The turbulent electrical hum of the vending machine involved itself into Joseph's thoughts of the year's disasters. Thumbing through quarters and nickels, he perused the vending menu and knew where he'd gone wrong. It wasn't the limply prepared leek and potato whip oozing from the bottom of a generously portioned and crispy monkfish, nor was it the loss of his sous chef, Laurent, abruptly spitting in his face and quitting in a beet-stained shower of epithets that ruined the synchronicity of his kitchen. Joseph resigned himself to accept that it was in fact his own hubris that had doomed him.
The glinting silver slugs enveloped through the grinning coin slot punctuated themselves with the smooth coin rail slither and thump of transaction. "I've been reduced to pretzels." Joseph's fingers flicked through the buttons of his grease-stained chef's jacket as he peered upwards into the oil-slicked sky.
Joseph's back met the cement wall and he resembled a step-ladder. He peeled his crushed toque from its cranial perch and blanched his mind between mouthfuls of salty bread.
"It wasn't your fault you know."
St. Stephen opened the back door of the restaurant and leaned in the doorway, a blue light cutting through the eggplant black of the alley.
"She's quite good." Stephen said. "Shame about our stock of rabbits though, it's the biggest order we've seen for specials in quite some time.'
"Quite." Joseph's bag of pretzels went from pillowed storage to rubbish sphere and he tossed it aside.
"I'd known for a while you know."
"Known?"
"Well, Ruth hired her when the Examiner ran that piece on you last year."
"If I hadn't finished these pretzels, you'd be giving me the Heimlich."
"Well instead I'm just giving you the news, and I'm giving my notice as well."
"You really shouldn't have to, Stephen."
St. Stephen stepped over the jamb and onto the pavement. "Why not? We built this place together with Ruth's money. We've always been a package deal."
"Perhaps, but this package? I think it's gassed."
"Hardly. We've still plenty of life left in us."
Joseph placed his hand upon his friend's shoulder. "Please, go back inside. Ask for your job back."
"Your eyes, Joe. I don't think I've…"
"Just, please."
St. Stephen paused. St. Stephen turned and did not look back as he returned to the kitchen that had been Joseph's and was now Helen's. He did not close the door, but it whined shut in the breeze. It was a slight wind, but strong enough to carry the door shut and to carry with it the scent of the night's forgotten kitchen debris rotting away in the garbage bin.
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