It was just after the lunch rush when Tati entered the kitchen with a plate in each hand. Renzo was scrubbing some pans and Concepción was peeling potatoes over the cold side garbage can. Tati set the plates down onto the dish counter and swept his palms together over the trash by the door. “Where’s Almo?” the owner asked.

Concepción held the peeler out toward the wall along the prep station. “Bathroom break,” she said.

Tati looked distantly at the empty prep station.

Renzo set a dripping metal pan on the rack and moved to collect the plates the owner had just delivered. He looked at Tati and held out his hands for permission to clear the plates.

Tati sighed. “I am very sorry, Renzo,” he said, looking him in the eyes. “I will scrape my plates.”

Renzo shrugged. “Cool,” he said.

As Tati swept a fork across a plate to dislodge a few leaves enmeshed in thick special gravy, he looked again around the kitchen. “Anyone know why we’re out of lemon tarts?”

Concepción shrugged. “Almo,” she offered.

Tati set the cleared plate on the counter and picked up the other to clear it, too. He looked at Renzo as the dishwasher silently took the cleared plate and began processing it through the sinks. Tati then looked back at Concepción. “How long has Almo been on this bathroom break?”

Concepción shrugged and looked searchingly up at the clock on the wall.

“A while,” Renzo offered. He quickly dried his hands on his apron and walked past Tati to the prep station and then leaned in and banged several times hard against the wall. Then, after several seconds of nothing but the low hum of the oven, there was the muffled boom of a flushing toilet followed by the rush of water through the pipes in the thin wall. Renzo looked over at the owner. “He’s coming back now,” he said with a thumb at the wall.

Tati stared at him for a moment and then looked at the wall before glancing at Concepción, who was poorly concealing a smile, and finishing the clearing of the second plate.

Moments later, Almo appeared in the hall from the bar. He stopped as soon as he saw Tati standing by the dish station. “Hey Tati,” Almo said. “Is that lamb gravy pretty good?”

“It wasn’t fully warmed,” Tati said.

Almo held up a forefinger. “Aha,” he said, waving the finger. “That’s so it won’t burn nobody.”

Tati stared at him for a moment and then stepped to the rinse station nearby. “Why are we out of lemon tarts?” he asked.

Almo glanced at the drain below the dishpit and then widened his eyes and looked over at Concepción, who shrugged. Tati saw this exchange and changed his own expression to disapproval to demonstrate it. “Almo,” Tati said, “everyone likes the lemon tarts. We sell out of them all the time. Why are we out of them?”

Almo studied the owner and then held up the wagging finger again. “Well,” Almo began, “that’s just the thing. We do have lemon tarts.”

Tati pressed a palm up into the nozzle wand and rinsed soapy hands. “We do have them,” he said, still turning his head to look at Almo and then at Concepción, who shook her head and shrugged. Tati looked back toward the store room, where Almo had retreated. “You’re saying we do have lemon tarts,” Tati called.

“Right back here on the cart,” Almo’s voice replied as he searched the multi-level rolling rack upon which were cooling eight small lemon tarts across two full trays one on top of the other next to the water system and the slop drain. He picked up one of the trays and reentered the kitchen with the tarts out like an offering. “Here are your lemon tarts,” he said, setting the tray on the prep counter.

“I don’t understand,” Tati said to him. “If there were lemon tarts, why weren’t we served lemon tarts?”

Almo looked down at the wide tray, upon which the bright yellow compote sparkled surrounded by golden ridges of buttercrust. “These aren’t cooled yet,” Almo said. “They’re for tonight. They have to refrigerate for a couple of hours or else the middle doesn’t really set the way you want it to.”

Tati blinked three times and then looked again at Concepción, who again shrugged.

“Let’s just try to keep them coming,” Tati finally said.

“I can make you a special one if you want,” Almo suggested.

“Big one,” Concepción added, gripping a half-peeled potato in one hand and the peeling instrument in the other but nonetheless managing to manipulate her fingers into a gesture that suggested the potential size of a special one.

“We can use a sheet tray,” Renzo suggested.

Tati held up a hand and shook his head with eyes closed. “Hold on,” he said, shaking vigorously. “Ok,” he said when he stopped, “I don’t want a special one. I want us to have all the lemon tarts we can have. Can you use a sheet tray?”

Almo squinted at him. “For the tarts?” he asked. “Not if you want your buttercrusts.”

“There’s leftover,” Concepción said. “Filling.”

“Not that much, not that much,” Almo warned.

Concepción held up two fingers from a peeled potato before settling it into a metal container.

Tati tore a paper towel from the dispenser and collapsed it between his fingers as he clasped his hands together, surveying the kitchen. “They’re not my buttercrusts,” he suddenly said, balling the damp towel and tossing into the can by the hall. “I thought we were past this. It’s not hard to make the crusts. You just have to make sure the butter is cold enough.”

“It’s something like that, yeah,” Almo said with a finger up again, “but you have to remember it takes a lot of time to make them right. Jux knows how to do it, but he’s too impatient so he ends up making lemon cobbler every time.”

“Jux made the lemon cobbler?” Tati asked.

Almo smiled. “I didn’t make that,” he said. “By the way, Renzo and Concepción know how to make the buttercrusts, too, and we know how to take our time and do it right but we can’t do that and run the lunch at the same time. That’s too many dogs in the penthouse.”

Tati was staring at Almo again. Finally, he said, “I don’t think Jux should be making desserts.”

Almo looked around. “I don’t know if we’re saying that,” he said.

“He’s good on ganache and crème brule,” Renzo suggested.

“Not the tarts,” Tati said.

“Which is why,” Almo said, raising a forefinger once more, “I had to make them myself after setting up the lunch spread. Fortunately, you have eight tarts that will be ready by dinner and since this is only Wednesday we’ll probably be good until the weekend.”

Tati was staring at him.

“Aha,” Almo exclaimed. “You see it now. You see it.”

Tati nodded curtly and cast a stern but beneficent gaze over the kitchen. “As you were, then,” he said.

Almo slapped his fingers against his forehead. “Yes, sir!” he blurted, grinning at Concepción and Renzo as Tati turned and left the kitchen.

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