Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“I’ll cook for them myself,” Fiona said. “They’re on twenty, right?”

Adrienne was confused. “Right. But… you don’t have to do that. You have other stuff. The expediting.”

Fiona took a swig from an enormous Evian bottle. “When it’s family, I like to do the cooking myself.”

“Even my family?” Adrienne said.

“Of course,” Fiona said. “Your family is our family.”

Adrienne reentered the dining room slightly cheered. She liked the idea of her father as a shared responsibility. Maybe she could send Fiona to her father’s wedding in her place. Adrienne delivered the chips and dip to her father’s table.

“Hand-cut potato chips with crème fraîche and beluga caviar,” she announced.

“Honey, this is too much,” Dr. Don said.

“No, it isn’t, Daddy,” she said. “We do it for people a lot less special than you.”

“Well, okay, then,” he said, digging in. “Thank you.”

Thatcher materialized at the table. “Everyone’s down,” he said to Adrienne. “You can have a drink with your dad and Mavis here. You can even order if you’d like.”

“I ate already,” Adrienne said tightly.

“You told me you haven’t eaten anything all day,” Dr. Don said.

“Sit and eat,” Thatcher said. He put his hands on Adrienne’s shoulders and pushed her into a chair. “I’m going to order you the foie gras and the club.”

“Please don’t,” Adrienne said. “I want to work.”

“You can work second,” Thatcher said. “Right now you should enjoy your family.”

Enjoy your family : For so many people this phrase was a paradox, as tonight it was for Adrienne. Still, she didn’t want to throw a tantrum or make a scene in the middle of a very full restaurant so she sank into the wicker chair next to her father, and Spillman brought over her drink.

“We should have a toast,” Dr. Don said, raising his glass. “To you, sweetheart. You’ve done it again. This island is beautiful.”

“And the restaurant,” Mavis said. “I always thought restaurants were, you know… a seedy place to work.”

“Risky, derelict, volatile, transient, goddamned make-believe,” Adrienne said. “I’ve heard it all.”

“But this place is special,” Mavis said. “As anyone can see.”

“Thank you,” Adrienne said.

They clinked glasses. Adrienne helped herself to caviar. Across the dining room, she caught Leigh Stanford’s curious eye. The curse of table twenty. Adrienne wished she had a big sign: this is not my mother!

“Thatcher is so charming,” Mavis whispered. “He really seems to like you.”

“He does like me,” Adrienne said.

“Do you have any long-term plans?” Dr. Don asked.

“Long term? No. Right now I’m celebrating my solvency. I paid you back, I paid my credit cards off, and I have money in the bank. You should be happy about that. I am.”

“Oh, honey,” Dr. Don said. “If you only knew how much I worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Adrienne said. “I’m self-sufficient. Now.”

“Of course you are,” Mavis said.

“I keep your picture in my examining room,” he said. “Everyone asks about you. And I tell them all about my beautiful daughter who lives in… Hawaii, Thailand, Aspen, Nantucket. They always ask if you’re married or if you have children…”

“And you tell them no.”

“And I tell them no.”

“But you want to tell them yes. You want me to be a soccer mom with everything in its place.”

“No, honey.”

“Well, what then?”

“I want you to be happy,” he said.

“I am happy,” Adrienne snarled.

“Good,” Mavis said, and Adrienne saw her hand land on Dr. Don’s arm. As if to say, Enough already, Donald! This was a sad state of affairs. There was no one to come to Adrienne’s defense except for Mavis.

“Anyway, how’s Maryland?” Adrienne asked. “You like it?”

“Oh, yes!” Mavis said, clearly relieved at the shift in topic. “You’re a doll to ask.”

“Business is good,” Dr. Don said. “And the eastern shore is something else, especially now that it’s summer. A few weeks ago we went to Chincoteague to see the wild horses.”

“We didn’t actually see any,” Mavis said.

“I think we might stay in Maryland awhile,” Dr. Don said. “Settle in. I’m too old to keep moving around so much.”

These words had the same effect on Adrienne as a drum roll. Just say it! she thought. She wanted it over with. Spillman approached with the appetizers. Foie gras for Adrienne, corn chowder for Dr. Don, the Caesar, no anchovies, for Mavis. Spillman twisted the pepper mill over everyone’s plates.

“Can I bring you anything else right now?” he asked.

“Kamikaze shot,” Adrienne said. She stared at him, thinking: Get me out of here! Then, finally, she smiled. “Only kidding.”

Spillman’s facade never cracked. The man was a professional. “Enjoy your food,” he said.

The sun was a juicy pink as it sank toward the water. Rex played “As Time Goes By.” The foie gras was good enough to shift Adrienne’s mood from despondent to merely poor. It was deliciously fatty, a heavenly richness balanced by the sweet roasted figs. Who wanted to be married and have children when she could be eating foie gras like this with a front-row seat for the sunset? Adrienne forgot her manners. She devoured her appetizer in five lusty bites, and then she helped herself to more caviar. She was starving.

Dr. Don took soup into his spoon back-to-front, the way Adrienne’s mother had taught her eighty-two years earlier. Adrienne tried to imagine what her mother would think about her father and Mavis getting married. It was impossible to imagine Rosalie feeling betrayed or hurt. Sixteen years, she would say. What took you so long? Adrienne couldn’t stage a protest to the marriage on her mother’s behalf. She would have to claim responsibility herself. She didn’t want her father to get married because then he wouldn’t belong to her anymore. By marrying Mavis, he would be calling an end to their sixteen-year mourning period. Rapping the gavel. Time to move on! Easy enough when it was your wife, but there was no way to replace your mother. Had he bothered to think of that? There was no way to replace your mother. The hole was there forever.

“How are the boys?” Adrienne asked.

Mavis dabbed her coral lips with a napkin. “Good, good. Graham is at Galludet getting his master’s in education. Cole is in California working for Sun Microsystems.”

“Girlfriends?”

“Graham is dating a girl named Charlotte who goes to Galludet with him.”

“She’s deaf?”

Mavis nodded, eyes wide. “And with Cole, I can’t keep track of the girls from one week to the next.”

Adrienne pressed the soles of her fabulous shoes to the floor. “Do they know that you’re engaged?”

Mavis put down her fork slowly as though Adrienne were holding a gun to her head and had forbidden any sudden movements. “Yes,” she said. “They do. We called them last week.”

“Honey,” Dr. Don said.

A few tears fell onto Adrienne’s appetizer plate. Here it was, then: the scene where Adrienne cried at her father’s happy news.

“Congratulations,” she said. She couldn’t look at either of them because she was afraid she’d break down, and so she studied the band of bright pink sky hovering above the ocean.

“Honey,” Dr. Don said. He reached into her lap and squeezed her wrist. “Both Mavis and I have the utmost respect for the memory of your mother. And we have respect for you. We wanted to tell you in person.”