Hatched (22 page)

Doris had lived through John-the-Father’s marriage, and his divorce, and now cared for him as only a bookkeeper can, by ensuring that in spite of the weirdness of this world, things nonetheless can be made to add up.

“Good morning, John.”

“Doris.”

John smiled and settled into his seat. He looked relaxed when he was around her, for she seemed to be in control of the universe, or at the very least that segment of the universe into which he could gaze with his stony-blue eyes. As long as Doris-the-Bookkeeper wielded the adding machine, the eraser-topped pencil, and lines of black-on-white figures, then everything, no matter how askew, askance, or awry they were, or could be, had a place in all that was well-suited for its nature. There was no recipe here, no ingredients to be transformed such that the final product looked nothing like the parts that contributed to its sum. The sum was made of like-minded digits, and the digits had only ten variations, no matter how dissimilar the columns might be from, say, the “income” to the “expenditures.”

Doris looked every bit the Doris-the-Bookkeeper that we imagine in our minds when reading her name and title. She was short, probably around 5’ 2” with shoes on, she had grey hair, small, silver-framed glasses, a sweet and lightly wrinkled face, and dainty hands that looked to be far older than the sixty-one years she had given to this world. For as long as John had known her, almost three decades now, she had worn what seemed to be a host of interchangeable outfits, all comprised of a skirt or pants of a grey or grey-blue hue, flat, nondescript shoes, a blouse, probably polyester, in a shade of aquamarine blue or aquamarine green that were all more or less indistinguishable from the other.

Doris had begun to work with John in his old restaurant, Crimson and Clover, down on West 46th Street near 5th Avenue and the famed “Diamond District.” Therein, he had rented a small and unforgiving space that had been abandoned by a Hassidic Jew who, without explanation, had suddenly gathered up his not inconsiderable collection of cut and uncut diamonds, thrown off his black coat and large black hat, trimmed his long sideburns, and left the city, never to return. Before leaving, he had paid the small array of outstanding bills attributable to him, and, since he had neither wife nor children, there was no reason to pursue the mystery of his departure to, as it turned out, Montréal, a place that was perched even further north than the Bronx: six hours (by car), one country (Canada), one religion (Catholic), and one language (French) away from New York. Those who cared said that he’d left for love, or, more likely, lust. Or, even more likely, he had sought out in a land of freezing winters and maple syrup a secular life away from the gaze of those penetrating perpetrators of Hassidic traditions with whom he’d spent most of his life. Whatever his eventual fate, it didn’t really matter. The glittering hole in Manhattan was soon filled in, and very few people remembered what it had been like when he was around to do the filling himself.

John had been searching for a place in that area ever since departing his native Massachusetts, not because he sought to feed the clients who came to cast their nets in the ocean of diamonds that ebbed and flowed in and out of that district, but rather because he wanted to be close to the jewels that adorned the Fabergé eggs, those natural-born, glistening, mineral masterpieces that had come to inspire his sense of himself as a chef and a craftsman. Crimson and Clover was a great success, and it featured a large number of egg dishes, in addition to some of the finest seafood New York had to offer, and this on account of John’s continued relations with Cape Cod’s fishermen, who had the privilege of supplying John with the freshest of their catch. No matter how sumptuous the surroundings, the core of a restaurant is freshness, and to assure it he often paid more than twice as much as anyone else, as long as he could be assured that the catch was freshly caught.

Thanks to John’s magnificent work, and Doris’s oversight of all things not culinary, John’s business grew and, again thanks to Doris, the money was carefully saved for the inevitable rainy day when, as she had long predicted, a diamond dealer would find the unusually large space that John occupied and make the owner a proverbial offer that couldn’t be refused. It was indeed the perfect diamond-dealer fortress, as it turned out, featuring a fortified basement that had been well-suited for a restaurant’s wine, and even better suited for a high-security strongbox that is impenetrable enough to keep the symbolic realm of diamond exchange safe. The diamond dealer contacted the owner of John’s building, who himself was a man of his own Hassidic tribe, and a deal was struck, leaving John with his stash of cash securely invested in the bank, but forced to search for a new place to create his intricate masterpieces.

The shuttering of Crimson and Clover should have been a sad day for John, but instead it fulfilled a dream of his, to turn the profits of his yolk-and-whites-driven recipes into a truly monumental restaurant, a landmark to be laid in the very heart of his adopted city. And so, as the fans were being withdrawn from the restaurant, along with all the polished steel and the egg-related decorations, John decided to move downtown, to another cash-rich area, Wall Street, to pursue a dream far grander than Crimson or Clover. His swollen balance of liquid convinced him that in spite of the quiet resistance of Doris-the-Bookkeeper, he could make the dream he had of building his own Fabergé egg a reality.

And so the strategy was conceived, the necessary parties fertilized with papery, green currency, and the plans drawn up, all to the joy of the until-then obscure architect named David Miller. Miller happened to have been willing to listen to John’s wild ideas one day while dining on a host of egg-rich dishes at Crimson and Clover, and was therefore eventually chosen to draw them up, and he commissioned appropriate builders and was paid appropriate sums, en route towards the laying of the new Fabergé Restaurant. Success, it would seem, was assured.

In the late 1980s, everyone was reading a collection of adages assembled under the title of
Murphy’s Law
. Each adage was tied to the central observation that whatever can go wrong, will, and to the secondary observation, that people are always promoted upwards until they finally settle into a place of earned incompetence. The same applies to most small businesses: en route towards the promise of stellar growth that marks the tiny number of fortunes that have been built up, most businessmen find themselves in a space too large, with stock too expensive, with employees too ambitious, or with lifestyles too rich, and the careful planning that went into the original stock and trade therefore crumbles, generally from the weight of accrued debt. Despite efforts, plans, and approaches to the contrary, John’s own fortune in the restaurant market was in the end no different. And so he stood upon the precipice of annihilation, a peak that was but one protrusion upon an entire mountain of debt.

“We aren’t close to the edge anymore, John,” said Doris with a look of soft sadness. “We have arrived.” She looked positively teary eyed.

“It’s Saturday!” John smiled, beaming undue, youthful enthusiasm.

“I looked at the reservations, John, and we are probably looking at three hundred tonight. I also looked at the list of checks and, well, we need to serve—”

“Three thousand?”

She barely smiled this time. Truth be told, and all numbers reckoned in, the actual number was probably closer to thirty thousand.

The three thousand figure was a running gag, a sad, sadistic, and pitiful inside joke between John-the-Owner and Doris-the-Bookkeeper. And like most jokes, its over-the-top figure of three thousand bore more truth than humor. They quite literally needed to multiply the business intake by ten in order to recover the rate of profits that John used to generate at Crimson and Clover, and this over a period of years, not days or weeks. The dining room and the sheer logistics of Fabergé Restaurant’s creations made the possibility of serving 300 clients a stretch, and even 350 unfathomable. And the fact that John, the master craftsman, the mad scientist behind the Fabergé Restaurant creations, had spent each night for the past six months manning the Hobart dishwashing station, which should have been overseen by an obsessive-compulsive, unemployable master of cleanliness for $15.50/hour, made matters much worse, particularly on nights when the restaurant was stretched to capacity. And this night was going to be one such occasion. The restaurant was indeed successful, by any reasonable measure; the problem was that most of the cash flowed into the hands of the creditors who had gleefully lent him the money for an edifice that couldn’t ever be paid off, in a part of town where cost per square foot demanded huge amounts of cash, day after day after day.

“Is Nicky working?” This was Doris’s method of quietly inquiring about staffing for the evening, in the all-important sauté station.

“He’s in now.”

Doris looked down at the dizzying array of figures that adorned the spreadsheet before her.

“Eggnog?” asked John, almost mockingly in light of the unanswered questions that lingered in the air. Doris knew to not answer.

“Is the new guy . . .”

“Russ?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to teach him how to scrub pots.”

When Doris had signed the employment forms for this new guy, she had hoped that he had some untapped training that would allow John to use him for some of the sauté chef work, so that Jessica could man that station. Johnny, dubbed by Doris “Little John,” despite his height, could do the baking, and they could function without resorting to one of the pinch-hitters, as John liked to call those they’d call in to cook on very busy nights.

“We have a pinch-hitter, Doris, he’s supposed to be pretty good, from Shucks and Shells.”

Shucks and Shells was a mainstay of Midtown, serving seafood and corn on the cob for mid-range prices. They were successful and had been around for almost fifteen years. But their chefs were mediocre, and everyone they had brought in from there had made sub-standard fare, costing John his nerves and stretching the regular kitchen staff to their breaking point.

Doris was about to try out her well-rehearsed plea that John step in tonight, if only to ward off a chorus of unhappy-guest remarks, but then thought better of it. Fabergé Restaurant wasn’t going to survive the coming week, and if the suppliers lived up to their promises, wouldn’t even be supplied for Monday, given the tardiness of their payments.

Facts and figures stared Doris in the face, even as a tinge of bizarre optimism brightened John’s complexion.

Couples, seated at tables, couples, waiting to couple, couples, like John and Tina, John and Doris, John and me. Couples.

Chapter 18

Just as Doris was about to begin to stammer her reluctant speech of gloom and doom, a middle-aged man wearing a large, green coat entered the dining room almost frantically, spotted John and Doris, and unceremoniously pulled up a chair to join them. John looked elated, this was perhaps the respite he was hoping for.

“John!” exclaimed the pock-faced, slightly overweight, balding salesman called Stan.

“Stan, good day.” John seemed to grin the grin of relief from figures. “Fabergégnog, Stan?” He rose and, without an answer, headed towards the server station to prepare a drink for his fateful friend.

“How are you doing, young Doris?”

“We hope to be able to send you payment for March at the end of this month, Stan,” replied Doris.

Stan waived his arms in virtual disdain at the very thought of payment. He had been supplying John with egg-related antiques and trinkets for more than a decade and had learned that no matter what was going on in this hallowed shell, he would be paid—eventually. And given the massive mark-up on every item that John purchased, he could stand to lose the profits of every yolk or shell-related item he’d find to adorn the cracks and crevices of Fabergé Restaurant until the very end of time.

John returned to the table bearing an ornate glass, adorned with whipped cream and powdered egg yolk, one of John’s own creations, and set it before Stan.

“John, I found one,” began Stan, before gulping down a mouthful of John’s intoxicatingly sweet concoction.

Doris knew that John was about to fall for another egg creation. This one, she felt sure, on the basis of Stan’s enthusiasm, would be on the expensive side, since it was undoubtedly Fabergé-related. But like all of Fabergé Restaurant’s creations from its namesake, it would not, and could not, be authentic, thank goodness! Only czars and crazy-successful capitalists like the billionaire Forbes family could make that kind of claim. “But Stan’s offerings would be dear enough, under the circumstances,” Doris thought to herself, “but then again, given the state of our accounts, this one may finally be a freebie, unbeknownst to Stan!”

Stan placed his famous leather bag on the ground beside the table and delicately withdrew a wooden box from within its scented quarters. John purchased enough items that bore the leather scent of that bag to put him into the delicate, and now disastrous, financial situation he has now found himself. No matter, it was all for art, well, not just art, intricate and precious creativity that only someone of the stature of Peter Carl Fabergé or, as John would say, his own father, could produce.

From deep within the depths of that leather emerged a replica of perhaps the most significant of all the Fabergé eggs, one that John knew well, and one that Stan, forever the salesman, knew that John would spring for no matter how dire his straits. Little did he know that this would be the end of that gravy train that had helped Stan pay for a place in the Hamptons.

It was appropriate that this egg bore within its own depths a golden replica of the actual Trans-Siberian train, honoring Nicholas II, who had laid the foundations for constructing the Siberian Railway. To this day, the original for this work had never been sold, and remains in the Kremlin Armory museum. Nonetheless, enough detail is known of its form and fabrication to make it possible to replicate it, and Stan had finally found a source for one whose details would meet, and indeed exceed, John-the-Owner’s exacting expectations.