After my husband dumped me for his secretary, she was pregnant with her second baby with him, she was twenty, I was despondent. I was also forty two and alone. I'm Lainie Duffin.
I married Randy the asshole because we had twins, when I was eighteen (Katie 24 and Erika 24), then two more at twenty (Norma 22 and Norine 22) and then Tommy who was seventeen.
Wendy my bestie said I should go to culinary school at the community college in Bremerton. I did and I got my whites and my little toque. When Randy dumped me I was five foot nine and weighed one hundred fifty five pounds. I was maybe one hundred thirty five when Katie and Erika arrived I was one hundred forty. I graduated after two years and I'd
When Tommy was born I weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. I lived off radishes and celery to get from one hundred and ninety to one hundred fifty five pounds. My tits never made the connection. When I went to Macy's to buy a couple of bras, the stock price of US steel went up ten bucks. Shelf bras were forty eight H cup.
The whites were starched and the bra style caused my nipples to get aroused just by any kind of movement. After, he left me nobody was talking care of my needs. I wasn't going to go into sex store and spend two hundred and fifty dollars on sex toys that I'd probably break, so had two rubber handled Estwing commercial hammers. Fourteen inches long with eight inches of rubber on the handle.
If I diddled my clit for God's own lubrication, I added some Vaseline intensive care on Big Randy (Since Randy was playing with six inches, Big Randy had fourteen) took up home in my cunt. He didn't cheat on me either and I'd leave him in me after cumming so that the delightful feeling of being full.
Actually, I was lying to myself. I loved being a wife and mom. I just could not understand how he could walk away like that, without even talking to me, I would have taken him back in a heartbeat. Guys are so manipulated and stupid. I don't think I was ever going to be with a man again and I don't mean sex, I liked sex, but talking and waking up with an arm around me.
On Monday I was going to have a stage at local seafood place on seventeenth west on Salmon Bay, where Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne come together, just to the west of the Ballard Bridge where all trawlers and gill netters are moored. Kind of old Seattle.
A stage (pronounced with a soft a) is when you work a shift so that the line chef, sous chef or executive chef thinks you work there without fucking stuff up. Anyone who ever watched Anthony Bourdain on television or read his books, knows that the dark side of a commercial kitchen during a rush is a chaos event for adrenalin junkies. I lived in Kingston, Washington which would require a ferry ride.
I was thinking that if I caught on I could sell the house and move over here. New start and all, but I didn't want to get ahead of myself. Tommy was going to be a senior in the fall at Kingston High School.
I woke up Saturday morning and went out for a walk, up at the high school with some of the mothers who had kids on the Buccaneers like Tommy. He could hit and had professional scouts and college scouts too following him on his travel team. He was six foot four and a left handed hitting short stop who could run.
When he was in little league he loved Kyle Seager for the Mariners, but now he was being compared to Corey Seager, Kyle's younger brother. It was flattery like when your boss flatters the eighteen year old intern that she's sexy. Kind of heady, but I just told him to focus on his work and be polite and address anyone with a "Mister" added to any response he might give. Tommy had really been hurt about our breakup, but I let him know his dad loved him. He would shake his head and grumble that he was an asshole, fuckwad and kick the floor.
I loved him so much. My daughters were up and down the coast, but were going to be here for Tommy's eighteenth birthday in late June, which I was looking forward to even though it was only April 15th.
I caught the Kingston to Edmonds five thirty boat on Monday. I had an old blue 1990 Isuzu Trooper four by four that had a rebuilt engine and five speed manual. No ABS bologna, it had a huge four cylinder engine 3.0 liter, fuel injected car. Good mileage and perfect in the snow.
I had been told to park off to the West side of the building in some employee spots. I just wore whites and black jeans with black clogs. I brought my knives, freshly sharpened to the opposite side of the building to enter the kitchen. I could hear talking and smell strong coffee and onions and garlic being sauteed.
I walked in and there were three women, one facing away from me and two who saw me come in but did not acknowledge my presence. The woman was taller than me, maybe even six feet tall and angular. I could not hear what she was saying but her hands gestured and the two women punctuated whatever she was saying with frequent, "Yes chef."
Finally one of the women nodded towards me and the executive whirled about and said, "Lainey?"
"Come into my office."
She sat down behind an older desk and said, "Close the door."
I did. Although there were two chairs, facing her, she did not offer the chairs so I stood there with my hands to my sides. She put on some wire rimmed classes and looked at my resume and looked me too. She dropped the resume and said, "Kind of late to doing this Lainey, isn't it?"
"I need to make money and I got the best grades in my graduating class."
"Why do you need to make money?"
"I've got five kids between seventeen and twenty four and they absorb money."
She laughed and said, "I'm going to put you at the salad station today. We have some side salads, ten different versions of Ceasar Salads. Cobb salad and shrimp and scallop Louie, Mis en place is there and don't get behind. "
I checked in the case refrigerators to see if the dressings had prepared replacements and if they were labeled correctly. I cut up some more lemon garnishes for the Louies and put them in a tub with ice and put some water with them and into the refrigerators. The salt was kosher salt and the pepper was a Costco brand (Kirkland cracked Malabar) which surprised me. I looked at the other stations to see if that was standard and it was not.
I asked the young woman who was one of the line cooks where I could get a pepper grinder.
She said, "Don't you have one?"
I shook my head.
"What do you have?"
I said, "Costco cracked Malabar."
