I’ve lost control of my mind, and I don’t think I’ll get it back. There’s nothing left they can do for me here, now that my face is stitched. The nurse has been nice enough but I’m taking a bed that the doctor doesn’t think I deserve. Unlike the dead man who landed me here, I will keep reliving this day; I already am. 

***

Last week, we served a new hors d’oeuvre. Ahi tuna poke in a fragile phyllo shell. No matter how carefully we presented them, guests dropped the little fish bombs. That left us to balance our platters as well as to pick up the mess on the floor, though I pretended not to see the run-away tobiko. Shrimp cocktails were the easiest hors d’oeuvres to serve, so the staff was happy to see the poke discontinued and replaced by a more obedient seafood.

Not me. I hated the things. Standing next to Ash in the prep line, I disassociated while deveining the shrimp, which is just a euphemism for disembowelment. The industrial fans in the kitchen were loud despite their rhythmic hum, but Ash spoke over them.

“What is this? Change the channel.”

The unfortunate horror of digestive tracts in my hands, and the image of two men in whitey tighties, standing over a passed-out girl with four thumbs up, brought me back to the room.  

“Just another asshole in the files. Jared Beckett. This guy owns half the buildings on the Upper East Side,” Alex, the sous chef said, glued to the TV and chopping carrots blindly. 

Tara came out of the walk-in with a rolling rack of trays filled with tomato and brie tarts ready for the ovens. 

“Can one of you start on these? I’m behind on salad prep.” 

Goodbye to the entrails. I peeled saran wrap from around the rack and pulled off the blue painter’s tape label.

“This says Beckett Wedding!”

Ash took the tape.

“Well, that’s a messed-up coincidence. Can’t be the same guy though, right? He must be at least sixty now.”

We both knew how many second and third weddings for old men we’d worked this year, so the assurance was hollow.

“Yah, it’s not him. I saw the couple when I walked by the patio, and I can assure you, neither were Jared Beckett. It’s a very common name,” Alex responded.

Ash’s shoulders relaxed.  Our manager, Andrew, pushed the swinging doors open. 

“Cocktail hour in fifteen minutes! Fifteen!”

Andrew treated time like the enemy and us like its accomplices. We lined up at the kitchen door and filed out, ready to make culinary offerings to the gods of New York.  The bride and groom sat centered in the room on a raised platform, flowers of an unfathomable price draping off the tablescape.

A woman who was undoubtedly the bride’s mother stood at the periphery of the room’s central buzz. Her elegant but modest black satin dress had clearly been chosen for her as an attempt at camouflage within a jungle of guests above her social strata. It was so incongruous with her demeanor and cascading grey hair that it made her stand out even more. She was with a woman who shared her sunken cheeks and fallen forehead, the only two women who looked their age.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” the bride’s mother said. “I can’t stand it.”

I was tempted to linger behind her, me and the shrimp, little spies, but I had to replenish my tray. Ash passed me on my way into the kitchen but turned around to follow me inside.

“Katia, Jared Beckett is here,” she panted, out of breath.

“I was taking trash to the dumpster, and he was there. A reporter called and he did a line talking to him on speaker.”

“Move, Ash,” Alex barked.

We realized we were still in the doorway and moved further into the kitchen. 

“Beckett said, ‘Well no press is bad press, right, Mikey?’ and then the reporter said, ‘I think this is pretty bad press, Mr. Beckett.’”

“We need more dolmatas out there,” Andrew shouted.

We ignored him.

Alex started plating the first course. Tara wielded the carving knife, cutting through the filet mignon, specs of marbling gleaming as she sliced each perfect piece. The baker rolled a monstrosity of a cake out of the walk-in so that it would be at the ideal slicing temperature at the time to cut it.

“He answered a couple of questions, then said he was at his son’s wedding and just hung up.” 

“Ash, Katia! Get back out there,” Andrew yelled.

I couldn’t separate the sounds in the kitchen, and they started to fuse into one overwhelming discord. I needed to get out. Putting my left hand behind my back, I walked into the ballroom towards the mother of the bride. Maybe she would like dolmatas better than shrimp cocktails. I made my offer as she slid her hand into her purse and discreetly shook two round white tablets into her hand from a Xanax bottle. It was a deft maneuver I was familiar with. She exchanged her empty glass for another.  

As she took her first bite– I knew she’d like them better – Jared Beckett came over to greet his new in-law. She walked away as he approached. Jared was unphased by the slight and grabbed an hors d’oeuvre off my tray and waved away the napkin.

“No more, shrimp?”

The roots of his hair plugs were visible. I was surprised that his money couldn’t buy a better solution to balding. He wore an overly deliberate satin pocket square that begged for attention and a wristwatch that competed with it.

Tipsy from the happy hour, the guests fumbled for their table cards and found their seats with the thrill of striking gold. As the last guests were seated, we headed back to the kitchen to begin dinner service. Huddled around the whiteboard to find our assignments, I saw my name written next to the Beckett family table. I considered walking off the shift, but I was too close to the paycheck. Serving him last and dropping a slice of excessively frosted cake on his lap was the most I could do.

The smell of significantly over-poured balsamic vinegar made the typically appetizing pear and walnut salad unappealing. Ash must have told Tara about Beckett. I was moved by the camaraderie of our collective contributions to make the evening less enjoyable. I set Jared Beckett’s soggy salad in front of him. He grazed his hand over mine with a firm swift movement. My hand hit the rim of the plate as I withdrew it and tipped the plate heavily onto its side. He smirked and picked up a piece of fallen lettuce and brought it up to his mouth, oil dripping down his chin. He watched me as he chewed.

I walked back to the kitchen and pulled my hair away from my slick neck as I turned the handle of the walk-in refrigerator. I sank to the floor and brought my knees to my chest. The cold of the refrigerator made deep breathing difficult. When the air hit my lungs, I coughed. The boxes of potatoes and onions seemed to glower at me from the shelves.

Ash walked by on her way to garnish the main course as I pushed the refrigerator open. She stopped in front of me, wide-eyed. I did not know my distress was visible, and I was frustrated I had let my brain bleed through me. These men were just too damn much.

“Jared touched my hand.”

“Gross. Take a minute. I’ll finish your section.” 

In the back corner of the kitchen, where the cake sat on the cart, I tried to reset. The silver cake-cutting knife looked old and not up to the standards of the rest of the wedding. I picked it up and noticed delicate engravings on the blade. The one closest to the handle read “Sylvia Leventhall, 1940,” and each of the rows that followed listed a new name and date, ending with the current bride. This was the first nice thing about the wedding.

Thanks to Ash, I had twenty more minutes until I needed to be back on the floor. Sitting in a stall alone and zoning out on my phone mid-shift would feel like a spa day. I walked down the connecting hotel hall, passing sterile conference rooms.

“Hey! Waitress!” 

I turned around to see Jared Beckett following me.  

“This place is a maze. Where’s the bathroom?” 

I felt like I was being pulled underwater, unable to float back to the surface.

“Just down the hall and to the right.” 

I slowed down my pace so that he would walk in front of me where I could see him. He sped up and walked past me towards the men’s restroom. I felt stupid for getting nervous.

I turned the corner to the restroom, and Beckett was standing in the doorway of the men’s room, arm propped onto the wall.  Every one of his white teeth were visible through his wide grin. Like his hair, they did not look real.

“Why don’t you come in here with me for a minute?”

“Sorry, not on the job,” I joked to diffuse the situation.

I lost feeling in my legs and my head throbbed.  

“The job? I paid for your job. Get in there.”

Running would be counterproductive. This was the type of guy who liked a chase.

“Anyway, I’m only kidding,” he continued.

Silently, I walked into the women’s bathroom and pulled the door closed. My forced composure unraveled. The chemical smell of bleach clung to my nose and throat. The walls of the stall narrowed. Fuck the money. I was going home.

Finding Ash became urgent. My heart pumped faster with every step back to the ballroom. It slowed when I saw Beckett occupied on the microphone giving his toast and not lurking in a hallway. I rushed into the kitchen, but Ash wasn’t there.

At the start of every shift, she slipped a pack of cigarettes onto the window ledge behind the dumpster, a shared stash to pull from for the evening. The ledge was also dotted with little trinkets, mainly favors or seating cards that we gathered into a strange time capsule of wedding paraphernalia. If Ash wasn’t in the kitchen, I knew she would be out there, and she was.  

“You alright, Katia?”

Again, my distress was overtly visible. I don’t know why I’m like this. It’s embarrassing. 

“I’m fine, but I’m about to walk off this shift, I swear. He tried to get me to go into the bathroom with him.”

“He tried to pull the same thing with me! Wrote me a note to meet him in a conference room after the toasts.”

“Holy shit. What did you do?”

“Came out here to smoke.”

“I think we should tell Andrew we’re leaving. It is insane to work like this.”

The metal door slowly pushed open, and Beckett walked outside. 

“You girls missed my speech. Give me one of those, will you?”

Ash met his heavy eyes with a glare and threw the pack down onto the gravel. I stepped on it and dug in my heel.

 He grabbed Ash’s wrist and spun her towards him.

“That was uncalled for,” he growled.

I shoved my way between him and Ash and brought my right elbow up to his face and down hard onto the bridge of his nose. It made a grating crack before blood began to flow down his face and onto his shirt and tie. He crouched onto the ground, pinching his upturned nose and spit out the blood that was dripping down into his throat. 

“Bitch!”

Ash grabbed my hand and led me running back to the kitchen. I wasn’t hurt. Ash wasn’t hurt. I had hurt him; badly actually. And yet, I shook and cried the whole way there.

Andrew peppered us with questions after we barged into the kitchen, but I couldn’t focus through my rapid inhales. Once he realized I was having some sort of mental breakdown, he pulled me into a tight hug and rubbed my back.  Objectively, it was a kind thing to do.

“It’s okay, Katia. You are okay,” he said reassuringly.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

 I was surprised to realize that the words coming out of my mouth were my own. I needed to calm down. The kitchen door swung open. The groom and his mother came in shouting. 

“My dad needs some ice! Now!” 

Ash stayed next to me, huddled next to the cake, while Andrew wrapped a bag of ice.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” the groom said.

“I don’t need a god damn ambulance for a broken nose. Call the police.” 

The son’s eyes scanned the kitchen. 

“I want to know who did this.” 

Beckett walked towards me pointing a chubby little finger gun at my face. The metallic scent of the blood soaked into his shirt overtook the smells of the kitchen, the sickly-sweet cake relenting to the more powerful acridity. His finger was now half an inch from my face.

“Her!” 

I must have grabbed the cake knife because I plunged it into Beckett’s chest with strength I did not know I had. The blade went in without difficulty until the knife hit resistance, a serrated blade against bone.

My mouth was dry, and my hands were shaking, but my vision became sharp and bright. The knife sticking out of Beckett’s chest focused me. I ran towards the emergency exit and out onto the street. Throngs of people walked in every direction, and I wanted to disappear into them; to be weightless, buoyed along by people outside of myself.    

A radiating pain ran down my back as a knee slammed into my vertebrae and a hand pushed the back of my head. My face hit the sidewalk hard, and lying face down I saw a pool of blood forming underneath me. Three officers held me down as sirens blared. One pulled my arms tightly behind my back and latched on metal cuffs that squeezed my wrists. The moving crowd slowed, but only slightly.

***

The doctor and two police officers stand at either side of the hospital bed, and I feel my presence more acutely with their arrival.  The doctor will get his bed back. Someone is talking into the officer’s headset, and he replies, “bringing her down to the transport now.”

The officer uncuffs my hands from the bed railing and asks me to stand; I do as I’m told. If I am lucky, justice will find me like it found Jared Beckett, but I won’t hold my breath. At least there won’t be shrimp in my prison cell.