19
“Hi, you must be Allie?” All six foot three leans toward me to shake my hand. “I’m Andrew.”
He runs his left hand through his Superman-like brunette locks and my knees buckle.
“Feel free to take a seat,” I say, gesturing to an open chair in our bar.
Because I did such a good job selecting Tabitha, Angela gave me a list of all the roles we needed to fill—three dishwashers, three sous chefs, five busers, two captains and ten servers—so I’m on a hiring spree. But most of the people who have come through have been far less refined than Tab—just a bunch of industry fledglings hoping for a glimpse of the King. And when that doesn’t pan out for them, they instead leak grainy iPhone pics of the restaurant on social media. While I know it scores people major cool points to say they’ve already been to Here, it’s the sole reason I’ve had to confiscate cell phones upon arrival.
I don’t, though, with Andrew, my latest interviewee. He’s a referral from one of my recent hires, a service captain named Jessica, who will take our most difficult tables, largest parties or diners we need to impress most. She’s a twentysomething who came from the now-closed L2O, an iconic, Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. It’s a good get.
His insane good looks cause me to draw a blank on how to begin. I want to ask him why he isn’t a full-time male model, but instead lead with: “Tell me why you want to be our second captain.”
My words spill out like tumbling bowling pins.
“First off, I’ve worked with Jessica and she’s incredible. But, I’ve actually been following you in the news and really respect what you’ve done. I think I could learn a lot from someone who has a different angle on things. I’ve served at Michelin-starred restaurants and worked for a ton of industry vets, but I’ve never followed direction from someone young, fresh and with a really great energy like yours.”
A good part of his response could just be him blowing smoke up my ass to get the job. But he seems genuine, his eyes are the smoldering kind and I like the way he double-knots his Converse.
I ask him a few more targeted questions and offer him the job. After filling out the paperwork and his requested days off, he offers me his digits.
“I know Benji could probably answer them for you, but if you have any industry questions, I’d love to help where and how I can,” Andrew says before leaving.
I fan myself with his paperwork after he goes.
* * *
Getting my feet wet at Here has been nothing short of a whirlwind. After two straight weeks of sixteen-hour workdays, I’m only about halfway through Angela’s bible, aka the book on how to open Here, which is exactly three weeks away from opening. Granted I’ve been flipping around to different sections depending on my mood, but it still feels like I haven’t even made a dent in everything I need to master before we take our first seating.
Right now, I’m up to basic accounting. The numbers make my eyes gloss over and I hate looking at anything that resembles a bill—call it PTSD from when Benji was living with me, or just difficulty accepting that money that’s needed to pay a vendor cuts away at the investment I’m trying to make back.
I’ve accepted that there will be no days off at this point, or the foreseeable future. So I break up the tasks by looking on Pinterest for centerpiece inspiration. I call this research and development. Aka, the closest thing to a break.
* * *
“OMG. Would you just look at this POS?”
“Can’t. Busy right now,” I reply, gaze fixed on the screen where I’m this close to generating my first schedule after what feels like hours of data entry. “But if it’s a piece of shit, might I suggest boxing it up and bringing it to the post office before it closes?”
“POS stands for Point of Sale, Allie. Not Piece of Shit. And this here machine that you didn’t bother to watch get installed by a man who looked like Chris Hemsworth just now is the top of the line.”
She has me at “Chris Hemsworth.”
“Seriously, it doesn’t get any better than the YeltonXT. It’s a thing of beauty, I tell ya.”
Angela is probably the only person on the planet who can get excited about a computer system that allows servers to send orders back to the kitchen. But I get that these machines are an integral part of opening Here and I remember filing an invoice for them last week. The software and the four systems we’ll have planted throughout the restaurant—front of restaurant, back of restaurant, back office and bar—cost a cool $18,000. That’s enough for me to pause where I’m at on When I Work and give Angela and the YeltonXT my complete attention.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?”
“It’s something else,” I say, not as stoked to assign the machine a gender.
“Whoa, Nelly. Is that a YeltonXT?” Tabitha asks as she walks in, putting her backpack down on the floor next to her desk. She’s in houndstooth-print kitchen pants, a black button-down chef’s shirt and Dansko clogs. When she’s not trying to dress like someone who works at the DMV, she actually looks great. Or at least, the part.
“It sure the hell is,” Angela boasts. “Hey, now that the three of us are all here, we need to talk about something.”
Angela grabs some papers off her desk and hands us each a copy.
“This came to my inbox this morning,” she says of the email that’s apparently from an editor at FoodFeed. “If you look down at the second paragraph, they want to know why Benji’s been so silent on social media. They’re onto it. Everyone knows it’s not like him to keep his mouth shut about anything, let alone the most buzzed-about restaurant in the city, aka the one he’s in theory about to open.”
Any excitement I felt from Andrew’s uplifting remarks earlier quickly deflates.
“I don’t get it. Can’t you just hit Reply and say he’s missing and we don’t know?” Tabitha asks.
Over the past few weeks Angela has given her the abridged version of the life and times of Benji Zane. Tabitha said he sounds like a character in one of her fan-fiction stories. It’s so odd to think she never tasted her predecessor’s food, hasn’t seen his man-bun, wouldn’t recognize any of his tattoos and will never fall victim to his intoxicating charm.
While I like Tab’s suggestion to just call a thing a thing, it’s not that easy. Clearly she has no experience having to lie or cover up someone’s tracks so the whole world doesn’t simultaneously demand a wellness check on all involved parties—which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But in this case, we’ve got to be strategic with how we handle this unwelcome reminder that the chef everyone thinks is at the helm of this opening is nowhere to be found.
I realize then that it’s moments like this, when I’m busy cleaning up his dirty laundry, that I forget how sad and mad I am.
Every inch of this restaurant still screams Benji. It’s not like he’s the one who’s picked out the tile or the lighting fixtures. And he’s certainly not the brain behind the menu draft. But these four walls that are currently entrapping me stand only because of him. Distractions like never-ending to-do lists, hot servers and fancy software systems that need to be learned only go so far in the way of preventing me from scratching the itch that is wanting Benji to come back and be okay.
“Well, the way I see it we have two choices...one, like you say, Tabitha, is to be honest. We release a very concise, black-and-white, official statement in writing and distribute it to the press on behalf of Here.”
“Bad idea,” I say, sharply cutting Angela off. “If we give the press an inch, they’ll take a mile. They’ll have a field day running stories about what may or may not have happened. And since we don’t know the truth ourselves, how will we ever be able to wrangle the rumors and set them straight? Social media will just end up blaming me for whatever everyone thinks went down now that I’m in and he’s out. And when that happens, you can kiss me being the draw goodbye. It’ll be a witch hunt after that.”
“Well, what other choice do we have besides telling the truth?” Tabitha asks me like I know. I just look to Angela for the light.
“Option two is telling a version of the truth. We say, ‘He’s simply focused on opening Here and maintaining the element of surprise for the individuals who were lucky enough to score opening-night reservations.’”
Hmm. I guess that’s not entirely false. I’m sure wherever he is right now, he’s got to be somewhat thinking about Here. And, yes, our opening-night patrons are going to be in for a treat. “Go with option two,” I order.
Tabitha’s eyes, magnified by her glasses, teeter back and forth between Angela and me like a cat clock on the wall. I can tell she’s lost.
“Copy that. And sorry, Tabitha. She’s part owner, I have to go with her direction on this one. But hey, I swear we won’t be stuck in the shadow of this douchebag much longer, okay?”
Angela grabs the handouts back from us and puts them through a shredder before queuing up a new email.
* * *
Just when I’m about to hit the wall each night, Angela shoves me in her Jetta and we drive to make the last seating at a different fine-dining establishment. I wish it felt as glamorous as it sounds, but it’s all just for the sake of research—a crash course in multicourse dining, if you will. It is for this reason that I now keep a change of clothes at Here. At just two weeks until we open, I might not know everything there is to know about this industry, but I can tell the leggings I haven’t washed in ten days and a pair of one-dollar Old Navy flip-flops that are flat as a pancake by the heel don’t pair well with a crystal glass of Côtes du Rhône full of notes of cherry and oak.
When Angela told Craig that Benji was out, he freaked. Even though she assured him that I was very much still in, he didn’t care. In fact, to say he was concerned would be an understatement. He couldn’t imagine how I could go from a job that required me to think in bursts of 280 characters or less to successfully running a high-end, high-traffic restaurant.
I can’t say I blame him for holding off on sending in his RSVP for the “Allie Simon is the draw” party that Angela swears is happening. Even I’m not so confident in my identity or my abilities now that Benji Zane isn’t next to me in every picture that hits the internet concerning the opening of Here.
Even though Angela is far more positive about my potential, she had to side with her ride-or-die, Craig, and validated his fears on the status call she had with him wherein she went into details about Benji’s disappearance. Our desks in the back office are just three feet away from each other, so there’s no privacy. I wasn’t meant to hear the conversation they were having when she downloaded him, but Craig was screaming so loud that it was tough to miss. Angela tried to signal for me to leave, but I was busy inputting Tabitha’s entire menu into the YeltonXT and didn’t want to lose my place in the system. Moments later, I learned how shitty it feels to be dedicating your whole life and all of its savings to opening a restaurant, and then have the guy who’s really in charge not think you can do it.
Before he had a chance to tell us all to get fucked, she magically convinced him that she saw something special in me and that trial by fire would be the only way to bring it out. So, thanks again to her quick thinking, she swindled a hefty $5,000 research budget from him that’s meant to be spent by live action role-playing at some of Chicago’s best restaurants. All hail Craig and his seemingly never-ending bank account.
“So where are we going tonight?” I ask Angela as I trade my workout pants and hoodie for a navy blue pencil skirt and white button-down shirt. I look more like a generic flight attendant than a sexy industry pro, but these are the cheapest things to send to the dry cleaner each day.
“Paragraph,” says Angela as she shuts down her computer. “So you might want to go one button higher on that blouse and throw on some nylons considering you haven’t shaved those stems in what I’d guess is two weeks.”
Caught.
The average Chicago foodie follows every food truck on Twitter. They are the ones first in line each morning at the Doughnut Vault, cash in hand for a classic vanilla glazed. They’ve checked in to 487 places on Yelp. And they’ve all snapped the same photo looking down the center of Restoration Hardware’s trendy restaurant concept, the 3 Arts Club Café. But Paragraph is not for your average foodie—although they wish it was.
Paragraph is the number-three restaurant in the nation and seventh across the globe, according to the esteemed World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. The rankings may be based out of New York City, but Chicagoans pay very close attention to this annual list. If Paragraph rises or falls even just one slot, the blogosphere erupts.
Ironically enough, Paragraph isn’t in the West Loop on Randolph Street at all. They’re actually near my place in Lincoln Park. In fact, I’ve walked by it a thousand times before dating Benji and had no idea the culinary clout it had. Now when I pass it, I want to shake the shoulders of whoever is near me and ask them if they realize this is one of the most famous restaurants in the whole world.
On the rainy drive over, the two of us are unusually silent. The only thing I can attribute it to is nerves. Not about opening our own restaurant in less than two weeks, but about dining at a place so fancy that even Angela doesn’t have a hookup to get in.
“Remind me again how we got a reso?” I ask to cut through the quiet.
“I put my name on the list fifteen months ago. The first available table for two was next March. I was counting on going then. But they had a cancellation tonight and I was next on the wait list to call.”
“Oh, well, isn’t this our lucky night,” I say. “Who were you originally going to take?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, upping the speed of her windshield wipers as the rain crushes us.
“You booked a two-top for March before we knew each other. So, who were you planning on going with?”
“That’s a good question. I never really thought about it. Maybe I assumed I’d be dating someone by then?”
We never really talk about Angela’s personal life, so her answer catches me off guard. I’m not sure what type of guy I picture her with, actually. But that doesn’t stop me from throwing out my best guess.
“Someone who would be willing to sit through a sixteen-course prix fixe meal for $175 per person?”
“It’s actually $275 with pairings,” she corrects.
“Get the fuck out. Well, when you find that guy, do me a favor and see if he has an identical brother for me.”
Angela pulls her car to the curb and I dig around for some coins for the meter. Paying for our parking is the least I can do. But before I can scrounge up enough change, a gentleman opens the passenger side door.
“Good evening, madam. Welcome to Paragraph.” He grabs my hand to help me out of the car and ejects a giant umbrella for me to step under. Before I do, I look over at Angela and she has her own hot-guy-with-an-umbrella helping her out the driver’s side. I’m looking for the sign that says how much the valet costs, but I see nothing. I don’t even see a sign on the front of their restaurant to reassure us we’re in the right place.
“How much is valet?” I whisper to Angela as we walk through the front doors together.
“Expensive,” she replies.
The hostess ushers us up to the second-floor dining room, where she passes us off to another maître d’. That gentleman then walks us to a two-top table located in the far corner, which is actually now back to the front of the restaurant. We are right by the window overlooking the street below. The raindrops look like glitter as they catch the glow of a streetlamp that is eye level with our table.
Whoever canceled this reservation is missing out. Majorly.
“I could use a drink. Do you see a cocktail list anywhere?” I ask Angela.
“It’s Paragraph. There are no menus,” she says, taking a sip of sparkling water. “And we’re not drinking tonight either. I need you paying full attention to everything that happens here. If our captain adjusts his junk, I want you to note it. Study it. Learn from it.”
I roll my eyes, but it’s probably a good idea not to get totally sloshed. I haven’t had wine since chugging the Sutter Homes after Benji trashed my bathroom, and I don’t know how well I’ll be able to hold my liquor. Considering that after this, we are heading back to Here for an all-nighter, I probably shouldn’t test it.
Speaking of all-nighters, this’ll be my third one in six days. For what it’s worth, I’m getting used to pushing two chairs opposite each other—which equates to the length of my body—and covering myself with a tablecloth meant for a six-top and calling it my bed for the night.
“What about food menus?” I ask. “Are they going to bring any of those out? I’d like to at least peep the design.”
“Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen. Our server is going to approach the table in the next fifteen seconds. They’ll ask if you have any allergies and that’s all the cooks need to know.”
“How do you know it’ll be fifteen seconds?”
“Because if you don’t address the table in the first forty-five seconds, it’s considered extremely minor league.”
“Good evening, ladies, and welcome—” dramatic pause “—to Paragraph. My name is Emmett and our chefs have a fantastic night lined up for you. They have requested, however, for me to find out if there are any allergies or dietary restrictions that we should be aware of.”
I have a flashback to the night Benji and I ate at Republic. “Three months sober,” he reminded the chef when we were asked that very same question. I remember how proud he was to say that. How proud I was of him. That wasn’t even that long ago, was it? I put my hand up to my eye and gently touch my cheek. It’s been at least a week since the swelling and discoloration completely subsided but I’m taken back to that moment when it all went wrong. Without that mark on my face anymore, without any communication from him on my phone, it’s like Benji never existed at all. The fact that so much has changed in so little time sends a lump of sadness to the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow, hard to concentrate.
Angela must sense that I’m in la-la land, because she answers Emmett’s question for the both of us.
“No, sir. No allergies.”
“Very well, thank you.” Emmett disperses.
Angela dips her fingers into her water glass and then flicks them my way. The few splashes that hit my face snap me out of it.
“FYI, Craig’s not spending $500 on the two of us tonight so you can sit here and daydream. Are you focusing or not?”
“Yes, sorry,” I say as I blot my face with the softest, most luxurious linen napkin I’ve ever felt.
“Good. Now, you see that man right there?” Angela asks as she hunches low to the table like she’s giving me some secret agent intel. “He’s the FOH captain. I want you to watch him all night.”
The man is in a tuxedo. He’s probably midthirties, black and extremely polished looking. He doesn’t look like he’s lost a staring contest in his life, the way that he makes contact with each one of the servers on the floor and directs them using just slight movements—a head turn, a change in eye direction, the extension of his fingers, one digit at a time, despite relaxed arms hanging naturally on the sides of his body.
“What about our server, Emmett?” I ask. “Shouldn’t I watch him?”
“No. He may have the most adorable dimples, but he’s as good as a robotic arm. The captain is in control of everything. He calls the shots. Watch how he commands the room.”
“Isn’t this Jessica’s job? Andrew’s, too?”
“It is. But who’s in charge of them?”
“I am.”
“There you go, then.”
The first course arrives. It’s a spoonful of butternut squash soup that has the consistency of cake batter. The spoon is horizontal and balancing on a metal stick. We lick them clean with one swirl of the tongue.
“Damn, that was good,” I say.
“It was. But don’t pay attention to the food.”
“What do you mean? We’re at the nicest restaurant in Chicago and I’m not supposed to care what I’m eating?”
“No. Not tonight. This is all about service and back-of-house. In a minute, we’re going to get up and find their expeditor. I want you to see how that all works.”
“Their expi-what?”
“The expeditor. The expo. Arguably the most important role in a restaurant. Come with me.”
We leave our napkins and shimmy out of our seats.
“Normally, this is a no-no, FYI,” Angela says. “All members of a dining party should never get up at the same time. It sends a signal to the waitstaff that we’re dining-and-dashing.”
Finally, a term I know.
“But take a look at what our server is doing now for what it’s worth,” she says.
I glance back and Emmett is diligently refolding our napkins and pushing in our chairs. Even if we’re not there, the people at Paragraph care how the table looks to others. I like it.
Angela and I are standing at the landing on the second floor, looking down into the open kitchen below us. Among the chefs is a man in a suit and his back is to us. He grabs a ticket off their printer, holds it momentarily, then places it in front of him like a tarot card.
“That’s the expo right there. That’s who you’re going to shadow.”
“You think that guy is going to be cool with me standing in his peripheral taking mental notes as he’s trying to do whatever he’s doing?”
“Good point. Maybe unbutton two buttons before you go down to see him. Now let’s get back to the table.”
A few more courses go by and even though I’m not supposed to be paying attention to them, they’re fucking delicious. Everything is rich, yet delicate. The amount of care in the flavor is the same for the presentation. A cycle of edible art that I can’t help but wish Benji was able to enjoy with me. I know for a fact he’s never been to Paragraph—not to stage, not to eat. I thought about trying to get reservations for us had he made it to six months sober, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. Not only did he not make it to that milestone, but I have now learned that getting a reservation at Paragraph isn’t like calling ahead for a table at the Olive Garden.
“That right there! Do you see that? Do you see what that man just did?”
“He pointed at something?”
“He’s not pointing, Allie. He’s gesturing. Big difference. Whenever anyone asks you where something is, you—”
“Walk them there. I already know that. Benji taught me.”
“Well, good, that means your relationship had some value, then. But to drill down further, you only do the walk if it’s a guest. If it’s a colleague asking where they can find an extra apron, you open-palm gesture. Bend your thumb to your palm and keep the rest of your fingers erect. Try it.”
“Like this?” I try the motion for myself.
“Exactly.”
Angela goes on to explain that pointing with one finger is considered rude. That’s why it’s a full hand motion with an open palm. The open palm represents an open heart. And from there, it’s sunbeams and rainbows and gratuities around 20 percent or higher.
“I’ve got to piss. Where’s the bathroom, Allie?”
“I think I saw it over by that server station.” I point in that general direction.
“Fail.”
She trapped me. I bend my thumb and try it again. “I believe that the bathroom is just over by that server station,” I say, gesturing.
“Nice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually do need to pee.”
Nice.
That is fast becoming my favorite food industry word. I remember Benji saying it a lot, too. Whether he mastered the perfect plating of a poached egg or I gave him a warm hug first thing in the morning, he’d say, “That’s nice.” And he’d mean it. I guess when things felt right, they were just nice. Ironically, no other words were needed, even from the man of many extremes. Though I haven’t adopted it myself—or maybe I just haven’t identified a situation where it was worth it to say it yet—when I hear someone else use the word, it’s a reminder that something good did exist with a man who’s probably nose deep in a pile of white powder right now.
And there it is again, the pit in my stomach. It’s really not fair that I am forced to feel every emotion that this situation has to offer while he gets a pass. I suppose I could also choose to numb everything with drugs—I know the exact corner of the city to get some—but that just isn’t my style. Call me a masochist, but I guess I prefer to feel the pain.
Even though I don’t have an eight ball in my pocket right now, I have something else to distract me: the keys to Here in my purse. Considering I’m not alone very often and there’s an endless amount of tasks to tackle concerning the opening, my mind doesn’t often get a chance to wander to the point where I feel sorry for myself. Sure, I’m toeing the line right now thinking of Benji, but Angela will be back from the ladies’ room before my tear ducts can catch up with my brain.
In that respect, it’s a good thing that I’m too busy learning how to void a guest check in the YeltonXT to worry about all the what-ifs with Benji. What if he’s been trying to reach me but can’t? What if he’s been hurt? Like, seriously hurt? And mainly, what if he comes back? But as I count down each day as one closer to the opening of Here, it’s also a tick in the other direction—one day further from the last time we were together and happy and safe. And now that it’s approaching the one-month mark of him being gone, I can probably stop worrying about his return. I think it would actually take a zombie apocalypse to see him walk through the door at this point.
I snap out of my Benji reverie and bring my attention back to Angela as she returns to the table.
“That was a hella nice bathroom,” she says. “Now, are you ready to go slut it up for that expo?”
I look down at my cleavage and decide I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.