The Restaurateur

by Aubrey Parker

  “All right,” Damon says. “I’ll set it up. But I just want to warn you. Because I like you, kid, and you should be prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?”

  The almost-smile becomes a laugh.

  “I love my little girl very much,” Damon says. “But she can be difficult.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ELIZABETH

  THE CARPENTER STARES AT ME like I’m a dumb blonde.

  “Are you deaf?” I ask.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me that you’ll fix what you screwed up.”

  I can tell he’s adopted his patient voice, but that’s not how he feels inside. He’s speaking politely, even though I can tell that he’s pissed. It’s okay; I’m not showing all that I feel inside yet, either. He keeps calling me “ma’am.” Like I’m an old lady. I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose, or if that’s just the word he uses to patronize people after he tries to sell them cheap shit.

  “Ma’am, it’s not a matter of fixing it. This is how this type of chaise is made. I didn’t make a mistake.”

  “It’s shoddy. It’s going to fall apart the first time someone moves it.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Ma’am?”

  I roll my eyes and exhale. Then I tip the chaise, eliciting a shout of protest. Too late. The back of it hits his shop floor. But it’s not like we should be worrying about sawdust getting on the fabric, because that has to go, too. There’s little, if anything, about this custom chaise that I like.

  “Hey!” he shouts.

  I squat on my tall blue heels but don’t draw his attention to his half-assed workmanship just yet. I want to make my bigger point first.

  “How much am I paying you for this?”

  He’s trying to pull the chaise upright, onto its feet, to hide it from scrutiny. I push him away, then sit on it sideways. He comes forward to nudge me back, but then wisely reconsiders. If he puts a hand on me, I’ll slap him. I’ll scream. I’ll blow a whistle. I’m five-four, and he must be six-three, broad like a lumberjack. I’ll take my defense any way I can get it.

  “How much?” I repeat.

  “Seven thousand.”

  “Seventy-three hundred,” I correct. “And if I’d included your ridiculous delivery charge, it’ll be more.”

  He looks at me like he wants to fight this point, but he also knows we won’t see eye to eye. Jeff the Carpenter claims that a delivery charge is justified because he has to rent a van and pay for a mover to help him. But that’s stupid. When you pay as much for something as I am right now, the seller should include things like delivery, and be willing to wax all the wood in my apartment if I want him to. That’s why I refused to pay for delivery. He keeps balking like he’s going to charge me for it anyway, but I’d like to see him try.

  And that was before this debacle.

  “Is that a lot?”

  “It’s fair for the work.”

  “Just indulge me, Jeff.” I actually bat my lashes. “Is it a lot?”

  “I charge on the higher end because I produce a superior product. I won’t apologize for that.”

  “Nor should you,” I say, playing along. “I know you track your hours. My father mentioned it when he asked me how I wanted him to pay you. So how many hours went in to this piece of furniture?”

  “I’d have to look.”

  I raise my eyebrows, still sitting on the upended chaise. Jeff sighs and pulls out his cell phone. His mouth opens, but before he can speak, I reach out and take it from him. He opens his mouth and then closes it, his lips a straight line.

  I’m sure he’s inflated the numbers I see on his phone app. I turn it around so the screen faces him.

  “Is this accurate?”

  “It’s there, ain’t it?”

  I do the division in my head, then throw the phone back. “It’s more per hour than anyone with your skills should be making.”

  “Look,” Jeff says, inhaling and exhaling through his nostrils like a bull, “if there’s something physically wrong with the piece, I’d be happy to fix it. But until you show me where something is—”

  I pounce. He’s come near enough that he can see the chaise’s underside from where he’s standing, and with venom, I jab at what’s beneath. “What’s that?”

  “Wood.”

  “In what kind of a joint?”

  His jaw works. He didn’t expect that question, not in a thousand years. He must have figured the only type of joints I know about are the kinds you light while inhaling.

  “It’s called a biscuit joint.”

  I take off my shoe. Then I stomp on the wood. It comes apart like snapping a toothpick. “Funny. I don’t see a biscuit in that joint.”

  “I must have forgotten.”

  “So, if there’s no biscuit, what kind of joint is it?”

  Staring at me. “A butt joint.”

  “As in, just two pieces of wood pushed together. Can’t even join it with glue. Only the nails.” I tap one with my blue fingernail. “Not very good nails, either.”

  “This is all normal construction,” Jeff says.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I said that it’s all normal for—”

  “For a Wal-Mart desk? Maybe for a DIY bookcase from IKEA?”

  “Look …”

  “No, Mr. Carmody. You look. Come down on your knees for the little lady, will you?”

  He looks furious, but he comes down to inspect the chaise’s underside with me. His eyes are on the joints, probably preparing a defense, so I take one of the nails that’s fallen out and use it to rip the upholstery away from the padding.

  “What the hell?” Jeff yells.

  I turn it inside out. Feel the fabric between my finger and thumb.

  “Is this the material I paid for? Or a cheap imitation?”

  “It’s what you asked for!”

  “Really? I have the sample I showed you in my purse.” I reach for it. “Let’s compare.”

  Jeff holds up a hand. “Okay. Fine. They ran out. This was available, and I didn’t think it would matter. I was going to rebate some of the cost to you when we were all done.”

  I smirk. Of course he was.

  “Well. It matters,” I say. “So, let’s just get this off of here and find you some of the good stuff, which I’ve already verified is in stock two miles away.” I tug, putting on a show. “How did you attach this fabric to the frame?”

  He thinks I’m asking because I don’t know. It’s almost cute. He points and says, “Glue. Under the trim.”

  I act surprised. “Not using brass tacks like I specified?” Again, I reach for my purse. “Like you wrote up on the estimate that I have here? Unless I’m forgetting …” I rummage more.

  “I must have forgotten that,” Jeff mumbles.

  “Now let’s talk about these joints,” I say, returning to the subject.

  “Look, Ms. Frasier …”

  “It looks like they’re all butt joints.”

  “It’s plenty sturdy. Just because joints are simple doesn’t mean—”

  “The example pieces I pointed out to you online. The ones I said I wanted mine like. Not just ‘like.’ I said ‘built like.’ Might even have said, ‘using the same quality methods.’ What kind of joints do you suppose they used?”

  Jeff must see the futility. “Mostly finger joints.”

  “And mortise and tenon.”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “So, you’ll remake it?”

  Jeff sighs. He’s moved from kneeling on the floor of his shop to sitting on it. All the fight has left him. He thought he could win when he assumed I was just a demanding bitch, but he has no way to retaliate now that it’s clear I know what I’m talking about. But what was I supposed to do, when having something made for my favorite cousin? Not do my research? I don’t roll that way and I never have. Thanks to my suspicion of Jeff’s methods, I�
�ll remember joint types until I die.

  “Fine. Yes.”

  I slip my shoe back on and stand. My rip-off carpenter is still on the floor.

  “And you’ll knock twenty percent off my bill, for trying to cheat me — and as thanks for not telling all my friends what you did.”

  A long pause. Then: “Fine. Twenty percent off.”

  My phone rings. I slip it from my purse, see the screen. I’m about to leave so I can take the call, but after two steps and a second ring, I turn back, a detail almost forgotten. “Oh, and Jeff?”

  He’s a deflated balloon. “Yes.”

  “This time, maybe use the walnut I asked for instead of that cheap pine.”

  He exhales hard, then nods.

  The phone rings a third time. I walk out of Jeff’s shop, my heels clacking like BB shots. I take the call in my car. It goes to Bluetooth, and I take the wheel.

  “Hi Daddy,” I say.

  “Where are you? You sounded like you were in a cave a second ago.”

  “I’m exploring Mammoth Mouth, down on the east face. You didn’t see me?”

  “You’re on the mountain?”

  “Kidding,” I say, backing out.

  “Where are you really?”

  “Checking on that chaise lounge I ordered for Lacey.”

  “Do you need me to come out with the truck to pick it up?”

  “No.” I turn the wheel, looking back and forth as I head into traffic. “It wasn’t ready yet.”

  “I thought you said it was ready.”

  “Jeff said it was ready. I said there was no way it could be ready so fast. Quality work takes a lot more time, which is why we paid so much.”

  “So it’s not ready.”

  I think of Jeff on the floor. A smile touches my lips. “He had some more to do.”

  “Listen, Elizabeth. I want you to meet someone.”

  “I don’t want to be fixed up, Daddy. I keep telling you that.”

  “It’s not that. This is business.”

  When I got out of college and joined my first mastermind group, my father teased me in that good-natured way fathers do. He assumed that the mastermind was a waste, and that I was frittering more of his money getting suckered into some smart person’s clique that he had to pay for. And it wasn’t cheap. After I joined my fourth mastermind and put my first software idea into development, Daddy stopped laughing. His only comment was that he didn’t think I knew anything about software. I told him that I didn’t, that that was the point of a mastermind. Now he asks me for advice.

  I laugh. “Do you want me more involved in your business? Doesn’t it make you look bad?”

  “How would it make me look bad to have my little girl in my work?”

  “I figure it’d emasculate you or something.”

  He chuckles. “It’s not that, either. The guy I want you to meet with is named Mateo Saint. He owns this restaurant chain he assures me the whole world other than me already knows about, called—”

  “PEZA.” I’m way ahead of him, the gears in my mind already turning. My smile is gone. I see where this is headed. I quote the slogan. “‘Anything on a pizza.’ But that’s not how we know him best, is it? This is about the mountain, right Daddy?”

  It takes him a moment. “I told you about that?”

  “Yes, Daddy. Once. When we helicoptered up to the summit.”

  “But that was only in passing.”

  I sigh. “What about him?”

  “He wants to meet you.”

  “Why?”

  “He just does.”

  Another sigh. This one is bigger. “No, he doesn’t. You want me to meet him. But you both already know my answer.”

  “Just have lunch with him.”

  “We’re not selling, Daddy.”

  “I think that’s my decision to make, princess.”

  “I don’t want you to sell the mountain. I told you. I have plans.”

  “What plans?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Mateo’s plans aren’t complicated. And he’s here now, and ready to write a check.”

  “I love it there. I grew up on that mountain.”

  “You grew up in LA.”

  “With all our vacations on the mountain. Come on, Daddy. You know we can’t sell it. Where will I bring my family?”

  “I’m the entirety of your family, Elizabeth, if you don’t count aunts and uncles and cousins.”

  “Someday,” I say.

  “Look. Elizabeth. I know you say you have plans. But when am I ever going to hear more about it? When are you going to be ready to take it over?”

  “I’m ready now!”

  “With money in hand?”

  I hesitate. That one’s tricky. Most of my money comes from him, but I think of it as a shared pool.

  “You can’t just have it, honey. You need to be vested.”

  “I am vested! It’s my family’s land!”

  “I have things I’d rather be doing at this point in my life, Elizabeth. You need to tell me something concrete.”

  I stare at the road.

  “Elizabeth?”

  I hate everything about this.

  My mind is spinning. For the first time since he started toying with the idea of selling, my father sounds serious. Something cracks inside me. It’s as if I finally understand in ways I haven’t before.

  Selling used to sound tentative, like pondering the meaning of life and death. Like a fantasy someone dreams of but never realizes. Like when an old man says he’s going to form a rock band.

  But that’s not how it sounds now. When Daddy’s talked like this before, he’s said he wants to sell, and I've said I don’t want him to. Then the issue goes away. He hasn’t ever pushed back this hard, and now the idea is so present.

  I remember my mother on that mountain before she got sick. She was alive and happy, and all three of us were together like a normal family. I see myself playing in those woods, hiding in the outdoors. My best memories are there. Most of my favorites. And I’m dead serious about my plans for the mountain.

  But that’s not the emptiness I’m feeling now, as Dad contemplates selling the largest part of our past. It’s a piece of the whole. One thing among many that I’m not content to let go of — now or ever.

  I don’t know what I feel. Anger? Melancholy? Loss? Frustration?

  “You there?” my father asks.

  “I’m here.”

  “I thought the call had dropped.”

  “I don’t want to sell the mountain, Daddy.” Then I pull out the weapon that always works. “Please.”

  “Just meet with him, honey. That’s all I ask.”

  I blink. Are these tears in my eyes?

  “Fine. I’ll meet him.”

  The hum of my engine sounds like rolling thunder until my father finally breaks the silence.

  “If you don’t want me to sell the land after you meet with Mateo, I won’t sell.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He gives me details. I can’t record down because I’m driving, but I’ll remember.

  “Love you, princess,” he says.

  “Love you, Daddy.”

  We hang up.

  I already hate Mateo Saint. Through the grapevine, I’ve heard how hard he’s been pushing my father to sell. He won’t let it go. Won’t take a hint.

  Well, we’ll have lunch, and I’ll give him plenty.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MATEO

  ELIZABETH FRASIER IS DIFFERENT THAN I expected. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but it’s something. She has all the pompous, rich-bitch bearing I expected, and a fierceness in her eyes I didn’t expect. They’re emerald green and never leave mine, like she’s afraid I’ll attack if they do. Our gaze has been bolted since I arrived fifteen minutes early to find her already seated and staring at me.

  At first, we make small talk. I know why I’m here, and so does Liz, but we’re both avoiding it. Her words ar
e all dipped in ice, clipped on the ends.

  Once the tide shifts to business, her questions are a journalist’s: How did you buy out so many struggling mom-and-pop pizza places ethically, what’s your employee churn, how much expansion can PEZA handle with its current resources? She talks like she’s negotiating a buyout. I can’t get a question in. Each time I try, it’s a softball. She’s playing hard, and I’m asking for fluff. I ask where she went to school, even though I know. I ask what she likes to do in her free time, though it’s probably shopping. She deflects my serious questions like a ninja fending off blows.

  I underestimated this girl. She’s not a vacuous rich bitch. She’s a rich bitch who’s as sharp as a knife and armed with a serpent’s tongue.

  There are long, uncomfortable pauses. She’s clearly running out the clock. I don’t want to go right at the throat of the mountain deal, but when our food comes and she’s eyeing me like a thief, I realize that I’ll have to. I’m sure she’d love it if this ended now, with me out of luck and Damon able to say, “Well, at least we tried.”

  “I’ve been talking to your father about his mountain.”

  “Our family mountain,” she says.

  “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “He’s having a hard time these days, keeping it up all by himself.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  It’s like a slap. She’s finally stopped staring.

  Now she’s taking a bite of her salad, eyes down.

  “Just that it’s a lot for an older man to keep up,” I say.

  “He’s not even sixty.”

  “Exactly. His golden years are approaching. And I get the impression he doesn’t want to spend them trimming trees and reinforcing bridges.”

  “So, you want it.”

  That’s the first time my interest has been mentioned, and it’s like she’s thrown a bucket of ice water in my face. Again, I see her eyes. Hard. Cold. But there’s something in them, something new. For a half-second, she almost looks vulnerable, but then it’s gone.

  The afterimage lingers in my mind, and her features find new meaning. She has a downturned, upper-class mouth — the kind that can usually smile just fine, but looks slightly odd when it does. She looks best when she is frowning, like her lips were made that way. A sullen, almost sultry look. I’m fascinated by those lips — brushed somewhere between pink and red, complementary to her powder blue dress. Her hair’s a dirty blonde. The lines of her face are long and lean. Patrician. She’s stunning, once I learn to see past the shrew.