Authors: Michelle Wildgen
As he passed his parents, he let a hand linger briefly on their shoulders while he peered at their plates
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hey were down to crumbs, but that didn’t mean they’d loved the dishes. Harry and Britt could have set a live possum before their parents and their mother would have coolly, maternally, sharpened her butter knife.
Years before, their mother had looked up a recipe for Harry’s lamb tongue
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hen it was ready, she and Harry had each cut a tiny, brave piece of the ugly thing, which was sprinkled with parsley and marooned on its plate like a science experiment. Britt and Leo had watched them chew for what seemed a long time, until Harry swallowed and frowned, no doubt regretting his lost allowance.
“Lighten up on your pours, just a touch,” he told Travis, who nodded and slowed very slightly. Ounce by ounce, lost booze drained away money when it should be the biggest moneymaker in the house—it was all markup and no prep.
Britt made his way yet again toward the front of the space, pausing to speak with tables as he did and then picking up plates as he returned to the back of the house
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he duck plates were wiped clean, the baccalà not so much—people were running out of socca and reluctant just to spoon it up
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hey’d have to add another slice
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he sardines lay denuded and separated from their nduja-spread toasts, a flavor combination Britt now confirmed was not working, since no one was eating it together
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he cloudy-eyed heads of the fish were stoically averted from the bare fronds of their ribs
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he baby octopus wasn’t moving, but the few he’d seen looked perfect, purple and white beneath a yellow haystack of frizzled ginger.
He watched Joshua serve a table of four, placing a dish at an empty seat whose occupant had gone to the restroom. Britt sighed
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hen Joshua saw Britt watching, he reddened and sidled over to him. “She keeps
leaving
,” he muttered under the din. “Is she feeding a freaking pet back there or what?”
Britt said, “If you can’t hold the food another second, at least cover the dish and watch for her to come back, okay? I’ll warn you now, this is one of my pet peeves.” Joshua nodded and departed to replace the woman’s napkin, darting an ingratiating smile in Britt’s direction as he did.
The first desserts were now moving past him, and Britt raised his brows at a server to signal her to slow and let him look at the plates: the beignets a generous little pile of sugared pastry next to their glass cup of basil cream, the pears all plump, feminine roundness beneath a veil of warmed dulce de leche. Next to these two playful, homey dishes, the napoleon looked too refined, its lime powder too vivid, like a dessert from a different restaurant, which it was. He shouldn’t have let Hector serve it. Or Harry shouldn’t have let Hector serve it. Britt was trying very hard to keep out of Harry’s kitchen; he was front-of-the-house and therefore he issued opinions through the lens of what got the orders, what went back untouched, and what was exclaimed over at presentation and consumed in an instant. He’d bring it up later, when Harry didn’t look so wild-eyed. Even the back of Harry’s neck looked crazed, the muscles visibly bunched beneath the constant motion of his head.
He was doing okay, though, planted before the range with his back to the crowd, his height and long arms an unexpected boon in the tight space. Small Jenelle had to move her feet, but Harry did not.
By the time nine o’clock rolled around, the room was calming down. One or two tables sat empty, and the staff kept running out of coffee before the next batch was brewed—annoying, but at least a welcome sign of the end of the meals. Britt had had to remind the backwaiters only once to watch the water glasses—he despised an empty water glass—and when he poked his head into the restrooms, he saw just what he wanted to see: moisturizer, soap, folded towels, and a basket of tampons in the ladies’, the same minus tampons in the men’s. Plenty of toilet paper, no unsightly wastebaskets or towels missing the little linen-lined hampers.
By now Harry was starting to look normal again: Britt could no longer see the whites all around his irises when Harry scanned the room. In the kitchen Hector was in a groove, tossing beignets in the sugar with a practiced flick of the wrist
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he cacao custard in its malted cone-cup was proving a tough one to serve—everyone wanted it, though people kept pointing at the word “cacao” instead of saying it, unsure how to pronounce it—but the delicate malt cup kept slipping out of the dollop of pastry cream that was intended to anchor it to the plate
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he servers were all moving like zombies, eyes locked on the malt cup, and Britt was sure they were going to collide.
“Sourcing cacao beans,” someone said behind him. “Such an esoteric skill.”
Britt turned and found Leo standing just behind him, about to sit down at a table. Britt hugged him, ignoring the cacao comment because it seemed to be a joke anyway, and because in the adrenaline of the night he was now elated to see his brother, whose prior absence Britt only now realized had felt quite glaring. Leo seemed to be in a good mood too; he laughed when Britt embraced him and then turned to present his companion. For a moment Britt didn’t recognize her: he saw a woman as tall as Leo, with dark brown curls and luminous eyes, broad shoulders, a simple black dress. He was reaching a hand forward, the other resting on Leo’s shoulder for an extra beat to silently convey admiration for Leo’s companion, when he paused, hand in midair, and realized with a shock that this was Thea.
“It looks wonderful,” she said. She saved him by leaning forward to hug him, then made a little show of looking around. “How’s it been? Did we give you enough time? We figured we both needed to check it out, so we scheduled a little professional dinner meeting.”
Leo’s hands were in his pockets. He and Thea offered Britt the same sunny, impenetrable smiles. “We wanted to be here sooner,” Leo said, “but figured better to let you get the early diners out of the way.”
“Thanks,” said Britt. He was still recovering from recognizing Thea with his brother. It had to be business. There was no way Leo would cross that line; it was sacrosanct. When Britt had started at Winesap, that was one of the first lectures Leo had given him: labor laws and not screwing with the staff. Usually that meant waitresses, for some reason, but this was potentially far more explosive. There were a thousand waitresses out there, but try finding a new executive chef in a town this size. No, Leo would never show up here so brazenly if something was going on. Britt collected himself and said, “It’s been a madhouse, but I think in a good way. We’ll see how the postmortem goes tomorrow, but I’m feeling good. You just missed Mom and Dad.”
“We saw them on their way out,” said Thea. “I don’t know how I’ve worked with you guys for years and never met them. They were lovely.”
Who was this Thea, all sweetness and interest in parents? It was bizarre, and it made him worry all over again. Britt preferred grumpy, silent Thea, the Thea who understood that his parents were lovely but would drive her batty in the kitchen, insisting that they loved everything but then allowing their plates to go back half full, assuring the servers that everything was stunning, simply stunning, even as they refused to touch another bite of something they had clearly, distressingly hated.
“What did they say?” he asked.
“They said the duck confit was delicious—a trifle salty for their blood pressure, but delicious—and your mother is very concerned what people think of the lamb’s neck.”
“That damn lamb’s neck,” he said. “I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. Listen, you guys have a seat.”
Britt flagged down Anna, the head server. She had straight dark brows and yellow hair dyed a deliberately fake canary color, with a scruffy fringe of bangs and a silver nose stud.
“Got it, one of everything. Is that your other brother?” she asked.
“Yup. And the executive chef from Winesap,” he said. “And don’t think for a second that his being our brother is going to make him any nicer.” But even as he said this, Leo was leaning back in his chair, laughing at something, nodding pleasantly at a neighboring table, and looking like pure charm and benevolence. Anna shrugged and headed off to get their drink orders. At the table, Leo and Thea looked over their menus. Their posture was straight; they weren’t touching. They might have been at a menu meeting at Winesap. Still, it was another beat before Britt even remembered to tell Harry their brother was here.
When he got to the line, Harry was drinking a pitcher of water from a shelf beneath the counter. “Hey, Leo’s here,” Britt said, leaning over the counter. “With Thea.” Harry nodded, swallowing. He didn’t seem to find Thea’s presence as provocative as Britt did, or maybe he was just too slammed to care. “How you doing back there?”
“Okay,” Harry said. “I think okay. What are you sending to Leo?”
“Everything.”
Britt looked again toward the front of the dining room. Where could Camille be? Harry might know, which didn’t make him feel any less nervous. At first he had had the distinct sensation of being the interloper on Camille’s existing friendship with his brother, but then Britt had the impression that Harry and Camille no longer saw each other quite so often. He didn’t want to ask, or to look at their phones when they buzzed with a message or a call, but then again he did want to, too. Surely Harry’s friendship with Camille had slowed a bit as he was swallowed by the restaurant as well.
“Hey, I thought Camille was coming,” Britt said. “Did you talk to her?”
Harry turned back to his range. “Oh,” he said over his shoulder, “I asked her not to, sort of. I thought it would be better if she came in when things had settled.”
“Since when?” Britt said. “When was this?”
“This afternoon. She called the house phone to ask about a time and I just knew it was too soon, Britt—she should see it when we’re really ready. I’m doing you a favor
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ou don’t want her in till we’re really flying.”
Harry’s words faded in and out over the clang of voices and sauté pans, but Britt had the distinct sensation of being dismissed. He would have liked to keep discussing this. Had she at least called his cell phone to say she wasn’t coming? Since when did Harry direct his social life? Why let Leo see the place before it was perfect but not Camille? But Anna appeared next to him, flashing a professional smile at the patrons, and murmured that Leo was eyeing a neighboring table’s octopus with great skepticism and did he still want to serve it?
LEO AND THEA WERE THE LAST TABLE
in the place. By the time Anna was clearing off their dessert tasting plates at eleven thirty, the rest of the staff was gathered in the back, having cleared and reset tables, restocked the server station, folded napkins, and polished glassware and silver
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nna had hung the breakdown of server duties in the kitchen by the espresso machine, and already Britt could see that the laminated page might have to move until the servers had their routines down; the espresso machine was mobbed with milling staff, peering at the list and trying to recall where to find the coffee filters, the spray bottles, the polishing cloths.
They were both standing at the bar, Britt on the customer side and Harry on the line, as Leo and Thea made their way to the door. Britt swallowed, suddenly dry-mouthed
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nything looked good when it was all you’d seen for weeks; you were so accustomed to every dish and every movement that the brain automatically overlaid all your good intentions and past failures on each dish, each server and motion. But Leo was a fresh eye, and an unforgiving one at that. Britt was used to being the one strolling inscrutably alongside Leo toward the door, not the one waiting anxiously at the bar, peering at his expression. He experienced a moment of kinship and odd empathy for Barbara Makaski, the faint whiff of terror he’d never before perceived in her sentinel’s posture.
“It was really good,” Leo said, without preamble. “You guys want to talk more tomorrow, or you too busy?”
“Sure,” said Britt. But even as he spoke Harry was shaking his head.
“I don’t think we have time,” he said. “I
want
to, but I have to be back here first thing and we have the all-staff meeting. I need to rework a couple of dishes too. I’m not sure about our supplies, either—I may have to make a bunch of calls
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he stuff I thought would move didn’t, the stuff I didn’t think would did.” He was leaning over the bar as he enumerated these issues, his hands gripping its edges
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hea’s head tilted, just barely, as she observed him.
Britt said, “I can manage it, Harry. Leo, let’s have breakfast—you can give me your impressions. Harry, how about if I’m here by ten?”
A complicated series of expressions crossed Harry’s face: he looked first relieved, then vexed, then concerned, then resigned. All he said was, “That’d be great, thanks.” All three watched him for another beat, waiting to see if he had anything to add, but Harry stood back, straightened his posture, and nodded with an air of finality.
“Hey,” Britt said. “We should be celebrating. We got through our first service, and we did it pretty well.”
Harry ran both hands through his hair, shaking his head. “We did okay. I’ve got a list in my head about fifty items long and I have no idea how I’m going to do it.” Then he suddenly raised both hands, palms out, as if in surrender. “Hey!” he barked, startling them. “You’re customers! You don’t care
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ou
shouldn’t
care. Get the hell out of here, go home, have drinks
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e’re not gonna do this
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e’re not turning you into consultants.”
Leo looked puzzled. “I’m glad to help, Harry,” he said.
“I know you are, and I appreciate it. Really. You two talk tomorrow and Britt and I’ll catch up later. Okay?”
The kitchen door opened and Anna approached the bar. “Forgive me,” she said to Leo and Thea, and then to Britt and Harry. “We’re about done back there. You guys still want to check in with the staff?”