The Blue Bistro (29 page)

“Okay,” Adrienne said. That was what she wanted to hear. She smacked Mario’s butt and walked back to the hot line.

Spillman burst into the kitchen. “Adrienne, can you open wine for table fifteen? I’m slammed, and they say they’re friends of yours.”

“Sure,” Adrienne said. She returned to the dining room. Rex was playing Barry Manilow. She took the Levys’ wine order, retrieved the bottle from the wine cave, opened the wine and served it, all in under five minutes, at which point she remembered the chips and dip. Adrienne delivered chips and dip to the Levys, then Leon Cross. She returned to the podium and finished her champagne.
Run the restaurant by herself?
she thought.
Piece of cake!

Smack in the middle of first seating, two women walked in wearing baseball hats and jeans. Adrienne felt a headache coming on. The Bistro didn’t have a dress code, she reminded herself. The best tippers were often the guests who were underdressed. One of the women was wearing giraffe-print Prada mules and Gucci sunglasses. She took the sunglasses off as she approached the podium.

“Is it all right if we eat at the bar?”

Adrienne was caught completely off-guard. She made a gurgling sound. It was Tam Vinidin.

“Sure,” Adrienne said finally, her mind ricocheting all over the place. She wanted to shout, but she had to remain cool. She wanted everyone in the restaurant to know Tam Vinidin was there, yet it was imperative that no one found out. Did anyone recognize her? She was beautiful and all the more so because she wore no makeup and had her hair in a ponytail under a hat. Her friend was . . . no one Adrienne recognized. Sister, maybe.

“Follow me,” Adrienne said. She plucked two menus and led the women to the bar.

“Duncan!” Tam Vinidin said.

“Hey, Tam,” he said. “I heard you were on-island.” They kissed. Adrienne stared at Duncan in genuine awe.

“This is my cousin Bindy,” Tam said. “We decided to stay through the weekend. It’s so relaxing here.”

“Cool,” Duncan said. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”

“Champagne,” Tam Vinidin said.

“Laurent-Perrier?” Duncan asked.

Tam Vinidin took off her hat and let her fabulous black hair free of its elastic. “Sure.”

“Adrienne, are you willing to share your bottle with these ladies?” Duncan said.

Adrienne realized she had been gaping. “Okay?” she said, then she beat it into the kitchen.

“Okay,” she said to Paco ten seconds later. “Guess who’s eating at the bar.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Paco said. He was helping Eddie build club sandwiches. “I’m fucking busy.”

“Tam Vinidin.”

Paco yelled to Hector, who was grilling off steaks. “She’s here. Eating at the bar.”

Hector whooped then pleaded with Antonio. “Can I go out and see her, Tony? Please, man?”

Antonio wiped his forehead with a side towel. He was older than Fiona by at least ten years and it showed. He was sweating; he looked exhausted and second seating hadn’t even started yet. “Tam Vinidin’s here?” he asked Adrienne.

Adrienne nodded. “I came to put in a VIP order.”

“Hers is in the reach-in,” Antonio said. “Fiona ordered those Medjool dates, just in case.”

“You’re kidding,” Adrienne said. She checked the reach-in and found a plate of dates stuffed with peanut butter.

Caren slammed into the kitchen. “Is Adrienne in here?”

Adrienne turned around, holding the dates. “Did you see who’s—”

“You promised me you wouldn’t,” Caren said. She threw her hands up in the air. Her lovely neck was getting red and splotchy. “You put Tam Vinidin at the bar!”

“She asked to sit at the bar. She knows Duncan from . . .”

“You promised me you wouldn’t do it!” Caren said. “You could have put her at table three.”

“Put Tam Vinidin at table three?”

“Because now she’s out there with Duncan!”

“She’s a movie star,” Adrienne said. “She’s not interested in Duncan.”

“He’s interested in her.”

“No, he’s not . . .”

“Shit, yeah, he is,” Hector interjected.

“Shut up!” Caren said.

“You’re a bitch,” Hector said. “You think he wants you instead?”

“You’re a bitch,
bitch,
” Caren said.

“No fighting in the kitchen!” Antonio said. He clapped his hands and pointed to the door. “I don’t want to hear anything else about the movie star. The dates, the organic peanut butter, fine. But not another word. And no more special treatment.”

As it turned out, Tam Vinidin didn’t want special treatment. She was thrilled about the dates and offered one to her cousin, one to Duncan, one to Adrienne, one to Leon Cross’s wife who knew Tam from New York and popped over to say hello, and one to Caren who passed by the bar three times in two minutes to keep an eye on Duncan. Everyone refused.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said.

Rex played “Georgia on My Mind.” Adrienne forced herself to return to the podium. The phone rang and she realized she hadn’t thought about Thatcher for almost half an hour. She wanted to call him and thank him and Fiona.

Thank you for creating a restaurant so wonderful that people like Tam Vinidin want to come even without a reservation, even in their jeans. Thank you for ordering the Medjool dates and the organic peanut butter even though you never go to the movies or read
People
magazine. You made someone happy tonight. You make people happy every night.

You’re going to heaven.

That night, Thatcher didn’t answer his cell phone. Adrienne tried three times then called the hotel but he didn’t answer in his room either. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. Adrienne left a message in his room then called his cell phone a fourth time and left the same message.

“Hi, it’s me. Everything went smoothly tonight. We made twenty-one six on the floor and another nineteen hundred seventy at the bar.” Adrienne paused, thinking about how astounding those numbers were. Because she was the only one working, she herself had cleared over six hundred dollars in tips. And yet, under the circumstances, the money seemed very beside the point. “So I’ll take it home and make a deposit at the bank on my way in tomorrow morning. Call me . . . I hope everything is okay . . . I’m thinking of you.”

The first call that came in the following morning was on the private line. Adrienne punched the button, thinking
Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher.
There had been no message from him on the machine.

“Good morning,” Adrienne said. “Blue Bistro.”

“Harry Henderson for Thatcher, please.”

Harry Henderson of Henderson Realty. Adrienne had sat the guy half a dozen times and he still didn’t know her name.

“This is Adrienne, Harry,” she said. “Thatcher won’t be in today.”

There was a big noise of annoyance on the other end of the line. “What are you talking about? Forget it! I’ll call him at home.”

“He’s off-island,” Adrienne said.

“No!” Harry cried out, as though he’d been shot. “Listen, I have a couple standing in my office this minute who are extremely interested in the property. I’m bringing them over.”

“Wait,” Adrienne said. She glanced around the dining room. The cleaning crew had been in but the restaurant had that dull daytime look. And Adrienne was in jean shorts and flip-flops. When she’d walked back into the kitchen upon her arrival, Eddie and Hector were having a contest to see who
knew more curse words. “I don’t think you should come now. Nothing’s ready.”

“You might not understand real estate, Amanda,” Harry Henderson said. “We have to strike while the iron is hot. See you in ten.” He hung up.

Adrienne dialed Thatcher’s cell; she got his voice mail. Then she called the hotel. Ditto. She called his cell again. What was the point of taking his cell phone if he wasn’t going to answer it? Then she pictured the hushed corridors of the hospital, the room where Fiona lay in bed hooked up to a ventilator, worrying about hell. She left a message.

“Harry Henderson is on his way over with some prospective buyers. I told him to wait but he couldn’t be dissuaded. He thinks my name is Amanda. Call me at the restaurant.”

Adrienne saw the Sid Wainer truck pull into the parking lot. JZ parked diagonally, taking up sixteen spots. He shut off the engine and climbed down from his seat. Instead of going around to open the back, he marched inside.

“JZ,” Adrienne said. He stared at her and Adrienne could see he wasn’t doing well. Just looking at him made Adrienne feel like a person with her act together.

“Have you heard anything?” he said.

She shook her head.

“You haven’t talked to Thatch?”

“He’s not answering his cell. And I couldn’t reach him at the hotel.”

“That’s not good news,” JZ said. “Either her O
₂
sats are low or she has another infection.”

“I saw her the other day hooked up to oxygen,” Adrienne said. “But she seemed okay.”

JZ took hold of the podium as though he planned to walk away with it. “I love her,” he said. “I really fucking love her.”

“I know,” Adrienne said.

“I’m married,” he said. “My wife and I are in love with other people.”

Adrienne met this with silence. As interested as she was, she didn’t have time for a confessional this minute.

“You’re probably wondering why we don’t get divorced,” he said. “The reason is eight years old and four feet tall.”

“Shaughnessy?”

He nodded. “Jamie says if I file for divorce, she’ll take Shaughnessy away. And Jamie is just enough of a bitch that she means it. The guy she’s been screwing for the last five years is married and won’t leave his wife. And if she can’t be happy, she won’t let me be, either.”

“Oh,” Adrienne said.

JZ paced the floor in front of the restrooms. “I love Fiona but I can’t lose my daughter.”

The phone rang. The private line.

“I have to take this,” Adrienne said. “It might be Thatch.”

JZ nodded.

“Good morning,” Adrienne said. “Blue Bistro.”

“What in God’s name is going on with this truck?” Harry Henderson asked. “We’re in the parking lot and this truck is blocking the front view of the restaurant. Do you hear what I’m saying? We can’t see the front.”

“It’s deliveries,” Adrienne said.

“Well, tell him to move.” With that, Harry Henderson hung up.

Adrienne smiled at JZ apologetically. Out in the parking lot, she heard Harry Henderson honking his horn.

“They want you to move,” she said.

“They can fuck themselves.”

“I’d agree,” Adrienne said. “Except it’s the Realtor with potential buyers. They want to see the front of the restaurant.”

JZ ran a hand over his thinning hair. “Do you understand about Shaughnessy?”

“It doesn’t matter if
I
understand,” she said. “It only matters if . . .”

“I know. And she does understand. Or she claims she does. But she doesn’t have kids. It’s difficult to comprehend losing a child when you don’t have one of your own.”

Harry Henderson honked again.

“I’ll move,” JZ said. He took a Blue Bistro pencil and wrote a phone number on Adrienne’s reconfirmation list. “Here’s my cell. Will you call me if you hear anything?”

“Of course,” Adrienne said.

“They’re filthy rich.”

This was what Harry Henderson whispered in Adrienne’s ear while the prospective buyers wandered through the restaurant. Adrienne had been expecting a couple who
looked
filthy rich—an older couple, distinguished, like the Parrishes. Instead, Harry introduced Scott and Lucy Elpern. Scott Elpern was handsome despite his best efforts. He was tall and had a just-out-of-the-locker-room thing going in jeans, a dirty gray T-shirt, and a Red Sox cap. The wife, Lucy, wore a flowered muumuu that she must have picked up at Goodwill. She was hugely pregnant. Three days past her due date, she told Adrienne when they shook hands, as though she didn’t want anyone around her getting too comfortable. Lucy herself could not have looked less comfortable. She was swollen and perspiring, her face was red, her hair oily. She resembled one of the cherry tomatoes the kitchen roasted until the skin split and the seeds oozed out.

“Technology billionaires,” Harry Henderson said. “Nobody thinks there are technology billionaires anymore but I found two of them.”

Adrienne looked out the window by the podium. JZ had swung the truck around so that it was perpendicular to the restaurant and now he was going about his business of unloading crates of eggs and peaches and figs. He moved sluggishly, plodding like he was being asked to carry gold bullion.

The Elperns stood by table twenty gazing out at the water. Lucy Elpern rested her hands on her belly. Harry Henderson gave them a moment to enjoy the view, then he gently led Lucy Elpern up the two steps and through the bar area.

“This is a blue granite bar,” Harry said.

Lucy eyed her husband. “We could keep that.”

“Of course!” Harry said. “And there’s a state-of-the-art wine room and, naturally, an industrial kitchen.”

“Can we see the kitchen?” Lucy asked.

“Of course!” Harry boomed. He looked to Adrienne for confirmation.

“I didn’t tell anyone you were coming,” Adrienne said.