The timer dinged and her mother stood up. “The bread should be cool enough to eat and Renia still has a wedding to work.” She sliced the bread and laid it on the table with cold ham, butter, jams and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. “Let’s eat while your sister is still here and we can talk about this as much as you like later. You don’t have to be back at work until Tuesday and you’re welcome to stay here the whole time. I’ll even put you to work in my kitchen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TILLY WAS WAITING tables during dinner at Healthy Food when Karl came in. He waved at some of the old men playing cards in the back and stopped to talk to Father Ramirez and Father Szymkiewicz. After he’d made his rounds and shaken hands, Karl sat at an empty table in her section.
“Why don’t you answer your phone?” he asked by way of greeting.
“I’m working,” she said, pulling at the pink flowered apron tied around her waist.
“You didn’t answer your phone earlier today, either, and you weren’t working for Mom then.”
Earlier today Tilly had been working for herself. After Renia left, Tilly had called the glass company her insurance had recommended. She’d met them at Babka, arguing with them about how long it would take to fix her window. They couldn’t fix her window on Monday. Babka couldn’t reopen until Wednesday. She would lose another day’s business.
“I didn’t hear the ring.” She hadn’t heard it because she’d turned the ringer off. Each time Dan’s phone number popped up on the screen she had to sit on her hands—or smack herself upside the head—to keep from answering.
“The phone only rings if you turn the sound on.” Tilly smiled innocently at her brother, but he wasn’t finished with his lecture. “You didn’t turn the phone off completely, because you didn’t want calls to go straight to voice mail. It would be too obvious you were hiding.”
“Fine.” Why was it so hard to lie to family? “I turned the ringer off. But waiting on tables is hardly hiding.”
Karl looked at her apron and short green uniform. “Why are you out here anyway? Why aren’t you in the kitchen with Mom?”
“She kicked me out,” Tilly answered under her breath.
“Why?”
Tilly rolled her eyes. “I kept correcting her technique.”
Karl sighed and Tilly took sick pleasure in knowing she could get a rise out of her perfect sibling. “When you want something, you have to strategize and plan. You can’t just say whatever comes to your mind. Correcting Mom’s technique,” he said with a tsk and a head shake. “She’s been cooking for longer than you’ve been alive. No wonder she kicked you out of the kitchen. Planning, Tilly. Planning and a good filter to prevent stupid comments from coming out of your mouth. Both those things would go a long way to helping you with your goals.”
“Thanks, Dad. Any other life lessons you need to impart to me before you succumb to old age and senility?”
Karl opened his mouth and Tilly worried he was going to launch into another reprimand. Given their family’s history, it might not have been the most sensitive way of teasing him. Instead, he laughed. “You’re right. I deserve that. Neither you nor Renia need me to be a father to you.”
“No.” She smiled to soften the blow. “We like you fine as a brother.”
With eight years between them, and their father and brother dying when she was eight, Renia twelve and Karl sixteen, he had tried hard to be two brothers and a father figure to them. He’d stopped, for the most part, when Renia was sixteen and moved to Cincinnati. Tilly had wondered if he’d given up, until his wife left him. After his divorce, Tilly realized Jessica had been insistent that Tilly and Renia didn’t need Karl to be a father to them. Without Jessica around he occasionally retreated into his old ways.
“As your brother, I’m telling you to start answering your phone.”
“If Dan’s been calling you, I’m sorry. I’ll text him and tell him to stop.”
“Dan?” Karl looked at her quizzically. “Oh, Dan Meier. No, he’s not been calling me. Ed Davis, from the Sun-Times, called me. He was at Babka last night.”
Tilly looked around the restaurant and saw only the first rush of Healthy Food diners, and older Polonia with no kids living nearby, who came in for an early dinner on Saturday. They wouldn’t get the cops or college kids in until later. She sat down at the table. “I remember him. He wanted information about your office.” She closed her eyes and pictured the tables. “He was seated with a gluten-free woman.”
“His daughter.” Karl knew everyone in Chicago. Not just in the Polish neighborhoods, both the thriving ones, like Archer Heights where Healthy Food was, and the historic ones, like the nearby Back of the Yards that were now more Hispanic than Polish, but across the city. Maybe he’d even known about Steve’s drug habit.
“Was he calling you because of my unsatisfactory answer?”
“No, and thank you for not revealing anything. He was calling me because one of the Sun-Times writers has been working on a feature story about starting a business during hard times. After Ed told him about both the calamity of last night and the graciousness with which you made sure his daughter got dinner, he wants to make you the centerpiece of the story. It’s scheduled to run on Wednesday, making your troubles perfectly timed.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Karl said, exasperated. “Ed’s been trying to call you all day and finally gave up right before the Carter wedding started. He called me in desperation.”
“Should I do it?”
“Now you want fatherly advice?”
“I want your advice. You know the impact of media stories better than I do. I can’t do the interview if the story will make me an object of pity and hurt Babka’s chance of survival. I still want Babka to succeed.”
“It’ll help. After last night, Ed admires you. He wouldn’t have suggested this if he didn’t think it would help. And Ed may harass me some in the papers, but I trust him.”
“What do I do?”
“Just call the man and do what he says.” Karl pushed a piece of paper across the table. “And answer your phone. It might be someone important.”
Karl slid out of the booth and smoothed the wrinkle out of his slacks. Tilly called out to him before he reached the door, “Aren’t you going to stay for dinner? Mom will be heartbroken if you leave.”
He shook hands with four people coming in the door before he answered her. “I have a charity fundraiser I’m late for. Tell her I’ll eat her food another time.”
* * *
AFTER THE WEDDING, which had been as horrible as he’d expected, Dan got to take a woman home. Only it wasn’t the woman he’d hoped to spend the weekend with. Tilly wasn’t answering her phone and Dan wouldn’t be surprised if she never answered another phone call from him in her life. She couldn’t overlook his review and she blamed him for the gossip column.
No, instead of delicious Tilly, Dan was seated in his living room with his sister. His unsympathetic sister. The sister who insisted she needed a date to the wedding, even when everyone now knew about his failed relationship with Tilly. And his role, however unintended, in helping Steve sabotage Babka. He’d given Beth every argument he could think of.
When he’d said how unpleasant the experience would be, especially after last night, she’d said, “Oh, will everyone be mean to Danny?” in the obnoxious voice he remembered from childhood. Then she’d told him he deserved whatever ill treatment he got.
Beth had raised an eyebrow at his attempt, halfhearted at best, to paint her as an accomplice. She hadn’t gotten the father of the groom drunk and, even if he hadn’t contributed to the gossip column, he’d written a stupid review and was being punished for it. His ballbusting sister could keep her brow raised longer than he could look offended. In any case, she was right. He deserved the old-fashioned tar-and-feather treatment. No one would be in this situation if he’d followed his personal standards when reviewing Babka.
He’d tried another argument.
“My presence will just be a distraction from the blessed event.”
“Better you be there to be the villain than Michelle’s future father-in-law. You missed his drunken exhibition while you were chasing down that skinny druggie.” Beth had never given an inch, not once in her life. Except when she had given a mile to their father.
“I’m never going to another wedding with you again.” He put his feet up on the coffee table and took a drink from his beer. “This has been the worst weekend I’ve ever spent. It’s not even over.”
“You have...” Beth began.
“...no one but myself to blame,” Dan finished for her. “I know. Strangely, the knowledge I screwed myself over doesn’t make me feel any better. Do you think it will help me sleep tonight, knowing I’m the agent of my own destruction?” Or that he’d been a stubborn fool because he was still afraid to disappoint his father.
Beth shook her head and they sat together in silence for several minutes. Beth hadn’t had a fun weekend, either. As Dan had been frantically calling and texting Tilly, Beth had gotten a call from their father. Some leak in the grapevine had alerted their old man to their business plans and he was trying to convince Beth to come back to Meier Dairy. But he was their father, so he wasn’t trying to convince her by promising to leave the company in her hands after he retired. Dan Sr. still insisted Dan would wake up one day and want to be a cheese maker to the masses. No, Dan Sr.’s way of convincing his daughter to return to the fold was to tell her what a failure she would be on her own, which proved how little Dan Sr. knew about his daughter.
Beth wasn’t a ballbuster because she needed bluster to cover her own fears, but because she knew her own worth and liked to smash people who weren’t smart enough to figure it out. The phone call pissed Beth off and made her more determined to make a success out of their new venture.
Dan Sr.’s voice hadn’t made the wedding any more pleasant. Dan had heard his father’s closing remarks loudly and clearly, despite Beth trying to tuck the phone away. “The man you were dating left you because he needed someone a little more womanly. No one wants to marry a bitch. Everyone at the wedding will take one look at you, on a date with your brother, and know you can’t hang on to a man. Your offer to give me a grandson was a joke.”
Asshole. Dan Sr. had been trying to call him all night, a ring Dan ignored. He checked his phone every time it vibrated—in case Tilly called—and enjoyed the childish burst of spite he felt every time he sent his father to voice mail.
“Aren’t we a fun pair?” Beth spoke first.
“Dad’s a douchebag.”
Beth snorted halfheartedly, but didn’t smile.
“I’m a douchebag, too, so trust me—I can recognize one from a thousand paces.”
Silence.
A dog barked and a car drove down the street. Beth’s beer bottle clinked as she set it on his coffee table.
“What are you going to do about Tilly? I like her.”
“I like her, too, but she’s not talking to me right now.”
“And you’re going to let her ignore you?”
“I’ve been at a wedding all day. It’s hard to pursue one woman when you’re at a wedding with a different woman.”
Beth shrugged. “If you want her back, you have to fight for her. You need something big. Positive marketing of some sort.”
“I’ll take any suggestions you’ve got.”
“A new review. I think you owe her that much.”
“It’s written. Stupidly, I was going to talk with her first—I didn’t want to blindside her again—then have the new review published. I didn’t want her to think I published the review to manipulate her into forgiving me. I wanted her free to decide.” Dan finished his beer in one long pull and set the bottle down next to his sister’s. “I had a plan. This morning, instead of waking up feeling like something the dog barfed up, I was going to take you to the wedding. After the wedding, when I was feeling good and romantic, I was going to go to Babka and wait for her to get off work. Maybe after we talked, she’d want to come back here—and you’d want to go somewhere else.”
A clattering sound came from next to the TV and both Meier siblings looked over to see Paulie spinning his wheel. The rat’s movements mirrored Dan’s feelings. He was a rat, stuck in a cage, on a wheel, and it was all of his own making.
“What’s stopping you?”
“Babka’s closed, so I can’t go there. She’s not answering her phone, nor did she answer when I stopped by her apartment. She thinks I was ChicagoScoops’s source for that damned gossip column.”
“That column really screwed with your chances of sleeping with her. I mean, not more than you screwed with them, but it didn’t help.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And if the lady wasn’t interested in your heartfelt apology?”
“Part of my ‘heartfelt apology’ was the new review. The piece is more than already written. I’ve submitted it to Rich. I have the email chain to prove it. Hell,” he grunted, “I even won my weekly bet with Mike.”
“You wrote the review to get into Tilly’s pants?”
“I wrote the review because I was wrong and the restaurant deserved another chance. Not only for Tilly, but for every single employee in there, except Steve.” Beth’s look forced full honesty from him. “I wrote the review for noble reasons. I made sure I had the email chain as proof of my submission so she would forgive me and I could, as you so nicely put it, ‘get into Tilly’s pants.’ And, while you and Mike both seem to have this obsession with Tilly’s pants, what I want to have is for her to talk to me again. Let me take her out on another date. Meet her mom. You know, have a normal relationship that—God willing—will lead to something long-term and permanent.”
“You need more than the review now. Dad may question my femininity, but I’m enough of a girl to know Tilly will need more before she’ll even be willing to hear you out. Much more.”
“I know.” Dan slouched down into the couch. “Besides, the review is because Tilly the chef needs it. I owe a correction to her professionally. I need to give something else to Tilly personally. Something to prove that I know the depth of my mistake and that I’m sorry. Something without strings attached. It has to be hers, whether she takes me back or not.”
She wanted proof that Dan wasn’t correcting his mistake because she wanted him to, but because he wanted to. He’d give it to her, if he only knew what it was.
Beth stood and walked to the kitchen. He heard the click of bottle caps being removed and she returned with two more beers. She pressed one into his hand, then sat next to him.
“Does anyone know why Steve was trying to ruin Babka?” Beth asked.
“If they do, they aren’t telling me.”
“Maybe there’s an opportunity there we can exploit.”
“Beth, why are you trying to help me?”
“You’re my brother,” she said without hesitation.
“I figured you would side with Tilly and cast me as the unforgivable villain.”
“You screwed up pretty badly, but I don’t think what you did is unforgivable. It’s not like you actually were the gossip column’s source. And...” She paused. “I don’t think Tilly thinks what you did is unforgivable, either, nor does she really believe you would broadcast your relationship across Chicago. I just don’t think she knows it yet.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
Beth shook her head. “I saw how she looked at you and how you two interacted last night. She was busy and more than a little stressed, but she avoided looking in your direction too much for her to not care. You do something for her, something worth more than the pain she’s feeling. She needs a reason to forgive you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AFTER TILLY ARRANGED to meet the Sun-Times reporter, she spent an hour on her mom’s computer looking up Frank O’Malley’s old articles. Karl’s advice, especially about reporters and the city of Chicago, was generally trustworthy,
but she didn’t completely trust anyone who had a byline right now.
She didn’t trust herself, and her personal doubt was the real kicker. Just as she’d been beginning to have more faith in herself, to believe that she could make it no matter Dan’s review, Steve had blindsided her. She’d been so confident in her employees, in the hiring she’d done in an industry where transitory workers were rampant. In one night her confidence had been pulled out from under her, as if she were Charlie Brown, Steve was Lucy, and her self-image was the football. And Dan and the entire city of Chicago were on the sidelines, laughing.
The CarpeChicago review had shaken her. She’d known she would get bad reviews once in a while. Someone would come to her restaurant and not like the food or find fault with the service. Some nights drinks ran late, reservations got lost or waiters tripped and spilled food. Such criticisms were to be expected. No restaurant, not the French Laundry, not the much-missed Charlie Trotters, not Alinea, had perfect success. She’d been prepared for the impossible-to-please person whose food was always too hot or too cold, or the reviewer who didn’t like Polish cooking and never would.
She hadn’t expected to fall in love with the reviewer. What did such poor judgment say about her? And then the gossip column...
Dan had impaled her passion before flinging her over a cliff. For the days between the review and the Taste she had taken small, mincing steps at Babka, questioning her dream and herself. Something about Dan’s understanding of the difference between eating to live and living to eat had pushed her to embrace her dream again. At first, maybe, it had been a desire to prove him wrong. Then she’d seen how much joy he’d taken in her food and it wasn’t about showing him up anymore, but about giving enjoyment and hearing his opinion, no strings attached.
Reservations for Two Page 23