The Blue Bistro (34 page)

“Follow me,” he said.

The staff followed, including Adrienne, who couldn’t help feeling stupidly jealous that Thatcher was carrying
Fiona. Fiona screamed in protest, her head thrown back, her hair streaming in the breeze. It was a beautiful night, moonless, still. The staff trudged to the water’s edge but Thatcher plunged right in until he was up past his knees. He let Fiona go and she splashed into the water and the water lit up around her like a force field.

“Whoa-ho,” said Paco. (Adrienne knew he and Louis had been smoking dope back in pastry.) “That’s cool.”

Delilah was the next one in because she was young and unabashed about swimming in her clothes. She dove under, and again, the water illuminated around her.

Soon the whole staff, including Adrienne, was in the ocean, marveling at the way the water sparkled and glowed around their arms and legs.

“Phosphorescence,” Adrienne heard Thatcher say. In the dark, she couldn’t tell which body was his. “I didn’t want any of you to miss it.”

Thatcher had called this a morale booster, but Adrienne’s heart was aching, for reasons unknown. She put her head under and opened her eyes as she waved her hands to light up the water around her. For weeks, she had been so happy she felt like her life was phosphorescent, like the space she moved about in glowed and sparkled around her. But now, this minute, that notion seemed silly and wrong.
You’re not like the other people who work here. You’re not like them at all.
The Parrishes were right, though Adrienne didn’t know how she was different or why that bothered her. Her eyes stung from the salt water. She wanted to be swimming next to Thatcher, and what she really wanted was for it to be her and Thatcher out here alone. Just the two of them, floating in the sea of light. But Thatcher had brought them all out here for Fiona’s sake. Fiona came first, and she should come first. She was a good person, better than anyone knew, paying for Shaughnessy’s camp, tolerating JZ’s manipulative wife. She was good. And she was sick.

The staff horsed around. Adrienne saw Duncan and Caren kissing. Paco grabbed Adrienne’s ankle and tried to tip her over but she squirmed from his grip and dove under,
feeling the material of her red T-shirt dress swirling around her. There was something about being underwater that made her feel lonely, even amid a group of people. When she surfaced, it was quiet, and Adrienne checked to see who was nearby. A man she didn’t recognize was treading water next to her, and Adrienne became confused until she realized it was Bruno without his glasses. Bruno pointed at the shore and then Adrienne heard some of the Subiacos murmuring in Spanish.

A man stood on the beach, silhouetted by the light of the office. He just stood there at first, hands on his hips, menacing.
Police?
Adrienne thought.
JZ? Drew Amman-Keller?
But then, very slowly, the figure started to sway and the swaying became dancing. The figure was dancing in the sand and the Subiacos laughed and catcalled and Adrienne heard Fiona shout, “Get in here, Romeo!”

He came running toward the water, and Adrienne caught a glimpse of his face before he dove into the light.

Mario.

TTO
: [email protected]

FROM
: [email protected]

DATE
: July 24, 2005, 9:01
A.M
.

SUBJECT
: To Hell You Ride

The spores you didn’t send me worked! I have officially Met a Man. Thirty-six, divorced, two kids. Sounds like my worst nightmare except I am falling, head over heels. Even worse, he is a landscape painter—but his work sells—some people pay more for his paintings than I paid for my last car. So although my mother is crying out about No Steady Income, he does just fine. In the winters he goes to Telluride and paints there and skis, and he’s asked me to go with him. And I, in turn, will ask you (because I miss you, but also because I think you’d like it). Do you want to join us?

TO
: [email protected]

FROM
: [email protected]

DATE
: July 24, 2005, 11:22
A.M
.

SUBJECT
: It’s July!

Since when do you plan more than one day in advance? You must be in love! I hate to admit it but I am not far from that pitiable state
myself—this thing with Thatcher is getting serious. Tomorrow he will meet the other man in my life—that’s right, the good doctor. I’ll let you know how it goes. As for this winter, I can’t bear to think about it, but I’ll keep Telluride in mind.

TO
: [email protected]

FROM
: [email protected]

DATE
: July 24, 2005, 11:37
A.M
.

SUBJECT
: A quick (don’t) pick-me-up

We fly in tomorrow—US Air flight 307, BWI to Philadelphia, US Air flight 5990 Philly to Nantucket arriving around three. We’ll take a cab from the airport to the Beach Club and we’ll meet you at the restaurant at six o’clock sharp. You’ll eat with us? And what about this Thatcher person? Can’t wait to see you, honey. Love, love, love.

TO
: [email protected]

FROM
: [email protected]

DATE
: July 24, 2005, 11:40
A.M
.

SUBJECT
: Breakfast and lunch

Dad, I will not be able to have dinner with you. I have to work dinner—get it? As does Thatcher. So reorganize your expectations to include breakfast and lunch. Those are the meals for which I am available. Breakfast and lunch.

You guys are going to love the Beach Club. It’s the best. Please tip generously as they know you’re my father! Love.

“I shouldn’t have invited them,” Adrienne said to Caren on the morning of her father and Mavis’s arrival. She and Caren were at the kitchen table, which, now that the weather was consistently nice, they had moved out into the backyard. They drank tea and espresso in the sun together on mornings like this one—when Duncan went sailing with Holt Millman and Thatcher left for the restaurant to give Fiona extra help. “No one else’s parents come to visit.”

“Mine certainly don’t,” Caren said. She had informed Adrienne early on that she was a casualty of the nastiest divorce in history.

Duncan and Delilah’s parents lived in California and were too old to travel. Fiona’s parents didn’t like to fly. Thatcher’s father was too busy with the stores. Spillman’s parents were divorced like Caren’s and remarried to other people with whom they had had more children (Spillman had a brother in kindergarten). Joe’s mother, Mrs. Peeke, had come once years earlier and spent the whole time back in the kitchen teaching Fiona how to make the corn spoon bread that now was on the menu with the swordfish.

“In general, though,” Caren said, “I think the restaurant business attracts people who, you know, want to escape their families.”

“My father sort of invited himself,” Adrienne said. “I couldn’t tell him not to come.”

“I thought you loved your father,” Caren said.

“I do,” Adrienne said. “More than anyone in the world.”

“So you should be happy,” Caren said. “Does he know about Thatch?”

“I told him we were dating,” Adrienne said. “But there’s a lot I didn’t explain. He’s going to ask why the restaurant is closing. He’ll ask about Thatcher and Fiona. He’ll ask about next year.”

“Thatcher will be rich next year,” Caren said. “That’s an answer any father would love to hear.”

“But what will happen between Thatcher and me?” Adrienne said. “My father will ask.”

“Have you asked?”

“No,” Adrienne admitted. “I’m too afraid.” With Fiona’s illness it seemed fruitless, not to mention unfair, to ask about the future of their relationship.

“Does he tell you he loves you?”

“No,” Adrienne said. This was another thing she tried not to dwell on. “What about Duncan?”

Caren fired off a laugh that sounded like a shrill machine
gun. “As far as Himself is concerned, I’ve resorted to desperate measures.”

One desperate measure was this: At three o’clock that afternoon Caren was flying to Boston to meet her friend Tate for the second night of the Rolling Stones concert (they were playing three nights at the Fleet Center). Caren and Tate were then sharing a room at the Ritz Carlton. Tate was gay but Caren had not disclosed this fact to Duncan. Duncan, she said, was seething with jealousy—not only about Tate but about the sixth-row seats that Tate had procured from his very wealthy and influential friends. Duncan did not like being outdone in the wealthy and influential friends department, hence that morning’s sail with Holt.

“It better work,” Caren said. “I’m betting all my chips on this one.” True enough—she had basically sold herself in slavery to Bruno to get him to switch nights off with her.

“Well, you’re going to miss my father,” Adrienne said. “Tonight’s the only night he’s eating at the Bistro.” And that only because he insisted. The other two nights Adrienne had booked him at the Pearl and the Club Car. Thatcher had set Don and Mavis up in a hotel room at the Beach Club, where reservations in July and August had been booked for six months. Thatcher talked to Mack and Mack had a last-minute cancellation and so Dr. Don and Mavis were staying in a room on the Gold Coast. Adrienne had worried about the price, but her father seemed excited about paying six hundred dollars a night for a room. This was a very special vacation, he said, and there would be no skimping.

By the time she got to work, Adrienne’s stomach was churning like Mario’s Hobart mixer. There were 247 covers on the book. Family meal was shrimp curry over jasmine rice and a cucumber salad, but Adrienne couldn’t eat. She begged Mario to make her some of his banana French toast with chocolate syrup—what she needed was some comfort food—and Mario bitched about the two hundred and fifty
other people he had to feed that night. Since he had put the writer from
Vanity Fair
on a plane back to New York without a story, and since he had lost five hundred dollars for breaking his contract with his publicist, Mario had gotten good at bitching. He worked too many hours, he made too little money, he wasn’t treated like the genius he knew himself to be. Still, Adrienne knew that he liked her.

“My father is coming in tonight with his . . . friend,” Adrienne told him.

“Your father’s gay?” Mario said.

“No,” Adrienne said. “Why do you ask?”

“The way you said ‘friend’ sounded funny.”

“It is funny,” Adrienne said. “But he’s not gay. The woman he’s coming with is his . . . hygienist. She’s his employee. Just please don’t think it’s my mother. Mavis is not my mother. My mother died when I was twelve.”

Mario crossed himself then held up his palms. “I’ll make the toast,” he said.

But Adrienne couldn’t eat the French toast either—her anxiety level rose to her eyebrows every time she reviewed the reservation book. The circle that stood for table twenty said “Don Dealey.” Her father was coming to the restaurant tonight, stepping into her life for the first time since he’d flown to Tallahassee for her college graduation. Always she went to him. She liked it that way; it gave her control. This feeling she had now was a distinctly out-of-control feeling.

Thatcher joined her at the podium. “I missed you today,” he said. “What did you do?”

“Sat on the beach and stressed.”

“About what?”

“Do I really need to say it?”

“Your father?”

Adrienne nodded. She didn’t want Thatcher to know how nervous she was because she wasn’t sure she could explain why. Her father meeting Thatcher, Thatcher meeting her father. The disastrous dinner with Will Kovak years earlier festered in her mind. Why was her father coming to see her this year of all years? Why hadn’t he come to see her in Hawaii
when she was low on friends and spent most of her evenings wallowing in misery over her breakup with Sully? It seemed so much sager to follow the example of her fellow employees and keep family members out of the restaurant. She thought of how morose Tyler Lefroy had looked at the table with his parents and his sister. Tonight, that would be her.

“You haven’t noticed my haircut,” Thatcher said. “I had Pam squeeze me in because your father was coming.”

Adrienne looked at him blankly. “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t notice.” She checked her watch. “Five minutes until post time.” She wandered over to the bar and Duncan slid her drink across the blue granite.

“So what do you think about Caren going to see the Stones with this Tate guy?” Duncan said.

Adrienne shrugged. “She’s psyched about the concert.”

“Yeah, but what about the guy?”

“He’s loaded, I guess. He owns a villa on St. Bart’s.”

“She says they’re just friends.”

“Of course, they’re just friends,” Adrienne said. “You’re not worried about Caren?”

“They’re sharing a hotel room,” he said.

“It has two beds,” Adrienne said. “I’m sure that since the two of you are so happy together, nothing will happen with this Tate person, even if he is rich. And handsome.”

“Handsome?”

Adrienne tried not to smile. “I saw his picture. The guy looks like George Clooney.” She pointed to the row of bottles behind Duncan. “But I’ll bet he can’t make a lemon meringue pie martini.”