Georgia's Kitchen (31 page)

The challenge was selling this nonconcept concept to Luca. Which was why she was hurtling up Sixth Avenue, unbelted, in a yellow cab helmed by a turbaned driver shouting into his mouthpiece and occasionally throwing his hands up in the air, leaving the cab to steer itself. The traffic gods were on her side, and she made it to the bookstore not only alive but in nine minutes flat, which had to be some sort of record. The store was open until midnight and bustling with business; either New Yorkers were convinced that books really did make the best holiday gifts, or a lot of people were in need of a lot of help that night.

“Excuse me,” Georgia said to the skinny guy with sallow skin and a picked-out Afro behind the information desk. In the pre-Netflix era he would have worked at an independent video store. “Where is the
Dummies
series?”

He looked at her blankly.

“You know,” Georgia said impatiently, “those big yellow books? The ones that teach us dummies how to do things like build model airplanes or French-braid our hair?”

“Oh, yeah. Third floor, back of the store.”

“Thanks.” She spun around and charged up the escalator, her veins pumping with caffeine. Her first coffee in months, make that her first
three
coffees in months, had hopped her up like a contestant on
The Amazing Race
. She was so focused on securing her prize, a newly revised and expanded version of
Business Plans for Dummies,
she almost didn’t hear her name being called.

“Georgia!” the same male voice called out again.

She grabbed the escalator’s handrail and turned around carefully, so as not to lose her footing. There, descending the down escalator as she ascended the up, a red scarf wrapped around his neck, a bunch of books under his arm, was Bernard.

“Wait for me up there,” he shouted before stepping off the escalator and onto the ground floor. “I just need to pay for these.”

“Okay,” she mouthed, forcing her lips into a smile.

Since returning to the city, she’d managed to avoid bumping into anyone from her Marco days, mostly by sticking to the terminally unhip twenty-block stretch between the Oven and her apartment. The thought of seeing Marco filled her with almost as much dread as the thought of seeing the newly affianced (again) Glenn. She couldn’t face either of them until she had something to show for herself other than her Rock Center employee badge. But Bernard would be okay. A Michael Cunningham novel was prominently displayed on the Staff Picks table, and she thumbed through a copy without registering a word.

“Georgia.” Bernard put his hand on her back.

“Hey, Bernard. How are you?” Despite the easy smile, her voice was tight. After Ricky, he was the best of the Marco bunch, but he was still the one who fired her over smoked salmon, runny eggs, and all-you-can-drink Krug.

“How long have you been back?” he asked.

“A few months.” He looked different, younger. “What happened to your specs?”

“Oh.” He tapped his fingers on his bare temple. “Contacts.”

“You look good.” She paused a moment, then blurted, “I work at the Tuscan Oven. Just so you know.”

“I heard something like that. How do you like it?”

“It’s not bad. I get to leave early. And it’s at Rock Center, so there’s the tree.” She frowned. “Which gets annoying, actually.”

“I imagine it would,” he said, chuckling. “At least it’s a job.”

“True. What about you? How are things?”

“Me? Things are, well, things are okay. You heard that Marco shut down? In the middle of the summer. Business really plummeted after the…” Bernard cleared his throat and stared at the industrial carpet beneath their feet.

“It’s okay, Bernard, you can say it. The review. Business plummeted, I fled the country. All because of the review.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I know. I could have worked sauté at that pit on the Upper West Side your friend owns. Or gone to Boston to work for Pierre du Mont. So many options, so little time.” She smiled, officially letting him off the hook.

“So how was Italy?” he asked, his voice perking up a bit. “And the famous Claudia Cavalli?”

“Italy and Claudia were fantastic. Really, really great. I learned a lot. It was an amazing experience.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Thanks.” Neither of them said anything. “So,” Georgia said to break the silence, “what are you doing lurking around Barnes and Noble at midnight anyway?”

“This and that. I just got off work, actually, and decided to get a jump on my Christmas shopping.” He held up his shopping bag.

“You’re working around here? Where?”

“That pit on the Upper West Side my friend owns. I manage it.”

“Oh.” Georgia felt her face redden. “I didn’t mean anything bad by that. I’m sure it’s great, it’s just, you know, it’s not the most chef-friendly neighborhood. But I’m sure your restaurant is totally different.” She swallowed. “Right?”

“Actually, Georgia, no, it’s not different. It sucks. But it pays.”

“I know how that goes,” Georgia said, unable to feel the schadenfreude she felt was her due. Unlike Marco, who should have been skinned, skewered, and thrown on the barbie, Bernard was a good guy and was great at his job. He deserved better. “Remember, you’re talking to the girl who works at the
second
-most popular restaurant at Rockefeller Center.”

“And what is the girl who works at the second-most popular Rock Center restaurant doing here? I know you don’t live around here.”

“I’m on my way to the third floor and I have”—she checked her watch—“thirteen minutes before the store closes to find some very important books. Want to join me?” If he’d told her he was working with David Chang or Keith McNally or Daniel Boulud, she wouldn’t have asked. But he ran a neighborhood joint with off-brand food on the Upper West Side. He also had a superhuman knowledge of the inner workings of many of New York’s top restaurants. So she asked.

“Why not?” he said. “I have nowhere important to be tomorrow. I’d love to join you.”

An hour later Georgia and Bernard were ensconced in a ripped-red-vinyl booth at the F&A, a dive bar a block from the bookstore. A half-full pitcher of Bud sat between them. Georgia refilled Bernard’s glass.

“So let me get this straight,” Bernard said. “You have five days to write an entire business plan for your boss, who lives in Bari, may or may not be connected, and wants to back your restaurant even though it means you’d leave the Oven?”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t started the plan yet?”

“Not officially. I mean, I have notes. I have the idea. I’ve even seen a few spaces that could work. I’ve done some groundwork, just not much number crunching.” She burped. “Excuse me.”

“Have you ever read a business plan?”

“No.”

“But that doesn’t worry you?”

“Of course it worries me. That’s why I just bought an entire library on how to write one.” She dumped the Barnes & Noble bag on the table. In addition to the
Dummies
book, she’d bought three more. “These ought to do the trick.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Georgia—”

“Please. There’s nothing you can say to me that could be worse than ‘You’re fired.’”

“How about ‘You’re crazy’? There’s no way you’re going to crank out an entire business plan, a good one, with real numbers, in five days.”

“Well, I have to at least try.” Georgia stood. “Do you want fries? I want fries.”

“Nah.” Bernard shook his head and flipped open one of the books. “Had my fill of grease before I ran into you,” he said without lifting his eyes from the book. “Back at that pit I manage.”

Georgia laughed. “Not gonna let me live that one down, are you?”

“Not likely.”

At the jukebox a twentysomething guy wearing a White
Stripes T-shirt over a ratty thermal studied his musical choices. A foursome drinking bottles of Brooklyn Lager stood around the pool table while a petite girl with dangly earrings broke, smashing the cue ball with a satisfying thwack. Georgia bellied up to the bar, taking a seat as the bartender shouted her order to the one-man kitchen. Outside, snow had started to fall. The first few bars of “Let It Bleed” sounded, and the guy at the jukebox strummed his air guitar à la Keith Richards. Georgia hummed along, feeling the effects of the Bud mingling with the espresso. The jukebox guy primped and preened around the pool table, forsaking Keith for the flashier Mick. “‘Well, we all need someone we can lean on,’” he sang, his lips contorted into a puffy pout.

Bernard sat at the table, poring over the
Dummies
book, completely oblivious of his surroundings. Only Bernard could read a book like that in a bar like this, Georgia thought. The bartender deposited the greasy basket of fries on the bar, and Georgia looked at the basket, then at the bartender, then at Bernard, her eyes widening. Only Bernard. She swiveled her stool all the way around so she was facing him. His head rested on one hand and he jotted something down in the book with the other. She grabbed the basket and raced back to the table.

“I have a crazy idea, Bernard.” The fries sat in her outstretched hands like an offering.

“Really.” He popped a fry into his mouth. “Shoot.”

She slid into the booth next to him. “So here’s the thing. In Tuscany, I learned, well, I learned a lot. But the most important thing I learned, other than it’s okay to be alone, I mean, alone as in no fiancé, no boyfriend, no lover—”

“I get it. Alone. Go on.”

“Is that it’s okay to ask for help. You know? I learned to rely on my coworkers, my colleagues, my boss, for help. Teamwork,
Bernard. That’s what it’s all about, at least what it should be about. Are you with me?”

“Teamwork. I’m with you.” Bernard stifled a smile, which Georgia ignored.

“So, the restaurant. My restaurant. It doesn’t need to be just my restaurant. It can be, well, for example, it can be our restaurant. We can do it together, B.”

“Georgia—”

“Wait, let me finish. You owe it to me to listen.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“You’re the best GM I’ve ever worked with. And I like you. You’re smart, you’re organized, you’re so,
so,
together. And I, well, I’m a good chef. A damn good chef. You said so yourself. And I have a potential backer. But I can’t do it alone, and now I realize that’s fine. I don’t need to do it alone because I ran into you at midnight at Barnes and Noble and you have nowhere important to be tomorrow.”

Georgia took a deep breath. “So I’m asking you, Bernard, what I’m asking is, do you want to be my partner? Do you want to open a restaurant with me?”

“I do,” he said calmly.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. You are a damn good chef. And I’m a damn good manager. We make a great team, as I seem to recall someone saying. And, I have a business plan. Or part of a business plan.”

“The spreadsheet part?” Georgia asked.

“The spreadsheet part. With real, quantifiable numbers.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yes. Holy shit.” Bernard picked up his glass and handed Georgia hers. “To our restaurant.”

“To our restaurant.”

They clinked glasses and sipped the lukewarm Bud.

“Now let’s get to work,” Bernard said, rising from the table. “I can’t bear to work at that pit much longer.”

He tucked the empty pitcher under his arm, picked up their glasses, and dropped them off at the bar, returning with two tall Coca-Colas.

“I guess you mean business,” Georgia said.

“I do.”

“That’s good. Because so do I.”

When they left the F&A at quarter of three that morning, the city had been transformed. Snow blanketed the sidewalk, the street, the parked cars, swirling from the darkened sky above, dancing in the swaths of light issuing from streetlamps and the occasional slow-moving headlight. Tomorrow’s rush hour would render the winter wonderland a dull gray, but for the moment the city was pure and clean as a new beginning. Georgia’s notebook was filled with notes, full sentences and fragments, some marked by double exclamation points, others less sure of themselves. Tomorrow she would transcribe these half-drunken scrawlings into a cohesive proposal, Bernard would tweak the numbers to fit their concept, and they would have the first draft of something resembling a business plan. They were on their way.

“Four days?” Clem asked. “You turned this around in four days?” She held a half-inch-thick, spiral-bound business plan in her hands. The back cover was chocolate brown, the front a rich cream, with brown lettering spelling out
GB Restaurants, LLC
(“May as well be optimistic,” Georgia had said about adding the
s
to their company name).

“Impressive,” Clem continued. “I love the colors.”

Georgia smiled. Bernard had wanted to go the lime-green/tangerine-orange route, but Georgia vetoed, citing Luca’s tastes as more da Vinci than Haring. Besides, that palette was as played out as the tuna tartar app.

“So how much sleep have you had?” Lo asked.

“Um, none?”

“Wow. You don’t even have bags,” Lo said.

“Paula Dorf concealer. Buy the stock. The stuff is amazing.”

The three friends sat in Lo’s spacious Upper East Side living room, eating sushi and waiting for Bernard. As soon as he arrived, he and Georgia would practice their pitch on Lo and Clem in preparation for their sit-down the next day with Luca. Luca scheduled his meetings at the Oven according to course, with the most important timed to the entrée. Georgia and Bernard had scored the aperitivo-and-antipasto slot, thirty minutes of swilling Cynar and eating cured meats. If all went well, Luca would NetJet back to Bari with the idea for a brand-new business bobbing in his head.

“So how’s it going? I mean, with Bernard? Do you want to kill him yet?” Clem dipped her toro into the soy sauce. “Sushi Seki has the best toro in the city,” she announced, popping the piece into her mouth. “Mercury be damned.”

“At fifteen bucks a pop it better be the best,” Lo said.

“Good thing your dad has an account there,” Clem said. “Otherwise you’d be broke.”

“Good thing for you too.” Lo pointed her chopsticks at Clem’s mouth.

“It’s only been four days,” Georgia said. “If I wanted to kill him already, we’d be in trouble.” The truth was, Georgia loved working with Bernard. He was on top of everything, funny, upbeat, and sharp as her chef’s knife. At three o’clock in the morning his charms curdled a bit, but then whose didn’t? Four
bleary-eyed all-nighters later even Brad Pitt would begin to grate.