Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“Harry brought down the purchase and sale agreement,” Fiona wailed. “And I signed it.”

Thatcher sat next to her. “That’s what you were supposed to do.”

“So we’re really going to sell?”

“It was your idea.”

“Yes, but…” She let out a staccato breath. “Mario was right. They’re going to tear it down. Next year it will be a fat mansion.”

“It’s better that way,” Thatcher said. “Think how awful it would be if it were still a restaurant but not our restaurant.”

Fiona nodded with her lips pressed together in an ugly line. She raised her eyes and noticed Adrienne standing there.

“What do you think?” Fiona asked. “Are we making a mistake?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“If it were your restaurant, would you sell it?”

“If you had asked me a few hours ago…” But now Adrienne regarded the Bistro: the dory filled with geraniums; the menu hanging in a glass box; the smells of the kitchen wafting through the front door; the way the guests’ faces glowed when they walked in and saw candlelit tables and heard piano music; the sound of a champagne flute sliding across the blue granite; the crackers-God, the crackers.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Thatcher is one great guy.”

“So you’ve said.”

Adrienne and her father were sitting under a canary yellow umbrella at the Beach Club eating sandwiches from Something Natural. Mavis was having a massage in the room.

“Your mother would have loved him.”

“She loved everybody.”

“True.” Dr. Don popped open a bottle of Nantucket Nectars and studied the label. “These things are just filled with sugar.” He took a long swill.

“So what did you and Thatcher talk about on the boat?”

Dr. Don leaned back in his beach chair. “Oh, you know. The Fighting Irish. His father’s business. His decision to sell to his brothers. And the restaurant. It sounds like he has quite a friendship with this Fiona person.”

There was an understatement. “He does,” Adrienne said.

“She’s sick?”

“He told you that?”

Dr. Don took a bite of his smoked turkey and cheddar.

“So that’s why they’re closing the restaurant,” Adrienne said. “She’s on the list for a transplant.”

“Thatch seemed uncertain about his next step,” Dr. Don said. “It hinges, I guess, on the girl.”

“Girl?”

“Fiona.”

“Yeah,” Adrienne said.

“Which leaves you in a funny position.”

“I’ve been in a funny position all summer,” Adrienne said.

“In what way?”

“I don’t know,” Adrienne said, though she did know. She thought about it all the time. “Thatcher and Fiona have been friends since they were born. And Duncan has his sister Delilah. And the Subiacos, who work in the kitchen, are all brothers or cousins. And Spillman and Caren and Bruno and Joe have all been at the Bistro since it opened. I was worried when you and Mavis showed up because nobody on the staff seems to have a family. But that’s because they’re each other’s family. And what I realized is that I don’t have any relationships like that. Because we moved.” She looked up to see her father swallow. “We moved and moved and then I moved and moved and so there’s nothing in my life that’s lasted relationship-wise. And that’s strange, isn’t it? I’m twenty-eight years old and there’s no one in my life, you know, permanently.”

“This may be pointing out the obvious,” Dr. Don said, “but you have me.”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. “I have you.”

Two days later when it was time for Dr. Don and Mavis to go to the airport, Thatcher insisted on driving them in Fiona’s Range Rover. Mavis sat up front with Fiona’s oxygen tank at her feet, and Adrienne sat in the back holding hands with her father. She didn’t want him to leave. The Cristal had been a big hit-it brought Mavis to tears-and Adrienne felt saintly, bestowing her blessing.

At the airport, Thatcher stayed in the car while Adrienne walked into the terminal with her father. Mavis hurried ahead to get in line at the US Air counter. Adrienne’s nose tingled. It was the school play again: teary good-bye scene.

“October?” her father said. Dr. Don and Mavis had chosen October sixteenth as their wedding day. Even though it was only two and a half months away, Adrienne wondered what she’d be doing. Would she be staying on this island or leaving?

“I’ll be there,” she said.

Her father put down his suitcase and hugged her. “I probably don’t have to say this, but I will anyway because I’m your father. I want you to be careful.”

“I will.”

“He told me he loves you.”

“Did he?”

“He did. And I took him at his word. But that doesn’t mean…”

“I know.”

Her father scanned his eyes over the scene in the terminal: the people on cell phones, the Louis Vuitton luggage, the golden retrievers. “I wanted you to get married first,” he said. “I wanted you to be settled before I married Mavis. Do you forgive me for wanting that?”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. “But I’m glad you didn’t wait for me. I may never be settled.”

“You will someday.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m proud of you, honey. And so is your mother. You know that?”

“Yes,” she said.

He picked up his suitcase and kissed her again. “Love.”

“Love,” Adrienne said. She watched her father join Mavis in line. Then he turned around and waved one last time, and only then did she let herself cry.

The Sturgeon Moon

Sign hanging next to the walk-in refrigerator:

35 DAYS UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD

Adrienne had been hearing about August since her first day of work. When the bar was busy, Caren might say, “It’s busy, but not as busy as August.” When the dining room was slow back in mid-June, Thatcher had said, “You’ll be longing for this once it’s August.” What was it about August? Everyone was on Nantucket in August-the celebrities, the big money, the old families. It was America’s summer vacation. Thirty-one days of sun, beach, boating, outdoor showers, fireflies, garden parties, linen sheets, coffee on the deck in the morning, a gin and tonic on the patio in the evening.

In the restaurant business, August meant every table was booked every night. Thatcher and Adrienne were forced to start a waiting list. If a guest didn’t reconfirm by noon, he lost his reservation. There was no mercy; it was simply too busy. It was too busy for anyone to take a night off; the staff was to work straight through the next thirty-five days until the Saturday of Labor Day weekend when the bistro would close its doors forever.

“You want a break,” Thatcher said one night during the menu meeting, “take it then.”

In the restaurant kitchen, August meant lobsters, blackberries, silver queen corn, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. In honor of the last year of the restaurant, Fiona was creating a different tomato special for each day of the month. The first of August (two hundred and fifty covers on the book, eleven reservation wait list) was a roasted yellow tomato soup. The second of August (two hundred and fifty covers, seven reservation wait list) was tomato pie with a Gruyère crust. On the third of August, Ernie Otemeyer came in with his wife to celebrate his birthday and since Ernie liked food that went with his Bud Light, Fiona made a Sicilian pizza-a thick, doughy crust, a layer of fresh buffalo mozzarella, topped with a voluptuous tomato-basil sauce. One morning when she was working the phone, Adrienne stepped into the kitchen hoping to get a few minutes with Mario, and she found Fiona taking a bite out of a red ripe tomato like it was an apple. Fiona held the tomato out.