THENASTYBITS (31 page)

A
 
TASTE
  
OF
  
FICTION

A
CHEF'S
CHRISTMAS

it
was
about
a
week before Christmas and all through the restaurant, not an employee was stirring, not even the usually hyperactive busboy, Mahmoud, who sat bolt-upright at the end of an empty banquette, staring into space. The decorations (six hundred forty-nine dollars worth, Marvin recalled with dismay) had been hung in the foyer and front picture window with care (five hundred dollars to some overpaid drapery queen) in the hopes that if not Santa, then at least a few walk-in customers would materialize. A tree (another three hundred smackers to the sorriest-ass, coverall-wearing, Pine Barren-dwelling, inbred motherfucker Marvin had ever seen) had arrived yesterday by truck and now twinkled and glittered with muted white and silver lights by the host stand, where Laurie, who was working tonight because she'd swapped shifts with Alexandra, the good hostess, slouched over the reservation book and covertly prodded a zit.

Marvin had, at the last minute, decided against Christmas music. That would have been too much: happy sleighbells and songs about sugarplum fairies and reindeers and shit. A week ago, when business had been better, he'd briefly considered budgeting for music, then abandoned the idea, sensing the potential for truly painful irony. Things were bad enough, thought Marvin. He didn't need excruciating background music. Bing Crosby walks in the door right now, he mused, starts in with that "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" shit? He'd never get to finish the line. The whole floor staff of the beleaguered Restaurant Saint Germain would race each other to beat him to death with the nearest bar stool. Instead of carols, French "lounge" music oozed out of the bar's recessed speakers as always. Innocuous enough and what people liked these days, according to Rob.

Marvin sat by the service end of the bar, glumly observing— but not really—the three regular customers drinking Chimay-at the other end, and the deuce on table number seven who were already looking furtively around Saint Germain's empty dining room and whispering to each other. They were going to lose the table. Marvin knew it without having to look over at them. They hadn't ordered food yet and were clearly reconsidering their options over drinks, planning an exit strategy. Th body language: purse repositioned on lap, the male half of the equation looking around for a waiter while he balled up his napkin, said they were ready to bolt, ready to blurt out some ridiculous lie like "We weren't really as hungry as we thought," or "my wife is having an allergy attack" or "I le the gas on" before they were out the door and in the wind. Gone. Like Marvin's entire stake. Twenty-two years of sweat and toil, warehouses full of mufflers and brake pads, trailer loads—container loads even—of radial tires and retreads, blown up and away, two turns around Madison Square Park and into the void like a lonely, wind-buffeted snowflake. A thing of no consequence. Never existed.

Marvin drank his second scotch and water of the evening and tried to avoid thinking about numbers. He didn't want to think about the loan he'd personally guaranteed so that the busboy, three waiters, and the twelve—count 'em,
twelve
—cooks Rob had insisted they absolutely had to have, could all sit around the kitchen doing jack-shit. The half-million-dollar kitchen with th brand spanking new Jade ranges and All-Clad pots and pans and induction burners and Pacojet machine and marble counter for the patissier and the custom-made rolling racks and reach-ins and the tandoori oven that Rob had used once and never again as far as Marvin knew, all of which it had been insisted they absolutely
had
to have.

And where was Rob, anyway? Where was "America's Sexiest Chef"? Why wasn't he here to share the pain, the humiliation, the death—in increments—of all their dreams?

This is what he got for wanting to play the Bogie part. This is what he got for all those gin-soaked evenings in the Hamptons, still flush with the accumulated liquid assets of years in the auto parts biz, those sweet, lazy afternoons by the pool, dreaming of a white dinner jacket, a smoldering cigarette, of signing checks for favored customers in his very own place. "Okay, Rick." Or, "Okay, Marvin" in this case, swanning around the dining room of his very own place, the hottest place in town, his favorite songs playing in the background. Ingrid Bergman, or someone very much like her, waiting for him in an upstairs apartment. It had seemed so serendipitous at the time, meeting the young Rob Holland just down from Boston, weekending with the Haver-meyers, who had taken a place at the beach. "The hottest chef in the Northeast," Ellie Havermeyer had confided in whispered tones, beaming like she was showing off a prize Pekingese. "And the sexiest fucking thing in checked pants," added her sister Cissy in a slightly more strident aside, coloring as she said it. This had impressed Marvin, as Cissy liked to use the word
fuck
a lot, and never blushed for anything.

Chet the bartender, a long-in-the-tooth ex-model who'd long ago resigned himself to slinging drinks for the rest of his life, wiped the bar and, from the corners of his eyes, glanced pityingly at Marvin (as much as bartenders can feel pity). Chet looked worried, thought Marvin with some satisfaction. Probably because the place was so damn slow the miserable, thieving son of a bitch couldn't even steal like he used to. About a hundred bucks a night he'd been taking down, Marvin figured, back when things were good. Those were acceptable losses for a busy house with a good bartender, like back in the days when the dining room had been full of wine drinkers and hurrying, upselling waiters moving Calvados and magnums of expensive burgundies and twenty-year-old ports, the bar packed three de with giggly, well-dressed women wondering "Is Rob here t night? Is the chef around?" Now Marvin wished he could hav all that money back. A hundred dollars a night, four shifts week, times the year and a half Chet had been with Sa
^!
Germain—that was enough to pay down the D'Artagnan bi D'Artagnan, who quite sensibly wouldn't even take COD an more because the restaurant was so far in arrears, requiring R to buy even-more-expensive French foie gras from the dairy a provisions company (who were also, of course, on COD, an likely to suspend deliveries any day now).

He was going to lose the house, Marvin just knew, the certain knowledge sitting like an indigestible, malignant lum~ halfway down his esophagus. When the house went, his wife would go too. He hadn't let on how deeply in trouble he really was. Things were bad enough, he'd thought, without having to hear about it at home too. She'd divorce him—go for full custody, of course—and the no-doubt wildly expensive lawyer she'd hire off the society pages would get it for her too. Easily. (On the basis of the regrettable "hostess incident" a while back.) She'd get half of what was left,
after
everybody else piled on. After the banks, the vendors, the credit card companies, the lawyers, accountants, the IRS, state, city, and marshals had finished stripping away what assets they could. And what about Christmas? It was torture coming to work every morning. The decorations, the lights, the Santas on Fifth Avenue were an affront, a reminder of obligations and impossibilities. His kids for instance. Melissa, the eldest, had been agitating for a pony. James, his son, wanted a wide-screen plasma TV and an Xbox. The bottle of Cutty and the gift box of promo goodies from the meat company definitely were not going to be enough for the wife.

And where was Rob?

Things hadn't turned out too badly for Rob, Marvin thought. He'd parlayed his 60-percent food cost and 40-percent labor cost into that most desirable state of affairs (for a working-class kid from Revere, Mass., anyway): He was now, truly and certifiably, a "celebrity chef." Rob Holland: The name was never mentioned anymore without being preceded by the two other words,
celebrity
and
chef.
Two words that, as far as Marvin was concerned, should never go together. Young Rob, always in the news now, on the covers of the trade mags, in the glossy foodie journals, and, increasingly, in the lifestyle-fashion rags. He had a pose, a way he always held his head for the photographers, that Marvin was coming to hate. It was that look with cheeks sucked in, chin tilted slightly, head shading to the left, that was starting to drive Marvin crazy. Of course, behind the pancake makeup Rob wasn't looking so hot either. His various business ventures weren't going so well. The places in Boston and Philly (with other partners) weren't working out with the locals and Marvin had just heard that the partners were suing him. The airport deals had been a disaster. I mean, who wants a cassoulet of fucking monkfish before they get on a shuttle to fucking Washington? Marvin had further heard that Rob's wife—his second—was leaving him. No surprise there. Rob's social life needed a flow chart to fully comprehend it. Marvin had seen Rob's cookbook on the remainder pile at Barnes
&c
Noble on sale for nine ninety-five right next to a mountain of poor-me memoirs, inspirationals from disgraced CEOs, and picture books of Gus the polar bear. And as badly as he seemed to want it, as hard as he tried, they still wouldn't let Rob on television. Not with his own show, anyway.

The thing was, the restaurant business was very forgiving of
chefs
who walk away from a high-profile failure but not so forgiving of owners. A chef's place goes under and he can just walk across the street and there will be a whole gaggle of knuckleheads waiting to give him more money. As a chef, Marvin was beginning to suspect, it was not only possible to fail upward, but maybe even desirable. No doubt, in a year's time the same companies who now refused to ship to Saint Germain would be cheerfully extending Rob thirty-day credit— bygones be bygones—while banks and lawyers and government agencies would still be bending Marvin over a sawhorse an probing rudely for assets.

In a terrible moment of paranoia, Marvin wondered if thi was what Rob had planned all along. A big, expensive flop. ^ loss leader for Rob Holland Incorporated? All those cooks, th 60-percent food cost; maybe the prick had never had an intention of making the nut at Saint Germain. Maybe the whole enterprise, Marvin's investment, his house, his fortune, ha all been an offering to the restaurant gods, a springboard t bigger and better things. Maybe the whole idea had been fo Saint Germain to fail slowly, a glorious failure—but a failure— while Rob rose in the world, stepping adroitly over Marvin's eviscerated corpse on the way to greater glory. That woul explain a lot.

While Marvin was in the front of the house nursing his drink, back in the kitchen at Saint Germain, the mood was even uglier Paul Kelly, Rob's chef de cuisine, had just broken the bad new: to the crew, all of whom sat on the cutting boards of their work stations, looking very unhappy.

"What the fuck you mean—no Christmas bonuses?! That's bullshit, man! That's totally fucked up!" said Kevin, the
saucier.
He pounded his fist against the stainless-steel worktable and shook his head back and forth.

"No
way\"
insisted Thierry, the highly paid patissier who Ro had lured away from an uptown four-star. "Zees is boolsheet!

Michelle didn't say anything. She just hopped off her board and began wiping down her station. That really worried Paul as he suspected that Michelle, being not only the best of the cooks but also the smartest, knew that any wailing and whining was useless and that there was truly nothing to be done. He tried to make eye contact, read her expression. They were close, after all. They'd even slept together once, and stayed friends afterward. But Michelle avoided his gaze. The cat was on the roof, Paul decided. She'd already made up her mind. A week, two weeks from now and she'd be giving notice. You can't bullshit her. She knew about this business.

Manuel, Juan, Omar, Jaime, and Rigoberto—the Puebla Posse—said nothing. They weren't going anywhere. They'd been with Rob since the beginning, were well paid and well appreciated, and, most importantly, had been fucked over so many other times at so many other places they were used to it, and probably saw it all as inevitable. God love them, thought Paul. When I die, I want to come back as a Mexican, a Poblano, a fucking grown-up. As the familiar smell of Terminal Restaurant Syndrome gathered about the room, who better deserved to go home to their families with fat bonus checks than these guys? Paul hated himself for the dishonesty of the situation. He would have loved to have just said, "Okay, vatos! El restaurante esta finite. Grab a stove! Grab a freezer! Manuel? You get the Pacojet—let's sell this shit off before the consultants and the marshals get here! Vamanos! I recommend the crystal. Don't waste your time on the pinchay camarones!" But he couldn't do that. Once again the skipper of a sinking ship, he had to keep the crew at their stations.