résumés in front of them.
A bushy-browed maître d' ushered me to a bar, where I recognized
immediately that this was a cattle call. A full bar of serious-looking chef
candidates, in civilian mufti, sat drinking club sodas while they waited.
Most were as badly dressed as I was, looking broken and defeated as
they stared into space, sallow-skinned from years under fluorescent
kitchen lighting. We ignored each other and tried to look as if we didn't
need this job. My fellow chefs looked like sub commanders on shore
leave, I thought, nervously fiddling with swizzle sticks and tearing at
their bar napkins, unwilling to smoke at interviews. I gave my name to
an indifferent bartender who assured me that the boss would be with me
"soon", and waited and waited and waited. It was quite a while and I was
pissed that I, an executive (if recently disgraced) chef, was being made
to wait like this, herded into a holding pen like . . . like . . . a waiter.
A Frenchman with dark circles under his eyes and bad burns on his hands
read soccer scores next to me. Down the bar, the other chefs pretended
they were customers, pretended they weren't the type to wait compliantly
on line for an interview at a steakhouse. I drew strength from their
misery.
A lone civilian stopped in for a quick, midday maintenance cocktail,
answering the bartender's "Howaya?" with an entirely-too-chipper-for-
my-taste account of vacation in Aruba, a golfingtrip to New Mexico, a
mention of the comparative merits of the Beemer versus the Mercedes
coupe. Then he answered his ringing cellphone with a dirty joke. I
couldn't help eavesdropping and then—in an awful epiphany—saw that
all the other chefs were listening in too, wistful expressions on their
faces as they perhaps imagined, like me, what it was like to take
vacations, own a car, combine a little golf with business. I felt myself
sinking into a dark funk.
Finally, my name was called. I straightened my ten-year-old jacket, ran a