The Blue Bistro (9 page)

“Yes, chef,” Adrienne said. Then wondered if that sounded snide. She took the bowls from Fiona. “Thank you for your help.” She wanted to say something to save herself. “Your cooking is the best I’ve ever tasted. You probably hear that all the time.”

Fiona shook her head, said nothing.

On the way back to the hot line, Adrienne spied Mario standing at a marble-topped table in a back enclave of the kitchen. He wore surgical gloves and was blasting the top of a crème brûlée with a blowtorch. He was listening to something on a Walkman that was making him dance. When Adrienne and Fiona walked by, he whistled.

“That’s enough, Romeo,” Fiona called out. “I know you’re not whistling at me.”

“You got that right, chef,” he said.

Adrienne was too embarrassed to breathe.

Back at the pass, the tickets had multiplied in the thirty seconds that they’d been gone. Adrienne had belly flopped with Fiona, and now she had to worry about how to lift the fondue pot to get the sauces in place.

Someone from the line called out, “Eighty-six the sword.”

“Damn it!” Fiona shouted, so loudly and angrily that Adrienne nearly dropped the sauces. “How did that happen?”

“We’re out of ripe avocados,” the cook said. “I thought there was a whole other crate, but I just checked them and they’re hard as rocks. You want to put a different sauce on the fish?”

“No,” Fiona said. She yanked a ticket down and studied it. “Hey, Adrienne! You want to fly to California and get us some ripe avocados? If you need an escort, Mario will happily join you.”

The guys on the hot line hooted. Adrienne smiled weakly. She was being teased. Adrienne took it as a possible sign of improvement.

She ran the sauces to Cat at table twenty, she fetched a bottle of Laurent-Perrier from the wine cave for Bruno, she checked in with the table of women—all enjoying their appetizers. The local author’s table was on their third round of cocktails; they’d decimated two baskets of pretzel bread and one of the doughnuts, but hadn’t ordered a thing. Caren was growing frustrated. “They’re not getting their fucking chips until they order,” she growled in Adrienne’s ear. “And if the kitchen runs out of beluga, it will serve them right.”

As Adrienne walked by Holt Millman’s table, Drew Amman-Keller flagged her down. She stopped, confused. He indicated that she should bow to him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m glad everything worked out,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“For you. With the job.”

Drew Amman-Keller’s voice was melodious, like a radio announcer’s. She didn’t remember that from the ferry ride.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for suggesting it. It’s only my first night, but . . .” Okay, wait. She wasn’t supposed to be talking to this guy. If Thatcher found out she already knew him, he might fire her. Before Adrienne could escape, Drew Amman-Keller pressed some money into her hand.

“One is for you,” he said. “And one is for Rex.”

“Rex?”

“The piano player. Would you ask him to play ‘The Girl from Ipanema’?”

Adrienne nodded and turned away. She hid behind a pillar and checked the bills. Two hundreds. Adrienne stared at the money for a few silly seconds. What to do? She clomped over to Rex.

“ ‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ please,” she said. “For Holt Millman’s table.”

“As ever,” he said wearily.

Since he didn’t have a cup out, Adrienne left one of the hundreds on the ledge above the piano keys. Rex eyed her quizzically. Was there another place she was supposed to put it? It did look crass, a hundred dollar bill laid out on the piano. She picked it back up. “I’ll give it to you on your break?” she said. He nodded. She put the two bills from Public Enemy Number One in her pocket. Rex played “The Girl from Ipanema.”

By the time desserts went out, coffee, and after-dinner drinks, it was midnight. Adrienne went to the ladies’ room and nearly fell asleep on the toilet. How would she keep this up all summer? It felt like she’d been here seven days, not seven hours. And even worse—she was starving! The steak frites at family meal was another lifetime ago. Back when she was young, naïve, and . . . poor. She had two hundred dollars in tips now and eight hours of work would bring two hundred more. It was all going right into the bank. At this rate, she could pay her father back by the end of the week.

She emerged from the ladies’ room as some tables were leaving. Thatcher bid everyone good-bye and Adrienne took
her place next to him at the podium, the two of them waving like Captain Stubing and Julie McCoy from
The Love Boat.

“We’re lucky tonight because there isn’t any bar business,” Thatcher said. “Tomorrow night the bar will be mobbed.”

“Great,” Adrienne said.

“I’m going to do a sweep,” Thatcher said. “See if I can get table eighteen to move things along.” That was the author’s table. They had only now received their entrées. “You stay here.”

The author’s table were just cutting into steaks, and two tables out in the sand were still eating fondue. If these tables ordered dessert, they had a good forty minutes left. Everybody else was paying the bill or close to it.

Holt Millman’s party stood up to leave. Adrienne kept her eyes on Drew Amman-Keller. Thatcher had made it sound like he might try to sneak into the kitchen, but he simply slid on his blazer and meandered toward the door with the rest of Holt’s contingency. Adrienne murmured good-byes. Drew Amman-Keller ushered everybody out the door ahead of him in a way that seemed very polite. Then he turned to Adrienne and handed her a business card.

“Good to see you again,” he said. “Call me if you ever want to talk.”

Adrienne was so startled that she laughed—“ha!”—sounding just like Thatcher.

Drew Amman-Keller disappeared out the door.

Adrienne checked out his card, but then the husband–wife Realtor team was on top of her, and so Adrienne slipped the card into her pocket with her tips. Cat and her husband followed on the Realtors’ heels.

“The fondue was phenomenal,” Cat said. “Is Fiona coming out to take a bow?”

Adrienne laughed, like this was a joke. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

A second later, Thatcher reappeared. “Where’s your champagne?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Go to the bar,” he said. “Right now. That’s an order.”

Huck Finn, fascist dictator, she thought as she limped toward the bar. She wanted a blue granite gravestone. The entire waitstaff was crowded around the bar and she could barely wedge her way in. They were eating from two baskets. The crackers. They were eating the crackers. Adrienne had no hope of getting even a crumb; she was the runt at the trough. But then Joe, whom she barely remembered in the blur of new faces, turned around and gave her a handful.

“Thanks for running those sauces.”

Adrienne accepted the crackers like a hungry beggar. She gobbled the first cracker and it was so delicious that she let the second one sit on her tongue until it melted in a burst of flavor. It tasted like the crisped cheese on top of onion soup that she used to devour after a day of skiing. But better, of course, because everything that came out of this kitchen was better.

Two more baskets of crackers were delivered to the bar and Adrienne was able to procure another handful. Thatcher waved at her from the podium. More tables were leaving. Rex played “If.” Adrienne put her crackers on a napkin, and went to help Thatcher send the guests on their way. The bank president palmed Adrienne some money. The redhead from the all-women table touched the sleeve of Adrienne’s blouse.

“I own a women’s clothing store in town called Dessert,” she said. “If you come in, I’d love to dress you, free of charge.”

Mack Peterson, manager of the Beach Club, who was another sandy-haired Midwesterner, shook Adrienne’s hand and assured her he would only send her his best clients.

“You know, Mack,” Thatcher said. “This girl used to work at the Little Nell in Aspen. She’s a hotel person.”

“Well, if you ever want to come back from the dark side,” Mack said, “we’d love to have you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adrienne said, though she had to admit, after only one night she was hooked on the restaurant business. Yes, she was in pain and she was exhausted. But she wasn’t trading in this job. She loved it and it wasn’t just because of the money—it was because of the crackers.

Hunger and thirst,
she thought.
They’d get you every time.

Andrew Amman-Keller
Journalist

Cell: 917-555-5172
[email protected]

When Caren emerged from her bedroom the next morning, her hair was down. It was a good look for her, Adrienne thought. She looked softer, sexier, more approachable, which was handy since Adrienne wanted to approach her, first thing, on the subject of Fiona. Caren was wearing a white T-shirt that had the words
LE TOINY
stitched in red on the left breast. The T-shirt was just long enough to cover Caren’s ass in what looked to be thong underwear. She bee-lined for her espresso machine.

“You want?” she asked Adrienne.

“No, thanks. I have tea.” Ginger-lemon herbal tea that Adrienne drank for a hangover, which she was nursing right now. There had been six glasses of champagne before the night was over because after the last guests left (as it happened, the author’s table) Duncan poured a drink for everyone on the staff and he had poured two glasses for Adrienne
in the interest of finishing off the bottle of Laurent-Perrier. So that was a whole bottle over the course of one evening, probably four glasses too many. Adrienne had taken three Advil and chugged a glass of ice water when she got home, but she still felt dull and flannel-mouthed this morning. It was such a gorgeous day—so sunny and crystalline—that Adrienne had entertained thoughts of going for a jog. But her legs ached too much. She was excited to have the whole day to herself—well, until five o’clock—and she wished she could just shrug off the pain and enjoy it.

So the tea. And three more Advil. She wanted to go to the beach again, with sunscreen. She wanted to buy a pair of quiet shoes and send the first installment of payback to her father. But mostly she wanted to figure out what was going on at that restaurant. The place had mystique that seemed to come from a flurry of secrets, some of them just below the surface and some of them deeper-seated. And Adrienne had her own secret, which now that she wasn’t working, she had the luxury of thinking about: Thatcher had kissed her.

Last night after service, Duncan poured every member of the staff a drink except for Thatcher and Fiona. They were back in the kitchen counting money and eating dinner. Eating dinner at one o’clock in the morning! This information was served up by Bruno. Fiona and Thatcher ate in the small office that had a back door that opened to the beach. Adrienne had had enough to drink to accept this tidbit from Bruno then ask for more. “So what’s the deal with those two, anyway? Are they an item?” And Bruno, who was drinking a vodka martini, laughed so shrilly that there was no room for speculation: The man was gay. When Adrienne asked why he was laughing, Bruno only laughed harder. He was turning heads; Duncan popped him in the eye with a lime wedge. Adrienne judged that the moment had come to either leave or make an ass of herself. She called a cab from the podium and waited for the cab outside, hoping Bruno didn’t share the nature of their conversation with anyone.

The espresso machine geared up; it was as loud as an airplane ready for takeoff. Adrienne tried to select the least intrusive
and obvious words to broach the subject of Fiona. When the espresso was done, Caren poured herself a tiny cup, threw it back like a dose of cough medicine, and poured herself another. Adrienne shuddered. At least she hadn’t vomited; those crackers at the bar had saved her life.

“So what did you think of last night?” Adrienne asked.

Caren shrugged. “What did
you
think?”

“It was fun,” Adrienne said. In retrospect, the night seemed like a manic blur, as if she had been backstage at a rock concert, blinded by the lights, deafened by the music—and yes, pursued by journalists. “My feet hurt. It was a lot of standing up. My shoes were all wrong.”

Caren tossed back the second espresso. “Well, yeah.”

“I’m going to buy some new shoes today.”

“Go to David Chase,” Caren said. “Main Street.”

“Okay.”

Caren smiled in a knowing way. “Did you make money last night?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Me, too. As a rule, though, never tell how much you bring in. Everyone is so damn greedy. And something else you might not know is that if you have someone helping you out in the kitchen, you should slide him money every once in a while.”

“Like Mario?” Adrienne said.

“Mario?” Caren said. A mischievous smile spread across her face. “Mario might help you out, but it’s nothing you should pay him for. Did he come on to you
already
?”

“No,” Adrienne said. Why had she said Mario? She hadn’t meant Mario, she’d meant Paco, the chip kid.