Dinner at Fiorello's

Chapter 1-3

In his room, Henry debated: what to do with his day, what to do with his life, what to do about his summer employment. He lay down on his bed and pulled the sheet over himself.

There was a thrumming in his veins even as he lay on his back. He didn’t know if the surge was due to dread or excitement.

First, there was dread. He could do what every North Shore kid was probably doing today—this glorious early summer (technically still spring) day when the rigors of school were but a memory—head out to the beach. Bake in the sun. Dip his toes in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. Maybe he’d run into Kade there. Maybe they could talk, clear the air.

Maybe not. The thought filled him with both longing and trepidation.

Sure, he could spend the day leisurely working on his tan or wandering Old Orchard, the outdoor mall in Skokie, or just go out in his family’s backyard, which faced Lake Michigan, and plop down in one of the Adirondack chairs out there and read all day. He was in the middle of David Sedaris’s latest, and that guy always cracked him up.

Henry recognized all these things for what they were—distractions. He made a list of things he didn’t want to think about.

The first was getting on the train Monday morning with his father, wearing a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, khakis, and sensible shoes, looking like the little junior attorney his father was expecting him to be.

The second was talking to Kade. He and his best friend had gone skinny-dipping in the freezing waters of Lake Michigan after Henry’s graduation party. They had emerged near the boulders bordering the beach, and, in a bit of a tipsy state, Kade had remarked that neither of them seemed to be suffering the effects of “shrinkage” from the frigid waters. One thing led to another, as they say, and Henry had ended up somewhere he had always dreamed of being, on his knees between Kade’s spread thighs. At the time, Henry thought the act might bring their friendship to a new and more intimate level, but the radio silence that followed their brief tryst had proved otherwise. Still, he needed to make things right with Kade, show him he wasn’t a threat and they could go back to where they were before.

But could they? Could anyone after they’d been intimate? Henry was too inexperienced to know, and he certainly had no one to ask.

Not going to Fiorello’s and applying for a job he thought he would love was third on the list of things Henry didn’t want to think about. Sure, the work would be hard, he imagined, and sweaty. It would be tedious. He’d be treated like the underling he knew he’d be. But he would be around food and cooking all day, things he was passionate about. In his wildest fantasies, he imagined being a chef, somebody like Grant Achatz or Rick Bayless or even someone as big as Thomas Keller. He was already, with Maxine, honing his knife skills, learning the difference between a dice, a mince, and a julienne.

When Henry dreamed, he dreamed about food.

Not once had he ever dreamed about investment law.

Henry knew spending the day doing what other rich North Shore kids do would only take him away from pursuing his dream.

But that dream went against the core of what his family wanted for him. He’d always been the golden boy, doing exactly what his family expected. He felt like no one really knew him, knew his passion for food, for cooking (well, except for maybe Maxine).

As people often do when faced with life-altering decisions or yielding to temptations that may or may not be the right thing to do, Henry tried bargaining in baby steps for what he would do with the day.

I’ll just hop on the ‘L’ and go down there, check the place out. Maybe I’ll even have lunch. And if I like what I see, maybe I could ask for an application and fill it out. Odds are, they won’t even call me. I don’t have any real-world experience. They’ll probably have lots of other people with years under their belts lining up for that job, even though it sounds like grunt work, entry level, or bottom of the barrel, depending on your point of view.

So why do I want it so, so much?

Never mind. Just go there. See what it’s like. You may not even want to apply once you see it.

Henry got up from his bed, stripped out of his plaid boxers and T-shirt, and headed for the shower in his bath. He had to admit to himself that there was a certain relief in thinking that, by going to the place, he would see it for the dismal work environment it was and would come home with more enthusiasm for working downtown at his father’s law firm.

Part of him even wished for that outcome.

Life would be so much easier.

He switched the shower on and waited for it to get hot. Once the temperature was as he liked it, he slid under the showerhead and turned under it. He closed his eyes, trying just to let himself relax and not think.

But one thought stayed with him—it won’t hurt just to go see. No one has to know.

Back in his room, Henry debated what to wear. He knew his father recommended a suit and tie for any interview situation. But Henry didn’t even know if there would be an interview. If he even wanted to fill out an application, all he might be faced with would be filling in the blanks.

His mother always said, “I never apologize for being overdressed.”

Yet Henry didn’t want to walk into the place looking like some privileged, private school, North Shore teenager—which he was. That could be off-putting, especially since he was imagining Fiorello’s as a small family restaurant. Otherwise, why would they be looking for a jack-of-all-trades kind of kitchen person?

In the end, he thought he couldn’t go wrong with a pair of soft gray jeans and a pink button-down shirt, tucked in. He’d wear his Cole Haan black monk strap shoes. They were comfy and not too dressy, he thought. All in all, he thought he’d look neat and not trying too hard.

Besides, the pink of the shirt set off his skin, blue eyes, and blond hair in a very fetching way. Dressed, he turned in front of the mirror and thought he didn’t look too bad, not too bad at all.

Now his only challenge would be getting out of the house unnoticed by either his mother or Maxine. Both women would be immediately suspicious if he left the house in anything other than board shorts and a tank top.

That’s why we have a back staircase to the kitchen, he told himself, creeping down its carpeted length. Besides, if I run into Maxine, I can confide in her if I need to. She’d understand. Mom, not so much.

As if to allay his worries, he heard the sound of his mother’s Mercedes two-seater convertible start up. He hurried over to his window to see her pulling out of the driveway onto Michigan Avenue.

It’s meant to be, Henry thought.

The kitchen was empty. Maxine must be in the foyer, scrubbing the floor.