Black Sheep

Chapter 1

Picture of a half-constructed food stall at a closed food park.

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Foodscene_tea Spotted: Bad boy chef "Papi" SJ San Joaquin, who left Down and Dirty Food Concepts five months ago in a blaze of drama, in Ortigas this week. (And we do mean a blaze - browse the #CaballoBar hashtag to see pictures of him threatening owner Liam Velez with a sugar torch.) Will Chef SJ be taking over an established hotel's patisserie? Opening a foodie destination in Tagaytay? Or is he at a rival restaurateur, as was rumored? No, no, and no. Chef SJ has instead decided to open a humble food truck. [laughing emoji] We won't say 'how the mighty have fallen,' but we will remind our followers that it was just three years ago when Down and Dirty's Velez brothers took a chance on an unknown Ilonggo cook and let him go wild at their concepts. (OK: we will admit, the spun sugar and black sesame gateau at Leona's has never been right since Chef SJ left.) But you know what our titas say: Never bite the hands that feed you. Bark, bark.

***

It was only 8am but Chef Joselito "SJ" San Joaquin already had a raging migraine. He blamed it on Bacolod Goodies.

He opened the flap again, hoping that what he had seen not a minute ago was merely a hallucination. Nope, they definitely got his order wrong. The barquillos were the regular kind, not the oversized ones he needed for his cannoli. He had asked for the flat piayayas, not these fat, cookie-like ones. And the dulce gatas -- the piece de resistance of his Sugarlandia Pudding -- was missing altogether.

With the launch three days away, this was absolutely unacceptable.

"Dom!" he barked, sticking his head out the window.

"'Nong?" From outside the stall, his assistant paused in the act of tallying the morning's delivery of paper napkins, food containers and sustainable utensils.

He heaved the Bacolod Goodies box onto the outer counter. "Please call these guys. They completely screwed up our order!"

Dom ambled over, quickly checked the box, and let out a plaintive "Ambot."

Dom was the son of his father's foreman and had grown up with SJ. One of Dom's defining qualities was how he would not be hurried, stressed, nor panicked; should a situation arise requiring strong emotion, Dom would not utter anything harsher than the all-purpose expression of Ilonggo frustration, 'ambot.' When he said it curtly, emphasizing the second syllable, it meant that he was done with the topic. But when he said it as he did now, elongating the 'o' so it sounded more like 'amboOOot,' it was the equivalent of throwing his hands to the air and yelling 'What now?'

You couldn't tell, however, with the way Dom leisurely pulled out his phone and placed it against his ear.

Empires seemed to rise and fall before the call was picked up.

"Yes, this is Dom from Azucarera de Papi," his assistant finally said.

SJ caught himself biting his fingernails as the call went on. Very deliberately, he pulled his fingers out of his mouth. He pulled out his phone, and, before he could think the better of it, opened his Instagram app. The DM notification was in the double-digits. He opened one message–from an acquaintance he'd met a few times while he was in his former job–and saw it.

A snarky post about him in an Instagram account dedicated to Manila's foodie scene. Why on earth did people even want to gossip about food?

The one time you marginally succeed at something and you throw it all away!

Today was also not the day to have his father's voice rattling in his head, thank you very much.

Dom ended the call, as amiable as ever, as though everything would always turn out right in the world.

SJ envied him.

"The one time you marginally succeed at something and you throw it all away!"

His father had said that the last time they talked, just after New Year's Eve. "You lied to us about college, went to that pastry school when I expressly forbade it, and now that you're finally getting somewhere and living up to the San Joaquin name, your temper gets the better of you!"

His jaw tightened, remembering how his father spat out the words 'pastry school' like they were a slur he was so clearly dying to say. The nerve of the old man to lecture him about losing his temper when Joe San Joaquin's default setting was 'annoyed' and was so easily pushed to 'nuclear meltdown' at the slightest inconvenience.

"'Nong-Chef."

He blinked. Dom's hand was on his arm, his assistant's face reassuring. "Don't worry about it. They realized the mistake even before I called. They're on their way, in fact. Waay kaso."

SJ nodded and turned to find something else to do, but Dom's grip tightened.

"It's going to be okay."

He let out a sigh. "Will it, prims?"

"One hundred percent."

Dom only let him go when he forced himself to smile. Bless his oldest, most loyal friend. When SJ, kicked out of the house for lying about going to college and using the tuition for a pastry course, said he was going to take his chances in Manila, Dom volunteered to accompany him. When SJ got the gig at Down and Dirty, Dom was by his side: gofer, prep man, procurer of ingredients. And when he left Down and Dirty and spent weeks mulling over his next move, Dom was there, lending his ear, bucking him up.

If only he had a tenth of the confidence his friend had in him.

"Let's go test the nitrogen," SJ said, pulling himself from a brooding loop.

Dom had just entered the stall and pulled out stainless steel bowls when a tentative knock broke SJ's concentration.

"Yes?" He said, pushing his head out of the window.

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary...

He was stunned. Suddenly, he heard the Angelus. A very specific, echoey version of the Angelus. It was almost as if he were back in school...