Bread and Butter

by Michelle Wildgen

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “How is it?” she said.

  Leo looked at the laptop, forgotten before him on the table. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s really good.”

  The first real review of Stray in the Star was a two-pager by a critic who had written up Winesap a number of times, a woman with whom Britt had cultivated a relationship for years—one in which he managed to suggest simultaneously that he was intimidated by his respect for her yet also on the verge of devouring her at any given time. It was the sort of thing Britt could do.

  Britt had run through the restaurant that afternoon, on his way to Stray, brandishing an advance review he refused to share. “I can’t,” he’d said. “Harry’ll freak out if he doesn’t see it first.”

  Britt still appeared for two shifts a week at Winesap, and soon he would need to renegotiate a long-term schedule. Two and a half months into its life, Stray was settling in, and Leo knew from experience that by now each night should not be a fresh terror. Helene was getting tired of her extra shifts each week, while Alan had discovered that he preferred the bar to the maître d’ stand after all. He did seem to enjoy the aura of power conferred upon the host, however, and now and then Leo caught him hemming and hawing, for the pleasure of it, over an easily granted request. He’d also turned out to be an enthusiastic updater of blue cards, which were now filled with his notes on conversational preferences, suspected marital issues, and probable food aversions.

  The disturbing part was that Alan had turned out to be quite perceptive. So far he had correctly predicted two divorces (the spouses later appeared with new people) and had taken to casting an appraising eye in Leo and Thea’s direction. They gave him nothing; under scrutiny, Thea smoothed her expression as blank as a mannequin’s. They never touched; they did not even pause in the office when they thought they might be alone. But now that he was downstairs and in the kitchen so much more often as they worked on a new menu, this distance was torturous. Leo could swear he knew where she was at any given moment—every day at work he could feel her move through the restaurant’s space. He recognized her profile and the set of her shoulders from across a room, from another room altogether.

  “So read it to me,” Thea said. She began portioning out the pasta in two bowls. A baguette sat on a platter before him. Thea sat down and tore a large chunk from it. “No, wait, let’s eat in the living room.” They carried their bowls and the computer to the couch, where Thea liked to drape her legs across his. This was another surprise to him—she didn’t like to go from bed to the formality of the table. She said they had all day to sit across from one another at a table. Now they set the laptop on the coffee table and read the review as they ate.

  When he’d first read it, he couldn’t help but feel a faint satisfaction at the reviewer’s characterization of the location as “equal parts bold and foolhardy,” but when he spoke it aloud he felt offended on his brothers’ behalf—as if they weren’t wise enough to make a considered choice! He shook his head and continued. The reviewer extravagantly praised the interior and noted approvingly Britt’s less polished demeanor in this new setting, all before she got around to discussing the food.

  “It’s kind of like those reviews where they tell you all about their Christmas vacation for two paragraphs first,” Leo said with a snort.

  “She’s got a bit of a thing for Britt,” Thea said.

  “Okay, finally, the food. ‘The signature lamb’s neck with gremolata and cavatelli is a gauntlet thrown before the diner. Will you see past the restaurant’s refusal to prettify the cut in order to enjoy its tender richness? Only the cavatelli feel as if they ought to be on another dish—one could imagine a lamb ragù with these little mouthfuls, but here they feel overly rich.’” Leo frowned. “I thought the cavatelli were excellent,” he said. “Didn’t you? The gremolata keeps it all from feeling over the top.”

  He shook his head and continued: the socca and baccalà got high marks, as did the octopus with ginger, the duck, and all of the desserts, though the reviewer also felt that many of them seemed to be coming from a different restaurant. Thea said nothing as he read a listing of Hector’s most recent triumphs: a chocolate menthol geode, a hot fried dumpling with a startling cool center, the malt cup of cacao custard, and a flight of shiso leaf, lemongrass, and yuzu gelati with black rice crisps. They were both silent as the last word lingered in the air, and then Thea reached over and closed the laptop.

  “She says Harry’s physique is ‘cranelike,’” Leo said.

  “He does need to eat more,” Thea replied.

  “Harry’s wound a little tight. That, we knew. We’d hear about it from Britt if there was really a problem.”

  “Maybe,” said Thea. She took a bite of her spaghetti and rubbed her foot against his shin absentmindedly.

  “Should we have found a way to keep Hector?” Leo said.

  “I don’t know if we could have,” Thea replied, running a crust of bread around her bowl. “It would have been nice to have him longer, I know, but I don’t think he was right for you, Leo. He drove you batty, if you recall. He never talked except to deliver the names of these dishes or just to say things like ‘umeboshi.’ Let Harry deal with it! And I think Kelly has come into her own, anyway.”

  Leo nodded. Kelly was doing nicely. She lacked Hector’s pure fearlessness, but he had to admit that she worked beautifully within the confines of Winesap’s menu. Her desserts felt intriguing but not overly challenging.

  “We just can’t do some of that sci-fi malt shop stuff Harry can,” Leo said morosely.

  Thea frowned. “Leo. What do you want to do to the menu? Seriously. We’ve streamlined it. We’ve made it simpler, more elegant, we’ve integrated the random influences and lost the ones that just didn’t fly. We gave up on that damn brittle. And I think it’s working—the comments from the diners are really good. What more do you want to do?”

  Leo sighed and sat back. It was an affront not to finish Thea’s spaghetti, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. “I don’t want anything,” he said. “I really don’t. I feel like the place is running fine, that even without Britt the floor is run well, the cooks seem productive, it’s all fine. I just feel a little bored with it all, I guess.”

  He was expecting Thea’s hand on his, a sympathetic look on which they could segue back upstairs, but instead Thea’s expression hardened. She stood up, removed his bowl and hers, and before he could stop her went into the kitchen, where he could see her scraping his remaining pasta into the sink.

  He followed her into the kitchen. “What?” he asked.

  “I have a kid, you know?” Thea said.

  “I know you do,” Leo said. “I’ve been hoping to meet her.”

  Thea ignored this. She leaned against the sink and crossed her arms. “I have a kid to think about, and a job I work hard at and that I am excellent at, Leo, and if you think some vague sense of ennui from you is enough to start shaking things up at work again, you’d better find yourself another chef. We run a good place, and if it needs a reset now and again that’s fine—but we gave it one, and it’s been successful. So let well enough alone. If you wanted to go in with Harry, you should have. But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said. “You’re right about that.”

  “Okay, then,” she said.

  The dressing-down left him weirdly soothed. This felt like the old Thea—the unsentimental, straightforward self she’d been before they got together, unsoftened by affection. That Thea was not the sort who liked being placated, and so he did not embrace her. He got up and began to wash the dishes instead.

  It was a relief to hear Thea’s complete willingness to say what she thought, even if it wasn’t nice, even if it was directed at him. She hadn’t fallen in with him in a daze of boredom or sudden-onset madness. She was her same old self, but now she was also with him. Leo gave in to the urge to whistle. Thea looked searchingly at him, but Leo gave her a smile in return.

  “It never occurred
to me that he’d have a knack for it,” he said after a while. “I know that sounds terrible, but I never paid a lot of attention to whatever he was doing, and I just figured he’d quit before it went too far. I mean, if anything, the closer it got, the more I freaked out, you know? I just thought, This kid has no idea what he’s doing, and he’s going to be up to his neck in debt and have nothing to show for it.”

  “I know you did,” Thea said. “So why did Britt disagree?”

  Leo shrugged. “He saw the space. He saw possibilities.”

  “He learned a lot of that from working with you.”

  Leo set the bread plate in the sink. “Did you know Harry used to hang out down there when he was a kid? It wasn’t so downtrodden then. He told the reviewer he’s had his eye on that crappy waterfront since he was a teenager, just wondering how to come home and revitalize it.”

  A smile fluttered at the edges of Thea’s mouth. “You think it’s true?” she said. “Or an invention of Britt’s?”

  “It might be true.” He relaxed a little, relieved to see her smiling. “Those stores my parents took us to weren’t far from there—that might be what they meant. And Harry’s more of a planner than he seems. My mom used to order a separate pizza for the three of us when we were kids, you know, when Britt and I were teenagers and Harry was maybe seven. It was always kind of a frenzy. And he got so pissed off if we got more pizza than he did that he would sit there with his finger jammed in the middle of the next piece he wanted while he ate his first one.” Thea laughed, but Leo just shook his head. He rubbed his hands over his scalp. His hair was thinning even more—soon he would just have to shave his head. You couldn’t fight this sort of thing.

  “Are you going to call them?” Thea asked. She leaned one hip against the counter and faced him, hooking a finger in his belt loop.

  Leo was embarrassed. Of course he should call them; he shouldn’t have to be asked. “I’ll call them now. They’re probably out celebrating.”

  He was dialing when she said, “Leo, don’t you want to go out and join them? They’re probably all at Mack’s.”

  He hesitated. “It’s pretty late.”

  “Since when does that bother people who work at night?”

  “I should, I guess. I hate to leave you.”

  She made a gesture of futility. “You know I can’t go there with you. And I really think you ought to go.”

  He knew she was right, but still he said, “I’ve been looking forward to being alone with you all day.”

  This was a bit much for Thea. She flushed, looking equally embarrassed and annoyed, and said, “Oh, me too. You just wanted to make me say that.”

  MACK’S WAS JAMMED WITH STRAY EMPLOYEES, the cooks still smelling of hot oil and toasted bread, the servers in their off-duty attire, which included things like metal cuffs around their biceps and battered but closely fitted leather jackets in odd hues like olive and oyster. It was nearly eleven. They’d moved the whole staff over almost as soon as the last table left at ten. Harry and Britt gazed out from the center of the maelstrom, a head above everyone else.

  “Our employees are such stylish pocket people,” Britt marveled. He felt terribly fond of their employees at the moment, even the servers who drove him to distraction most nights. Right now he liked the look of them all, their insouciant posture and neck tats offsetting their glee at the shitty free beer. He was pretty sure several had changed into fresh eyeglasses postshift. Well, this was why you hired the young: not because they were reliable but because the right ones created an atmosphere that drew people in—they were doing that even now, milling about in a knot like a portable hipster zoo while the other bar patrons, faintly intrigued, observed from the perimeter. If only Britt could keep them from showing up to work smelling of cigarettes and unisex cologne, he’d almost love them.

  He’d gotten to Stray just before staff meal. His eyes met Harry’s through the window, and for a second Britt had paused before waving the paper. He should have been elated. Finally Harry could stop waiting for the sky to fall. This ought to have been a salve for his relationship with Harry, a sign that they were on the right track. But he was discomfited and morose, unable to put his finger on exactly why.

  When Britt held up the review, Harry’s brows had shot up and disappeared into his hair, and one hand flew up in what seemed to be an involuntary wave of excitement. After a few weeks of a muted, careful peace between them, it was a relief to see his brother’s posture straighten that way and to watch his face take on an expression that made him look like a very tall, scruffy ten-year-old.

  But Britt could not get past that panicky, cornered feeling, and it was only as he was walking into Stray’s front door that he understood why. A rave review said they were on the right track, it was true, but it seemed also to say that they had no choice but to stay on it together.

  Britt wasn’t certain he wanted to. He didn’t know if his trepidation about the future with his brother was wise or just grudge-holding. But he knew he was here in his brand-new restaurant, filled with the staff he and his brother had hired, and the only correct thing to do was celebrate.

  So they’d read the review aloud, pausing for cheers. Harry had seemed subdued but pleased, at least. The moment the last table departed, everyone raced through sidework on the promise of free drinks at Mack’s. Britt had noticed that the napkins were folded a little sloppily, and Harry had nudged a few crooked plates back into place, but it didn’t matter. The same people would fix their sidework tomorrow. Tonight they would celebrate their first acknowledgment from an actual professional critic, even if she had complained incorrectly about the cavatelli and correctly about the need for more cohesion in the menu. It truly was a good review—he was getting into the spirit of it.

  “I was thinking,” Britt said. “We don’t have any good nonalcoholic drinks. I don’t think a good place can get away with that anymore, you know?”

  “We have those expensive little sodas,” Harry said.

  “Yeah, but we need a good cocktail. Something not sweet. Something sophisticated.”

  Harry shrugged. “Sure. I got it.”

  Britt decided to drop it. Harry sometimes drew an arbitrary line over certain back-of-the-house decisions. You never knew when he’d get protective, but it wasn’t always worth pushing it.

  “Anyone would think we got a bad review, looking at you,” Britt said.

  Harry made an effort to smile. “It was great. Hardly any criticism. Did everybody already read it over at Winesap?” he asked.

  Britt didn’t have to clarify whom Harry meant by “everybody.” “I just told them it was good,” he said. “They’ve probably all seen it by now—I’m sure it’s online.”

  Harry nodded, looking out over the group. Someone had put Marvin Gaye on the jukebox. Jenelle and Anna were dancing beside one another, heads tilted dreamily in opposite directions, beers slopping out of their plastic cups. Watching everyone’s celebration selves made Britt feel both hopeful and lonely.

  After a pause, Harry said, “He excited?” and Britt turned to look at him. Harry’s glasses were smudged and slightly crooked; his hair had grown so far beyond shaggy that it was starting to look kind of good again. He seemed so vulnerable and little-brotherish that Britt felt protective whether he wanted to or not.

  “I’m sure he is,” Britt said. Harry looked away. “You know Leo’s not the biggest talker.”

  Harry finished off the last of his beer and looked over at the bar. “I keep thinking about the cavatelli. I thought it was great, but maybe it’s not. You and Leo had reservations about it. What do you think?”

  “I had reservations,” Britt said. “I think Leo liked it.”

  “If Leo said something to you, you can tell me.”

  “I know that,” said Britt. “But he didn’t say anything.”

  “I just know that sometimes people hold things back if they think you can’t take it all at once. I’d rather just hear it, you know? Otherwise I spend all my time tr
ying to figure out what people aren’t telling me. I can take it.” Harry reached for a pitcher they’d bought for the staff and refilled his cup. He drank half of it and filled the cup once more.

  “Slow down,” Britt said. He placed a hand in the path of Harry’s wrist as the cup traveled back up to Harry’s mouth. “No one’s holding anything back from you.”

  But Harry kept shaking his head, and now he started talking and seemed reluctant, or not quite able, to pause. He wasn’t looking at Britt as he spoke. He focused just above Britt’s head, at the door, at the bar, anywhere but at the person he was addressing.

  “It’s just—it’s such bullshit,” he said. He repeated it, as if surprised to discover this. “You work your head off and you know it isn’t perfect but you count on people to give you feedback. You count on professionals to give you feedback. That’s why they’re professionals. Or supposed to be. But instead they go on about how everything is great except for two things any idiot could see. Except me, I guess, but you know what I mean.” Harry took another long gulp from his beer. He looked a little sweaty.

  Britt said, confused, “Are you pissed that the review is too good?” He poured the rest of the pitcher into his own cup in order to keep Harry from drinking it.

  “I just thought it would be helpful. It wasn’t the slightest bit helpful. I don’t know how we get better if I can’t see what we need to improve. Take the lamb’s neck.” Harry wiped a beer mustache off his lip. He seemed not to be talking to Britt; Britt even glanced over his shoulder to be sure Harry had not been addressing someone else the whole time. “I love that fucking thing. There is nothing I would change on it. Not one damn thing. That reviewer doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. There are probably a hundred other things we actually do need to fix and she was so busy talking about our best dish she didn’t say what any of them were. I know there is stuff we need to fix. I know it. I feel it every day when I come in, all that shit I’m not getting right that just lurks in plain sight, and everyone can probably see it but me. But nobody tells me. And then the day gets away from me and I can never just concentrate and figure it all out. I can’t see what I need to do.”