The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online Page A

very pleasant, the kiss. This champagne is what I drink on the floor. I wear diaphanous tops and clompy shoes. He kissed me! No wonder they talk about me back in the kitchen!
    “Pretend you’re hosting a cocktail party,” he said. “You greet people at the door holding your glass of Laurent-Perrier rosé. The first thing they’ll notice is your pretty face, then your clothes. Then what you’ve got in your hand. They will want to drink pink champagne just like the beautiful hostess. Sixteen dollars a glass, you see? When you’re working the room, you should always have your flute of pink champagne. Right away, it gives you an identity, it gives you style. Your champagne is an accessory. You don’t have to get tanked. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. But a glass or two—three on a busy night, sure. Duncan will fill you up.” He watched her while she took a sip. “This is great,” he said. “Kevin drank bourbon—nothing sexy about that—and occasionally he deigned to walk around with a glass of merlot, but he didn’t enjoy it and the guests could tell.”
    “Do you drink while you work?” Adrienne asked.
    “I’m an alcoholic,” he said. He gazed at her so intently she thought he might kiss her again. What was going
on
here? It felt like she was breaking one of her rules, though she was so flustered she couldn’t remember what her rules were. Was there a rule about not kissing her boss?
    “Oh.”
    “There’s something else you have to know,” Thatcher said. “Something I should have mentioned when I hired you.”
    Adrienne’s dinner shifted in her stomach. Something else?
    He lowered his voice. “There’s no press allowed in the kitchen.”
    “Okay.”
    “I don’t care if it’s the
New York Times Magazine.
I don’t care if it’s the
Christian Science Monitor.
”
    “Okay.”
    “I don’t care if they tell you they have an appointment. They don’t. There is no press allowed in the kitchen. And no guests, of course. I mention the press because they come here all the time trying to get a story about Fiona. Word has gotten out that it’s our last year, therefore it’s crucial you understand.”
    “No press in the kitchen,” Adrienne said.
    “Very good. I’m sorry to be so strict.”
    “You don’t have to be sorry.”
    “Tonight, it’s friends of the house,” Thatcher said. “I want you to shadow me around the dining room so you learn the faces. I want you to man the host station if I’m back in the kitchen.”
    “Am I allowed in the kitchen?” Adrienne asked.
    Thatcher looked at her strangely.
    “Thatcher!” Bruno was calling from the dining room. Both Thatcher and Adrienne spun around to find the dining room transformed. All of the candles had been lit and the waiters stood in a line, hands behind their backs, military-style, among the impeccably dressed tables with their starched tablecloths, the sparkling stemware, a single blue iris in a silver bud vase. Behind the restaurant, the sun was dropping in the sky. Just then a few notes came from the piano, like peals of a glass bell. A tall mop-haired man in a black turtleneck had started to play.
    “It’s beautiful,” Adrienne whispered. It was like a theater set before the opening performance and she found herself wanting it to stay like this. She didn’t want anything to ruin it, but no sooner did Adrienne wish for this than a white Mercedes pulled into the parking lot.
    “This is it,” Thatcher said. “The beginning of the end.”
    At the Blue Bistro, the service wasn’t the only thing that was old-fashioned. There was no computer. Tickets were written by hand and delivered to the kitchen by the server, a system that was as outdated as the pony express. Reservations were made in pencil, in a big old book with a tattered binding. Most tables were marked with the party’s last name; VIP tables had the first and last name.
    “Some restaurants actually write ‘VIP’ next to a name,” Thatcher said. “Or,