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“Where the fuck are you, dude?” Sydney asks, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear. “She’s yanking my damn arm off and you’re late.”
“I’m know, I’m sorry,” Carmy’s voice crackles down the line. ‘The queue was nuts. She’s not unmanageable, right?”
“Obviously not,” Sydney says. “She’s harassing the local wildlife, just like her least favourite uncle taught her.”
“Where are you?”
“Uh,” Sydney peers into the bright sunlight, scanning for signs. “South Pond.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“If you hustle, maybe. Memorial garden.”
“I’ll be there in five,” Carmy promises.
“You better,” Sydney says, and hangs up.
The world has shifted for Sydney, lately. There seems to be a kind of miracle in everything, neighbourhood revelations she never saw, or maybe never existed, until now. Chicago glows in the sunlight. The lilies in her dad’s window box are blossoming full for June, and on long warm evenings she watches them bow to each other, drop triangular petals like loose change. The Bear is bursting with activity and customers. Ecstatic reviews keep coming in. On a shelf in the office is a newly-engraved silver medal, with her name on the back of James Beard’s. Her life overflows. She has clean laundry, and she has the freedom to kiss whenever she likes, and she has Carmy’s glorious laughter, full like neither of them ever knew it could be, when she burns toast in the morning. And she loves her dog.
Fennel tugs on the lead and launches face-first into a small shrub. Her white paws scrabble in the undergrowth, scattering soil onto the path and all over her face. Sydney pulls her back gently.
“Hey, baby, stop. We’ll be fined for destruction of parkland, and Nat won’t let me write it off as a business expense.”
Fennel ignores her, digs harder. She’s thoroughly investigating the root system with her nose when some waterbird squawks over the lake, and she scrambles backwards, tilting her head in the direction of the noise and tripping over her own back paws. Sydney covers her mouth with one hand. She knows Fennel is going to grow into her too-big paws fast as hell, so she’s trying to treasure the moments when she’s tiny and skids around the coffee table and trips on the curb. Her little face is stained with dirt.
“Fennel, come on, let’s keep—”
At the sound of her name, Fennel’s ears flick up like a rabbit, and she bounds over to Sydney, ears flapping madly. Sydney backs up rapidly, which does very little to deter Fennel, since they’re attached.
“Fennel, please don’t, please don’t—” But it’s too late; Fennel bounces onto her shins with the force of a tennis ball. Dirty paws on her jeans. Sydney awkwardly half-bends in the middle of the path, tries to push her off as kindly as possible. “These are Carmy’s, stop, he’ll kill us, you know how he feels about Japanese denim—”
“Passionate,” Carmy says. Sydney swings around, and finds him squinting at her in stonewashed jeans and sunglasses. Fennel leaps off her legs. He’s got a travel mug in each hand: one blue, one green. The green one is hers, which he bought for her because one day she mentioned it once. Sydney loves him, and loves him, and loves him. He holds it out to her. “Do you just have whole conversations with her when I’m not around?”
“Every day,” Sydney says, letting her fingers brush against his as she takes the cup. “I hope this is still hot. Fennel, say hello.”
Fennel winds sweetly around Sydney’s ankles, presumably smudging more dirt everywhere, before nosing up to Carmy’s shoes. Carmy crouches down to give her a scratch, placing his own mug carefully to the side, then looks up at Sydney from the ground. He’s scrunching up one eye against the sunlight, which Sydney thinks absently is pretty hot and also stupid, because he could literally just move his sunglasses down two inches.
“Why is she covered in shit?”
“She has a curious mind.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sydney grins. “Relax.”
She takes a sip of her drink, letting the lead hanging loose around her wrist. Fennel gazes at Carmy with total adoration while he rubs circles behind her ears, mismatched eyes wide and enraptured. They make a complete scene in the middle of the path, totally blocking all passersby. Sydney couldn’t care less.
Her matcha is just hitting the perfect drinking temperature, the soy foam settling smoothly. “Good?” Carmy asks without looking. She smiles at the back of his head. “Yeah, it’s perfect.”
Fennel, apparently bored of being loved, scampers out from beneath Carmy’s hand and back in front of Sydney, cocking her head as if to say Let’s go! Sydney adjusts the straps of her tote bag gingerly, keeping the drink balanced in her other hand and one eye on Fennel, who might randomly bolt for a small passing animal at any second.
“Here,” Carmy says.
He’s holding out one hand. Sydney frowns. “What?”
“Bag.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Come on,” Carmy says, and gestures, like, give it to me .
She rolls her eyes and acts like it’s some massive effort to get her bag off her shoulder and hand it to him, to disguise the uncontrollable warmth spreading right to the tips of her fingers. Carmy peers in just as he shoulders it. “What’s up with the mandarin?”
“That’s just my loose mandarin I take everywhere with me,” Sydney says. “It’s a snack, duh.”
“That reminds me, actually,” Carmy says, as they start down the path. Fennel gambolls in front of them. “Colombe has a new tea blend, a chamomile citrus. You wanna get in on that next time?”
“Yes,” Sydney says immediately. “I can add it to my list.”
There’s a notebook, currently jumbled into the bag on Carmy’s shoulder, ranking the flavours of tea at all her favourite cafés. When she first showed it to Carmy he laughed, said it was excruciatingly her, but now he tells her every time he sees something new.
“How’s the drip?”
“It’s good,” Carmy says. “Kinda floral. Try it?”
“Hold,” Sydney instructs, and Carmy takes her cup so she has a free hand for his. She takes a sip and swallows slowly, cataloguing it in her head. “Sweet,” she agrees, handing his cup back.
Carmy drinks a lot more coffee these days, which has dual benefits for Sydney in the sense that he smokes far less and has adopted a sleeping schedule somewhat resembling human. Not that she’s necessarily one to talk, but ever since they started taking an extra half-day off, she needs the lay-in. Now, on Thursday mornings, Nat leaves the phone off the hook while she takes baby Sara to playgroup, and Tina runs prep like it’s the fucking navy until Syd and Carm arrive an hour before service. Neither of them were amenable to the change until Nat flung a corn cob at Carmy, demanded the books close on Thursdays, and staunchly refused to accept resistance. After the first week, Sydney privately realised it was the best decision they could’ve made. At any rate, the Bear was running easily enough that they probably couldn’t justify herb-tweezer levels of micromanagement anymore. If ever Sydney sticks her head through the door on Thursday morning, Tina chases her with a tea towel until she leaves, laughing.
It’s a weird kind of cognitive dissonance, but one Sydney is happy to have. The Bear is her baby, her’s and Carmy’s, and leaving it for even one extra morning a week makes her feel ridiculously irresponsible and guilty, no matter how completely confident she is in Tina’s ability. Carmy says he feels the exact same way, and she can see it in his nervous hands and surreptitious texts to Richie checking radicchio deliveries. But on the other hand, she spends her precious hours away in utter blissful happiness. She and Carmy are working their way through Chicago’s coffee shops, Fennel bounding ahead of them across the 606 and every other park they can reach. She calls her dad and they get lunch by the river. She reads books like she hasn’t for years. But sometimes she still can’t resist.
The sun stretches blithely across the sky. Sydney drinks her matcha. At 10am on a Thursday morning, Lincoln Park is lively but not overcrowded. There are other dog-walkers everywhere, kids on the volleyball courts, people who run… running. Ahead, the path either keeps curving around the lake, or opens up into a vast common. Fennel scurries ahead, snuffling in the low plants lining the path, and pulling her emerald lead tight around Sydney’s hand. Carmy’s eyes fix on her, and she knows without thinking that he’s reading her mind.
“You wanna take her…” he gestures towards the common.
“Please,” Sydney answers.
Unclipped from her lead, Fennel chases butterflies across the green. The sunlight falls unbroken all around them. It warms Sydney’s legs like a kiss, and she drains the last of her matcha, revelling in the stretch of her neck towards the sky and the heat on her face. Carmy slings a casual arm around her waist, like they do this all the time, because they do , and Fennel turns back to them, barks cheerfully over the lawn.
“You had any more thoughts about the apartment?” Carmy asks.
“Yeah, actually,” Sydney replies. “About empty walls in your living room, mostly.”
Carmy pulls her closer. “Say more?”
“There’s an art market on West Lake on Sunday morning,” Sydney says, feeling like she should be kicking her feet or at the very least twirling a braid. “I knew a girl in school who does these— hey Fennel, come back! Really sick watercolours of, like, cocktails? Could look really cool next to your stuff.”
“Sounds dope,” Carmy says. “You think we’ll have time to get there and back before they need us?”
“For sure. Morgan station’s, like, two minutes away.”
“Done,” Carmy says. “Hey, speaking of Sunday, is your dad still down to come in that night?”
And they talk shop for a bit, and about Emmanuel’s impending fourth (or fifth? sixth?) meal at The Bear, and about the book Sydney’s been reading, and it’s a gorgeous morning and she could burst into song. Carmy’s arm stays firmly around her waist while they walk. There are so many things these days that just make Sydney fizz with happiness. She feeds her dog, and she drinks the sun like champagne, and she always notices the gold gleam off the saucepans, early in the morning, when the only sound in the kitchen is her knife on the board and Carmy humming.
They turn unspoken towards her favourite part of the park: the Lemon Tree. It’s relatively empty, shaded by ash trees in full leafy bloom. Sydney whistles for Fennel and she turns around like a whip from where she was seemingly eating a dandelion, and comes running after them.
Carmy spots a spare bench and pulls her down on it. Sydney caps her travel mug and turns to him.
“You hungry?” she asks.
He smiles. “I could eat.”
Sydney motions for her bag, and he slips it off. She unearths the mandarin triumphantly, ignores his smirk, and starts unpeeling it. Fennel sniffs around a tree trunk, finding a satisfactory patch of grass, then rolls onto her back and twists joyfully back and forth. When she resurfaces, there are blades of grass stuck all over her fur. Sydney laughs and calls for her.
“Fennel, baby, come here!”
Fennel bounds over and sits panting at their feet. Sydney reaches down and carefully brushes the grass out of her fur, pulling each wisp away from the soft dappled coat.
“You know, we’re not actually supposed to walk her this much until she’s grown,” Carmy says amusedly.
Sydney eyes him with mock affront. “And just coop her up in the apartment all day?”
“Or maybe just a shorter route,” Carmy suggests. “Where did you wanna go after this?”
“I was gonna head down La Salle,” Sydney replies, not without guilt, because she chose that route because it leads almost straight past The Bear. She can see in Carmy’s eyes that he knows. “And the haven worker said she’s a very active dog.”
Fennel was actually part of a litter who had been dropped at the haven in an anonymous cardboard box. By the time Sydney and Carmy found her in March, she was already three months old, and the only one of her siblings without a home. Sydney had been instinctively drawn to her even before she found out; in a large wire pen, Fennel had been the only one who kept playing with Carmy after all the other dogs had gotten bored. She traced a finger over the tiny puppy’s head and looked at him.
“Carm,” she said. “Look.”
Carmy looked.
“She has one crazy blue eye,” Sydney said. “Just like yours.”
“And one normal brown one,” Carmy responded. “Just like yours.”
“She’s actually the last one of her litter to be adopted,” the attendant said. “She’s more or less the runt of the pack, so she’ll grow up a little smaller than the rest of them.”
“She’s the last one?” Sydney echoed.
It was a done deal after that. The next week Carmy told Nat, who told Tina, and the two of them cornered Sydney in the walk-in until she showed them a photo. An image of an Australian Shepherd with blotchy fur appeared on the staff group chat not long after that, and a month later Carmy arrived on a slow Wednesday morning with a wriggling bundle in his arms. Sydney whispered to Marcus that she was calling it Fennel. Marcus gave her one of the best hugs of her life.
Five minutes later Fennel was cradled in Marcus’ lap and Marcus was declaring Fennel was not a regal enough name for such a classy dog. Nat rolled her eyes and pressed for an alternative, to which Marcus said, very slowly, Fennel… salad. Carmy shot it down immediately and Gary produced a shred of poached chicken from the lowboy and in the kitchen Tina was calling the others, saying the Jeffs got a dog, it’s so fucking cute, come on, come look!
Fennel had taken one look at Richie and let out a high-pitched growl. Sydney laughed until she couldn’t stand up.
“They should’ve known when they told us she had an instinctive urge to herd livestock,” Sydney remarks with a terrible Southern accent. “She’d become the wildest dog on the Near North Side.”
“You missed some,” Carmy tells her.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sydney says. “I’m making us breakfast.”
She finishes peeling the mandarin while Carmy’s hands skate through Fennel’s fur. She preens under his fingers. Sydney’s glad she has a dog who makes her feel so seen.
She splits the mandarin neatly down its centre and places one half in Carmy’s palm when he straightens up. Fennel catches a scent in the dirt somewhere and follows it all the way to the sculpture, where the enormous lemon casts an unmistakable shadow over the lawn. Sydney chews slowly on a piece, and the tangy summer flavour explodes in her mouth. She turns back to Carmy.
He’s already looking at her. A stray braid falls into her face, and he takes one hand, tucks it behind her ear. Leans in and kisses her slow, purposeful, with one hand on her chin. His lips are citrus-sticky, and Sydney traces down his shoulder to his forearm, tilts her head to get more of him, closer. The taste of sugar in his mouth is intoxicating.
They get interrupted by a yip from over by the sculpture. Carmy exhales loudly out of his nose, drops his head onto her collarbone. She looks over, beaming. Fennel has collapsed on the grass, her head pillowed on her paws. Her eyes contain so much imploring.
“She’s down,” Sydney murmurs.
Carmy kisses the side of her head and gets a look at Fennel before rolling his eyes. “I’m telling you, man, we’re going to have to carry her home.”
“She’s an Adamu,” Sydney retorts. “We don’t get tired.”
“Trust me,” Carmy says. “I’m experienced with them.”
They do have to carry her home. But before that, the long walk down La Salle, while Fennel snuffles out every bakery along their route. Carmy takes the lead once they leave the park, and Sydney steals her bag back, which was a calculated move designed to leave them each with a free hand. When Carmy’s thumb brushes against hers, she knows that it’s worked.
Fennel has taken to barking at skyscrapers, which Sydney finds hilarious. She’s curious about everything, delighted when they come home or when Nat and Sara arrive to take her for a walk, and generally not very well-behaved or quiet about anything. Sydney adores her. She’s a very high-spirited dog. Carmy always smiles when he’s looking at her, but then he smiles a lot these days.
“You know who she reminds me of?” Carmy says off-handedly, in the middle of a conversation about Christmas movies.
Sydney blinks. “Please don’t say Con—”
“Obviously it’s Concrete.”
Sydney scrubs at her forehead with the back of her hand. “Too soon, man.”
“It’s been nine and a half months.”
“Are you sure? It feels like it’s been a lot less.”
“I’m sure.”
“How do you even know?”
“Cause that’s our anniversary, smartass.”
Sydney’s heart triples in size. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh, ” Carmy says, squeezing her hand briefly. “You still think about Concrete?”
“Obviously,” Sydney says. “But not as much as I used to. If she hadn’t gone back to her real home, where she actually belonged, I would be more worried. But, you know.”
“Still heartbroken?”
Sydney pulls a face. “Alright, I’m not sure I was heartbroken —”
“I think you were,” Carmy nods. “I’m pretty sure your exact words were, ‘my heart is fucking shattered’, actually.”
“Carm.”
“Syd.”
“I don’t know, dude,” Sydney says. “I was pretty fucking sad, but things keep moving. And I had you, after waiting for like, a year; and then her, and then, you know, now. Life goes on.”
“Sure,” Carmy says. “I mean, I hate the ‘everything happens for a reason’ bullshit, but if Concrete hadn’t left, we wouldn’t have Fennel.”
Fennel’s head snaps up comically fast, which cracks them both up, but upon realising they had neither petting or freshly baked bread to give her, she goes back to barking at passing bicycles.
Carmy’s hand is soft and dry in Sydney’s. She swings their arms back and forth.
“Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea,” Carmy says suddenly.
Sydney looks at him. “Do you want to go to the—”
“I want to go to the restaurant,” Carmy says. Sydney taps her temple. “Wow, it’s almost like… it’s almost like we’re three blocks away right now.”
“That is crazy,” Carmy says. “And we seem to be walking towards it.”
Sydney nods earnestly. “As if I planned this route so exactly this would happen.”
Carmy rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. The L rattles violently overhead. Sydney thinks back to last September, the day they had Concrete at The Bear. She had said she was heartbroken to Carmy, she thinks, a while after Concrete left and sometime before Carmy kissed her for the first time– or maybe it was after? No, it must have been before, she wouldn’t have told Carmy she was heartbroken after he made a move, it would have destroyed him. If she even said it. It drives her crazy that after spending so much time quietly longing for Carmy in kitchens, in offices and cars and train carriages and bedrooms, that he could remember moments between them better than she could. That he wanted her just as badly, for just as long, and he reminds her in little ways every day. She’s going to spend the rest of her life just like this.
“How’s this for a coincidence,” Carmy says, snapping Sydney out of her reverie. He scoops Fennel up easily. “We’ve arrived at the restaurant.”
“Tina’s gonna hit you with a tea towel,” Sydney warned, and pushed the back door open.
The smell of a red wine braise and gas-fired heat immediately floods out. Daniela must be doing family. Through the corridor to the kitchen, Sydney glimpses Tina calmly helping a new hire with a reduction. Someone’s turned the radio on, and Otis Redding is softly filtering through back of house. The sound of metal on linoleum suddenly shatters the peace, and Sydney distinctly catches Marcus exclaiming, “Fuck!”
The back door creaks as she pushes it all the way open, holding it for Carmy and Fennel. Tina’s head jerks up at the sound. “That better not be Sydney!” she calls threateningly. “I told you, ma, stay out!”
“It’s me!” Sydney hollers. “Don’t get the tea towel, I brought Fennel.”
“You brought the puppy!" she hears Tina echo, and then she re-appears in the corridor, tea towel mercifully absent. “Wait, shit, gotta wash my hands— HEY! JEFFS BROUGHT THE PUPPY! WASH YOUR HANDS!”
Sydney catches Carmy’s eye and stifles her laughter. They venture into the corridor, stopping just before it opens into the kitchen: Nat had implemented a loving but strict rule that if they ever wanted to pass another Health and Safety inspection, the six-month old puppy would not be allowed near the cold prep. The hand-washing rule was also punishable by death; to illustrate this, Marcus’ roommate Chester had helpfully printed out a photo of Fennel to stick to the wall, replete with a little speech bubble reading: WASH YOUR HANDS CHEF!
Marcus materialises in front of them, wiping his hands on the hem of his apron. “Fennel Salad!” he beams.
“No,” Carmy says.
“I got a treat for her,” Marcus says. “Can I hold her?”
Carmy eases Fennel to Marcus’ hands, and Marcus supports her effortlessly in the crook of one arm. With the other hand, he fishes a pink heart-shaped treat out of a bag in his pocket, and holds it politely just above Fennel's small black nose. Fennel sniffs at it for a total of two seconds before diving in with relish. Marcus laughs. “Hey, guys, who wants to give Fennel another treat?”
“I do!” Sweeps interjects. “Come on, lemme hold her.”
“Be careful!” Carmy calls.
Richie sticks his head out of the office. “Cousin, aren’t you supposed to be— oh, hey, Syd. And my old archenemy, Mr Salad. Harassing the wildlife of Chicagoland, I hope?”
“What did I tell you,” Sydney mutters. Fennel lets out a sharp, unimpressed yap.
“Good, good,” Richie rubs his hands together. “You guys just passing by?”
“Yeah,” Carmy says. “We’re here completely by chance.”
“That’s what I thought,” Richie says. “Hey, cousin, I got a couple new wine combinations I wanna talk about before service, you got time?”
“Yeah, heard, cousin,” Carmy replies. “I’ll make time.”
“I appreciate that and am communicating it healthily to you,” Richie says. Carmy presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh.
“You need anything, Jeff?” Tina calls to Sydney, her thumbs stroking Fennel’s ears. “Cause I told you, baby, everything’s under control, even the fucking bread arrived on time today.”
“No, I’m good,” Sydney answers. “Just wanted to, you know, check in and let you guys see Fennel.”
“That’s good, ma,” Tina says. “Work-life balance, right?”
“Sure,” Sydney says. “Let’s call it that.”
“Everything good with you?” Carmy asks Richie.
“A-OK, boss,” Richie responds. “No need to keep doing this, I swear to you, we are handling everything here like fuckin’ pros.”
Sydney rounds on Carmy. “You told me you didn’t come in last week!”
Carmy shifts his feet defensively. “I said I went for a run.”
“Yeah, you ran to our restaurant—”
“No domestics in front of the young ones,” Richie interrupts warningly. “You’ll frighten them.”
“Shut up, Richie,” they both say simultaneously. Richie waves his hands dismissively. “Cousin, Sydney, I’m telling you, go home. We’ll see you later tonight. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Marcus tilts his head back and forth. “What about the thing?”
“Marcus, I swear to God,” Richie says loudly. “There is no thing. Chefs, get out of here, we’ll see you tonight. Take your dog.”
Fennel is deposited safely back in Carmy’s arms. He narrows his eyes at Richie. “I’m asking you about the thing later.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Richie says. “Scram.”
“Alright, alright, we’re leaving,” Carmy says, ducking his head, and Sydney holds the door open for him again on their way out, calling goodbyes to Tina and the rest of staff before the door swings shut behind them.
Carmy sets Fennel gently down on the warm pavement. She shakes her body all over, then looks up at them, yawns enormously, and curls up between their shoes.
Carmy looks at her. “I told you.”
“Not a word out of you,” Sydney says. “I went for a run.”
“Like you’re any better,” Carmy shoots back. “I see your texts with Tina.”
“So we’re both shit at it, that’s great,” Sydney says. Carmy raises his eyebrows at her. The sunlight cuts sharp along his jawline, his nose, and Sydney is suddenly overwhelmed by their dual ridiculousness, by how madly she is in love with him, with the world. Carmy starts walking back out towards the street. “You wanna get lunch?”
“Dude,” Sydney says, and nudges Fennel with the toe of her shoe. “She’s passed out.”
“I can carry her,” Carmy says decisively. “There’s a takeaway spot on North Wells I wanna try.”
“You sure?” Sydney checks. “We’ll be on our feet for five hours tonight, we can get a ride.”
“Nah,” Carmy says. “I like walking with you. If you get too tired, I’ll carry you both home.”
