Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“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!