Foolish Wisdom
11 New Job
TUESDAY MORNING, Bill and Crystal showed up in time for breakfast. I made a frittata. It was pretty easy, really. I just grabbed the leftover spaghetti and meat sauce that Anna had served us the night before and scrambled a dozen eggs over the top, sprinkled it with cheese, and broiled it. I had five appreciative eaters, especially since I served it with my new specialty—Italian Country Bread.
I’d managed to meet Claudia Leoni before the end of the school year. She knew who I was immediately, though she was a little guarded about what I wanted. Elaine and Rose had taken me together to introduce me. Claudia finally agreed to swap a few recipes and we had a nice chat. She was, in fact, almost as wide as she was tall. Well, never trust a skinny cook. She was heading to Paris to attend some exclusive chef school that Julia Child went to. It had taken me several tries to get the knack of cooking bread on a stone instead of in a loaf pan. The result was phenomenal. It was sooo good.
“Are you ready to get to work, Brian?” Bill asked.
“Yes sir. I’m really excited.”
“What if you hate it?” Crystal asked.
“It’s only six weeks. I can take anything for six weeks.”
“Ooooh. Confident. Okay. Homework.” She grinned. “We can only work you in the restaurant thirty hours a week. But every class in high school has homework.” I looked at her in horror as she handed me a binder that had to have 500 pages in it. “Your assignment this week is all of section one. Those are the State codes governing the food handler’s permit. On Friday, we are taking you to apply for yours. You can’t actually work in the kitchen until you have one. Read it and understand it. Your test is administered by the State. We have no control over it. If you don’t pass, you have to keep taking it, at your own expense, until you do. Otherwise, you can’t work in the kitchen at all. We’ll let you clear tables and you’ll learn a lot of bookkeeping. Not entirely a bad thing, but not the real reason you came to Kokomo for the summer.” She glanced at her daughter and raised an eyebrow. I hardly noticed. The whole section was Section symbols, Paragraph symbols, and line numbers. Shit! I was in school.
“Tour of the restaurant at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” Bill said. “Anna will drop you off.”
I was already tired by the time I called Hannah at four-thirty Thursday morning. I didn’t have to worry about waking anyone up as she and Sarah were the only ones in our house.
“Hi, Honey,” I said softly. I didn’t want to wake anyone up in Anna’s house, either. I was sifting flour to make cinnamon rolls.
“Hi, Brian,” she said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. How is everything?”
“You mean your horses?” she giggled. “Or your girlfriends?”
“Yes.”
“Rika and Silk are just fine. I think they’ve decided that I give pretty good rubdowns. Silk always nickers when I come into the barn. It’s like she’s saying hello.”
“She’s a talkative girl.”
“Well, I feed them and brush them and let them out in the pasture. It’s getting pretty hot and they always head straight back to the woods so it gets pretty lonely during the day.”
“Where’s Sarah?”
“Oh, she’s here at night, but she has a part time job at the mall. She usually leaves about the time I come in from taking care of the horses.”
“Have you been riding?”
“Yes. But even that reminds me that I’m all alone. I never felt like I was lonely when you were in town, even when we didn’t see each other for a few days. Why am I so lonely now?”
“Honey, you don’t have to be there alone, you know. Why don’t you invite Sam to go out riding with you?”
“Really? Would that be okay?”
“Of course it would. You should treat our home as if it was your home. You don’t have to stay there all the time. You can visit friends and have friends over.”
“I thought… Oh, Brian. I’m so stupid.”
“No. You’re just so careful and loyal and responsible that you didn’t think you could do other things.”
“I’m going to call Sam as soon as I get back from my route.”
“Good. I sure miss you, Hannah.”
“Yes, but you’ve got those two beautiful Kokomo girlfriends to hold in your arms all night. And I bet they get naked with you, too!”
“We don’t sleep together.”
“I didn’t say anything about sleeping.”
“Hey, you! What about your pretty, sexy sister holding you all night long?”
“Mmm. Is that bad, Brian? She does hold me in the night. I feel so safe with her in bed with me. I love my sister.”
“So do I, sweetheart.”
“She has repeated every night what it was like when you grabbed her butt,” Hannah laughed. “I think sometimes she touches herself when she thinks I’m asleep,” she whispered.
“Maybe you should help her.” Where the fuck did that come from? Did I just suggest that my girlfriend help masturbate her sister? There were just giggles from the other end of the line.
“I have to go now. Papers are all folded. I love you, Brian.”
“I love you, Hannah.”
By Thursday afternoon, Jen, Court, and I were all going crazy with details of what temperature food had to be kept at in a warmer and what were acceptable hand soaps. Between the FDA and the State of Indiana, there was a regulation for just about everything. I was going to the County Building tomorrow to take the test.
“This really sucks,” Courtney whined.
“Why, sweetheart?” I asked.
“Mom and Dad tried to make me study this stuff and get a permit last spring and I refused. Now I’ve studied it all and I might as well take the stupid test tomorrow. They’re going to get me after all.”
“I might as well take it, too,” Jennifer sighed. “Maybe they’ll hire us all.”
“Well, it’s a cinch that I’m not going to work in that restaurant for free,” Courtney groused. “I’m their daughter, not their slave.”
“I’m not sure they’d recognize you as a daughter,” Anna laughed as she came into the kitchen. “I’m sure the only reason they want you to work at the restaurant is so they can see you occasionally.” Courtney jumped up and hugged Anna.
“Thanks, Mom. I know it’s as much my fault as theirs. I just felt like the stupid restaurant took my parents away from me. They’ve been going at this since I was ten and it’s the most successful restaurant in the area, but they still do everything themselves. They don’t have time for anything.”
“Well, maybe with the extra help they have this summer, they’ll be able to spare some time. There’s no reason the two of you can’t ‘unofficially’ take the same course Brian is taking. Starting with getting your permit tomorrow.”
We probably could have passed the test without studying. Most of the questions were common sense. “It’s okay to wear disposable gloves if: A) You wear a pair of gloves to handle money and food; B) You wash your hands first and discard gloves between activities; C) You discard the gloves every few hours or at least once a day; D) You blow into the gloves first to make them easier to put on.” Well. I think I got that one right. Then there were questions that were so poorly worded that none of the answers looked right. “What is the coldest temperature that ground beef must reach before it can be served?” A) 155°; B) 150°; C) 140°; D) 130°.” Wait, you have to get ground beef down to certain temperature before you can serve it?
We passed. Aced it, actually. Three teens walked out of the County Building with laminated Food Handler Permits with our pictures on them dangling around our necks. I wondered why there wasn’t a regulation about wearing your permit dangling from your neck when you use a meat grinder. Now that would be a helpful regulation. Anna took us straight to the Tally Ho and Bill and Crystal put all three of us straight to work.
The lunch crowd was disappearing and we worked on set-up for the Friday night dinner. The Tally Ho served prime rib on Friday and Saturday night, or by special request for a large group. Bill had a special oven for it and told me he’d show me the prep Saturday morning. For Friday, though, Crystal ran us all through the clean and prep process during the two hours the restaurant was closed to switch from lunch to dinner. I wondered how they managed to do all this work before the three of us started. Vacuuming and mopping floors, cleaning and disinfecting every surface, wiping down the menu cards and inserting the specials. Then there were tablecloths, flatware, napkins. The Tally Ho transformed from a short-order grill at lunch to an elegant formal restaurant in the evening. Crystal said they only served formal dinner on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday noon. Half their revenue for the week came from those three meals!
When the restaurant reopened at five-thirty, it was transformed. People started arriving and Crystal seated them. The waitstaff took orders and food started coming out of the kitchen. We filled water glasses and cleared dirty dishes and between parties we changed the table linens. From the time the restaurant opened until the last order was taken at nine, we were hopping like crazy. After nine, people were still being served and dishes still had to be cleared, but once a table was cleared, it was wiped down and not reset. By ten, Crystal closed the blinds and turned out the window light. Even the bar went dark. We were hot, sweaty, and exhausted. And all we’d done was clean!
“Okay, new kids,” Bill said as he came out of the kitchen. “Sit and eat.” He brought us each a huge baked potato, a salad, and one prime rib to share. “I saved you one.” Holy crap! I’d seen them served all night long and sometimes dumped the remains in the garbage when people were finished. But to actually have one served to you was an experience in itself, even if there were no linens other than our napkins on the table. It was a full bone-in rib and weighed close to two pounds. The girls looked at me and I just started slicing it the way I slice chateaubriand. Once I had a plateful of sliced meat, we were each able to help ourselves. There was plenty for all three of us. Anna sat down with us as we were finishing.
“Hmm. They feed the help here? Maybe I should get a job.”
“You have a job, Mom,” Jennifer groaned.
“Really? What?”
“Take us home and put us to bed, please.” Her mom smiled at us.
“Showers first. You are not putting those smelly teenaged bodies into the clean sheets I put on the beds today.”
“You changed our bedding for us? Thanks, Mom,” Courtney sighed. “Mmm. Clean sheets.” We cleared our dishes and waved to Bill and Crystal.
“I’ll pick you up at five, Brian,” Bill said. “In the morning.”
There were a few suggestions about saving water and showering together, but it was all a joke and Anna rolled her eyes. I was surprised, though, that Jen and Court didn’t combine. There was hardly any hot water left by the time I got my shower. They met me in the hall for a long, loving kiss goodnight and then we fell into our beds and were out like a light.
Bill went straight to work as soon as we got to the restaurant. He was good about explaining things as he went.
“We built the restaurant’s reputation on the Jonathan Halliday cut of prime rib. It is one full rib that weighs about two pounds. There are seven ribs in the prime section. This is a dry roast process.” He pulled six slabs of ribs from their hanging spot in the walk-in cooler.
“Do only forty-two people order the dinner each night?”
“Usually less. Remember that with a cut of meat this size, it usually feeds two people. The one you ate last night served three, remember?”
“I see. Like my chateaubriand.”
“That’s in your repertoire?” Bill asked. “I think we’ll need a demonstration. Maybe we can come here to the restaurant and have you cook it on Monday when we’re closed. A nice family dinner.” I watched and took mental notes as Bill mixed the ingredients for his rub. “The real secret of the prime rib is slow roasting,” he continued. “We cook at just 200°. That means that in order to get eighty-four pounds of beef ready for the first serving at six o’clock, we need them in the oven by six a.m. It takes about twelve hours to get them up to a suitable rare temperature of 125°.”
“What if someone wants it cooked a little more?”
“That’s what happens just before we serve it. We have an open flame grill that we heat to roughly 1800° Fahrenheit. Once the full rib is cut, it goes on the grill for anything from thirty seconds to two minutes. So, it is slow-roasted and then seared to order just before serving.” Bill rubbed the roasts with his spice mix. “It’s just garlic, salt, and pepper,” he said. He had six baking pans out on the other counter and turned his big oven on to preheat. The next step about knocked me out. He poured rock salt into the bottom of each pan about half an inch deep. Then he picked up the roasts one at a time, rolled them in the salt and placed them ribs down in the pan. All six went into the oven. “Let’s go have breakfast,” Bill said happily. He locked up, swung by to pick up Crystal, and we went back to Anna’s where I made omelets for all of us.
“What did you think of the process, Brian?” Crystal asked.
“It’s pretty cool. I’ve already tasted the final product, so seeing how it got started was amazing. How about all that salt, though? You can’t make the au jus out of that, can you?”
“No. There wouldn’t be enough juice roasting this method anyway. We use a commercial consommé to make the au jus.”
“Why all the salt?”
“Two reasons. It keeps the outside of the roast dry, which in turn keeps the real juice sealed inside. Secondly, the bed of rock salt works to evenly distribute the heat around the roast. It’s like cooking on hot stones instead of over direct flame. Tonight, you’ll see the direct flame portion.”
“Don’t forget to log your hours in the restaurant, Brian,” Crystal reminded me. I pulled out my logbook and wrote the hours and what we were doing last night and this morning. Crystal glanced at it and initialed each line. I was getting class credit for this and my records would be shown. I’d already entered my test date and score for my permit. “Your homework this coming week is to read the first section of the restaurant operations manual.” Jennifer and Crystal groaned. “You two don’t have to read it,” she laughed.
“Who do you think he’ll read it to?” Jennifer asked. “Brian, can we read this section while we’re lying out in the sun?”
“And while you’re rubbing sunblock all over our delicate skin?” Courtney added. I groaned and so did the adults.
I survived the first week of my internship without undue hardship. Which is not to say I was not unduly hard. We behaved—most of the time. Anna did strategically leave the house each day while we were left at home, always with some minor task to do and a time when she would be back. It was not usually enough time to get naked and jump in bed, but it was often enough to have some serious making out with one or both girlfriends. And the rest of the time… It seemed that just being in the same universe as these two gorgeous, willing, teasing girls was enough to keep my attention at attention.
By five o’clock Sunday afternoon, I’d accumulated my full thirty hours that I was allowed to be in the restaurant. It was closed Monday and Tuesday, so that was our weekend. Of course, Monday I cooked chateaubriand for everyone. I also served popovers with the salad and Bill got very thoughtful. I had a feeling he had an idea, but when I asked him he put me off until Wednesday when we would be back to work.
Tuesday was our first real day off to just go have some fun since I got to Kokomo. And it was my first experience riding with Courtney. She’d only had her license for a little more than a week. She turned sixteen near the end of June and had spent the time I was preparing for Betts’ wedding getting her license. Jen pushed me into the front seat and crawled in back to fasten a seatbelt. Court was driving her mother’s Volvo and had the seat pulled forward to reach the pedals. It was a crazy box-shaped car, but I guess they’ve got a super-good reputation for safety. Jen and I were really quiet as Courtney drove with her knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
And what exotic place did we go to on our first day off and out together? The mall. Apparently, that is where girls go to have fun. I had visions of an afternoon spent in a lingerie shop with them modeling bras and panties. That was a memory, though, and not the agenda for today. Courtney carefully steered into a parking space between the white lines. She took no chances and parked so far away from the mall that I needed binoculars to see the entrance. There were no other cars within a hundred feet and I left a trail of breadcrumbs so we could find our way back.
Tuesday must be Kokomo High see-and-be-seen day at the mall. That was the purpose of our being there. Courtney and Jennifer introduced me to every classmate we passed and there seemed to be another one at every store. They couldn’t have planned this out. It would take too much work to make it look this accidental. In the food court where I bought us a basket of fries and cokes, it was even worse. Kids came up to our table and started talking to the girls and get introduced to ‘their boyfriend’. They were having so much fun that I couldn’t help but join in and even flirt a little with the girls they were introducing me to.
“Brian, this is Rebecca,” Courtney said. “Rebecca, this is Jennifer’s and my boyfriend, Brian.” I took Rebecca’s offered hand.
“Courtney, why didn’t you tell me you had such cute girlfriends here in Kokomo. You know how this all affects me. I hope you’re up for what’s going to happen when we get home.” Rebecca turned about ten shades of red and Jennifer snorted. She’d been real good about not doing that as Courtney and I kept encouraging her to go ahead and laugh and not try to hold it back. I guess she was trying to be polite.
“Jennifer and Courtney, my favorite little dykes,” a voice said from behind us.
“Oh, shit,” Jennifer said under her breath. “Who invited him?”
“Not me,” Courtney sighed.
“I keep telling you, baby, I can give you a much better time than your girlfriend can with a dildo. Come on and let’s go for a real ride. You won’t be a lesbian after we’re through.” I managed to look past Jennifer to where a hunk of a guy was leaning over her. I mean a hunk. This dude was built like a brick shithouse. His muscles had muscles.
“You’re too late, William,” Jennifer said. I had a feeling the guy must go by Will or Bill the way Jennifer said his name. “This is our boyfriend, Brian. Now be nice.” William didn’t seem to understand the phrase.
“This? This is the little queer from that cooking show? Look, Jennifer. No wonder you’re a lesbo. He couldn’t satisfy you.” Why do they always go for that line? He was so lame, but I could also see nearly a dozen of the girls I’d been introduced to standing nearby watching. A mall cop was getting coffee over at a kiosk and I figured if anything really weird happened, he’d call the police. But I’d had enough of this guy the minute he called Jennifer and Courtney’s names.
“Jennifer!” I exclaimed. “Is this the William you’ve been telling me about? Mister, you are nothing like what she told me. I’m really sorry. When she said you were like Jupiter, I thought she meant the God, not the planet.” I stood up and gently guided Jennifer over on the seat so I was between them. “Jenny, baby, do you mean to tell me that you chose me, the runt of the litter, over this incredible specimen of pulchritude?”
“What are you calling me?” he snapped.
“It means incredible physical beauty, not intelligence,” I said slowly. “Don’t worry. I use big words, but you don’t need to understand them.”
“Brian…” Jennifer whispered.
“What is wrong with you, Jennifer? Look at these muscles, this finely sculpted body. What are you? Two percent body fat? No. There can’t be an ounce of fat or brain in his body. Just look at those bulging biceps. This finely chiseled jaw, just as if it were carved from a massive block of granite. Jennifer, I’m just surprised you didn’t fall on your back the first time he grunted at you. You could be dropping babies like stones with this bad boy. Just think what life would be like with a guy like this. Always having someone who could move the furniture when you want and to break rocks on a chain gang. And at night you wouldn’t even have to cook. Just toss a slab of raw meat in his cage. In the morning, ride him to work like a mule. No. Mules are impotent vegetarians. He eats meat. I think we have discovered a whole new breed of carnivorous jackass. Scientists all over the world would be willing to kill for the opportunity to dissect his dead body. Even the masculine scent of his flatulence draws flies to him like girls. There must be something dreadfully wrong with you, Jennifer, that keeps your clothes from falling off in his presence.”
The dude was just staring at me. You could tell his brain could not keep up. I was on a roll and I wasn’t going to stop here.
“You, sir, have dodged a bullet. She probably has some dreadful voluptuousness or worse, intelligence. Can you imagine going on a date and having her expect you to talk to her? In whole sentences? I’ll take the bullet for you, man. It’s always been the fate of the Minotauran runts to be sacrificed to the base desires of the most decadent and lubricious females of the tribe. It’s my destiny. What can I say? I’ll go quietly, though I’d much rather be fucking over a fine specimen like you than enduring the fate that awaits me at the hands and mouths of these two depraved and sexual women. Go. Leave me to my destiny. And stay away from my girlfriends.”
I took Jennifer and Courtney by their hands and led them away. I took one last look back at William and he was still staring with his mouth open. Every girl who’d watched had eyes like saucers. The mall cop was laughing in a corner so hard he spilled his coffee. At least one of them had an education.
“Mom! Brian totally destroyed William Garth!” Jennifer yelled as we got into the house. I hadn’t said a word to either girl all the way home. Well, Courtney was driving and neither Jennifer nor I spoke.
“What? Brian, did you injure someone? That kid is a jerk, but his father is on the school board.”
“I didn’t touch anyone,” I said, raising my hands.
“The words, Mom!” Courtney said. “Nobody there understood what pulchritude meant. Look. It’s here in the dictionary.” She walked into the kitchen where I sank into a chair in front of Anna. Courtney pushed the dictionary in front of Anna and then snatched it back.
“You called him handsome and comely?” Anna asked.
“From that point on, I don’t think he understood anything that was said. I had to explain that word to him so he wouldn’t take offense.”
“Not even at being called a new breed of carnivorous jackass,” Jennifer laughed. “Or an impotent mule. And his farts that drew flies like girls! Or that his head was made of granite.”
“I never said farts.”
“Oh my God! Jennifer, look what he called us!”
“Lubricious: lewd, wanton, sexually stimulating, slippery. Brian!”
“And voluptuous and intelligent and decadent. That’s the same word that the menu uses to describe that chocolate brownie cake.”
“And let’s not forget depraved,” Courtney said, still looking at the dictionary. “Morally corrupt and perverted. Were you insulting us or complimenting us?”
“I was making every male in your school jealous.”
“I have to go to my room,” Jennifer squealed. “I think I’m going to orgasm. Again.” Jennifer and Courtney escaped from the room just as the phone rang. I heard them grab the wall phone in the hall and drag it into their room giggling.
“Brian?” Anna said, looking at me. “Should I be worried?”
“Not unless the girls figure out what Minotauran means. Honestly, I don’t think so, Anna,” I said seriously. “I don’t think he knew what hit him. Of course, if Jennifer and Courtney are really in their room…”
“I don’t want to think about that. And if you’re going to think about it, go to your room!”
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