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Hannah

“Anna!” my boss screams from across the kitchen.

“It’s Hannah,” I mutter under my breath. “Hhhhh,” I add, annoyed, accentuating the letter H sound for only me to hear.

He doesn’t care what my name is and I really should be quite pleased that he at least came close to getting it right. He’s been calling one of the sous chefs Ben despite his name being Curt.

Not even close, bud.

“Yes,” I now answer, this time so he can hear me.

“Anna!” he screams again, slamming his knife down and sending diced onions flying in all directions.

I’m literally standing directly in front of him and when he lets out a perturbed huff, it blasts out of his mouth and right into my face.

It’s hot and foul, and it takes everything in me to control my reaction, attempting not to throw up in my mouth or let on that I’m disgusted. He thrives on that kind of shit.

Dickhead.

“Yes, Mr. Langston?” I ask, my faux-polite demeanor nearly choking me to death.

“Did you get the schedule finished for next week?”

“Yes.”

“Orders placed for delivery next week?”

“Yes.”

“Seasonal menu created?”

“Yes.”

This is getting redundant, and I can feel my blood pressure rising with every word. I’m sure his is too, but I’ve done nothing to make him mad other than do the job he hired me to do. And I do it damn well.

“Bring it to me!” he shouts, like I’m an idiot and can’t possibly understand him.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Is that all you can say? Yes. Yes. Yes,” he chides, mocking my voice and I really want to punch him in the throat. But I need this job because moving back in with my parents sounds equally as bad as working here.

There’s rent to pay and bills to keep up with and a life to live that doesn’t involve my mother asking when I’m going to get married and have a baby.

It’s fucking 2022, I thought it was uncouth to judge women on their marital status or their choice on whether or not to have kids. Guess not in my mother’s eyes.

I’m certainly not going to meet anyone when all I do is work, work, work, work, work.

I don’t answer him and his question that is designed to intimidate me.

He doesn’t scare me in the least. He obviously has a small penis and has spent his entire life trying to compensate for it by being a colossal asshole.

I can’t even believe he’s married and has kids.

Their life must have been awful. Bad enough that his own kids don’t even work here.

They probably went in the total opposite direction when choosing their careers just to get away from him.

I feel like I spend most of my day muttering under my breath and hating my job, but I still trudge back to the office and grab the seasonal menu.

I’ve spent the better part of a month working on this and every single time I bring it to him, it’s the same thing.

He hates every suggestion, calls me incompetent and I spend the rest of my night attempting to re-do it. On my own time, nonetheless.

I would never indulge a guy the way I do this jerk I call my boss.

It’s the sad reality of needing a job and being trapped by the all-mighty dollar and my mother’s judgment that I can’t make a living as a cook.

I’m not a cook; I’m a chef, an expertly trained and completely professional chef, who has the very expensive degree to prove it.

The other reason I don’t leave this job is because it’s one of the highest end restaurants in San Francisco with five-star write-ups everywhere you turn.

Getting to put this on my resume would mean doors will open at just the restaurant name.

I have to make it at least two years so it doesn’t look like I couldn’t hack it in this high-stress environment.

I’ve only been here for three months. Three fucking months. The longest three months of my life.

It has to get easier, right?

Sometimes I wonder if he’s just testing me, seeing how I perform under pressure and once I prove I’m competent, he’ll come around. Or maybe I’m just living in a dream world because I can’t imagine this dick being nice to anyone. Ever.

I hand him my ideas for the seasonal menu and he lets out a scoff of disapproval, running a hand through his gray speckled hair as he grabs for the pen I’m holding. Yanking it from my hand with far too much animosity, he begins crossing off ideas.

“No,” he bites out as he draws a harsh line through the first suggestion. “Nope. No way. No. What the fuck were you thinking?” He’s huffing away as he enthusiastically strikes out all but one of my ideas.

He pauses, reading the last one, the pen poised to destroy it, the tip leaving a swelling black blot where he’s left it on the paper.

It feels like time is suddenly moving in slow motion, the sound of the ticking clock, loud and ominous as I wait to see what happens.

Hours pass, days, lifetimes, while I wait.

Okay, I’m being dramatic, it’s only like thirty seconds, but thirty seconds with Roy Langston not speaking is unheard of.

He’s either stunned into silence by my genius suggestion or he’s questioning why he hired someone who he thinks is basically the stupidest person on Earth.

“Okay,” he breathes out, the bark still there, but it’s certainly less harsh.

“Keep this one.” He shoves the paper back at me and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from showing my excitement.

He doesn’t need to see that I’ve been pining away trying to impress him since I started working here. That makes me a total loser.

This damn job is like an abusive relationship. I have got to get the hell out of here.

“I want the completed menu back in the morning,” he now hisses, glaring at me, because he knows I’m working till midnight, and I won’t possibly have the time to finish the menu to his liking unless I work through the night. “I don’t have time for your incompetence, Anna. Get it right this time.”

Like I’ve literally sat around and thought, how can I make this menu so bad that it screams incompetence? How can I make it so bad that I get shamed on a regular basis at my job? I swear he’s an idiot if he thinks I’m not working my ass off.

“Yes,” I reply, hating myself with every yes reply I give.

Set some boundaries, Hannah!

Maybe I should start with telling him my name isn’t Anna, again. But that just feels like a waste of breath. He has zero interest in knowing anything about his employees other than making them work till they hate their life. He’s winning.

I spend the rest of the night doing what I love about my job. Cooking and preparing and presentation of plates alongside the other sous chef, with Roy conveniently missing, which makes doing our job so much easier.

“I gotta find a new job,” I mutter to Curt as the night winds down and we begin cleaning up.

“You say that every single night,” he quips back, shaking his head.

“I have no idea how you’ve lasted six months. I’m pushing three and it feels like I’ve been here for ten years.” I scrub my hands over my face, letting out an exhausted sigh.

“I cry myself to sleep at night,” he says, his words laced with humor, but I can’t help but think there may be some seriousness to them. Not like I haven’t cried myself to sleep after leaving here.

“I have to work on the seasonal menu tonight,” I wail, each word coming out as a desperate cry for help. Not that I expect Curt to help me. He was the only one working on them before I was hired. He’s done his time.

“Oh yes. Good luck. My last one went through six revisions before he finally gave his approval,” Curt admits, and I don’t feel so bad about myself. I’m on revision number four. “My best was three. That night I drank an entire bottle of wine in celebration.”

“I might just end up drinking an entire bottle of wine out of necessity.”

We both laugh a little, but we know not to make it seem like we’re enjoying ourselves at all. If Roy hears us, it will spur him to lose his shit and we’ll end up staying here later than either of us wants to.

We finish up quickly, and scramble out the door without a word, knowing if we leave without talking to Roy, we might actually get home at a decent hour. Not that it matters since I’ll be up working on this damn menu.

I wake up the next morning to my watch vibrating on my wrist. I have no idea what time it is or what time I even went to bed last night. I look down and see my brother’s name popping up on the screen.

“Fuck!” I yell out to the empty room, the word reverberating back at me.

I grab for my phone on the nightstand, answering it with a groggy hello that I know will only annoy Dylan.

“Where are you?” Dylan asks and it’s not that I forgot I was meeting him for breakfast, it’s just that I’ve spread myself a little too thin with all this work shit. Staying up too late and stressing myself out about getting this menu right.

“Sorry, I overslept. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I answer back, climbing out of bed and attempting to pull on a pair of leggings with one hand as I defend myself to Dylan, the phone now tucked against my shoulder.

“We meet for breakfast every Sunday and for the last three months you’ve been late. Good news, I haven’t even left my house yet,” he teases.

“You’re a jerk,” I spit out. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Love you, Hannah,” he calls out in a sing-song voice, making fun of me but still making me smile.

I scramble to get ready, whipping my hair into a knot on the top of my head and brushing my teeth. Dylan’s lucky that I showered last night, or I’d smell like mushroom risotto and seared tuna.

We meet at the same place every Sunday and it’s the one part of my week that I actually enjoy. It sucks that it’s now become sort of a chore, but I don’t want to give it up. Plus, I’m still working on Dylan to try and get me a job at one of the restaurants on the Somerville property.

He’s waiting outside the door for me when I walk up.

He’s stopped getting a table because he says it’s rude to take a table from someone else when he has to sit around and wait for me to arrive.

I find this whole thing comical because up until just recently he was the most self-absorbed person I knew.

He couldn’t have given a shit about anything but hooking up with girls and working out.

“I’m starving,” I whine, as he holds the door open for me and I walk in.

The hostess greets us with a smile and brings us right over to our usual table.

The table that she pretty much reserves for us despite Dylan’s complaints about not being seated until we both arrive.

We’ve been doing this since we graduated from college as a way to make sure we see each other regularly.

Otherwise, work and life get in the way, and we’d go months without seeing each other.

“How’s work going?” Dylan asks, like he doesn’t already know it’s a nightmare.

“It’s awful. Like the worst experience of my life,” I wail, sounding far too dramatic.

“When are you going to get me a job at Somerville’s?

” I now ask, pleading with him to help me get my ass out of this situation.

Not that I need his help, but it would be nice to have an in somewhere.

I should probably just put myself out there and hope no one asks why I’m leaving The Yellow Door after only three months.

I could even just leave it off my resume altogether, like I did when I gave Dylan my resume for Somerville’s.

“There’s an opening at Somerville’s,” he says, enthusiastically.

“I’ve been talking you up, but here’s the thing, it’s probably a step down from where you are now, Hannah.

It’s a sous chef position at a smaller restaurant.

You sure you want to take a possible pay cut and work at a place that doesn’t hold the same prestige? ”

“Fuck yes, I do,” I hiss, my words low, but the intensity high. “Not everyone is independently wealthy like you and can choose to work a low-stress job just for the fun of it.”

“I’ve told you before, I’m happy to loan you some money so you can start up your own restaurant,” Dylan adds, and as much as I’d love to take him up on his offer, I also know the failure rate of new restaurants.

“Just work on your boss to hire me at Somerville’s.”

“I think it’s the head chef Leo, who is in charge of hiring for the restaurants,” Dylan says, like I give a shit who it is. I just need a damn job. I don’t care who hires me.

“Whoever it is, tell them I’m amazing.”