Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [10]
I call Grappa and get our sous-chef, Tony. He tells me Jake isn’t there yet, but he’ll gladly supervise lunch. Tony seems surprised when I tell him that Jake is on his way in this early and promises to have him call me as soon as he gets there.
My next call is to Renata. She begins her days early, meeting with her clients, most of whom are chefs and restaurateurs, during the early part of the day, before they begin lunch or dinner service. I’ll just ask her to meet me here, at the apartment, instead of at the restaurant.
For the second time this morning I’m taken aback, when this time a sleepy sounding male voice answers Renata’s phone, and then I remember that she got married a few weeks ago. This must be her husband, whose name I have forgotten. They just got married in Vegas and then threw a huge party at Renata’s Tribeca loft, after the fact. Although I was invited, I didn’t go. I wasn’t ready to celebrate the union of two idealistic people, full of the self-congratulatory tones of those who have found love the second time around. Not while I was still licking the wounds of my own failed marriage.
Renata picks up the extension. “Buon giorno, Mira, are we still on for ten thirty?” She sounds chipper, all business. She’s probably already dressed to the nines and in full makeup, even though it’s barely eight o’clock in the morning. Renata isn’t really beautiful in a classical sense, although every straight man I know, including Jake, thinks she is. She is sultry and full-figured with a dark, Mediterranean complexion and great, full lips: a young Isabella Rossellini. What most women notice about her is that she dresses impeccably: Italian suits and silk shirts (invariably open to reveal an impressive décolletage), and I can’t recall ever seeing her without a scarf and earrings. I look down with disgust at my purpletinted, vomit-stained sweat suit.
“Sure, I’m all ready to go, but the thing is, Chloe’s sick and I can’t leave her. She was in the emergency room last night, actually. Would you mind coming to the apartment? I’ve got everything here, at home.”
“Is she okay? Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule?” she asks.
“No, no, we’re fine. I’d just as soon get the order in. We would have to close our doors if we ran out of Parmigiano-Reggiano. You know, Jake has a liberal hand.”
“Yes, I do, God bless him.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
She laughs. “Whoops, sorry, I forgot—the bastard.”
Over the years Renata and I have developed a social relationship. She proved herself to be an invaluable advisor on a number of occasions throughout Grappa’s early stages, and we’ve become good friends over the last few years. I nursed her through a couple of bad breakups, including one marriage, and she has been supportive of me during this recent unpleasantness with Jake, at least insofar as someone as self-obsessed as Renata can be. But she’s also a shrewd businesswoman, and I suspect that if Jake ever did manage to wrest control of the restaurant from me, Renata would continue to make sure his needs, at least for oil and cheese, were spectacularly met. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to like Renata. Among other things, one has to admire her business acumen. She broke into an incredibly tight market in a male-dominated profession through sheer smarts, perseverance, and impeccable food sense. Yet, despite her closet full of Fendi handbags and Ferragamo shoes, Renata comes from a family of simple people who were sheep farmers in the foothills of Abruzzo for centuries. At heart, Renata is a simple girl who, when no one is looking, likes to roll up her sleeves, eat big bowls of pasta with sausage, and spit olive pits out the window of her chic Tribeca