Edward’s eyes widened as he obeyed. “Fig! I taste it in the dessert, of course. But now I can really taste it in the coffee.”
I politely stated the obvious. “That’s why they’re paired.”
“Oh, but, Clare,” said Madame, “you have them paired with the almond torte as well, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, worried she was about to disagree with the combination. “And? What are you getting at?”
“Just this: one coffee can be paired quite naturally with two sweet things, depending on the situation.”
She glanced at Edward, then back at me, as if I were so very thick-headed I’d need help figuring out her analogy. Don’t worry, I got it. Loud and clear.
After excusing myself, I went to check on my other customers, then returned to Madame’s table to see if they needed anything more.
“Clare, didn’t I ever tell you how Edward and I met?” asked Madame. “I’m sure that I did.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“We met in Greenwich Village, at the Village Blend…a very long time ago.”
Edward sighed. “A lifetime ago.”
“Edward used to come in with a few friends of his,” Madame went on. “There was Alfonso Ossorio, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Truman Capote, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, and, of course, Pollack.”
My mouth went dry. Good god, no wonder he knew what the inside of Motherwell’s Quonset hut looked like! “So, Mr. Wilson…” I said after clearing my throat and regaining my equilibrium, “you’re a painter too?”
“Not like Pollack, not in the same league,” Edward replied. “Pollack was a genius. He was also a degenerate drunk. Then, Lee—Lee Krasner, who ended up marrying him—dragged him out here to East Hampton, got him away from the demons of the city. It sobered him up being out here. Of course, back then East Hampton was a lot different. Untouched by time, quiet, pastoral…sane. Now Pollack’s buried in Green River Cemetery over in Springs. Can’t miss his grave. It’s marked by a fifty-ton boulder.”
“But you still paint?” I asked.
“Just for myself now. It’s something I thoroughly enjoy. Of course, back then I was completely consumed by it. And, oh, I thought I was hot stuff.”
Madame laughed. “You did indeed.”
“We all did. There were hundreds of artists who moved out here after Pollack in the forties and fifties. Prices for land were dirt cheap then. And we were all rivals of Pollack’s, secretly seething with jealousy over his success and fame. But, after he flipped his car at ninety on Fireplace Road and died at forty-four, I found that though I still loved the art, I’d lost my taste for the competition.”
“Edward became a professor,” Madame informed me.
“I started writing first,” Edward corrected. “Then teaching—art history, criticism. Of course, the others I knew continued to stay in the game. There’s an old joke about de Kooning looking out his window every morning at the Green River Cemetery, just to make sure Pollack was still under that fifty-ton boulder!”
“You see, Clare,” said Madame. “Edward’s been around here forever.”
“Nearly,” said Edward, interlacing his fingers with Madame’s and bringing her hand to his lips.
“That’s why I thought he could help us with David’s little, shall we say—” Madame glanced to the full tables to her left and right—“problem.”
Problem, I thought. Yes, I’d definitely characterize a sharpshooter trying to turn you into a live target at your own party as a ‘problem.’
Madame turned to Edward. “Tell Clare what you told me…about the foreclosure and the town trustees.”
Edward nodded, leaned close and motioned me to bend toward him. “This place wasn’t sold in the regular manner.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What Edward means is the previous owner closed the place last summer during a messy divorce,” Madame quietly informed me. “Because of tax delinquencies, this property ended up in the hands of the town itself.”
“O-kay,” I said slowly. “So how is that important?”
“How much did you tell me a single chair in a Hamptons’ restaurant makes in one season?” Madame asked.
“On average, about 180,000 dollars per chair.”
Edward gave a low whistle.
“Well,” Madame said, “don’t you think that’s enough of a reason to be fairly angry if your dream to open a restaurant here was thwarted?”
“But David did open a restaurant,” I pointed out.
“No, Clare, you’re not following me,” Madame said. “Edward told me that someone else wanted this place, too.”
“It was in the local papers over the winter,” Edward interjected. “There was a war, a bitter one over this place. It came down to two proposals. The town trustees chose David’s.”
“But what’s the big deal?” I said. “So the other bidder lost this place. It happens every day in Manhattan. Why not just move along and buy another building?”
“Edward, tell her,” Madame prompted.
He shrugged. “Here in East Hampton, you don’t just buy a building and open a restaurant. This is the Land of No, my dear. It’s governed by very strict rules to keep commercial growth down. If you’re an aspiring restaurateur, you must wait for one of the existing restaurants in the area to close, then you must outbid others for the property, and gain the approval of the myriad planning, zoning, and design appeals boards for the town.”
“Oh,” I said. “David never mentioned any of that.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Madame said. “Apparently, things got pretty ugly during the fight for the property. And David doesn’t like ugly.”
“So…who was the other bidder?” I asked.
“Bom Felloes,” Edward replied.
“That famous TV chef?” I said. “The one with the Good Felloes restaurant chains all over the country?”
“The very same,” Madame said. “Apparently, he’d been chomping at the bit to open an East Hampton Good Felloes restaurant like his others.”
“But the town trustees practically retched at the idea of a chain restaurant coming into this tony area,” Edward said. “And, quite frankly, the name didn’t help his case much.”
I could see what he meant. “Good Felloes” was a play on the celebrity chef ’s name, of course, but (as my dear old dad once told me) “goodfellows” was one of the ways Mafia “wise guys” referred to each other.
“Oh my goodness,” Madame said. “The very idea probably made the East Hampton officials turn green.”
“It’s absurd when one contemplates the fact that something as historic as Motherwell’s home and studio can be demolished, yet a new restaurant cannot be built,” Edward said with another grave sigh. “But in any case…they rejected Bom’s proposal and approved David’s. I can see why they were impressed. Just look around you. Mintzer clearly spent a great deal of time and effort on designing the decor alone.”
“Not to mention a small fortune,” I added.
“You’ve got to spend it to make it,” Madame pointed out.
“So, what else do you know about Felloes?” I asked Edward.
“Not really much more. Just that he’s a single man, young and good looking, and he bought The Sandcastle about three years ago.”
I frowned, not liking that news. “The Sandcastle? That’s right near David’s place. And it sounds like he bought it the same time David bought his land out here.”
Edward nodded. “The original Sandcastle grounds were huge. When it fell to a younger generation, they broke it into two pieces. The acreage with the residence on it was bought by Bom. David Mintzer bought the plot of land next to it and built from scratch.”
I’d never seen The Sandcastle. It was completely surrounded by a wall of high green privets, and the ornamentation on its wrought-iron front gate was so Byzantine, I couldn’t see beyond it. Certainly I was aware The Sandcastle abutted David’s property. But I didn’t know that Bom Felloes was the owner. David had never mentioned Bom—I would have remembered if he had.