Heat Wave(28)

“Let me guess, a beach bum?”

He frowns. “You got it. Now hurry up. Don't bother changing, just get the apron on and get to work.”

He throws it at me and stalks off down the beach and back to the hotel.

I throw up my middle finger at him, hoping he can feel it at his back, before I quickly hurry around to the restaurant and inside, tying my apron over my tank top as I go.

“There you are,” Johnny says as I burst inside the kitchen.

“Sorry, sorry,” I say to him and Charlie, who is already chopping vegetables. “I fell asleep on the beach. Do you have a chef shirt I can borrow?”

“You can't cook like that?” Charlie asks.

I give him an odd look. “Not if I want potential burns all over my arms.”

“Look, go back to your room and get changed, no big deal,” Johnny says.

“And let Logan catch me? No way. I've already made him think I'm a shitty employee.”

“Phhfff, that’s how he thinks of all of us. You’ll get used to it. Here.” Charlie fishes something out of cloth bag hanging on the wall and gives it to me. “This should be yours anyway.”

I hold it up. It's rather large and says Moonwater Inn across it in the same tiki style as the hotel's sign. It's a cheap shirt but it will do.

“It ain’t the pupu shirt,” Charlie explains as I slip it on under the apron, “but it’s something.”

“Did Logan come in here looking for me?” I ask.

Johnny nods. “Aye. Said he wanted to see how you were starting out.”

I eye the clock on the wall. Technically I’m only ten minutes late.

“Though we both know he was spying on you,” Charlie adds. “Like he wants a reason to be mad.”

I sigh. “Story of my life. It’s too late now, I signed that damn contract. He’s stuck with me. Anyway, enough about that.” I clap my hands together, walking over to Johnny. “Get me up to speed. I need my first day to go well.”

And, with the help of Johnny, Charlie, and Jin, it somehow does go well. Obviously there’s a learning curve—the kitchen at Ohana Lounge is light years different from the one at Piccolo. Not saying one is better or worse, but the way I’m used to doing things doesn’t necessarily work here. Everything is a lot more relaxed and laid back, to the point where it grates on my nerves a bit, and despite Johnny having the title of head cook, all the roles in the kitchen are shared equally.

That’s probably my favorite thing about it all—the lack of ego. At Piccolo there was a hierarchy you could never stray from. Here, I really feel like we’re working together as a team, an “us versus them” mentality. We want the restaurant as a whole to succeed, we want the hotel to succeed, we want the customers happy, we want ourselves to be happy.

Of course that doesn’t mean I didn’t screw up a few times. Some of the fish I’d never cooked before, let alone seen, so I overdid it on the Opah and Wahoo more than once (yes, those are the actual names) and I was so flustered when I made the papaya dressing for the salad that I forgot to put the lid on the blender. Suffice to say, all of us were were covered in yellow goo by the time the shift was over.

But I survived. The customers seemed happy and the food tasted great. I just wish that Logan had come by at least once to see me in action, to realize that I pulled through after all. Beach bum or not, I’m a damn good cook and he should be happy he hired me.

Instead, while Jin finished up with the pots and pans, the rest of us moseyed on over to the bar to have a drink with Daniel and Nikki. It was my first time officially meeting them.

Verdict is: Daniel the bartender, with his curly hair pulled back into a ponytail, his Hawaiian shirt, cheesy grin and the way he hands out his realtor business card like he’s a quick draw in a Western, is the type to try and get in your pants. And Nikki, though frazzled from a busy night, is your quintessential waitress—sweet, talkative, and pretty, a combination that I’m sure leads to the perfect tips.

All in all, as the five of us sit at the bar and sip some beers, there’s an easy sense of camaraderie. There’s a bit of sexual tension between Nikki and Daniel…and Nikki and Charlie, for that matter, but that’s to be expected. From what I’ve seen, seems like everyone gets along here like a big happy family.

“So the boys tell me you’re Juliet’s sister,” Nikki says, her voice still bright, which I appreciate. Somehow it always makes things worse when people lower their voice, like they’re ashamed or afraid to mention her name.

I nod, slowly twirling the beer around in my hand, studying the Hawaiian-style art on the bottle. “Yup.”