Page 11 of The Snag List
‘Roe … ROE?’ It was Gina, the head chef, yelling through the pass.
‘Sorry, G – yep?’
‘Can I get numbers on tonight’s bookings please? When you have the time, obviously,’ she added, glaring pointedly at the phone still in Roe’s hand then clattering over to the stove to violently slash a spatula at some pans. Gina was a bit of a horror. Roe scrambled around, printing out the bookings info.
Hot breath on her ear startled her. Danny had slid back in behind the counter. He hissed, ‘First-round auditions are at the start of May appara. Two weeks away, Roe.’
‘You didn’t need to mouth-breathe in my ear!’
‘There’s scant info available right now, but Róisín’s warned the auditions are going to befraught. I don’t know what the hell role I’ll be eligible for. It’s pretty woman-heavy, but there’s always Johnny Logan and they could beef up the John Waters role, maybe shoehorn in a few baritone TV execs, that kind of thing, I imagine.’
Resolutely ignoring him – he was forever pressuring her to try out – Roe located the printout and leaned into the pass, where Gina was now hacking at herbs like they’d mowed down a beloved pet of hers.
Roe cleared her throat. ‘So we’ve had one cancellation for the first sitting, but otherwise a full house and exactly twenty-six diners for the second sitting.’
‘Funny – didn’t see awordon our socials about a last-minute early table going spare.’
‘Doing it now, Gina.’
Danny was stacking clean glasses and filling carafes with water now. ‘I think it’s high time you tried out, Roe. So many strong female leads here. You’re a Niamh Kavanagh to the bone. Beautiful and charismatic. You’re a bit more voluptuous obvi…’
‘I hate “voluptuous”, as you know.’
‘You ready for specials?’ Gina snapped. ‘Stop distracting her.’ She pointed her tongs at Danny.
‘Yep.’ Roe swung back to the till. ‘Hang on, I’ll just grab my pen—’
‘Mains,’ Gina continued in a bored voice, not even bothering to wait for Roe. ‘We have rainbow trout with pea risotto, charred scallions and fresh lemon and basil oil. Starter is a house-made boudin noir with poached rhubarb and toasted hazelnuts. Dessert is roast pears with a chestnut and chocolate tart.’
‘Really? Is that not a bit—?’
‘A bit what?’ Gina demanded, suddenly snapping to attention. She hated any kind of interference from the front-of-house.
‘Well …’ Roe tried to hold her gaze without betraying the pounding in her chest.I have to get better at feedback. I can’t just roll over every time there’s a conflict, she coached herself. ‘It’s a bit autumnal for mid-April, like?’
Gina glowered. ‘I am sick of you and your power trip ever since you became manager.’ Now she was wielding a paring knife over the pass. ‘Out there buried in your phone like you’re—’
‘Gina, I’ve been manager for four years,’ Roe said evenly. It was better to try and de-escalate Gina – this was her pre-service nerves. ‘I love your food. No one has your instincts. It was just a minor thought. Ignore me – I don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘You don’t!’ Gina flung her tongs in the overflowing sink to her left and stomped off to the walk-in fridge, hopefully to cool off.
Roe wishedshehad somewhere to hide. It felt like she’d just survived an encounter with a wild animal.
‘I’m sorry, but if you can go up against Gina when she’s absolutely on one, I have no idea why you think you’re not up to trying out?’ Danny was persisting. He did this every year.
She taped the list of specials beside the till for the rest of the wait staff to copy down. ‘It’s too late for me to be getting into all that stuff, Danny. I’m not a performer. I’d die up there – my corpse would have to be nudged off stage left while the show carried on.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Look at me, I’m shaking after justtalkingto Gina there.’
She loved her singing and, yes, one of her private pursuits was dancing, but she took the dance-like-nobody’s-watching maxim extremely literally – she couldn’t so much as tap her foot in front of someone.
‘Well,’ he looked furious, ‘so long as you know that you’ll be sentencing us to the un-fucking-bearable Denise. She’ll be straight in. She’s always the lead, Roe,’ he whined. ‘And it’s so boring and predictable. Why are we endlessly punished with mildly talented tiny blonde women everywhere we look? You’re the only person with the range that could challenge her, but I suppose we’d see the Brits win Eurovision sooner than you try out for something.’
‘Harsh!’ This, Roe knew, was Danny’s way of encouraging her, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Look, even if I wanted to, I’ll be stuck out in Monteray. Eddie’s kind of been making noises about me … if I get … you know … duffed up that I might have to quit choir.’
‘I’m sorry, what are you? A delicate Victorian lady?’
Ugh, I have to get him off this topic. ‘Excuse me, I am much more a consumptive Victorian child! In which case, Monteray Valley is actually the perfect place for me. They literally do everything for you there. We met our “life curator”, Yannick, this morning and he said he’s at our beck and call now. No irritating task is too small, appara. He’s going to arrange to have my handbag cleared out once a week and for our Christmas shopping to be bought, wrapped and stashed by June!’
4
