Adrienne might have laughed. She might have thought Thatcher Smith was full of himself, but she had been here for thirty minutes. She had eaten the best breakfast of her life and now she couldn’t even sit up, much less bring herself to leave.
“You must be good at what you do,” Adrienne said.
“Fee is good at what she does,” Thatcher said. “She’s the best. The best, best, best. And we got lucky.” He pressed his eyes closed for a long second, like he was praying. Then he collected their plates. “Fee will want these.”
“I should go,” Adrienne said. She grabbed the armrests of the wicker chair; she was positively slouching. “I have to find something today.”
Thatcher held up a palm. “Wait, please. Please wait… thirty seconds. I have an idea. Will you wait?”
She didn’t have to move just yet. She would wait.
“Back in thirty seconds.” He gathered every dirty dish and utensil from the table, as well as the cake of butter and the jam that had caused Adrienne to break Rule Two, and balanced them on an outstretched arm. He vanished into the kitchen. Adrienne listened. If he was talking to this Fee person, she wanted to know what he was saying. It was silent, except for the sound of the ocean. She closed her eyes. She could hear the ocean. And then Thatcher’s voice.
“This is the most popular restaurant on Nantucket. It has been for ten years. The food is delicious, the food is fun. It’s a fun place to eat. It is see and be seen. It is laugh and talk and sing in here every night of the summer. The Blue Bistro is what a summer night on this island is all about, okay?” He was standing in front of the table.
“I can tell it’s a special place,” Adrienne said. “Really, I can.”
“It just so happens, I got a phone call this morning from my assistant manager who spent the winter in Manhattan. He told me he’s not coming back,” Thatcher said. “And so now I have a gaping hole in the front of the house. I need someone to answer the phone, work the book, arrange a seating chart, learn the guests, make everyone feel not just welcome, you know, but loved. Keep track of the waitstaff, the wine, the requests for the piano player. Stroke the VIP tables-birthdays, anniversaries, the whole shebang. I need someone to be me. I need… another… me.” He laughed again-“ha!” Like he knew what he’d just said was ludicrous. “And when you first asked, I thought, Who in their right mind would give a manager’s position to someone without a day of restaurant experience? That would be foolish. Bad business! But now I’m thinking that what I need is someone with concierge skills. I need someone who understands old-fashioned service.”
“I do understand old-fashioned service,” Adrienne said. Hadn’t she warmed towels in the dryer for guests with a newborn baby at the Princeville? Hadn’t she finagled a veterinarian appointment for a couple with a sick parrot at the Mar-a-Lago? Hadn’t she arranged for private lighthouse tours while at the Chatham Bars Inn?
“Most of my staff has been here since we opened twelve years ago. They love it here. They love it because Fee puts out the best family meal on the island and at midnight she sends out homemade crackers. Ninety-nine percent of the world think that crackers only come out of a box, and then here’s Fee sending out baskets of hot, crisp cheese crackers and after eight hours of busting their asses and raking in three, four hundred bucks, the staff gets first dibs-and that’s why they want to work here. Because of the crackers. And the money, of course.” He grinned at Adrienne. “This is our last hurrah. The end of an era. I need someone good. I’ve never hired a woman for this position before. I’ve never hired someone without any restaurant background. But I’m not afraid to try. Well, to be honest, I am a little afraid.”
“Wait a second,” Adrienne said. She was confused. What was happening here? Was he offering her a job?
She glanced around the restaurant. Even through the plastic sheeting the ocean was brilliant blue. It made her head spin. That and the food smells and this man who was like nobody she’d ever met before. He was as honest and as nutty as the toast.
“Your second is up,” Thatcher said. “Do you want the job?”
Did she want the job? It would be a huge risk, but something about that appealed to her. Not a single decision she had made in the past six years had worked out all that well, and she had promised herself on the train east that Nantucket would be different. Working here would be really different. She was so busy thinking, Should I say yes, should I say no, that she never actually gave Thatcher Smith an answer, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Good,” he said. His face came alive; it looked like his freckles were dancing. “You’re hired.”
TO: DrDon@toothache.com
FROM: Ade12177@hotmail.com
DATE: May 24, 2005, 3:54 P.M.
SUBJECT: The Blue Bistro
Found a job. You’re going to freak out so close the door to your office and sit down, okay? I took a job in a restaurant. Not waiting tables! Not cooking (obviously)! I am going to be the assistant manager at a place called the Blue Bistro. It’s a French-American menu, four dollar signs, right on the beach. Owned by a very nice guy named Thatcher Smith. His partner, Fiona, is the chef and she’s famous, but she’s a recluse. Never comes out of the kitchen. I haven’t even met her-though I will, I guess, soon enough.
I’m making twenty-five an hour-can you believe that? But I don’t start for another week and I need to buy some clothes and pay my first month’s rent. Is there any chance you might wire me a thousand dollars, please, sweet Dad? I am trying to put some structure in my life, and this time I will pay you back with interest, I promise!
I rented a room in a cottage from one of the women who waits tables at the restaurant. Her name is Caren. She’s waited tables since the place opened and she makes so much money in the summer that after Christmas she goes down to St. Bart’s for the winter and she doesn’t have to work. She said the job I have is harder to get than a seat on the space shuttle.
How do you like the eastern shore? Eaten any crab cakes? Love.
TO: Ade12177@hotmail.com
FROM: DrDon@toothache.com
DATE: May 24, 2005, 5:09 P.M.
SUBJECT: You Blue Me Away
No crab cakes yet. We’re still getting settled in. The schmo in here before me made a mess of his records and the bookkeeper said she can’t untangle his billing. But we’ll figure it out. We always do.
About your new job. Mavis says restaurants are dangerous places to work. Sexual harassment and the like. Foul language in the kitchen. Alcohol. Drugs. Everybody suffering from too much cash money. These are not people who floss, honey. (And that’s a joke, but you know what I mean.) Be careful! You’re an adult and I know you like the way you live but I am growing older by the day fretting about the situations you get yourself into. Which brings me to the question of money. I won’t go on about how you’re twenty-eight years old or about how I’m not your personal bank. I will just wire you the thousand dollars as long as you promise me that one of these days you’ll pick a place and settle down. Love, love.