Rockabye

Chapter 1“No!” Malcolm stared in horror and ran for the door. “Are you insane?” He yanked the tray from the hand of the stunned server and tossed it with disgust on an already overflowing counter. “Seriously, where did you get that tray from? Who gave you that?” The server shrugged, blank-faced and unfettered. What did he care? His biggest concern was getting back in the crowd and being seen: mingling, smiling, coercing. Finding someone important and beautiful to leech on to so he could begin draining and drawing power, prestige and potential. It made Malcolm sick. “No fruit,” Malcolm hissed at the vacant expression of the surfer-styled blond brat that had the nerve to call himself a waiter. “We specifically sat down and discussed this before anything left the kitchen. While you were all sitting there, tying your ridiculous little bowties and making sure your hair was perfect, remember? No fruit, no chocolate. So why, oh, God in heaven why, are you walking past me with a tray of f*****g pineapple in your hand?” Almost nonexistent eyebrows rose up an unlined forehead. “Dude, do you need, like, a pill or something?” Malcolm fought, and failed miserably, at containing the sneer rising on his face. “Dude,” he hissed back. “Do you, like, need this job or not?” “All righty then.” Malcolm’s spine stiffened at the voice behind him. He clenched his fists at his side. He didn’t lift his eyes to catch those of the man who clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. Reynolds was a damn good personnel manager. However, he annoyed the hell out of Malcolm with his can’t-everybody-just-get-along attitude. “You.” Reynolds pointed at the server. “Go get another tray and get back out there.” He tightened his grip on Malcolm’s taut muscles and forced Malcolm to turn towards him. “And you relax. What is with you lately?” Malcolm rolled his eyes and shrugged out of Reynolds’ hold. “Other than the total lack of consideration any of these morons give to the people that are paying their salaries?” Reynolds frowned. “Don’t be jealous of the pretty boys, Mal. Worry about your own job and I’ll worry about the rest of them.” “Then keep your eyes open!” Malcolm glared back at the impatient look Reynolds offered him before grabbing the tray of fruit skewers and dropping the entire thing in the large garbage bin at the end of the prep table. Ridiculous, he thought to himself, storming back towards the grill and taking a quick peek at the shrimp searing underneath it. Nobody gave a damn about what they did anymore. Nobody tried. He watched the shrimp begin to blacken, counted to four and then yanked the baking rack out of the machine. “Prep!” he called, spinning with the finesse of a dancer and dropping the hot tray in front of his harried prep girl. “Quickly now,” he told her. “And if I see another mess like that last one of these that went out, you’re fired. And I don’t give a damn what Reynolds says about it.” He snagged one of the sizzling creatures in fingertips that barely felt the heat, skewered it on a plastic pick and laid it in the middle of a lined silver plate. “Circular items get laid in circles. Curl them out from the center. This isn’t your local fish market, Pina. These men spent more on this one event than you will be worth your entire life. Show a little flair for God’s sake.” Pina laughed out loud; one of the few people in Malcolm’s kitchen that didn’t get upset with his temper. “Malcolm love, flair is not my specialty. You got the exclusive on that. Comes with the preference.” “So not only are you blind artistically you are a sexist witch now?” He reached forward and began to adjust the food she was setting down. He nodded at the plate and waved over a server. “The nineties called, Pina. They want their orientation stereotypes back.” She offered another chuckle, grabbed a towel and curled her nose at him while she wiped butter from her fingers. “If you don’t want to be stereotyped Mal, then stop acting like a dramatic, posturing bitch.” “Insisting on perfection does not a stereotype make, Pina,” Malcolm said in the drollest voice he could muster. “No,” she waved her finger. “The drama queen part does.” She tossed the towel at him and he growled at the display of recklessness. “Why do you still work for me?” “I’m the only one that can.” He would have argued. If there wasn’t so much truth to it. From the moment Malcolm had taken the position of head chef A.K.A. kitchen manager at Burgeon Manor, long-term employees had been a rarity. He liked to write it off to the fact that most of his staff were fly-by-nighters as opposed to his overbearing attitude though. The women were there to meet rich, powerful husbands—the men to meet rich, powerful producers. He’d had his fair share of up and coming actors, screenwriters, artists, playwrights, set designers, stylists and publicists all scrubbing shellfish and washing lettuce. It wasn’t their fault for the most part. Burgeon Manor was, after all, well known for attracting the finest of guests and visitors. He also would have argued that he was just annoyed by the process and not jealous. But that would have been more of a bald-faced lie than the first argument. Malcolm had learned a long time ago that he wasn’t the kind of guy that was going to get by on his looks. He wasn’t unattractive by any means: dark and tall, with a good thick head of hair and pleasant smile when he saw fit to use it. He was just incredibly unspectacular. He was what his mother used to refer to as “good stock” and what she now called “rugged” or “well-weathered.” Apparently, he’d been known to say friends, he was a racehorse that had been driven hard and put away wet too often. A single glance in the mirror had only to confirm that he was nothing any of the men around this particular scene were looking for in another man. Under no circumstance could he be confused for a pretty boy, and he was far too young and poor to be anyone’s daddy. He was, however, a damn good chef. So, for the groups that came to celebrate and the elite that stayed, he was important at least. If for nothing else than to ensure that people like the pompous little rock prince that was known as Darien Flint didn’t have to see a single piece of fruit or, God forbid, be presented with chocolate. Nothing ruined a good old bout of c**k-rock like fruit, after all. Malcolm rolled his eyes at the impression he already had of the superstar that was holding his release party in their banquet hall. As Malcolm was probably one of the few folks in North America that couldn’t recall Darien’s face, let alone get weak-kneed and swooning over it, he could only rely on the genre to base his assumptions. He imagined self-important but not too bright, a man that thought with his d**k and not much else, in too tight jeans and V-necked T-shirts. He saw belt buckles and bike boots, a goatee and a grin, and someone that started every single sentence ever spoken with the word I. A paradox singing about true love and broken hearts whilst boning every star-struck teenager he came across. “Gross,” Malcolm whispered, and the word had nothing to do with the bowl of squid that had just been placed in front of him. * * * * The door was still swinging closed behind the kid that washed the dishes when Malcolm dimmed the lights and dug out the bottle of Gewürztraminer from the bottom rack of the cooler. He yanked out the only chair in the kitchen, a ripped, worn and tilting office antique left there for one purpose and one purpose alone: the end-of-the-day, kitchen-is-sparkling-and-everything-is-done moment when he could sit, relax and enjoy. No one but Malcolm sat in his kitchen. Ever. It was a working kitchen and damn it, if someone was going to be in it, they were going to be working. There were dining rooms and lounges, private rooms and suites that could host any other activity. These moments of silence and leisure were for him and him alone. He poured a tumbler full of liquid sunshine, took a long sip of the wine and tossed his smock into the dirty laundry hamper. He shuffled freshly scrubbed palms over the encroaching stubble on his face, doing his best to encourage exhausted skin to relight. He flopped into the chair, fiddled with levers to engage the tilt release and, as an afterthought, flipped off the T-shirt that he knew would reek of sweat and food; scents he was far too familiarized with to actually notice himself. Another toss netted him another win as the cloth was reunited with the abandoned smock. Malcolm sighed heavily, clasped his hands behind his head and leaned as far back as the chair would allow. Perhaps it was crazy that he found it so serene to be in an environment that he spent so much time in, but it was the change in atmosphere that Malcolm found so calming. The room was quiet; the air lightly scented with Clorox and pine cleaner, the heat from the grills and burners dissipating into a tolerable temperature. Dim light had replaced harsh clarity; silence taken over calamity, and stillness and peace had stepped in where hustling and chaos knew no bounds. It was like battling and conquering a new war every day. The party still continued somewhere to the east end of the manor and would, no doubt, until the late hours of the morning. On more than one occasion, Malcolm had found himself rising to begin the next breakfast and come face to face with the glassy-eyed, cocaine-riddled guest of a previous night’s parties. More often than not Malcolm would find someone to see them to a room, or call a cab. The guests were not his concern, only the filling of their bellies. A good thing, really. Malcolm wasn’t exactly a people person. He let his eyelids drift shut and set the toe of his shoe against the counter to rock the chair. He didn’t go home much during the busy season. Summer months, Christmases and New Years’, long weekends, Malcolm would stay in his room on site. It made more sense when one got finished at two in the morning and had to start again at seven to stay where one was. Therefore, his plan was as simple as most nights: two glasses of white, followed by a sleeping pill and a stumble through the back hall to the unmarked, unnumbered doors of the servant’s quarters of the manor. Though politically incorrect, the term still stuck, fitting in both appropriateness and historical accuracy. Malcolm didn’t mind the cramped quarters of the eight-by-ten room, though. It was included as a perk of the job, there were no bugs, and while the mattress was in no way as comfortable as the one on his own queen-sized bed at home, it was comfortable enough for an exhausted body to give five or so hours to. It had been a busier night than most. Darien’s people had spared no expense when it came to entertaining. And rather than a lavish meal they’d opted for continual service of finger and bite-sized bits of almost every creature known to man, prepared in the most extravagant and indulgent ways possible. The exaggerated thought made Malcolm chuckle and he reached for his glass of wine when a shuffle of sound forced him into stillness. His first thought was mice, which he followed with an instant and forceful not in my goddamn kitchen. His next thought made him growl in distaste. Theft. As intolerant as Malcolm could be, as furious as many things made him, nothing could get him more righteous than a thief. He righted the chair in silence and rose just as quietly. It was a huge space, each quarter utilized for different requirements—meats and hot sauces, salads and chilled foods, vegetables and sides, desserts and creams—each portion set up as though its own separate room, but all joining and accessible through reach-throughs and walks-throughs along a four-point cross that ran both length and width through the middle of the kitchen. At the front was a large open space for the servers to be handed trays and/or plates. At the back was another open space wherewith to access the huge stainless steel doors of the walk-in refrigerators and freezers. It was from the front where Malcolm had lounged, to the back where the overhead light gave notice of the open refrigerator that Malcolm traveled in stealth-mode.