The Blue Bistro (30 page)

“We’ll just poke our heads in,” Harry said. “Is Fiona back there?”

“No,” Adrienne said.

“Too bad,” Harry said to the Elperns. “You could have gotten a glimpse of the most famous chef on the island.” He led Scott Elpern to the kitchen door.

“I have to use the ladies’ room,” Lucy Elpern said to Adrienne. “This baby is sitting on my bladder.”

Adrienne pointed to the bathroom door.

Lucy rubbed her belly. Her fingers were swollen; the diamond wedding band she wore cut into her flesh. Her ankles looked soft and squishy, like water balloons. She had on a pair of turquoise flip-flops, the plastic kind you could buy at the five-and-dime. “I have to go every five minutes,” she said.

Once Harry and Scott disappeared into the kitchen and Lucy closed the door of the restroom, Adrienne dialed Thatcher’s number. Voice mail. She hung up. She heard water in the bathroom and a second later, Lucy emerged. Instead of heading into the kitchen, she wandered over to the podium, where Adrienne was pretending to review the reconfirmation list.

“You’ve worked here a long time?” Lucy asked.

“Not really,” Adrienne said. “Only about six weeks.”

“Harry told us that most of the staff has been here for years.”

“Most of the staff has.”

“But not you?”

“Not me.”

Lucy Elpern inhaled. “This place has good karma.”

“Are you in the restaurant business?” Adrienne said.

“No,” Lucy said, and she laughed. “We’re going to demolish
and build a real house. But it would be nice if there were things we could keep. The bar, for example. We could put it in our family room, maybe.”

“In your family room?”

“And then we could say this is the bar that used to be in a famous restaurant.” She picked a pack of matches out of the bowl. “The Blue Bistro.”

“You’ve never eaten here?” Adrienne asked.

“No. We’ve only been on Nantucket for a week. But we really want a second home on the beach. We live on Beacon Street in Boston. Nice, but very urban.”

Adrienne checked her reservation sheet. There were 232 on the books for tonight, but she did have a couple of deuces left during first seating.

“Why don’t you come in tonight on the house?” Adrienne said. “Around six?”

Lucy smiled, then ran a hand through her unwashed hair. “You’re a doll to offer. That way we’d know what it might feel like to eat . . . in our new dining room. Let me ask Scott.” She waddled to the kitchen door and with great effort, pushed it open.

Adrienne stared at the phone. She wanted to tell Thatcher that some people were here who wanted to demolish his restaurant but salvage the blue granite bar to put on display in their family room like a museum piece from a country they had never visited. She heard a noise and looked out the window. JZ was pulling out of the parking lot.
Don’t go!
Adrienne thought. The feeling of abandonment returned and she picked up the phone to call Thatcher, but at that minute, Harry Henderson and the Elperns emerged from the kitchen.

“They weren’t very friendly back there,” Harry said.

Adrienne tried not to smile. She wondered if Hector had shared his seventeen words for copulation. “You support the wrong baseball team,” Adrienne said, nodding at Scott’s hat. “They’re White Sox fans.”

Scott shrugged. “Nice refrigerator,” he said.

“We’d like to come to dinner tonight,” Lucy said.

“And I’ll join them,” Harry Henderson said. “Amanda, you’re a genius.”

At five o’clock, Adrienne still hadn’t heard from Thatcher. She led a very brief menu meeting, keeping her voice stern so that no one would be brave enough to mention the elephant in the room:
Thatcher is absent from class again today.

It was Friday night and the first people in the door were the Parrishes. Earlier that afternoon, Adrienne had done the unthinkable: She had called the Parrishes to ask if they would give up table twenty.

“Just for tonight,” Adrienne said. In a stroke of what she thought would be bad luck, she’d gotten Grayson on the phone, and hearing his gruff voice, she’d almost chickened out. “I can’t tell you the reason, but believe me, I would never ask you to move if it wasn’t critical.”

Grayson had chuckled. “Sweetheart, Darla and I don’t give a rat’s ass where we sit. For the last twelve years we’ve had everyone thinking we’re more important than we are. Put us wherever you want.”

“Oh, thank you,” Adrienne said. “Thank you, thank you.”

Now she led Darla and Grayson to table eleven under the awning. It was a very warm night so she felt they would be happiest here.

Darla took her seat and looked around in amazement. “I feel like I’m in a whole other restaurant. And look! You’ve changed the flowers!”

Adrienne sent Bruno over and told him to comp the Parrishes’ first round of drinks though she doubted they would care. Grayson never checked his bill. Once the Parrishes were squared away, Adrienne relaxed a wee bit. She had called Thatcher’s cell phone four times over the course of the afternoon but she hadn’t left a message. Too much to say.

Adrienne sat guests, handed out menus, opened the white burgundy for the Parrishes, delivered their chips and dip, and helped Christo rearrange seating to accommodate a
hundred-year-old woman in a wheelchair. Then Adrienne spotted Harry Henderson’s florid face at the podium and she hurried over. The Elperns stood behind him. Lucy’s hair was damp and she had changed into a clean muumuu. Scott had thrown a white dress shirt over his gray T-shirt and traded in his jeans for khakis. Lucy was visibly dazzled.

“Look at this place,” she said. “It is glam-or-ous.” Rex was playing Frank Sinatra. “Can we keep the piano?” she asked.

Adrienne led the party to table twenty and Harry stopped along the way to shake hands with two gentlemen at table eight.

“Amanda,” he said when she handed him his menu, “this was a really smart move on your part.”

He sounded absolutely giddy.
And why not?
Adrienne thought. He was sitting down to a free dinner with a potential six-figure commission at the best table in the restaurant.

“My name,” she said, “is Adrienne.”

Harry smiled. He had no idea what she meant.

“My name is Adrienne, not Amanda.”

“Like Adrienne Rich, the poet,” Lucy said.

“Yes. Thank you,” Adrienne said. “Now what can I get everyone to drink?”

Adrienne did a kamikaze shot at the bar before she delivered the Elperns’ drinks. Unprofessional, possibly even unethical, but her stress level was so high that champagne wasn’t going to cut through it and she told Duncan so and he put the kamikaze shot in front of her. It tasted like a bad night in college, though once she chased it with the Laurent-Perrier she regained her sense of humor. She went into the kitchen to put in a VIP order for the Elperns.

The restaurant can run itself.
Joe walked by carrying two quesadilla specials. They looked delicious. Antonio was expediting with his usual avuncular charm, calling everyone baby. Everything was going to be fine.

Back in the dining room, Caren grabbed Adrienne’s forearm. “Table twenty wanted the fondue. I told them no.”

Adrienne peeked at twenty. Lucy Elpern had ordered a glass of Laurent-Perrier and from the looks of things, it had gone straight to her head. She was waving her champagne flute in the air, calling out to anyone who looked her way, “This bread is baked!”

“Let them have it,” Adrienne said.

“Let them
have
it?” Caren said. “You bumped the Parrishes for Harry Henderson of all people, and now you’re going to let them have the fondue first seating?” She gave an incredulous little laugh. “This isn’t your restaurant, you know.”

“Let them have it,” Adrienne said. She walked away before she and Caren moved on to more sensitive topics, like how Caren was still pissed at Adrienne for putting Tam Vinidin at the bar, or how, technically, Adrienne was Caren’s boss.

Adrienne thought Antonio might veto her decision about the fondue, but a little while later Caren passed by holding a pot of oil. She wouldn’t meet Adrienne’s eyes and Adrienne’s confidence wavered. She had never even worked at Pizza Hut. What was she doing, breaking all the rules while Thatcher was away? Was it all in the name of selling the restaurant, or was it to exercise power in a situation where she felt utterly helpless?

A couple of minutes later, she checked on the Elperns again. Scott Elpern lifted a golden brown shrimp from the pot and dragged it lavishly through the green goddess sauce, then the curry. Was it any surprise that the man had no table manners?

“How’s everybody doing?” she asked.

“Adrienne,” Harry Henderson said before he popped a shrimp into his mouth. It wasn’t a response to her question so much as a demonstration that he had learned her name.

Lucy Elpern finished her glass of champagne. “Never better,” she said.

Adrienne approached the Parrishes. They were eating in complete silence.

“Is there anything at all I can get you?” Adrienne asked.

“We love the new table,” Darla said. “We like it better than the other table.”

“You’re kidding.”

“At the other table, everyone watches you.”

“Yes, they do,” Adrienne said. She glanced at table twenty. The Elperns were having the time of their lives. There was no doubt in Adrienne’s mind that this time next year the floor under her feet would be the Elperns’ new living room.

Adrienne stopped at the bar to pick up her champagne.

“Another shot?” Duncan asked.

“Your girlfriend’s pissed at me,” Adrienne said. “She thinks I put too many pretty women at the bar.”

“If you stop, I’ll be pissed at you,” Duncan said.

Elliott, who never said a word unless spoken to, chose this moment to interrupt. “Where’s Thatcher?” he said. “Does he normally take a vacation in the middle of summer?”

Adrienne was saved having to answer when she spied Harry Henderson on his cell phone, which was a Blue Bistro no-no.

“Excuse me,” Adrienne said, and she hurried back into the dining room.

Before she could scold Harry for using his phone, she sensed something was wrong. The atmosphere at the Elperns’ table had altered. Lucy’s face was screwed up and Scott hovered close, squeezing her hand. Darla was right. Every other table in the restaurant had their attention fixed on the Elperns. The hundred-year-old woman in the wheelchair touched Adrienne’s arm.

“I think that woman is having her baby.”

Adrienne smiled. “She may have started labor. We’ll get her to the hospital.” She sounded preternaturally calm, thanks to the kamikaze shot, thanks to the fact that she’d prepared herself for this possibility. You didn’t invite a woman three days past her due date to dinner and not consider the worst-case scenario.

Harry snapped his cell phone shut. “I called nine-one-one. An ambulance is coming.”

“An ambulance?” Adrienne said, thinking: sirens and lights, the pall of emergency and doom. “The hospital is less than two miles from here. You could drive.”

Scott Elpern glanced up. “We’re in a rental car.” These, Adrienne realized, were the only words she’d heard him speak other than
Nice refrigerator.

“So?”

Lucy spoke through pursed lips. “My water broke,” she said. “I’m sitting in a huge puddle of yuck.”

Adrienne nearly laughed. Was this or was this not the theater of the absurd? She caught a whiff of something acrid: Three shrimp burning in the peanut oil. Adrienne fished them out, then she lassoed Spillman. “Let’s get guests their checks. This could turn into a circus.”

Unfortunately, it was too late. A minute later, Adrienne heard sirens in the distance, then lights flashed through the restaurant and three paramedics stormed in like they were rescuing a hostage. Conversation in the restaurant came to a dead halt; Rex stopped playing. Adrienne led the head paramedic, a woman with a long, scraggly ponytail, through the now-hushed restaurant to the Elperns’ table.

“She just started labor. I really don’t think there’s any reason to panic . . .”

The paramedic knelt down and spoke quietly to Lucy Elpern. Adrienne wondered what to do in the way of damage control. They would need a towel. She retrieved the Sankaty Golf Club towel from the wine cave, and on her way back to the Elperns’ table, she passed Darla and Grayson leaving.

“We loved the table,” Darla whispered. “But we’re going to get out of here before there’s any blood.”

“There won’t be any blood,” Adrienne whispered back. Would there? Grayson palmed Adrienne a hundred dollars.

The golf towel was very little help. The back of Lucy Elpern’s muumuu was soaked and this seemed to be a cause of concern for her; she didn’t want to leave the restaurant.

“Everyone will know,” she whispered.

“Everyone already knows,” Adrienne said. “And it’s no big deal. It’s perfectly natural.”

“This is so embarrassing,” she said.

The head paramedic called one of her guys for a blanket and once they had wrapped Lucy Elpern up, they led her out of the restaurant to the ambulance. The guests at the remaining tables applauded politely, much like they did when the sun set, and the decibel level rose back to normal. Adrienne trailed Lucy and the paramedic to the front door. The phone rang. Adrienne glanced over the top of the podium: It was the private line.

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

“Hi,” Thatcher said. “It’s me.”

Tears welled up in Adrienne’s eyes so that when she looked out the window, the lights of the ambulance blurred and became a psychedelic soup. She didn’t know exactly why she was crying though she imagined it was a combination of anxiety, relief, and the kamikaze shot.
Where the hell have you been?
she wanted to scream, but she held her tongue. She should ask about Fiona, about the hospital. However, there wasn’t time to listen to the answers.

“Can I call you back?” she said. “In, say, fifteen minutes? I have to get first seating out of here.”

“Sure,” Thatcher said.

There was a long pause during which Adrienne tried to think of something else to say, but then she realized that Thatcher had hung up. She replaced the phone as the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot, sirens screeching. Tyler Lefroy was standing at the podium, a put-out expression on his seventeen-year-old face.