Georgia’s Kitchen

by Jenny Nelson

  “But, it’s not investing in a restaurant, it’s investing in—”

  “You, I know. I told her the deal. She’s still interested. Who knows, maybe she’ll back number two and you can dump the godfather.”

  “Clem,” said a lilting voice with a gracious Southern twang. “So good to see you, and I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.” Charlotte Troy, a tall, fortyish woman, crossed the living room, her dark blond curls hitting her shoulders. She wore slim black trousers, a fitted black jacket, and diamond studs. Her lips were that perfect red that’s impossible to find and even more impossible to pull off, and her skin was flawless alabaster, unblemished by even a single freckle. No wonder the Daily dubbed her the Lipstick Queen.

  She and Clem hugged, then she extended her hand to Georgia. “I’m Charlotte. And you must be Georgia. Clem’s told me so much about you. Did she happen to mention that I’m a Georgia girl myself?”

  “No, she didn’t. I’ve actually never been there, but it’s where my parents met, so I guess they decided—”

  “Her parents met at a Dead show in Atlanta,” Clem interjected. “Isn’t that hilarious?”

  Georgia smiled through clenched teeth. Charlotte Troy looked as if she’d grown up dancing in cotillions and sailing in regattas. She did not seem as if she’d be entertained by trippy tales of Dead shows.

  “Really?” Charlotte said, drawing the word out to three syllables. “I spent a summer on Dead Tour myself, if you can believe that. My boyfriend and I bought an old VW bus and caught something like twenty-five shows.” She flashed a peace sign.

  “See?” Clem said to Georgia. “I told you she was cool.”

  “So,” Charlotte continued, “Clem says you’re looking for a small investment for your restaurant. Why don’t you tell me some more about it.” She pulled up a chair next to Georgia and sat down. Petal hopped onto Charlotte’s lap, abandoning Clem for his full-time mom.

  “First,” Georgia began, “I should make clear that I’m not selling ownership in the restaurant. My partner and I have already raised the majority of the money from a single investor. What we need now is a hundred thousand dollars of our own to contribute. So I’m looking for a loan, really, that I’ll pay back in full, with accrued interest, five points above prime, to be repaid year two, fourth quarter.”

  Though Clem had listened to Georgia and Bernard’s pitch a dozen times, she’d never heard Georgia utter anything even remotely financial. Bernard talked dollars, Georgia talked concept. Clem cleared her throat, covering her mouth with an upwardly pointing thumb.

  “And how much of that hundred do you already have?” Charlotte asked.

  “Thirty and change.”

  “So you’re looking for seventy.”

  “Yes,” Georgia said. Bernard was chasing a few money leads, but she might as well go for it. “I brought a copy of the business plan, so you can flip through it when you have some free time. And really quickly, so you know why I’m qualified to run my own restaurant, I was head chef at Marco, a pretty popular spot downtown, and I also worked—”

  “I know Marco,” Charlotte said stiffly.

  “Marco the restaurant? Or Marco the man?” Judging by Charlotte’s downturned mouth and crossed arms, Georgia could guess.

  “Unfortunately, both.”

  “Yeah,” said Georgia. “Me too.”

  “Let’s just say that reading that half-star review was a gleeful moment for me. I’m not normally a vengeful person, but…” Charlotte held up her hand. “I’m sorry you got stuck in that, Georgia. Clem told me Marco tried to screw the reviewer’s teenaged daughter and that she decided to screw the restaurant in return.”

  “She did, did she?” Georgia stared at Clem, who fidgeted in her chair, refusing to meet her friend’s eye. “That’s sort of on the down-low, Charlotte. I’d hate for anyone to think I’m spreading rumors because Marco fired me.” Clem and Lo were the only people Georgia had told the whole sordid story to. Even Dorothy and Hal, her new best friends, didn’t know.

  “Of course,” said Charlotte. “Anyway, it’s over and done with. I heard Marco decamped to D.C. That town is perfect for him.”

  “Believe it or not, the best thing that happened to me was getting fired from Marco.” And getting dumped by her fiancé, Georgia could easily have added. If those two things hadn’t happened, she’d still be stuck in a life that looked too good, from the outside, to give up. Without anything or anyone tying her to New York, she’d taken a risk and ventured to Italy, alone, setting in motion the chain of events that led right to this very moment in Charlotte Troy’s lovely living room.

  The housekeeper walked into the room. “Charlotte, Lucy’s up. Do you want me to bring her in?”

  “Oh, sure. We’re pretty much done here anyway, but I’d love for Georgia to meet her. Lucy and Clem are already old friends.”

  Georgia smiled. “I’d love to meet her. Mine’s waiting for me at home. Her name’s Sally.”

  Manhattan dog owners took pampering their pets to another level entirely, but having the housekeeper bring in the dog after her nap instead of letting her walk in on her own seemed extreme. She probably took Lucy to the doggy day spa too.

  Charlotte’s brow wrinkled slightly, but she didn’t say anything. Clem hugged her sides, her face turning red as the Bordeaux walls.

  “Here she is,” said the housekeeper, who had tiptoed back in. “Little Lucy.” She handed a bundle wrapped in a light pink blanket to Charlotte.

  “My perfect baby,” Charlotte cooed. “I missed you so much. Mommy missed her little angel.” She cradled the bundle in her arms and turned her body so that Georgia could see a tiny baby with a shock of black hair swaddled in the blanket.

  “Oh,” Georgia said. “A baby. Lucy’s a baby. I thought she was, I mean, I don’t know why, but I just assumed she was another dog.” Georgia’s face got hot, and closing her eyes, she prayed it didn’t match Clem’s.

  “Because I’m not married?” said Charlotte. “Lots of people are surprised. But I never saw being single as a reason not to have a child. Better to be raised in a happy home with one parent than in an unhappy home with two.”

  Georgia nodded. “You’re right. Lucy’s lucky to have you.” A successful businesswoman, a successful, new mother, and she had to be—flawless skin or not—at least forty-one. Clem was right; Charlotte was cool.

  “I’m the lucky one, really. Single mothers aren’t exactly welcomed with open arms in Saigon. It was more red tape than you can imagine, but worth every ounce of frustration to finally hold my daughter in my arms.”

  Clem, who’d never met a misty moment she didn’t love, stared wistfully at mother and child, a dreamy smile on her lips. For all her toughness, she was as sappy as a pine tree.

  “Georgia, why don’t you leave the business plan for me and I’ll have my lawyer look it over,” Charlotte said. “But count on the seventy. And we can revisit the payback after you open.”

  A smile spread slowly across Georgia’s face as those words sank in. “That’s terrific, Charlotte. Really, really terrific.” She was opening her own place. Correction. She and Bernard were opening their own place. She had to call him. She had to call her realtor. That old laundromat on Sixty-seventh Street would be perfect. She had to call Ricky. Start staffing immediately. She had to call her old purveyors, even the waste-management guy. She had to call the architect, the construction manager. She had to…

  Charlotte stood up to walk her guests to the door, propping Lucy on her shoulder. “If all goes well, it might make more sense for me to reinvest in your next venture. I’m much more interested in growth opportunities than I am in fixed ventures with limited returns. As it seems you are too.”

  “I am.” Georgia clapped her hands together, feeling a rush of adrenaline or endorphins, like the kick of drinking the first half glass of really good champagne.

  Charlotte Troy, single woman, cosmetic mogul, MoMA trustee, party-page fixture, onetime Deadhead, had adopted a baby g
irl from Vietnam at age forty-one. Claudia Cavalli got engaged and pregnant at forty-two, all the while presiding over several hugely successful restaurants. Georgia was thirty-three. There was plenty of time to open her restaurant, open another, and another, meet her man, fall hopelessly in love, and start a family. Or not. But there were options. Lots and lots of options.

  Happy hour had just started, and Georgia rushed to claim a booth while Clem hightailed it to the bar. In a city of $22 drinks, two-for-ones were too good to pass up, and the F&A quickly filled with a motley crew of college kids, young advertising types, out-of-work actors, and the slightly grizzled middle-aged men who drank for sport.

  From her perch in the booth, Georgia spied Bernard’s signature red-scarf, navy-peacoat combo, and she waved him over, watching him fight his way through the crowd, the smile never leaving his face.

  “Georgia,” he said when he reached her. “You did it.”

  “No, Bernard, we did it.”

  Lo arrived, looking chic and out of place in over-the-knee leather boots, leggings, and a fur chubby. Having given up her dreams of becoming the next Norah Jones, she’d taken a job with a fashion PR firm and was dressing the part with a vengeance. “Can I ask why we’re celebrating raising a bazillion dollars in this sketchy dive bar?”

  “Because,” Georgia said, “this is where Bernard and I decided to partner, and where we scratched out what became the basis for our business plan. We owe a lot to the good old F and A.”

  Clem walked over carefully, sliding a tray with two pitchers of beer and four glasses onto the table.

  “Two pitchers?” Bernard asked.

  “It’s two for one, and I, for one, am not dealing with that crowd again. Push over, George.” Clem slid into the booth and poured four foamy beers. “So how about our girl?” she said, raising a glass in Georgia’s direction.

  “How about our restaurant?” Georgia said.

  The four friends knocked their glasses together.

  “I hate to bring up a sore subject,” Lo said, “but what about a name? Have you guys come up with anything yet?”

  “We’ve come up with a million names. It’s just that they all suck,” said Bernard. “It needs to mean something. It can’t be the address or some slick-sounding one-syllable word or some kooky animal we love.”

  Georgia had been carrying her notebook with her everywhere, in case inspiration struck while on the subway, waiting on line at Citarella, or getting her toes polished, but the perfect name had so far eluded her. Bernard was right. It needed to mean something, but it also had to sound interesting and comfortable and be easy to read and pronounce.

  “Anyway, we have the money. That’s the important thing. The name will come.” Bernard sipped his beer.

  “I still can’t believe Luca Santini came through with all that money,” Lo said. “He must really be rolling in it.”

  “You know, I honestly believe that if I didn’t speak French, he wouldn’t have. Thank God for my grandmother. She moved in with us when my grandfather died and refused to learn English. The only way I could talk to her was in French.”

  “Who’d have thunk the Bari godfather would be such a Francophile?” Clem said.

  Georgia considered Bernard’s words. “I’d never have become a chef if it weren’t for my grandmother. I practically grew up in her kitchen.” Georgia was silent for a second, then looked at Bernard. “Grandmas are the link, Bernard. Without our grandmas we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing?” Lo asked, looking over her shoulder at a ZZ Top clone who’d just belched up the state of New Jersey.

  “I mean we wouldn’t be opening our restaurant if it weren’t for our grandmothers, Lo.”

  It was true. Without Grammy, there was no way Georgia would have been sitting at the F&A with her business partner and best friends drinking bad beer and trying to come up with a name for the restaurant she’d dreamed of opening since baking her first gingerbread girl.

  “No offense, George, but Grandma the Restaurant is hardly going to pack ’em in,” said Clem.

  “Bubbe? Gammy? Gams? Dita? Mamie? Grandy? Nonna? Help me, guys,” Georgia said. “There has to be a word that means ‘grandma’ but doesn’t sound grandmotherish.”

  “Nana’s?” Bernard offered. “Means ‘grandma,’ but it’s not too precious. There’s also that cool dog in Peter Pan named Nana who took care of the kids when the parents weren’t around. And it sort of rolls off the tongue.”

  “Nana’s Kitchen?” Georgia said.

  “Nana’s Kitchen,” Clem repeated. “I like.”

  “Meet me at Nana’s Kitchen,” Lo said. “Have you been to Nana’s Kitchen? Hey, did you hear Sam Sifton gave Nana’s Kitchen three stars?” She smiled. “It works.”

  Bernard poured another round of beers, killing the first pitcher and moving right into the second. “To Nana’s Kitchen?”

  “To Nana’s Kitchen,” Georgia said.

  A huge whiteboard sat on the dining table, propped up against the wall. An assortment of multicolored markers idled in a coffee mug next to it. Bernard had just returned from Staples with his latest office props, and the transformation of Georgia’s apartment into Nana’s Kitchen’s headquarters was now officially complete.

  “This whiteboard is so late-nineties new media,” Georgia said.

  Bernard drew a giant grid and began filling in the columns with the various and infinite tasks that needed to be accomplished before Nana’s could open. Next to each task he assigned a G or a B, using a different-colored marker for each letter.

  While the list grew, Georgia pulled out her notebook and began talking aloud, as much for Bernard’s sake as her own. “Okay, we signed the lease last week, so check that one off. That was a big one. The graphic designer is tweaking the logo based on our comments. The architect is presenting final final plans tomorrow—can you give us half a check for that one?”

  Bernard kept writing.

  “The demolition will be done at the end of next week. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for a quarter check, seeing how you responded to the idea of half. Continuing to interview kitchen staff, having a major problem with the kitchen-supply store, and the bar will take way longer to fabricate than we thought; need to rethink that one. Meeting with the liquor lawyer on Friday, he says it’s going to be tough to get the license. The contractor says water’s not the issue, since the space was a Laundromat, but that the HVAC is going to be a bitch.” She closed her notebook. “Bernard, how are we ever going to get this all done by March?”

  Bernard had finally finished writing and took a step back from his color-coded masterpiece, which looked like a Damien Hirst spot painting. “How? You know how. The same way we created the business plan, raised all the money, and found the perfect space. Hard fucking work.”

  Georgia frowned. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Several dozen people milled around the defunct restaurant, a midtown behemoth in a former bank that had lasted thirteen years, surviving 9/11, the economic meltdown, and three years worth of scaffolding—on either side of the entrance—before the landlord sold the building to a group of investors who were opening an H&M or a Zara, depending on whom you asked. Thirteen years was an impressive record for any city, but particularly New York, where failed restaurants were more common than off-duty lights on cabs during rainstorms. Boxes of china, flatware, linens, and stemware were piled on tables and chairs in the dining room; cases of wine were stacked on the bar; ice machines, coolers, pans, trays, and other equipment lined the kitchen. All of it was a little worse for wear, and all of it was for sale—down to the (bad) artwork on the walls. How many still lifes of bowls of fruit and dead pheasants did one restaurant need?

  The owner, who stood outside smoking while potential buyers pawed through the various lots, was a friend of a friend of Bernard’s, which was how it came to be that Georgia was feigning interest in a box of scuffed Ginori soup bowls, waiting for the auction to start. The object o
f her desire was a practically brand-new La Marzocco GB5 espresso machine, the undisputed Rolls-Royce of espresso machines. The off-the-shelf price tag was way out of their budget, but Bernard swore they could get it for a fraction of that.

  Smacking his gavel on the hostess stand, the auctioneer kicked off the action with a lot of racks. Georgia checked her phone for a message from Bernard, who was meeting with the contractor at Nana’s. The millwork had just been installed, including a work-around for the insanely expensive and nearly impossible to fabricate bar, and Bernard was inspecting the result. Despite his less than perfect vision, nothing got by Bernard. No message, no text. He was probably embroiled in an argument about the bar’s patina.

  At last the auctioneer moved on to the big-ticket items, starting with an eight-burner Garland range. The Marzocco was up next. Georgia made her way to the front of the room and pulled the paddle from her bag, gripping the handle so tightly her knuckles turned white. It was her first auction. Still, the chances of its magically floating upward seemed slim, and she had to laugh at herself. At five hundred bucks she placed her first bid, surprised by how empowering it was to wield that flimsy paddle. She raised it again at nine and again at fourteen. By two grand, only two bidders remained: someone in back the auctioneer referred to as “the man with the dark black hair,” and Georgia, “the curly girl up front.” At four grand she turned around to check out her competition, but most of the light fixtures had already been sold and she could barely see him. At forty-five hundred she started to sweat. She couldn’t go any higher than five, half the value of a new Marzocco. Luckily, the guy dropped out in the next round and the espresso machine was Georgia’s for the “low, low price of forty-seven hundred dollars.” Bang.

  “I let you have it,” said a voice behind her as the auctioneer moved on to the next lot.

  She turned around. “Marco. I had no idea—”