrong about asking for an interview in return.
About expecting a reward, at all.
This, I'd come to realize upon leaving the restaurant, and, floating around in a lake of wandering thoughts, came upon the foolishness of it all. How silly was it for the world to expect the chance of a reward when, really, the one who should be rewarded was the chef himself. At least, that was how I felt about the meal last evening; and continued to feel even till the very next day.
Even if the list of ingredients were exact and proper and whoever was behind the splendid recipe were to come forth and offer anything upon my request—what, indeed, would I even ask for?
"Mr. White."
I parted swimming thoughts, apologizing to Jason who had been holding the door open. Sliding into the backseat, I was reminded of Violet and her flight, wasting no time in scrolling through my contacts to arrive at her name.
As I waited for her to pick up the phone, a single stream of consciousness slipped through the gaps: I thought I was the only one who used dates in soups.
We stopped at a red light, more than ten seconds into insistent ringing before I finally came to the conclusion that Violet, for some reason, was avoiding me. While I was the sort of person to admit and perhaps even welcome the phrase 'there's a first for everything', Violet Birchwood had never quite remained within my expectations of an average human being. Avoiding someone was being afraid of confronting them—losing the battle of wits before swords were drawn—and throughout all my years of knowing her, she never once willingly conceded defeat.
I figured there must be some sort of reason. Violet was no fool (albeit sometimes sounding like one, especially in front of me), the logical assumption was that I'd called to ask about the chef. Or at the very least, a decent explanation of the evening's events. This was precisely what she did not wish to do.
I checked our group chat. Si Yin had not responded nor read any of the texts I'd sent to 'Vicarious Silly Vampires'.
The red light was a long one. Not uncommon, in these parts of the city. My gaze wandered to the sidewalk, observing the pedestrians coming by, going about their daily lives. Right before the light was a roadside ice cream parlor. The family sort, not the artisanal gelato stores that the city center seemed obsessed about.
All of a sudden, I was craving for something cold.
Something plain. Something boring enough for a pleasant argument in the autumn breeze.
___________________
[Leroy]
It was a challenge made for him and him only. Some people write letters; others send flowers or a card in the shape of a heart; stuffed toys with beady eyes and soft fur; a ring, a necklace, a bracelet. Those weren't the kind of things that lit a flame in a frozen lake. Contrary to popular belief, frozen lakes liked the mad.
Those who were willing to take their chances skating on the ice, daring, brave, wild, irrational enough with just a touch of crazy, to be giving up the safety of ground to spend a moment with the lake that so craved the company of the mad.
That was me. I was mad.
"Ay! Woah, you're back already?" Jung called out to me at the engine bay as I came through, still riding on the high of the kitchen and the adrenaline of the heat I once left behind. No shit, it was hard getting used to. It takes years to master the flame and once dropped, I wouldn't be surprised if it took the exact same number. Again.
I looked pretty much screwed over. Beat.
Zales wasn't afraid to point that out. "You look like you got hit by a truck twice but enjoyed it." I didn't correct her.
Before leaving Andre's, I had Violet swear on her high heels to secrecy and wrote a set of instructions for Angie the next day. The recipe. The challenge. All for him.
"Anything big while I was out?" The common room was packed. Most of the crew were gathered in front of the TV watching a basketball match. Zales tossed me a bottle of water out of the fridge.
"Yeah you missed the fire of your life. Sucks for you," she shrugged, flipping me off. A quiet evening then. Good and all but the bunch of us on duty with the night shift coming around knew how short-lived the break could be. Either way, I'd just spent three hours playing with fire, which wasn't exactly the kind of break you'd call relaxing.
They burned.
The tips of my fingers; they felt like candles, lit. Flames flickering at my fingertips that wouldn't go out no matter how I tried to blow at them like a matchstick, struck. The glowing embers were warm and still, the remnants of smoke in the air.
That night, he called. I was half expecting it, really, but that kind of expectation—anticipation of something nice, something pleasant—was the most dangerous kind of thought. Unmet, they were sure to simmer and burn in the chest. Met, they'd be victim to greed. A hunger for more.
More of his voice. His face. His lips. His smile.
Craving; he was good at making me crave. Have an appetite that I knew wasn't going to be satisfied anytime soon but then he had to drop that little surprise at the end of the call. I hung up before things got a little too far. When resistance levels began to drop. A lowered guard.
One night of EMSs and two hours of sleep was like a slap to the face. In the darkness, I was able to put out the flame; just like how firefighters were trained. To seek the source, to eliminate all possibilities of complications before the spread of a flame, no matter how small. A candle was as dangerous as a forest fire.
It had to go.
"You look worse than yesterday, man." Jaeger came up to me the next morning at breakfast, procrastinating because he had a ton of reports to write after a night of calls. "I thought you were running off to stop a wedding and propose or something, the way you were last night."
"Just leave him alone," Zales said with toast in her mouth. "Maybe he's having second thoughts about the proposal."
I gave her the finger.
Today was about firefighting—killing the flame, which was part of the job, really. Hands weren't supposed to be holding onto kitchen knives and frying pans. I was returning to the very thing that both created and destroyed me entirely. I wasn't going to be anywhere near something as dangerous as that.
It had to dealt with.
The rest of the day, I was getting updates from the probie about Andre's restaurant because his girlfriend wouldn't stop telling him to make a reservation. They called me Ratatouille. I'd complain and make demands for a cooler name but then I remembered: at least it wasn't Linguini.
The plan was to forget most of that evening—the bad decision, the irrational one, made on a fly and purely for the high—bury it deep, along with the fact that I'd practically lost half the battle having missed out on the final course. Dessert. By default, Andre had won.
Minutes into thinking about what to serve him, I'd chickened out.
Savory food, at the very least, I ate on a daily basis. Coming up with a menu like before wasn't exceptionally challenging; they were past ideas, spiced with the sizzle of a heat I was feeling at that point in time.
And now, I was cold. Just how candles should be.
I say this but sadly, that state of mind didn't last very long over the next couple of hours. I got through the rest of Tuesday evening despite the multiple back to back calls and all throughout the night, nothing more than thirty minutes of actual deep sleep. By the time I got off at 5 in the morning and Jaeger offered to give Chicken and I a ride home, it was near daybreak.
You'd think any living being would be out cold by this point—either spread-eagled on the bed or face-first on the couch, catching the last couple of Zs before the nice little date they were gonna have at noon sharp so that they wouldn't look like shit but no.
I was horny as fuck.
After hopping into the shower for a cold one, I laid in bed waiting for sleep to crash but minutes passed and I could still hear Chicken playing with his sponge ball toy downstairs. Here I was after a forty-eight, fresh out of the bath, tucked into bed with the covers all the way up to my chin, brain dead, arms heavy, dick hard.
I sat up, pulled on a pair of jogger pants, went back to bed. Still there.
An hour ago, I was struggling to keep my eyes open (which was rare, considering how I'd gotten used to forty-eights and pulled off seventy-twos like it was a normal day at work). The whole adrenaline rush from my time in the kitchen hit hard and likewise, most of my brain was ready to shut down, rest, and relax.
The other part of my mind was actively dishing out vivid moving images of the critic tasting my food. The look in his eyes. The moment, the instance he heard the fireworks. Felt the boom. The snow. It would melt.
"No, what the fuck." I backtracked before going too far. Sleep was what I needed, and time was ticking. I needed to drop by his apartment, get the car, drive over to his office and arrive at noon sharp; this wasn't the time to be jerking off.
Naturally, my dick begged to differ.
Staying still under the covers and waiting for sleep, assuming that I'd switched off most of my brain to prevent any further thoughts from delaying the knock-out I was anticipating was a big mistake. Soon, he was the only thing on my mind.
My fingers, filling the spaces between his that were pinned to his sides, or above his head. His gaze, hazy. Narrowed. Looking up at me. More. Ears red, lips parted. Trembling. He'd reach up to cover his mouth. Back arched. More. His voice would crumble, melt under the heat. Words would fail. Only me, no one else. No one else would've seen this side of a frozen lake—straight-laced, chilled, calm and collected, sharp and precise.
He'd be weak at the area just above his upper thigh. On the inner side. A sweet spot. Pressing against it would distract him while I eased in. No one knows, but the core of snow is warm. Soft. Wet.
The heat doubles with every stroke; every in, every out. Words slip past his lips—sounds he wouldn't be able to keep from surfacing every now and then with a spike in pleasure. My name. It would sound vulgar, the way it tainted his lips with every pant, whisper, sigh. He wouldn't know how, but he would try to keep his voice down.
The pleasure builds. It rises; ebbs and flows like a wave, lapping against the shore, gathering for a crash. A big one. He'd ask for it.
And I would give.
__________________
It was the door I heard. Doorbell.
Hearing it pulled every stop on the dream I was having; erasing every bit of the fuzzy goodness in my chest and waking me sharply in bed. Seconds spent waiting for the rebooting of my brain and then, the second bell. Chicken barked.
I jolted upright. Fuck, what time was it?
Phone. I grabbed it, kicking the covers aside and heading down, running through the messages and missed calls. It was one. One in the afternoon; a whole hour past the time we were supposed to meet. Whatever dream I was having, it'd somehow managed to override the alarm I'd set for eleven and I was in no state to recall its exact contents, let alone give a fuck about my clothes. Or lack thereof.
Chicken watched me bolt down the stairs and cross the living, following me down the hallway and then the front door. I didn't check the peephole.
"Fuck, I'm so—"
It wasn't him. Chicken barked.
I dialed it down a little, collecting myself and picking up the pieces I'd dropped along the way in a rush to get the door. "Erlynn."
She lived in the apartment directly below mine. So... neighbor, I guess. Friend. She helped out when I first moved in a couple of years back. She'd check in on me every now and then, just to see how I was doing. Today was one of those days. But also not the best day.
"Hey! Everything okay? I made lunch and fixed up a little extra." Erlynn peered past my shoulder down the empty hallway. Except Chicken. "You look... as in..." She glanced down. I followed her gaze. No shirt.
"Sorry. I'm," I glanced at my phone. It had been nearly thirty minutes since his last text. I had to call him back. "Sorta fucked right now. I'm really late for something. I overslept." I left the door as it was, returning to the living and speed-reading the texts he'd sent.
_____________________
You and Braised Chicken
I'm almost done. I'll see you in a bit.
The driveway? Or parking area?
It's a first, having a chauffeur unapologetically late. Albeit rather amusing.
Leroy? Are you alright? It's been fifteen minutes.
I'll be waiting in the lobby. Let me know when you're turning the corner.
Is something wrong?
You're not picking up your phone.
Good god I hope you are not dead.
Leroy Jeremy Cox please answer the phone
Oh my god you're making me so nervous Leroy this is a first
LEROY
I WILL NOT HAVE YOU DEAD
IT IS NOT ALLOWED
IT IS AGAINST THE LAW
I called your station. They said a co-worker sent you home—I hope nothing happened along the way. I'm Ubering over to your place just to make sure. Please be safe.
_____________________
"Roy? Are you listening to me?" Erlynn laughed, waving a bag of something in my face. "I made you savory donuts. The cheddar-cajun ones you liked the last time. Well, not just you 'cuz it's pretty much a hit with the kids too. You okay?"
I hit the bathroom, brushing my teeth in light speed while searching for something to wear. Random pieces of clothing all around the house—I just had a bunch collected from the laundry a few days ago stacked out on the couch.
"Though I gotta say, it's a pity you can't taste sweet stuff. The pon de rings were sold out in seconds flat." She stood by the doorway, arms folded, watching me scramble. I could barely think, let alone multitask a conversation. "I've never seen you this lost, Roy. It's kinda funny."
"Yeah, I—thing is, I'm supposed to meet someone at twelve."
"It's one o'clock."
"No shit."
She laughed. "Who is this someone? I don't think I've seen you hang with anyone not from the fire house. I mean, if they were your co-workers, you wouldn't look so..." Her fingers did a thing. I picked a dress shirt. Pants. Pulled on some socks.
"Oh." Erlynn paused all of a sudden, raising a brow. "Him? Is he finally here?"
I said nothing, headed back down the stairs to grab a jacket, my wallet. She followed. Chicken was sitting in the middle of the living room, wagging his tail. I'd thought of bringing him along but then the car and his fur and the cleaning—
"You're letting him sidle back into your life? Are you for real? Just like that."
My phone was buzzing. A single glance at the Caller ID and I was holding it up to my ear. "I'm so fucking sorry. Give me thirty minutes, I'm on my way."
"Leroy Cox, are you listening to me? Oh my god I can't believe you're just—"
The doorbell.