They didn’t answer. They were staring at each other. The record had gone off and I got up to flip it, and Simone stood and started clearing the plates. When I went to take the bottle of wine, Jake grabbed my hand.
“Come here,” he said. He pulled me onto his lap. I looked at Simone in the kitchen, but then put my face into his hair, held his face on my chest. No one had ever reached for me like that, like they just needed me close.
“We never get tired of talking about love, do we?” She was looking at us with a dishcloth over her shoulder. She smiled.
“Sex and food and death,” Jake said. “The only subjects.” He released me and I stood up, tipsy, confused.
“She said ‘love,’ not ‘sex’—you’re such a boy.” I turned. “Simone, that was so good, thank you.”
She pulled out another bottle of wine, and I realized we were going to get drunk. I wondered if I would ever go back to my apartment.
“Let’s try the Poulsard now.”
“Liquid dessert, perfect,” I said.
“That’s not all.”
“Oh no, I’m totally stuffed.”
“Shut your eyes,” Jake said. He pushed me away from the kitchen, toward the windows in the front.
“What?”
“Tess, shut your eyes,” Simone said. I looked out onto Ninth Street. People walked obliviously underneath me. Inside lit windows I saw people fulfilling their real lives, I saw minutes that counted. I was expanding, it wasn’t just the job anymore, not just the restaurant, but I was finding a place in the world. Someone stopped the record, and it looked like the street was breathing. Then someone turned out the lights and I shut my eyes.
“You can turn around,” she said. When I did she stood with a chocolate cake in her hands, with a single candle burning on top. Jake stood next to her, holding a bouquet of white tulips. My hand flew to cover my mouth. I thought, No. I can’t take it. I didn’t know how they knew, how I didn’t think to tell them. I didn’t know how badly I had needed them and how I’d been waiting for them, but I endured it, my joy, don’t ever forget this moment, and Simone said, “Happy birthday, little one.”
II
“OH, WHAT YOU THINK, you can get the pie in the sky and eat it too?” Sasha said serenely.
“Does that translate to you missed me?” I asked. I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d gone to Park Bar after work. Nobody asked me where I’d disappeared to, as if they knew that talking about Jake would give me too much pleasure. Instead they kept a chilly distance when I walked in. Nothing had changed in there. Ariel and Vivian were back on and talking about moving in together, Will purposefully flirted with any woman under the age of forty, and Terry was a little fatter but still told bad jokes.
Once I could get each of them in the bathroom we would be in love again, but the only one interested that night was Sasha. I took a line. The coke rutted out my nose and I squinted my eyes. Had it always hurt before? Pain beyond the stinging heat?
“Oh, you got plenty-a time to talk now the cock outta your mouth? You think I care whatsoever you live or die?” He snorted the peace offering I laid out for him. “You looking very rosy though.” He pinched my cheeks and I knew he had forgiven me.
—
SIMONE’S “CLEANSES” had a reputation among the staff—apparently she wasn’t very nice while doing them. Jake said it was the most miserable time of the year, and Will asked to switch out of dining room backwaiter when she was senior on the floor. I was mostly impressed with how casually and often she said the word colon.
“Spring cleaning,” she said. She didn’t seem mean. She seemed really happy in fact, and her eyes did look brighter.
“Is it all right if I sit with you?” I held a plate of spaghetti and Chef’s Sunday sauce and three pieces of garlic bread. Simone had a thermos in front of her.
“Of course. I don’t have an appetite after the first day.”
“Did your eyes get bigger?”
“That’s the wine. The puffiness disappears in the first three days. When was the last time you took time off from drinking?”
“Okay, okay, we aren’t talking about me,” I said.
“Your metabolism at your age lets you get away with murder, but every now and then your body needs a break. All the dairy, all the sugars, all the acid—there’s mucoid plaque that builds up along the walls of your intestines, it’s black, you can actually see it when it comes out, so this is an opportunity to break it down, expel it.”
“Simone,” I said with my mouth full. “Jesus. Please. Twenty minutes before we do ‘mucoid’ or ‘expel.’?”
She took a sip of her tonic.
“How long?” I asked between bites. “Also, aren’t you going to make Jake a plate?”
“I’m starting with seven days. I’ve done thirteen.”
“Seven!”
“Tess,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, “your body doesn’t always need to need. There is a still point in the center.”
“You. Are. Crazy,” I said. The thought of not eating for seven days made me ravenous even though I knew I shouldn’t get seconds. Misha the hostess was announcing the soignés that were expected tonight, but I wasn’t really listening, I was thinking about how much pasta was left and if I should save some for Jake, but I did hear her say that a Samantha and Eugene were coming in and had requested Simone, and I heard Simone say, “Absolutely not.”
We all turned to Simone. Misha glanced at Howard, who nodded at her to continue.
“So I need to move Simone to section 1 because Eugene only sits on 7….” She hesitated to see if that was allowed. “So…Simone…section 1.”
“Absolutely not,” Simone said again and picked up her thermos and walked into the kitchen. We all turned to Howard.
“Misha, finish the notes,” he said, heading after Simone and passing Jake, who was still unbuttoned, just getting to family meal. He looked at the table expectantly and I shrugged. No Simone, no plate for him. He looked confused as he put his own together.
“Who’s Samantha?” I asked him when he sat down and started shoveling the food into his mouth.
“Samantha who?” he said defensively.
“Samantha and Eugene who requested Simone.”
“Samantha’s coming?”
“That’s what Misha just said.”
“Damn it.” He took my last piece of garlic bread, took a bite, and I grabbed it back. “Samantha and Simone were friends. She was a server here.”
“Okay.” Simone’s “friends” were usually obliquely mentioned and none of them ever visited her at work so I had assumed they didn’t exist.
“Okay…” I waited for him to go on. “So she quit and they weren’t friends anymore? And it was super dramatic and Simone doesn’t want to wait on her?”
He wiped his mouth and threw the napkin on my plate. “I’m going to go find her. Are you on the dining room tonight? She could use you on the floor.”
—
SAMANTHA WAS meticulous, that was the first word that came to mind. I didn’t believe she had ever worked in a restaurant. Her hair was blown out at perfectly corresponding angles, her cheekbones shone. Her hands, with long, pale-pink ovals for fingernails, conducted their precious stones and platinum with ease. To top it all off, there was stark genetics—she was beautiful. And I was part of a cult that equated beauty with virtue.
“Those are new teeth,” Simone said, watching them from across the room. Samantha’s teeth winked at us. Simone exhaled and began her approach. I followed with a water pitcher, though there were at least seven tables being sat throughout the restaurant that could have used some water. I took Jake’s order seriously.
—
“I WOULD HARDLY say we’re fresh, maybe fresh off a plane, but I’m sure I look frightful.”
“Ah well, you’ve always been able to hide the damage.” Simone pulled her shoulders back. “Are you two still in Connecticut?”
“Back and forth,” said Eugene, waving his hands. In the genetics department, Eugene had been shortchanged. He had caterpillar eyebrows, a bulbous nose, and not much hair left. He had to be more than ten years Samantha’s senior. I was familiar with older men and their younger wives. But Eugene seemed authentic. He had clever eyes and he narrowed them when he was listening.