by Jessica Tom
“What’s your name?” I asked, but she said nothing, just let the cake and its accoutrements tumble on her tongue. She clearly wasn’t going to respond, so I took a forkful of the dessert.
It crackled and melted and oozed. It was special, elaborate, defiantly unusual. I had never tasted anything even remotely like it.
While Chef Darling prepped the next course, the server named Angel introduced himself and the bartender, Chad.
“You like the restaurant?” Angel asked.
“Yeah, it’s great. These tastings are incredible. I wish I could be here, where the action is.”
“We all started in the coatroom. You pay your dues—like a couple of months or sometimes a year—then you advance. But grad students usually don’t do shit,” Chad taunted with a smile.
“You don’t do shit,” Angel taunted back. “Don’t worry about him. You’re in a good spot. The best.”
A four-star restaurant in one of the best dining cities in the world. Maybe the best dining city in the world. Angel didn’t have to convince me.
“And don’t be fooled by this imbecile,” Angel continued. “He’s a softy. And this place is like family. I’ve been all around this city, and everywhere is family. Restaurant people protect their own.”
“Family!” Chad repeated in his best mafioso voice, stroking his soul patch.
“If you work here, then we got you one hundred percent,” Angel said, patting my back. “It’s a restaurant creed.” He held his fist up to his chest and gave what I would later recognize as one of his signature heart-melting Angel smiles.
We sampled the entire menu, jumping from appetizers to desserts and back again, though Jake made it a point to not serve me the paella, which had bivalves and crustaceans. I loved some dishes and wasn’t crazy about others, but it didn’t matter because the job was more than the food. The restaurant was a community.
Afterward, Jake reviewed non-food developments with the team. We had received new decanters from Kieley Glass, a pricey artisan collaborative in Rhode Island. Some backservers were promoted to waiters, some waiters to captains. The girl next to me advanced from coat check attendant—my position—to backserver. She jumped up and down when she received the white apron, as if it were her college diploma.
“Finally,” Jake said to everyone, “this is Tia Monroe. She’s our new master’s student from NYU and will start tomorrow on the Saturday dinner shift. Please welcome her to Madison Park Tavern, yes? Okay, meeting adjourned.”
They looked at me for a second, then the restaurant snapped into action. The dishes were cleared, the tablecloths were readjusted, the wineglasses were positioned just so, catching a glint of the sun. So many staffers said hi, Jake had to shoo them away. So this wasn’t writing in Helen’s kitchen. But I knew I could make it work. Already, I liked the sense of belonging.
I was about to leave the restaurant when the girl with the frizzy hair stopped me.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude before. My name is Carey,” she said, then thrust her surprisingly delicate hand toward me. “Carey Spence. One R.” She had a wide, earnest look in her eyes, like she was the new girl, trying to impress me. “I get really into tastings. Like, really into them. But Jake told me about you. I’m an NYU Food Studies grad myself. I like your ring, where did you get it?”
“Yeah, I’m Tia. This is my grandmother’s ring.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful. I love jade. I graduated this past May and started in coat check in my final year, but as of, like, five minutes ago, I’m a backserver.” She shook her new white apron in front of me.
“What’s a backserver?”
“You’re not a restaurant person?”
“Um, no. I wanted to get the Helen Lansky internship—”
“Helen Lansky? Oh, I love her. She’s great. This is different, but also not. And a backserver is in between the busser and the waiter, status-wise. I also do some side work, like, data warehousing and strategy stuff. Nothing too serious, but Jake lets me dabble.”
“What kind of strategy?” I asked. Her words outnumbered mine by such a large margin that I felt compelled to add on, “What do you mean?”
“Strategy . . .” She slowed down a little, which I appreciated. “You have to remember a lot of things. You’ll see. Even as a coat checker, you have to know all the permanent dishes and specials. Who raised what pig and what that pig ate. You’ll need to memorize which flowers are in the arrangements, who designed the curtains, what soap is in our dispenser. That information is essential and needs to be shared across staff. That’s the core function of this industry Wiki I’m working on.
“Each restaurant has its own private access section where they can keep information in a living, online database that select staff can update. I use the Madison Park Tavern area as a rolling log of the restaurant’s evolution. I think Jake sent you access info this morning, though as an intern you’re read-only. You can’t edit or post. I’m not sure how the rest of the NYC restaurant world uses their private access areas because I made sure it’s truly private, you know?
“And then there’s the public section, where industry types work together to aggregate relevant external information in a public forum. There are about one hundred admins across the city and the site gets about two hundred unique visits a day. Anyone can access it, but it’s mostly senior front- and back-of-house people and some deep-digging reporters.”
“Wow, that’s cool.”
“Right? Now I’m expanding my final NYU project: a database where the restaurant can track all the dishes and components, their response as measured by reviews, orders, and—to a lesser extent—the profit margins. I’m also adding information from other restaurants, along with their critical reception. I’m trying to unearth any statistical insights around timing, ingredients, things like that. The idea is that, within the private confines of our Wiki, we can be predictive and therefore preventative.”
“Preventative against what?” I had never heard of anyone taking such a data-driven approach to food.
“A bad write-up. Obviously, the end goal is an amazing review. In the New York Times, of course. Michael Saltz is due to visit us soon because Matthew started a couple of months ago. And that means we must be on our game. Jake is always worried about being reviewed at any second. He never rests.”
Yikes. Michael Saltz. But they had the wrong pictures. Even Carey didn’t seem to realize.
“Say, those pictures? Of Michael Saltz? How old are they?”
Carey gnawed at her nails, panic immediately at the surface. “You think they’re outdated? Do you know him?”
“Well, no, not really. But I think—”
Suddenly Jake ran up to us, clipboard in hand. “Carey, come on, we have to go. We have two hundred covers tonight, twenty of them PXs.” I peeked down at his reservation notes and saw a garble of shorthand I had never seen before: SFN, Bubbles, Whale, Maestro, Mr. Robinson, WFM. Some people had special requests. I saw something about wine served at a balmy seventy-two degrees and a special request called “Kung Pao salad,” which wasn’t on the menu.
“Okay, well, gotta run,” Carey said. “Tell me later!”
Jake cocked his head at me for a split second, as if waiting for me to say that it couldn’t wait. But I didn’t have the nerve to mention anything, not yet.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Tia,” Jake finally said. “Have a good day.”
And then they both walked off, eyes buried in their nightly list of boldfaced names. Their notes were so detailed, the degree of personalized service so high, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had bios on every single guest who came through the doors.
Surely Michael Saltz was their top priority, then. They had the experience and resources and motivation to identify him—even if they had outdated photos. Carey had made it her personal missi
on to predict his next move.
All I had was one encounter. He’d said he would get me Helen, and that hadn’t happened. The Michael Saltz I knew was weird and inert, not the powerful man whom Madison Park Tavern and every other restaurant in New York City watched with bated breath.
So I said nothing, convinced that the restaurant knew better than I did.
AFTER LEAVING WORK, I opened my apartment door to find a dark-haired girl applying eyeliner in the closet mirror.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“I’m Melinda,” she said. “I live over there.” She pointed to the third bedroom, the smallest one.
“Cool,” I said. “My name is Tia. How did I miss your move-in? Are your things coming later?”
“I just have two suitcases.” She shrugged. I peeked inside her room and saw said suitcases and an air mattress.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, Emerald said that you were coming a little late. How do you know her?”
“Through the magic of the Internet. She’s kind of a trip, right?”
I looked around the apartment to confirm Emerald had left. Still, I wasn’t going to tell this near-stranger the truth—that I wasn’t sure how to communicate with glamorous, gorgeous Emerald. “She’s great.”
“I mean . . .” Melinda said, and rolled her eyes at me in the mirror. “I think there’s something up with her. Just between you and me. This morning when I got here, she came back all disheveled wearing what looked to be last night’s clothes. And see that closet over there? It used to be filled with men’s coats. I can’t imagine that they’re all from one boyfriend or hookup. Fine, whatever. I’m not one to judge. But when she saw that I noticed, she moved everything back into her room.”
“So? I don’t follow.”
Melinda took out some iridescent blue-green eye shadow and laughed. “I’m no prude, but that girl is hiding something. Something that goes beyond sleeping with guys.”
I had seen how Elliott had responded to her—even with me in the room. I knew Melinda wanted me to think that she was slutty. A gold digger, maybe? I didn’t feel great about it, but part of me felt a little smug that there was a dent in Emerald’s shiny veneer. But then again, a little part of me was impressed that she was bold enough to be a slut in the first place—if that’s what was going on.
“Anyway, it’s dark in my room, so I’ve gotta put my makeup on in the living room until I buy a lamp. It’s all about lighting,” she said.
For some reason, the dramatic way she said that made me forget about Emerald and laugh. Melinda laughed, too. “I know that sounds ridiculous. But that’s a thing of mine. Lighting, setting, mood,” she mused. “I’m into theater and personas and stuff. Faking it.”
We caught eyes again.
“Faking it?”
“Fake it till I make it. Try on different people till I find the one I like.”
“Oh,” I said. Melinda didn’t have the eager hi, how are you, what are you studying vibe that everyone else seemed to have at NYU. She was reserved and a little mysterious. And I liked that.
“Like you.” She turned and looked me up and down. “You have an interesting look. What are you? Mexican? Egyptian?” She picked up a strand of my hair, that mix of straight and shiny, thin and wispy.
“I’m mixed. Half white, a quarter Chinese, a quarter black.”
Her eyes skimmed over every inch of my face: the big lips, the wide nose, the frizz at the hairline. She strained for some definition, but I’ve always defied those. At least when it comes to looks.
“Hm. That’s cool. Guys love that.”
I burst into laughter. “I can’t say I have much experience in that area.”
She shrugged. “Well, dude, if I had that exotic thing going on, I’d be working it.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said dubiously . . . and somewhat flattered.
“What about you, what are you into?” she asked.
“I’m in grad school for Food Studies, doing an independent study, but it’s been a confusing couple of weeks—I think I may be forced to reevaluate my entire identity and sense of self over the weekend.” I was trying for funny, but Melinda didn’t laugh. Instead, she flicked her eyes over my features again.
“Food is cool.” She nodded blankly. “And, hell, you’re in New York City for the foreseeable future. Welcome to the reinvention capital of the world. Be whoever the fuck you want.”
I continued watching her as she dabbed a deep eggplant color on her lips. “Well, I’ve gotta get ready for dinner.” I’d decided that Elliott and I would eat at Bakushan, a brand-new place in our neighborhood that was getting a lot of press. “See you later.”
“See ya,” she said, studying herself in the mirror.
Fake it till you make it, I repeated to myself. I had always liked that phrase, but now it would come in extra handy.
WHEN I GOT out of the bathroom, Melinda had left the living room and Emerald had come home wearing one of her men’s coats. But from where? My new roommate had planted an ugly seed and now my mind was watering it.
She sat on the couch pulling on a piece of tangled T-shirt fabric. “I made this convoluted strappy shirt and now I don’t know how to put it on.” She picked up a cookie beside her. “Do you want one of these? They’re from Health Haven on First Ave. All organic and maybe vegan?”
“No, thanks. Elliott and I are grabbing dinner.”
“Your Madison Park Tavern job is so sick, it’s incredible,” Emerald said. “I bet the fashion is amazing. Madison Park Tavern isn’t too far from a lot of magazines and fashion houses. Last year I worked for this jewelry designer named Oji, and she took me there when Vogue featured a piece I designed. We had this amazing salad with, like, these corn pieces? But they weren’t, like, corn? They were, you know, meatier.”
“Hominy?” I answered.
“Whatever. But anyway, those editors and designers love to go to Madison Park Tavern and schmooze and fool themselves into thinking those salads are low-cal. Have you checked any coats yet? What designers have you seen?”
“I just went for a menu tasting. Tomorrow is my first day.” I didn’t want to tell her about the people I had met, how I had fallen a little bit in love. It’s not like they were real secrets, but I didn’t feel like sharing. I didn’t want her to compare her New York with mine, because I knew at this point I would lose.
So I changed the subject. “You were in Vogue? Then why didn’t you stay working with Oji?”
Emerald scoffed and picked up the T-shirt again. “Because I’m looking for the NBT.”
“No big thing?” I guessed.
“No!” she said, throwing the T-shirt at me. “Next. Big. Thing. Sure, staying at Oji would have been easy. But, you know, all these people approached me. Investors, photographers, fashion designers, reporters. What was I going to do, just stay there and push Oji’s brand? No; my design, my attention. If a magazine wants to feature me and my work, I take them up on it. There’s nothing wrong with a little piston.”
“Piston?” I gulped. Emerald was going for it. Like the ice pop girl in the park, she never seemed to waver over her future.
“Piston . . . it’s French. Literally, a piston. It means string-pulling. And speaking of piston, I was wondering—what’s your uniform at the restaurant?”
“Everyone wears a suit,” I said.
“What kind of suit?”
“A suit. Like a regular, plain suit.”
“Let me see yours.”
“It’s nothing special,” I said. I went into my room and returned with the suit my mom and I had bought before I went to college. The cut and fabric weren’t great, but it was all I had.
“Oh, that? Is that okay?”
I threw it onto my bed before she asked to see the label. “What do you mean, is it okay? Why w
ouldn’t it be okay? It’s a suit.”
“I don’t know, it’s just sort of like—” She scrunched her pretty face. “It’s like . . . blah. You’re so much better than that . . . thing.”
I knew this exact feeling from Yale, and I’d known that it would only get worse in New York. At Yale, tons of girls wore designer everything, as if five-hundred-dollar heels and three-thousand-dollar purses were a God-given right. And for some girls, they were. They were the ones who slept in penthouse apartments rather than tiny dorms. They carried their books in designer handbags and took taxis to class. They all hung out with each other, even if they lived worlds away: New York, L.A., Houston, sure, but also Dubai, Hong Kong, Paris, Santorini. Upon setting foot on campus they knew people like me were not of their kind. They recognized each other through some code embedded in their clothes, their hair, their scent.
Yale had been the first time I paid attention to what I wore. But when I tried to step things up, I usually failed. Though no one ever called me out on it, I knew I’d never been up to snuff. My jeans weren’t the right shade. The pattern of my shirt was too outdated. I could follow someone else’s outfit exactly, only in a cheaper form, but something always gave me away: the proportions, the fabric.
But Elliott didn’t care about that stuff, and as I fell more in love with him, I’d left behind those insecurities. Those other people didn’t matter. He liked me as is. And now, I couldn’t wait for him to arrive so we could hightail it out of there.
“It’s not a fashion magazine, it’s a restaurant. And no one bothers with anything fancy. Everyone wears things like this.”
“No, they don’t.” Emerald laughed. “I guarantee it. They’re wearing Hugo Boss, Tom Ford, maybe Armani for the older guys. I bet even the bussers are in designer things. They’d probably buy you a suit if you were a full-time employee, but this is a way for you to show initiative. A fab suit.”
I wanted to say that was insane. The restaurant was about the food, I thought, echoing a familiar pep talk I’d often given myself at Yale: Yale was about the education.
