Chapter 3 - The Kitchen Door Closed Too Fast
The kitchen door swung shut behind me too fast and caught the edge of my tray.
I stopped just inside it with my back against the wood and breathed. The dining room had been all candle heat and low voices. Back here it was stainless steel and steam from the dishwasher and the smell of lemon soap. My right ankle was throbbing in time with my pulse. I could feel the bandage damp against my skin inside my shoe.
I limped the last two steps to the prep counter and set the silver tray down. Empty now except for a wet ring where one of the glasses had sweated. I gripped the edge of the counter until the white went out of my knuckles.
The stairs came back to me before I could stop it. An hour earlier, maybe less, before the guests sat down. I'd been coming up from the cellar with a second set of crystal glasses wrapped in a linen towel. Hurry up, they'd said. Mr. Hale liked everything poured before anyone asked. On the second landing somebody came down fast around the turn with a crate on his shoulder and didn't call out. I moved right. He moved right. The tray edge hit the rail. My foot turned under me on the step edge and I went down hard on my knee with the towel and the glasses clutched to my chest.
I remembered the sound more than the pain at first. A dull pop from my ankle. Then the heat climbing up my leg. The man with the crate had just kept going. Watch it, he'd said over his shoulder, and was gone. I sat there on the cold stair with my heart hammering and checked both glasses for chips with shaking hands. Intact. That was all I'd cared about then.
"You're limping."
I looked up. Carla was at the sink, sleeves pushed up, her hands red from the water. She was forty-something and had worked dinners in that house for years. She glanced at my foot, then at the door.
"It's nothing," I said. "I turned it on the stairs."
She dried her hands slow and came closer, lowering her voice. "Let me see."
I didn't want to. But I sat on the overturned milk crate by the ice machine and lifted my foot. The shoe came off hard. The bandage underneath was loose and gray at the edges where I'd wrapped it fast in the bathroom. My ankle was swollen tight around the bone, pink and hot.
Carla crouched. She didn't touch it. "When?"
"Before service. Carrying glasses up from the cellar."
"Did you tell Mr. Hale?"
I shook my head. I could hear the murmur of the dining room through the wall, the clink of stemware. My throat went dry.
She pulled the first-aid box from under the sink and knelt with fresh gauze. Her hands were quick and sure. She unwrapped the old bandage and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. The air on the skin hurt worse.
"Listen to me," she said, quiet, not looking up. She wound the new wrap snug around my ankle, over the arch, twice around. "Whatever's going on out there, don't make trouble with the guests. Especially not that table. You answer, you pour, you keep your eyes down. You go home with your pay. Understand?"
It wasn't unkind. That was what made it sit heavy. She taped the end and smoothed it flat.
"I wasn't making trouble," I said. "I missed a pour. Mr. Hale—"
"I know," she said. "I heard. From out here you can hear everything when it goes quiet like that." She stood and put the box back. "That man in the black shirt kept asking about your foot. Don't give him a reason to keep asking."
I slipped my shoe back on over the fresh wrap. Tighter. It held better. The pain dulled to something I could stand on if I kept my weight left. I tested it, one step, then another to the counter. The limp was still there but smaller if I concentrated.
Carla watched me. "You should ice it after. You tell Mr. Hale now, he'll send you home and put Rosa on. You want that?"
I thought about rent and the bus schedule taped to my fridge and how short the month already was. I thought about Mr. Hale's face when I'd apologized, and Mr. Romano's voice, low, stopping me in place.
"No," I said. "I can finish."
I picked up the tray. The steel was cool against my forearms. My ankle pulsed, steady and insistent, but my hands were steady now.
May you like
Carla held the kitchen door for me. Warm light and candle smoke spilled in from the hall. "Eyes down," she said again.
I nodded and walked back toward the dining room, counting my steps to keep them even.
