Turn Up the Heat (12 page)

“Thanks for the sensitivity. I think I’ll be okay,” Josh assured him.

“Josh, was Leandra like that at Simmer?” I asked him.

“Yes and no. I mean, she and Blythe hated each other, but I think that was because they are so similar in some ways. They both get a lot of attention from the guys and all that and they’re both pretty outspoken. Were, I guess. Were. But, yeah, Leandra was good at pushing people’s buttons. Just a general snottiness and bitchiness. But once she and Gavin started dating, she calmed down a little.”

“He must have seen something in her, though,” I said. “Leandra must’ve had some good qualities. Otherwise, Gavin would’ve dumped her right away. He seems like a normal enough guy. I can’t imagine he’d put up with constant awful behavior.”

Or, I wondered, had Gavin discovered that Leandra wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was?

“I don’t think Gavin knew about everything she did,” Josh said. “Like, Leandra called Isabelle ‘rat girl’ all the time because she used to live on the streets, but I don’t think she said that in front of her boyfriend and boss.”

Now I was pissed. It was one thing to call Blythe flat-chested but quite another thing to call Isabelle “rat girl.” Leandra
was
a bitch! Poor Isabelle! It ticked me off to think that I’d found her a job in Josh’s kitchen only to have her subjected to name-calling. “Didn’t you do anything?” I demanded.

“There wasn’t much to do except tell her to lay off, which I did. But Isabelle has to learn to fight her own battles. And it’s not like we have an HR department.”

That was true. Was it ever! Very few workplaces of any kind would have tolerated the kind of behavior that the chefs had just described. I couldn’t imagine that employees at Goldman Sachs, for instance, would be allowed to kick each other in the shins or lace straws with Tabasco in between managing assets. I’d spent the past year interning at the Boston Organization Against Sexual and Other Harassment in the Workplace. Although I was in the habit of referring to it as the BO, I’d actually learned a lot about handling inappropriate workplace conduct. In the world of restaurants, however, conduct that would have been outrageous elsewhere was considered normal. There was an unspoken rule about paying dues: You had to put up with abuse to prove yourself worthy of your position and to move up in the ranks. If you complained about how you were treated, you faced a serious uphill battle that you’d fight with little or no support. Restaurants run by big corporations didn’t allow that kind of hazing, but it flourished in small independent establishments, which, sadly enough, were often the places that served the best food. The macho quality of the initiation rites wasn’t surprising, since most professional chefs were men. There were exceptions: Julia Child, Jody Adams, and Lydia Shire came to mind, as did the female chefs featured on the Food Network. Even so, and in spite of the stereotype of home cooking as women’s work, the culinary world was dominated by men. Why? That’s exactly what I asked the table.

“You’re right,” Digger agreed. “It’s dominated by men, and it probably comes from a couple things. The kitchen can have a pretty nasty caveman attitude. Culinary school is brutal, and I think a lot of women drop out of the profession then. Like, when I was there, I had this crazy old Swiss chef as one of my instructors. Real bastard, that guy. And one day I went to go change the oil in the Frialator. So the oil is kept in this big vat in a stainless steel cabinet right next to the Frialator. Well, someone had rigged it so that when I opened the door, the whole goddamn thing fell out and spilled dirty oil all over this twenty-by-ten area. Okay, obviously not my fault, but this Swiss chef made me clean the whole frickin’ thing up by myself. You can imagine how much fun that was.” Digger snorted at the memory. “Then he made me spend the next two days doing nothing but peeling vegetables. Not fair, right, since I didn’t monkey with the oil vat?”

I nodded.

Digger continued. “Now, how many women would put up with that?”

“Most women probably have more common sense than to tolerate obnoxious, juvenile behavior,” I agreed.

“I went to the CIA,” continued Digger, referring to the Culinary Institute of America, “and I’d say the ratio of men to women was four to one. By the second year, there were even fewer women. The kitchen is a vulgar, intense, foulmouthed place to be. Guys are always grabbing each others’ asses, there’s tons of sexual jokes being told, and all that crap. And women don’t want to put up with it.”

As I saw the problem, there was no need for women to learn to suck it up; on the contrary, that kind of bullshit shouldn’t be allowed in the first place. I hated to consider what my beloved Josh might be like. I knew, however, that Josh went out of his way to make his female employees comfortable—the few he had, that is.

Josh jumped in. “The other reality is that the hours you have to work as a chef aren’t family friendly. Most women who want children don’t want to be gone from their kids twelve hours a day and really don’t want to work until past midnight. Right or wrong, men are more willing to do that. They’re more willing to put in the hours, claw their way to the top, and tough it out. But,” Josh continued, seeing my feminist side beginning to boil over, “let me say that I’ve worked with a couple excellent women chefs before, and I
do
wish there were more women in this field. But it’s a chauvinistic field. There’s no denying that.”

“You’ve only worked with a
couple
of women chefs?”

“Yeah,” Josh admitted. “But I’m not even thirty yet, so give me some time.” He smiled in the hope of lightening my declining mood.

“How come Isabelle is the only female in your kitchen now?” I was irritated.

“Because when I was hiring, I didn’t have any women come in to interview. I have no problem hiring women, but if they don’t apply, I can’t hire them.”

“Okay, well, that’s not your fault, I guess,” I conceded.

“Same here,” volunteered Digger. “I’ve worked for more than two women, but still only a few, and I’m well
over
thirty, and I’ve worked at a lot of places. Some of the women chefs have been crap, and a few have been great. Actually, one of my biggest influences was the first chef I worked for, who was a woman. She was the most awesome chef. She used great flavors. She went through hell with us and gave us just as much crap as we dished out. I think most women in the kitchen have this tendency to be real timid, you know? You gotta pay your dues and peel fifty pounds of potatoes when you start out, no matter who you are or who you know. Women take that to mean that they’re being ignored or treated unfairly. And in this profession, a woman has to stand out and grow some balls. You can’t hide out or be squeamish. When you get out of school, it’s easy to disappear into a hotel job and shape cantaloupes to make a pretty fruit plate. Women give up and don’t always want to play the game.”

“So a woman has to act like a man? Like an imbecile?” I crossed my arms and glared at Digger. “Do you think any of this has to do with the whole idea that women in positions of authority are labeled bitchy and men are labeled confident?”

Lefty braved the conversation. “Unfortunately, yes, ma’am. That is very likely. Like they were saying, this is not a perfect profession. There are still very outdated attitudes in the culinary world, and we’re all guilty of allowing that to happen.”

I settled for saying, “Yes, you are. It’s not the nineteen forties.”

Lefty got points for acknowledging men’s contribution. I probably lost points for finding it cute that he called me ma’am. My one year of social work hadn’t granted me the magical power to remedy female oppression or even to eradicate sexism from my own attitudes. But maybe the vivid picture that Digger, in particular, had portrayed of the macho environment in restaurant kitchens could give me some insight into Leandra’s murder. I hoped, and strongly suspected, that the atmosphere in Josh’s kitchen fell toward the lower end of the machismo continuum. Furthermore, it sounded as if Leandra, far from resenting idiotic antics, had willingly participated in them. Still, it was possible that one of Simmer’s employees had taken a joke too far. Could Leandra have been accidentally killed in a kitchen prank? If so, Josh, Snacker, Isabelle, Javier, or Santos might have had something to do with her death. But Leandra hadn’t actually worked in the kitchen. Were Simmer’s front-of-the-house employees, people like Wade, Kevin, Blythe, and the other servers, also guilty of fraternity-style behavior? And what kind of prank gone wrong could have resulted in Leandra’s death?

Even Top of the Hub’s out-of-this-world dessert menu didn’t make me feel better. And I still had nothing to put in Leandra’s memory book except one unflattering word:
bitch
.

TEN

JOSH
slept over. Cranky though I was about the dinner conversation, I trusted Josh to treat people fairly. I pushed aside my annoyance at the culinary field’s rampant unfairness to women and let Josh compensate me for it. Plus, this was one of the few nights I had with him when we were both awake, and I wasn’t about to pass up such a pleasurable opportunity.

My overworked chef left for Simmer before eight the next morning. I got out of bed sometime after nine. The only positive spin I could put on my Leandra memory book assignment was that I’d get to see Josh again today. To get material for the memory book, I was obviously going to have to march down to the restaurant and physically extract positive remarks from the employees. The possibility of inventing loving remembrances crossed my mind. In fact, it appealed to me. The hitch was that the entire Simmer staff would attend the memorial service on Monday, and it would be a little awkward to present a memory book filled with quotations that sang Leandra’s praises attributed to people who had disliked her. So, using my imagination was a last resort. I was sure that if I approached the Simmer staff in person, everyone would be hard-pressed to say anything but nice things about their deceased coworker. That was the plan.

Before leaving for Simmer, I opened all the windows to my condo to let fresh spring air into my little space. Even with the windows closed and locked, it would’ve been easy enough to break in. If a burglar showed up in my absence, at least there wouldn’t be any damage to the doors or windows. Or so I rationalized.

When I reached Simmer, I stood outside the front door on Newbury Street and phoned Josh, who left the kitchen to let me in. I’d had zero interest in revisiting the back alley and had driven around side streets for twenty minutes until I’d found a parking spot. The weather forecast called for blue skies, bright sunshine, and temperatures in the mid-sixties, so I was sure that the patio would be packed for lunch today. Consequently, a lot of the staff would probably be scheduled to work, and I’d have an excellent chance of cornering Leandra’s colleagues and squeezing quotable remarks from them.

Josh swung open the front door. “Hi, babe. How you doing? You still mad at me?” He pulled me in close and kissed my neck softly.

“I wasn’t mad at you.”

“I knew you weren’t that mad since people who are really mad wouldn’t have let me do what I did last night. Right?” he teased.

“Get that look off your face.” But I couldn’t help smiling. “I really wasn’t mad at you. I was just disappointed to hear what you guys had to say last night. But everything that was said just goes to point out what rational beings women are. And frankly, Digger’s comments, especially, reflect badly on the male species. I just think it would be responsible of you to do your part to change the culinary world’s attitude toward women, at least in your kitchen. Be a role model.”

“Chloe, seriously. Right now, I am doing everything I can just to keep this place running!”

His tone of voice told me that I’d chosen a bad time to enjoin him to stand up for women’s rights. My face fell.

“God, I’m sorry. Come here,” he wrapped his arms around me. “You’re right. You are. I’m swamped right now. That’s all. Snacker just got here, and Javier doesn’t come in until this afternoon, and I really need those extra hands today. That’s no excuse, but I’ve got so much going through my head all the time. I’m going to work on it, though, I promise. It’s important.”

I hugged him back. “It’s okay. And thank you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Josh kissed the top of my head. “Let’s go in. Be prepared. It’s going to be a madhouse back there soon, so I don’t know how much you’ll get out of these people.”

We stepped into the kitchen. Santos was sweating over the stove, where he was stirring steaming vats of a highly seasoned broth. Isabelle was at one of the stainless counters working on vegetables. Snacker was on the phone rolling his eyes and looking exasperated. Wade, Kevin, Blythe, and several servers I didn’t know were rushing in and out of the kitchen.

“Why are things so nuts today?” I asked Josh.

“This is what happens when you reopen. Everything has to be prepped again, and we’re still getting more orders in. Belita and her assistants just showed up. Don’t ask me why they’re late. The waitstaff is here early because that party that we canceled the day Leandra died is now coming in tonight, and that has to be perfect, so they’re making sure everything is in shape. And the patio should be booming for lunch and—”

“Breathe!” I interrupted him. “Why isn’t Javier here yet?”

“What? Yeah, I don’t have time to breathe today. And Javier isn’t scheduled to work until later in the day because I’ll catch hell from Gavin for my labor cost, and he’s already pissed at me over my food cost. Anyhow, good luck with your memory book.”

“Perhaps you’d like to be the first to give me something for the book?” I said wistfully.

Josh sighed. “Sure. Give me the paper.”

I handed over a page, and Josh snapped it into his clipboard. I remained silent for a moment, desperately hoping no one would need him for sixty seconds.

“There you go,” he said, returning his page.

“That’s it?”

Josh had written all of four words:
“Leandra will be missed.”