Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

Nantucket is too beautiful to be a mistake, however, especially this morning. The sun comes up and the sky is pale at first with the promise of that brilliant blue; the air is crisp and rich with smells of the water. She pedals down the road toward the Beach Club, trying to correct her thinking. Nantucket was not a mistake. She learned so much about food, about wine, about people, about herself. Because it is so early and she still has lots of time, she takes the turn in the road that she made the first day here-the stretch that leads to the spot where the Bistro used to be. From a hundred yards away, she sees the frame of the Elperns’ new house. It’s impressively large, as large as Holt Millman’s house. She is so amazed that something so tall and grandiose could be built in two short weeks that she doesn’t notice the silver truck in the parking lot until it’s too late. But then, once she does see the truck, right there, his truck, a strange thing happens: She keeps going, propelling herself closer to the very thing she’s running away from.

Thatcher stands in the parking lot wearing his red fleece jacket, his hands in his pockets, staring at the house. Adrienne has plenty of time to turn around, a more than good chance of leaving undetected. But she is drawn to him. She wonders what it feels like to be looking at the thing that is standing in the place where your life used to be. Is it awful? Is it a relief?

“Thatcher,” she says.

He whips around; she’s scared him. Good. She wanted to scare him. He stares at her a second, and she dismounts her bike. He squeezes her so tightly she cries out and then, before she knows it, they’re kissing. They’re kissing and Adrienne starts to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Adrienne says. “About Fee. I’m so sorry.”

He holds her face in his hands. She can feel his wedding band against her cheek.

“I love you,” he says. “I know you don’t believe it, but I do.”

She does believe it, but she’s afraid to say so.

“I wanted to call, but… it’s been so… I was in South Bend for three weeks… I wasn’t sure if you’d understand… I felt like, God, if I got back and you were still here…”

“I was going to leave today,” she says. She holds up the note, which she has been crushing in her palm since she left her house. “I was about to tell Mack and go.”

“Because of me?”

She nods; there are more tears. She can’t predict what’s going to happen: Is it good, is it bad? Will he come with her to her father’s wedding? And what on earth will they do after that? Another restaurant? Another business? Will he marry her and be a man who wears two wedding rings? Maybe he will. And since when is she the kind of person who needs so many answers?

While she was packing her bags she took a minute and inspected the hand bell that Duncan bequeathed to her, the one he rang each night for last call. Inside the bottom rim, she found an inscription: “To Thatcher Smith with appreciation from the Parish of St. Joseph’s, South Bend, Indiana.” It had alarmed her that she was taking Thatcher’s bell, but at the same time she felt she had a right to it; she felt she had earned that small piece of Thatcher. She is not sure she deserves more than that small piece; she is not at all sure she deserves what she has now: his whole self in her arms, declaring his love.

“I want to talk to you,” Thatcher says. “So I can tell you I love you. What time do you have to be at work?”

She crumples the note to Mack in her hand. “Eight thirty.”

“That’s in two hours,” he says, checking his beautiful watch.

“What should we do?” she asks.

Thatcher turns her so that she is facing the Elpern house; it will be a lovely house when it is finished. He takes her hand and leads her to his truck and he picks up her bike with one hand and lays it down in the back.

Adrienne doesn’t ask where they are going; she already knows.

They are going to breakfast.

This one, especially, took a village.

I could never have written this book without the support of the restaurant community on Nantucket.

Robert Sarkisian, H.H. at 21 Federal, talked with me for hours, fed me, allowed me to “work” during Christmas Stroll 2002, and gave me access to his staff, all of whom were honest and charming. Special thanks to Chris Passerati, Dan Sabauda, Russell Jaehnig, and Johnny Bresette, bartender extraordinaire, who very much wanted me to change the name of the bartender in this book from Duncan to “Johnny B.”

Al and Andrea Kovalencik, of the exquisite jewel-box restaurant, Company of the Cauldron, shared hours of stories with me from their rich and varied experience in the “resort life.”

Joanna Polowy, pastry chef, taught me about the sweeter side of the restaurant business.

Angela and Seth Raynor, owner and chef/owner of the Boarding House and the Pearl, told me more stories than I could possibly include in one book. Angela also inadvertently gave me the idea for this book. In the summer of 2000, when my novel The Beach Club was released, Angela said to me, “We decided in the back [of the house] that you could never write a restaurant book. Too scandalous.” Thank you, Angela!

Finally, I am indebted to Geoffrey, David, and Jane Silva of The Galley, who for the twelve years as my friends have demonstrated how to gracefully run a successful beachfront restaurant.

I read comprehensively about restaurants, culinary schools, and food and wine. The following publications were especially helpful: The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher, Becoming a Chef by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Life by Toby Cecchini, The Fourth Star by Leslie Brenner, The Making of a Pastry Chef by Andrew MacLauchlan, Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg, The Making of a Chef and The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman, If You Can Stand the Heat by Dawn Davis, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, The Last Days of Haute Cuisine by Patric Kuh, and what felt like hundreds of issues of Bon Appétit and Gourmet.

Thank you to my early readers: Mrs. Pat van Ryn, Tom and Leslie Bresette, Amanda Congdon, Debbie Bennett, and, as ever, Heather Osteen Thorpe. Thank you to Wendy Hudson of Bookworks and Mimi Beman of Mitchell’s Book Corner. It is a lucky writer who has two stellar independent bookstores on her home island. In New York, as always, thanks to Michael Carlisle, Jennifer Weis, and Stefanie Lindskog.

Finally, thank you to the people who gave me the time, space, and support to write. My sitters (who are also friends): Becca Evans, Julia Chumak, Kristen Jurgensen, Jennifer Chadwick, and Dan Bowling. My friends (who are also, occasionally, sitters): Amanda Congdon, Anne Gifford, Sally Bates Hall, Margie Holahan, Susan Storey Johnsen, and Wendy Rouillard. My sons’ school: The Children’s House of Nantucket. The sanest hour of my week: the Thursday morning parenting group. My mother, Sally Hilderbrand, and my husband, Chip Cunningham.

Chip shines his light on my every page. In this instance, I am especially grateful to him for sharing the details of his beautiful and unique friendship with Katie van Ryn, who died from complications of cystic fibrosis in 1995 at the age of thirty.

Elin Hilderbrand made a paper angel ornament in third grade that is still in her family’s custody. She celebrates the holidays by making batches of mustard and chive pine-nut dip and gifting them to her friends. Her favorite carol is “O Holy Night.” Winter Stroll is her sixteenth novel.