Simmer Down

had an actual career and a regular job. His work meant horrible hours, but it was a good step above Owen’s slew of odd vocations. What’s more, Josh was clear and realistic about the downside of his vocation. A chef was lucky to have Christmas off. At hotels, chefs worked on all or almost all holidays. On Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, restaurants were swamped. Chefs not only worked on weekends but were fortunate ever to have two days off in a row. When I thought about the long term—not that Josh and I were there yet—if we got married and had a bunch of kids, I’d be alone on all those holidays and alone on most nights. Anniversary dinners? Josh would probably be working. I’d grown up watching Friends and, as far as I could remember, Monica the chef had never missed any important coffeehouse chitchat and had definitely never had to work on holidays. Some weeks, Josh had practically no time to sleep. A lot of doctors, of course, worked nights and weekends and holidays, too, but they made five times what Josh did, and the high incomes probably eased the scheduling difficulties. As to the vision of Josh off feeding and tending to other people while our kids and I were home alone, well, it rubbed me the wrong way. The nerve! There he was, out creating romantic experiences for loving couples, and here I was, stuck in the house dealing with domestic chaos.
    Realizing that I was seriously jumping the gun and, even worse, starting to sound like Heather, I shook our imaginary bratty children out of my head and, avoiding the back stairs, where I felt doomed to run into stupid Noah, headed up the front steps. As I struggled with my keys and fought with the ancient lock on my condo door, the phone inside began to ring. I won the battle with the lock in time to answer it.
    “Um, Chloe? This is Isabelle.” The clatter in the background announced that she was calling from the restaurant.
    “Hi. Sounds like you’re at work. How’s it going?” I asked excitedly.
    “Oh, um, well... it’s good. Really. I wanted to thank you for getting me this job. It only took me twenty-five minutes to get here, which is so much better than that other job I was going to interview for. And everybody has been really nice to me here.”
    I sensed a “but” coming.
    “Isabelle, is anything wrong? Did something happen?”
    “Oh, no,” she tried to assure me over the din of shouting. “It’s just... is it always this crazy at a restaurant?”
    My stomach dropped. I glanced at the clock and saw it was just after one o’clock. If things were bad now, Isabelle was in for a long day ahead. “What do you mean by crazy?”
    “Josh and Gavin are fighting, and Gavin keeps talking about God and stuff. Is this a religious restaurant of some sort? Because I haven’t been to church in years. And Josh got mad because someone burned the bottom of a skillet, and so Josh slammed it into the trash can, and then Gavin said that if he was just going to throw new equipment away, why not get rid of everything, and so Josh threw out a blender and a serving tray and then—”
    “Isabelle, take a breath, okay? I’m sorry it’s so wild there right now, but you have to remember that this is their opening day, and Josh and Gavin are both really nervous about tonight. It won’t always be like this. You guys will find a routine and a rhythm after a couple of weeks, I’m sure. Just hang in there and lie low for now. I’m sorry they’re freaking you out,” I apologized. “No matter what Josh or Gavin, or anyone else for that matter, does today, don’t take it personally. If they’re being idiots, it has nothing to do with you. Why don’t you see if you can trail Snacker today,” I suggested. “He might be less worked up than Josh.”
    “Who’s Snacker?” she asked.
    What the hell was his real name again? Josh always called him Snacker. Oh, yeah. “His name is Jason. He’s Josh’s sous chef. ”
    “Oh,” she giggled. “The really cute guy? Tall with dark hair?”
    “Yes.” I laughed. “That’s him. Tell him I asked him to take care of you today, okay?”
    “All right,” she promised. “Thanks again, Chloe.”
    It was midafternoon, and I was tired and hungry again. I started a pot of coffee and put the kielbasa on the stove to simmer for a bit so that the kale would cook through. As I waited, I checked on Ken and decided to give him a bath, as the Web site had advised. I found an old plastic bowl that would have to become