The Blue Bistro (27 page)

“Good, good, good,” he said. “The two of you can hang the bunting. All the way around and try to make it even, okay? Joe’s coming in at four thirty to set the tables—and look! I got flags.” He waved a small flag in the air and his smile faded. “Is something wrong?”

Caren tucked in her shirt and sniffed. “I can’t work with Duncan,” she said. “Either he goes or I go.”

Thatcher groaned. He yanked at his red, white, and blue necktie to give himself some air. Then, slowly, he said, “I told you . . .”

“I know what you told me!” Caren snapped, and she burst into tears.

Thatcher’s hands hung at his sides. He gazed at Adrienne with longing. But what about Caren? Adrienne tried to make her eyes very round.

“You need to have an espresso and calm down,” Thatcher said. “Or, hell, have a drink, I don’t care. Just, please, pull yourself together because we have two hundred and fifty people coming and you are working and Duncan is working, and if tomorrow, July fifth, you two want to battle it out to see who stays and who goes, that’s fine. It’s fine on July fifth. It is not fine tonight. Tonight you have to be a brave soldier.”

Caren pouted. She was lovely, really—Adrienne had a hard time believing that Duncan would ever prefer Phoebe. “I’ll have an espresso martini,” Caren said. “Kill two birds.” She stepped behind the bar. “God, I feel like trashing his perfect setup.”

“Well, please don’t,” Thatcher said. “Delilah is working back there tonight anyway. Duncan’s on the beach. You’ll barely have to see him.”

Caren slammed a martini glass on the blue granite then poured generously from the Triple Eight bottle. “Brilliant.”

Thatcher put his arm around Adrienne and kissed her ear. “You’ll have to hang the bunting by yourself,” he said.

“What are you doing?” Adrienne asked.

“Everything else.”

By ten to six, the restaurant was ready. The bunting hung evenly all the way around the edge of the restaurant, and the tables were set with a tiny American flag standing in each silver bud vase. On the beach, two hundred and fifty chairs were set up in perfect rows. It was a beautiful night. Adrienne had wolfed down a plate of tangy, falling-apart ribs and three deviled eggs at family meal and then she rushed to brush her teeth. When she went to the bar to get her champagne, Duncan confronted her.

“I’m innocent,” he said.

“Delilah, would you pour me a glass of Laurent-Perrier, please?” Adrienne asked.

Delilah, also wearing a red, white, and blue necktie, seemed harried. She studied the bottles in the well. “Where’s the champagne?” she asked Duncan.

“In the door of the little fridge,” he said. “You’d better learn quick; you only have ten minutes.” And then, turning back to Adrienne, he said, “I know she told you.”

Adrienne watched Delilah grapple with the champagne bottle. It took her forever just to unwrap the cork. Finally, Duncan wrested the bottle from his sister. He had it open in two seconds and he poured Adrienne’s drink.

“Hey,” Delilah said. “I’m supposed to learn how to do it myself.”

Duncan ignored her. “She talked to you,” he said to Adrienne. “So if she asks, you tell her I’m innocent. Golf got cancelled, I bumped into Phoebe in town . . .”

Adrienne picked up her champagne. “Tell her yourself,” she said. “I’m not getting involved.”

She walked to the podium to await the onslaught with Thatcher: 125 people arriving at once.

“What was your best Fourth of July?” Thatcher asked her.

This sounded like another getting-to-know-you question. Why didn’t he ever ask her when she had time to answer?

“I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

“Tonight is going to be right up there,” Thatcher said. “Nobody does this holiday better than we do.”

By six thirty, 125 people were sitting down, including the Parrishes; the local author and her entourage; Holt Millman with a party of ten; Senator Kennedy; Mr. Kennedy the investor; Stuart and Phyllis, a couple who dined at the Bistro so often that their college-aged kids referred to the food as “mom’s home cooking”; the Mr. Smith for whom the blueberry pie was named, and his wife; Cat, her sister, and their husbands; Leigh Stanford with friends from Idaho; and Leon Cross and his mistress. The place was hopping. Rex played “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” followed by “Camptown Races.” The busboys brought out the pretzel bread and mustard and when Adrienne poked her head into the kitchen, Paco and Eddie were frantically plating shrimp skewers. Adrienne ran the skewers out. Ten of the thirty tables were drinking champagne; the corks sounded like fireworks.

Adrienne saw Caren out by the beach bar. From the looks of things, Caren was letting Duncan have it, but in a quiet, scary way. Letting him have it while Adrienne ran Caren’s apps and Delilah drowned in drink orders.

“Adrienne!” Delilah cried. “I need help.”

Rex launched into “American Pie.”

Adrienne ran to the wine cave for wine, she refilled Delilah’s juice bottles, and went to the kitchen for citrus. It was even hotter in there than before—so hot that Fiona had taken off her chef’s jacket. She worked in just a white T-shirt that had a damp spot between her breasts. It seemed like it took forever to get Delilah out of the weeds, yet Rex was still playing “American Pie,” and half the restaurant was singing.

Adrienne walked by table fifteen, where Thatcher was chatting with Brian and Jennifer Devlin. She heard the word “Galápagos” and stopped in her tracks. A woman at the table behind had gotten up to use the ladies’ room and Adrienne took great, slow pains in folding the woman’s napkin so that she could listen to Thatcher.

“We leave on October ninth,” he said. “Fly to Quito overnight then to the islands for ten days. We’re on a fifty-foot ship. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Adrienne returned to the podium. Rex finished “American Pie,” and half the restaurant applauded. She thought back to her first breakfast with Thatch:
As soon as we close this place, I’m taking Fee to the Galápagos. She wants to see the funny birds.
He had told Adrienne right from the beginning that he was going away with Fiona. There was no reason for Adrienne to expect that he would change his travel plans just because he and Adrienne were now dating. But she did expect it. She had made peace, sort of, with the dinners. The dinners were business. They talked about the restaurant mostly, he said. The dinners were important.

Fine, Adrienne could live with the dinners. He came to her house afterward and always spent the night. But hearing him talk about ten days in the Galápagos with Fiona physically hurt. And yet what could she say? His best friend was sick and she wanted to see the funny birds. He would take her.

Caren came in off the beach and charged past the podium into the ladies’ room. The ladies’ room only accommodated one person at a time, so Adrienne knocked. “It’s me,” she said.

Caren cracked the door. “Men!” she said, leaving Adrienne with nothing to do but agree.

By quarter to nine, most of the tables had finished eating and Adrienne went crazy running credit cards. The guests moved out onto the beach to order more drinks and settle in their chairs. Adrienne ordered a coffee. She was exhausted and her red T-shirt dress was soaked with sweat.

Thatcher rallied the waitstaff. “We have an hour of peace and quiet. Once these tables are stripped and reset, you’re free until the finale of the fireworks starts. Then I want you back in here ready for second seating.”

The fireworks began at ten after nine. By that time, the guests for second seating had all arrived and the only people working out front were Duncan, who was pouring the drinks, and Bruno and Christo, who were serving them. Thatcher took Adrienne by the hand and led her out of the restaurant. She wanted to say something to him about the
Galápagos, but she had yet to come up with the right words.
Please don’t go? Take me with you?
Or how about this:
Would you at least not say you’re looking forward to it?

He led her into the sand dunes behind the restaurant. Adrienne took off her shoes and climbed after him. They plopped in the sand, hidden from the crowd by eelgrass. Thatcher held Adrienne in his lap like she was a child, and she pressed her face into his neck. She could feel his pulse against her cheek.

“How are you?” he asked. “Isn’t this great?”

There was a bang, and a burst of red exploded in the sky, like a giant poppy losing its petals. The water shimmered with color. Then gold, blue, purple, white.

Adrienne’s best Fourth of July, just like the other best moments of her life, had happened Before—before her mother got sick. Adrienne was eleven years old. In the morning, Rosalie and Dr. Don worked together in the kitchen preparing a salad for the potluck dinner while they watched Wimbledon on TV. Then, at four o’clock, they walked across the street. (Adrienne remembered her old neighborhood in summer—the smell of the grass, the huge, beautiful trees, the grumble of lawn mowers and the whirring of sprinklers.) Seven families gathered at the Fiddlers’ pool for swimming and croquet and a cookout. And Popsicles and flashlight tag and sparklers. Adrienne had been part of a family with the other kids, kids she hadn’t seen or thought of for years and years: Caroline Fiddler, Jake Clark, Toby and Trey Wiley, Tricia Gilette, Natalie, Blake and David Anola. The girls lined up their Dr. Scholl sandals and lay back in the grass looking up at the stars and searching for any hint of the big fireworks being set off in Philadelphia. They talked, naïvely, about boys; Natalie Anola had a crush on Jake Clark. The world of boys at that point to Adrienne was like a wide, unexplored field and she was standing at the edge. At ten o’clock, Rosalie and Dr. Don, flush with an evening of Mount Gay and tonics, dragged Adrienne home where she fell asleep in her clothes. Happy, safe, excited about the possibilities of her life.

That one was the best, and Adrienne had spent all the interceding years mourning, not only the loss of her mother, but the loss of that happiness. Right this second she felt a glimmer of it—Nantucket Island, in Thatcher’s arms, watching the colors soar and burst overhead, feeling a breeze, finally, coming off the water.
Forget the Galápagos,
she told herself. Forget that there were 125 people yet to feed. Forget that Fiona would have twice the amount of time alone with Thatcher that Adrienne had. Forget all that because this moment
was
great, great enough to make it into her memories. Adrienne savored every second, because she feared it wouldn’t last.

July was true summer. It was eighty-five degrees and sunny—beach weather, barbecue weather, Blue Bistro weather. The bar was packed every night, and the phone rang off the hook. Florists came in to change the flowers in the restaurant from irises to hydrangeas. Hydrangeas like bushy heads, bluer than blue.

Adrienne was admiring the bouquet of hydrangeas on the hostess podium when the private line rang. It was a Monday morning and she was covering the phones while Thatcher met with a rep from Classic Wines.

“Good morning, Blue Bistro.”

“Adrienne?”

“Yes?”

“Drew Amman-Keller. I’m surprised you’re not out jogging. It’s a beautiful day.”

“Well, you know,” Adrienne said, glancing nervously around the dining room, “I have to work.”

“I’m calling to confirm a rumor,” Drew Amman-Keller said.

Adrienne held the receiver to her forehead. Should she just hang up?

“What rumor is that?”

“Is Tam Vinidin eating at the bistro tomorrow night?”

“Tam Vinidin, the actress?”

“Can you confirm that she has a reservation?” he asked.

Adrienne laughed.
Ha!
“I wish she did. Sorry, Drew.” She hung up.

A few minutes later, JZ’s truck pulled into the parking lot. He rolled in the door with two boxes of New York strip steaks on a dolly.

“Hey, Adrienne!” he said.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s everything? How’s Shaughnessy?”

“She’s fine,” he said. “She leaves for camp in two weeks.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s good,” he said. “I’m going to sneak over here for a vacation.”

“That’ll be nice,” Adrienne said. “Fiona will be happy.”

JZ backed up the dolly. Before he headed into the kitchen, he said, “I heard Tam Vinidin is eating here tomorrow night.”