Course 1: This Grand View Into Many Things
Amour, the perfect restaurant to celebrate an exceptional time. It was rumored deities dined there. This last part was pure fantasy. Legends and myths have been mixed together too often until its fables warp into reality. It was a spectacular situation to contemplate.
Only the most reverent foodies and virtuous restaurant professionals understood the offerings awaiting them. He knew the food well and so did she, as hospitality experts, from scuttling through the streets until earning a draft ticket into the grandest cooking leagues.
When let past its worshipped doors without needing to wait many aeons they were seated on the terrace overlooking the big city. As the initial course shifted into the next dish they saw everything from this grand view into many things from the famous Amour.
Course 2: The Big City
Wheels clattered and rolled until its brakes forced the steel contraption to halt its rapid and rhythmic clanking. While hunched against a wall Antonio observed the cascading passengers flowing out its numerous doors and into the station. When they all exited he walked along with the fresh cargo of new commuters into a nearby railcar. The metro was a pulmonary vein connecting the city’s denizens into its inner heart. Steel roots dug into the ground and built upward into the air and from their continuous growth the skyscrapers towered high into the heavens and loomed overhead. Together, as one massive shape, they formed the Los Angeles skyline. It was the big city. How one’s legs could walk over fifty miles and they could not escape its reach was unknown. It could be seen through vast horizons. Inside the metro car Antonio looked out the window. The city still appeared fresh and new. Throughout the years he believed, with the greatest commitment, he would have gotten accustomed to this sight. It was a lie. He never got acclimated to it. Because it was the big city. He was another small man within its confines. The glass rebounded this reflection back to him as he continued to ponder his innermost ideas. He could have been anywhere and he ended here. Now it was almost time for dinner. The public was growing more famished as time passed over into the abyss past hunger. Soon they would demand his expertise. He would satisfy their cravings and curiosities with his culinary aptitude. Above him a digital clock displayed the date and time through its electronic mechanisms. The other digits were not important. Night was approaching. It was a Saturday. He smirked from this foolishness. The day had eluded him through the ongoing hours and minutes. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and whatever day next. It never mattered. One morning blended into the afternoon until noon mixed into the evening. An endless cocktail where time persists between remembrance and forgotten memories. A chef’s life was an existence equated to a professional bohemian. Living from their craft while persisting by the processes exuding from their culinary imagination. How insane to think another Saturday night was approaching. His reflection, within the glass, displayed a face containing two baggy eyelids staring back at him. Whatever rest was, possibly hinting the stated nothingness we exit out and reenter, he needed it so much. Maybe then he would recall how time persisted over him.
Course 3: Observations
The cityscape was a blurry abstraction as the metro rail rushed across the ongoing track.
Hollywood. She thought. A land filled with stars. The only place containing more stars were the ones within space itself. Los Angeles. She thought. A city dreamers dedicate a pilgrimage until surviving within a world called materiality existed. California. She thought. Another state in North America.
She scanned the area. A waiter explained how to read rooms to her in a past life long ago. If she mastered it she could read enough into people and learn the expressions and body languages humans possessed. It was a strange lesson. Altogether it was an odder theory or philosophy. An education while serving in a backwater restaurant near a small town.
After she arrived here moving anywhere else was unnecessary. Wherever else she could have been she was here. Against nothing else to consider she peered around the metro car. So many people were treading from here to everywhere. It was why buildings were crafted from multiple stories containing many different lives. For these same people built this metropolis.
There was a man in a suit. He might work inside a bank. Or maybe he was a lawyer. There was a lady reading a novel. She might be a writer. There was a lady wearing a vogue dress. She could be a model. There was a man in a white coat. He must be a chef. She was sure of this assumption. There was a man wearing a safety vest. He must be a construction worker. Hazy buildings shifted into solid shapes as the wheels clattered to another stop.
Course 4: Dreams
Tonight was not murderous. The waiters recorded their orders and submitted them with accuracy. Not a single dish was sent back. Falling twenty minutes behind the lead ticket was not enough to ruin them. They overtook it through dexterous cookery. Every table was satisfied, the mistakes were minor. The perfect service was still imperfect, unless zero send backs, zero mistakes and zero complaints occurred. This happening was rare. It was satisfactory enough to import delight from this performance. Such a service made a chef proud of their work, of their craft and of their food. The final hour ran past the clock and the manager allowed him to leave early. He clocked out and sauntered to the bar. The bartender poured whiskey into a glass.
What a stellar performance tonight, the bartender said while handing the glass to him.
Still acting?
Got a part last night. The previous actor walked out.
Why?
She quit it. Told me too many people acted like somebody else.
She was too honest to herself, Antonio said, and it must have ruined her.
She was really into it months ago. As seasons changed she moved along with them.
She was a dreamer. I admire that. She had a dream and let it go. What a travesty.
Antonio, the bartender said, she stopped dreaming. That’s what finished her.
What does a person do when they stop dreaming?
They return to reality. The world becomes realer to them, too real sometimes.
Say, he said, speaking on ambition, you ever see a waiter’s passion erode?
I watched a server melt into the floor until he cried behind the building. How about you?
One chef fantasized he would become a legend until the industry crucified him.
What does a person accomplish until society punishes them through villainy?
Nothing. Usually it’s for something. Except in his dilemma it was for nothing.
He was another good man in a bad world, the bartender said.
He was too good a man. So the earth was more vicious to him.
He must have had a realization.
He did.
What was it?
The world told him he did not have it and he believed its venomous words.
A shame, my good sir, a damn shame, another casualty in California.
Antonio finished the whiskey and stepped out the door. His feet carried him on, against pain and tribulation, tiredness and submission, until he reached the station. He saw the usual sights. Several denizens were staying out late or returning home early. Various people traversing separate livelihoods were scattered around its confines. He lit a cigarette and considered the crowd. The usual specimens: wasted philosophers entrapped behinds bars, off duty corporate hounds soothing weekday stresses away, lost artisans scurrying from cafe societies and people exiting an industry renowned for its hospitality. Through the tobacco mist he saw a lady standing nearby. She was looking back at him. He was not sure what to say until she spoke.
Course 5: On The Way Back
With the past hours being the case they found themselves closer than before.
I saw you earlier.
Where?
In the afternoon.
When?
It was around five hours ago.
Really?
You cook for a living. The coat you wear reveals a life pertaining to you.
I do.
Do you use the metro a lot?
Too much.
Same.
Where do you work?
Saunders. A steakhouse neighboring the east side. What about you?
Costellos. A fine Italian establishments nearby the west side.
Quite the journey up there.
I love the place. A restaurant with honest people and food and service.
You make good money up there?
More than I thought I would have and without it I would not be standing before you.
I understand. My kitchen is working me fifty-sixty hours a week.
How does it not break you?
Ask the same question to yourself.
If it was not because I knew you were so honest I would have thought you were rude.
Why do you think my word was true?
You show one face and never act like anybody else.
And you can tell by looking at people? You a gypsy perchance?
I just have nice eyes. See. See. Look into them.
Your eyes contain magic. I can almost see them sparkle.
Thank you, she said while her cheeks blossomed into a burgundy hue.
What’s your name?
Zarah. And you?
Antonio.
Look. Here comes the metro rail. Come on. Sit next to me.
He sat beside her. They talked until he got off. Before leaving he invited her to Saunders.
Course 6: His Gentle Hands
Antonio. Saunders. She thought to herself. Then she considered herself. Zarah. Costellos. He was a chef. She was a waitress. From separate and different sides surrounding the restaurant.
Inside her apartment she thought about him. When she was serving food she thought about him more. She had worked with many chefs. She had never spoken to a chef for so many brief minutes. His words could have been her own. They were so similar and so different.
The day arrived when she did not have to work and she knew, for he told her, when he would cook. The next day she and another coworker, while waiting, discussed the situation.
Look at you, her coworker said, finding somebody. How did it happen?
On the metro rail.
Really?
Really.
Was it from chance? Or maybe it happened through divine interception.
I think so, but I have also been so unsure about it. I did see him and I noticed him first.
From riding the same metro rail. Use your brain, fair lady.
Sorry. I did not think I was going to speak and when I did we got to talking.
Because a word leads to another, then a sentence and finally a conversation.
He was really quiet. After we traded enough words he invited me there.
To where?
Where he works.
You should go there. Work reveals a few things about us.
My table needs my attention. Talk to you more about it.
They never did. Things got busy. Her coworker did not want to ask. Fearing it would display too much personal interest, and she was curious, but not inquisitive enough to explore the topic further, she would only ask her more questions if Zarah rejuvenated the conversation.
They were so unavailable to one another that her coworker left before she did and Zarah was alone to close the restaurant and discuss within herself about this notable chef from an illustrious restaurant on the east side.
An early morning sun arose into the sky and its rays awoke her from the dim lodgings. Throughout the afternoon she could not eat or drink anything. Her insatiable curiosity overtook hunger while dreaming about the predestined evening satisfied her reasonings.
Blotchy patches of darkness overtook patchy clear sky. She took the metro connecting them, everybody, in Los Angeles. She stepped through the door and sat herself at the bar side where she could see into the kitchen. He saw her and smiled and she smiled back.
There she saw how he worked. His gentle hands, moved with grace and consideration, they did not misplace anything. They laid a steak with a soft landing onto the plate and he lifted this plate with superb grace and care.
For there was passion within his hands. When he cracked them, she could not hear it from where she sat but she imagined it was not a pop, but his bones not making a sound as the bones within his fingers were also tender.
Every dish had the same care. And aside from smiling at her in the beginning the smile flatlined as the focus shifted from her and onto the food. Only once did another grin escape his seriousness as he prepared an important dish.
Throughout a sluggish hour she watched him talk to a server and the server took a plate to her and said it was from the chef. It was a fine dish and when she bit into it she understood him in grand totality. She cleaned the plate. When the shift neared its end he went over to her.
Did you like it?
I loved it.
We serve some of the best filets in the city. Our vendors stated they nurture sacred cows.
Sacred? When did cooking become a religion?
A way to live. Our vendors treat their herds like emperors. First class care.
It was a top tier service here. The bartender was fantastic. He said many great things.
About what?
Pertaining to the restaurant. Its history, its chefs and its clientele. It was so fine.
Great to hear.
Wait. Before you go I have another question.
Yes?
A chef told me every decent dish contained the personality of its creator.
See these hands? My greatest connection to my craft. Why I can cook well enough.
You have talent. You have the genes of a real chef.
He smiled and walked off and when the night ended they took the road to the metro line together. While walking to the station the discussion was all about him and his gentle hands.
When they were inside the metro car the discussion was all about her. How she liked her job and why it was important to her wellbeing. Why she cared about serving and how she fell into the industry and accepted it was her profession.
As he got off the metro she asked him to visit Costellos. Told him it would equalize things. How it would reveal more of herself to him. He said he looked forward to the occasion.
Course 7: Her Pleasant Graces
He knew what made a chef great. What made a waitress great was a mystery. He was always in the kitchen and did not leave its borders often. Either for a cigarette break or when he was entering or exiting the establishment. He told her he was working more hours and was unsure when he would arrive, but promised to request her to be his waitress.
His waitress. These two words made him think of an innumerable set of ideas.
She told him it was alright. She could wait until he was able to carve a piece of himself into her life. The next night was average and management let him leave early. He checked the time, there were several hours remaining. He got on the metro and took the ride. Once at the restaurant he went inside. At the host stand she saw him while he requested her.
He was seated at a corner table in her section. She poured water into a short glass to begin the service. Then she uncorked a bottle and poured its contents into a tall wine glass.
He asked questions pertaining to the menu. She responded with knowledgable explanations. Answering testing inquires only devoted chefs and waiters understood from utmost zealotry.
His waitress. She knew almost as much about food as him.
He watched her pleasant graces handle tables with attentiveness and care. Not a single one needed to ask for a refill. The food landed on time and she pivoted her body in one way as her slim arms laid each dish to their designated patron. Her smile was so clean and fresh and she would carry her little tray with her while navigating past the tables.
Her waitress. Making her tables love her and he was her favorite table.
The parsnip triangoli with aged balsamic vinegar was fantastic. Her description fit the taste past perfection. He devoured it with steadfast fidelity. Ensuring to savor its rich flavors. When she returned to him a final time she laid the check before him. He only owed a few dollars. He handed her a sufficient tip and she refused his kindness and told him to keep it.
Course 8: Let Me Cook, Let Me Serve
He found himself back at her apartment.
Why did you not want the money?
I do not need it.
Why did you refuse it?
I did not want to take the money you work so hard to earn. I only wanted to see you.
He thought about it and then said:
You hungry?
Yes. Why?
Let me cook for you. What do you have in the kitchen?
My tiny kitchen has a few things. In the fridge I have a lone salmon.
I will make something work. Any portion you would like?
A small portion, please, chef.
Call me Antonio.
A small portion, please, my dearest Antonio.
She watched him observe the salmon and it contained an oceanic stench. A great signing because when fish smells mild and not fishy and the meat feels firm and never slimy then it was a decent piece of salmon to cook. While pan searing the salmon he grated some fresh ginger and mixed it with honey and sesame seeds and soy sauce from a nearby cabinet. He knew any average apartment contained honey stowed into a forgotten trove and he was confident about locating the soy sauce and sesame seeds and he knew the food deities were looking over him after locating the fresh ginger. While searing the salmon and pouring the glaze atop both of their portions he thought she might really like seafood or use salmon on her own Italian dishes. When the plates were finished he was about to take hold of them but she stopped him.
Sit at the table.
What?
Have a seat and I’ll bring it to us.
He went to the table and sat himself and watched her bring the plates.
Our famous glazed salmon from the freshest sources, she said.
She laid the first plate before and him and said:
Crafted by delicate hands. Our dearest chef Antonio who we love so much.
She laid it before him. Then she set the other plate on her side. While eating she said:
You just had dinner hours earlier. Have you been starving, Antonio?
The portion does not offer much in size but in flavor.
Why did you cook it for me?
If you will not accept the money, let me cook for you, Zarah.
Her teeth stopped chewing the salmon and said: and let me serve you, Antonio.
She arose from the table and went into the kitchen and brought out a fresh wine bottle.
Course 9: See You Again
Glasses were refilled with more wine until the entire bottle was emptied, it was enough for him to fall into her bed and into an alcohol infused lucidity.
He stayed the entire night, with her, his waitress, and with him, her chef, until the morning sun arose along with them.
The entire week had been grand. While he smoked a cigarette he saw her exit the restroom, with a towel wrapped around her thin waist, and he told her he would see her again.
Her lips brushed against his cheek and she whispered into his ear that he would always see her again soon.
These words were enough, for when he left he understood residing in Los Angeles was not so difficult after discovering somebody who operated like oneself.
She saw him again and he saw her again until they saw themselves too many times until needing to see each other all the time.
Course 10: Dessert
The crème brûlée coupled with a tawny port wine heightened its creaminess.
He brought a fork full of dripping custard up to her lips and she did the same for him.
Los Angeles looked back at them, from where they sat, with deep reverence.
Northward they saw the metro rushing on the tracks until disappearing into the big city.