Shem Creek

  “Yes, generally, but it depends on who you’re talking to. In this business you can say just about anything you want, but when I was an investment banker, the other guy was always waiting for you to make a slip they could hammer you with.”

  “You were an investment banker?”

  “Yeah, in Atlanta. I worked for my father-in-law. It was a pretty tense way to make a living. Not as bad as being a day trader, but stressful enough.”

  “So, you don’t come from a restaurant background either?”

  “Are you kidding? Before this I lived on another planet!”

  “And, so, I mean, is it okay to ask how you wound up here, doing this?”

  “Sure. My wife ran off with my worst enemy and my father-in-law sold him the business I was supposed to inherit. How’s that?”

  There followed a very long silence and then she found her tongue.

  “Holy Mother of God! Didn’t you want to rip their throats out with your bare hands?”

  Rip their throats out? She had a way with words. Now the legs were uncrossed, her eyes had grown large and she was leaning on her elbows, staring at me. I just loved watching the reactions of people when I told the Cliffs Notes version of the train wreck of my past life.

  “The thought did cross my mind about every three seconds for a very long time.”

  “So, what did you do? Jeez! I thought Fred was bad!”

  “Well, I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of fishing, and then I finally came to the conclusion that I hated, I mean really hated doing mergers and acquisitions day in and day out. I was sitting just up this very creek in a boat with my friend Robert, and I turned to him and said, You know what? I could stare at this creek every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Then he said, Well, why don’t you? That’s when we knew we were going in the restaurant business.”

  “Well, you’re sure right about the view. Like my daughter Gracie says, it’s killer.”

  Linda leaned back in her chair and looked through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows beside us. In the time it took to change her position, her face became transformed. She was strangely luminous in that afternoon’s light and I knew she belonged here. For a few moments, we watched the sunlight dance on the endless ripples of the salt water, the shrimp boats pulling alongside the docks and the birds swooping in majestic arcs. She seemed like she was looking at something miraculous. For my money, it was. That was when I decided to hire Linda. I liked her and I was going to give her a shot.

  But, first and only, if she could pass muster with Louise.

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” I said. “Come with me.”

  “Sure.”

  I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen and there was Louise, giving hell to the chef.

  “Doo-wayne? People don’t come to Shem Creek to eat no grapefruit coo-lee with their flounder! They want a clean piece of fish!”

  The chef, Duane, slammed his hand on the counter and said, “At Johnson and Wales, they taught us—”

  “I don’t give a daggum rat’s behind—”

  “All right, you two! We can discuss this later, please? Louise, come on with me to my office. This is Linda Breland and I’d like you to talk to her for a few minutes.”

  Gently, I took Louise’s arm, turned her around and walked her out, giving the five-minute signal to Duane, letting him know I’d be back and we’d settle the argument.

  Louise continued to mutter under her breath. Pretty boys and cooking schools! In my day, never! I don’t know what kind of fool thing goes on! Whoever heard of grapefruit and flounder? Nasty! That’s what! Nasty!

  “You said it, Louise,” Linda said.

  “Louise is slightly opinionated,” I said.

  Linda giggled, Louise said humph, and we all stopped in our tracks. Louise turned to Linda and narrowed her eyes, her jaw set with steel cable.

  “He said your name is Miss Linda, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  “You ever eat grapefruit with fish?”

  “Nope. Never.” Linda emphasized her opinion with a guttural noise that sounded like Bleck!

  Louise gave her the slow once-over from head to toe.

  “I like her, Mr. Brad. You hire her, ’eah? She’s got sense in her head.”

  “Okay. Hey, Louise?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t kill Duane. Let him have his coulis.”

  “One of these days, I’m gonna cut his coulis! Humph!”

  “Oh, Louise! You’re a she-devil!”

  The deal was almost cut. Louise returned to the stir-fried Armageddon in the kitchen and I opened my office door. I sat at the desk that Linda would occupy if she came on board and she sat opposite me once again.

  “Okay, here’s my problem,” I said.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “It’s this restaurant experience thing.”

  She leaned forward once more, but this time, she smiled not in horror as she had when I told her about Loretta; this time she smiled in defiance.

  “You didn’t have any either,” she said.

  The balls! She had me there.

  “How much do you want to do the job?”

  “What’s the job?”

  We started to laugh and then she said, “I mean, you’ll have to tell me what my responsibilities are, right? God knows, I don’t want to get in Louise’s way!”

  “No, you really don’t want to do that.”

  Briefly, I explained that I would like her to manage all the bills, deal with the purveyors and with the chef to keep them both honest, do payroll and oversee the front of the house.

  “Front of the house being?”

  “Everything that happens before you get to the kitchen. Hostesses, waitstaff, busboys—and special events—keep the customers happy. We have a pretty good crew but they could always use a sharp eye to keep them in line. Most of them are young and earning their way through college, so they rush around too much and tend to cluster and gab. And sometimes, they forget to come to work. You’ll like the bartender, though. His name’s Mike O’Malley. Irish guy.”

  “Irish? Really?”

  “Sorry. That was stupid.”

  “It’s okay. I say dumb things all the time. My grandmother was Irish and I can help bartend.”

  “That would be great. Look, basically, Louise and I, and now you, do anything that needs to get done.”

  “Okay, so, what are the hours?”

  Yes, I was trying to hire a woman who would undoubtedly point out everything I said or did that was not well thought through. Oh well. We would wash the well-meaning but definitely Jersey girl out of her over time. A southern woman would never correct her boss, especially on an interview. But I don’t mind; she’ll keep me on my toes. She couldn’t be worse to spend my days with than Loretta had been and God knows, she couldn’t be as challenging as Louise.

  “Rotating shifts of eight hours, Monday through Saturday. You have to alternate Sundays with me and Louise and just be flexible.”

  “Oh, so big deal. Benefits?”

  “Management will have health insurance as soon as we get it set up.”

  “Well, that doesn’t matter really. We’re covered on Cobra. Vacation?”

  “Standard. After one year, one week. Two years, two weeks. Up to four weeks, but not all at once.”

  “Okay. Done.”

  “Um, Linda. We didn’t talk money.”

  “Oh, God, I hate asking for money.”

  “Yeah, money’s ugly. Root of all evil and all that. But still . . . okay, what were you earning in New Jersey?”

  “Stinking peanuts for the hell I put up with!”

  Nicely put, I thought. “How many peanuts?”

  “Well, I earned thirty-four thousand at the paper and about six thousand in my other jobs.”

  “Whew! That’s forty thousand!”

  “You watch television?”

  “No, not much. Why?”

  “Well,
there’s this ad for hair color and this chick says, I’m worth it. So there you have it. You want to buy my heart and soul? Forty thousand.”

  Then, Linda Breland started to laugh. She put her hand over her mouth and laughed at her own boldness.

  “All right then, give me your Social Security number and nobody gets hurt,” I said.

  “Okay!”

  I walked her to the door and watched her actually strut to her car, snapping her fingers in the air a couple of times. I could not remember when I had ever seen a woman do something so funny and theatrical, not giving a damn if the world was watching. Linda Breland’s courage spread a lightheartedness over me I hadn’t felt in years. I found myself remembering the reckless gambles of my youth and I smiled so wide it surprised me. Robert’s relationship with our investors, the will of Louise, my determination and the mirth of Linda. We would be a culinary SWAT team.

  TWO

  LINDA AND MIMI

  I pulled the car into my sister’s yard and stopped. Anyone passing along London Bridge Road would have thought that Mimi’s house was a picture of what life was supposed to look like in a perfect world. Pink and green caladiums bordered her azaleas, pink and white vinca was nestled in between and her grass lawn was cut and edged. Her small but charming front porch was furnished with painted white rockers and her hanging baskets overflowed with asparagus ferns and more pink and white flowers, whose name I couldn’t recall. It bothered me that I had forgotten the name of those flowers and all at once it seemed I had forgotten too many things.

  There had been a time, not too long ago, that I thought I would never get over Fred’s remarriage. I became seriously depressed and I think it wasn’t just because Patti (his new wife) was younger than me or that she was gorgeous and successful in her own right, although that was enough to make me hate her guts with a white heat, even after she had proven herself to be completely reasonable and intelligent with a saint’s patience to boot. No, her litany of qualities was grounds for justifiable homicide. But, part of me said, Shit! If Fred’s the best a gal like Patti can do, who’s left for me? Lurch?

  The real reason for my depression was that I had fallen into this state of complete and utter despair that my life was never going to get any better and would never be any different than it was. I would never feel like anything more than bone tired all the time. I hated my job, um, jobs. I hated never quite making ends meet; I hated the winters, fall allergies, frozen seafood, traffic jams, fear of terrorism, pollution and the fact that I was surrounded by a million and one things I couldn’t take advantage of in New York. Lincoln Center, all the museums, restaurants, shoes I could never afford, never mind what was in art galleries or in the breathtaking showrooms of antique dealers and, I guess, here’s the point . . . have you ever seen a mother take a child to Toys “R” Us and then tell them they can’t have anything? They say, Sorry, honey, we’re just here to get something for Blah Blah’s birthday! The poor child just wants to break down and wail. I mean, if you don’t want to buy that child a little something, don’t put that child in that store!

  I did not have to be Albert Einstein to come to the conclusion that I had no business surrounding myself with an Everest I would never conquer or possess.

  Just for a while, I wanted to try living in an environment where the comforts were within my reach. At least, I could try.

  Maybe by moving back to Mount Pleasant, my sister would help me reacquaint myself with all the details that would make my new life at least appear to approach something more cheerful and hopeful. I could begin again in a home without drafty windows and uneven floors. I’d find a house with enough closets, a sunny kitchen and a little screened porch where I could sit and read or talk to a friend.

  You could say that appearances don’t mean everything and you wouldn’t be wrong, but frequently, I have found the opposite to be true. What you wear and how you are groomed has a lot to do with how you are treated at a restaurant or a teacher’s conference. Mimi’s house and yard spoke volumes about her life. If nothing else, she was perceived as satisfied and proud of her lot.

  Her home was not only regulation Americana, but regulation belle. Thoughtfully arranged photographs in small silver frames of our long-deceased parents and grandparents were but one small demonstration of her regard for our heritage. Our mother’s mahogany secretary in her living room had other small but precious family relics on display—our mother’s miniature first Bible, our grandmother’s wirerimmed reading glasses folded neatly over its open pages and our father’s silver mint julep cup filled with sprigs of dried rosemary from her yard. Next to the cup rested his baptismal cap of lace, tatted by our grandmother’s own hands.

  The care and thought that went into each small detail of her world was a constant amazement to me. I, the Oscar to her Felix, had been living life on a roaring freight train, almost laughing at my sister’s prissiness for years. I used to think, What good had it done her? I ran a crazy house, she ran a show house and both of us got dumped by our husbands. The major difference was that I had two children and for a whole assortment of medical and emotional reasons, Mimi never had any.

  All that said, when I came to the end of what I could endure on my own, I secretly believed that the temple to tradition she had built would be a place where we could not only heal, but change. Besides, there was the outside chance that she knew something I didn’t, but I doubted it.

  I couldn’t get out of the car. I just kept thinking about what I had done. In less than one measly hour, I had made a decision that would alter the course of my whole life. Incredible. You would date somebody for years before you would even consider marriage or you could wrack your brains for years studying before you practiced medicine, but you could have one interview and change your world. Just like that. I had done it. I, Linda Breland, the biggest chicken on the face of the earth, had caught the boomerang that would land me back in my hometown. Somewhere along the line, I had developed some very impressive nerve.

  I gathered up my purse and newspapers and got out of the car, opening the back hatch to bring in the steaks I’d bought at the Piggly Wiggly. This important day demanded an important supper. In a moment of wild abandon, I had even sprung for a bottle of champagne, deciding we needed to do something celebratory for the occasion.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Mimi the news—she would be thrilled—but I was dreading telling my daughters. Lindsey, who was going to college in the fall, probably wouldn’t care very much but Gracie was going to explode. Well, that was just too bad for her. We’d had more than a few hair-raising experiences in New Jersey that told me Miss Gracie needed a benevolent dictator to appear in her life, blow up her nonsense and restructure her days. I was to be that benevolent dictator. Solid ground. She needed solid ground. I knew of no better place than Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, to take a wild hare like my Gracie and straighten her out. She had no choice but to move with me, and that was that.

  The front door opened and Lindsey came outside, squinting.

  “Need help?”

  “Yeah! Thanks!” Lindsey’s ponytail was halfway undone and her shorts and T-shirt were sweaty and wrinkled. “Don’t tell me you just got up?”

  “Yep. I’m just so tired, I went back to bed. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  “Here, take these. Salt air, kiddo. Best sleeping pill in the world. But you really shouldn’t stay in bed all day, you know.”

  “Why not?”

  Classic teenage response.

  I held the door open to let her pass and followed her into the kitchen. “Because decent people get up and do something with their time, that’s why! Unless they’re sick. You’re not sick, are you?” I dropped the bags on the counter and put my hand on her forehead.

  “Mom! Stop it! God!”

  I ignored that remark. Long ago, I had become deaf to the objections of my children.

  “You’re fine. Where’s Mimi?”

  “Out getting her nails done.”

 
“Oh.” I stopped and dialed her cell phone but there was no answer. I hadn’t had a manicure in a thousand years. “Where’s Gracie?”

  “At the beach. Where else?”

  I started unpacking groceries and obsessing. Gracie at the beach. Gracie swimming in water over her head! Sharks! Riptides! Jellyfish! My daughter’s dead body, white, bloated and stone cold, crabs eating her eyes from their sockets . . . But, I was cool. “Did she say when she’d be back?”

  “Dunno. Gotta ask the guys she went with.”

  “Guys?”

  “Yeah. We met some kids at Taco Bell and she went with them.”

  “I don’t like it when she takes off like this, you know. She makes me nervous. What if they’re related to Charles Manson?”

  “Who’s Charles Manson?”

  “A psycho killer, q’est-que c’est.”

  “Mom, you are so weird sometimes.” Lindsey started fishing through the bags, not really pulling things out, just digging around.

  “Thanks, hon. Just what are you doing?”

  “Looking for a snack. How come you never buy chips? And, whoa! You bought steaks? What’s up with that?”

  I debated for a moment whether to tell her now or to wait until dinner as I had planned. I decided to tell her.

  “Okay. Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I got a fabulous job managing a restaurant on Shem Creek for more money than I make in New Jersey!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. We’re going back to Montclair as fast as we can, putting the house on the market and we are moving down here.”

  “Holy shit! Are you serious?”

  “Language, please. I am as serious as I have ever been. I’ve got a thousand and one things to do because I start work in ten days.”

  “Gracie is gonna flip a shit.”

  “Language!”

  “Sorry. But she will. You know that, don’t you? I mean, I know you’ve been talking about it, but this is for real now. Mom, I can’t believe you actually took a job here!”