With the press kits distributed, and Ric handling the questions while watching the cutting, everything seemed to be under control. Except Matteo, who was back to romancing his cell phone. I couldn’t believe it, but I spotted him in a secluded, corner booth with the thing pressed to his ear as he scribbled notes on a tiny pad.
Too busy and weary to argue with him again, I returned to the bar to refill an empty carafe, and found Dante Silva standing behind Tucker.
“Dante,” I said, “shouldn’t you be serving?”
The young man ran his hand over his shaved scalp, like he was combing back hair that wasn’t there. “I can’t go out there, Ms. Cosi. He’ll see me.”
“Who’ll see you?”
“That guy, over there,” Dante said, suddenly looking trapped, hunted, desperate—a little like Java when I put the little fur ball in a cage for a trip to the vet. “He works for the Times. Last week I met him at a gallery show. He said really great things about my work in the past. I... I kind of left him with the impression I was more successful than I am—”
“You don’t want him to know you’re working as a barista?”
Dante shook his head. “Can’t I work here behind the bar? Or help with something downstairs in the kitchen?”
I sighed and looked at Tucker. “I hate to pull Gardner off the piano. The crowd’s responding well to him.”
Tucker grabbed a tray. “I’m going!” he sang.
Dante exhaled with relief. “Thanks Ms. Cosi—”
“Dante, once and for all, will you please call me Clare? And you better not stay up here if you don’t want to be seen by that Arts reporter. Just go down to the kitchen and start packing up the grinders, okay?”
“Sure, Ms.... Clare... thanks.”
Dante disappeared and I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Joy! She gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek.
“Looks like this new decaffeinated thing is a hit,” she gushed.
I nodded, my gaze drifting to a young man lurking behind my daughter. Tall and rather shy, he was handsome and seemed very sweet. Standing next to him was an older man, maybe early fifties. He was attractive in a different way. With arresting blue eyes, a jutting chin, and salt-and-pepper hair, the man radiated confidence. He was casually dressed in an open sport shirt that revealed wiry muscles, a silver chain, and curling chest hair.
“Mom, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Joy announced breathlessly.
I self-consciously wiped my damp hands on my apron, ready for a handshake from the young man at Joy’s side.
“This is Chef Tommy Keitel.”
I looked at the young man. He looked away. Then a strong hand wrapped around mine, pumped my arm.
“Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Cosi,” said the fiftysomething man.
Still clutching his hand, I blinked in surprise. Chef Tommy Keitel, my daughter’s new flame, had enough years on him to be her father’s older brother. Still smiling, his left hand covered mine.
That’s when I saw it—the wedding band. I’d been able to avoid my daughter’s plunging neckline, but I could not tear my eyes away from the gold circling the third finger of Tommy Keitel’s left hand. My gaze shifted to the shy young man at Joy’s side. He shuffled his feet, smiled tentatively, and looked away again.
Joy followed my confused stare. Noticed the young man. “Oh, god, how rude I’ve been. This is Vinny. He works at Tommy’s restaurant, too.”
Chef Keitel’s hands released mine. I smiled wanly, extended it to the young man.
“Vincent Buccelli, ma’am... I mean, Ms. Cosi.” His words were halting, and his eyes were downcast, but his handshake was firm.
“I tasted that coffee you’re shilling,” Chef Keitel announced with a superior smirk. “Good stuff. I like coffee, don’t love it, mind you. My thing’s wine, but I couldn’t tell the coffee was decaffeinated, and I think I have the palate to tell. Of course, you did use a French press. That’s sort of like cheating, right? Christ, I bet tinned coffee would taste good if you made it with a French press.”
When he ran out of gas (and I’m being kind), I watched Chef Keitel wrap his arm around my daughter’s young waist, pull her against his aging body. My reaction was similar to the one I had watching a snake devour a bunny rabbit on Animal Planet.
“Of course, caffeine has its uses. You don’t always want to sleep, right?” He looked at my daughter and winked. “Sometimes you want to stay up all night long.”
I decided that Chef Keitel’s lewd innuendo was reason enough to kill him right then and there, and I had to restrain myself from tightening that silver chain around his throat until he turned the color of a Japanese eggplant. Instead, I put my hands together and forced a smile.
“May I speak to you for a minute, Joy? It’s about your father...”
I shifted my gaze to Chef Keitel. “So nice to have met you.”
I maintained my rigid grin throughout the exchange, but I felt the time bomb ticking inside me. I walked behind the bar, not sure if Joy would follow. I think she hesitated, but I refused to turn around and look. Then I heard Chef Keitel cry out. He’d spotted Robbie Gray, and the two chefs loudly greeted one another. Locked in animated conversation, they wandered away. Vinny Buccelli lingered for a moment, then followed his boss.
Joy appeared at my side. “What about daddy?” she asked.
“Your friend, Chef Keitel—”
“Tommy?”
I nodded. “Didn’t you notice, Joy, that he’s older than your father.”
I expected an angry outburst—a none-too-gentle suggestion to mind my own business, though not put quite so tactfully. But Joy surprised me. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I knew you were going to do this,” Joy said in a voice that was dead calm.
“Do what?”
“This. Make a scene. Humiliate yourself.”
“I’m humiliating myself? I’m not the lovely, charming, sweet young girl who’s dating an octogenarian.”
Joy’s lips curled into a superior smirk—an expression that unsettlingly resembled Chef Keitel’s. “Oh, mother. Now you’re being ridiculous.”
Hands on hips, I stepped closer. “You’re young, Joy,” I quietly told her. “You haven’t accomplished much, so you’re using a smug, superior attitude as a way of elevating yourself. That’s fine. That’s what young people do. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know it all. You have a lot to learn, and I just don’t want to see you learn it the hard way.”
Joy stared into the distance. Since the moment I’d brought up her boyfriend’s inappropriate age, she’d refused to look me in the eye. That gave me hope that somewhere deep inside, Joy knew she was headed down the wrong path.
“I’ve heard this before,” she declared in a bored voice. Then she sighed theatrically. “I’m leaving.”
I held her shoulder. “He’s married, Joy. He’s wearing a wedding band. That means he has a wife—and, I assume, a family.”
“What do you know about anything, mom? When you were my age, you were married, too. Now you’re not. What does that tell you? That things change, that’s what.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No I’m not.” She shook off my hand. “I’m leaving.”
“Excuse me.” The voice belonged to Esther Best. I turned to face my barista. She appeared uncomfortable about stumbling upon a mother-daughter spat.
Who wouldn’t? I thought.
“Sorry, boss,” she said. “We’re about out of coffee again, and nobody looks like they’re leaving anytime soon. Should I go downstairs and grind more beans? I would have asked Ric, but I don’t see him.”
I glanced around the room. Esther was right. I didn’t see Ric by the cutting. Matt either.
“Take the cutting down to Dante in the kitchen,” I told Esther. “Tell him to keep an eye on it, and ask him to grind more beans, but only enough for one more go round.”