Food Whore (8 page)

“I . . . I don't know.” Surely someone would show up any minute now. My heart sped up again. I didn't know what he wanted out of this conversation, but whatever it was, I knew I had just cheated on my new restaurant family. Irreversibly.

“Yes, you do. Don't be afraid of your opinions. Tell me.”

Now I could hear the sounds from upstairs with unsettling clarity. ­People walking, ­people worrying. ­People searching for the man standing in front of me right now?

“I can't. I shouldn't be talking to you like this,” I said, wishing I could turn back time. And short of that, I wished Michael Saltz was so drunk that he'd forget this ever happened. I didn't want to be a traitor. I just wanted my moment.

He pursed his lips and for a second I saw the wheels turning, his mind clicking on a decision.

“I read your essay, you know. Before I gave it to Helen. I couldn't resist.”

“Oh!” I said, yet another puff of wind blown beneath my wings. My heart slowed down. I hadn't thought he'd bother to read my application.

“It was fabulous. You have a way with words, and as I can tell from this conversation, a way with thoughtful criticism. I have to say, I'm glad you received this placement over Helen. She can be an aggressive, demanding boss. I should know. You're lucky you're here.
I'm
lucky you're here.”

“Oh, well, thanks?” I said, but I didn't understand the meaning behind his words. I still didn't have Helen. And why was this situation lucky for
him
?

“You owe it to yourself to be heard,” he said, interrupting my thought. “It would be a shame to go your whole life without sharing your gifts. Don't you think, Tia? You were quite the star in college. Front page of the
New York Times
Food section
.
But it's too easy to get left behind in New York City. There are thousands of ­people like you. Some make it. Some disappear. And some get an opportunity like this . . . to be heard.”

His voice was low, vibrating, and pointed in its aim. He got under my skin. “Now, I'll ask you again. Tell me about the dessert.”

“Well, the dessert . . . I think it's interesting,” I started. “The pie has sweet potato for the sweetness and cassava for the body and heft, but what gives it its unusual taste and structure is kabocha.”

“Kabocha! Fascinating.”

“Oh, so you noticed the kabocha?” I asked. “It's subtle. But, yeah, of course you would notice.”

“ . . . I did notice. It was much firmer? That's what gives it the dryness?” he said.

I made a face. Was he joking? “No, that's the thing, right? The kabocha ties the cassava and the sweet potato, and together it feels substantial, yet cloudlike and souffléed.”

“Indeed. You are correct. I've had way too much wine. Much too much wine. And the strudel?” His head tilted and he quickly righted it. “Tell me about that one.”

Now that my nerves had settled, I could see Michael Saltz more clearly. He had a pointed nose and a head of dark, thin hair sharpened by a widow's peak on his forehead. He fiddled with the edge of his linen shirt.

In fact, if you looked closely, his disguise was utterly unconvincing. You could tell he wasn't a diplomat or even a rich guy with a penchant for “Eastern cultures.” His eyeliner hovered too far from his eyelashes so he looked more like a kid playing in his mom's makeup bag than a foreign gentleman.

“I find the berries too tart and the walnut brittle too sweet,” I said. “It's gummy and heavy.”

Now I could hear someone down the hall. Someone was in the basement.

“Meet me upstairs! At coat check!” Michael Saltz whispered, just as Carey rounded the corner. I turned away as fast as I could, but still saw Carey's face freeze the second she saw us. Her shaking hands told me everything: she knew who he was.

What had I done? Did I really say all that to Michael Saltz?
The
Michael Saltz, the guy the whole restaurant obsessed over?

“Oh, hey,” she said to me. Then she looked at Michael Saltz. Then back at me.

“Oh, I didn't realize you were there, sir,” I said to Michael Saltz. Then, to Carey, “I had to pick something up from my locker, and I think this gentleman took a wrong turn looking for the restroom.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael Saltz silently gleam at my diversion tactic.

Carey chuckled hesitantly. “Well . . .” she started. “Sir, can I show you back upstairs?”

“You may,” he said. He didn't look at me. To do so would suggest that we knew each other, and Carey was watching us closely. I followed Michael Saltz's lead and walked away.

From the end of the hallway, I heard Carey say to him, “I hope you had a good dinner?” Anxiety had crept into her voice.

Part of me wanted to cry out,
Don't let him see you sweat!

But there was another part that reveled in the thought—­
He's hiding from Carey. From everyone. But not me.

Finally, the last thing I heard was Michael Saltz saying, “The dinner here was quite nice. I'm in town for a conference, and this was a lovely respite.”

They went upstairs, then I followed up a ­couple of minutes afterward. I didn't want ­people to suspect I'd been with Michael Saltz the whole time and I hoped Carey wouldn't tell anyone she had seen me with him. It was bad enough I'd spotted him and told no one. What I'd said to him in the basement . . . that was treason.

I went back to the coatroom and gathered my composure. Five minutes later, he arrived at the booth with his guests behind him, waiting. Jake had positioned himself at the top of the dining room stairs, looking down at me and Michael Saltz's back.

I handed him his coat with a smile and a slight nod.

He took it and reached into his pants, as if retrieving a tip.

“Tia,” he mumbled, the sound articulating inside his mouth but not on his lips. “You did a good job downstairs. I want to see you again. You're qualified.”

I repositioned myself so Jake wouldn't be able to see me from the landing. Qualified for what? He handed me a piece of paper: his dinner receipt with his email address written on the back.

“Thank you . . .” I said, as the reality of the last few minutes sank in. The
New York Times
restaurant critic wanted
me
to contact
him.
And not through a random throwaway email anymore, but his actual
New York Times
address. I had graduated somehow.

“
Shh
. . .” he whispered, then he was out the door.

I shoved the receipt in my suit jacket as Jake ran down.

“Did Carey tell you who that was? What did he say? Did he say anything about the dinner?”

“No,” I said. “He didn't say a thing.”

It was true—­he hadn't said anything. Only I had.

 

Chapter 6

T
WO DAYS LATER,
I
ST
I
L
L
D
I
D
N
'
T
K
N
O
W
W
H
A
T
I
W
A
N
T
E
D
T
O
say to Michael Saltz. It all boiled down to:
What do you want from me?

Jake called an emergency all-­staff meeting at Madison Park Tavern. A photographer from the
New York Times
had called to shoot eight dishes between three thirty and four
P.
M
.
on Monday, when the restaurant was closed to the public. We gathered at five past four to debrief and strategize. When everyone arrived, Jake cleared this throat and began.

“Listen, ­people. We're in the crosshairs.” He gestured to the bar, where the eight dishes had been laid out for the photographer. “This is what unprepared looks like. We all failed on Saturday.” He stalked through the dining room, winding between tables and looking every staff member in the eye. “It's a travesty we recognized Michael Saltz so late, but kudos to Carey for bringing him to our attention.” Some ­people gave Carey soft smiles. I did my best to follow their lead, even though I was the one who had first noticed him. Revealing him was another story.

Jake quickened his gait, his face reddening. “What I don't understand is how the most important critic in the world can walk into our restaurant and not be fucking ID'd. His ‘disguise' was bogus, so that's not an excuse. Believe me, I blame myself more than anyone. But no one in this room gets a pass. Why do we have multiple pictures of the guy in the dining room and in the kitchen? Hasn't his image been seared into your minds by now? If we don't notice Michael Saltz—­fat, skinny, bald, even if he's got a fucking eye patch—­then I shudder to think who else we are missing. We're clearly being reviewed now, and the four stars are ours to lose. We must treat him like a king. But it is us against him.”

Jake sat down among us. He adjusted his tie clip and sighed. “The photographs are already done. That means the review can be printed as soon as this week. This restaurant and everyone in this room relies on that man's words. You and I know that Madison Park Tavern is one of the best. But if we lose that focus, we will die.”

Jake shook, as if possessed by something much stronger than him. He was a man who took offense when the fork was in the wrong place, suffered shame when a host or hostess didn't say good-­bye to a guest. And his pain now? Practically visible from space.

I bit my nails and let his words sink in.
The four stars are ours to lose.
I hoped that wouldn't happen. I hoped that my conversation was a little side thing. We just happened upon each other.

But I knew he'd had a plan to see me. The memory of that night burned so hot into my heart that I was sure my face gave me away. That, or a scarlet
MS
blazed on my chest.

“Come on, let's eat these dishes before they get too cold. Let's get a sense of what Mr. Saltz experienced.”

In sports, the coaches analyze the tapes, but we were going to experience the game in real time. We sampled all the dishes the photographer had requested. These would be the targets in Michael Saltz's review.

As I tasted the food and listened to everyone hypothesize how Michael Saltz could have perceived it, I reviewed my strange conversation with him. I carefully controlled my face in case someone could see that my focus lay elsewhere. I needed to make sense of our basement chat before I reached out to him. He'd started as a reporter, so maybe that was why he was questioning me. He was getting an outside opinion, right? ­People always ask their waiter or waitress about ingredients or recommendations. Looking at it that way, perhaps the whole thing wasn't so bizarre.

While ­people crowded around the bar, I stole a peek at Michael Saltz's receipt to see what he'd decided not to photograph. And then I knew my theory was wrong.

There on the marble counter was the pork with ras el hanout. But the receipt told a different story: Saltz had ordered the pork loin from the main menu. The other, homier one. One dish could never be mistaken for the other.

Then why did Michael Saltz tell me and the photographer he got the ras el hanout one?

After we ate everything, Jake adjourned the meeting, then walked toward my table.

“Tia, I wanted to let you know that I'm glad it was you who backserved Michael Saltz for a short time on Saturday. This whole thing?” He waved his finger in a circular motion around the dining room, which was at the height of its grandeur in the dying afternoon light. “This is a big deal in this city. And you're an important part of it. You're doing an outstanding job.”

I clasped my hands so tightly, both my arms trembled. It was a prayer, of sorts. I wished he couldn't see my guilt. I wished what I'd done wouldn't change anything. And as I squeezed harder and harder, I wished that I could keep this episode contained. No leaks, no betrayal. No messiness.

He gave me one last look, a fond one even, then walked away. I felt so relieved that I collapsed onto the banquette and closed my eyes. I wanted to freeze time for a little while, to help my mind catch up with reality, to preserve Jake's gratitude for the sliver of good I'd done, despite the sliver of transgression afterward. Though my sorry heart knew it had been more than a sliver.

Carey ran up to me and I tensed as she approached. “Wait, so what was the deal on Saturday?” Her stare was so intense, I had to avert my eyes.

“I forgot something in my locker. Jake said that I could have a break before I went back to the coatroom.”

That wasn't too bad a fib. Anyone could have done the same.

“Everyone thinks I saved the day, that I spotted him first,” Carey said, her eyes sharp and frighteningly alert. Carey was the queen of data capture, and I could tell that I was now under her microscope. “But I just stumbled on him. How long were you standing there? Why didn't you recognize him?”

“Recognize him?” My voice quivered, so I slowed it down, became conscious of my exhalations as I lied. “It was my first day on the job, and I'm not a restaurant person. I didn't even know what he looked like.”

Carey backed off, but not without a slow squint that stopped my breath, heart, and head.

“Okay,” she said. “I believe you.”

It occurred to me that I should have sounded baffled and out of my depth, but I worried I couldn't get the tenor right. Better to keep quiet, let the moment pass, and let Carey come to her own conclusions with as little information from me as possible.

We stayed there in silence for a ­couple more seconds, then she shook her head as if she had thought better of what she was about to do, and walked away.

T
HAT NIGHT
I
emailed Michael Saltz. I needed to get everything out on the table so I could put this saga to rest: What did he want from me? What was he doing at the restaurant?

Then I'd be done with it.

Hi, Michael. Today the team at Madison Park Tavern met about your meal on Saturday. I shouldn't be emailing you. But can you tell me why you were there and why you asked me so many questions? I'm confused as to why you wanted to talk.

He replied immediately.

Tia, don't be afraid to shine. Things are about to get good.