Сьюзен Виггс - Summer By The Sea

He held out the ring box, opening the hinged lid to reveal the precious offering. His hand shook a little. He still didn’t know for sure if she would have him.

Silly man, thought Rosa. Didn’t he know the answer would be—

“Table seven sent back the risotto,” said Leo, the headwaiter, holding a thick china bowl in front of Rosa.

“Leo, for crying out loud,” she said, craning her neck to see past him. “Can’t you tell I’m busy here?” She pushed him aside in time to watch her best friend, Linda Lipschitz, stand up from the table and fling her arms around Jason.

“Yes,” Linda said, although from across the dining room Rosa had to read her lips. “Yes, absolutely.”

Atta girl, thought Rosa, her eyes misting.

Leo followed her gaze to the embracing couple. “Sweet,” he said. “Now what about my risotto?”

“Take it back to the kitchen,” Rosa said. “I knew the mango chutney was a bad idea, anyway, and you can tell Butch I said so.” She let Leo deal with it as she walked across the dining room. Linda was wreathed in smiles and tears. Jason looked positively blissful and, perhaps, weak with relief.

“Rosa, you won’t believe what just happened,” Linda said.

Rosa dabbed at her eyes. “I think I can guess.”

Linda held out her hand, showing off a glittering marquise-cut diamond in a gold cathedral setting.

“Oh, honey.” Rosa hugged Linda and gave Jason a kiss on the cheek. “Congratulations, you two,” she said. “I’m so happy for you.”

She’d helped Jason pick out the ring, told him Linda’s size, selected the music and menu, ordered Linda’s favorite flowers for the table. They’d set the scene in every possible way. Rosa was good at things like this—creating events around the most special moments in people’s lives.

Other people’s lives.

Linda was babbling, already making plans. “We’ll drive over to see Jason’s folks on Sunday, and then get everyone together to set a date—”

“Slow down, my friend,” Rosa said with a laugh. “How about you dance with your fiancé?”

Linda turned to Jason, her eyes shining. “My fiancé. God, I love the sound of that.”

Rosa gave the couple a gentle shove toward the dance floor. As he pulled Linda into his arms, Jason looked over her shoulder and mouthed a thank-you to Rosa. She waved, dabbed at her eyes again and headed for the kitchen. Back to work.

She was smiling as she crossed the nonskid mat and entered the kitchen through the swinging doors. Quiet elegance gave way to controlled chaos. Glaring lights and flaming grills illuminated the crush of prep workers, line cooks and the sous-chef hurrying back and forth between stainless steel counters. Waiters tapped their feet, checking orders before stepping through the soundproofed doors that protected the serenity of the dining room from male shouts and clattering dishes.

The revved-up energy of the kitchen was fueled by testosterone, but Rosa knew how to hold her own here. She walked through a gauntlet of aproned men with huge knives or vats of boiling water, pivoting around each other in their nightly ballet. A stream from a hose roared against the dishwashing sink, and hot drafts from the Imperial grill licked like dragon’s breath at precisely 1010°F.

“Wait,” she said as a prep worker passed by with a plated steak that had been liberally sprinkled with tripepper confetti.

“What?” The worker, a recent hire from Newport, paused at the counter.

“We don’t garnish the steaks here.”

“Come again?”

“This is premium meat, our signature cut. Serve it without the garnish.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, and set the plate on the counter for a server to pick up.

She planted herself in front of him. “Go back and replate the steak, please. No garnish.”

“But—”

Rosa glared at him with fire in her eyes. Don’t back down, she cautioned herself. Don’t blink.

“You got it,” he said, scowling as he returned to the prep area.

“Well?” asked Lorenzo “Butch” Buchello, whose fresh Italian cuisine was drawing in patrons from as far away as New York and Boston.

“Yep.” Rosa grinned and selected a serrated knife from the array affixed to a steel grid on the wall. “Went down on one knee and everything.”

Neither of them stopped working as they chatted. He was coordinating dessert while she arranged fluffy white peasant bread in a basket.

“Good for them,” said Butch.

“They’re really in love,” Rosa said. “I got all choked up, watching them.”

“Ever the incurable romantic,” Butch said, piping chocolate ganache around the profiteroles.

“Ha, there’s a cure for it,” Shelly Warren cut in, whisking behind them to pick up her order.

“It’s called marriage,” Rosa said.

Shelly gave her a high-five. She had been married for ten years and claimed that her night job waiting tables was an escape from endless hours of watching the Golf Channel until her eyes glazed over.

“Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Rosa,” said Butch. “In fact, what about that guy you were dating—Dean what’s his name?”

“Oh, actually, he did want to get married,” she explained.

Butch’s eyes lit up. “Hey! Well, there you go—”

“Just not to me.”

His face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right. He joins a long and venerable line of suitors who didn’t suit.”

“I’m starting to see a pattern here,” Butch said. He took a wire whisk to a bowl of custard and Marsala, creating an order of his famous zabaglione. “You run them off and then say they didn’t suit.”

She finished up with the bread baskets. “Not tonight, Butch. This is Linda’s moment. Send them a tiramisu and your congratulations, okay?”

She headed back to the dining room and went over to the podium, which faced the main entrance. It was a perfect Friday night at Celesta’s-by-the-Sea. All the tables in the multilevel dining room were oriented toward the view of the endless sea, and were set with fresh flowers, crisp linens, good china and flatware.

This was the sort of scene she used to dream about back when the place was a run-down pizza joint. Couples danced to the smooth beat of a soft blues number, the drummer’s muted cymbals shimmering with a sensual resonance. Out on the deck, people stood listening to the waves and looking at the stars. For the past three years running, Celesta’s had been voted “Best Place to Propose” by Coast magazine, and tonight was a perfect example of the reason for its charm—sea breezes, sand and surf, a natural backdrop for the award-winning dining room.

“Did you cry?” asked Vince, the host, stepping up beside her. They’d known each other since childhood—she, Vince and Linda. They’d gone through school together, inseparable. Now he was the best-looking maître d’ in South County. He was tall and slender, flawlessly groomed in an Armani suit and Gucci shoes. Rimless glasses highlighted his darkly-lashed eyes.

“Of course I cried,” Rosa said. “Didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a fond smile in Linda’s direction. “A little. I love seeing her so happy.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“So that’s two of us down, one to go,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Not you, too.”

“Butch has already been at you?”

“What do you two do, lie awake at night discussing my love life?”

“No, sweetie. Your lack of one.”

“Give me a break, okay?” She spoke through a smile as a party of four left the restaurant. She and Vince had perfected the art of bickering while appearing utterly congenial.

“Please come again,” Vince said, his expression so warm that the two women did a double-take. Glancing down at the computer screen discreetly set beneath the surface of the podium, he checked the status of their tab. “Three bottles of Antinori.”