Work Text:
This is not a memory.
When Sydney is four years old her mother dies and her world splits down the middle. One day her mother is here and the next day she’s gone, and Sydney is too young to really remember it but the feeling of being split stays with her everyday of her life. One half of her grew up too fast, the other half of her is always, perpetually four years old.
Sydney’s mother dies and every step she takes from then on echoes, ricocheting around the empty space she left behind. Every inch she grows, she grows around the outline of the woman who brought her into the world.
This is not a memory.
It’s a wound.
She wakes up before her alarm, as usual.
The airbed squeaks and groans beneath her as she rolls onto her back. It’s halfway deflated, puffed up at the sides as she sinks into the middle. She can hear the L rumbling in the distance, the cobalt blue of the early Chicago morning seeping through her drapeless bedroom windows.
4am.
The floorboards creak beneath her feet as she hauls herself out of the bed and walks toward the kitchen. She stretches her arms above her head, interlocking her fingers and pushing them outwards, feeling the satisfying ache in her shoulder blades.
As glad as she is to have her own space, the emptiness of her apartment is eerie. She can’t hear the sound of her dad snoring down the hall, or a roommate having a whispered phone call beneath the covers across the room.
It’s too chill.
When she’s in the restaurant with a headache pounding at her temple she wants nothing more than to be in a quiet space. But here, now, in a quiet space, she longs for the noise of the restaurant.
With a heavy sigh she fills the kettle with cold tap water and flicks it on, leaning back against the kitchen counter and rubbing at her eyes as it crackles to life, the sound of boiling echoing through the apartment and filling some of the empty space.
She lets her eyes fall shut. And behind her eyelids she sees brightly coloured images from a dream she’d forgotten she’d had. She hears the crisp sound of grill, the the taste of spice bursting and spreading a phantom tingle across her tongue, the smell of smoke—
Her eyes shoot open as she looks around the barren room for something to write with, remembering vaguely that she needs to buy a new notebook since she lost the last one.
Her fingers find a pencil, which will have to do, because the vivid taste is rapidly fading from her mouth and she hasn’t felt inspired like this in so long that it would be a shame to waste this moment.
She leans over the kitchen counter, scribbles quickly on the back of an old newspaper—
grilled charred suya prawns
yam (?) croquettes
+ fermented chilli ?
Fall is finally here.
It’s been a long time coming. It seemed, even as she’d been packing to leave Chicago, that summer hadn’t quite wanted to end.
It had been a hot one. Sticky and stuffy, and she’d spent it driving a fucking UPS van, and Sydney had never wanted to see leaves die so much as she had this past month.
But now she’s in New York, and fall is finally here.
It’s not what she’d thought it would be. When she’d thought of New York she’d imagined herself living in an episode of Living Single. What she hadn’t realised is that there’s more to New York than New York City and the CIA campus feels like a rural world of its own. So far removed from the hustle and bustle of the Manhattan she’d grown up seeing on TV and in comic books.
It’s not how she imagined it to be, but she can’t deny that it’s beautiful here. Especially as leaves the colour of beets and Yukon gold potatoes crunch beneath the soles of her boots.
Fall is here.
It took its time at first, arrived slowly and then all at once. And with it, the semester starts. A fresh new page. The first step of a new adventure.
Sydney closes her eyes and tilts her head upwards, smiling as the mid afternoon sun coats her face.
She orders a ginger tea and a black coffee with one sugar.
She doesn’t know how he can abide the taste of black coffee, but then again he practically eats cigarettes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
She waits outside the restaurant for a moment, closes her eyes, breathes deeply, listens to the rumble of the L train overhead in the distance. Her ears are still ringing, her blood still rushing from the adrenaline of service and really she wants nothing more than to go home, maybe throw up again, shower off the smell of the kitchen (as best she can—it lives beneath her skin now), and crawl into bed.
But she won’t. Because Carmen is inside. And despite it all, she’d meant it when she’d told him beneath the table that he wasn’t alone.
Even if he hadn’t.
His fingers are freezing when they brush hers as he takes the cup from her, and for a brief second she wants to wrap her arms around him, wants to hold him tight and let the heat from her body warm his. Better yet, she wants to make him soup. Gumbo, maybe. Something that can thaw him out on the inside because Lord knows the boy needs it.
She dismisses the urge as quickly as it arrives, though. Reminds herself that just because nurturing is part of her character doesn’t mean she owes it to anyone.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, and he sounds like he means it. But she’s realised lately that he has a way of saying things that makes his words sound genuine. Whether or not they actually are is a whole other issue.
“We made it.” She shrugs.
“No you made it.”
I know. “With everyone else.”
“I left you alone.”
I know. And we were better for it. “So, don’t let it happen again.”
“It’s never gonna happen again.”
And there he goes again, with that tone that says that he means it, but she can’t help but wonder if he knows the meaning of those words. She wonders if he knows what it means to never repeat a mistake, to end a cycle, to never leave someone alone.
Ironically enough, she thinks there is at least one person in Carmen’s orbit that truly does know what all of those things mean.
“You should call,” Sydney breathes.
“You think she wants to hear from me right now?”
The word hits like a sucker punch, reminding her that somewhere between this morning and tonight the two of them have stopped speaking the same language.
Sydney fights the urge to flick him between the brows as she answers, “That’s not who I was talking about.” Idiot.
He gets it, then. Has the decency to look a little embarrassed. And then they’re sipping their drinks in silence, Sydney allowing the ginger tea to calm her stomach while she wonders desperately what magical tea she can sip that will calm her mind.
The sound of the seat belt unbuckling echoes exceptionally loud around the exceptionally quiet car. It’s like that sound of metal scraping against metal bounces off the doors and windows and reverberates in her skull.
Sydney winces, glances over to where her dad’s hands are still gripping the steering wheel as if holding on to the leather so tightly will somehow stop her from leaving.
“Dad?” Sydney says softly, laying a hand atop his as she hears the whir of a plane flying overhead, her stomach somersaulting at the sound. “I don’t wanna miss my flight.”
He seems to unfreeze, blinking and loosening his grip on the wheel as he nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go,” he says with a soft smile, finally pulling the keys out of the car and opening the door.
Looks like carpal tunnel syndrome. Quite common in people with your profession.
Sydney blinks up at the ceiling in the darkness, a gentle hand cupped around her throbbing wrist as she replays the doctor’s words over and over again in her head.
Quite common in people with your profession.
She wishes she’d asked how common it is for people in her profession to develop carpal tunnel from the repeated strain of only being allowed to fucking zest for eight months straight.
She wishes she knew how many people had to ice their hand during every break at work because their boss was a racist, sexist relic of a chef who’d only brought her on as a two-for-one diversity hire.
She winces as she sits up in bed, shuffling to the edge and swinging her legs down to the floor, trying not to put any pressure on her hand as she stands to her feet. She keeps it tucked close to her chest, like some kind of broken wing, making her way to the bathroom.
She opens the cabinet, swallows two painkillers dry and stands in front of the mirror as time quickly slips by and the sun begins to rise. Until the birds outside are louder than the stuttered electrical hum of the dim, flickering lightbulb above her head.
She needs to get ready for work.
Perhaps today is the day she’ll finally tell Chef to kiss her ass.
As soon as the phone starts ringing her stomach lurches.
She could throw up.
This is the most millennial shit ever. She’s never been this terrified to make a phone call.
It rings and rings, and her nerves abate because it’s probably as she’d suspected—a really weird scam. Some idiot probably put a fake name and number up so that people would call it, and she’s probably gonna have to spend the next few months warding off fucking cold callers and fraudsters until she finally gives up and smashes her phone to pieces with—
“Hello?”
Sydney pauses the pacing she hadn’t realised she was doing. “Um. Hi?” she croaks into the receiver. A beat of silence passes when she realises the guy on the other end of the phone is waiting for her to say something. “Um. Sorry— Is this… am I speaking to Chef Carmen Berzatto?”
The voice is still quiet on the other end of the phone, and all Sydney hears is a faint crackle and exhale which sounds like he’s probably smoking.
“Who’s asking?” the voice replies after a painfully long moment.
“I’m Sydney,” she says slowly, a crease between her brows, suddenly wondering if she punched all the numbers in correctly. “I’m…calling about the sous position. At-at your restaurant? Um, I saw an advert—”
“Shit,” the voice mutters, and when he speaks again his tone is different, marginally more professional. “Right. Yeah. Sorry. I’m Carmy—”
Carmy…?
“Nice to meet you,” he says, then pauses. “No. Not meet you. Just…thanks for calling. You cook?”
Sydney blinks rapidly, trying to keep up and avoid the conversational whiplash he’s inducing. “Yeah. Yes.” She nods, pacing again as she tries to find her spot in the mental script she’d put together before calling. “Yes, I have years of experience in—”
“Can you stage?”
Sydney’s eyes widen as her feet come to a halt again. “Er…yes? Yes, of course. W-when?”
“Tomorrow?”
“T-Tomorrow it is. Thank you, Chef. I’ll see you then.”
“Great, thank you, Chef.”
Sydney keeps the phone held to her ear for a full minute after he ends the call.
lamb beef short rib
Cola braise
Her date praises her for being ‘a woman who can cook’, and then proceeds to spend the next five minutes complaining about women no longer having ‘traditional American values’.
She goes home with her surf ‘n’ turf cling wrapped for her to heat up and scoff down later.
He goes home wearing half a glass of her red wine.
“How we doing, Chef?”
Sydney lifts her right hand, using the back of her wrist to swipe the sweat off of her forehead as she hears Chef Donnie’s voice in her ear, his footsteps emerging behind her. She tenses, braces herself for the raised voice, the vaguely sexist or racist (or both) comment.
“Um, good, Chef,” she says, wincing as her hand shakes and thickens the slice of fish beneath her knife. “I just…um—”
She’s checking out already, thinking of the next spot on her long list of places to apply to after she inevitably gets fired just thirty minutes into her first fucking lunch service at avec and—
“Can you put your knife down for me, Chef?”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. The knife clatters against the counter as she sets it down, shaking out the stiffness in her wrist as she shakes her head quickly. “I’m…so sorry, Chef. I…have a thing with my hand. It’s healed, just sometimes it locks up a bit and slows me do—”
“Remind me where you were before this, Chef.”
She turns to look at him quickly, a crease pulling between her brows. The way he smiles, pushing up his thick rimmed black glasses as he leans back against the counter disarms her slightly, calms her nerves.
“Um, I was at Heritage, Chef.”
Something in his expression shifts, like some kind of understanding washes over him. “Ah,” is all he says, nodding with a tight lipped smile as he folds his arms. “You know, the kitchen is always a chaotic place. It’s how we respond to that chaos that matters.”
Sydney swallows softly, nodding her head. “Yes, Chef.”
“Chaos is the natural way of the universe. Creativity isn’t born from order.”
Her gaze fixes itself on his hands, the way they move gently through the air as he gesticulates.
“You learn to ride the chaos, you know? Like jazz. You learn to hear the rhythm of the kitchen.”
“The rhythm of the kitchen,” Sydney repeats, her voice a soft breath.
Donnie smiles, nods back at her. “The rhythm of the kitchen. Whenever the chaos starts to overwhelm you just close your eyes and find the rhythm. Make sense?”
Sydney smiles, taking a deep breath and letting it out between parted lips. “Perfect sense, Chef.”
“Good.” Donnie reaches forward to tap her lightly on the shoulder as he pushes himself off of the counter. “Take your time, Chef.”
And with those four words he’s gone. Four words that Sydney has never heard another chef say to her before. And she cherishes them like a mantra, like a prayer.
Take your time, Chef.
“Hey, um, I know tonight was really…a lot. Um, I just hope you know that we’re all here for you… um, whatever you need, and take all the time you need. You don’t even need to respond to this at all—” please don’t respond to this at all— “Um. So sorry, Marcus.”
When she ends the call she feels the split widening, the canyon of her grief growing more hollow.
And she wonders how to comfort a friend when, over twenty years later, she still hasn’t mastered the art of comforting herself.
“You leaving or something?”
Sydney baulks, like a deer in headlights, or like that time she got caught by her dad when she’d snuck out to a Sean Paul concert with her cousin one night.
She shrugs it off with a laugh, continues chopping her carrots—her perfect squares are suddenly half a millimetre off. “I mean…leaving is a tricky word, isn’t it?” she stammers, blinking down at her station. “Like, what does it really mean to leave? One might argue that—”
“Yo, cut the bullshit, Syd.” Simone drops her knife, turning to look at Sydney face on. “You seriously going somewhere else?”
Sydney sighs, pressing the back of her wrist between her brows as she sets her knife down and turns to face Simone. She glances around the kitchen, watches as everyone goes about their jobs. She lowers her voice anyway.
“I’m… I got an offer.”
“From where?”
“Heritage,” Sydney whispers. She jerks her head back a little at the expression that spreads across her friend’s face. “Okay…whoa? What’s…what’s that look for?”
Simone is quiet for a moment, before shaking her head and turning back to her station, reaching for her knife. “Nothing. Nothing, just…I’ve heard some shit about the Chef at that place.”
Sydney frowns. “I’ve heard shit about every Chef at every place,” she mumbles, “but…a step up is a step up, you know?”
“Didn’t realise Verdana was below Heritage in the food chain.”
“No, I—” Sydney sighs, “I’d be going from a line cook to a sous. That’s—”
“Hey,” Simone shrugs, dropping her knife down and wiping her palms on the cloth hanging from her apron, “if you’re happy I’m happy, Syd.”
“Thanks. And, you know, it’s not set in stone. I’m still deciding. And even if I go, I mean…you’ll still see me. We’ll still hang out, you know?”
Simone looks at her with a hint of bleak amusement in her expression. “Sure,” she breathes, before turning on her heel and making her way across the kitchen.
Sydney watches with her bottom lip held between her teeth as Simone walks away. And a sense of foreboding overcomes her.
She doesn’t realise till much later that restaurants are like family homes—once you leave, everything changes.
Syd. Syd! Refire. Re–fucking–fire.
Heard, Chef.
Her beef isn’t with Claire.
It really isn’t.
For what it’s worth she seems like a nice person. Like, really fucking ominously nice, but it’s whatever.
Claire, bless her heart, is a person who fell in love with another person and that’s that.
The problem is, when did Carmen become a fucking person?
What they don’t tell you when you decide to become a professional chef is that you stop being a person. You don’t have time for relationships outside of the kitchen and the only relationships you have inside the kitchen are the dysfunctional familial kind.
That’s just how it is. That’s all Sydney has ever known.
There’s respite, though. In creativity, in flavours, in a dish that your own hands created, in working with people who seem to understand your vision without so much as a word—
In quiet moments beneath a table where you share your most prevalent and guarded fears.
Outside of that, personhood doesn’t exist. You’re a robot, running on minimal sleep and the fumes from the alley behind the restaurant, wrapped up in trauma and trying to not let it consume you and the people around you.
But then, Carmen has the audacity to get a girlfriend.
The audacity to try and be human outside of the kitchen and it feels…like betrayal.
Sydney can’t remember the last time she dated, the last time she did late night phone calls and sex at sunrise. She can’t remember the last time she was loved and not just accepted, wanted and not just needed.
That’s just the way it is, isn’t it?
Except Carmen has broken the mould. It’s the last thing Sydney had expected from him, and it makes her realise that they’re not the same. That he has more space than her, more leeway. That love is a privilege that she doesn’t have the time for. Everything is too important, every second counts, but maybe not when you’re a man, maybe not when you’re Carmen.
The problem isn’t Claire.
And perhaps the problem isn’t even Carmen.
The problem is that for a brief, scary moment, Sydney is exposed to the loneliness that’s lingered in her periphery for as long as she can remember.
…plantain waffle
lime yuzu ice cream
honey glazed walnut crumb (!!)
Sydney rests her head back against the window as she watches the Chicago lights pass her by. The train rumbles beneath her, her music seeping into her ears, calming her brain.
She’s in her own world, so far removed that she almost gets off at the wrong stop again. She hasn’t done that in a while but there was a time where she did it at least three times a week. Got off four stops early only to realise she was making her way to a restaurant she no longer worked at.
She doesn’t do it much anymore.
When she finally comes to her stop she tightens the patchwork wool jacket around her body as she steps off the train, hiking her tote bag up higher on her shoulder. The snow crunches beneath her boots as she walks, more beginning to hover down from the sky in soft white misshapen flecks.
The warm glow of the restaurant makes her smile, and she wipes her feet on the doormat before pushing her way through the door.
There are familiar jovial voices coming from the kitchen, and she makes a beeline through the swinging door.
“Morning, chefs,” she says with a smile as she shucks off her jacket and folds it over the crook of her arm,
“Morning, Chef Sydney,” the small chorus of voices greets her.
“Staff meeting in fifteen, please.”
“Chef.”
“Thank you, chefs,” she says softly, winking as she slips into the office and shuts the door behind her. She frowns at the sound of the office phone ringing, and hangs her jacket up, placing her bag on the seat before leaning over to answer the call.
“Iris restaurant, how can I help you?”
“Yeah, hi, I’ve been trying to get a reservation at your spot for fucking ages. Any chance you can help me out?”
Sydney grins, shaking her head as she sits down slowly on the edge of the desk. “I think I can fit you in on Thursday the 3rd. Of September. Two years from now.”
“Michelin stars really change people, huh.”
Sydney rolls her eyes, the smile still spread wide across her face. “Go fuck yourself, Carm.” She laughs softly when she hears him do the same. “You need something or are you just calling to call?”
“What do you think?” She hears the squeak and click of a door shutting quietly and imagines him leaning back against the door of his own office. “Feel like I haven’t seen you a lot lately.”
Sydney bites her tongue, refrains from making some joke about him being a stage three clinger. “Tomorrow,” she says softly.
Tomorrow is Sunday. The one day of the week when Iris and The Bear are closed.
Carmen hums quietly on the other end of the phone. “Tomorrow.”
It takes her fifteen minutes of vigorous scrubbing to realise that the stain she saw on the kitchen floor was nonexistent.
“Here you go, baby.”
Sydney groans softly as she sees the steam coming from the hot cup of tea that her father places on the kitchen table beside her laptop. “Thank you so much,” she says, her voice gravelly as he squeezes her shoulders.
“It’s almost one in the morning, you know.”
Sydney nods as she sips her drink. “I know, dad. I just…want to get this finished so I can take it into work with me tomorrow.”
“And why are these shapes so important?”
Sydney tuts. “They’re not just shapes , dad, they’re diagrams. I’m putting together a COGS for The Beef. It’s a business thing.”
Her dad hums softly. “And this’ll get you a permanent job there?”
“It’s…” Sydney trails off, taking a deep breath before continuing, “it’s more than that, dad. I’m just…trying to get the restaurant to run more efficiently. And anyway, you should be happy I’m doing all this. How often do you see me put my stats degree to good use?”
Since she’d left UoC she’d been pretty set in her opinion that majoring in statistics with a minor in Spanish had been absolutely useless, and she’s maintained that opinion pretty much steadily—until now, when she has a boss who can’t do math for shit and a latina colleague who pretends not to speak English.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy, baby,” her dad says, kissing her on the back of the head. He chuckles softly when he pulls back. “You know, seeing you sitting here at the kitchen table refusing to go to bed reminds me of when you were younger and you used to do that scrapbooking thing? You know? When you cut out the pieces of—”
“I know what scrapbooking is, dad,” Sydney says with a tired smile, “and I remember.”
Her father grins. “You’d always ask ‘daddy, do you have any papers or magazines? I need the pictures!’” He laughs wistfully. “I miss when you did that. I feel like you enjoyed it.”
Sydney leans her head on his shoulder briefly, shutting her eyes as she fights back a yawn. “Don’t worry, dad. I enjoy this too.”
There’s mould in her dorm room.
And the canteen food gave her food poisoning yesterday.
But this morning she saw the back of Alain Ducasse as he turned the corner in the hallway and maybe culinary school isn’t all bad.
The sound of the tape peeling grates against Sydney’s eardrums as she tears off a long piece to stick across the top of the cardboard box.
It’s the last one.
She’s standing in the middle of a hollow garage that used to be her favourite place in the world. Now it’s full of cardboard boxes and the ground echoes with every step she takes. It seems smaller somehow. Like this place that once was big enough to hold all her hopes and dreams has shrunk, curled in on itself and become a mausoleum for everything she’d thought she’d achieved.
The movers will be here any minute.
The house is already empty—her dad having been back and forth over the past couple of days that he’d taken off work to help her move her personal belongings over to his place. That had been the easy part. Packing up Sheridan Road has proved to be the hardest. Both physically and emotionally. She’s felt the weight of every single box in her arms and her heart. And each box had gotten heavier and heavier by the minute.
Sydney sighs heavily, adjusting her satin scarf on her head before placing her hands on her hips and taking one last glance around the room.
The movers will be here any minute.
From: Metro-North Railroad (MNR)
To: Sydney Adamu
RE: Your one way ticket to NYC
Congratulations, you’re headed to NYC!
Please make sure your booking details are correct and familiarise yourself with your journey times.
Outbound Mon, Feb 14, 2022
134 min, direct
Departing: 06:25 Poughkeepsie
Arriving: 07:59 125th Street - Harlem
Click here to amend your booking.
Thank you for travelling with MNR.
Marcus’s speech is beautiful. And his grief is palpable, thick and reaching around the echoey chapel.
His grief takes so much space that it somehow seems to press up against her own.
cassava fries with tomato sauce scotch bonnet and red pepper sauce.*
*sweet red pepper sauce.
crunchy okra ladies’ fingers in a maple chilli dressing. (served cold??)
I wouldn’t even want to do this without you. You know, you make me better at this.
She wonders if he knows what he’s even saying. Because those words aren’t empty. Those are the kind of words that people hang their futures on. The kind of words that people say to each other before an altar as they exchange vows.
And he gives her a monogrammed chef jacket that fits like a glove and must have cost him a fortune and—
And it feels something like an engagement ring.
This is not a memory.
After Sydney’s mother dies, a few days after the funeral, her father wakes her up early in the morning. It’s still dark outside, and Sydney is still half asleep when she stands on her bathroom stool and brushes her teeth.
He plays a CD when they get in the car, the mellow, heartbreaking voice of Tracy Chapman serenading them as she watches Chicago pass them by through the window with tired eyes, the soft fur of her Snoopy plushie beneath her small fingers.
They pull up at the lakefront just off Sheridan Road, and her dad kisses her gently on the forehead before unsnapping her seatbelt and helping her out of the car. She holds Snoopy’s hand one of hers, and her father’s in the other as he helps her climb up on a rock. She looks down at her feet—mismatched shoes—as she finds her balance on the cratered stone and hears her father sniff beside her.
And as the sky turns a pale shade of cyan with the rising of the sun, a burnt orange line thinning out just above the deep blue lake, a gentle wind carries her mother’s ashes out into the water.
I love you, baby. Take care of yourself.
Sydney hears her father’s words ring round and round in her head as she attempts to fasten her seatbelt with shaky fingers.
“You need some help with that honey?” a voice says from beside her.
Sydney turns to look over at the person in the middle seat, a cheerful older woman, kind of Octavia Spencer–looking. Sydney smiles awkwardly. “Please.”
“It’s a lot easier than it looks,” the woman says before reaching over and snapping Sydney’s seatbelt on in three seconds flat.
“Oh. Um. Thanks a lot.”
“Nervous flyer?” the woman asks.
Sydney lets out a shaky breath between parted lips as she adjusts in her seat. “First time, actually.”
“Oh! You’ll be fine. Going anywhere special?”
“Er…New York? I’m…I’m actually going to culinary school. So…yeah.”
The woman’s smile brightens. “Well, good luck. I’m sure you’ll knock it out of the park.”
Sydney nods her thanks, but the sound of the plane engine starting makes her stomach do a 360 flip.
She prays when the plane starts to drive slowly to the runway—she can’t remember the last time she’d ever done that, but it seems that if there’s ever a time to believe in God it’s when you’re about to be thrust a gazillion feet up into the air in a pressurised container.
When the plane takes off her breathing speeds up, her eyes sting, the taste of bile rises in the back of her throat.
But then, the lady beside her reaches gently for her hand, and almost as soon as Sydney squeezes hers back (probably a little too tightly), the plane begins its steady glide. And actually, it's not all that bad.
“Okay,” Sydney breathes, lifting the hem of her thick standard-issue, dirt-brown UPS t-shirt to wipe the sweat gathering across her forehead. She’s pretty sure her shirt is soaked down the middle of her back, but there’s only so much she can do working under the thick, stagnant Chicago summer heat.
She drops the box on the front porch, and unhooks her scanner from the belt of her pants as she prepares to ring the doorbell.
In the blink of an eye, the package is gone, snatched from under her nose by some scrawny looking neighbourhood kid who takes off running down the road at the speed of light.
“Fuck!” Sydney yells, her legs moving before her mind, running after the thief with strides that she will most definitely feel in her hamstrings later. “Hey! You little…fucking scoundrel. Get the fuck—”
She increases her pace when the boy looks over his shoulder with wide eyes at the closing distance between them. “Shit!” he breathes.
“Yeah, shit is right!” Sydney shouts. “I’m gonna outrun you, and then I’m gonna take you down. Don’t think I wouldn’t flykick a kid. I would definitely flykick a kid!”
The boy gives up, seemingly more bark than bite, and dashes the parcel onto the nearest lawn before booking it around the corner and out of sight.
“Yeah, you better run!” Sydney shouts, slowing to a stop in front of the parcel.
She bends over, hands on her knees as the adrenaline slowly wears off and leaves her gasping for breath. “Fuck,” she wheezes, collapsing to the floor and lying flat on her back, blinking up at the clouds, “I need a fucking gym membership.”
Sydney wishes she was surprised at the fact that all the articles only mention the impeccable genius of Carmen Berzatto.
In reality, she’s spent her whole life working twice as hard for half as much, and this is perhaps the most predictable turn of events she ever could have imagined.
It’s funny that the people who typed these spreads will never have a clue that Carmen has spent more time killing the restaurant than curing it lately.
They’ll never have a clue how hard her hands have worked to keep it alive.
Sydney absently peels as the cracked paint on the windowsill she sits on, taking in a long drag of the blunt between her fingers.
She holds the smoke in her lungs, revels in the burn and feels a little pride in the fact that she’s come a long way since the eighteen year old girl who couldn’t do this without almost coughing out an internal organ.
She leans over and blows the smoke out of the window in short staggered puffs, reaching over to hand the blunt to the waiting hand opposite her.
“Yo,” Sydney says, resting her head back against the wall, “you know at lunch today, when everyone was talking about…all their favourite chefs and shit?”
“Mmm…” Aisha hums, holding the smoke behind her nose as she speaks, “yeah, what about it?”
Sydney shrugs, her gaze flitting out of the window briefly, down into the college courtyard. “Did you…recognise any of the names?”
Aisha shrugs. “A couple. Not all. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sydney murmurs, watching the tip of the paper burn down between her fingers before she brings it to her lips again. “I just…hardly knew anyone. Felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. Like, I can tell you my top ten episodes of Ramsay’s Hotel Hell but—”
“Because that shit’s fire,” Aisha snorts out a laugh, “I’m surprised that man hasn’t given himself a heart attack yet.“
“Oh my gosh. When he pulls out the black light?” Sydney laughs.
“Fucking hilarious.”
Sydney grins. She’s thankful for Aisha and conversations like these.
Sydney has never been unpopular. Awkward black girl, yes. But unpopular? Never. She’s funny, and kind, and can hold a good conversation. She had plenty of friends in school, and college, and most of the places she’s worked at.
But culinary school is a different beast. The people here are different people. And in every conversation she has she finds she can’t quite stop playing a bad version of herself.
“I don’t know,” Sydney says again, shaking her head and brushing some ash off her jeans, “I guess I just feel—”
“Like you’re less-than because you don’t know half the names of these middle aged white men who think black pepper is spicy?”
Sydney tips her head back and laughs. “You’re…so stupid.”
“I’m serious!” Aisha laughs. “Who cares about these ancient gatekeepers of the culinary industry who all graduated from the Cordon Blur or whatever?”
Sydney kisses her teeth. “Now you know damn well it’s Le Cordon Bleu .”
“Whatever,” Aisha waves a hand with a smirk, “all I’m saying is, find your own heroes. Who cares about anyone else’s?”
Sydney rests her chin in her palm, casting her gaze back out of the window. “Yeah. I guess.”
”Why can’t we put everything that we have into everything that we can?”
This is a partial memory.
When Sydney is ten, she and her father drive upwards of twelve hours to visit an aunt and some cousins on her mom’s side of the family in New Orleans.
It’s the first time in a long time that Sydney gets to eat food that isn’t takeout, frozen, or one of three meals that her dad knows how to make. Her paper plate is overfull and bending from the grease seeping through the bottom of it, and it’s as if everyone in the neighbourhood and their mother is at the cookout, and it’s loud—so much louder that nights spent at home watching Martin reruns with her dad—and she learns how to jump rope with other people holding the rope at either side.
They never seem to run out of food. And conversation. And laughter.
And maybe, at ten years old, that’s when Sydney realises she might like to be a chef one day.
cobia (robata grilled?) with mushrooms and truffle sauce
Sydney stares at the phone, her leg bouncing uncontrollably beneath the makeshift desk in the corner of her living room that’s been designated as the office.
It’s 9:30.
The line opens at 8.
No one is going to call. Again.
She tries not to take it to heart, the fact that it’s been almost two months and she hasn’t had a single call other than that one old lady looking for directions and that weirdo who thought he’d called a phone sex line—and had proceeded to ask her what she was wearing even after she’d politely let him know he had the wrong number.
It’s disheartening, but she's been assured, not unusual. Everyone says it’s normal to not gain any traction in the first few months, hell, even the first few years —despite how many stupid tik tok videos she’s uploaded of herself making dishes as advertisements. Her last one had a grand total of five views.
She’s this close to giving in and posting a video of herself doing the renegade dance in her chef whites.
It’s not unusual, but Sydney has always hated the learning curve. Perhaps it’s a symptom of being an only child, or of trying to exist as a black woman in a white male dominated field but she’s always felt the need to be the best. She doesn’t award herself the same grace as the people who tell her that this is normal. She doesn’t give herself the same space to grow sideways—it’s upwards or nothing.
No one is going to call. No one has been calling. Except for old lady, and pervert man, and—
She rolls her eyes fondly as the phone begins to flash, a familiar number popping up on the screen. She lets out a huff of breath and presses the answer button. “Hello?”
“Ahem, yes, can I please speak to the beautiful, intelligent, showstopping owner of this establishment?”
Sydney shakes her head with a grimace. “I don’t know about all that, but what can I do for you?”
Her father chuckles on the other end of the phone. “Nothing. Just called to say I love you and I’m proud of you baby.”
“Thank y—”
“And if it gets too tough, or if you need some—”
“I’m hanging up now!” Sydney interrupts. “Love you, bye!”
She sighs softly as she places the phone back down on the desk and drops her head into her hands. She groans when she feels it begin to buzz again beside her elbow. With a muttered curse she reaches for it and presses answer, the fingers of her free hand pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Dad, it’s not cute anymore, stop calling my work phone.”
“Oh…”
Sydney pauses, straightening up as the sound of a voice that is decidedly not her dad’s trickles through the speaker. She pulls the phone away from her ear and curses when she sees the unfamiliar number.
“Sorry, um—”
“Um, sorry, I must have the wrong number,” the woman says through the phone, “I thought this was a catering service? I was looking for a, er, Syd—”
“Sydney Adamu,” Sydney rushes to finish for her, standing up from her chair and beginning to pace up and down for no reason at all. “Um, yes, sorry, that’s me. I’m sorry, that was—” she takes a breath, pressing her fist to her forehead as she slows down, a smile finally spreading across her face. “Sorry, let’s start this again. You’ve reached Sheridan Road Catering, how can I help you?”
Take your time, Chef.
“Family style? Two tops, booths?”
“Danish design. Tasting menu at the bar.”
“Window on the side.”
“For sandwiches.”
“Yeah.”
It occurs to her suddenly that the two of them are speaking a language that no one else in the room understands. To any listening ear there are parts missing from this conversation. And yet. Yet , they comprehend each other with absolute fluency. Like native speakers of this stunted, incomplete prose.
“Okay. What do we call it?”
And Carmen is looking at her like he’s tying every single one of his hopes and dreams to the blonde ends of her braids, leaving them there for safekeeping.
This might be the worst decision of her life or the best thing she’s ever done.
It remains to be seen.
Take your time, Chef.
Alinea isn’t bad.
Actually, it’s good. It’s a safehaven of sorts after Heritage. That’s not a tall bar, though. Even the chaos of Smoque was a safehaven after Heritage. But running fucking brunch service and tweezing herbs onto dishes she couldn’t care less about is squeezing the life out of her.
Running brunch and tweezing herbs is the reason why she’s standing in the alley half way through a cigarette when she doesn’t even smoke.
She hates that cooking has started to feel so much like a job. She wants to recover the joy of it, start her own business, build her own dreams instead of adding bricks to someone else’s.
She takes one last drag of her half-finished cigarette before dropping it to the floor and crushing it beneath the tip of her Birkenstocks. She turns to her colleague—the line cook who cried three times during today's brunch rush—and says, “I think I wanna go to culinary school.”
The menu is Italian as fuck. Which, in and of itself, isn’t a problem. But Carmen has seemingly been on a mission to remove every last bit of life from it too.
The dishes are empty and cold.
The kitchen is sterile.
But despite it all, Sydney keeps on tweezing the herbs.
You are an excellent chef
You are also a piece of shit
This isn’t on me.
And she’s speaking to him, and looking him directly in the eyes, but she’s also somehow looking straight through him, speaking to every damn man she’s worked under for years who has coasted on natural talent and privilege.
The mirage breaks as she looks at him now, the illusion shatters, and for the first time since she met him she realises that she built his pedestal far, far too high.
As she walks away, hearing him call after her, hearing the clatter of whatever he throws in her direction, she vows to herself to never make that mistake again.
“You sure you can handle this?”
“Yes, Chef.”
“You know this isn’t the fucking cookout, right?”
“Chef.”
“We’re not specialising in fried chicken and watermelon here.”
Kiss my ass, Chef.
“That everything?” Sydney asks, an almost full trash bag wedged between her knees as she sits on the stool Marcus had given her. She watches as he roots around in the corners of the closet quietly, watches the floating dust as it catches the light through the window of the dark room, hovering and settling.
“Just this that was wedged in the corner,” Marcus says, stepping out of the closet holding a brightly patterned satin headscarf between his fingers. “It’s weird, I don’t remember seeing her wear this one,” he mutters softly as he passes it to her.
Sydney takes the scarf with gentle hands, her brow furrowing as she turns it over and inspects the intricate pattern. “I wonder why, it’s beautiful,” she breathes.
“You want it?”
Sydney looks up quickly, eyes wide as she shakes her head. “N-no, I couldn’t—”
“Syd,” Marcus says with a mellow smile, “take the scarf. It’d look pretty on you.”
“Are you—”
“I’m sure. You…you never met her, but I know she’d have loved you. It would mean a lot to me for you to have a piece of her.”
Sydney takes a heavy breath. “Sure, just fucking…guilt me into it, why don’t you?” she murmurs with a smile, before nodding her head and folding the scarf carefully into her lap. “Thank you, Marcus.”
“Thank you.”
As she looks down at the scarf in her lap, Sydney wonders if maybe collecting pieces of other people’s moms will help her fill the space left behind by hers.
The monogrammed chef jacket had felt like an engagement ring, but now, as Sydney stares down the partnership agreement burning a hole in her inbox, she realises she has cold feet when it comes to marriage.
I said it was good. I didn’t say it was perfect.
Take your time, Chef.
Every second counts.
The blood orange is genius.
As a chef, Sydney is never just eating. She’s eating and thinking, eating and analysing every flavour, logging every ingredient, trying to find her way into the mind of the person who made the dish and rummage around. She’s eating and taking notes, creating, improving, being inspired.
But right now, for what feels like the first time in her life, her mind shuts off.
The sounds of chatter and cutlery clanging go silent all around her, and for a brief, sweet moment everything stops existing.
And she closes her eyes, and almost cries because the dish tastes like a memory.
And she thinks, distantly, that this must be the pinnacle of perfect food—the taste of a memory you didn’t even know you had.
Her eyes prickle, and her lashes flutter as a smile spreads across her face.
And when she opens her eyes again, the world—as if draped in blood orange—is so much more vibrant than it’s ever been.
Every second counts.
Next stop: 125th Street - Harlem
This is not a memory.
When Sydney is two years old, just before her mother’s condition begins to deteriorate, her little three-member family takes a day trip to Lincoln Park for her second birthday.
Her dad packs a picnic consisting of the leftover deep-dish they ordered the night before, some fruit from the local market, and a few of Sydney’s tiny juice boxes.
He remembers to pack the candles, but forgets the birthday cake.
Her mom laughs, shakes her head and reaches into the picnic basket. Always one to make something out of nothing, she sticks a candle in the top of a blood orange, lighting it and helping Sydney to blow it out, before cutting it up and sharing out the slices between them.
Sydney’s very first taste of blood orange is on the very last birthday that her mother was strong enough to celebrate.
This is not a memory.
This is day one.