The Blue Bistro (10 page)

“Don’t be surprised if he does,” Caren said. “He’s a ladies’ man. As charming as they come and a great dancer, but
truh-bull.
Anyway, I was talking about one of the guys on the line. Hector, Louis, Henry . . .”

“Paco?”

“Exactly,” Caren said. “Some time this weekend, give Paco fifty bucks. He’ll be on your team for the rest of the summer. I always tip out the guys in the kitchen and they
time my food perfectly. They slide me snacks. And Fiona likes it. She thinks the money we make on the floor is a cardinal sin.”

Fiona’s name was as bright as an open door. All Adrienne had to do was step through.

“I wanted to ask you about Fiona,” Adrienne said.

Caren turned away. She opened a cabinet and brought down another espresso cup, which she filled. Adrienne was confused, and worried that the espresso was meant for her. Then she became even more confused because she heard the toilet flush in the hall bathroom. Was there someone else in the house? A few seconds later, a half-naked man sauntered into their kitchen. Adrienne tried to keep her composure. Never mind that her vague but very important overture was floating away like a released balloon. Never mind that because the shirtless man in their kitchen was Duncan. He was wearing his khaki pants from the night before. Adrienne could see one inch of the top of his boxers—they were white with black martini glasses. His brown hair was mussed and Adrienne was temporarily mesmerized by his bare torso. His beautiful chest and arms, a black cord choker around his neck with a silver key on it. He must have noticed her staring because the first thing he did was hold the key out to show it to her. “This opens my ski locker at the Aspen Club Lodge,” he said. “Where did you work?”

Adrienne was reminded of her ex-boyfriend Michael Sullivan. Sully was a golfer and he loved golf lingo. In this instance, he would have suggested Adrienne
play through.

“The Little Nell.”

“And your friend? She worked there, too?”

“Kyra. Yep.”

“You got a pass with the job?”

“Of course.”

“How many days did you ski?”

“I didn’t keep track.”

Duncan nodded thoughtfully, and Adrienne could tell he was swallowing the urge to brag about how many days he’d skied. Men were like that—Doug, for example, had marked
the days on his calendar when he got six runs in. Duncan accepted the espresso from Caren. He threw it back and Caren poured him another.

The kitchen, like the rest of the rental cottage, was unremarkable. The appliances were all about fifteen years old and barely functional. There was a white Formica counter, three ceramic canisters decorated with sunflowers, two magnets hanging on the fridge from a liquor store on Main Street called Murray’s. Adrienne sat drinking her tea at a round wooden table that had been sawed in half so it would sit flush against the wall. And yet, in this humdrum room, a drama unfolded—well, maybe not a drama, but a situation that Adrienne never would have guessed on her own.

Duncan and Caren were sleeping together. Or had slept together last night.

The sight of Caren’s hair down and the knowledge of her thong underwear and the smooth, tan skin of Duncan’s chest and the flushing toilet—had he even
closed the door
?—only served to make Adrienne hot and uncomfortable. So, too, the way they stood at the counter with their tiny cups of poison like two strangers at a bar in Milan.

Adrienne moved to the microwave and heated her tea, which had grown cold. Thirty seconds—with her back to them, they felt free to touch. Adrienne heard the sucking noises of kisses. The microwave beeped and Adrienne took her tea, retreated down the hall.

“You don’t have to leave,” Caren said.

“Oh, I know,” Adrienne said quickly, though there was no way she was going to be part of their postcoital espresso ritual. “I have to send some e-mail.”

She would write to her father with the news of Holt Millman, the six hundred dollars in tips and a basic celebration that she had survived an entire night in the restaurant business. The e-mail to Kyra in Carmel would detail the first scoop of the summer—Adrienne working at the same restaurant as Duncan and Duncan sleeping with Adrienne’s roommate. But before Adrienne turned on her computer, she studied the business card from Drew Amman-Keller. Something
was going on at the restaurant that he wanted to know about, and Adrienne intended to find out what it was. She would not stand by, blissfully unaware, while the person closest to her robbed her blind. Not this time.

Adrienne’s second night at the restaurant was called “first night of bar,” and the place had a different feel. The nervous anticipation of soft opening had vanished and in its place was “we mean business.” Everyone was paying tonight.

We mean business.
When Adrienne arrived, Thatcher inspected her outfit: tonight, the sensational Chloe dress and a new pair of shoes.

“I know you suggested slippers,” Adrienne said. “But a dress needs heels.”

“It’s okay,” Thatcher said. “I like the shoes.”

“Do you?” Adrienne said. They were Dolce & Gabbana thong sandals with a modest heel, in pink leather with black whipstitching. The pink of the leather matched the trim of the Chloe dress as well as her pink pants, and the salesperson at David Chase assured her that a thong sandal would be more comfortable, not to mention quieter, than a slide. They had cost Adrienne more than half of her cash earnings of the night before, but as soon as she tried the shoes on, she’d been hooked. She never imagined owning such gorgeous shoes, especially since she was in such dire straits. However, she felt that after the rigors of her first night, she deserved a treat.

“I like the dress, too,” Thatcher said. “It suits you better than the pants did. But I don’t know—we have to work on defining a look for you.”

“I don’t want a look,” Adrienne said.

“You will when we find the right one.”

Thatcher was both charming and annoying her. Or annoying her because he was charming. She wanted to whipstitch his mouth shut. Thatcher had his own look: the Patek Philippe, the Gucci loafers, and tonight a gorgeous blue shirt with pink pinstripes and pants that were halfway between
khaki and white. The navy blazer. He looked wonderful but that, too, irritated her. She liked him better as she had first seen him—in jeans and sneakers. The dress-up clothes and the watch made it seem like he was trying too hard. But she was being mean. He smiled at her in a warm, genuine way then offered his arm and escorted her to the twelve-top for menu meeting.

After menu meeting came a delicious family meal: fried chicken with honey pecan butter, mashed potatoes, coleslaw. As Adrienne slathered her fried chicken with butter she thought happily of all the money she would save on food this summer. She ate without looking left, right, or toward the water. She would not be cheated out of one bite of this meal! When all that remained on her plate were chicken bones and a film of gravy, she raised her eyes to the rest of the staff. Caren sat across from her with her hair back in its usual tight bun. Duncan ate at the other end of the table with his sister.

That morning, after Duncan had driven off in his black Jeep Wrangler, Caren tapped on Adrienne’s door. Adrienne was standing in front of her mirror diligently applying sunscreen to her face and chest. Caren was still in just the T-shirt, but now that Duncan had left, her face had changed; instead of glowing, she looked tired, artificially revved up on jet fuel.

“I’m sorry if Duncan freaked you out,” Caren said.

“He didn’t freak me out.”

“I wasn’t planning on bringing him back here. It just sort of happened.”

“Believe me, I understand,” Adrienne said.

“I’ve known him a long time,” Caren said. “I guess with this being the last year and all, we both felt a little funny. Like it’s now or never.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Adrienne said. “I don’t care who sleeps over.”

“Nobody else knows about this,” Caren said.

“I’m not going to tell,” Adrienne said. “I don’t even know anyone’s name.”

Adrienne cleared her plate and silverware into the bins and collected her yellow pad from the podium. Thatcher gnawed on a pencil as he went over the reservations.

“Are you ready for a briefing?” he asked.

She held up her pad. “I’m supposed to be managing these people,” she said. “And I don’t even know who they are.” She headed back to the table.

Adrienne assured each member of the staff that this reconnaissance mission was for names only—she wasn’t a cub reporter for the tabloids and she didn’t work for the IRS. Still, she found that no one was content to state only his name, and so she learned other things as well. The new waiter with the bushy hair and weak chin was named Elliott Gray. He was getting his doctorate in Eastern religions at Tufts. The good-looking waiter with the gold earrings was Christo. He had been a waiter at the Club Car for seven years, the whole time waiting for a job to open up at the Bistro. The blond ponytail was Spillman—this was actually his last name, his first name was John. Spillman, along with Caren and Bruno, had worked at the Bistro since the beginning. Spillman was married to a woman named Red Mare who was part Native American; she worked as a hostess at the Pearl. Then there was Joe, the black waiter, who in addition to being a waiter, worked in the kitchen. He wanted to be a chef, but he earned too much money waiting tables to make the switch. Fiona paid him to do prep work in the morning. That morning, he told Adrienne, he had been in charge of making the “pearls” of zucchini and summer squash that accompanied the duck. He made the pearls with a parisienne scoop, something the French invented to make lives like his miserable. “Now that,” Joe said, “was hard work.”

The busboys were Tyler, son of the health inspector, whom Adrienne had already met, and Roy and Gage. Roy had just finished his junior year at Notre Dame. He called Thatcher for a job after reading about the restaurant in
Notre Dame
magazine, an article Adrienne had missed at the public
library. She made a mental note to go back and read it. Gage was older, with long hair in a ponytail and a face that looked like it had been stamped by too much loud music, too many cigarettes, and too little sleep. He said he’d met Thatcher at an AA meeting.

It was a lot of names but Adrienne was good with names. And although she was mostly worried about the front of the house, she decided to ask Joe about the kitchen staff.

“Eight guys work back there,” he said. “They’re all cousins. Last name Subiaco, they’re from Chicago, they’re Cuban-Italian and proud of it. Most importantly, they’re White Sox fans. Mario brought the whole gang here in ’ninety-three when the place opened. He knew Fee from culinary school.”

“Mario, the pastry chef?”

“He’s a lady slayer,” Joe said. “He calls himself King of the Sweet Ending and he doesn’t mean desserts.”

Adrienne blushed. “Well, I’m not writing that down.”

“You asked,” Joe said.

It was ten minutes before service, and Adrienne returned to the podium. Her notebook had some actual information in it now.

“Champagne,” Thatcher said.

Adrienne sighed. Duncan was wiping down the bar. She felt strange knowing that under his seersucker shirt and Liberty of London tie was the black cord and the key. She walked over. He saw her, and with a quick flourish of his wrist, Adrienne heard the new sound of
we mean business
: a cork popping.

We mean business
. The tablecloths were white and crisp, the irises fresh, the glasses polished, the candles lit. The waiters lined up for inspection, a band of angels. Rex played “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Cars pulled into the parking lot. The well-dressed, sweet-smelling guests cooed at Thatcher and some of them at Adrienne. She received four compliments on her shoes. Cocktails were ordered and two glasses of Laurent-Perrier and then a bottle. The pretzel bread went
out. The doughnuts. The sun began its descent toward the water, and the guests watched it with the anticipation of the ball dropping in Times Square. It was New Year’s Eve here every night.

A man at table twelve beckoned Adrienne over with an impatient finger wagging in the air, and immediately the spell was broken. Didn’t he notice her dress, her shoes, her champagne? She was the hostess here, not his bitch.

“Yes, sir, can I help you?”

He held up the basket of doughnuts. “What are
these
? If I’d wanted to eat at Krispy Kreme, I would have stayed in New York.”

Adrienne stepped back. The man had very close cut ginger-colored hair and so many freckles that they gave him patches of disconcertingly brown skin. He wore strange yellow-lensed glasses.

Adrienne glanced at the basket but did not take it from the man. Table twelve: she tried to remember if he was a VIP.

“Have you tasted the doughnuts?” she asked. “They’re not sweet—they’re onion and herb doughnuts. If I do say so, they’re delicious.”

The woman to the man’s left had very short black hair and the same funny glasses with lavender lenses. “I’ll try one, Dana.”

The man named Dana thrust the basket at Adrienne’s nose. “We don’t want doughnuts.”

“But you haven’t tried them. I assure you, if . . .”