The Blue Bistro

2

Menu Meeting

“Let’s pretend for twenty minutes of every day that the restaurant business is about food,” Thatcher said.

Adrienne wrote on a yellow legal pad: “Restaurant=food.” She sat at one end of a very long table, a twelve-top, in the dining room with the rest of the staff-five waiters; three bussers; the bartender, Duncan; and a young female bar back. Thatcher was the professor. Adrienne was the nerdy kid who took too many notes-but Thatcher had asked her to Please absorb every word I say, so that this, the soft opening, might go as smoothly as possible.

The dining room had been completely transformed since the morning of her breakfast. The wood floors had been polished, the wicker chairs had been cleaned, the plastic sheeting was rolled up so that every table had an unimpeded view of the gold sand beach and Nantucket Sound. Landscapers had planted red and pink geraniums in the window boxes that lined the outer walls of the restaurant and in the wooden dory out front. All of the tables were set for service and the waiters (three veterans, two newcomers) had arrived early to polish the glasses. The waiters wore black pants, crisp white shirts, and long white aprons. The busboys and the bar back wore black pants and white oxfords. Duncan wore khakis, a blue silk shirt, a sailboat-print tie, and black soccer sneakers. Adrienne had decided on her new pink silk pants with a gauzy white top and a pair of Kate Spade slides that she bought off the sale rack at Neiman’s in Denver. Her black hair was short enough that she only had to blow it dry and fluff it. She would have looked okay except that morning had been so sunny and warm that she had headed off to the beach. She came home sunburned, and when she applied her fuchsia lipstick it matched not only her toenail polish and her new pants, but the stripe across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Ten minutes ago, when she’d arrived, Thatcher had narrowed his eyes at her (just the way her father would if he could see her). She was certain she was going to get a word about sunscreen.

“Diaphanous top on the first night,” he said. “Gutsy. I like it. What size are you?”

Was this any of his business? “A six.”

He nodded. “The shoes won’t work, though.” He checked his watch-she thought it was a Patek Philippe. “But you don’t have time to go home and change. Sorry. Menu meeting at table nine, right now.” He handed her the yellow legal pad. “Please absorb every word I say. You’re trailing me tonight. Soft opening. That means friends of the house. Nobody gets a bill for anything but alcohol, and everything has to be as close to perfect as possible. Then, tomorrow night, close isn’t going to cut it.”

Now he was lecturing. The professor in his Gucci loafers and twenty-thousand-dollar watch. Everyone around the table sat in rapt attention. This was the big time. The Harvard Business School of resort dining.

“I thought Fee might come out and tell you about the food, but she’s in the weeds back there. No additions tonight. There are a lot of our standards on this year’s menu but there’s some new stuff, too, and since we have two new wait-people, two new bussers, and a new assistant manager, and since the rest of you spent all winter skiing bumps or sizzling in the equatorial sun, I’m going to run through the menu with you now. Everyone’s met Adrienne Dealey, right?” Thatcher held out his arm to introduce Adrienne, and the staff turned to look at her. She blushed on top of her sunburn. “On the floor, Adrienne is going to be my second in command, taking over for Kevin who conned his way into the maître d’ job at Craft in New York. As some of you know, Fee and I might be gone more often this summer than we’ve been in years past. And Adrienne is going to run the floor in my stead and alongside of me. But let’s give her a week or two to learn what it is we do here. She has never worked in a restaurant before. Not even Pizza Hut.”

Adrienne was sure she heard groans. But then one of the waiters, shiny-bald, black square glasses, said, “Let’s welcome Adrienne.”

“Welcome, Adrienne,” the rest of the staff echoed.

Adrienne smiled at her yellow legal pad. She heard someone say, “You drink champagne.” She looked up. Duncan was pointing at her.

She nodded, overcome with a bizarre shyness. He remembered her. Hopefully, he didn’t remember her as the woman whose boyfriend had been ripping off the esteemed patrons of the Little Nell.

“You drink champagne?” Thatcher said. “That gives me an idea. Make a note to ask me about champagne. Now, let’s pretend for eighteen minutes that the restaurant business is about food.”

Adrienne never worked in restaurants, but she loved to eat in them. Until her mother died of ovarian cancer when Adrienne was twelve, her family had lived in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and her father ran a successful dental practice in King of Prussia. They used to eat out all the time-at the original Bookbinder’s in downtown Philadelphia, the City Tavern, and her mother was a sucker for all of the new, funky cafés on South Street. What was it Adrienne loved about restaurants? The napkins folded like flowers, the Shirley Temples with maraschino cherries speared on a plastic sword, seeing her endless reflection in the mirrors of the ladies’ room. The pastel mints in a bowl by the front door.

After her mother died and Adrienne and her father took up with wanderlust, Adrienne became exposed to new foods. For two years they lived in Maine, where in the summertime they ate lobster and white corn and small wild blueberries. They moved to Iowa for Adrienne’s senior year of high school and they ate pork tenderloin fixed seventeen different ways. Adrienne did her first two years of college at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she lived above a Mexican cantina, which inspired a love of tamales and anything doused with habanero sauce. Then she transferred to Vanderbilt in Nashville, where she ate the best fried chicken she’d ever had in her life. And so on, and so on. Pad thai in Bangkok, stone crabs in Palm Beach, buffalo meat in Aspen. As she sat listening to Thatcher, she realized that though she knew nothing about restaurants, at least she knew something about food.

“This year, as every year, the first thing that hits the table-after the cocktails-is the bread basket.” There was an appreciative moan, and Caren arched her eyebrows at Adrienne from across the table. “The bread basket is one of two things. Bruno! Go into the kitchen and get me two baskets, one of each, please.” The bald waiter zipped into the kitchen. Bruno. Adrienne mentally pinned the name to him. Bald Bruno, who had welcomed her earlier. His voice had a little bit of a sashay to it, like he was from the south or was gay. She would ask Caren later.

Bruno reappeared with two baskets swathed in white linen napkins and a ramekin of something bright yellow.

Thatcher unveiled one basket. “Pretzel bread,” he said. He held up a thick braid of what looked to be soft pretzel, nicely tanned, sprinkled with coarse salt. “This is served with Fee’s homemade mustard. So right away the guest knows this isn’t a run-of-the-mill restaurant. They’re not getting half a cold baguette, here, folks, with butter in the gold foil wrapper. This is warm pretzel bread made on the premises, and the mustard ditto. Nine out of ten tables are licking the ramekin clean.” He handed the bread basket to a waiter with a blond ponytail (male-everyone at the table was male except for Adrienne, Caren, and the young bar back who was hanging on to Duncan’s arm). The ponytailed waiter-name?-tore off a hunk of bread and dipped it in the mustard. He rolled his eyes like he was having an orgasm. The appropriate response, Adrienne thought. But remembering her breakfast she guessed he wasn’t faking it.

“The other basket contains our world-famous savory doughnuts,” Thatcher said. He whipped the cloth off like a magician, revealing six golden-brown doughnuts. Doughnuts? Adrienne had been too nervous to think about eating all day, but now her appetite was roused. After the menu meeting, they were going to have a family meal.

The doughnuts were deep-fried rings of a light, yeasty, herb-flecked dough. Chive, basil, rosemary. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. Savory doughnuts. Who wouldn’t stand in line for these? Who wouldn’t beg or steal to access the private phone line so that they could make a date with these doughnuts?

“If someone wants bread and butter-and it happens every night-we also offer warm Portuguese rolls. But the guest has to ask for it. Most people will be eating out of your hand after these goodies.”

Thatcher disappeared into the kitchen. Seconds later, he was out, carrying another plate. “All VIPs get the same canapé,” he said. “Years ago, Fee knocked herself out dreaming up precious little amuses-bouches, but then we came up with the winner. Chips and dip.” He set the plate on the table next to Adrienne and she nearly wept with gratitude. He was standing beside her now, so she could study his watch. Her suspicions were confirmed: It was a Patek Philippe, silver, rectangular face, black leather band. The watch matched Thatcher’s shoes, the Gucci loafers, black with sleek silver buckles. Adrienne had to admit, when he was dressed up, the man had a certain elegance. “You’re getting the idea, now, right? We have pretzels and mustard. We have doughnuts. And if we really, really like you, we have chips and dip. This is fun food. It isn’t stuffy. It isn’t going to make anyone nervous. The days of the waiter as a snob, the days of the menu as an exam the guest has to pass are over. But at the same time, we’re not talking about cellophane bags here, are we? These are hand-cut potato chips with crème fraîche and a dollop of beluga caviar. This is the gift we send out. It’s better than Christmas.”

He offered the plate to Adrienne and she helped herself to a long, golden chip. She scooped up a tiny amount of the glistening black caviar. Just tasting it made her feel like a person of distinction.

Adrienne hoped the menu meeting might continue in this vein-with the staff tasting each ambrosial dish. But there wasn’t time; service started in thirty minutes. Thatcher wanted to get through the menu.

“The corn chowder and the shrimp bisque are cream soups, but neither of these soups is heavy. The Caesar is served with pumpernickel croutons and white anchovies. The chevre salad is your basic mixed baby greens with a round of breaded goat cheese, and the candy-striped beets are grown locally at Bartlett’s Farm. Ditto the rest of the vegetables, except for the portobello mushrooms that go into the ravioli-those are flown in from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. So when you’re talking about vegetables, you’re talking about produce that’s grown in Nantucket soil, okay? It’s not sitting for thirty-six hours on the back of a truck. Fee selects them herself before any of you people are even awake in the morning. It’s all very Alice Waters, what we do here with our vegetables.” Thatcher clapped his hands. He was revving up, getting ready for the big game. In the article in Bon Appétit, Thatcher had mentioned that the only thing he loved more than his restaurant was college football.

“Okay, okay!” he shouted. It wasn’t a menu meeting; it was a pep rally! “The most popular item on the menu is the steak frites. It is twelve ounces of aged New York strip grilled to order-and please note you need a temperature on that-served with a mound of garlic fries. The duck, the sword, the lamb lollipops-see, we’re having fun here-are all served at the chef’s temperature. If you have a guest who wants the lamb killed-by which I mean well done-you’re going to have to take it up with Fiona. The sushi plate is all spelled out for you-it’s bluefin tuna caught forty miles off the shore, and the sword is harpooned in case you get a guest who has just seen a Nova special about how the Canadian coast is being overfished.”

Just then the door to the kitchen opened and a short, olive-skinned man carried out a stack of plates, followed by his identical twin, who carried a hotel pan filled with grilled steaks. The smell was unbelievable.

“That’s your dinner,” Thatcher said. “I just have a few more things.”

A third guy, taller, with longer hair, but the same look of Gibraltar as the other two men, emerged with a hotel pan of French fries, and two bottles of ketchup dangling from his fingers. The staff shifted in their chairs. Adrienne wiggled her feet in her slides. What, she wondered, is wrong with my shoes?

“The last thing I want to talk about is the fondue. Second seating only, four-tops only, otherwise it’s a logistical nightmare. You all know what fondue is, I assume, remembering it from your parents’ dinner parties when you were kids? We put out a fondue pot with hot peanut oil and we keep it hot with Sterno. So already, servers, visualize moving through the crowded dining room holding a pot of boiling oil. Visualize lighting the Sterno without setting the tablecloth on fire. Adding this to the menu tacked thousands of dollars to our insurance policy. But it’s our signature dish. The table gets a huge platter of shrimp, scallops, and clams dredged in seasoned flour. They get nifty fondue forks. What they’re doing, basically, is deep-frying their own shellfish. Then we provide sauces for dipping. So imagine it’s a balmy night, you’ve spent all day on the beach, you’ve napped, you’ve showered, you’ve indulged in a cocktail or two. Then you’re led to a table in the sand for the best all-you-can-eat fried shrimp in the world while sitting under the stars. It’s one of those life-is-good moments.” Thatcher smiled at the staff. “This is our last year. Everything we do this year is going to reflect our generosity of spirit. You will notice I never use the word ‘customer’ or ‘client.’ The people who eat at this restaurant are our guests. And like good hosts, we want to make our guests happy. Now go eat. And for those of you who are new-all wine questions go to me-and familiarize yourself with the dessert menu while you chow.”

Everyone charged for the food. A few more cooks in spiffy white coats materialized from the kitchen. They were all lean and muscular with skin like gold leaf and dark hair. Latino? They looked alike to Adrienne-maybe they were brothers?-but this, surely, was just an example of her ignorance. The most handsome of the bunch stood in front of Adrienne in line. He looked her up and down-checking her out? Her diaphanous top? Then he grinned.

“Man,” he said. “Everyone’s in the shit back there. Except for me, of course, but I have the easy job.”

Adrienne peered over his shoulder at the hotel pan filled with steaks. And a vat of béarnaise-how had she missed that? “What’s the easy job?” she asked.

“I’m the pastry chef,” he said. “You’re new?”

“Adrienne.” She offered him her hand.

“Mario. How’re you doing? I heard about you. Fiona’s been making a big deal all week because you’re a woman.”

Adrienne studied him. Although he looked like he hailed from the Mediterranean, his accent said Chicago. He was several inches taller than she was, his hair was buzzed down to his scalp, and he had very round black eyes. Beautiful eyes, really. His skin was shiny with sweat and inside the collar of his chef’s jacket at the base of his neck she saw a scar, a raised purple welt.

“I’m sorry? Fiona’s making a big deal about me?” Adrienne said. “I don’t even know her. I’ve never met her.”

“I know,” he said cheerfully. He helped himself to a steak, gave it a generous ladle of béarnaise, plopped a handful of golden fries right on top.

Adrienne followed suit. There was salad, too, a gorgeous crisp-looking salad that had already been lightly dressed with something. Adrienne mounded her crowded plate with salad, thinking about what Thatcher had said about the vegetables. Fiona picked them out before the sun was up.

Fiona! Fiona, whom Adrienne could not pick out of a crowd of two, was making a big deal about her. Adrienne needed to question this Mario person further to find out what was being said. Fiona Kemp, the reclusive genius chef, had been making a big deal all week because Adrienne was a woman. What had Thatcher said? He’d never hired a woman for the job before. Adrienne poured herself a tall glass of water then sat down next to the waiter with the blond ponytail. Mario took his dinner back to the kitchen. Adrienne felt weak, like her legs were made of baby greens. Before she got here she had been nervous to meet Fiona; now she was afraid.

No one was talking. The only sounds were knives and forks on plates, the occasional palm tapping the bottom of the ketchup bottle. Two waiters were studying the menus. The new guys. One pale and thin with a bushy head of loose curls and a weak chin, and one handsome dark-haired guy wearing two gold hoop earrings. The guy with the earrings was reading the menu so intently that he shot food off his plate when he cut his steak. Adrienne concentrated on eating carefully-one drop of ketchup on the diaphanous white blouse and… well, there was no time to go home and change and nothing at home to change into. Adrienne ate her steak, the béarnaise, the garlicky fries-did she even need to say it? It was steak frites from a rainy-day-in-Paris dream. The steak was perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, pink in the middle, juicy, tender. The salad was tossed in a lemony vinaigrette but it tasted so green, so young and fresh, that Adrienne began to worry. This person Fiona had a way. If the staff meal tasted this good then the woman was possessed, and Adrienne didn’t want a possessed woman on her case.

The whole thing had been too easy, she saw now. She shouldn’t be here, she didn’t belong here, but she had been swept along by her own greed and by Thatcher, who had been described in a major food magazine as “charismatic, compelling… he could talk a teetotaler into a bottle of Chateau Lafite.” He had convinced her, somehow, to take this leap. Adrienne thought it was weird that she hadn’t even met Fiona, but she’d chalked it up to the fact that Fiona was a recluse. A culinary Greta Garbo, or J. D. Salinger. Were Thatcher and Fiona married, engaged, committed, together, dating-or, worst of all, exes? She had to ask Caren. Caren who was three seats down eating a plate of only salad. Drinking, yes, espresso. Caren had advised Adrienne to keep a toothbrush and toothpaste at the restaurant. Caren knew everything.

There was soft female laughter, as jarring to Adrienne as a tray of stemware crashing to the floor. She looked around to see Duncan and the bar back engaged in quiet conversation. They looked so familiar, so at ease-the girl grabbed Duncan’s forearm when she talked. Adrienne wondered if something was going on between them. The girl was young-in college still, Adrienne guessed-she had curly light brown hair and big brown eyes. Big boobs, too, and her oxford was unbuttoned one too far.

Adrienne was one to talk. Diaphanous top… gutsy… I like it. “Diaphanous” didn’t mean transparent. You certainly couldn’t see anything. Besides, she was wearing a very sturdy, very modest beige bra. And her shoes-what, exactly, was wrong with her shoes?

Adrienne did not like the idea that while she was getting moved into the cottage, setting up her bank account, and strictly adhering to all three of her rules, someone she’d never laid eyes on was down here talking about her. News of the diaphanous top and the inappropriate shoes had probably already made it back into the kitchen. What would Fiona say to that?

Thatcher appeared, holding a flute of pink champagne. “You’re all done.”

It wasn’t a question, though Adrienne still had food on her plate, and she didn’t want to be separated from it. He nodded toward the front door. “Service starts in ten minutes. Mr. and Mrs. Parrish will be here at six. There are some other things I have to explain.”

Adrienne cleared her plate into three bins the way she’d seen others doing, though it killed her to throw food away. She followed Thatcher, who was holding the champagne out in front of him. “You liked dinner?” he asked.

“It was delicious.” This felt like a gross understatement and she wondered what words might convey the physical pain she felt at scraping her plate. “Did you eat?”

He laughed, the old karate-chop “ha!” It was a noise he made not when something was funny, she realized, but when something was preposterous. “No. I eat with Fee after service.”

Is she your wife? Girlfriend? Can someone please turn on the lights so I can see? Is this the restaurant’s last year because you’ve split up? Is the fact that I’m a woman going to be a bigger problem than you initially anticipated? Adrienne followed him silently, but not silently at all. Her shoes were making a tremendous racket against the wooden floors.

“I’m clomping,” she said.

Thatcher turned to her. “Yes. The shoes. I told you. You have to watch the way you walk. Tomorrow night, different shoes. A soft sole. Slippers or something, but elegant, okay?”

Adrienne deducted another hundred dollars from her rapidly diminishing savings for elegant slipper shoes. Fine for pants, but the dress she’d bought would look funny without heels.

“Taking this job was a mistake,” she said. “Behind the front desk of a hotel, no one could even see my shoes.”

They reached the oak podium, home to the phone, the reservation book, a Tiffany vase with a couple dozen blue irises. A shallow bowl of Blue Bistro matches. A leather cup containing three sharpened pencils and a funny-looking wine key. Thatcher held up the champagne flute.

“This is a glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé,” he said. “We sell it at the bar for sixteen dollars a glass, ninety-five dollars a bottle. This is what you’re going to drink on the floor.”

“I said, taking this job was a mistake.”

“We both took a gamble,” he said. “Please give it one night. I promise you will love it so much you will be counting the minutes until you can come back. If you don’t feel that way, then we’ll talk. But we can’t talk now. Right now, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, okay?”

His okays were purely rhetorical.

“I want to brush my teeth,” she said.

Before she knew what was happening, Thatcher leaned over and kissed her. Very quickly, very softly. “You’re fine,” he said. “I detect a trace of vinaigrette, but it’s really very pleasant.” He held the flute out to her, and as it gave her something to do other than fall over backward, she accepted it.

“My father is a dentist,” she said. If her father had seen what just happened-well, she could hear him now. These are not people who floss, honey. Adrienne looked at Huck Finn, the professor, resplendent in his watch and shoes, a yellow linen shirt and navy blazer. He did not seem at all fazed by what had just happened. The professor kissed me! It was really very pleasant, the kiss. This champagne is what I drink on the floor. I wear diaphanous tops and clompy shoes. He kissed me! No wonder they talk about me back in the kitchen!

“Pretend you’re hosting a cocktail party,” he said. “You greet people at the door holding your glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé. The first thing they’ll notice is your pretty face, then your clothes. Then what you’ve got in your hand. They will want to drink pink champagne just like the beautiful hostess. Sixteen dollars a glass, you see? When you’re working the room, you should always have your flute of pink champagne. Right away, it gives you an identity, it gives you style. Your champagne is an accessory. You don’t have to get tanked. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. But a glass or two-three on a busy night, sure. Duncan will fill you up.” He watched her while she took a sip. “This is great,” he said. “Kevin drank bourbon-nothing sexy about that-and occasionally he deigned to walk around with a glass of merlot, but he didn’t enjoy it and the guests could tell.”

“Do you drink while you work?” Adrienne asked.

“I’m an alcoholic,” he said. He gazed at her so intently she thought he might kiss her again. What was going on here? It felt like she was breaking one of her rules, though she was so flustered she couldn’t remember what her rules were. Was there a rule about not kissing her boss?

“Oh.”

“There’s something else you have to know,” Thatcher said. “Something I should have mentioned when I hired you.”

Adrienne’s dinner shifted in her stomach. Something else?

He lowered his voice. “There’s no press allowed in the kitchen.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care if it’s the New York Times Magazine. I don’t care if it’s the Christian Science Monitor.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care if they tell you they have an appointment. They don’t. There is no press allowed in the kitchen. And no guests, of course. I mention the press because they come here all the time trying to get a story about Fiona. Word has gotten out that it’s our last year, therefore it’s crucial you understand.”

“No press in the kitchen,” Adrienne said.

“Very good. I’m sorry to be so strict.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Tonight, it’s friends of the house,” Thatcher said. “I want you to shadow me around the dining room so you learn the faces. I want you to man the host station if I’m back in the kitchen.”

“Am I allowed in the kitchen?” Adrienne asked.

Thatcher looked at her strangely.

“Thatcher!” Bruno was calling from the dining room. Both Thatcher and Adrienne spun around to find the dining room transformed. All of the candles had been lit and the waiters stood in a line, hands behind their backs, military-style, among the impeccably dressed tables with their starched tablecloths, the sparkling stemware, a single blue iris in a silver bud vase. Behind the restaurant, the sun was dropping in the sky. Just then a few notes came from the piano, like peals of a glass bell. A tall mop-haired man in a black turtleneck had started to play.

“It’s beautiful,” Adrienne whispered. It was like a theater set before the opening performance and she found herself wanting it to stay like this. She didn’t want anything to ruin it, but no sooner did Adrienne wish for this than a white Mercedes pulled into the parking lot.

“This is it,” Thatcher said. “The beginning of the end.”

At the Blue Bistro, the service wasn’t the only thing that was old-fashioned. There was no computer. Tickets were written by hand and delivered to the kitchen by the server, a system that was as outdated as the pony express. Reservations were made in pencil, in a big old book with a tattered binding. Most tables were marked with the party’s last name; VIP tables had the first and last name.

“Some restaurants actually write ‘VIP’ next to a name,” Thatcher said. “Or, if they’re trying to be tricky, they’ll use other initials, like ‘PPX.’ But too many people today are tuned into that kind of thing. It causes problems.”

“What makes someone a VIP?” Adrienne asked. “Does it have to do with money?”

“Money?” Thatcher said. “No. It has to do with how often someone dines with us. The Parrishes, for example. The ultimate VIPs.” Thatcher checked his watch. “You see, it’s the stroke of six.”

At that second, a couple Adrienne took to be the Parrishes stepped in the door. They were an older couple who exuded an air of gracious retirement: golf, grandchildren, travel on European ships. Mr. Parrish wore kelly green pants and a green-and-white striped shirt, a navy blazer. He had silver hair, he was sunburned and he shook ever so slightly when he leaned over to kiss Adrienne. Another kiss-this time from a complete stranger. Adrienne stole a glance at Thatcher. Was kissing a part of the job description that she had missed? Mrs. Parrish gave Thatcher a hug. On her right hand, which rested on the front of Thatcher’s butter-yellow shirt, she wore one enormous emerald-cut diamond ring and a platinum band with sapphires and diamonds. She had dark hair styled like Jackie Onassis, and clear blue eyes that took Adrienne in and immediately understood that she was motherless. Adrienne had met other women with this power-mothers of friends and boyfriends who wanted to adopt Adrienne, like a nine-year-old with a stray kitten, and Adrienne had never been able to resist their kind words or fluttering of attention (except in the case of Mavis-Mavis was not her mother!). Mrs. Parrish released her hold on Thatcher and reached out to Adrienne with both hands. Adrienne set her champagne down on the podium.

“Thatcher,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Where did you find such a lovely girl?”

“Darla, Grayson, may I introduce Adrienne Dealey,” Thatcher said. “She’s never worked in a restaurant before.”

“Good for you,” Mrs. Parrish whispered. She leaned over and kissed Adrienne: Adrienne felt the lipstick, a cool spot of paint on her cheek. Was that good for you for never working in a restaurant? Or good for you for landing a job here, alongside the world’s most charismatic restaurateur? Since Adrienne didn’t know how to respond, she smiled. Her sunburn made her face feel funny, like her skin was too tight. She hoped there wasn’t anything stuck in her teeth.

Thatcher led the Parrishes into the dining room and although he said Adrienne should shadow him, she felt foolish doing so. She popped into the ladies’ room, a mere four feet from the oak podium, to wipe the lipstick from her face and check her teeth. Regrettably, no time to brush. She could hear Thatcher’s voice asking about someone named Wolf; she could hear Mr. Parrish offer up a round of golf at Sankaty. And then she heard the phone.

She rushed back to the hostess station. It was, of all things, the private line. Thatcher hadn’t said anything about how he wanted her to answer the phone and especially not the private line. But hey-six years of resorts, five front desks including one in which she had to answer in Thai. One thing she could do correctly in this restaurant was answer the phone.

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

“Yeah.” There was a telltale crackle. Cell phone, bad signal. “We’re running late. Ten minutes. Make that twenty to be safe.”

“No problem, sir,” Adrienne said, though she had no idea if this were a problem or not. She tried to catch Thatcher’s eye. He was across the room, seating the Parrishes at table twenty, which Adrienne knew to be the best table. The dining room was shaped like a triangle, and table twenty was the top, the focus of everybody else in the restaurant. Thatcher was up to his neck in schmooze; he was unreachable. “We’ll see you when you get here,” Adrienne said into the phone. “Thank you for calling.” But the man had already hung up. And then Adrienne realized she hadn’t gotten his name.

She tried to explain this enormous gaffe to Thatcher when he returned-the first task she tackled on her own a complete failure-but he didn’t seem interested. “If the call came in on the private line, it was probably Ernie Otemeyer,” he said, making a note by the name “Ernie Otemeyer” in the book, table sixteen for two people at six fifteen. “He’s our plumber. He comes twice a year-soft opening and his birthday in August. He’s always late because he has to stop on the way and buy his own beer. He drinks Bud Light.”

Adrienne wondered about her legal pad-what had she done with it? Here was the kind of thing she needed to write down. Plumber Ernie comes twice a year and brings his own Bud Light.

“I don’t know what I did with my legal pad,” Adrienne confessed. Through the open door, she saw more cars pulling in. The piano man was playing “What I Did for Love.”

“I have good news,” Thatcher said.

“What?”

“The Parrishes want you to bring them their bread.”

“Why is that good news?”

“It means they like you. They want to see you at their table. Please wait until Bruno gets their cocktails. You have to be watching. And don’t think you have plenty of time because Duncan knows their drinks-heck, the whole staff knows their drinks-Stoli tonic with lime for Grayson and a Southern Comfort old-fashioned for Darla. See that? The drinks are up. Now, as soon as Bruno delivers them, you get the bread. They like bread and butter-always.”

“Where do I get the bread?” Adrienne asked.

“In the kitchen.”

“So it’s okay if I…”

A party of six stepped in the door-four men, rugby-playing types, and two teenaged boys who looked like Abercrombie & Fitch models with mussed hair and striped ties loose at the neck. “Thatcher!” one of the men boomed like he was yelling across a playing field.

“Get the bread,” Thatcher whispered, nudging Adrienne toward the kitchen. He moved to the front of the podium and started slapping backs.

Adrienne eyeballed the kitchen door. Well, she worked here now. And for some reason the Parrishes wanted her to deliver their bread. She felt singled out. Special. The Parrishes wanted her. They were not offended by her diaphanous top. They weren’t put off because she was a woman.

Adrienne pushed open the door.

The kitchen was brightly lit. And very, very hot. And quiet except for the sounds of knives-rat-tat-tat-scrape-against cutting boards and the hiss of the deep fryers. Adrienne saw a line of bodies in white coats, but nobody’s face. There were two six-burner ranges side by side, there was a grill shooting flames, and up above, blocking everyone’s face, was a shelf stacked with what must have been fifty blackened sauté pans. Adrienne watched a pair of hands preparing the doughnuts. She watched another pair of hands filling ramekins with mustard. She noticed a cappuccino machine, big brother to the one that Caren owned, and next to it, a huge refrigerator, a cold stainless-steel wall. Where, exactly, was the bread? The kitchen was filled with people, yet there was no one to ask.

“Yes?”

A woman’s voice. Adrienne’s eyes adjusted to this alternate universe that was the restaurant kitchen and she saw Fiona Kemp. She knew it was Fiona Kemp because it said so in cobalt blue script on her white chef’s jacket. Fiona Kemp who, contrary to every vision Adrienne held in her mind’s eye, was only five feet tall and may have weighed a hundred pounds with a pocket full of change. She was small. And adorable. She had long honey-blond hair in a braid and huge blue eyes. She wore diamond stud earrings. Adrienne had expected a hunchback, a hermit; she had expected the old woman who lived in a shoe.

“You’re Fiona?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Adrienne.”

“I know.”

Should they shake hands? Fiona made no move to do so and Adrienne was too intimidated. She had never been clear on when women should shake hands, anyway.

“I came for the bread.”

“For whom?”

Adrienne watched a batch of doughnuts descend into the deep fryer. Her brain was deep-frying. “The Parrishes.”

“Thatcher takes them their bread.”

“Okay,” Adrienne said. “Is there a special place the bread is kept?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that?”

Fiona nodded at the stainless-steel counter to Adrienne’s left. “The Parrishes’ bread is right there. You’re running for Thatcher?”

Adrienne stared at the basket of rolls and the cake of butter covered by a glass dome. “He told me I’m supposed to take the Parrishes their bread.”

“Thatcher takes the Parrishes their bread,” Fiona said. “That’s the way it works around here. Especially on the first night.”

“He said they asked for me.”

Fiona stared at Adrienne as though she was trying to figure out what had prompted Thatcher to offer her a job. Adrienne didn’t look like Heidi Klum, and she didn’t have enormous breasts. So why else would he cajole her into taking a job that she wasn’t qualified to do? I have no idea! Adrienne wanted to shout.

“Thatcher was right about you, then,” Fiona said.

“Right about me how?” Adrienne asked. “What did he say?”

Fiona pinched her lips together. She had freckles across her nose, like someone had sprinkled it with cinnamon.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Is my working here going to be a problem?” Adrienne asked. She felt like in the bright lights her top was positively sheer.

“Since it’s only the first hour of the first night, that remains to be seen,” Fiona said. “But I can tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The Parrishes are very important to us. They shouldn’t have to wait for their bread.” She pointed at the door. “Go.”

Adrienne was shaking when she reached the Parrishes’ table. Normally when she felt uncomfortable, she sent a mental e-mail to her father. But now Adrienne was facing a blank screen. What had happened in there? No time to wonder because the Parrishes wanted to chat about Aspen. They had vacationed in Aspen long ago, before it was fashionable, and they stayed at the Hotel Jerome. Adrienne learned that Grayson’s business was importing custom tile and stone from Italy, a business his sons now ran that was doing better than ever due to the home-improvement boom. The Parrishes had three sons, the oldest was thirty-six, and none of the sons was currently married. They had one grandchild, a little boy named Wolf who “lived with his mother.” Adrienne managed to keep up the conversation until she felt Bruno breathing on the back of her neck, and she excused herself.

She returned to the hostess station and drank down her pink bubbly. The exchange with Fiona nagged at her. She had to talk to Caren. There wasn’t time now, of course. No sooner had Adrienne set her empty glass on the blue granite for Duncan to refill than the front door became inundated with three six-thirty reservations and the late arriving Ernie Otemeyer carrying a paper bag. The place was hopping. Busboys presented baskets of pretzel bread and doughnuts. The piano man launched into “Some Enchanted Evening.” Caren floated by, taking Adrienne by the elbow.

“I have apps up on table seven. Can you run some food for me?”

Adrienne glanced at the clot of people by the front door. Thatcher was in the thick of it.

“Run some food?” This sounded suspiciously out of bounds. “I’m not trained for that. And what about Thatcher? Can he seat all those tables by himself?”

“It’ll take two seconds,” Caren said. She vanished into the kitchen and came back balancing a tray of plates on the palm of one hand and carrying a stand in the other. Adrienne followed her out into the dining room. Caren snapped open the stand and lowered the tray. Adrienne felt a bloom of optimism from the champagne. Fiona was an ogre trapped in a doll’s body, like some screwed-up fairy tale, but just look at the food: two salads with the red-and-white striped beets, a foie gras, a crab cake, and two corn chowders. Absolutely beautiful.

“The salads go to the two ladies closest to you,” Caren whispered. “Serve from their right.”

Adrienne watched Caren’s graceful movements. She tried to imitate her. She slid the salads in for a landing on top of the Limoges chargers. Caren served the last two plates, then asked if anyone cared for freshly ground pepper. A burst of laughter came from the rugby players’ table. The piano man segued into “The Entertainer.” It jangled in Adrienne’s head. She had served the two plates without incident. Piece of cake! And now… what? Thatcher was leading the plumber to his table, two down from the Parrishes. He held out the paper bag.

“Would you ask Duncan to put this on ice?” Thatcher said. “And get a cold one in a pilsner for Ernie and a glass of the merlot for his wife, Isadora, please.” Under his breath, he said, “Champagne, champagne.”

“It’s at the bar,” Adrienne said. “I’ll get it right now.” There were still people waiting at the podium. She had to hurry! She carried the paper bag through the dining room to the bar. Even over the conversation, the clink of glasses and silver and china, and the piano, Adrienne could hear her shoes. She sounded like a Clydesdale.

“Adrienne!”

Thatcher was at her back. “The Parrishes want you to serve their wine.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” she said. She pictured snapping the cork in half, or spilling cabernet down the front of her diaphanous blouse. “Don’t make me do that.”

“I told them you haven’t been trained with the wine key yet,” he said. “I told them you would do it next time. But you can deliver their chips and dip. They just want your face at their table. Where’s your champagne?”

“I told you, I’m getting it.” She wanted to give the beer to Duncan and order the merlot before she forgot. Thatcher set off to deal with the people at the podium.

Adrienne paid close attention to where she placed her feet. It forced her to slow down. Confrontation with Fiona aside, the first hour wasn’t going badly. She had answered the phone, she had conducted a pleasant conversation with two VIPs, she had served two plates of salad without dumping them in the guests’ laps. Now, at the bar, she delivered the plumber’s beer and ordered the merlot, and without even having to ask, Duncan slid a flute of champagne across the blue bar. She took a sip, then put it down. She had to go back into the kitchen for the chips and dip. The piano man played “Somewhere, Beyond the Sea.” This had been Adrienne’s parents’ favorite song; she was never able to listen to it without getting weepy. But what was nice about the restaurant business, Adrienne realized, was that there was no time to reflect on the way her parents used to dance together at weddings. There wasn’t time to worry if her father was now dancing with Mavis. There wasn’t time to muse over Doug or Kip or Sully or any of the men she’d sat at a table for two with over the last six years and question her own good sense. There wasn’t even time to wonder about the kiss from Thatcher. The restaurant business was doing her a favor. It locked her into the moment: her glass of pink champagne, the trip back into Fiona’s lair. Locating her yellow legal pad. Learning the table numbers and the wine key. Getting a look-just a look-at all the beautiful food. History in the making. The last soft opening of the Blue Bistro.

By the end of the first seating, Adrienne’s legs ached. And her lower back. In three hours of work she had walked at least five miles. So that was it, absolutely, for the fucking slides. She would never wear them again.

There were seventy reservations on the books and forty-two of those were sitting at nine o’clock.

“First seating was nothing,” Thatcher said. “It was a warm-up.”

At eight-thirty there was a nice lull-most of the tables had finished their dinners and were lingering over dessert. Thatcher snatched a piece of the brown sugar fudge from one of the candy plates headed back into the kitchen and handed it to Adrienne.

“I always wondered if you ate off the plates,” she said.

“Taste it,” he said.

The fudge was an explosion of vanilla and caramel, and it gave her a much-needed sugar kick. She checked in on the Parrishes. They were one of those couples who didn’t speak to each other during dinner; only when Adrienne approached did they brighten. When she had delivered their caviar, they chatted with her about their home on Cliff Road. Between courses, at Thatcher’s prompting, Adrienne checked in with them again. They were both staring out at the water, each seemingly lost in thought. But when Adrienne appeared, Darla raved about the crab cake, and Grayson swirled his white burgundy in his glass. They asked Adrienne if she cooked at home and the expression on her face-which was horror and quite genuine-gave them all a good laugh. At a little after eight, Adrienne delivered a cup of decaf cappuccino to Darla and a glass of tawny port to Grayson. She placed the check (which consisted only of the bar tab and the two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine) on the table in what she hoped was a discreet way, and informed them that they were welcome to stay and enjoy the sea air for as long as they wished. This was not, of course, true-the entire restaurant was being reseated at nine. When Darla and Grayson made their move to stand, Adrienne floated-this was her goal, to float like Caren-to their table and held Grayson’s arm all the way to the front door. Before they left, Darla kissed Adrienne again-more lipstick-and Grayson pressed money into her hand, which took her so by surprise that she nearly dropped it. The Parrishes then lavished Thatcher with attention and sent their love “to darling Fiona. Tell her everything was superb. We’ll see you Friday at six.” And they set off into the night. Thatcher winked at Adrienne; she felt sorry to see them go. It was like visiting with her grandparents when she was young, complete with the gift of money. Adrienne checked her palm. Grayson had given her a hundred dollars.

She showed the bill to Thatcher. “What should I do with it?”

“Keep it.”

“What about Bruno?” she asked. “What about Tyler?” Tyler was a busboy who was a senior at Nantucket High School. In the thirty seconds Adrienne had conversed with him, she could tell he was precocious. He had, he informed her, twelve days until graduation when he planned to get shit-faced at a bonfire on the beach just down the way from the restaurant. The only reason he got this job in the first place, he said, was because his father was the island’s health inspector.

“There was a tip added to the bill for them,” Thatcher said. “If anybody puts money in your hand-unless he tells you it’s for someone else-then it’s yours to keep.”

An electric thrill ran up Adrienne’s spine, the singular pleasure of windfall. The start of her new Future! She tucked the money into her pocket.

“The Parrishes didn’t speak to one another during dinner,” she said.

“They never do,” Thatcher said. “That’s why they like to have someone visit their table, three, four times a night. It peps things up.”

The rest of the tables were slowly rising and moving around. Some people headed for the door, some walked to the edge of the restaurant to peer at the water. The busboys worked like crazy to strip the tables. The piano man took a break and the CD player kicked in with Billie Holiday. Adrienne’s sunburn throbbed like a red alarm; she was tired. She could easily go home and sleep with the hundred dollar bill under her pillow until morning.

“Now,” said Thatcher. “Now you’re going to earn your money.”

Adrienne wanted to tell Thatcher about her exchange with Fiona. She wanted to ask what he’d said about her but there wasn’t time. Between seatings, Thatcher reviewed the book with Adrienne.

“You’re going to have to learn our guest list night by night,” he said. “Some of our favorite guests only stay on Nantucket for one week of the summer, but they eat here three times during that week. They’ve been doing so for twelve years.”

Adrienne had found her yellow notepad. It was handed to her by the young bar back whose name was Delilah. Delilah was not Duncan’s paramour, but rather, his kid sister. She had just finished her junior year at Bennington, she said, and all her life she’d been waiting for her parents to give her the okay to work with Duncan.

“I have two other brothers,” she said. “David and Dennis. And they are such sticks-in-the-mud. They have kids.” As if that explained it. “Duncan is the only person in our family who leads an exciting life, and so I said to the parents, ‘As soon as I turn twenty-one, I go where he goes.’ ” She gave Adrienne a toothy smile with her eyes all scrunched, and headed, butt-first, into the kitchen, bracing a crate of dirty bar glasses against her midsection.

Adrienne was glad for the return of her notepad. She studied the diagram of circles and squares and rectangles that was the seating chart-it might have seemed as easy as nursery school but it was more like plane geometry. She looked expectantly at Thatcher. Nerdy student a hundred dollars richer at the ready!

While some of the guests of the soft opening were summer people who had arrived early, most were year-round Nantucketers. Mack Peterson, the manager of the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel, was coming with Cecily Elliott, the hotel owners’ daughter.

“Great guy,” Thatcher said. “He sends us tons of business. Good business, too-people who show up on time, drink a lot of expensive wine, et cetera.”

Adrienne wrote down their names. “Are they married?” she asked. “Mack and Cecily?”

“No,” Thatcher said. He furrowed his brow. It was funny, Adrienne thought, how Thatcher’s hair was red but his eyebrows were the palest blond. “What is your obsession with whether people are married?”

Adrienne wanted to inform him that asking if one couple was married could hardly be classified as an obsession, but then she remembered that she had also asked about him and Fiona. “I’m sorry,” she said, with as much poison in her voice as she could muster in her state of weariness.

Thatcher held up his pen. “Never mind.”

She recalled Fiona’s words. Thatcher was right about you, then. “You don’t know the first thing about me,” Adrienne said.

“Well, I know that your father is a dentist,” he said. “Your mother is a good cook. You worked in Aspen at the Little Nell, and in Thailand, Palm Beach, Hawaii, and on the Cape. You have black hair and green eyes. You’re a size six. You go to the beach without sun protection. You don’t know how to walk in slides. And”-he pointed his pen at her-“tonight is your first night of restaurant work.” He smiled. “How’d I do?”

Adrienne stared at the faint blue lines of her legal pad. She desperately wanted to set the record straight about her mother-although her mother had been a good cook, she had also been dead for sixteen years. But Adrienne didn’t have the energy. She was tired. And he was right that she went to the beach without lotion and didn’t know how to walk in these shoes. Her legs hurt, her face hurt. She wanted to sit down.

“Let’s just do this,” she said.

“We have a lot of Realtors coming in tonight,” he said. “Hopefully one of them will help me sell this place. The president of the bank is coming. The electrician is coming with her husband, her sister and brother-in-law. I don’t need to tell you how important the contractors are, right? Ernie the plumber and Cat the electrician. They are the most important. Because if one of the toilets overflows or an oven quits in the middle of service on a Saturday night, we need to be able to call that person’s cell phone and have them show up in minutes. Let’s see… we have a famous CEO coming with a party of ten-I’ll let you be surprised. No other celebrities, really-a couple of local painters and writers. They drink a lot. Where is your champagne? We didn’t sell a single glass of Laurent-Perrier first seating.”

“Sorry,” Adrienne said. She felt oddly culpable, like maybe she wasn’t enticing enough, or worthy of emulation. She headed over to the bar and when Duncan saw her he whipped a clean flute off the shelf.

“This is your third glass,” Duncan said. “How many did Thatch say you could have?”

“Three, if it’s busy.”

“It’s going to be busy in a few minutes,” he said. He poured a glass and slid it across the bar. “You’d better nurse this, though. I’ll pour you however much you want after service.”

“Thanks,” Adrienne said. “But after service, I’m going home to bed.”

“Maybe you should have an espresso,” Duncan said. “Do you want me to order you an espresso?”

“No, thanks.” But since it was nice of him to offer, she said, “I met your sister. She’s cute.”

Duncan rolled his eyes, wiped down the blue granite with a rag, and checked the level of his cranberry juice. “She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.”

Adrienne twirled her flute by the stem. “That makes two of us.”

Caren appeared with two espressos. “Let’s do a shot,” she said to Duncan. They both threw back the coffee. Caren pointed at Adrienne’s champagne. “Better watch it. That stuff will kill you.”

Adrienne wandered back toward the front door as headlights started to pull into the parking lot. The piano player returned, smelling like cigarettes. The two new waiters had also been out on the beach smoking. The guy with the hoop earrings-name?-offered bushy hair-name?-an Altoid. The piano player-name?-glissando-ed into “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

Somehow Adrienne caught a second wind. The people who arrived for second seating were younger and better looking. In fact, they all looked like models. Cat, the electrician, was a six-foot blonde in a pair of Manolo Blahniks. She was one of the most attractive women Adrienne had ever seen and she was the electrician. Welcome to Nantucket! When Thatcher introduced Adrienne, Cat’s eyes went first to Adrienne’s shoes, then to her glass.

“You’re drinking pink champagne,” she said. “That’s what I want. Pink champagne. Let’s get a bottle. No, a magnum.”

Adrienne smirked at Thatcher. Redeemed! Thatcher led Cat’s party to table twenty while Adrienne sat a husband and wife Realtor team with a party of six. When she returned to the podium, Holt Millman-a CEO who was famous for being not only obscenely rich but legitimately so-was heading up a party of ten.

In her mind, Adrienne dashed a one-line e-mail to her father. Holt Millman looks just like his picture on the cover of Fortune! Thatcher sat the Millman party and left Adrienne to handle a party of six women, wives of the owners of other restaurants in town. Thatcher had told Adrienne that this table was super-VIP. “Because we want them to return the favor when we go out on the town.”

One of these women-again, gorgeous, red hair, fabulous shoes-said, “You’re new.”

“I’m Adrienne Dealey.”

The redhead shook Adrienne’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ve been telling Thatcher for years that he should have a woman up front. Don’t let Fiona give you a hard time.”

This caught Adrienne off-guard. How did you know Fiona would give me a hard time? she wanted to ask. What does everybody on this island know about Fiona that I don’t?

“I won’t,” Adrienne assured her. She felt not only redeemed, but validated. Fiona was famous for giving people a hard time. So there. Adrienne handed out menus to the women and summoned enough courage to say, “I’ve been drinking Laurent-Perrier rosé champagne. Can I interest you ladies in a bottle?”

“Sure,” the redhead said. “Sounds great.”

Adrienne was afraid that if she stopped moving, she would keel over. She led the good citizens of Nantucket to their tables, handed out menus, and delivered drinks for Caren and Bruno who she could see were getting slammed. A local author came in with a party of eight. They had been barhopping in town and as soon as the author stepped in the door, she started singing along with the piano. Another party of four stepped in, among them a woman with a luscious pink pashmina who pointed at Adrienne’s shoes.

“Great shoes!” she cried.

You can have them, Adrienne thought.

Thatcher approached the podium. “I don’t want you to look right now,” he said. “But in a second, casually, study the man to Holt Millman’s left. He is Public Enemy Number One.”

Instinctively, Adrienne turned.

“Don’t look,” Thatcher said. “Because he’s watching us.”

“Who is it?” Adrienne said.

“Drew Amman-Keller. Freelance journalist. He’s basically on Holt’s payroll writing pieces for Town & Country and Forbes about Holt and Holt’s friends. He’s been so aggressive in pursuing a story about Fiona that we had to ban him from the restaurant. But he’s not stupid. He comes with Holt.”

“Can I look now?”

“In a second. Let me walk away. I see table seven is drinking Laurent-Perrier.”

“I suggested it.”

“I want you to deliver the VIP order to Holt’s table,” Thatcher said. “In fact, I want you to deliver the VIP orders from now on. All summer. That will be your job.”

“But…”

“Go to the kitchen right now,” Thatcher said. “Don’t turn around.”

Adrienne learned that the person making the chips and dip was a kid named Paco, the assistant to the garde-manger. Paco was gangly, pimply, wearing a Chicago White Sox hat. Adrienne went right to him for pickup, sidestepping the frenetic scene that was going on between the waitstaff and Fiona and the line cooks and Fiona.

The kitchen, which had been so peaceful when Adrienne had first entered it, was now a house on fire. Fiona wasn’t actually cooking; she was standing in front of what Paco referred to as the pass, yelling out orders from the tickets.

“Ordering table eight: one crab cake, two beets, one Caesar.”

From the other side of the stoves, a cook called out, “Ordering one crab cake, chef.”

The garde-manger, whose name was Eddie, called out, “Two beets and one Caesar, chef.” Adrienne watched Eddie reach into two giant bowls of greens to plate the salads. She was entranced by the speed and the grace of this kind of cooking. It was as amazing as watching someone blow glass or weave on a loom, and it was all the more impressive because these men were barely men. Eddie might have been legal to drink, but Paco looked about nineteen. Adrienne watched him slice potatoes on a mandolin-pfft, pfft, pfft-until he had a pile of potatoes in perfect coins.

“Ordering table seven: one crab cake, one chowder, one bisque, two beets, one foie gras,” Fiona said. For such a small individual, her voice was very forceful. “And where is table twenty’s chowder? That’s Cat, people, vamos!”

“You know,” Adrienne said to Paco, “this is going to a party of ten. Maybe we should give them extra?”

“Party of ten?” Paco said. He, too, had a Chicago accent. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” He dropped another batch of sliced potatoes into the oil. It hissed like a snake.

“Ordering table twenty-five: two foie gras, two bisque, two crab cake, one SOS,” Fiona said. A crab cake appeared in front of her and she studied it, tasted the sauce with a spoon, then wiped the edge of the plates with a towel. She tasted a bowl of shrimp bisque and sprinkled it with chives. “Where is Spillman?” she said. “Table thirty is up.” She glanced over at Adrienne, who shifted her eyes to the slabs of foie gras sizzling in the sauté pans. “Are you running for Spillman?”

“Who’s Spillman?” Adrienne asked.

Fiona huffed in a way that meant nothing good. Adrienne wanted to ride her second wind right out of the kitchen. As soon as Paco supplemented her chip plate for Holt Millman’s table, she bolted. The dining room, with its open walls, was much cooler than the kitchen. It was sparkling with candlelight and was alive with music and conversation.

“Compliments of the chef,” Adrienne said to the table at large, though her eyes landed, light as a butterfly, on the man to Holt Millman’s left.

“Ooohrrg,” she said. “Hi.” The man whom Thatcher had identified as Public Enemy Number One, Drew Amman-Keller, was the same man Adrienne had met on the ferry, the man who was responsible for her being here in the first place. He was staring at her over the top of his Bordeaux glass, but he said nothing. Maybe he didn’t recognize her. Was that too much to hope for?

Adrienne set the plate down in front of Mr. Millman. “Hand-cut russet potato chips with crème fraîche and beluga caviar.” Holt Millman beamed. A woman in a gray toile pill-box hat clapped her hands. Thatcher was right; even if you had all the money in the world, it was better than Christmas.

The night kept going and going. People ordered wine-and five tables ordered champagne-and Thatcher made Adrienne follow him into the wine cave, which was a room next to the bathroom that was cool and dry and filled with wine.

“This used to be a utility closet,” he said. “We had it totally reoutfitted.” The red wine rested on redwood racks and the white wine and champagne were kept in a refrigerated unit that took up a whole wall. Thatcher showed Adrienne how to identify a wine by its bin number from the wine list.

“We’re selling a lot of the Laurent-Perrier,” he said. “Get yourself another glass.”

Adrienne’s head was so loose that she was afraid it was going to unscrew completely and go flying through the dining room.

“I don’t need another glass,” she said.

“Get another glass,” he said.

She informed Duncan that this was an order from Thatcher and she was given another glass. Duncan was moving fluidly behind the bar. Everyone wanted cocktails replenished; everybody wanted wine by the glass. A handful of men had actually left their tables to talk to Duncan at the bar, so the whole time he was wiping and pouring and shooting mixers out of the gun, he was talking about his winter in Aspen and the people who were regulars at the Board Room. Elle McPherson, Ed Bradley, Kofi Annan.

Adrienne scoffed. “Kofi Annan was a regular at the Board Room?”

A bead of sweat threatened to drop into Duncan’s eye. “He drinks Cutty Sark.”

“Okay,” Adrienne said. She had no interest in busting Duncan’s rap; she’d had so much to drink that she should really keep her mouth shut. She picked up her fourth glass of champagne and was about to walk away when he said, “Listen, I’m out of limes. Can you find my sister and ask her to get me more limes, pronto?”

“Sure.” Adrienne feared Delilah was in the kitchen, but then she saw her pop out of the ladies’ room. “Your brother needs limes,” Adrienne said to her. “Right away, I guess.”

Delilah flashed her a toothy smile. Her eyes were bright. “Okay!” she said. “I love this job, don’t you?”

“Hot oil!” someone called. The weak-chinned waiter. Adrienne still didn’t know anyone’s name. “Out of the way!” He had a fondue pot by the handle and the heating rack and the sterno in the other hand. A second waiter who had definitely not been at the menu meeting or family meal, a tall, heavyset black man, followed with a huge platter of seafood. He caught Adrienne’s eye. “My name is Joe,” he said. “This is going to table twenty. Would you mind running the sauces for me? They’re on the counter.”

Since he had so politely identified himself, Adrienne could hardly say no, even though his request put her back in the kitchen. She pushed through the door, narrowly missing Bruno with another fondue pot. Adrienne shrieked-to have splattered Bruno with hot oil on her first night! Fiona shot Adrienne a look of blue fire, then called out, “Ordering table fourteen: one sword, three frites-rare, medium rare, medium well, two clubs, one duck SOS, two sushi, and a lamb killed for Mr. Amman-Keller. It appears he didn’t learn anything about food over the winter. Can I help you, Adrienne?”

The use of her name threw her. “Sauces?” she squeaked.

“Who has time to get the girl some sauces?” Fiona said. “Eddie?”

A wicked laugh came from the garde-manger station. The rest of the cooks didn’t even deign to answer. There were six sauté pans on the range and Adrienne watched a piece of marinated swordfish hit the grill. One of the cooks pulled a pan of steaks from the oven. Paco lowered a batch of fries into the oil.

Fiona checked the tickets hanging like they were pieces of laundry she wanted to dry. “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

“Joe said they’d be out on the counter,” Adrienne said.

“Someone else took those.”

“Can you tell me where to look?”

Fiona stormed away. Adrienne watched Eddie construct the lobster club sandwich; she was hungry again. Someone spoke up from behind the pass. “You’d better go with her, girlfriend.”

Adrienne hurried after Fiona’s braid, her slides clomping even worse in here with the cement floor. Fiona, Adrienne noticed, was wearing black clogs. They stepped into a huge refrigerator. “This is the walk-in,” Fiona said. She used the overly patient, patronizing voice of a teacher speaking to a very stupid pupil. “The sauces are parceled out and kept in here.” She handed Adrienne four bowls that comprised a lazy Susan that went around the fondue pot. “Cocktail, goddess, curry, horseradish. Please identify the sauces when you put them on the table.”

“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.