Chapter 7

Sunday was more of the same except I got to work earlier to help the brunch crowd, which was half people from town and half people headed south out of the national park on their way back home. Instead of coming in early or staying late, Hanna had us there just in time for me to help prep in the kitchen and for her to prep her section.

By one, the lunch crowd had just about died down, just in time for Willie to show up. The Blue Ridge only had music on Friday and Saturday nights, so Willie normally didn’t come around except for those days, showing up in the late afternoon and playing until well after two in the morning. I felt terrible that he was coming up just to see me, but it turns out he had a small house one street over, making it a short walk. I felt even more guilty when I found out that he’d talked to Chef and now planned on coming up every day to work with me some after I finished my homework and training with Chef. He swore he didn’t mind, saying he spent most days just sitting around his house, working on music. He planned on doing the same thing, but just up at the Blue Ridge so he could explain what he was doing as he did it, or put me through technique exercises if he wasn’t feeling like working on anything.

The level that these two people had gone to, and Hanna who had agreed to take me up to the Blue Ridge or arrange a ride for me when she couldn’t, was overwhelming, especially considering I’d known all of them for less than a week.

The morning was set aside for brunch, where we made some of the typical lunch items along with breakfast stuff like bacon, waffles, and quiche. The Blue Ridge wasn’t normally open for breakfast, so this was the only day of the week where we made that kind of stuff. Considering we were on a stretch of highway between a major town and national park, I assumed it wouldn’t be that busy. I always associated brunch with places like LA and New York. Of course, knowing how busy the last two nights had been, I should have known better.

Since we were working a double, Hanna and I showed up just as brunch was starting and hadn’t had to do the prep, and the parking lot was already packed. The kitchen was a madhouse. Typically someone new would be used as a gofer, getting things that everyone on the line needed and working prep in between, but with my foot, that wasn’t an option. Instead, they stuck me at garnish, where I guess I could slow the process down the least.

Brunch lasted until one, and even with my limited duties, I felt wrung out. Chef gave me an hour for lunch before he wanted me out back to train. I grabbed a plate of the family meal Diego had made for the kitchen and went out to the now cleared out dining room, where I found Hanna eating and doing homework.

“It’s Sunday,” I pointed out as I sat down.

“Congratulations, you can read a calendar.”

I’d learned by now that this wasn’t Hanna being mean, just her biting sense of humor.

“Yep, learned just last week,” I said, preening like a jackass. “What I meant was, why are you doing homework on Sunday?”

“Because it still has to be done, but this is extra credit stuff, not homework.”

“So, you’re one of those.”

“Not really. I was a low C student for my first two years, so my GPA sucks. I did okay last year, but if I want to get the hell out of here and into a half-way decent college, I need straight A’s this year.”

“If you don’t get your grades up, couldn’t you go to community college or something for a while and then transfer somewhere else?”

“Yeah, that’s an option, but I think I might want to go to law school after I finish my undergraduate, and that would make getting into one harder.”

“Law school?”

“Maybe. It’s something I’ve considered. I, at least, need the option.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Honestly, anywhere. I’m going to apply to UNCA, UNC, FSU, and State and maybe a few in Virginia or South Carolina. Honestly, I don’t want to go to UNCA since Asheville’s almost like not going anywhere, but Mom’s making me apply there since they should be easier to get into than the main campus.”

“Man, I haven’t thought about college at all.”

“You still have time, but you should start thinking about where you want to go. More important, you gotta make sure your grades are good enough to get into any of those and make sure you have enough extracurricular. You don’t have to decide where to apply till the beginning of your senior year, but by then it’s almost impossible to catch up. I’m glad I started fixing my shit last year, or I would be stuck going to community college in Asheville. Even with that, I have to beg teachers for extra credit. Thankfully, I got a lot of extracurricular my freshman and sophomore years, but still...”

“Charlie!” Chef’s voice said, cutting across the now empty dining room.

“Gotta go. Good luck on the extra credit.”

She gave a half-wave as I got up from the table and took my now empty bowl back to the kitchen and handed it to the dishwasher.

“Here, Chef.”

“Good. Since your foot’s hurt, we have to just focus on conditioning. I’ll start teaching you some simple stuff, like how to punch right and some joint-manipulation, which you can practice at, but we’ll have to save the real stuff till you’re mobile. That’s not a bad thing, though, since you need to get into the place physically to put any of this to use for real.”

“Makes sense. I’m good with whatever you think is best.”

“Good. Let’s see if you still feel as chipper once we’re done here.”

The next hour and a half were pure hell. What was worse is that Chef kept saying how easy he was taking it on me, since a lot of what he would want me to do wasn’t possible until I got the boot off my foot.

He had me do some of the standard stuff I would have thought of like dumbbell exercises, a variety of variations on sit-ups, and low impact leg exercises like wall-sits. He also had me do stuff that I’d seen on TV but never in person like shaking two long and super heavy ropes in up and down patterns while sitting in a chair. It seemed pretty easy, but after a few minutes, I was sweating hard. By the end of the exercises, I felt like my arms were on fire.

By the end of the hour, I was completely soaked.

“Good,” Chef said as we finished up. “You did better than I expected, but tomorrow you’re going to need to push it. I wish I could get you to do some running, but that isn’t an option. I have a friend dropping off a hand crank, so you can get some cardio in. You brought a change of clothes?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Good. You can go up to my apartment and take a shower. Then you can take a break for an hour before you have to start helping on prep for dinner.”

“Thanks, Chef.”

“No problem. You did good work today. Now get out of my sight.”

I was finding I liked his supportively gruff nature. A set of stairs let up the backside of the building. I was surprised to find his door unlocked, although it seemed unlikely that anyone could have gotten up there without being noticed.

The front room of the apartment was Spartan, with a small dining slash kitchen area on one side featuring a plain brown table. The middle of the room had a couch, above which hung a drawing with monks, a mountainside, and some Chinese writing. Notably absent from the front room was a TV or any kind of electronics.

I peeked into the one door opposite the entrance, which turned out to be the bedroom and connected bathroom. I was surprised to see a towel laid out on the counter just outside the small bathroom. I took a quick shower and changed, making a mental note to ask Mom to pick up soap and shampoo I could keep in my bag, so I wouldn’t have to use up Chef’s.

The rest of the day was exhausting. During dinner, I was still training with Vinney working on the sides. I messed up plenty but felt more confident than my last couple of shifts. It wasn’t that doing one thing was particularly tricky. They had everything broken into steps, and as long as you followed those steps, everything should be fine. The hard part was that it had to all be the same, every time. Vinney drilled over and over that consistency was the key to making a restaurant work. The food had to be the same regardless of the person working in the kitchen. No one wanted a restaurant where they had to know who was cooking that day to know if it was good or not.

I also knew I was given training wheels since everyone else was moving around constantly, and I was rooted to one spot, thanks to my foot. I hoped that would give me a leg up once I was mobile again since I had more time to focus on learning specific things without the added distraction.

Lessons with Willie were once again a dream ... the highlight of the night. I’d always enjoyed learning from people in the clubs, but back then, none of them had the time to answer that many questions, leaving me to figure it out on my own once they showed me once or twice.

Willie was patient and seemed to enjoy explaining things as much as I liked learning them. By the time I got home that night, I was utterly wrung out and yet in a fantastic mood.

Monday, I realized I hadn’t gotten the homework I’d been putting off done. Hanna gave me a few looks as I tried to do it in the car on the way to school, which was short enough that I only answered two math problems before we pulled into the parking lot. Considering our talk Sunday about her having to grind to make up for mistakes made her freshman and sophomore years, I could feel her wanting to say something about it to me.

Instead of heading directly into school and leaving me to catch up like she had the previous weeks, we waited for me while I wedged myself out of the car.

“Charlie, I...” she started to say before stopping as a tall kid I didn’t recognize came up to us from a car nearby.

“Hi, Hanna.”

“Marcus.”

“Do you have a second?”

“No. Charlie and I were talking, and then I need to get to class.”

He paused, looking over at me, considering. After a second, he seemed to come to a decision and looked back at Hanna.

“Okay, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to see if you wanted to go out sometime.”

“No,” Hanna said and turned, brushing past him. “Come on, Charlie.”

I gave the guy a look I hoped read as compassion as I swung my crutches, following after her.

“That was a little brutal,” I said as I caught up to her.

“What? All I said was ‘no.’”

“So, who is he?”

“Marcus Holt, he’s on the Varsity baseball team. We have a few classes together.”

“So, he’s a jerk?”

“No, he’s generally okay.”

“He’s a dumb jock, then?”

“No, I mean, he’s not going to be valedictorian or anything, but he’s okay.”

“Then why not go out with him? I mean, I get it, you have your whole monk lifestyle of no dates and no social life, but considering you were just bugging me to ask out Rhonda just a few days ago, it doesn’t seem like you’re all in on that. I know you said you’d had bad luck with guys ‘cause you were dating the wrong type, but if he’s generally okay, not dumb and has those chiseled all-American boys looks, why not go out on one date and see?”

“Because I don’t want to have to deal with it. He’s a big shot on the baseball team and baseball is king here. It isn’t ‘just one date,’ it’s having to deal with that whole in crowd thing again. I don’t want to have to deal with those people ever again.”

“I get that, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you have zero interest in him, then sure, don’t go out with him, but if you’re saying no just because you’re afraid of how it will affect you with other people, you’re kind of letting them win, aren’t you? I know something happened somewhere in your past that put you off dating and your old friends, but you can’t let that control your life.”