Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“This place is not to be believed,” Mavis said. “And our hotel room! Adrienne, doll, you are a marvel. It’s the nicest room I have ever stayed in.”

“Good,” Adrienne said. “I’m glad you like it.”

“We don’t like it,” Don said. “We love it.” He pulled a chair out for Mavis, then he sat. Adrienne stood behind them with the menus. Something still was not right; she felt artificial, like she was playacting. But no-this was her job. She was the assistant manager of this restaurant and had been for two months.

When she handed Mavis a menu, she saw the ring. One emerald-cut diamond on a gold band. Immediately, Adrienne thought: Mavis is engaged. And then she nearly cried out. She closed her eyes. Okay, she thought. It’s okay. She pictured her mother’s face-one eyebrow raised suspiciously, the face Adrienne got when she had asked for permission to wear eye shadow. When Adrienne opened her eyes, her vision was splotchy and she was glad she hadn’t eaten anything because suddenly it felt like someone was holding her upside down under water. She wavered a little and her father took her by the wrist.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Sorry,” Adrienne said. In her peripheral vision, she saw Spillman approaching. “I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“Good evening,” Spillman said. “You’re Adrienne’s parents?”

Dr. Don stood up to shake Spillman’s hand while Mavis smiled at her Limoges charger. Adrienne had lost language. This is my father and his friend Mavis. His hygienist, Mavis. His fiancée, Mavis.

“We’ll have champagne,” Adrienne heard her father say. “You’ll sit and have a glass with us, Ade?”

“Actually… no,” she said. They wanted to tell her. They had come all the way to Nantucket to tell her in person. Meanwhile, Adrienne wished her father had simply sent an e-mail. That way she could have digested the news privately. But no-they were going to make her sit through it here, in front of them, while she was supposed to be working. She turned around-there was a cluster of people at the podium. “I have to go,” she said. “Because remember, Dad, I told you…”

Dr. Don smiled and shooed her off. “Go. I want to watch you.”

Suddenly it was like Adrienne was twelve years old again, in the school play. Peppermint Patty in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Adrienne’s mother had been in the hospital so Dr. Don came to the play with-yes-Mavis. As if to make up for Rosalie’s absence, the two of them had paid extra close attention. After the play was over, they commented on Adrienne’s every gesture; they remembered each of her eight stiff lines.

Act natural, Adrienne had thought then, and now. Leigh Stanford and her husband were in with friends from Guam-where did they find these far-flung friends?-and Thatcher’s hairdresser, Pam, was in with a date. Adrienne sat a party of six women, then a couple celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. When Adrienne glanced over at her father and Mavis, they were sipping Laurent-Perrier, studying their menus. Her father caught her eye and waved. Adrienne went to the bar and reclaimed her second glass of champagne.

Charlie, Duncan’s friend, owner of the gold marijuana leaf necklace, was seated at the bar drinking a Whale’s Tale Ale. He gave Adrienne the up-down, as he did every time he came in. It was one of a dozen things about the man that made Adrienne shiver with dislike. He smelled like very strong soap.

“This is her roommate?” Charlie asked Duncan.

“Yes,” Duncan said. He smirked at Adrienne. “I was just telling Charlie about the stunt Caren pulled.”

“It’s not a stunt, ” Adrienne said. “She went to a concert.”

“With another guy,” Charlie said.

“A friend of hers,” Adrienne said. She glanced back over her shoulder at her father. He waved. Scene where Adrienne defends her roommate’s decision to share a hotel room with another man. “You have women in here every night throwing themselves at you. You hardly have a right to get angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Duncan said. “But I’m on to her.”

“What’s the guy’s name again?” Charlie asked.

“Tate something,” Duncan said.

“Tate,” Charlie said. “Goddamned prep school name if I ever heard one.”

“What I don’t understand,” Duncan said, “is why they’re sharing a room. If he’s so rich and well-connected, he should be able to afford two rooms.”

“He didn’t want two rooms,” Charlie said. “He wants to be in the same room with your bitch.”

Adrienne glanced at Duncan to see how he would react to Caren’s being so designated, and Duncan looked at her, possibly for the same reason. Adrienne shrugged.

“You eating tonight?” she asked Charlie.

“I need a menu.”

“Do you want something other than the steak?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Why don’t you bring me a menu?”

Duncan pulled a menu out from behind the bar. Charlie pretended to study it, his brow wrinkled and threatening.

Joe set a highball glass on the bar. “The woman who ordered this asked for Finlandia on the rocks.”

“That is Finlandia,” Duncan said.

“She swore it was Grey Goose,” Joe said.

“It is Grey Goose,” Duncan admitted. His neck started to redden around the collar of his shirt. “We’re out of Finlandia. I can’t believe she could tell the difference.”

“She could tell the difference,” Joe said. “She’s a serious vodka drinker.”

“Tell her we’re out of Finlandia,” Duncan said. “We have the Grey Goose or Triple Eight.”

“You’re making me look bad,” Joe said.

Duncan threw his hands in the air. “What is this? Beat-up-the-bartender night?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said to Joe. “Lay off my friend here. His woman skipped town.”

Thatcher came up behind Adrienne. “The VIP order is up for your dad. Would you let Paco know we need three more?”

“Sure,” Adrienne said. She turned to Charlie and eyed his necklace. It was the dog tag of his stupidity. “Do you know what you’d like?” she asked. “I’m headed for the kitchen. I could put your order in.”

“I’ll have the steak,” he said. “Well-done. If there’s even a little bit of pink, I’ll be sick. I swear.”

“Well, we don’t want that,” Adrienne said. She checked, one more time, on her father. He waved.

The kitchen was ridiculously hot. Fiona was drenched in sweat. “We’re short our dishwasher,” she said. “Jojo went to see the Rolling Stones last night in the big city and hasn’t managed to find his way home. I don’t know why one of these clowns didn’t go with him, but they’ll pay. Paco, when you’re done with the chips, you’re dish bitch. And Eddie, I don’t want to hear one word about the weeds from you.”

Paco and Eddie groaned.

“Save the whining for your cousin,” Fiona said. “Maybe next time you’ll clue him in on how to find the bus station.” She glanced over at Adrienne, who was scribbling out a ticket for the bar: one steak, killed. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Adrienne lied. She held up three fingers for Paco, who started slicing potatoes, muttering curses about Jojo. There was one order of chips and dip up. Adrienne took it.

“That’s for your parents?” Fiona asked.

“My father,” Adrienne said. The explaining was becoming tedious. “And his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend,” Fiona said.

“Yes.” There, she’d said it, and it sounded a lot less bizarre than hygienist. Girlfriend, fiancée, did it really matter? Adrienne’s mother had been dead for sixteen years; her father deserved to be happy. Getting upset about this was as adolescent as partying too hard at the Rolling Stones concert and missing work.