Chasing your tail, p.2
Chasing Your Tail, page 2
And, well, if he got to see Lindsay again, that was a bonus. He knew full well that she hated his guts, but he wanted to show her he was not the man she thought he was, that he’d grown up in the time they’d been apart. Would she come by the café when he was working? Would she even speak to him? He wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot.
He would have taken the job even if his ex’s friend wasn’t involved, but he couldn’t help but think that he’d been handed an opportunity. That this was exactly where he was supposed to be at this point in his life.
He’d never been with anyone he clicked with so well, that he could talk to about anything, that understood his job and why he loved it so much. And, well, she’d lingered in his head, in his heart, long after she’d walked out of his life. If the universe was putting him in Lindsay’s orbit, then he intended to do what he could to show her what she’d walked out on.
“Well,” said Aaron. “Let’s toast to new adventures.”
“I suspect both of us are about to experience a lot of those.” Brad clinked his glass against Aaron’s.
Chapter 2
The time to make the doughnuts was five in the morning, but Brad was used to a baker’s schedule. His new boss, Lauren, clearly wasn’t; she yawned as she let him into the café on his first day of work.
“I’m getting you your own key,” she mumbled. “Just as soon as I have coffee.”
She led him through the café. The main door opened into a vestibule with another heavy glass door, a safeguard against cats trying to escape, although Lauren had told Brad during his interview that they’d never had an instance of that. That second door led to the main café area, where there were a counter, a glass display case for pastries, and the requisite coffee and espresso machines on the back wall. A huge menu hung over the counter. One corner had a display of T-shirts with the cat café’s logo and punny phrases like, “Spent a purr-fect day at the Whitman Street Cat Café!” and “Cats are paw-some!” A couple of café tables sat near the counter for those who just wanted coffee and not to sit with the cats, a necessity created by a few other coffee shops closing in the neighborhood recently.
Behind that, there were two doors. One led to what Lauren called the cat room, a sumptuous space with big sofas and several more café tables and chairs. The café kept fifteen to twenty cats there at any given time, and customers could lounge there and hang out with those cats. Lauren had told Brad during the interview that the café was mostly a pretense for the space to operate like a shelter, finding forever homes for the café’s feline residents. The café periodically hosted adoption events and then rotated in cats from local shelters.
Lauren had also explained that the other door off the counter area was new. A wall had been added to the cat room to create a hallway that led between the café counter and the kitchen. This space had been an Italian restaurant before it was a cat café, she told Brad, and the full restaurant kitchen in the very back was now Brad’s to use how he saw fit.
The hall between the café counter and the kitchen was very narrow, only really wide enough for an average-size man to walk through. Its purpose was to provide a cat-free area to bring food from the back to the counter in the front.
This was going to be a very interesting place to work.
Brad had looked at the kitchen during his interview but hadn’t felt like he could make recommendations before he had the job. He looked a little more closely now. The kitchen had been cleaned to a shine, the stainless-steel appliances sparkling in the lights as Lauren flipped the switches near the door.
The kitchen was really designed for savory cooking, but there were four ovens, and that was a good start. Lauren led him to the pantry, which was stocked with all the ingredients he’d requested after she’d hired him. In his bag, Brad had a notebook with recipes he’d been developing in the week since he’d been hired, all things he’d tested at home.
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Lauren. “I’m gonna go see if I have enough mental power to make the coffee maker work. If I’m successful, do you want a cup?”
“Sure.”
“You’d think after eight months with an infant who wakes up at all hours of the night that I’d be used to being awake at five, but you’d be wrong.”
“This time of the morning is tough if you’re not used to it.”
Lauren nodded and left.
Brad got down to business. The café was still bringing in bagels from a bagel shop a few blocks away, but everything else was up to him. He figured he’d start with the human food. His first order of business was muffins, of which he planned to make four kinds: blueberry, chocolate chip, carrot, and lemon poppyseed. He figured he could change those up depending on what was popular.
His idea for the midday crew was to provide a few types of bread that could be used for premade sandwiches. So once the muffins were baking, he planned to start sandwich rolls, and while that dough was chilling, he’d make a brioche.
Lauren brought him a cup of coffee in a mug stamped with the café’s logo while he was getting the second batch of muffins ready to slide into an oven.
“It already smells amazing in here,” she said, cradling her own cup. “This was such a good idea.”
Brad laughed. “Once all the human food is baking, I’ll get started on the cat treats. I tried a few on my friend’s cat. The tuna treats were a huge hit.”
“You know, if you need a cat in your home to taste test those treats, I’ve got a few candidates.”
“I don’t need a cat.” He really didn’t. He wasn’t home much, for one thing. Plus, and not that this even mattered, he could hear his father’s voice asking what sort of straight man had cats. Weren’t the cupcakes girlie enough? He swallowed a sigh.
“You say you don’t need a cat, but… Come with me.”
They had to go back down the narrow hall to the counter in order to enter the cat room. They were greeted by mews and indifference. A chubby, striped cat trotted over and sniffed Brad’s pants. She gave a little brrrup and rubbed against Brad’s leg, her tail snaking around Brad’s calf.
“That’s Sadie,” said Lauren, pointing to the cat at Brad’s feet. “She’s the office manager here. She’s a permanent cat at the café. I sometimes let her up front after hours. Don’t tell the health department.”
Brad chuckled.
“The rest of these cats are up for adoption. Look at this fellow over here.” She ran her hand over a cat who was sitting on a table. The cat was the color of apricot jam. He leaned into Lauren’s hand as she pet him. “This guy is named Hamilton.”
“That’s a mouthful of a name for a cat.”
“Paige gave all of the cats in our most recent batch of new residents the names of American historical figures. Her reasoning for this guy was that Alexander Hamilton had auburn hair.”
The cats were cute and all, and Brad even liked cats. He wouldn’t have bothered applying if he didn’t. He just didn’t want one in his apartment. He reached over and let Hamilton sniff and then rub against his fingers. “I really don’t need a cat.”
“Give it time.”
“I should get back to the kitchen.”
Lauren followed Brad back there. After he checked on everything in the ovens, he said, “We can try the new treats on the cats today.”
Lauren grinned. “I custom-ordered some bags to package the treats in. They’re over here.” She put her coffee cup down and went to the pantry, where she pulled out a box and opened the lid. Inside were brown paper bags with plastic windows, like cookies often came in at the store, and the cat café’s logo printed on top. The bags were cute and the perfect thing to hold his baked cat treats.
“Very cool,” Brad said.
“Right? I’m so excited about this.”
He laughed, appreciating her enthusiasm.
An hour and a half later, Lauren helped him carry trays of baked goods to the display case. The bagels arrived as he was heading back to get another tray of muffins. Once everything for the breakfast rush was in place, he stood back to admire his work.
“Beautiful,” said Lauren.
A tall woman walked into the store. Lauren introduced her as Monique, one of the baristas. Brad shook her hand and then said, “Let me know if you get any customer feedback. I can adapt and change out the menu if you think some other items would be more popular.”
“Sure,” said Monique. “It smells like magic in here.”
To Brad, Lauren said, “You met the owner, Diane, at the interview, and she was polite then, but she was reluctant to sign off on having our own baker on-site. We’ve got that kitchen back there, so why not use it? And I think if we’re making our own pastries, that has the potential to expand our customer base, especially during the morning rush. If we’re offering one-of-a-kind cat treats that we sell exclusively? I think it’ll be a boon.”
“I’m happy to help.”
“And feel free to experiment. I’m sure your blueberry muffins are delicious, but you can get a blueberry muffin just about anywhere in Brooklyn. If you need any other ingredients, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Or I can give you some petty cash if you want to hit the farmers market at Cadman Plaza. That’s only a few blocks from here.”
“Cool. It might be good to do a couple of seasonal items, depending on what’s available.”
“My thought exactly.”
Brad went back to the kitchen a few minutes later, a new wave of excitement rolling through him. Lauren really was giving him almost complete creative control. It was something he’d wanted nearly his entire career. As fun as making other people’s food was, he loved creating new recipes. His brain constantly hummed with ideas. What if he put this thing with that thing? How would that cake taste if he added cardamom? What fruits would taste best together in a tart?
His last job had been at a chocolate-themed restaurant, where even the entrées had chocolate in them, and he’d been responsible for the dessert menu. But the executive chef there was a control freak. He’d let Brad design a couple of desserts but had offered opinions freely, constantly asked Brad to tweak the menu, and insisted a number of items Brad was not that excited about were served every night.
Brad thought about his conversation with Aaron as he took the sandwich rolls out of the oven. Yeah, he was about to make treats for cats. But it was the most exciting, creative work he’d ever done, and Lauren was letting him run with the planned menu. In a lot of ways, this was the best job he’d had. And he’d only been at it a few hours.
***
The new restaurant was called Pepper. Lindsay couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything, beyond that the decor felt like the inside of a pepper shaker. Everything was shades of black and gray with occasional pops of color. The chairs in the main dining room were upholstered in the color of pink peppercorns, for example. Vintage salt and pepper shakers were positioned on shelves around the space, and most of the art on the walls was still-life paintings that featured salt and/or pepper shakers and mills prominently.
“This is already trying very hard,” said Lindsay’s friend Paige right after they were seated.
Lindsay had invited Lauren, Paige, and Evan for a night without their significant others. She’d been hoping for a night of good food, but she felt the odds of that were declining the longer they sat in the restaurant. The waitstaff still had that new-restaurant smell on them, and service was a little slow and confused. A waiter brought them all menus after they’d been sitting for about five minutes—the leather cover had an imprint of a pepper grinder on it, of course—and Lindsay looked it over.
She didn’t know what pepper had to do with soul food, but the menu was heavy on soul-food staples: fried chicken, collard greens, okra, mac and cheese. Except everything was pretentious. Chicken breaded in the chef’s unique twelve-spice blend, for example, or the “five-cheese cavatappi,” which sure sounded like mac and cheese to Lindsay. She didn’t mind a twist on an old staple, but taking food that should be a little rough around the edges and served in restaurants with plastic tablecloths was probably not the way to go.
The best soul food Lindsay had ever had come from a place in Brooklyn run by a family from Georgia that served heaping portions on paper plates. The food was tasty, affordable, and made by a pair of sisters who clearly loved what they did. Best fried chicken in Brooklyn, as far as Lindsay was concerned. That was soul food. This was…something else.
Her friends looked equally baffled.
“Okay, here’s how I want to do this,” said Lindsay. “Everyone order something different so we can each try everything.”
“I want to try the chicken and waffles,” said Evan. “But I have some concerns.”
They had all agreed what they’d order by the time the waitress came back. They all ordered cocktails, too. Lindsay had ordered something called Peachtree Punch that tasted suspiciously like vodka and Kool-Aid. Who the heck had designed this restaurant? It was somehow cheap and pretentious at the same time.
“So how is everyone?” Paige asked when they’d settled into their cocktails. “Did you all behave while Josh and I were on vacation?”
“Lauren didn’t,” said Evan.
Lauren slapped Evan’s arm.
“What happened?” asked Paige.
“She hired Brad,” said Lindsay.
Paige laughed. “Oh, I already knew that. She texted me when it happened.”
“And I’ll have you know, I did agonize over this hiring decision,” said Lauren. “Diane took the final decision out of my hands, but Brad really was the best candidate. And I’m happy to have the extra help at the café, especially while Paige was out of town. Well, running the café at all was hard with Paige out of town. Last week was rough. But now Caleb is home with the baby and I am having a night out with my friends and I am going to enjoy it, dammit, because I deserve it.” She took a sip of her cocktail. “Hoo, boy. That’s a lot of rum.”
“The bartender has a strong pour,” said Evan. “And Joey Maguire isn’t even here, is he?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Lindsay. She’d spotted his name in very tiny print on the menu, like even he was already on the way to disowning this place. Likely Maguire was just an investor and didn’t have much say in the menu.
When their food arrived twenty minutes later, it at least looked good. Everyone started digging in, but by the looks on her friends’ faces, everyone was noticing the same things she was.
“I don’t think any of the twelve spices was salt,” Evan said as he held a fried chicken leg. “Or an actual spice.”
Lindsay ate a forkful of the five-cheese cavatappi. In theory, it was hard to go wrong with cheese and pasta, and yet it was dry and kind of flavorless. Was one of the cheeses the cardboard box this came out of?
Everyone around the table agreed. For a restaurant called Pepper, all the food was pretty bland.
“I mean, it’s not the worst meal I’ve ever had,” said Lauren, reaching for the salt shaker on the table.
“Oh, I know mine!” said Evan. “My friend Lester threw a dinner party one year where he let his boyfriend do all the cooking, and everything came out charred. That was an experience.”
“Never order from Mr. Szechuan on Tuesdays,” said Lauren. “That’s the regular chef’s night off.”
“It’s called Mr. Szechuan? Really?” said Lindsay.
“What? It’s really good! Best Chinese food on Whitman Street. Except on Tuesdays.”
“I got food poisoning from that sushi place on Flatbush, near where Evan lives,” said Lindsay, playing along. “So that was not great.”
“Ooh, yeah,” said Evan. “I walked by that place recently. The health department gave them a C.”
“I didn’t know restaurants could get Cs. I’ve only ever seen As and Bs,” said Lauren. “The café has an A, by the way.”
“Oh, the sushi place deserved that C,” said Lindsay. “I couldn’t eat sushi for like three months after that. And it’s a shame because I love sushi, and that place is convenient.”
“All this talk of bad meals is kind of making this meal even worse,” said Lauren.
Everyone sampled from everyone else’s dishes and agreed the food was bland, the okra was slimy, the corn muffins were too sweet, and the “maple butter sauce” that came with Evan’s chicken and waffles seemed like butter melted into pancake syrup—the cheap kind from the grocery store, not real maple syrup.
Lindsay didn’t want the restaurant staff to know she was a critic, so she tapped out notes on her phone as discreetly as possible. The review would be scathing, but this place deserved it.
She didn’t relish giving negative reviews. She loved eating a great meal and finding ways to celebrate it in her writing. She loved coming up with the perfect words to describe how something tasted, so her readers could taste it along with her. She wanted to lure customers to these restaurants, because she wanted good restaurants to stay open. But this was not good. Everything here said amateur to Lindsay.
“This space is cursed, for sure,” Lauren said as she looked at the dessert menu. “Why is everything so extra? Is the devilish surprise in the devil’s food cake something spicy?”
“Based on dinner,” said Evan, “probably not.”
Chapter 3
Lindsay woke up the day after her review of Pepper went live to a phone full of notifications.
It took her a minute to figure out what was happening, but it seemed that the review was starting to go viral.
She couldn’t immediately figure out why. She’d written negative restaurant reviews before. She’d written jokey reviews of high-profile restaurants. Her takedown of a popular steak house in Williamsburg was a perennial favorite, for example, but it hadn’t gotten much traction outside of foodie communities. Just a year ago, a celebrity chef had opened a new restaurant in Park Slope that Lindsay had panned because everything she’d ordered had been dry and overcooked. That restaurant had since closed because Lindsay had been correct, but if more than a hundred people read that review, Lindsay would have died of shock.
