The Secret Letters (9 page)

When my alarm went off the next morning, I hopped out of bed, jumped in the shower, and before I was dry, threw my brand-new white jacket over a buffalo T-shirt, grabbed my stiff new chef's hat, and bolted down the stairs two at a time. I peered through the front window at the rows of perfectly set tables in a sea of shapes and colors, the buffalos marching across the wall with Ray's eerie painting beneath them. It looked unreal, like a dream or a movie set. I unlocked the door, walked into the dining room, stopped. The room was quiet, like a holy place. I let my lungs fill with the pure, silent air, then went into the kitchen and started banging pots and pans around.

A moment later, Pam burst in, high-fived me, and said, “Let the games begin.” She had taken the day off and was ready to roll. “You're awfully calm,” she said. I was chopping tomatoes for yet another tub of pico de gallo. “What's your secret?”

I pulled the buffalo fetish out of my pocket and showed it to her.

“A little rock keeps you calm?”

“It's a buffalo.” I didn't see any reason to explain to her about totem animals and all the other cool things my people believed. It would just make her jealous that she wasn't one of us.

She rolled her eyes. “I've got some Xanax if you want some.”

“Hey, I don't need drugs. Today's just another day.”

“Sure,” she said, heading into the dining room.

Two hours later, I was a basket case. More supplies had been delivered through the front door, and I stupidly hadn't asked Ray or Heidi to come in till three, so Pam and I had to keep running down to the cellar with boxes and mopping up after the delivery slobs. When Ray finally arrived, I was never so happy to see anyone in my life.
I shouted orders while I went on with my kitchen prep, and he actually did everything I told him. I had enough sauces and chopped herbs to last a lifetime, but I couldn't seem to stop prepping.

Finally, at 4:59 p.m., I went over to the door and turned the flowered sign I had inherited from the Chelsea Grill from
Closed
to
Open
. Then I went back into the kitchen to wait.

About ten minutes later, Pam came into the kitchen. She looked upset.

“Oh, God. What now?” My stomach did a backflip.

Ricky came in behind her, followed by Star.

“Tell Julie,” Pam said.

Ricky looked down at the floor. “I, uh—”

“You what?”

“Tell him, honey,” Star said. “You got—”

“Fired,” Ricky said.

“How did that happen?”

“I kind of overslept.”

I was outraged. “They can't fire you just for being a little late.”

“Well, I was real late.”

“Noon,” Pam said.

“So? They can't fire you for missing one morning of work.”

“Eight mornings,” Pam said.

“
Eight
? How did that happen?”

He frowned like he was thinking hard. “I guess I just forgot.”

I turned to Pam. “Can you talk to them? They're lawyers, they'd listen to you.”

“I tried. They said they'd given him adequate warning.”

“Oh, Ricky,” I said. I laid my knife down and wiped my forehead with my
sleeve. “What are you going to do? How are you going to find another job you can walk—” I didn't even get the full sentence out before I realized I was being set up. “Oh, no. No, guys, really. I'm fully staffed, and I don't need—there's just no way I can—” At that point, I made the mistake of looking over at Star. Her eyes were starting to well up. I remembered the Hopi folktale I had read recently where two selfish sisters left their cute little brother to be raised by wolves. “Goddamn it,” I said. I reached for a spatula and handed it to Ricky.

I had a new assistant.

***

Our first customer was Milo, carrying a huge bouquet from the florist up the street. Pam was arranging his flowers in a beer pitcher when two old ladies stuck their heads in the door and asked if we were open.

My staff sprang into action. “We are indeed,” Heidi said, handing them menus with a little curtsy and showing them to a table in the front window. I raced back into the kitchen. My heart was thumping hard, and I was starting to wheeze. I wanted to find my asthma medicine, but there wasn't time. Ray touched me on the shoulder with a long slotted spoon and said, “May the force be with you.”

And it was. For the next few hours, business was slow but steady. There were never more than three or four tables at once, so we had time to work out some glitches. My new assistant kept getting in my way, so I had to keep thinking of tasks to keep him busy, but luckily, Ray was pretty helpful and kept the blathering about Atlantis to a minimum. I put Ricky in charge of recycling, which involved hanging around out back next to the creek and cutting up boxes. He seemed to like it. I was pretty sure he was sneaking cigarettes, which was fine by me if it kept him out of the kitchen.

“That southwestern trout was superb.” Milo was all smiles. “Is the food at the Wild Hare this good?”

It used to be, I didn't say, and thanked him.

“Really, I'm so impressed, Julie. You're going to put Patapsco Mills on the map.”

“Isn't it already on a map?” Ricky asked.

“It's an expression,” I said.

“What was in that sauce?”

“It's kind of a romesco. But I added a few things. Basil, lemon grass, a little sour cream.”

“You should bottle and sell it.”

“Wow, thanks. Really, it means a lot. I hope you don't mind—I mean, I hope you don't feel—” I wasn't sure what I was trying to say, but Milo picked right up on it.

“The best thing for this town is more great restaurants. More variety, more people coming here to eat. This is really exciting.”

I felt relieved. “I'm sorry about leaving the Hare. It was a great place to work.”

“You know, I had to hire two people to replace you.”

“No kidding. It's funny, my mother always told me I was lazy. She always said I needed to get off my fat ass before moss grew on me.”

His eyes widened slightly, but he just said, “Well, there's no moss.”

Dessert orders were starting to fly in. I had bought some cakes from the bakery up the street and whipped up a couple of flans and a Mexican chocolate mousse, and we were plating them with seasonal local fruit. We had made it through the dinner rush—okay, not exactly a rush, but we did a pretty decent business. If all these people came back and told their friends.

“Wow,” I said out loud.

“Yeah, wow,” Ricky said, though he had no idea what we were wowing about. He was still scrubbing the same pot I'd given him forty-five minutes ago.

“Hold the fort,” I told him. He looked happy to have the responsibility—I hoped he could handle it, though there was nothing he needed to do but sit there. I went into the dining room. Milo was leaning over the bar, laughing about something with Pam, and the waitrons were hovering over the four remaining tables. Customers were smiling and chatting, gobbling up dessert. Candles glowed on the tables.

Pam had invented a new dessert drink, and Milo was trying it. “This is incredible,” he said. I had a suspicion that she could have poured him a slug of Drano and he would have appreciated it. I asked her for a sip. He was right: it was incredible. I asked her what was in it.

“Rum, sambuca, cream, a little bit of brandy, crème de cacao, and some vanilla ice cream.”

“You should put it on the menu,” Milo said.

“Maybe so,” I said, though I didn't want to have to reprint anything.

Ray came out of the kitchen and I asked him to taste Pam's new drink. He said it was “splendid.”

“Done deal,” I said. “Ray has spoken. It's going on the menu.”

Pam clapped her hands. “What are we going to call it?”

“A Cosmic Joke? A Leaping Lizard?” Ray said. “An Astral Apogee? A Spectral Spectacular? A Karmic Collusion?”

“Ray, I need you in the kitchen,” I said, hoping he would shut up and go away without asking me what I wanted him to do there. He did.

For the next ten minutes, we thought up names for the drink that were even worse than Ray's: Cracktail. Rumbuca Cream Pie. Sailor's Delight (that one was Milo's and made no sense).

“Forget it,” I said finally. “The Drink with No Name.”

“Wait, I got it,” Pam said. “How about a Sun Dagger? That thing Ray painted.”
She pointed to the back wall.

I thought about it.

“What's a Sun Dagger?” Milo asked. We tried to explain, though we didn't really know. “I like it,” he said.

“I like it, too,” I said. “Pammy, I think you're onto something.”

“Barkeep, give me a Sun Dagger,” Milo said.

“One Sun Dagger, coming up,” Pam said.

“Excuse me?” Ray was back in the dining room. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“We're naming the drink after your painting,” Pam said.

“You can't do that.”

“Why not?” Her voice was snarky. Ray got on her nerves.

“You're just kidding, right?” He turned to me.

“Nope.”

“You can't use that name for a drink. It's a sacred thing. You can't just be calling beverages that.”

“But it's a great name,” Milo said. “It fits with the feel of this place.”

“It captures the
je ne sais quoi
,” Pam said.

“Don't do it,” Ray said, grabbing my arm.

“I don't see the harm in it,” I said. “It's just a name.”

“What's in a name?” Milo said. “A rose by any other name, etc.” He looked over at Pam, and for some reason, I suddenly felt kind of sick.

Ray opened his mouth as if about to say something, then shut it again and stomped back into the kitchen. The door swung behind him.

***

Finally, we closed. Ray and I scrubbed the kitchen until it sparkled and did our prep while Ricky watched us work. When we came back into the dining room, the tables
were set for the next day, with the napkins fanned in the glasses again. The waitrons had gone home, and Heidi was circling the room, neatening things that were already neat, while Pam polished the bar. Milo had finally peeled himself away, saying he had an early morning. I watched him leave and felt that sick feeling again.

As we were leaving, Ricky said, “Oh, Pammy, that woman called again. That realtor. She's showing the house to someone tomorrow morning.”

“Shit!” Pam said. “Shit, shit, shit! Why didn't you tell me sooner? The place is a fucking dump.”

“I forgot,” Ricky said.

I had no idea how Pam was going to work two jobs and keep the house clean enough to show. Ricky had to be no help whatsoever. “Any luck selling the car?” I asked just to mess with her.

“Nope.” She glared at me.

“Go figure.” I knew she'd priced it way too high.

They drove away in the Grand Dame, waving out the windows. I lay in bed for a long time, too wired to sleep, thinking about my food orders, wondering if I had ordered enough tomatillos. As I finally started to drift off, I found myself running through the woods, trying to reach a clearing up ahead, and when I finally got there, the ground dropped away beneath my feet. I hovered in air.

Every night when I managed a few hours of sleep, I dreamed of beautiful food, everything plated just right, with sprigs of cilantro, and sauces drizzled in artistic patterns. When I woke up, I raced downstairs and did my prep, though I had prepped the night before, then grabbed a moment to sit and sip a cup of chai in the dining room. Morning light slanted in the front window and the wall colors pulsated, along with Ray's weird painting in the back of the room. I'd try to relax, though that was impossible, then, like diving into a pool, I'd plunge into the kitchen and stay there for eighteen hours.

On most evenings, the lines were so long they spilled onto the street. I had to double, then triple my supply orders. The seats at the bar were always full, and Pam poured drinks so fast she looked like one of those goddesses with eight arms. Our lunch business was great once all the lawyers found out about us. Pam had to hide when they came in if she was working that shift, which she did if she could swing it. Then there was a quiet spot in the afternoon but by dinnertime, we were slammed. Time just flew by. On my thirty-eighth birthday, Pam brought a cupcake into the kitchen with a candle in it. I blew it out, then went right on working. Just when I thought things couldn't get any crazier, the
Patapsco Times
ran an article about us, and a tidal wave hit.

I kept meaning to find another bartender to get Pam off the hook, but after the first week or so, she quit mentioning it. It was obvious she enjoyed whipping up crazy cocktails and schmoozing with the riffraff. Milo didn't seem to mind me stealing his business. He was too busy talking to Pam to notice if his restaurant was empty, and I was pretty sure it was, since the people Pam referred to as the Creeps of Main Street were now drinking at our bar instead. Now that Milo wasn't my boss, I figured it was no
longer my job to protect him from my sister. Anyway, she claimed nothing was going on between them. He was nothing like any of the guys she had dated: he was mature, stable, financially comfortable, reasonable, and pleasant, all qualities Pam could not tolerate in a partner.

“Why don't you go out with him?” I asked her a few times.

“We're
just friends
.”

“Well, he's a great guy. Just sayin'.” As I said it, I knew this was his problem: he was too great a guy. Poor Milo, I thought, and then I thought, poor Pam. Sometimes it occurred to me that if Milo asked
me
out, that would be okay with me, but it wasn't likely to happen, and I was too busy anyway.

***

I was afraid to admit it to myself, since I didn't want to jinx it, but everything about Falling Water had fallen magically into place. Heidi was a great manager, and tended bar during the day when Pam was doing legal work she couldn't weasel out of. Our waitrons called Heidi “Mussolini” behind her back, but they seemed happy enough. Pam was the world's greatest bartender, and her drink, the Sun Dagger, had really taken off as “dessert in a snifter.” Ricky was no help in the kitchen, but at least he stayed out of my way. Star was after him to quit smoking, but if he quit, he'd have nothing to do, since his main job was sneaking cigarettes out back, followed by making out with Star when she finished her shift at the coffee shop. Whenever she came in, Ricky would say he was going to take a break, and Pam would joke that for him a break would mean actually working. Of course, this was no joke, but I didn't mind. Apparently, I was my brother's keeper, so like I said to Pam, whatever.

One morning before we were open, Star came in looking upset. We asked her what was wrong, and she said, “It's your car, Pammy.”

“The Grand Dame?” Pam asked, though it was not her car.

“Someone hit it?” I asked, since that was the most likely thing.

“Someone bought it.”

“You're kidding! For what I was asking?” Pam looked shocked.

“There's one born every minute,” I said.

“So, your sister ran a different ad,” Star said. “Her price was lower. Some guy bought it for his mom. Ricky tried to stop him but your sister went ahead with it. I'm so sorry. We know how much you loved your car.”

“It was a piece of shit. I'll get a new car.” She sounded cheerful but wasn't fooling anyone.

“You've been saying that for weeks,” I made the mistake of pointing out.

“I've been busy,” she snapped. “As you know. I'll buy a car when I have time.”

I didn't see how she'd ever have time, but I didn't want her to quit, so I shut up before she could suggest it. At least she could walk to both her jobs from our house, for the time being, anyway. She'd better not get too comfortable there, I thought, or there would be hell to pay with the Colonel.

“By the way, where is Ricky?” I asked Star.

“He'll be here soon. He's taking a shower.” She looked a little embarrassed and added, “He's sorry he's late.”

I was pretty sure he wasn't sorry, but I thanked her, then went into the kitchen and laughed about it, since what else could you do. I was so happy about the success of my restaurant that nothing bothered me. When I got a ticket from the parking lady, instead of standing outside arguing with her like I always used to, I just paid it. It was pretty much my only personal expense, since I now owned my building and ate all my meals at the restaurant. My business overhead was pretty high, but I didn't dwell on it.

Sometimes I thought of something I wanted to say to my mother, but then I'd remember she was gone. I tried not to think about her too much. And when my thoughts
started drifting to J. Fallingwater, wondering what ever happened to him, I pulled the plug on that, too.

***

When Ricky was actually in the kitchen, he spent a lot of time running his mouth about what he was going to do with his share of the house money. Sometimes he said he and Star were going to give it to an animal rights organization. Sometimes he said they were going to use it to try to end fracking, though none of us knew what that meant. But first, they were going to travel. They planned to buy a used camper and drive around the country. “Like, we can go to California and stay with Tim,” he said, peeling a carrot. I was pretty sure it was the same carrot he'd been working on all week.

“I'm sure he'll be glad to have you,” I said, though I wasn't sure.

“And we'll go to Texas to see the Grand Canyon.”

“Um, hello, Arizona?” Ray said.

Ricky ignored him. “And Puerto Rico. Star's mom lives there.”

“Yeah, have a nice drive to Puerto Rico,” Ray smirked.

“We'll take a boat. And we'll go to Jamaica, too, and Bermuda.”

“Watch out for that triangle,” I said.

“Star says that's just a myth.”

“It is not,” Ray said.

“Is too,” Ricky said. “Star says so.”

“You could not be more wrong,” Ray said. He and Ricky argued all the time about crap like this.

“I saw it on the Discovery Channel,” I jumped in to bail out my brother, though of course, I was lying and had no idea what they were talking about.

“The Discovery Channel?” Ray sounded like he was choking. “You're buying into their bullshit?”

“What have you got against the Discovery Channel?” I asked.

“That the Discovery Channel doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about?”

“We're still going to Bermuda,” Ricky said, waving his carrot like a switchblade.

“In your camper?” Ray asked, all smirky again.

“Then you can drive to Atlantis,” I said, to make peace. We all laughed, though each of them thought we were laughing at the other.

***

Pam was late.

“Where have you been?” I asked as nicely as I could, since there was no point pissing her off.

“Someone came to look at the house this morning.”

“A serious buyer?”

“He was a serious
babe
.” She winked.

“Did you get his phone number?”

“Better than that. We're going out for a late dinner tonight when I get off work. I figure you'll let me knock off early.”

“How early?”

“Nine?”

“I guess so. I mean, sure. Heidi can cover for you. Is he buying our house?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing.”

“Pammy, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” She went behind the bar and started wiping things, though
everything was still clean from last night.

I sat down at the bar. “You don't want to sell the house.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You like living there. You don't want anyone to buy it.” She didn't say anything. “You told the guy something bad about the house, didn't you.”

“Of course not,” she said, then added, “Not exactly bad.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Well, I told him about the raccoons in the cellar.”

“He's scared of raccoons?”

“I told him they were rabid.”

“That's not something bad?”

“I just told the truth.”

“Oh come on, they're not rabid.”

“All raccoons are rabid.”

“How do you know?”

“It's common knowledge.”

“And now this guy—”

“Doug.”

“Now this Doug guy doesn't want to buy our house because he doesn't want to live with a bunch of rabid rodents?”

“I think they're marsupials.”

“Whatever. You better not let Norma find out you got rid of yet another buyer.”

“I don't think I've gotten rid of him. He's still interested.” She looked worried.

“Pam, someone has got to buy the house sometime. You can't scare them all away.” I popped a maraschino cherry in my mouth.

“He wants to tear it down and build an office building.”

“An office building?” I choked. The cherry shot out of my mouth and landed on the bar. “Our house?”

“He's a developer. He thinks it would be a great location for his firm. He wants to be on Main Street.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“It's a house. Not an office building.”

“I guess when someone buys it, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. Our house is just outside the designated Historic District, so the conservation regulations don't apply. And according to Doug, the whole street is zoned commercial. It has been since the 1920s. Who knew?”

I pictured a tall building with a bunch of fat developers in suits sitting at desks inside it. There were no dogs in the yard, and the garage with Frank's license plate collection on the walls was a parking lot. “You've got to get rid of him,” I said, though I couldn't believe I was saying it, since I needed the money.

She said she'd do her best.

***

That night, Pam brought her new friend Doug into the restaurant and introduced us.

“So you're interested in our little shack?” I asked.

“It's a wonderful spot. Main Street has so much character.” He had a spray tan, gelled hair, and muscles. This was the kind of asshole Pam went for. “Of course, I've heard about the tragic raccoon infestation. That must have been hard for all of you.” He looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“We lived in terror.” In fact, I had always liked the raccoons. “But the snakes were the worst.”

“Yeah, the snakes,” Pam said.

“Weren't they puff adders?” I asked.

“Puff adders?”

“You mean copperheads, don't you?” Pam said quickly.

“Yeah, copperheads.” I decided to change the subject. “So you and Pam are going out for dinner?”

“That's right. I wanted to eat here, but she says she eats here all the time.”

“Which I never tire of,” she said.

“Of course not,” I said. I figured she wanted to go somewhere her siblings weren't watching her. She probably had bad memories of that from high school, when Tim and Donny threatened anyone we dated with grievous bodily harm. “So where are you going?”

“Chez Michel,” Doug said.

“Ooh la la,” I said.

“I love their pâté de campagne,” he said. When he wasn't looking, I made a duckface at Pam. She shrugged.

As they were leaving, I said, “Have her home by eleven.” Doug said he would. Pam gave me one of her looks. Just outside the front door, they ran into Milo, and I saw Doug and Milo shake hands. I went back into the kitchen, and a few minutes later, Milo came in. “Pam's friend seems nice,” was all he said.

***

The next day, Pam came in late again, this time with a dreamy little smile on her face.

“How was your date?” I asked her.

“Oh, fine.”

“How was dinner? What did you have?”

“Chateaubriand
pour deux
.”

“How was it?”

“Good.” She didn't elaborate.

I made the obvious assumption. “So, you're sleeping with the enemy?”

“Julie, please.”

“I hope there was a raccoon next to him when he woke up.”

“I left a trail of breadcrumbs to the bed.”

“Did that work?”

“No. So this morning, I asked him point blank not to buy the house.”

“You're kidding.”

“I told him we didn't want it to be torn down.”

“You told him that? What if it gets back to Norma?”

“He's not going to tell Norma. He's my friend.”

“We'll see. You've had friends before.”

“This time is different.”

I'd heard that before, and sometimes I was the one saying it, and we both knew how things always ended up.

***

After closing time, I sat down at the bar and let Milo pour me a glass of red wine, on him. As the wine's tasting notes socked me in the jaw, I felt like I was finally beginning to understand what people in other parts of the world had known all their lives. “Do you ever think about food?” I asked him, almost not aware that I was talking out loud. “I mean, really think about it? Like, let's say there's a God—or a Great Spirit, or whatever. He could have just made food for us like little pills. Like space food. He could have just made capsules that we took three times a day.”