The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [75]
“Right,” Pella said. “The thing is, see, President Affenlight sent me.” She paused and tugged on one of her tender, freshly pierced earlobes, waiting to see what effect her father’s name would have. The mound-shaped man lifted the bag of mashed potatoes to eye height and performed a subtle wrist move that spun the bag slowly on its vertical axis, winding the neck into a long tight strand. “President Affenlight,” he said, a weary shrug in his voice. “Chef Spirodocus.” His tone indicated that it was an open question as to which of these was the loftier title; that despite the loftiness of their titles they were both just men; and that because they were men they would surely die. He opened a tremendous refrigerator and tossed the bag inside.
Behind him, in the kitchen proper, a small Latino man was blasting a huge pan with a pressurized hose. Wet chunks of charred gunk kicked up and spattered his shirt. Pella imagined the inside of the pan slowly coming clean, black giving way to gleaming silver as the fierce stream of water worked its way through the caked-on layers of sauce or soup or—as the menu card propped on the counter beside her said—Southwestern Veggie Lasagna. The guy didn’t exactly look happy, his eyes glazed over and his face slick with sweat, but Pella envied the clarity of his purpose. Dirty Clean. A hose like that, she thought, would make a good addition to Mike and Arsch’s kitchen.
“So…,” she said, unsure where she stood with Chef Spirodocus, who had unspooled another bag from a giant roll and resumed the spooning of potatoes, “President Affenlight and I—he’s my father, I’m his daughter—are having guests, unexpected guests, and we were wondering, if it wasn’t too much trouble, whether you might have something lying around that we could maybe use as an appetizer.”
“Lying around?” repeated Chef Spirodocus broodingly. “Use as an appetizer?”
He balanced his potato scooper on the edge of the pan, pressed the heels of his hands to the countertop, and fixed his flesh-pinched eyes on Pella for the first time. He struck Pella as a deeply democratic man, a man of the people, and she wished that she were wearing her usual uniform of hooded sweatshirt and frazzled hair and bags under her eyes, instead of this pretty lilac dress and earrings and makeup. She fidgeted with a sliding bra strap.
“A thousand people.” Chef Spirodocus encompassed kitchen, serving line, and dining room with a broad sweep of a stubby arm. “Every day. For a thousand people, you cannot do things right. You must simply do them. Do you understand?”
Pella started to say that yes, she understood, but he had already spun on a wooden-heeled clog and vanished into the kitchen. Without those heels he would really be impressively short. Minutes passed. He didn’t come back. Pella was pretty sure she’d been abandoned, but she didn’t have a plan B, so she just stood there watching the Latino dishwasher blasting away with his power hose, his face purpled by exertion.
She’d given up on appetizers but was still standing there blankly when Chef Spirodocus returned, a brimming shopping bag in his stubby arms. Atop whatever else was inside sat an unbaked loaf, redolent of cinnamon, with currants or raisins on top. “Put that in the oven as soon as you get home,” he said. “Serve it with the coffee.”
“Wow,” Pella said. “Wow. Did you make this right now?”
“A chef never tells.” Chef Spirodocus’s face turned pleasant for the first time; it seemed to sink and soften. He reached up to give Pella a clumsy pat on the back. “Tell your father I did my best. I had no time, I had no notice, but I did my best. Okay?”
“Okay,” Pella said. “Thanks so much, Chef Spirodocus. My dad will really appreciate it.”
She turned to leave but found herself rooted to the navy-and-ecru-tiled floor. The tiny desire-voice in her chest was chanting something, softly and incoherently; she