“You’re a real asshole, do you know that?”
“You gotta admit I have a point. You really are your own worst enemy, aren’t you? And assuming all those people didn’t actually light the match…” He points a stubby finger at my face. “You know what they’d say about the fire, right?”
I shake my head and take off for the gate, not because I don’t know but because I do. I know exactly what they’ll say about the fire, just like a tiny part of me wonders if they might be right.
George’s answer chases me out of the yard: “They’d say it’s karma.”
T H E I N T E R V I E W
Juanita: One of the articles that went viral after the home invasion was an anonymous piece on Medium, accusing Jade of being a gold digger.
Cam: Right, and the fact that no one was willing to attach their name to such trash should have told the public all they needed to know.
Juanita: So it’s not true?
Cam: When Jade and I met, I was driving a ten-year-old Honda Civic with questionable brake pads and a hole in the floorboard, and my mortgage on the leaky, rickety building that housed my first restaurant was deep underwater. Every penny I made went into that money pit, which is why I was crashing on a buddy’s couch in Grant Park at the time. I couldn’t afford rent and the health inspector would have had a fit if he found me sleeping under one of my dining tables. All that goes to say, if anybody was the gold digger in this scenario, it was me.
Juanita: How did the two of you meet?
Cam: Jade was one of the designers pitching for the renovation of that place. She walked into my kitchen that day, and I couldn’t string two words together. She literally took my breath away. I would have hired her even if she was a talentless hack.
Juanita: [smiling] I guess it’s a good thing she was talented, then.
Cam: So darn talented. She nailed the design, and then she helped me execute it on a shoestring budget. Later, she pushed me to expand that first shop into a brand, one that’s timeless and recognizable, where people walk through the door and know immediately they’re in a Lasky restaurant. That’s all because of her.
Juanita: Sounds like building your business was a team effort.
Cam: Since day one. I mean, any decent chef can toss some meat on a grill, but Jade is the reason I went from one shop to five in the span of as many years, why I became known as Atlanta’s Steak King. I owe every bit of my success to her. And on the flip side, everything I did was for her, to make her proud.
Juanita: And yet, according to your former general manager, Flavio Garcia, you have no plans to continue after the fire at Bolling Way. You will not be reopening there or anywhere else in the city.
Cam: Lasky steak houses are a thing of the past. I guess you could say I’m relinquishing my crown.
Juanita: Atlanta’s foodies will be sad to hear it.
Cam: They’ll survive. There are plenty of other places in town that’ll charge them a hundred bucks for some meat and potatoes.
Juanita: I don’t understand. How does shutting down honor all the work Jade did to build you up?
Cam: How does anything I’ve done to build my brand honor her? When I got into this business, it wasn’t because I loved cooking. It was because I loved watching people respond to the food I cooked for them. Seeing their eyes roll up into their head at the first bite of the perfect truffled potato. How I could create this…cocoon of good wine and good food, where they’d sit for hours and not notice the dining room had cleared out. That was why I became a chef, to make people feel that way.
Juanita: Why?
Cam: Why what?
Juanita: Why did you love eliciting those kinds of reactions to your food?
Cam: [laughs] You really get to the heart of it, don’t you? But okay… [long pause] I liked it because it was the only time I saw my father be kind to my mother, when she cooked him a good meal.
Juanita: That sounds…
Cam: Tragic? It was. It is. And somewhere along the way, my reasoning got lost, or maybe it ended the way it was supposed to, the same way my parents’ marriage ended—in disaster. Because holding up the Lasky brand, running that machine day after day, sucked every bit of joy out of something that, once upon a time, I thought was my destiny.
Juanita: Your former employees would agree. Accusations of mistreatment, claims of wage garnishment, improper management practices, firing staff for no reason other than you, and I quote, “didn’t like the look of their stupid face.” All in all, it sounds like working at Lasky Steak was pretty joyless.