“Everybody stop what you’re doing and get over here right now! Chef John screamed as he barged through the door.
His piercing voice resonated throughout the entire kitchen, causing knives and plates to shatter on the tile floor. All the conversations from the dining area came to a halt and the whole place became a dead zone as Chef John began to screech at his employees.
         “Do any of you idiots know what just happened out there? A major food critic from the Chicago Tribune was just sent to the hospital because one of you decided to ignore his peanut allergy! The restaurant will be closed until further notice. In the mean time clean up and get the hell out of my sight!”
Hudson, Chef John’s sous chef, scanned the kitchen and witnessed all of his employees shaking like a leaf in the wind. Chef John began to storm across the metallic laced kitchen, looking for possible suspects. Hudson witnessed servers and bussers twiddling their thumbs and looking down at their feet, trying to avoid the piercing gaze of their boss. Hudson forgot he had a copious amount of butter on the stove, causing it to smoke. The once warm and nutty scented butter became a burning puddle of toxic fumes that engulfed the clean air in the shiny kitchen.
         “Hudson! Take your damn pot off the stove and get out of my way!” Chef John walked out of the kitchen in anger, throwing the newly polished copper pots that hung from the ceiling onto the slippery tile floor. Grabbing the pot with his bare hands, Hudson ran towards the sink to dump the burned butter down the drain.
         Hudson and the other employees looked at each other in confusion, trying to figure out who caused the entire fiasco. Little did they know that he started the whole situation.
         “Can you believe what happened tonight? Who knew Chef John could get so angry? Uh Hudson, are you okay?” Chef Adam said.
         Hudson began to sweat bullets and his voice started to tremble as he spoke.
         “Yeah man I can’t believe it! Why are you asking if I’m doing fine? Yeah I’m fine. Thanks for asking! Hey I finished cleaning my station, I’m going to head home now. Bye Adam!”
        “Um... Bye Hudson?”
         Hudson rushed through the back door and headed towards his bike. He freed his bike from the padlock and navigated his way home through the humid and sticky midnight air. When he got home, he checked his phone and noticed a voicemail from Chef John.
         “Okay everyone here is the deal. The food critic is about to write a very bad review on the restaurant saying the chefs and management team are careless. I have worked very hard to gain this Michelin star and having one published bad review… I don’t even want to think about it. There will be major consequences for whoever did this.”
         The voice from the message woke up his girlfriend in the other room. Hudson, stressed and tired, sat down on his distressed leather sofa and threw his hands over his face and began to cry as his girlfriend walked towards him.
         “Hudson why are you crying?”
         “Lets just say that I made a very poor choice earlier today.”
         “Tell me what you did right now!” Eve cried.
         “I got caught up in the moment when all the chefs were hanging out in the back before the dinner service. I took my Adderall as usual and I ended up drinking a few beers in the process. This resulted in me neglecting a major food critic’s peanut allergy.”
         The news from Hudson made Eve weak in the knees and her once tired eyes peeled wide open. Her skin became an unfamiliar pale hue due to a combination of frustration and nervousness. Trying to keep her composure Eve responded in a haunting monotone voice.
         “Why Hudson? How could you be so careless? What if something serious happened to you? Do you not know how dangerous it is to take medication with alcohol? Not to mention you possibly could have killed the man!”
         Each and every question Eve threw at Hudson made him realize how idiotic and careless his actions were. Hudson sat there trying to come up with a response, but his emotions got the best of him.
         “Are you going to talk to me or not? I am trying so hard not to scream at you.”
         “I’m sorry Eve. Please don’t scream; that is the last thing I need right now.”
         “Tell me the message that Chef John had left on your phone.”
         “He basically said that the reviewer is threatening to write a bad review saying that the staff and chefs are careless. Since the critic works for the Chicago Tribune and is very respected, people will follow and believe what he says. Chef John said that there would be major consequences to the person that caused this.”
         “Oh Hudson, what am I going do with you?” Eve said in disgust.
         “Well if you get rid of me, who is going to make you dinner every weekend?” Hudson said in a joking manner.
         “Don’t weasel yourself out of this Hudson by making me laugh! This is very serious because you can lose your job.”
         “There is a part of me that doesn’t want to tell him. You know my dreams of opening up my own restaurant and having this under my belt would really prevent me from becoming successful.”
         Eve couldn’t believe what she heard Hudson say. The anger she had kept inside of her unleashed like a volcanic eruption. She lunged at him and dug her raven like claws into his shoulders and began to shake him.
         “Hudson you have got to be kidding me right now? Do you not know the difference between right and wrong? It seems to me that you clearly don’t!”
         Eve took a deep breath and her haunting monotone voice came back.
         “Hudson, I know that you’ve been working towards your dreams for a long time, but you need to do the right thing. You need to own up to your own mistakes, even if that means your future is at risk. Call him tomorrow and tell him. In the mean time, get some rest because it’s already one in the morning.”
         The sound of Hudson’s piercing alarm woke him and Eve up. They both stagger our of bed and eat a quick breakfast before calling Chef John.
         “So, are you ready?”
         “Yes. Time to be an adult and own up.”
         Hudson grabbed his phone and slowly started to scroll down his contact list until he reached Chef John’s number. The phone began to ring and the stern and familiar voice of his boss reached Hudson’s ear.
         “This is Chef John speaking.”
         “Hey Chef it’s Hudson, how are you.”
         “Considering no one has spoken yet, I am pretty annoyed right now. You better have something worthwhile to tell me.”
Hudson took a very deep breath to alleviate the stress, but it did nothing. His voice began to shake and crack like a thirteen year-old boy.
“Well I… Um I… I was the one that caused the whole fiasco Chef! I ended up taking my medication with a few beers and it caused me to not act like myself. It messed up my physical and mental actions. I am sorry for causing all of this.”
“I did not expect this from you Hudson! Being one of my best sous chefs, I am surprised you stooped so low. A lot of the chefs below you look up to you because of your great skill.”
“So what is going to happen about my position? Are you going to let me go?”
“Since I found out it was you, I am just going to make you do all the cleaning in the back for a few days. Also, I want you to contact the critic personally and tell him what happened and deeply apologize to him and beg for him to come back again. I will make sure you aren’t working that day. Consider yourself lucky for being such an influential part of the team because if you weren’t, you would’ve been fired very quickly. Oh and by the way, when in the hell did we start drinking beer during work?”
Hudson couldn’t believe what Chef John had said. Never in his life would he have thought he was that important to Chef John.
“Thank you so much Chef for giving me a second chance. This means so much to me!”
“If anything like this were to ever happen again, you will be fired, no questions asked. Now get off your phone and contact that food critic.”
“On my way Chef; you can count on me.”
Hudson hung up the phone and smiled a great big smile as he dialed the number for the Chicago Tribune.