Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [148]
“Yes, Enid. Pretend you’re writing a report of what you’re observing, editing out all the extraneous details. Just give her the facts, not the emotions. I think you’ll find it a useful technique for helping to keep your feelings under control in difficult situations.”
So, I practice all the way to Grappa, taking note of the precise hue of the yellow cabs, which really are more orange than yellow, the bent street sign at the corner of Leroy Street, the man dressed in a clown suit swinging an expensive briefcase, his cell phone pressed to his ear.
I stop short on the corner of Bedford and Grove. From here I can see Grappa, which is in the middle of the block. The black and white awning looks freshly scrubbed, and pots of blooming hibiscus trees flank the front door, which, as I move cautiously closer, I see has been replaced; the worn wooden one I’d painted with glossy paint by mistake has given way to a deeply stained chestnut one. The restaurant looks dark. I linger at the top of the steps, gathering the courage to venture down the three steps and try the front door.
Jake must have come up through the alley, because suddenly he is behind me. I can feel him even before he speaks; the hair at the back of my neck prickles as I catch the familiar scent of his cologne. I turn around, and there he is, dressed in jeans and a blue button-down shirt that looks as if he’s napped in it, an apron slung low on his hips.
“Around back,” he says, smiling at me. I follow him down the alley, where he pulls out a key dangling from a chain underneath his apron, and watch as he unlocks Grappa’s back door. He holds it open for me and allows me to enter first. I walk past the office, which mercifully is dark, and down the hallway, pausing just at the entrance to the kitchen. The summer sun, on the verge of setting, casts ribbons of golden light through the wrought iron bars on the half-windows, bathing the kitchen in a luminous glow. Apart from that, it looks almost exactly the same as it did on the day I left.
“Philippe and his crew left things more or less the same in here,” Jake says, taking my sweater and hanging it on top of his jacket on the hook by the door. “The dining room, not so much. You won’t like it. That’s why we came in through the back,” he tells me, simply.
“I know,” I whisper. “I’ve seen it. On the Web site.” Jake nods.
He places a light hand on my arm as he moves past me into the kitchen.
Jake has set the corner of the workstation with a crisp white cloth and two tall candlesticks, a small vase of tulips between them.
“Prosecco?” he asks. I’m about to decline; after all, this is supposed to be a business meeting, not to mention the fact that I’ve already drunk a half bottle of wine in the tub. But before I can even answer, Jake opens the walk-in, pulls out an already opened bottle of Prosecco, and pours two glasses. He hands me one. “Mind if I put you to work?” he asks.
“Not a bit,” I tell him, grateful for something to do.
He smiles at me. “Okay, how about a salad?” Without even thinking about it, I reach to pluck a head of garlic from the braid by the prep station, the small whisk from the jar of utensils by the grill, and next to it, the salt box, everything, incredibly, exactly where I’d left it.
I whisk the vinaigrette together in the bottom of the wooden salad bowl, top it with assorted greens from the walk-in, and shave a few shards of Parmigiano-Reggiano over the top.
I turn around, but Jake’s gone. I hear him in the office, and seconds later, the opening bars to Gianni Schicchi begin filtering through the sound system; on his way back in, he stops to check something in the oven. “Okay, what next?” I ask.
“Nothing. Everything else is done. I’m just finishing,” he says, busying himself at the pasta station, where he unveils two perfect mounds of pizza dough resting on the marble block.
“Demeter’s breasts,” Jake says with a wicked grin. He raises his glass of Prosecco. “To Demeter, goddess of grain. No, seriously,” he says. “To a fruitful and successful partnership. Thanks for coming, Mira,”