“You’re closing down?” I ask.

I had no idea he actually wanted to talk to me about something. Usually when he calls me into his office, we end up taking a couple of shots and bragging about our exploits. Although, come to think of it, his tales bear a striking resemblance to some of the stories in Penthouse Forum.

I wonder if there’s a connection.

“I’m trying not to,” he says and sighs. “Look, I’ll keep you on as long as I can, but you’re going to want to start looking for more work. I just can’t swing an executive chef right now. I’m thinking of having your sous chef run the day-to-day—”

“Cannon?” I blurt. “I wasn’t joking about that French onion thing. The guy actually sent that out. I didn’t even find out about it until—”

“Yeah,” Jim says, “that was actually a special request from a VIP—it doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to tell you—”

“Don’t tell me it was that chick who wrote those perverted fantasy-romance novels for teenagers,” I interrupt again, trying to lighten the mood.

It doesn’t work.

“Dane, I can give you a recommendation, but I just can’t afford to pay you anymore.”

“I just moved into a new fucking place, Jim,” I snap. “How am I supposed to pay for shit if I don’t have a job?”

“You’re a great chef,” Jim says, “but I’m out of options.”

“What if I stay on at a lower salary?” I ask. “Come on, man, I just need enough to pay rent and all that. People are going to start coming back as soon as—”

“What?” Jim asks. “People are going to start coming back as soon as the economy recovers? The people who have the most money aren’t fucking spending it, Dane. That’s why the economy’s in the goddamned tank. That’s why l’Iris is circling the drain.” He puts his hands together and leans forward. “Look, I’ve put in too much time, money, and energy to let this place go under without a fight, but I’m getting my ass handed to me, here. Trust me, letting you go isn’t an easy—”

“So that’s it, then?” I ask. “You’re firing me? I put this place on the fucking map, Jim. I’ve got just as much blood and sweat in this hole as you do and you’re just going to throw me overboard?”

Jim takes a moment.

“You’re not the only one I have to let go, Dane, but you’re the one with the biggest salary. When things get back on track—”

“What?” I ask. “You’ll condescend to offer me the same job that I’ve been doing six years in this clusterfuck of a city? You can shove that up your fucking dick hole.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, will you grow up?” Jim yells. “Six years I’ve been listening to you screaming that bullshit in the kitchen like you’re Gordon Fucking Ramsay and I’m sick of it. If you were him, this place wouldn’t be falling apart, I’d have money in the till, and we wouldn’t have to keep moving the tables farther from the kitchen.”

“You know I—”

“Will you just listen to me?” he interrupts. “In spite of all your bullshit, I like you, Dane. You’re a foul-mouthed asshole, but you are a good chef. This isn’t personal, got it? I would have offered you sous chef just to keep you on if I didn’t think—”

“That it would be a slap in the face and the kitchen staff would never respect me again?” I ask.

“This is your problem, Dane; you’re too fucking arrogant. If I thought you could work under anyone other than me, I wouldn’t have to let you go, but you can’t,” Jim says, leaning back in his chair. “I looked at the books, and I can keep you on for another month or so, but that’s it. You’ve got to find something else.”

“This is such—”

“I don’t have a choice, Dane,” Jim says. “I’ll give you a good recommendation. I’ll help you get set up somewhere else, but I can’t keep you here.”

“Yeah, don’t do me any favors,” I say, getting up from my chair. “I’ll stay on for a while, but don’t expect Cannon to amount to shit. He needs someone to breathe down his neck and berate him or he falls apart like a little bitch that couldn’t make himself a bowl of cereal.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Jim says. “Hey, I’m sorry it has to be this—”

“Oh, fuck yourself, Jim,” I tell him and am back in the kitchen a minute later.

On the upside, that’s nowhere near the first time I’ve told my boss to fuck himself. On the downside, I think that’s the first time he really knew that I meant it.

I’ll be lucky if he keeps me on until the end of my shift.

Somehow, he resists the temptation to fire me straight away, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell Roommate Chick. Although I’m fairly certain that learning her name would be a positive step before I tell her I just lost my job. First, though, I’ll have to tell her what it is that I actually do. That’ll be a great conversation.

When I get home, Roommate Chick is sitting on the couch, reading.

She’s obviously busy, so I decide not to disturb her.

“Hey,” she says, not looking up from her book.

Shit.

“Hey,” I answer. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” she says, turning the page. “Where’d you get the confit de canard?”

“I didn’t get it,” I tell her.

“Whatever. I’ve been looking for a place that serves a decent version of it. Where’d you pick it up?”

Right now, I’m fighting two urges: My chef’s pride wants me to tell her that I made it. On the other hand, if I tell her, she’s going to want me to cook for her all the time. Worse than that, the conversation will inevitably lead to the one topic I’m trying to avoid.

“I picked it up at some French place a few blocks from here.”

It’s not a complete falsehood. L’Iris is only a few blocks from the apartment, and I do work there, for now, anyway.

“Does this place have a name?”

“Yeah, but I can’t pronounce it,” I lie. Day one on the job was learning the proper French pronunciation of everything in the restaurant, and I do mean everything.

Jim insists that we call the spoons “Cuillère.”

She scoffs and returns the modicum of focus she was expending on me back to her book. Or, at least that’s what I was hoping she was doing.

“Do you remember the address?” she asks, her eyes moving side to side as she reads.

“Not remotely.”

That one’s not a lie.

“Do you know the name of the chef?” she asks. “I could probably look it up from that.”

“You really liked it, huh?” I ask, secretly patting myself on the back.

“Yeah,” she says. “Oh well. If you can’t remember, you can’t remember.”

“All right,” I say and start to walk back toward my room.

“Only…”

I stop.

“I don’t know. I’d love to find out where you got it. It’s the best confit de canard I’ve had since—well, it’s the best I’ve had in years.” She finally looks up from her book. “Maybe some time when you’re free we could walk through the area. I’m sure we could find it.”

I have to give her something; otherwise every conversation is going to end up here. We really don’t have anything else to talk about.

“It has a flower on the sign,” I tell her. “Other than that, I’m not sure that—”

“L’Iris?” she asks, her breath bated.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”

When I’m free and clear of the restaurant, I’ll tell her where to go. Not that Cannon could even dream of making confit de canard without me holding his hand and slapping him in the face with it.

“I bet that’s it,” she says. “I’ve wanted to try it out, but I hear the chef is a real jerk.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah,” she says. “If the food’s that good, though, maybe it’s time to drop in and see what happens.”

“Nah,” I tell her. “I could hear that guy from the kitchen. Everything was ‘fuck this,’ and ‘fuck that.’ It kind of kills the mood.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll just have Mike go in there for me. People who curse all the time get on my last nerve. I mean, what kind of idiot—”

She pauses a moment and looks up, but she doesn’t look at me.