The Blue Bistro (6 page)

Is she your wife? Girlfriend? Can someone please turn on the lights so I can see? Is this the restaurant’s last year because you’ve split up? Is the fact that I’m a woman going to be a bigger problem than you initially anticipated?
Adrienne followed him silently, but not silently at all. Her shoes were making a tremendous racket against the wooden floors.

“I’m clomping,” she said.

Thatcher turned to her. “Yes. The shoes. I told you. You have to watch the way you walk. Tomorrow night, different shoes. A soft sole. Slippers or something, but elegant, okay?”

Adrienne deducted another hundred dollars from her rapidly diminishing savings for elegant slipper shoes. Fine for pants, but the dress she’d bought would look funny without heels.

“Taking this job was a mistake,” she said. “Behind the front desk of a hotel, no one could even see my shoes.”

They reached the oak podium, home to the phone, the reservation book, a Tiffany vase with a couple dozen blue irises. A shallow bowl of Blue Bistro matches. A leather cup containing three sharpened pencils and a funny-looking wine key. Thatcher held up the champagne flute.

“This is a glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé,” he said. “We sell it at the bar for sixteen dollars a glass, ninety-five dollars a bottle. This is what you’re going to drink on the floor.”

“I
said,
taking this job was a mistake.”

“We both took a gamble,” he said. “Please give it one night. I promise you will love it so much you will be counting
the minutes until you can come back. If you don’t feel that way, then we’ll talk. But we can’t talk now. Right now, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, okay?”

His okays were purely rhetorical.

“I want to brush my teeth,” she said.

Before she knew what was happening, Thatcher leaned over and kissed her. Very quickly, very softly. “You’re fine,” he said. “I detect a trace of vinaigrette, but it’s really very pleasant.” He held the flute out to her, and as it gave her something to do other than fall over backward, she accepted it.

“My father is a dentist,” she said. If her father had seen what just happened—well, she could hear him now.
These are not people who floss, honey.
Adrienne looked at Huck Finn, the professor, resplendent in his watch and shoes, a yellow linen shirt and navy blazer. He did not seem at all fazed by what had just happened.
The professor kissed me! It was really very pleasant, the kiss. This champagne is what I drink on the floor. I wear diaphanous tops and clompy shoes. He kissed me! No wonder they talk about me back in the kitchen!

“Pretend you’re hosting a cocktail party,” he said. “You greet people at the door holding your glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé. The first thing they’ll notice is your pretty face, then your clothes. Then what you’ve got in your hand. They will want to drink pink champagne just like the beautiful hostess. Sixteen dollars a glass, you see? When you’re working the room, you should always have your flute of pink champagne. Right away, it gives you an identity, it gives you style. Your champagne is an accessory. You don’t have to get tanked. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. But a glass or two—three on a busy night, sure. Duncan will fill you up.” He watched her while she took a sip. “This is great,” he said. “Kevin drank bourbon—nothing sexy about that—and occasionally he deigned to walk around with a glass of merlot, but he didn’t enjoy it and the guests could tell.”

“Do you drink while you work?” Adrienne asked.

“I’m an alcoholic,” he said. He gazed at her so intently she thought he might kiss her again. What was going
on
here? It felt like she was breaking one of her rules, though she was so flustered she couldn’t remember what her rules were. Was there a rule about not kissing her boss?

“Oh.”

“There’s something else you have to know,” Thatcher said. “Something I should have mentioned when I hired you.”

Adrienne’s dinner shifted in her stomach. Something else?

He lowered his voice. “There’s no press allowed in the kitchen.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care if it’s the
New York Times Magazine.
I don’t care if it’s the
Christian Science Monitor.
”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care if they tell you they have an appointment. They don’t. There is no press allowed in the kitchen. And no guests, of course. I mention the press because they come here all the time trying to get a story about Fiona. Word has gotten out that it’s our last year, therefore it’s crucial you understand.”

“No press in the kitchen,” Adrienne said.

“Very good. I’m sorry to be so strict.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Tonight, it’s friends of the house,” Thatcher said. “I want you to shadow me around the dining room so you learn the faces. I want you to man the host station if I’m back in the kitchen.”

“Am I allowed in the kitchen?” Adrienne asked.

Thatcher looked at her strangely.

“Thatcher!” Bruno was calling from the dining room. Both Thatcher and Adrienne spun around to find the dining room transformed. All of the candles had been lit and the waiters stood in a line, hands behind their backs, military-style, among the impeccably dressed tables with their starched tablecloths, the sparkling stemware, a single blue iris in a silver bud vase. Behind the restaurant, the sun was dropping in the sky. Just then a few notes came from the piano, like peals of a glass bell. A tall mop-haired man in a black turtleneck had started to play.

“It’s beautiful,” Adrienne whispered. It was like a theater set before the opening performance and she found herself wanting it to stay like this. She didn’t want anything to ruin it, but no sooner did Adrienne wish for this than a white Mercedes pulled into the parking lot.

“This is it,” Thatcher said. “The beginning of the end.”

At the Blue Bistro, the service wasn’t the only thing that was old-fashioned. There was no computer. Tickets were written by hand and delivered to the kitchen by the server, a system that was as outdated as the pony express. Reservations were made in pencil, in a big old book with a tattered binding. Most tables were marked with the party’s last name; VIP tables had the first and last name.

“Some restaurants actually write ‘VIP’ next to a name,” Thatcher said. “Or, if they’re trying to be tricky, they’ll use other initials, like ‘PPX.’ But too many people today are tuned into that kind of thing. It causes problems.”

“What makes someone a VIP?” Adrienne asked. “Does it have to do with money?”

“Money?” Thatcher said. “No. It has to do with how often someone dines with us. The Parrishes, for example. The ultimate VIPs.” Thatcher checked his watch. “You see, it’s the stroke of six.”

At that second, a couple Adrienne took to be the Parrishes stepped in the door. They were an older couple who exuded an air of gracious retirement: golf, grandchildren, travel on European ships. Mr. Parrish wore kelly green pants and a green-and-white striped shirt, a navy blazer. He had silver hair, he was sunburned and he shook ever so slightly when he leaned over to kiss Adrienne. Another kiss—this time from a complete stranger. Adrienne stole a glance at Thatcher. Was kissing a part of the job description that she had missed? Mrs. Parrish gave Thatcher a hug. On her right hand, which rested on the front of Thatcher’s butter-yellow shirt, she wore one enormous emerald-cut diamond ring and a platinum band with sapphires and diamonds. She had dark hair styled like Jackie Onassis, and clear blue eyes that took
Adrienne in and immediately understood that she was motherless. Adrienne had met other women with this power—mothers of friends and boyfriends who wanted to adopt Adrienne, like a nine-year-old with a stray kitten, and Adrienne had never been able to resist their kind words or fluttering of attention (except in the case of Mavis—Mavis was not her mother!). Mrs. Parrish released her hold on Thatcher and reached out to Adrienne with both hands. Adrienne set her champagne down on the podium.

“Thatcher,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Where did you find such a lovely girl?”

“Darla, Grayson, may I introduce Adrienne Dealey,” Thatcher said. “She’s never worked in a restaurant before.”

“Good for you,” Mrs. Parrish whispered. She leaned over and kissed Adrienne: Adrienne felt the lipstick, a cool spot of paint on her cheek. Was that
good for you
for never working in a restaurant? Or
good for you
for landing a job here, alongside the world’s most charismatic restaurateur? Since Adrienne didn’t know how to respond, she smiled. Her sunburn made her face feel funny, like her skin was too tight. She hoped there wasn’t anything stuck in her teeth.

Thatcher led the Parrishes into the dining room and although he said Adrienne should shadow him, she felt foolish doing so. She popped into the ladies’ room, a mere four feet from the oak podium, to wipe the lipstick from her face and check her teeth. Regrettably, no time to brush. She could hear Thatcher’s voice asking about someone named Wolf; she could hear Mr. Parrish offer up a round of golf at Sankaty. And then she heard the phone.

She rushed back to the hostess station. It was, of all things, the private line. Thatcher hadn’t said anything about how he wanted her to answer the phone and especially not the private line. But hey—six years of resorts, five front desks including one in which she had to answer in Thai. One thing she could do correctly in this restaurant was answer the phone.

“Good evening,” she said. “The Blue Bistro.”

“Yeah.” There was a telltale crackle. Cell phone, bad signal.
“We’re running late. Ten minutes. Make that twenty to be safe.”

“No problem, sir,” Adrienne said, though she had no idea if this were a problem or not. She tried to catch Thatcher’s eye. He was across the room, seating the Parrishes at table twenty, which Adrienne knew to be the best table. The dining room was shaped like a triangle, and table twenty was the top, the focus of everybody else in the restaurant. Thatcher was up to his neck in schmooze; he was unreachable. “We’ll see you when you get here,” Adrienne said into the phone. “Thank you for calling.” But the man had already hung up. And then Adrienne realized she hadn’t gotten his name.

She tried to explain this enormous gaffe to Thatcher when he returned—the first task she tackled on her own a complete failure—but he didn’t seem interested. “If the call came in on the private line, it was probably Ernie Otemeyer,” he said, making a note by the name “Ernie Otemeyer” in the book, table sixteen for two people at six fifteen. “He’s our plumber. He comes twice a year—soft opening and his birthday in August. He’s always late because he has to stop on the way and buy his own beer. He drinks Bud Light.”

Adrienne wondered about her legal pad—what had she done with it? Here was the kind of thing she needed to write down.
Plumber Ernie comes twice a year and brings his own Bud Light.

“I don’t know what I did with my legal pad,” Adrienne confessed. Through the open door, she saw more cars pulling in. The piano man was playing “What I Did for Love.”

“I have good news,” Thatcher said.

“What?”

“The Parrishes want you to bring them their bread.”

“Why is that good news?”

“It means they like you. They want to see you at their table. Please wait until Bruno gets their cocktails. You have to be watching. And don’t think you have plenty of time because
Duncan knows their drinks—heck, the whole staff knows their drinks—Stoli tonic with lime for Grayson and a Southern Comfort old-fashioned for Darla. See that? The drinks are up. Now, as soon as Bruno delivers them, you get the bread. They like bread and butter—always.”

“Where do I get the bread?” Adrienne asked.

“In the kitchen.”

“So it’s okay if I . . .”

A party of six stepped in the door—four men, rugby-playing types, and two teenaged boys who looked like Abercrombie & Fitch models with mussed hair and striped ties loose at the neck. “Thatcher!” one of the men boomed like he was yelling across a playing field.

“Get the bread,” Thatcher whispered, nudging Adrienne toward the kitchen. He moved to the front of the podium and started slapping backs.

Adrienne eyeballed the kitchen door. Well, she worked here now. And for some reason the Parrishes wanted her to deliver their bread. She felt singled out. Special. The Parrishes wanted her. They were not offended by her diaphanous top. They weren’t put off because she was a
woman.

Adrienne pushed open the door.

The kitchen was brightly lit. And very, very hot. And quiet except for the sounds of knives—
rat-tat-tat-scrape
—against cutting boards and the hiss of the deep fryers. Adrienne saw a line of bodies in white coats, but nobody’s face. There were two six-burner ranges side by side, there was a grill shooting flames, and up above, blocking everyone’s face, was a shelf stacked with what must have been fifty blackened sauté pans. Adrienne watched a pair of hands preparing the doughnuts. She watched another pair of hands filling ramekins with mustard. She noticed a cappuccino machine, big brother to the one that Caren owned, and next to it, a huge refrigerator, a cold stainless-steel wall. Where, exactly, was the bread? The kitchen was filled with people, yet there was no one to ask.

“Yes?”

A woman’s voice. Adrienne’s eyes adjusted to this alternate universe that was the restaurant kitchen and she saw Fiona Kemp. She knew it was Fiona Kemp because it said so in cobalt blue script on her white chef’s jacket. Fiona Kemp who, contrary to every vision Adrienne held in her mind’s eye, was only five feet tall and may have weighed a hundred pounds with a pocket full of change. She was small. And adorable. She had long honey-blond hair in a braid and huge blue eyes. She wore diamond stud earrings. Adrienne had expected a hunchback, a hermit; she had expected the old woman who lived in a shoe.

“You’re Fiona?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Adrienne.”

“I know.”

Should they shake hands? Fiona made no move to do so and Adrienne was too intimidated. She had never been clear on when women should shake hands, anyway.

“I came for the bread.”

“For whom?”

Adrienne watched a batch of doughnuts descend into the deep fryer. Her brain was deep-frying. “The Parrishes.”