Shift Control

The dish pit is already a mess when I clock in, which means nobody noticed it getting bad, or they noticed and decided it could wait for me. Either way, it doesn’t help.

Dirty plates are stacked in leaning towers beside the rinse sink. Two bus tubs of cutlery have been shoved under the counter, as though getting them out of sight counts as dealing with them. Someone’s dumped three sauté pans in the sink without scraping them, sauce burnt black around the edges, and the machine starts beeping as soon as I get close enough to look at it.

I knew it would be like this. I yank on my apron, shove my hands under the hot water, and get on with it.

By seven, the whole kitchen is loud in the way kitchens get loud when everyone has decided their crisis is the only one that matters. None of it comes from anywhere useful. The printer starts at the pass, the fryer spits, and cutlery hits a tub behind me hard enough to make me flinch.

“Behind,” someone calls.

I shift left without looking. A line cook squeezes past carrying hot plates, his shoulder clipping mine.

“Careful.”

He’s already gone. The printer rattles out another strip of orders nobody has room for. Oil snaps from the fryer and a pan comes down too hard on the stove. Somewhere behind me, a server laughs like all of this is normal and hasn’t somehow become my problem.

I keep going, scraping, rinsing, racking and sliding things through. That’s the job when people bring things over in an order that makes even a little sense. Keep the dirty side moving and the clean side clear, get the pans back out, then whatever else the kitchen has started shouting for like I’m keeping it hostage.

It works when things arrive in a sequence I can deal with, which they don’t.

Kara drops a bus tub beside me hard enough that the forks jump the lip and scatter across the counter.

“Can you sort the cutlery before you bring it over?”

She turns away. “We’re slammed.”

“So am I.”

One fork slides toward the rinse sink. I catch it before it drops in and blocks the sprayer while Kara carries on as though leaving the tub here has finished the job.

A line cook leans through the pass before I’ve pushed the forks back. “Sam, I need sauté pans.”

“I’m doing them.”

“Need them now, mate.”

I drag the nearest pan out of the sink. The sauce is burnt black across the bottom and nobody has even run water into it. I scrape until enough comes loose, rinse it under the hard spray, shove it into the rack and reach for the next one before the first is properly out of my way.

“Side plates,” somebody shouts from behind me.

“I know.”

The printer rattles out another ticket, and the fryer starts screaming before it stops.

Through the pass, Jamie is dealing with a table by the window. I know that before I look over, which is irritating in itself. I’ve been able to pick him out in a room since about my second month here, and so far that has been useful for nothing.

He’s got a hand on the back of one of the chairs and is standing at an angle to the table, talking in that steady manager voice he uses when everything is going wrong and he wants everyone else to think it isn’t. It gets on my nerves.

Mostly.

The room seems less all over the place with him in it.

I reach back into the sink for another pan just as a new front-of-house kid comes over carrying a tray of pint glasses and lowers it beside the rinse sink.

“No. Don’t put those there.”

He pauses. “Where do you want them?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here.”

He looks between me and the counter, then sets the tray down within inches of the sink anyway. By the time I move to stop him, he’s already gone.

Useful.

I shove the tray away from the edge and load the next rack. Steam washes over my forearms when I open the machine, hot enough to sting, and my T-shirt clings beneath the apron. The clean side has run out of space while dirty plates are still coming in. The glasses remain beside the wet steel, close enough to my elbow that anybody clipping the tray could tip them. I told him not to leave them there. That won’t matter if they break.

“Sam, we’re out of ramekins.”

“They haven’t come through yet.”

“Well, can you do them?”

I laugh under my breath. It comes out nasty. “I’ll pull some out of nowhere.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

My thumb drags along the side of my finger as I reach for another rack. I scrape one plate and rinse the next before I start loading.

A bus tub drops beside me while the rack is still half empty, then a second one follows. The first brings more dirty plates. The other is full of glasses, shoved into the same space I’ve already said is unsafe.

I look up. “Can you stop putting glass here?”

Kara stands across the counter, out of breath from the floor. “We haven’t got space out front.”

“I don’t have space in here.”

Her eyes move over the sink and the machine before settling on the clean plates stacked beside me. “We’re all busy, Sam.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

She leaves before I can make her take the glasses with her. I force the trays farther back and turn to the pans again. The cook who asked for sauté pans is already leaning through the pass.

“Sam.”

“I heard you.”

“Well?”

The rack hits the machine harder than I intended. “They’re burnt black. I’m doing them.”

He stares at me, and I wait until he turns away.

For three seconds, I almost have it under control. Then the fryer starts screaming again, the machine beeps while the clean side is still blocked, and cutlery crashes onto steel behind me. Something drops at the pass. I know those sounds belong to other people’s jobs, but my head turns toward every one of them anyway, trying to work out which problem is about to become mine.

The line still needs pans. Somebody asked for side plates. The ramekins haven’t gone through, the cutlery is waiting behind me, and the glasses are still beside the sink.

The machine beeps again.

I drag the rack out too fast and steam hits my face. Clean plates crowd one side while dirty ones stack behind me. The line is calling for pans, Kara is out front, and Jamie is probably still near the window. I keep my eyes on the rack. The glasses haven’t moved. There’s nowhere to clear them to, and I only need long enough to empty the clean side before somebody adds anything else.

A glass touches the steel with a small, hard tap, and my head turns before I see it. The fryer shrieks again. Somebody laughs behind me.

The steel lip of the sink suddenly stands out against everything around it. White light shines off the plates, water gathers beneath the glass tray, and the red ticket at the pass hangs lower than the rest.

I blink, push the rack toward the guide, miss it and pull it back.

“Hot behind.”

I move left too fast. My hand slips off the wet edge, and the pint glass catches the sink and bursts across the floor.

For a second, the crack is the only sound I can hear. A few faces turn, but most of the kitchen keeps moving and the printer starts again somewhere behind me.

“Shit.” I reach for the nearest piece.

Glass bites into my palm.

I pull back hard.

“Don’t.”

Jamie’s voice cuts across the pit, and my hand stops before the rest of me does.

He’s standing in the doorway with his sleeves rolled and loosening at the forearms, a folded receipt crushed in one hand. I notice the pressure of his fingers around it before I manage to look at his face. His eyes move over the broken glass, settle on me, then take in the station behind me. His expression changes when he sees it all.

I look down at my hand. Blood is gathering along a thin cut in my palm.

“It’s fine.”

Jamie comes nearer. “Let me see.”

“It’s hardly anything.”

“Sam.”

I keep my hand tucked in close. “I’ll deal with it in a minute.”

He looks over my shoulder. Water is running across the counter, there’s glass beside the sink, and the clean plates are still stacked where I haven’t had time to move them. The tray is sitting exactly where I said it couldn’t go.

Jamie looks toward the pass. “Who left these glasses here?”

Kara turns round. “We ran out of space out front.”

“Take them back.”

She hesitates. He looks at her again. He doesn’t raise his voice, but she comes over and takes the tray.

Then he points at the runner hanging around by the cutlery tubs. “Sort those before they end up in here again. Sam’s on the pit. He can’t cover your job too.”

The runner’s face goes red, and he grabs the tub.

Jamie faces me again and puts his hand out. “Come on. Show me.”

I give him my hand.

He’s careful with it, though he holds on firmly enough that I can’t pull away without making a thing of it. He turns my wrist under the light by the pass and checks the cut like there’s a method to it and he already knows it.

“It’s tiny.”

“Yeah.”

He lets go and grabs blue roll from the side. “Somebody grab a broom and dustpan,” he says as he wipes the sink edge.

The new kid jumps and hurries off.

“I can do it.”

Jamie glances at the blood on my palm, and I stop talking.

A server comes up beside him. “Jamie, table twelve has been waiting ten minutes for drinks.”

He shuts his eyes for a second, then looks at her. “So why are you standing here?”

She stares back.

Jamie sighs through his nose. “Go and speak to Jason.”

She leaves. He rubs the back of his neck, pulls the first aid box off the shelf and drops it onto the counter.

“Sink.”

“I need to clear the pit.”

“You needed to clear it before you cut yourself too.”

I look at him. He doesn’t move, so I go to the sink.

The water is cool over my palm. Once the blood thins out, the cut stings more and looks even more pointless. A stupid little mark that has stopped half the kitchen around me.

Jamie tears a gauze pad open with his teeth, then makes a face like he knows that was a bad idea.

“Here.”

He presses it into my hand and waits for me to hold it myself.

Someone shouts for side plates. The machine beeps behind me, and I turn toward it on instinct. Jamie steps across enough to block the view.

“Leave it.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You missed the rack twice before the glass broke.”

Heat spreads over my face. “I dropped one glass.”

“I know.”

I look down at the sink.

“When did you last eat?”

I give a short laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

I start to answer and find there isn’t much there. Toast, maybe. Coffee. After that, the shift has blurred into water and the smell of detergent.

“Sam?”

“I’m not sure.” I pick at the gauze with my thumb. “I had coffee. Maybe some toast.”

His mouth presses into a line. “Right.”

“I was busy.”

“So was everyone else.”

From the pass, someone calls, “Jamie, I need a manager.”

He looks over. “Give me a minute.”

“Jamie.”

His face hardens.

“Think for yourself for thirty seconds,” he says, low and flat. The whole corner hears it anyway.

Things go quiet around us for a moment before everyone starts moving again.

Jamie turns back to me. “Staffroom. Two minutes.”

“I’m not going on break.”

“I didn’t say break. I said sit down.”

“I’ll be back in there in a minute.”

“Fine. Once you’ve had water and eaten something.”

I fold my arms, forget about the gauze, then pull them apart again when it tugs. Standing there already feels stupid enough. “I don’t need you babysitting me.”

“I’m not.”

My face gets hotter. “Everyone’s staring.”

He looks at me differently then.

“They were,” he says. “They’ll have forgotten in about three seconds.”

I look around him at the pit, which has carried on without me. The plate rack still needs filling, and the pans are nowhere near done. Two orders are sitting out there getting colder while I stand by the sink with a tiny cut wrapped up like I’ve done real damage. Kara has finally taken the glasses. The runner is sorting the cutlery badly, though at least he’s doing it, and the new lad is sweeping up the pint glass. One stack of side plates is leaning toward the edge. I have to stop looking before I go back and fix it.

“I’m fine,” I say, though it comes out quieter.

“I know you’re trying to be.”

That gets under my skin immediately. Jamie looks where I’m looking.

“Nothing’s going to fall apart in five minutes.”

The light off the steel starts catching too hard again. Jamie sees it, and his voice drops.

“Sam?”

He says my name and waits.

I look at the pit once more, then back at him.

“Fine. A minute.”

His mouth twitches, which is irritating. “A few.”

I push the gauze tighter into my palm and look somewhere else. The cut barely matters. The place is still a state, and Jamie is standing there like leaving it for five minutes is a perfectly normal thing to do. The annoying part is that I want him to be right.

“You’ve made your point.”

“I normally do.”

I press my lips together.

He walks me into the staff room and directs me toward a chair.

“I’m checking out front,” he says. “Stay here until I come back. All right?”

“I said fine.”

The words come out with more bite than they need. Jamie hears it and lets it pass.

I push myself up anyway. He’s still standing there, calm and waiting, and I can’t work out whether sitting or moving would feel less stupid. Then his palm settles on my shoulder.

His palm barely presses down, but I know what he wants me to do.

I sit before I can turn it into another argument, my face getting hot as his hand leaves straight away. It really should help more than it does.

I’ve noticed his hands before. Obviously. I’d rather I hadn’t. He has the sort of hands you end up noticing when you’ve made the bad decision to fancy your manager, and now he’s standing over me during service like he already knows how this is going to go. Somewhere between his hand leaving my shoulder and him telling me to stay put, I stop trying to remember which pans are still in the sink.

With the pit out of sight, my head finally goes quiet enough for me to notice how tired I am. I stare at the table.

“Stay there,” Jamie says.

Then he goes.