I’ve never left a service in my life. I fight it. I try really hard to pull myself together. Yet I can’t imagine how I’m going to get through an evening with nothing but smiles and charm when inside I feel like I don’t know myself anymore. I don’t know what I’ve done. Not at all. Deep down, I feel I must have done something.

What happened at the cabins? If I did something so terrible, was it terrible enough that I could really have no memory of it?

Like most of the car accident in Huntington Beach?

Was it something like that?

I find Micah. He’s talking with Lynnette, our front-of-the-house. She’s my age. Stunning. Long black hair that she wears swept back and a black dress slit up to there to show off her perfectly shaped thighs. I’ve seen Micah and Lynnette together—closely together—many times. I’ve wondered who was using who. That isn’t on my mind at the moment.

“Chef,” I say, “man, I hate to do this to you. I feel sick. Like food poisoning or something. Maybe oysters from the canal. I don’t know. Just came on like a Mack truck. I can’t be here.”

“That’s strange, Connor,” Lynnette says, somewhat suspiciously. “Food poisoning happens pretty fast. When did you eat the oysters?”

“Yesterday,” I say.

Sweat pours down my temples. My armpits stain my white shirt too. I look bad. Really bad. To Lynnette’s point, it doesn’t goddamn matter when I ate the oysters at all. I’m sick. Look at me. I’m about to hurl. I need to get out of there. Micah sees my very real symptoms. He reaches over to pat me on the shoulder but thinks better of it. I wonder if he thinks I have the flu. He’s smarter than Lynnette, for sure.

“Dude,” he says, “get out of here. Go home. Let me know how you’re doing.”

“I’m really sorry, Chef,” I say, backing away to get my jacket from the peg by the back door.

“No problem,” Micah says. “We’ll get by.”

As I get ready to leave, I hear him tell Lynnette something about what happened up at the cabins in Lilliwaup. I’m sure she’s all over it. She loves a little drama, and she manages to make a little drama out of very little things.

“Wow, maybe he’s having a flashback or something,” she tells Micah as she leans in close enough to smell his neck. What, she thinks I can’t hear her? Or just doesn’t care. When she bends a little closer, the slit of her dress opens like a flower, exposing more leg. She might like a little drama, but I know our boss likes a little leg. A perfect match, those two.