The Blue Bistro (22 page)

“I just made a dinner reservation for two, tonight, eight o’clock, at the Wauwinet,” he said. “I hope you’ll join me.”

Adrienne stared at him, unwillingly imagining a woman smoothing essence of sea cucumber on Holt Millman’s neck to keep it taut. She wanted to laugh. She bowed her head. This was the eleventh richest man in the United States, asking her on a date.

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to work.”

“Work?” he said, as though he’d never heard of the word. “Okay, then, what night are you free?”

The answer was Wednesday night, but Adrienne couldn’t bring herself to tell him. She wished like hell that she was up on deck lying safely between Caren and Cat, picking at the leftover wraps, maybe indulging in one more cocktail since her mouth was dry and ashy.

“I’m dating someone,” she said. And in her alcohol-saturated, drug-induced state, she thought,
I’m dating Thatch.

Holt Millman didn’t get to be so successful by being a jerk or by preying on young women in bikinis whom he found nosing around his personal quarters. He was, at all times, a model of graciousness. “Whoever he is, he is one lucky man,” Holt said. He offered Adrienne his arm and escorted her up the stairs, back into the sun.

When Adrienne woke up from her nap, it was four o’clock, and the girl with the English accent was offering her a cold Coca-Cola, which Adrienne immediately recognized as the answer to her prayers. She had fallen asleep on her stomach and she could tell just from sitting up that her back was burned. She knocked back half the Coke and went in search of Caren and Duncan, whom she found standing at the stern on either side of the flapping Rhode Island flag. They were tan and laughing; they looked like models in a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Adrienne caught Caren’s eye and pointed to her running watch. It was five after four, they were zero feet above sea level, and Nantucket was still a smudge on the horizon. Caren shrugged. Nonchalance was her middle name. Adrienne, on the other hand, was a realist. If they headed back now they might be in the harbor in half an hour. Leaving twenty-five minutes to drop Duncan off, get home,
change (there would be no time for a shower), and get to work. But who was she kidding? They were going to be late.

Adrienne tapped the captain on the shoulder. “I know I’m going to sound like a Providence Puritan,” she said, desperately hoping he got the joke, “but there are three of us on this boat who have to be at work at five.”

Even with both motors turned on full-throttle, they didn’t reach the mouth of the harbor until ten of five. By this time, the effects of the alcohol and the pot were gone and in their place was the special anxiety that hit when Adrienne knew she was going to be fatally late. Her brain ticked like a clock, she checked her jogging watch eighty-two times, and finally—because everyone on the boat could sense she was about to have a nervous breakdown—Holt Millman pulled out his cell phone and told Thatcher that he had taken three of the Bistro’s key employees hostage and that they would be to work by the stroke of six. Adrienne was dying to hear Thatcher’s response to this, but Holt snapped his cell phone shut, as if closing the book on the problem of the time, and said, “There. Do you feel better?”

“I don’t like to be late,” she said.

When they finally docked, Adrienne hugged the eleventh richest man in the country and thanked him for a wonderful day, then she hauled ass to the car with Duncan and Caren trailing reluctantly behind. The next hour was a blur of activity: drive, drop off Duncan, drive, wash face, brush teeth, change into the diaphanous blouse, which hid her sunburn, stuff half an untoasted bagel with light veggie cream cheese into her pie hole since they were going to miss family meal (Caren ate the other half and spent four minutes brewing an espresso—Adrienne drank one also in the interest of staying awake through service), brush teeth again, drive. They walked into the Bistro at five fifty-six, trying to look like it was just another lovely day at the regatta.
Pshew!

Thatcher was at the podium, going over the book. He seemed unperturbed by their late arrival. “How was the sail?” he asked.

“Fabulous,” Adrienne said.

Why had they hurried? There were only sixty-two covers on the book and only twenty people for first seating, though Adrienne did have three parties walk in. Joe and Christo both had the night off, as did Rex, so instead of piano music the stereo played Vivaldi.

“It’s dead,” Adrienne complained.

“The calm before the storm,” Thatcher said. “This is a notoriously slow weekend because people have other things going on—weddings, graduations. But I had a hundred calls today about the Fourth. It’s going to be a circus.”

This was the longest conversation they’d had since their date. The sail had put Adrienne in a more generous frame of mind. She could talk to Thatcher as though he was just another person.

“What was family meal tonight?”

“Grilled pizzas,” Thatcher said. “Are you sorry you missed it?”

“I ate at home,” Adrienne said, thinking,
Of course I’m sorry I missed it!
“The boat was fun. Holt Millman asked me out to dinner.”

At first it appeared Thatcher hadn’t heard her—either that or he was letting it go, like he did the time Adrienne asked if Fiona was his wife. But then he tilted his head and peered at Adrienne out of the corner of his eye. “What did you tell him?” he asked.

There was no mistaking his tone of voice: He cared. He cared! Adrienne did her best to keep the trumpet of victory out of her response.

“I told him no.”

At seven o’clock, JZ came in with a little girl who had brown bobbed hair and a mouth full of chewing gum.

“Adrienne,” JZ said. “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Shaughnessy. Shaughnessy, this is Adrienne Dealey.”

“Big dealey,” Shaughnessy said, then she giggled.

“You’ll excuse my daughter,” JZ said. “She’s suffering from a cute case of being eight. We’re going to sit at the bar.”

Adrienne held out a hand. “Be my guest,” she said.

But Shaughnessy remained at the podium, studying Adrienne. “We’re going to eat caviar,” she said. “And then I’m going into the kitchen to help Fiona make a pizza.”

“Is that so?” Adrienne said. “Do you like to cook?”

She shrugged. “Of course.”

JZ led Shaughnessy to the bar, where the two of them perched on stools. Since there was absolutely nothing else to do—Thatcher had left her to work the door in case of walk-ins while he romanced the floor—Adrienne watched them. Dad and daughter: The sight made Adrienne miss her own father who at that moment would be relaxing in a house Adrienne had never seen, hopefully enjoying a perfectly grilled Omaha steak and watching
60 Minutes.

Duncan poured JZ a beer and made Shaughnessy a Shirley Temple with three cherries. Shaughnessy removed the gum from her mouth and parked it on her cocktail napkin. Adrienne decided to check in the kitchen; if the chips and dip were ready, she could run them out.

When she walked through the kitchen door she nearly crashed into Fiona, who was on her tiptoes at the out door, trying to see through the window. Behind the pass, the Subiacos were engrossed in the baseball game on the radio; the White Sox were at Fenway tonight. Adrienne had hardly seen Fiona since her date with Thatcher; Fiona had been hiding out a lot in the office. Adrienne certainly hadn’t spoken to her. But she looked so funny trying to see out the window that Adrienne decided to excuse the fact that this was the woman who had sabotaged her date and caused her ten days of date-induced angst.

“You should go say hi,” Adrienne said. “There’s practically no one sitting down.”

Fiona spun on the heels of her kitchen clogs. “The last time I went out during service, Ruth Reichl was sitting at table one. The month following there was a tidbit in
Gourmet
about how Chef Fiona Kemp does occasionally peek out of her shell. So I’m not going out. What do you need?”

“I saw JZ. I thought there might be chips for him. His daughter said she was going to eat caviar and then come in here and help you make a pizza.”

Fiona’s face softened. “She wants to be a chef,” she said. “Isn’t that crazy?” And then she yelled out, “Spuds, Paco!”

And Paco said, “Yes, chef.”

Pfft, pfft, pfft, hiss.

“They’ll be ready in three minutes,” Fiona said. “Get back to your post.”

Adrienne ran the chips, opened two bottles of wine, changed the CD to Bobby Short at the Carlyle Hotel. She saw JZ and Shaughnessy slip into the kitchen. Suddenly, in that way he had, Thatcher materialized at her side.

“She’s a cute kid,” Adrienne said. “Seeing her with JZ reminds me of me and my dad.”

“Adrienne Dealey waxes sentimental,” Thatcher said.

“Where’s her mother? Is she alive?”

“I’m afraid so,” Thatcher said.

“So JZ’s divorced?”

“No.”

“He’s not divorced?”

“No. He’s married.”

“He’s married?”

“Yes.” Thatcher handed Adrienne a pile of menus to return to the podium, meaning: Get back to your post.

“But you said he was a nice guy.” Thinking:
He brought his daughter to the restaurant to make pizza with his lover? Not nice.

“Oh, Adrienne,” Thatcher said. “Were the world so easy as you appear to believe it is.”

Three women who walked in at quarter to eight asked for rolls and butter, giving Adrienne an excuse to poke her head in the kitchen. She had finally learned where the rolls were kept—in a burlap sack hanging from one of the oven doors so the rolls would keep warm. Adrienne fixed a basket of rolls and arranged the cake of butter on a glass pedestal, all
while watching Fiona and Shaughnessy make their pizza. The dough was rolled out and Shaughnessy painted it with sauce, then she gathered up two handfuls of pepperoni.

“I want to make a face,” she said.

“Not only a chef,” Fiona said, “but an artist.”

Shaughnessy laid out the pepperoni. Eyes, nose, mouth.

“Your face is frowning,” Fiona said.

“Because I feel sad,” Shaughnessy said.

Fiona had a handful of sliced fresh mozzarella poised over the pizza, but when Shaughnessy said this, she lowered her hand to the counter and glanced at JZ. JZ shrugged.

Fiona raised Shaughnessy’s chin with her finger. Adrienne’s attention was captivated by the look on Fiona’s face. She recognized that look.

“Why are you sad?” Fiona said.

“Because I want everything to be different,” Shaughnessy said. “I want you to be my mother.”

Thatcher let Adrienne go early and she was glad; it had been the world’s longest day. When she got home, she showered, then fell into bed in her towel with her hair wet. She thought she might have crazy dreams about Holt Millman or the girl with the English accent who worked on the boat or Shaughnessy and JZ and the absent wife/mother whom they both seemed so eager to replace. But Adrienne slept without dreaming at all. When she heard the knock at her door, that was the one thing she was certain of: She hadn’t been dreaming and she wasn’t dreaming now. There was someone knocking on her door.

She pulled her comforter up under her chin. Thinking,
Caren. But maybe Duncan—and how weird would
that
be?

“Hello?” she said.

It was dark, but even so, she could tell that the person in the doorway was Thatch. A light from somewhere caught his hair and she knew the shape of him, his tread, his smell. Thatcher Smith was in her room. She checked her clock—one forty-eight—not so late, really. Not by restaurant standards.
His presence was so bizarre that she didn’t even know where to begin her thinking. She waited for him to speak.

He eased himself down onto the side of her bed. “Hi,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Hi, me,” she said. She worried what she looked like; she wondered if he could see her.

There was a long pause and then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Adrienne.”

The words hung in the room in an odd way, as if they required more explanation, but they didn’t.

“I know,” she said.

“You may wonder why I’m telling you now, in the middle of the night.”

“The middle of the night part doesn’t bother me,” Adrienne said. “Nor the fact that you seem to have broken into my house. But you made me wait ten days.”

“There’s a lot going on,” Thatcher said. “Fiona’s sick.”

“I know,” Adrienne said.

“She’s very sick.”

“I know,” Adrienne said—because she
did
know, somehow. The coughing, the childhood illness Thatcher didn’t want to talk about, Fiona’s reclusiveness, her embrace with JZ, the last year of the restaurant, Drew Amman-Keller’s cryptic words, Thatcher’s slavish devotion—they had all added up in Adrienne’s mind to an instinct she hadn’t been able to acknowledge, even to herself. But then there was earlier that evening, the scene she witnessed; Shaughnessy in the kitchen with Fiona. There had been something in Fiona’s face, a longing Adrienne had seen before in her own mother’s face when Rosalie lay in the hospital bed, her pale head covered with a Phillies cap. So, yes, Adrienne knew: Fiona was sick.

“Do you want me to leave?” Thatcher said.

“No,” Adrienne said. “I want you to stay. Do you want to talk about Fiona?”