“So that’s it, then?” I ask. “You’re firing me? I put this place on the fucking map, Jim. I’ve got just as much blood and sweat in this hole as you do and you’re just going to throw me overboard?”
Jim takes a moment.
“You’re not the only one I have to let go, Dane, but you’re the one with the biggest salary. When things get back on track—”
“What?” I ask. “You’ll condescend to offer me the same job that I’ve been doing six years in this clusterfuck of a city? You can shove that up your fucking dick hole.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, will you grow up?” Jim yells. “Six years I’ve been listening to you screaming that bullshit in the kitchen like you’re Gordon Fucking Ramsay and I’m sick of it. If you were him, this place wouldn’t be falling apart, I’d have money in the till, and we wouldn’t have to keep moving the tables farther from the kitchen.”
“You know I—”
“Will you just listen to me?” he interrupts. “In spite of all your bullshit, I like you, Dane. You’re a foul-mouthed asshole, but you are a good chef. This isn’t personal, got it? I wou
ld have offered you sous chef just to keep you on if I didn’t think—”
“That it would be a slap in the face and the kitchen staff would never respect me again?” I ask.
“This is your problem, Dane; you’re too fucking arrogant. If I thought you could work under anyone other than me, I wouldn’t have to let you go, but you can’t,” Jim says, leaning back in his chair. “I looked at the books, and I can keep you on for another month or so, but that’s it. You’ve got to find something else.”
“This is such—”
“I don’t have a choice, Dane,” Jim says. “I’ll give you a good recommendation. I’ll help you get set up somewhere else, but I can’t keep you here.”
“Yeah, don’t do me any favors,” I say, getting up from my chair. “I’ll stay on for a while, but don’t expect Cannon to amount to shit. He needs someone to breathe down his neck and berate him or he falls apart like a little bitch that couldn’t make himself a bowl of cereal.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Jim says. “Hey, I’m sorry it has to be this—”
“Oh, fuck yourself, Jim,” I tell him, and am back in the kitchen a minute later.
On the upside, that’s nowhere near the first time I’ve told my boss to fuck himself. On the downside, I think that’s the first time he really knew that I meant it.
I’ll be lucky if he keeps me on until the end of my shift.
Somehow, he resists the temptation to fire me straight away, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell Roommate Chick. Although I’m fairly certain that learning her name would be a positive step before I tell her I just lost my job. First, though, I’ll have to tell her what it is that I actually do. That’ll be a great conversation.
When I get home, Roommate Chick is sitting on the couch, reading.
She’s obviously busy, so I decide not to disturb her.
“Hey,” she says, not looking up from her book.
Shit.
“Hey,” I answer. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” she says, turning the page. “Where’d you get the confit de canard?”
“I didn’t get it,” I tell her.
“Whatever. I’ve been looking for a place that serves a decent version of it. Where’d you pick it up?”
Right now, I’m fighting two urges: my chef’s pride wants me to tell her that I made it. On the other hand, if I tell her, she’s going to want me to cook for her all the time. Worse than that, the conversation will inevitably lead to the one topic I’m trying to avoid.
“I picked it up at some French place a few blocks from here.”
It’s not a complete falsehood. L’Iris is only a few blocks from the apartment, and I do work there, for now, anyway.
“Does this place have a name?”