Stephanie Danler - Sweetbitter

“Listen, I will personally volunteer to train her.”

“I bet you will.”

“When she looked in the mirror was she like, This is an interview outfit?”

“Does she think her tits look real?”

“Jealous?”

“I bet Jake fucks her first.”

I dropped more peppercorns, they scattered. I took a new handful and they stuck to me.

“No, she’s kitchen material.”

“Not Asian enough.”

“Why don’t they put a sign up that says you must be this much Asian to enter?”

“She’s straight off the boat.”

“But what boat?”

“Ask Sasha if she’s Russian.”

“There’s no way Zoe will let Howard hire her.”

“Please, Zoe’s interview outfit wasn’t much better.”

“I bet this girl has a lot of experience.”

“Yeah, at what would be my question.”

“Enough,” I said. I stood up and wiped my palms off on my apron. They all turned to me, surprised I was there. “Don’t be mean. We can just be honest. I’m sure she’s a very nice girl, but she’s too pretty to work here. She’ll never make it.”

Jake behind me. I felt him like a few degrees of temperature change, a prickling. He said into my shoulder:

“That’s what we said about you.”

—

“THIS IS the glory month, hmm?” Simone said, transfixed over a crate of chanterelles. They were sheathed in dirt, her fingers streaked with it.

Yes, those were luminous September days. The afternoon light pearling, the mood alert, turned-on, compassionate. Out in the Greenmarket people circled patiently, holding cartons of prune plums, ears of the last silken corn, thin-skinned lavender eggplants. The air vibrated like the plucked string of a violin.

“I knew from those rains last week, I just knew it. Look at these.” She passed one to me and I inhaled. She wiped the tip of my nose and I drew closer to her. Simone unheated, unrigid, as if we had no work to do. The crease of concentration between her brows ironed out. Her attention felt like a warmer current of water.

“I’ve put together a stack of books for you, including that wine atlas you’re always peeking at in the office. You can have an old copy of mine, you should have one at home. I’ve been meaning to bring them but perhaps you can come by my apartment, since it seems you’re in the East Village on your days off.”

I cringed again at being caught with Will on the outside. “I’m happy to come. Whenever.”

“And it’s time for you to open a bottle of wine.”

“Not for a table!” I saw myself being pushed overboard, Simone with a knife at my back, the sea black, turbulent, bottomless.

“God no. Not for a table. We can practice tonight after close.”

There was a low white fridge that they called the cheese larder. Next to it sat the day’s cheeses. Orange spotted rinds, ashy cones, teal-veined cheeses all breathing under a mesh dome. She took a wood-handled spade and dug into them. I looked around to see if we would be caught, but the kitchen was miraculously empty. She went around a corner and came back with a cluster of grapes. Their musk was a solo performance — all the other scents dimmed.

“Spit the seeds.” She spit two black seeds into her hand. I had already bitten them, bitter and tannic.

“Mine didn’t have any.”

“One of the three fruits native to North America, that distinctive Concord musk. The great irony of our country is that we produce the greatest table grapes in the world and yet can’t seem to figure out how to make wine. Arturo?”

A dishwasher was going by, carrying a bus tub of muddlers, cocktail shakers, strainers.

“Arturo, do you mind asking Jake to make an Assam? He knows how I like it. Thank you.”

Arturo smiled and winked at her. This was the same man that growled at me when I asked him where to put the recycling. I hadn’t seen Jake come in — did he just appear when Simone needed her tea made? His effect must have shown on my face.

“Did you want one?”

I shook my head though I very much wanted Jake to make me tea the way I liked it.

“Ah. Well. Do you know what abundance is?”

I shook my head again and plucked another grape.

“You have been taught to live like a prisoner. Don’t take, don’t touch, don’t trust. You were taught that the things of the world are flawed reflections, that they don’t demand the same attention as the world of the spirit. It’s shocking, isn’t it? And yet, the world is abundant — if you invest in it, it will give back to you tenfold.”

“Invest what?”

She spread some cheese on a cracker and nodded while she chewed.

“Your attention, of course.”

“Okay.” I looked closely at the cheese, the grapes. The grapes had a veil of dust on them, the cheese a veil of mold, reminders of the elements that shaped them. The kitchen doors swung open. Jake had not only made it, he’d brought it himself.

“One Assam,” he said. He had brewed it in a tall water glass and lightened it with milk.

“Thank you, darling.”

He surveyed the food Simone had laid out and smirked. He took a grape.

“Is school in session?” he asked, looking between us.

“We’re just having a chat,” she said smoothly.

“A chat over Camembert.” He spit the seeds onto the floor next to my feet. “I wouldn’t trust it, new girl.”

“My love, aren’t you needed?”

“I think I ought to stay put to protect this one. She’s already got quite an appetite for oysters. Ten more minutes with you and she’ll be reciting Proust and demanding caviar for family meal.”

My heart stopped. I thought those oysters were ours. But Simone betrayed nothing. She wore the same satisfied face she had when she accepted compliments from guests at the end of the meal. He was fearless with her. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the restaurant teasing her to her face.

“I don’t need protection,” I said suddenly. Stupidly. They turned on me, and I shrank.

The same thin-lipped, austere smiles. But through Simone’s eyes, as she appraised him as having the potential to be related to her, I saw a streak of adoration pass and land on him — it was so unmistakable it was almost hued.

“Sometimes I feel like you guys are related or something.”

“Once upon a time,” he said.

“Our families were close,” she explained.

“She was the girl next door—”

“Oh Jesus, Jake—”

“Now she’s my warden—”

“I’m quite benevolent—”

“And omniscient, omnipotent—”

“Yes, it’s quite a burden—”

“And now I’ve got a classic case of Stockholm syndrome.”

Their laughter was closed, held back from me, laughter that ran along a private line. He left abruptly and Simone looked at me.

“Where were we?”

“You’re the girl next door?”

Any lingering lightheartedness faded. That was reserved for him.

“We’re from the Cape. We grew up together in a way.”

“Okay,” I said. “Do you like his girlfriend?”

“Jake’s girlfriend.” She smiled.

“Yeah, that Vanessa or something.”

“I do not know a Vanessa or something. Jake’s a private man. Perhaps you should ask him.”

I reddened and put my hands in my apron, mortified. “I just thought it must matter. If you thought she was cool or whatever. ’Cause you guys are close.”

“Have you thought about what you want from your life?”

“Um. I don’t know. I mean, honestly…”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“What?”

“ ‘Cool or whatever,’ ‘Um, I don’t know,’ ‘I mean, honestly.’ Is that any way to speak?”

God, I was melting. “I know. It’s a problem when I’m nervous.”