The Blue Bistro

4

Reservations

Adrienne wasn’t sure how long her father’s affair with Mavis had been going on. When he set up his dental practice in 1984, the office had three employees: Adrienne’s father, whom everyone called Dr. Don, Adrienne’s mother, Rosalie, who worked the reception desk, booked appointments, and did all the billing, and Mavis, the hygienist. Five years later, when Adrienne’s mother got sick, Adrienne was old enough to fill in for her mother after school and on Saturdays-and to work during the week they had hired a retired woman named Mrs. Leech.

But there had always been Mavis with her blond Dorothy Hamill haircut, her smell of antiseptic soap, and the Juicy Fruit gum that she chewed to freshen her breath after lunch (despite Dr. Don’s fatwa on chewing gum of any kind). When she was first hired, Mavis was a single mother with three-year-old twin boys named Coleman and Graham, who was deaf. Mavis’s husband had left her, and Mavis’s family lived in the French part of Louisiana, which she described as a “stinking swamp.” She had no desire to return. Adrienne’s parents took pity on Mavis, especially Adrienne’s mother, who was prone to fits of do-gooding. As a happy coincidence, it turned out that Mavis was a talented hygienist. She had a light touch, a Southern accent, and because she dealt on a daily basis with her deaf son, she took great pains to make her communications with children gentle and clear. How many times had Adrienne heard her go through the brushing spiel? Now I’m just gonna put a little bit of paste on the brush-see, it tastes like bubble gum. Don’t tell the doctor! The brush is gonna move in really fast circles so it might tickle a bit. You’re laughing already, I can’t bee-leeve it!

It was impossible to think of Mavis without thinking of Rosalie, not only because Rosalie and Mavis were best friends, but also because as Rosalie’s presence in Adrienne’s life waned, Mavis’s increased. Rosalie’s illness came on very strong and suddenly. There might have been a clue in the fact that Rosalie had lost her first child in a hard labor, and after Adrienne, Dr. Don and Rosalie had not been able to conceive another child. But Rosalie’s outlook was that some people were blessed with many children and some with only one, and she reveled in the fact that her one child was as well-adjusted and delightful as Adrienne. Then when Adrienne was eleven going on twelve (and was, at that age, neither well-adjusted nor delightful) Rosalie started having pains. She went to her gynecologist and came home looking like she had seen a ghost. A biopsy a week later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania had diagnosed her with inoperable ovarian cancer and four to six months to live.

Adrienne knew these details now, as an adult, but at the time she had not been well-informed. Her father, a graduate of the dental school at Penn, was friends with the head of internal medicine at HUP and Adrienne was aware of her father’s conversations with him and other doctors at the hospital. Initially, she thought it was Dr. Don who was sick because it was he who looked like he might die. Eventually both her parents sat her down and told her that Rosalie had cancer.

It was Mavis’s idea to send Adrienne to Camp Hideaway in the Pocono Mountains. Adrienne didn’t want to go. She claimed she wanted to help take care of her mother, but really she didn’t want to leave her friends and she was addicted to General Hospital and she knew from reading the brochure that Camp Hideaway didn’t have a single TV. She begged her father to let her stay home and when begging didn’t work, she threatened him. She would run away. She would hitchhike. She would accept a ride with any stranger, even if it was a man with yellow teeth. Finally, Adrienne appealed to her mother. Adrienne knew her mother loved her to the point of distraction. Once she had snooped through Rosalie’s desk, where she found a tablet on which Rosalie had written Adrienne’s name a hundred times, and in the middle of the page, it said, “Unconditional love.” When Adrienne spoke to Rosalie about camp, Rosalie said, “Please do as your father says. He and Mavis think it’s for the best.” Rosalie’s tone of voice was distant; it was as if she were already gone.

Adrienne went to Camp Hideaway for six weeks, and when Adrienne looked back on her life, she could say that she went to Camp Hideaway as one kind of person and left as another. Her first day at camp was up and down. The cabin was musty, her top bunk stared right into the cobwebby rafters, her cabin mates were all scrawny and knew nothing about puberty, the bathhouse smelled like a chemical toilet, the water at the fountain tasted like rust, and the dining hall served stale potato chips. However, things improved during taps, the flag lowering, and the campfire where one very cute male counselor played the guitar. There was the promise of swimming the next day, and canoeing and a scavenger hunt. After lights out, in the dark musty cabin, where some of her cabin mates were actually crying, Adrienne started telling lies. She told the twelve girls she had just met that she had been sent to camp because her brother was dying. Maybe she had meant to say “mother,” but she didn’t. She said, very distinctly, “brother,” and the girls were hooked. Adrienne felt bad almost immediately and wished that she could retract the claim or amend it, but there was no way to do so without being labeled a fake, a liar, a person to be gossiped about for the next six weeks. She told herself it wasn’t a complete lie because Adrienne had had a brother once upon a time-her mother had delivered a stillborn baby three years before Adrienne, a baby named Jonathan. Adrienne had wondered for years about Jonathan and what he had looked like and whether or not he was technically her brother if he had died before she was even born. She wondered why Jonathan’s name hadn’t been on her mother’s tablet with the words “Unconditional love.” When the girls in her cabin asked her what her dying brother’s name was, she told them, and saying it out loud had made him seem real.

On the last night of camp, Adrienne confessed the truth to Pammy Ipp. By this time, Adrienne and Pammy were such good friends that Adrienne wanted to set the record straight: It wasn’t her brother who was dying, in fact, she had no brother. It was her mother who was dying.

Pammy Ipp had looked nonplussed. “Why didn’t you just tell us that in the first place?” she said.

When Adrienne walked into her mother’s hospital room upon her return home, she gagged. All of Rosalie’s hair was gone; she looked like a health class skeleton, a space alien. The worst thing was that Rosalie seemed to know how hideous she looked and she told Adrienne that she didn’t have to visit the hospital again if she didn’t want to. Didn’t have to visit her own sick mother!

Adrienne went home and cried. She was plagued by confusion and guilt. Why had she lied to her camp friends? Why had she bothered telling Pammy Ipp the truth at the last minute? Pammy hadn’t said a proper good-bye that final morning and Adrienne had seen her whispering with the other girls. Telling them, probably. Adrienne had lied and her mother was getting worse, not better, and Adrienne felt responsible.

She begged her father to take her to the hospital every day. Rosalie wore head scarves or an old Phillies baseball cap. She and Adrienne drank Pepsi and watched General Hospital and they talked about Adrienne’s friends at school. They did not talk about death, or even love, until the very end. Rosalie made it clear that the worst thing about dying would be leaving Adrienne behind without a mother. Adrienne wanted to ask her mother about the tablet she had found, she wanted to ask about Jonathan, and most of all, she wanted to confess to the insidious lies of the summer, but she didn’t want to upset her mother or make her sicker. And then, the night before Adrienne was supposed to start seventh grade, Rosalie fell into a coma and died.

It was at the reception following the funeral that Adrienne decided to hate Mavis. Mavis called the school to say Adrienne wouldn’t be starting for two weeks. Mavis made the tea sandwiches and her mother’s favorite asparagus roll-ups; Mavis kept her arm around Adrienne’s shoulders and steered her toward this person and that person who wanted to express their condolences. In the days following, Mavis prodded Adrienne to write thank-you notes for flowers and food. Despite these things, or perhaps because of these things, Mavis became the enemy. Adrienne was relieved-happy, even-when, a few weeks later, her father told her they were moving to Maine. Adrienne wanted to leave. The town where she lived had become a minefield-here was the road where Rosalie once got a speeding ticket, here was the expressway that led to the hospital, here was the cemetery where Rosalie was now buried. Adrienne wanted to leave her friends who barely understood what had happened and her teachers who fully understood and treated Adrienne so gingerly it was as though she was the one with the disease. But most of all, Adrienne wanted to leave Mavis.

They sold their house and moved to Maine at the beginning of November. By Christmas, Adrienne’s father still hadn’t hired a hygienist. He was doing every single cleaning himself and it was too much. Finally, he hired a young girl named Curry Jones who had just finished her hygiene courses. Because she was brand-new, Dr. Don figured he could train her to work just like Mavis. Curry Jones was a pretty girl with a permanent scowl. During every cleaning, she dug the probe into the patient’s soft pink gums until blood sprang to the surface. Don fired her after two weeks.

He called Mavis in Philadelphia, he helped her find a school that would take Graham, and she relocated. The first thing she said to Adrienne upon arriving in the new office was, “I couldn’t stand to think of your father working with that sadist.” That, Adrienne later realized, was probably when the affair started, less than six months after Rosalie’s death. Adrienne was thirteen and the twins were eight. Adrienne was called on time and time again to babysit for them while her father and Mavis worked late. Adrienne had actually learned the alphabet in sign language.

Mavis followed them three years later to Iowa and eighteen months after that to Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Don was a good dentist and he was respected and well-loved in each of his practices, but he didn’t have staying power. Before this last move, to the eastern shore, he tried to explain it to Adrienne over the phone. He couldn’t bear to have any place become his home.

“My home was with Rosalie,” he said. One thing Adrienne felt glad about was that even though Don and Mavis had now been together longer than Don and Rosalie, Don did not refer to Mavis as his home. He still loved Adrienne’s mother; he would always love her.

Adrienne didn’t fault her father for his peripatetic nature; since graduating from high school, Adrienne hadn’t stayed anywhere for more than two years. She couldn’t count the number of times she had been asked, “Where’s your home?” And when she couldn’t provide an answer, the well-intentioned soul might ask, “Where does your mother live?” Even at twenty-eight years old, home was where her mother lived. Everywhere. Nowhere.

Adrienne was still in her pajamas, reading and rereading the e-mail from her father and worrying prematurely about a visit from him and Mavis, when the phone rang. Adrienne had heard the growl of the espresso machine a few minutes earlier, and so she knew Caren-and probably Duncan-were awake. The ringing stopped and Caren tapped on the door with her fingernails. She cracked the door and handed in the phone. “It’s for you,” she said. “It’s Thatch.”

Adrienne stared at the phone. She had yet to tell Thatcher the truth about her mother. She wanted to tell him but with all that was happening at the restaurant, there was never a good time. He was going to think she was a mental case.

“Hello?” she said.

“Can you come in?” Thatcher asked. “I know it’s short notice, but I have reconfirmation calls from ten to noon and I forgot I’m supposed to meet with my priest.”

Adrienne might have laughed, but a few nights earlier, a busy Saturday night, Thatcher and Fiona had both been an hour late because they attended five o’clock mass at St. Mary’s. His meeting with a priest seemed to follow in this vein.

“I was there until two last night,” she said. “And I was hoping to go to the beach today.”

“I’ll pay you,” Thatcher said.

“Obviously.”

“I’ll have Fee make you lunch.”

Adrienne smiled into the phone, thinking: teeth, clothes, her ten-speed bike. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

According to her sports watch, it only took her twelve minutes to make it to the fork in the road, but that wasn’t fast enough. She saw Thatcher driving toward her in his silver pickup on his way into town.

“Good, you’re here,” he said, though she was still three hundred yards from the restaurant. “I left the book open for you with a list of people to call to reconfirm. It’s easy. Just remind them of their time and the number in their party and note any changes, any special requests. Birthdays, that kind of thing. Okay?”

Adrienne was dying to ask him why he was going to see a priest. “What if someone calls for a reservation?”

“Write down the name and number and I’ll call back after twelve.”

Adrienne saluted and Thatcher drove away.

Adrienne pedaled toward the Bistro. It was another glorious day-bright sunshine, crisp, clean sea air. She had worn her bikini under her clothes; after Thatcher returned, she was going to lie on the beach in front of the restaurant.

Adrienne had expected the restaurant to be deserted but there were five cars and a big Sid Wainer truck in the parking lot. The delivery truck. Adrienne’s heart trilled at the thought of JZ, whom she hadn’t seen since the first night of bar. A second later she caught a glimpse of him from the back, in uniform, engaged in a heated conversation. Adrienne stopped her bike behind the car she knew to be Fiona’s-a navy blue Range Rover with tinted windows. Though she heard JZ’s voice, she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The back of his delivery truck was open, and in its dim interior she spied crates of lemons and limes, long braids of garlic, cartons of eggs, and a wooden box stamped HAAS AVOCADO-CALIFORNIA. Adrienne dismounted her bike and walked it closer to the front door. As she did, she heard one sentence very clearly. “I love you so much it’s making me weak.”

And then she heard someone answer. “It’s not enough, JZ. It will never be enough.”

Adrienne knew it was Fiona-of course, it was Fiona-but she had to get a visual. She peeked around the next closest car, Mario’s red Durango. From there, she could see them: JZ in his olive drab pants and white uniform shirt, and Fiona in cut-off jean shorts, a pale pink tank top, and pink leather clogs. Both of them looked anguished, close to tears. And then Fiona started to cough, a deep wracking cough that sounded like she was trying to dislodge a piece of concrete from her lungs. It caused her to bend at the waist, one hand bracing her knee, one hand covering her mouth. JZ picked her up under her arms and pressed her tiny body against his. Fiona’s clogs dropped from her feet. Adrienne couldn’t tear her eyes away-she could sense Fiona’s lightness and JZ’s strength, their mutual sadness and rage-God, how long had it been since she felt that way about someone? Ever? Fiona continued to cough, her face hidden in JZ’s shirt.

Adrienne leaned her bike against the geranium-filled dory and proceeded inside. It was, quite possibly, the most heartbreaking embrace she had ever seen.

The Bistro looked different during the day. It seemed tired and exposed, like a lady of the evening roused from sleep the next morning without her makeup. The tables were bare and the white wicker chairs had been flipped upside down on top of them so that the cleaning crew could do the floors. But the cleaning crew hadn’t arrived yet, and the floor was covered with dropped food and sticky puddles.

Since she knew Fiona wasn’t in the kitchen, Adrienne poked her head in. Half the crew was at work prepping. Joe was making the mustard in a twelve-quart stockpot. Adrienne watched him for a minute, in awe of the sheer volume of ingredients: a pound of dry mustard, five cups of vinegar, eight cups of sugar, a whole pound of butter, and a dozen eggs. Joe added sixteen grinds of white pepper from a pepper mill that was longer than his arm. Adrienne blew Joe a kiss, then she poked her head around the corner into pastry.

Mario was rolling out dough. She watched him flour the marble counter and work a huge mass of dough with his Walkman on.

When he saw her, he removed his headphones. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” she said. “What are you making?”

“Pies,” he said. He checked his watch and wiped his brow on his shoulder. “And I have two kinds of ice cream to make. And a batch of marshmallows. And lemon curd. And I have pineapple to roast. And the rolls, but I save those for last.”

“You’re in the weeds, then?” she asked.

“Never me, baby,” he said.

Adrienne wanted to ask him about Fiona and JZ, but she was afraid that either he wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to know or else he would tell Fiona that she’d asked. So instead, Adrienne said, “How’s Delilah?” (It came as no surprise to find out that, after the night of the harem pants and finger cymbals, Mario and Delilah were having a fling.)

“Oh, honey,” he said. He cut twenty perfect rounds out of the dough and draped them into doll-sized pie pans.

“What?” Adrienne said.

“You want me to tell you about the sex?”

“No,” Adrienne said.

“Then what did you ask about Delilah for?”

She was just making conversation. Anything so she could stay and watch Mario work. He moved the pie dough into the freezer and set a timer. Then he began the ice cream. He took a carton of sixty eggs from the walk-in and proceeded to separate the yolks from the whites by sifting the whites through his fingers.

“Some people think sugar is the key to desserts,” Mario said. “But I am here to tell you that if you want a good dessert, you have to start with a fresh egg.” He held out his palm, displaying a whole, perfect, bright orange yolk, which he slipped into his Hobart mixer.

“What do you do with the whites?” Adrienne asked. “Throw them away?”

“I use them in the marshmallows,” he said. “Have you ever tasted one of my marshmallows?”

She shook her head.

“Lighter than air,” he said. “I make the best marshmallows in the country, maybe the world.”

“Okay, Marshmallow King,” she said. “I have to get to work.”

Mario replaced his headphones and separated another egg while doing the samba.

Back in the kitchen, Hector was peeling and deveining shrimp with a tool that looked like a plastic dentist’s probe. He had a mountain of shrimp on his left and a mountain on his right-uncleaned and cleaned. He tossed the shells into a stockpot.

“That’s a lot of shrimp,” Adrienne said.

“Shrimp bisque,” Hector said without looking up. “Shrimp toast, shrimp for fondue.”

The oldest Subiaco, Antonio, a man with a mustache and gray hair around his ears, trimmed lamb. He worked so fast Adrienne feared he would cut himself, especially as he seemed intent on listening to what sounded like a baseball game being broadcast in Spanish on the Bose radio. The baseball game broke for commercial and Antonio called out, “Where’s the steak?”

“It’s still on the truck,” somebody answered.

“Well, go get it, Louis.”

“No fucking way,” Louis said. “They’re out there fighting.”

They’re out there fighting. Adrienne hung around for a beat to see if anyone would respond to this, but no one did, and Adrienne took this as her cue to leave. As she stepped into the dining room, she bumped into Fiona. Fiona alone, her eyes pink and watery. She stopped when she saw Adrienne and brushed an imaginary hair from her face.

“Thank you for covering the phones,” Fiona said. “I know I’m supposed to make you lunch, but I can’t today. I have to get out of here for a while. I’ll ask Antonio to do it. You know Antonio? He’s my sous.”

Adrienne smiled. “Sure. Whatever.”

“What would you like?”

“Anything,” Adrienne said. “I don’t mean to complicate your day.”

Fiona coughed-briefly, dryly-into her hand. “Fine,” she said. “One anything. I’ll have him bring it out to you in an hour or so.”

Thatcher had left a list of fifty names and numbers. Eighteen reservations for first seating, thirty-two for second. About half the reservations were people staying at hotels and inns-three reservations from the Beach Club, two from the White Elephant, two from the Pineapple Inn. Next came a bunch of names that Adrienne, after a week of work, recognized: Parrish (six o’clock, of course, it was Tuesday), Egan, Montero, Kennedy (no relation, though Mr. Kennedy was one of the investors, and Adrienne saw the word “comp” next to his name in the book), Jamieson, Walker, and Lefroy. This last name was underlined and followed by three exclamation points, and Adrienne realized that it was Tyler the busboy’s parents-his father the health inspector. That’s right, she remembered now: The cleaning crew was coming in late today so that everything had a better chance of staying spic-and-span. The staff was eating family meal out on the beach, picnic-style-sloppy joes, potato salad, and root beer handmade by Henry Subiaco, the sauté cook. If the root beer tasted good, Henry was going to try to market it next year when the restaurant was closed. Next year, when the restaurant was closed, Adrienne might have finally figured out what was going on while the restaurant was open. She glanced up to see Fiona rush out the front door. Through the window, Adrienne watched her climb, climb, climb (Pammy Ipp up the sycamore tree) into the cab of JZ’s truck. They were in love. Adrienne felt victorious about this knowledge, despite the fact that she would now have to erase JZ from her shortlist of possible men to date.

The work Thatcher left seemed very straightforward. Taking reservations was another story; that involved the calculus of who fit where and what time and-most crucially-at which table. Apparently some guests got their feelings hurt over where in the restaurant they sat, so this was Thatcher’s department. Adrienne called the first name on the list: Devlin. Next to the name Devlin, it said “birthday/dessert-candle/no chocolate.”

A woman picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Good morning,” Adrienne said. “Is this Mrs. Devlin?”

“Why, yes it is.” The woman sounded both wary and hopeful, like maybe Adrienne was calling from Publishers Clearing House and maybe she’d won something.

“This is Adrienne calling from the Blue Bistro.”

“Yes?” More hopeful now than wary.

“Just calling to confirm your reservation tonight for a party of six at six. It’s somebody’s birthday?”

“It’s my birthday,” she said. “But I didn’t know we had reservations at the bistro. For six at six, you say? I hope we’re not bringing the kids. Maybe you’d better talk to my husband, Brian. He’s right here.”

During the switch of the phone, Adrienne checked the notes after the Devlins’ name: “birthday/dessert-candle/no chocolate.” Nowhere, nowhere, did it say “surprise,” and yet that was clearly what it was. Adrienne had single-handedly ruined the woman’s birthday surprise.

Mr. Devlin was appropriately gruff. “Thanks a lot,” he said.

The next three phone calls were easy-Adrienne left clear, concise messages on voice mail for the guests who were out swimming or golfing or shopping from the Bartlett’s Farm truck on Main Street. Adrienne called the White Elephant and confirmed for those guests. She called Mack Peterson at the Beach Club, who was also on her shortlist of potential dates, but he showed no special interest in the fact that it was Adrienne calling rather than Thatcher. He was all business. “We have a guest who thinks she may have left her sunglasses there last night,” he said. “I guess they’re Chanel sunglasses and très cher. Last name Cerruci.”

Adrienne checked the shelf inside the podium. “I… don’t… see them here,” she said. She scanned the book from the night before to see if Thatcher had written a note about sunglasses. “Well,” she said, “the Cerrucis sat down last night at nine fifteen. What are the chances that Mrs. Cerruci was wearing her sunglasses at nine fifteen?”

“Oh, Adrienne,” Mack said wearily. “You just don’t understand the people I deal with all day.”

Adrienne glanced at the disheveled dining room. “The cleaning crew hasn’t been here yet,” she said. “I’ll call you if we find them.”

“Thank you,” Mack said, and he hung up.

Adrienne wrote herself a note-“Sunglasses”-while she dialed the Parrishes’ number. Darla picked up.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Darla. It’s Adrienne from the Blue Bistro.”

“Oh, you sweetheart!”

“Just calling to confirm two people at six tonight,” Adrienne said.

There was a long pause on the other end. Oh, God, Adrienne thought. What now?

“We have Wolfie,” Darla said.

“I’m sorry?”

“We have Wolfie, our grandson, for the next two weeks. I told Thatcher this! To change the next two weeks of reservations to include Wolfie. I told him! Oh, wait, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’m thinking of that darling Mateo at the Boarding House. We eat there every Wednesday. Sorry, sorry. The next four reservations we’ll be a party of three because of Wolfie. He’s six years old. And here’s the thing: He’s a picky eater.”

“Okay,” Adrienne said. Next to the Parrishes’ name, she erased “2” and penciled in “3” with an asterisk next to the three that said, “Wolfie-picky eater.”

“A very picky eater.”

Adrienne remembered babysitting for Mavis’s twins. Graham would eat anything she put in front of him, but Coleman, the one who could hear, would eat only mayonnaise sandwiches.

“What does he eat?” Adrienne asked. “I can make a note for the kitchen.”

“He likes Froot Loops,” Darla said. “And a certain kind of yogurt that is bright pink and has a dinosaur on the package.”

“Is that it?” Adrienne asked. She was pretty sure cereal and children’s yogurt weren’t going to come out of the kitchen, even for the Parrishes. “Does he eat French fries?”

Darla laughed. “Of course! I’m almost certain. Let’s just get him French fries, then. Will you write it down?”

“I’m writing it down,” Adrienne said.

“It’s just… well, he lives with his mother.”

“Say no more,” Adrienne said, as if she understood what that was supposed to mean. Though really, she didn’t want to hear it. She liked Darla and wanted to keep it that way. “We’ll see you at six.”

At eleven thirty Antonio, the sous chef, brought Adrienne her lunch. She was on the phone with Mrs. Lefroy, otherwise she would have kissed the man. The plate looked gorgeous. As soon as Adrienne hung up, she poked her head into the kitchen to say “Thank you, gracias, thank you.” Antonio waved. Adrienne sat at a table in the bar and dug in. This was Antonio’s interpretation of “anything”: succulent black olives, sun-dried tomatoes and marinated artichokes, three kinds of salami, tiny balls of fresh mozzarella, roasted cherry tomatoes, some kind of creamy eggplant dip that made her swoon, and a basket of warm focaccia. Miraculously, the phone stayed quiet while she ate. She had two calls remaining and she was done.

She finished her lunch, took her plate into the kitchen, and returned to the podium to make the phone calls. One to the Wauwinet Inn, one to the message machine of a beauty salon; the woman who cut Thatcher’s hair was coming in at nine. Then, just as Adrienne took her first longing look at the beach, Thatcher’s truck pulled into the parking lot.

Adrienne greeted him smiling widely. It had been a good morning.

“You have something in your teeth,” he said.

She bolted for the ladies’ room. Sure enough, tomato skin.

“My worst nightmare,” she said when she emerged. “With my father and all.”

“How did the calls go?”

“Fine,” she said. “I ruined Jennifer Devlin’s birthday. You didn’t tell me it was a surprise.”

“Oops,” he said.

“The Parrishes are bringing their grandson.”

He winced. “Is it that time of year already?” he said. “What does he eat these days?”

“French fries. Darla said French fries.”

Thatcher shook his head. “We served him French fries last year. He fed them to the seagulls. She’s forgotten.”

“There’s a list of people for you to call back. A man named Leon Cross called on the private line to say it was urgent and top secret.”

“It’s always urgent and top secret with Leon,” Thatcher said. “Anything else?”

“I had a delicious lunch.”

“Good. Fiona made it for you?”

“Uh, Antonio, I think.”

“Okay,” Thatcher said. Adrienne thought he looked pale and a little distracted but she was not going to ask him about the priest.

“Can I go?” she asked.

“Wait,” he said. “I have something for you.” He held up a white shopping bag. “Here.”

Now Adrienne was nervous. She peeked in the bag. Clothes? She pulled out a blue dress made of washed silk that was so soft it felt like skin. Size six. There was another dress in a champagne color-the same cut, very simple, a slip dress to just above the knee. There was a third outfit-a tank and skirt in the same silk, bottle green.

“These are for me?”

“Let’s see how they look.”

She took the bag into the ladies’ room and slipped the blue dress on over her bikini. It fell over Adrienne’s body like a dress in a dream-and it would look even better when she had the right underwear. So here was her look. She checked the side of the shopping bag. The clothes had come from a store called Dessert, on India Street, and Adrienne recognized the name of the store as the one owned by the chef’s wife, the redhead who had been so kind during soft opening. If you come in, I’d love to dress you, free of charge. So maybe Thatch didn’t pay for these clothes. Still, it was weird. Weird that Thatcher had told her she needed a look, weird that he (or the redhead) had perfectly identified it, and weird that she now had to model it for him, proving him right. She stepped out into the dining room.

He gazed at her. And then he gave a long, low whistle. That did it: Her face heated up, the skin on her arms tingled. She had never felt so desirable in all her life.

“Tomorrow’s your night off?” he said.

She nodded. Wednesday was her night off. Last Wednesday, because everyone she knew on the island worked at the restaurant, she stayed home, ate frozen ravioli, and watched a rerun of The West Wing.

“I scheduled myself off, too,” he said. “I want to take you out for dinner.”

This stunned her so much she may have actually gasped. “Who’s going to work?” she asked.

“Caren,” he said. “She loves to do it. And we only have seventy on the book.”

Adrienne ran her hands down the sides of her new dress. The silk was irresistible.

“Will you go out with me?” he asked.

Rule Three: Exercise good judgment about men! Dating her boss did not seem wise. It seemed dangerous, more dangerous than getting entangled with Mario. And yet, she wanted to go. Rules, after all, were made to be…

“Sure,” she said.

When Adrienne saw Thatcher at work that night, she thought things would be different between them. But Thatcher was preoccupied by the Lefroys’ reservation. It wasn’t a health inspector visit, but he wanted the restaurant to be clean. He wanted it to sparkle. And so, when Adrienne arrived, expecting compliments on the new champagne-colored dress, he set her to work polishing glasses and buffing the silver with the servers. At the menu meeting, he demonstrated the way he wanted the busboys to use the crumbers (and they were short a busboy since Tyler would be eating tonight with his parents). The staff ate family meal on the beach and Thatcher made them brush every grain of sand from their person and wash their feet in a bucket before they were allowed back in the restaurant.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Thatcher assigned Adrienne to the Parrishes during first seating.

“I want you to really watch them,” he said. “Anticipate their needs. Especially Wolf’s.”

“It sounds like you’re asking me to babysit,” Adrienne said.

“We’re going to do what it takes to give Darla and Grayson some peace,” Thatcher said. “We want them to enjoy their meal, yes or no?”

The Parrishes arrived fifteen minutes late, which was unheard-of, and what this meant was that instead of getting them squared away early on, they were smushed at the entrance with three other parties who needed to be seated, and two gorgeous blond women who showed up without a reservation. Adrienne directed the Swedish bikini duo to the bar, sat the Devlins at table twenty-five, and led a deuce staying at the White Elephant under the awning. Then she returned to the podium to properly greet the Parrishes.

“Sorry,” Adrienne said.

Grayson held up a palm. “It’s our fault,” he said. “We had a little trouble getting out of the house.”

Darla was holding a little boy’s hand. “This is Wolfie,” Darla said.

Wolf had white-blond hair and eyes that were mottled and puffy. His breathing was hiccupy. Adrienne crouched down. Despite her years of babysitting the twins, she did not consider herself someone who was good with children and yet now she wanted to succeed, if only to impress Thatcher.

“Hi, Wolf,” she said. “My name is Adrienne.”

He harrumphed and locked his arms over his chest.

Darla smiled at him with all the love in the world, then whispered to Adrienne, “He’s not having a good night.”

Adrienne led the Parrishes to table twenty, and Bruno appeared seconds later with their drinks.

Adrienne pulled Bruno off to the side. “Order of frites, pronto,” she said. “Wolfie’s not having a good night and Thatcher wants Mr. and Mrs. P to be able to eat in their accustomed silence.”

“Bitchy!” Bruno said. He paused. “Is that a new dress?”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. “Thank you for noticing.”

Caren approached Adrienne with a stone face. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Why?”

“You put those girls at the bar.”

“What girls?” Adrienne checked the bar. Ah, yes, the girls. They were laughing, and flashing Duncan with their remarkable cleavage. Adrienne instantly understood the problem, but come on! She was busy and they were all adults here. Well, everyone except for Wolfie.

“They didn’t have a reservation,” Adrienne said.

“You could have put them at three.”

“I guess I could have, but…”

“They’re all over him,” Caren said. “And he’s just eating it up. Oh, and look. They ordered apple martinis. What an insipid drink.”

“Okay, well, I’m sorry. I have to put a…”

Thatcher passed by, touching Adrienne’s arm. He raised one pale eyebrow.

“I have to put a VIP order in,” Adrienne said to Caren.

“Champagne?” Thatcher said.

“I’ll get your champagne,” Caren said. “Let me get it.” She strode toward the bar.

Bruno breezed by with a huge plate of fries. “These are for Dennis the Menace,” he said. “You want to deliver?”

“I have to put their VIP order in,” Adrienne said.

“Already done,” Bruno said. He handed Adrienne the plate of fries. “You go, girl.”

The Parrishes were sitting in silence, the elder two focused on their drinks while Wolf lay splayed across the wicker chair, his face sullen.

“Fries!” Adrienne said brightly. She took the seat next to Wolfie, but he couldn’t be convinced to eat even one. She tried to lead by example, eating one fry, then another, then another. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said.

“Please, Wolfie,” Darla said. “Just try one. Just one for Gam. Please.”

“I want yogurt,” he said.

Grayson finished his Stoli tonic and flagged Bruno for another. “Why don’t you take Wolf down to the water, Adrienne?”

“To the water?” Adrienne said. She considered informing Grayson Parrish that she had work to do. The restaurant was buzzing around her. Thatcher sat tables, Elliott and Joe recited specials, Gage and Roy poured water and delivered doughnuts. Rex played “Happy Birthday” as Spillman popped a bottle of champagne for the Devlins. Adrienne wanted to get up and join the adult activity.

Bruno came to her rescue. He eased up alongside Adrienne as he served apps to the adjoining table and whispered, “You’re needed at the bar.”

“I’m needed at the bar,” Adrienne told the Parrishes. “I’ll be right back.”

At the bar, the blondes were splitting a VIP order, and at the far end, by the cherries and the citrus, Adrienne’s champagne beckoned. She took a long swill, appraising the situation. Duncan was MIA. It was much commented upon that Duncan had the world’s sturdiest bladder-he never used the restroom during service. Christo swaggered up to Adrienne and said, “I need a vodka grapefruit and a glass of zin.”

“Who do I look like?”

“The assistant manager,” he said.

“Where’s Duncan?” Adrienne asked.

Christo shrugged. “I just work here, lady. You gonna get my drinks?”

One of the blondes whipped around. She was one of the most attractive women Adrienne had ever seen, if judged by the standards that certain American men tended to use. Lots of natural blond, lots of natural tan, lots of natural breast.

“I think his girlfriend’s pissed at him,” she said. “She snatched him away.”

The other blonde, who was wearing a blue sequined halter top, sipped her apple martini. “We were just talking to him.”

“So he’s gone?” Adrienne said. “And where’s Delilah?”

“Night off,” Christo said. He grinned at the blondes.

“Okay, fine,” Adrienne said. She was thinking many things at once: She was the assistant manager, this was-if looked at from a very warped and immature point of view-partially her fault, and it had always seemed like fun to be a bartender. Not to mention it gave her an excuse to blow off the Parrishes. Adrienne slipped behind the bar. She felt like she was about to drive an expensive race car. Look at all the stuff-the sink, the fridge, the rows of mixers, the gun, the fruit, the bottles in the well, the bottles of wine. She picked up a bottle of red and scrutinized the label.

“Zin, you said?”

“Zin.”

“Well, this is a Syrah,” Adrienne said. She eyed the podium. It was clear. “I wonder where the zin is.”

“I’d like it this century,” Christo said, then he checked to see if either of the blondes had laughed. No such luck. “Ah, fuck it, I’ll be back.”

“Adrienne!”

Thatcher’s hand smacked the blue granite. She felt like, well, she felt like she’d just been caught in her parents’ liquor cabinet. One of her heels snagged on the rubber hex mat and she stumbled backward. Her ass hit the rack of bottles behind her.

“I’m trying to help,” she said.

“Table twenty,” he hissed. “Take Wolf to the water.”

Wolf threw the fries, one by one, to the seagulls. Adrienne found herself surrounded by big rats with wings, cawing and pecking. She glanced longingly back at the restaurant, at Grayson eating his chips and dip, at Duncan, returned to his post, wooing his new lady friends. When the fries were gone, Wolf threw rocks in the water.

“Don’t you want to go back up?” Adrienne asked. He didn’t answer. She tried another tack. “Where do you live?” He didn’t answer. “Cat got your tongue?” she asked. He looked at her quizzically, and she could see his mind working: Was she talking about a real cat? But he wasn’t curious enough to ask. He sat in the wet sand, shed his dock shoes, rolled up the pant legs of his khakis, and waded into the water. Adrienne wished she had the words to reel him back in. She was afraid to turn around to face Grayson and Darla. What if Wolf went under? She couldn’t very well return him to his grandparents soaking wet. She wandered down the beach, saying, “I hope the sharks aren’t out there tonight, Wolf. Or the stinging jellyfish.” That got him out, though his pant legs were wrinkled and his seat was damp and sandy.

“Do you want to go back up?” Adrienne asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Don’t you want to be with your grandparents?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I miss my mom.”

“I miss my mom, too,” Adrienne said.

Wolf tossed another rock. “Where is she?”

“She’s dead,” Adrienne said. It was easy to tell the truth to a child. Wolf said nothing, but he let her take his hand and lead him back to the restaurant. The footbath they had used after family meal came in handy. Adrienne rinsed Wolf’s feet and squidged them back into his dock shoes. Then, with her sitting next to him, he choked down a roll smothered with butter.

Darla was elated. “I’ve never seen him eat like this before,” she said. “Can we bring you home with us?”

At the end of first seating, Grayson tipped Adrienne two hundred dollars. She tucked the bills into her change purse.

“That,” she said to Thatcher, “was above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Nothing is above and beyond the call of duty,” he said. “Not here.”

No sooner had the Parrishes walked out the door than Caren yanked Adrienne into the wine cave.

“They’re still here,” Caren said.

“Who?”

“Those girls. They finished dinner twenty minutes ago and they’re still here.”

“You need to calm down,” Adrienne said.

“I can’t handle this,” Caren said. She plopped down on an untapped keg of beer. “I cannot handle being the bartender’s girlfriend.”

“He’s not doing anything wrong,” Adrienne said.

“He’s flirting,” Caren said. “You notice he put in a VIP order? When I saw that, I flipped. Two nobodies, never been here before, and he VIPs them? I let him have it.”

“What did he say?”

“He admitted he was flirting. He said it was part of his job.”

“Well, it is, sort of, isn’t it?”

“You’re not helping!” Caren said. “You put them at the bar in the first place! You should have put them on three. I would have waited on them myself and they’d be at the Rose and Crown by now.”

“Okay,” Adrienne said. “Next time there are beautiful unescorted women without a reservation, I will put them at three.”

“Do you promise?” Caren said. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” Adrienne said.

Second seating brought the Lefroys-Mr. and Mrs.-along with Tyler and his younger sister, a girl of about thirteen who had the worst case of adolescence Adrienne had ever seen. She was a chubby girl stuffed into a pink satin dress that would have looked awful on anyone; she wore braces and glasses and had greasy hair of no determinate color forced back in an unforgiving ponytail. Tyler looked mortified to be seen with her, not to mention his parents: Mrs. Lefroy had dyed blond hair and the defined biceps of a woman who spent all her free time at the gym, and Mr. Lefroy was easily six foot five, balding, bespectacled, lurching.

Thatcher slapped Tyler on the back and made some perfunctory (and much exaggerated) comment about what a stellar employee he was. Then he handed four menus to Adrienne and said, “Seat them. Table twenty.”

“I never eat out,” Mr. Lefroy said on his way through the dining room.

“No?” Adrienne said. “And why is that?”

“Well, when you’ve seen what I’ve seen…”

“On the job, you mean?”

“The cross-contamination dangers alone,” he said.

“Dad,” Tyler said. “Please shut up. People are trying to eat.”

Adrienne let the family settle, then she handed out menus. “Enjoy your meal,” she said.

The Lefroys’ table was assigned to Spillman, but within minutes he found Adrienne at the bar, where she was drinking her champagne and trying to eavesdrop on Duncan and the two bombshells.

“Lefroy wants you,” Spillman said.

“You’re kidding.”

“He wants your opinion on the menu,” Spillman said. “My opinion apparently doesn’t matter.”

Adrienne returned to table twenty with her champagne. She complimented the sister, Rochelle, on a rhinestone bracelet she was wearing and she asked Tyler about his finals. He made a flicking motion with his hand. “Aced them.”

Mr. Lefroy pointed to Adrienne’s glass. “Now, what’s that you’re drinking?”

“A glass of the Laurent-Perrier brut rosé.”

Mr. Lefroy looked to his wife. “You want one of those?”

“Sure,” Mrs. Lefroy said. “It’s my lucky day.”

“One of those,” Mr. Lefroy said. “And what is fresh on this menu?”

“It’s all fresh,” Adrienne said. “The fish is delivered every afternoon, the vegetables are hand-selected by our…”

“That’s nice,” Mr. Lefroy said. “But what is really fresh?”

When Adrienne returned to the podium, Thatcher was grinning.

“What?” she said.

“Lefroy can’t keep his eyes off you.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s because you’re so damn fetching in that dress.”

For the first time all night, Adrienne felt the electricity that had buzzed up her spine that morning when Thatcher whistled. She was beginning to think she’d imagined it.

The Lefroy family had a wonderful meal. In the end, they all ordered the steak, which was not fresh, but aged, though Adrienne did not point this out. Adrienne asked Thatcher if he wanted to comp the meal, as it was Tyler’s family.

“I can’t,” Thatcher said. “The man is the health inspector.”

The two blondes unstuck themselves from the bar at ten o’clock. Off to the Boarding House, they said.

“Cute bartender,” the girl in the blue halter said. “He needs to lose the uptight girlfriend.”

“Okay, bye-bye,” Adrienne said. She was relieved to see them go. It had been another very, very long night, and it wasn’t over yet. At eleven, Thatcher helped her bounce, and this was something new. Adrienne relayed the saga of Caren and Duncan as they watched the headlights pull in.

“The bar is popular for two reasons,” he said. “Duncan and our indifference.”

“Our indifference?”

“Well, Fiona’s indifference. She hates the bar. She think it’s all about money.”

“Isn’t it all about money?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

At midnight, the crackers came out of the kitchen: parmesan rosemary. Adrienne took a handful and offered the basket to Thatch. He nodded at the kitchen door. “I’m going to eat,” he said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”

“Where are we going?” Adrienne asked.

“Where aren’t we going?” he said.