Miss Understood (9 page)

‘Totally,’ Mum said. ‘Yeah, for sure.’

‘I know! I’ve wanted to eat there for so long! Gary says he’s too sick to go, so he’s asked if I’ll take his booking. Are the kids awake?’

‘Richie is – he’s been up since six, as usual. But I think Lizzie’s still in bed.’

‘Do you think Carol and Tony would take Richie for the day? I know it’s short notice, but we can’t miss this.’

‘We could take Richie with us.’

‘Sure, if we needed to, but it’s not really that kind of place, is it?’

That was it, I decided. It was time to throw back my covers (which woke Muppet) and head down the hall to Dad’s study to find out what all the excitement was about.

Mum was standing beside Dad, reading something on his computer.

‘Ah, Betty,’ Dad said when he saw me come in. ‘You are up.’

‘I am. Where are we going?’

‘How do you fancy going to the best seafood restaurant in Sydney?’

‘Do they have just plain fish? Because you know I don’t like oysters and stuff.’

‘Actually . . .’ Mum said. ‘You know, I’m just thinking that maybe . . .’

‘Denise, it’s fine.’

‘But the menu there is so –’

‘Denise, the magazine will pay for it.’

‘But for all of us?’

‘Well, for two. But it’s such a special place, and such a rare opportunity.’

‘Marty, we can’t really . . . Why don’t we go another night, when we can arrange to get Lauren or someone –’

‘No!’ Dad suddenly said. ‘No, it has to be lunch, and it has to be today, because I have to get the review in by tomorrow afternoon. Try. Please, Denise? For me?’ Then he did something that I thought only girls do – he put his head on one side and made his eyes go
flutter-flutter
.

Mum gave him a tired kind of smile. ‘Fine, I’ll give Carol a call, but it is Sunday, and it’s incredibly short notice.’

‘Yay,’ said Dad, grinning and clapping his hands.

‘So, where is this place?’ I asked after Mum had gone to call Aunty Carol.

‘Look,’ Dad said, pointing at his computer. ‘Beloni’s. One of the three best seafood places in the country, was in the world top ten last year, and my friend Gary was supposed to be going there for lunch.’

‘But now he’s sick,’ I said.

‘Yes, he is. And while I feel sad that my friend is ill, I’m kind of glad as well, if you know what I mean. Here, read the menu.’

I started reading it. To be honest, I didn’t know what a lot of the words meant. Still, Dad was excited about going to this place, and he eats for a living, so it had to be pretty good.

‘What are scallops?’ I asked.

‘Like oysters.’

‘Yuck. And what about a whelk?’

‘That’s a kind of sea snail.’

‘Ew,’ I said. ‘Really, Dad? Didn’t you just say that this was the best?’

‘Look here,’ he said, pointing at the screen. ‘You can have the whiting fillets – I think they’d be delicious . . . Oh, really?’ he said, looking over my shoulder towards the door.

I turned around. Mum was shaking her head sadly. ‘They’re going to a wedding,’ she said. ‘So it looks like it’s either you and Lizzie at Beloni’s, or no one.’

‘
I
could babysit Richie!’ I suggested, but they both shook their heads.

‘Thank you, Lizzie, but . . . but no,’ Dad said. ‘Not yet.’

Mum looked so disappointed. ‘Then I guess it’s you two.’

‘No!’ Dad slapped his hand down on the desk, which made me jump. ‘No, we’re all going.’

‘Marty, we can’t –’

‘I don’t care what we can and can’t afford, Denise. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I’m not missing an opportunity to eat at Beloni’s. So get your glad-rags on, girls, because we’re hitting the town. We have to leave in thirty minutes.’

I
t took a bit less than an hour to drive to the restaurant. I was wearing a really nice top and some awesome red jeans, and I even managed to sneak a bit of lipstick on when no one was looking. I hadn’t been this dressed-up for a long time, maybe since Grandpa’s funeral. Richie was looking pretty good too, in the little denim dungarees that Uncle Tony and Aunty Carol had given him for Christmas. He did look kind of cute, I decided. Cuter than usual.

‘Now, listen up,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t be surprised when we get to there and you hear me tell them that I’m Jim Roberts. That’s just the fake name we’re using, so they don’t know that they’re being reviewed. Do you understand, Betty?’

‘Of course. I’m not stupid,’ I said, because I’m not.

It took us ages to find somewhere to park. It was a really lovely, sparkly kind of Sunday by the harbour, so lots of people had driven out there to walk by the water, and to have lunch at one of the restaurants, or to have a picnic in the park, or maybe just a gelato (which is just a fancy word for ice-cream). But that meant that there were no parking spots, which is why we drove around for what felt like another hour. But finally Dad spotted a family getting ready to leave, so we stopped in the middle of the road and waited for them to load their kids and all their stuff into the back of their car, and to steer carefully out of their space.

Dad was almost hopping on the spot with excitement as he waited for Mum to strap my brother into his stroller. The problem was, she’d had to wake Richie up once we got there, so he was all ratty. And that was making Mum ratty, because we were about to go into one of the three best seafood restaurants in the country. (Dad had said it another fifteen million times on the drive.)

‘I really hope Richie’s not going to whinge like that in the . . .’ Dad began to say, but then he caught Mum’s glare in his direction. ‘He’s tired. He’ll be fine. Won’t he?’

‘He’ll be fine,’ Mum replied. ‘Come on.’

I don’t think I’d ever seen Dad this excited. He took a deep breath and muttered something to himself before he opened the restaurant door. He also forgot to hold it open for me and Mum and Richie in the stroller, but he does sometimes forget things like that when his mind is on other things.

The man at the little desk thing next to the door smiled at us. His gold name tag said that he was called Bradley. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said to Dad, even though he was looking at Richie.

‘Looks busy today,’ Dad said, peering past Bradley into the restaurant. The tables were all covered with white tablecloths, and the wine glasses and the knives and forks and bottles and plates were glittering in the bright light pouring through the tall windows.

‘Yes, it is busy,’ Bradley said. ‘It’s Sunday. Do you have a reservation, Mr . . .?’

‘Ah . . . Jim,’ Dad said.

‘Jim?’ Bradley said. ‘
Mister
Jim . . .?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Jim Roberts,’ Mum said, before throwing Dad a look that I think might have meant, ‘How do you manage to do this for a job if you can’t even remember a simple fake name?’

‘Jim Roberts,’ Bradley murmured as he checked in his book. ‘Ah, yes, that was a . . . Oh.’

‘Oh?’ Dad asked. ‘Why “oh”?’

‘You booked a table for two, Mr Roberts. But . . .’ He glanced at me, and Mum, and Richie. He
especially
glanced at Richie, who was still a bit grizzly.

‘I’m sorry, but our plans changed at the last moment,’ Dad said. ‘I know I should have phoned ahead, but . . .’

‘We’re unable to accommodate a party of four at present,’ Bradley told us, ‘but if you’d be happy to wait, it shouldn’t be too long.’

Dad and Mum looked at each other. Mum didn’t seem very happy, while Dad looked embarrassed. ‘I can see a vacant table for four just over there,’ he said.

Bradley turned to see where Dad was pointing. ‘Oh, that’s reserved, sir. I’m sorry.’

‘Okay, fine,’ Dad said with a sigh. ‘How long do you think –’

‘Hard to say,’ Bradley replied, and then he gestured to us to move to one side so he could talk to the people who had just come in behind us.

We waited for ages – I wasn’t sure how long. But my tummy was starting to grumble pretty loudly, especially because I could smell the food that kept coming out of the kitchen on the huge shiny plates, carried by waiters in little black caps and long black aprons.

‘This had better be worth it,’ Mum said to Dad.

‘It will be,’ he answered. ‘Trust me, it’ll be amazing.’

‘Even the sea snails?’ I asked.

‘
Especially
the sea snails.’

‘Ew.’

But that was when something happened that changed everything. The front door opened, and four more people came in – two men, and two ladies. They were a bit too dressed up for a Sunday lunchtime, I thought. The ladies were even wearing high heels.

‘Marty,’ I heard Mum say, almost in a whisper. ‘Is that –?’

‘Yes,’ he muttered, all grumpy. ‘Yes, that’s Matthew Fletcher.’

‘Who’s Matthew Fletcher?’ I asked, but it seemed that no one was allowed to know that he was even there, because Mum and Dad both glared at me with these big frowns.

‘Maffew!’ Richie repeated, and the taller of the two men turned and looked at him, and chuckled.

‘Mr Fletcher, it’s very good to see you here,’ said Bradley. He almost bowed. He didn’t
actually
bow, but trust me, he
almost
did.

The tall man smiled. ‘Thank you. Look, we don’t have a booking, but since it was such a wonderful day down by the water, we thought we’d try our luck.’

Bradley gave this horrible little half-smile and kind of rubbed his hands together. ‘Party of four, was it, Mr Fletcher?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Very good. Please, come this way.’ And he led them off into the dining room of the restaurant.

I looked at my parents. Mum was rubbing Dad’s arm, and Dad looked as though his head was about to pop like an angry water balloon.

‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation,’ Mum was saying.

‘Oh, of course there is,’ Dad snarled back at her. ‘It’s pretty simple, really. He’s Matthew Fletcher, and I’m . . . Jim Roberts!’

‘Honey, don’t let it ruin your day,’ Mum said.

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Dad snapped. He stepped forward as Bradley came back to his little table. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘What was that?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You just seated those people. A party of four.’

‘Sir –’

‘Without a booking.’

‘They had a reservation,’ Bradley said.

‘No, they didn’t! I heard them say that they didn’t! You asked them, and they said no!’

‘Please, sir, if you could keep your voice down, let me explain. That was Matthew Fletcher.’

‘I don’t care if it was the Queen of Sheba and her favourite dog Butch – those people didn’t have a booking, and
we did
.’

Bradley cleared his throat and tipped his chin up, just a little. ‘Sir, Mr Fletcher is a
very
important person in the restaurant scene,’ he said. ‘And as such, I have seated him and his party in the VIP area.’

‘VIP area? They’re
right there
!’ Dad said, and he pointed at them, sitting in the middle of the front window.

‘That’s right, sir, at a VIP table.’

Mum had stepped forward as well now, but she wasn’t arguing with Bradley. No, she was trying to get Dad to calm down. ‘Marty,’ she said, and she took his arm, but he pulled it away.

‘Matthew Fletcher is important, is he?’ Dad asked Bradley. (His voice had gone all funny, and I wondered for a second if he was going to cry.) ‘Well, I’m not really Jim Roberts, you know.’

Bradley didn’t say anything. He just tilted his head slightly to one side.

‘No, because I’m Marty Adams,’ Dad said.

‘So why did you tell me you were Jim Roberts?’

Dad took a deep breath. ‘Because I was here to review you. To review your restaurant!’

Bradley frowned. ‘To review us?’

‘Yes. That’s what I do. I was sent here to eat at your place, and to try your lunch menu, and then to write a glowing review. Which I was prepared to do, by the way, if the food and service were as good as I was led to believe. But you can forget all that now.’

Bradley’s eyebrows were squeezing together. ‘Sorry – who did you say you were?’

‘Marty Adams.
Marty. Adams.
’

Bradley gave a tiny shake of his head. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never . . .’

‘I’m a senior contributing reviewer for
Cuisine Digest
,
Juniper’s Good Eating Guide
,
Top Tucker
,
Restaurant Review Journal
,
The New York Gastro-Travel Guide
– are any of these ringing a bell?’

‘I’ve heard of those magazines, but . . .’

Dad’s voice had been getting louder and louder, and a few of the people at the tables were starting to notice all the commotion. One of those people was Matthew Fletcher, who’d stood up and was now walking towards us.

‘Marty? Marty Adams? I thought that was you!’ Mr Fletcher stuck out his hand, and Dad hesitated for a second before shaking it, as if something grotty was caked all over it. ‘So, this is your family?’

‘It is,’ Dad said, his face going a heaps bright shade of red. ‘My wife Denise, and my kids Lizzie and Richie.’

Mr Fletcher shook Mum’s hand and smiled at me. (I actually thought he seemed quite nice.) ‘So, I take it you’re waiting for a table?’ he asked Dad.

‘You could say that,’ Dad replied, throwing a cranky look in Bradley’s direction. ‘It’s a bit crowded at the moment, apparently.’

‘Shame,’ Mr Fletcher said. ‘Bradley, do you think there’s any chance you could find a table for my friend here? As a favour to me?’

Bradley did that almost-bowing thing again, flashed that little half-smile at Dad, and said, ‘I’ll see what I can do, Mr Fletcher, sir.’ Then he scurried away, clicking his fingers at one of the waiters in a long apron.

Mr Fletcher was back to talking to my dad. ‘Well, I’m sure they’ll be able to sort something out,’ he said. ‘Hey, I read your review of that new German place in the city.’ Then he frowned, and whistled. ‘Was it really that bad? Because that was caustic, my friend.’

It looked to me like Dad hadn’t heard him, because without any warning at all, he said, ‘Come on, Denise, let’s get out of here. I’ve lost my appetite.’

‘Really?’ Mr Fletcher asked, his eyebrows kind of joining together. ‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yes, we’re leaving,’ Dad said. ‘Bye, Matthew, it was nice to see you again. Enjoy your lunch.’ And then he turned and walked out, leaving me and Mum and Mr Fletcher looking at one another, all confused.