Food Whore

by Jessica Tom

  THAT AFTERNOON, I took my Nutrition test wearing my new lingerie. No one saw it, but it made me feel better. I left class thinking I had done really well.

  Chapter 11

  THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT WAS EMPTY WHEN I ARRIVED ON Wednesday night. There were huge buildings, blocky statues, streetlights that managed nonexistent traffic. Thick pillars of steam rose from the sewers, like the ground sighing after a long day.

  After getting lost on streets I didn’t know existed—­Beaver and Bank and Gold, nothing like the easy grids of Midtown or the familiar tangle around NYU—­I made it to the restaurant. I wore Michael Saltz’s original Prabal Gurung dress and gemstone sandals. When I had first put it on, I couldn’t help but think that the dress gilded something—­or someone—­quite ordinary. But instead of shrinking from the grandeur of the clothes, I made myself rise to them.

  Michael Saltz sat in the front waiting area on a red satin couch beneath a lurching, voluptuous orchid. “Hello, Tia,” he said. “Welcome to our first meal together. Why are you standing like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re in a police lineup.” He took me by the shoulders and jolted me back. I teetered on my high heels, let my chest jut out and my butt move back.

  “There, that’s better,” he said as I acquainted myself with the new S-­shape of my body. I had a lot to learn.

  The waiting area veered off in three directions. Each hallway had a fish tank recessed into the floor. I supposed one path led to the bathroom. Another to the coatroom. The last to the dining room. I couldn’t see much beyond the koi.

  “May I take your bag?” a woman asked. She didn’t sneer at my tote, though I immediately regretted carrying it. Had I really brought a canvas tote to this restaurant? What had I been thinking when Giada had delivered so many other beautiful bags?

  “Thank you, miss,” she said, taking my bag as if it were a newborn baby, with delicacy and respect. She was a coat check master.

  “Now remember,” Michael Saltz whispered. “I order, you eat. You tell me what you think. This is a dry-­run dinner. I want you to enjoy yourself, but not too much. Always assume we are under watch.”

  I nodded silently.

  “Ready?” A hostess had appeared out of nowhere. I wondered if he had rented the entire restaurant for us. It was so quiet. Too quiet.

  Michael Saltz put out his arm for me hold, but I didn’t take it. He wore a gray checkered shirt, a navy V-­neck sweater, and khakis, a hedge fund manager’s casual look.

  “Remember, I’m gay. And I’m helping you—­in more ways than one.”

  I wrapped my arm in his and he gave me a fierce, satisfied look. The bones of his arm poked through his sweater and I gulped as we walked into the dining room, my stilettos clicking uneasily on the black marble. The NBT had begun and there was no looking back now.

  “That dress looks good on you. Giada told me she gave you more like this. I’m glad. This is a vast improvement.”

  I let out a brief chuckle, a vague sound of agreement. A part of me wanted to rebel against his words—­What was wrong with me in the first place?—­but this wasn’t the place. And, more than that, I had to admit he was right.

  We sat and looked over the menu. Michael Saltz ordered a reasonable number of dishes. Perhaps on the high side, but nothing that would arouse suspicion.

  A ­couple of minutes later, the hostess laid what looked to be a flower on each of our bread plates.

  “Compliments of the chef. This is an olive oil sweet potato tulip croquant. Inside are ‘stamens’ made of black sesame and honey.”

  I twirled the stem in the light of the candle. Michael chomped on his and let out a small, contented noise.

  “Hm. Crunchy,” he said. Then, with his head lowered, “How does it taste?”

  It seemed a shame to eat such a gorgeous thing.

  “Don’t be precious. Eat it.”

  “Okay,” I said. I took out my phone. It was so lovely and well constructed, I wanted to preserve the memory.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s happening here?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s just so beautiful. I wasn’t going to post it or anything.”

  “Put your phone down. Now,” he said. His face had reddened, and we hadn’t even ordered drinks yet. I did what he asked.

  “Let’s go through the reasons why you shouldn’t do that,” Michael Saltz said, his skeletal fingers waving close to my face. “First, taking a picture draws unnecessary attention to yourself. You must blend in. You must go undetected.”

  “I understand. No pictures.”

  “We have professional photographers for that,” he continued. “You don’t have to use your phone, for goodness’ sake. Second, what if someone saw that photo on the phone. Or, even worse, you were stupid enough to send it to someone or post it online. How would you have explained your meal here?”

  “Well—­” I stammered.

  “Have you even thought that far ahead?”

  “It was just a picture for myself, I swear,” I said, though under any other circumstance I’d have definitely sent this photo to Elliott. He would have loved sweet potato that looked like a flower. That was a dish he could get into.

  Michael lowered his fork back to his plate. “Tia? Do you know where we are?”

  “Um, Panh Ho?”

  “Have you heard of this place before?”

  “Yes.”

  “But did you think you’d come here, ever?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever worn anything as exquisite as that Prabal Gurung?”

  “No. I’ve never worn anything this nice.”

  “Have you ever seen anything as exceptional as that sweet potato flower?”

  “No.” Okay, I got his point. He didn’t have to be such a patronizing jackass about it.

  “Precisely. You have been here not ten minutes, and already you have become a worldlier person. Why would you deny yourself that by reverting to your past and emailing your college boyfriend?” His face soured at those last words. “Look at me. Look at these surroundings. You are a grown woman. Don’t look back. Not when you have me and this right in front of you.”

  I went to put the phone back in my purse, but Michael Saltz stopped me. “No. Leave it on the table, face up. I want to see who calls you and how you manage these situations.”

  I did as he asked and tried to mask my extreme annoyance. Was this a job or detention? I couldn’t believe what a jerk this guy was. He could have been nicer, considering I was his “protégée,” not his punching bag.

  Around us, the dining room was filling up, elegant women with frizz-­free chignons and white fur stoles. Dapper men in suits constructed to their long, lean bodies. An extremely attractive waiter walked toward our table with our appetizers, and Michael clamped his mouth shut but glared at me as if to say, I’m not done with you yet.

  The waiter stood about six foot three and had wavy chin-­length hair. I think he was half black, but I didn’t know what the other part could be. Whatever it was, it combined into something staggeringly handsome.

  “For the lady,” he said, “a poached quail egg inside a wonton cabbage ‘purse.’ And for the gentleman, pork meatball on a bed of braised endives and demi-­glace ‘roe.’ ”

  I punctured the cabbage and a bright orange yolk spilled onto the greens. I imagined Elliott inspecting each dish. He might’ve liked a meal like this, playful and smart, with a little touch of botany mixed in.

  But then again, he’d hate the pomp. The cost. The ceremony of every little thing. I couldn’t be sure that he’d eat anything on the menu.

  That’s when my phone rang. I extended my hand, ready to silence it.

  “Don’t touch. Who is it?” he asked.

  But I knew he knew. This was a test.

  “No one,” I said. “I won’t
answer it.” But the phone kept ringing.

  Michael put his hand out. “Give me your phone. Before it stops ringing.”

  “No, I’ll just turn it off.”

  “Maybe you will, but you don’t want to.” He lifted my hand off the phone. “Elliott,” he read. “I remember him from the reception. Well?” He nudged the phone toward me. “Answer it now before he hangs up.”

  “But what do I say?”

  “Say what you think you need to say.” But he didn’t mean that. He wanted me to say what he wanted me to say.

  I answered the phone.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Elliott said. “Um . . . can you talk now?”

  “Well, not really. I mean, for a second . . .”

  Michael Saltz gave me a stern, but not forbidding look—­like I could do better.

  “Let me know if you want to get together later, okay? I want to see you.”

  Shit.

  “Probably not tonight—­I’m at the library struggling with this paper. But I’ll call you tomorrow.” I looked up at Michael Saltz, who was smiling for the first time that night. I smiled back, a tiny bit content that I had pleased him.

  “Seriously? Tia, I—­”

  “Sorry, Elliott, gotta go.” I remembered I was supposed to be in the library. “I can’t talk now,” I whispered, and then hung up. Just like that.

  “Excellent work, Tia. See, you’re a natural! That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  I still held the warm phone. Farther uptown, Elliott was wondering what was up. Did he even believe I was in the library? Maybe he’d stop by to find me. He’d ask me the best studying spots and I wouldn’t be able to tell him. It was a good thing I was all the way down in the Financial District. He wouldn’t bump into me here.

  “No, not hard,” I said as my main arrived, braised veal over hand-­pulled noodles, artichokes, and mint.

  I put my phone back on the table. In a way, I was glad Michael Saltz had forced me to avoid Elliott. We hadn’t seen each other since our awkward non-­sexcapade last week. Our schedules rarely lined up, though now it was probably better that way. I wouldn’t have to lie to his face.

  “Good! Now let’s toast,” he said, lifting his wineglass.

  I lifted mine and we barely, briefly touched glasses. But the ping sent shivers through my arm.

  “Cheers,” he said. “In October, we’ll try Tellicherry. That will be your first review. To leaving the past, and starting the future.”

  “To starting the future,” I said, then took a sip of the wine. It was dark and dusty-­tasting and I had a hard time keeping it down. A little beeping noise beckoned from my phone. Michael Saltz didn’t hear it and I pretended not to notice. But it pinged away inside me, a tap-­tapping upon my heart.

  Michael Saltz was too busy gulping down his wine. He had been insistent on a full-­bodied Bordeaux. I guess that’s what was most palatable to him. Plus, it had a high alcohol content.

  “Well, Tia Monroe,” he said. “Your time in New York City just got a whole lot more interesting.”

  We ate our desserts, refined mochi balls made with a finger lime curd. Then, as we were walking out of Panh Ho, I thought I heard a click, an old-­fashioned shutter sound but with modern clarity. Even though Michael Saltz was rushing me out, I looked around. I just saw the dining room, operating as normal. Except for one person rushing behind a red velvet curtain, gilded with elaborate embroidery.

  That must have been when they photographed my face.

  Chapter 12

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, THURSDAY, I REPORTED TO MADISON Park Tavern at four wearing my old Jil Sander. I was dying to wear my new clothes, but I couldn’t arouse suspicion. I was looking forward to getting back to work, though transitioning from Panh Ho to Madison Park Tavern left me disoriented, a whiplash of perspective.

  Jake clearly wanted to rebound from the two-­star with a vengeance. It had been nine days since the review came out. The floral arrangements had quadrupled in size and the curtains had been freshly pressed. He’d put out better silverware, which clanged on the stemware with a more crystalline, exquisite sound.

  I went downstairs to the locker room to drop off my coat and purse and took a moment to absorb it all: the white-­tiled basement floor, the metal mesh lockers—­tiny ones assigned to waiters, and even tinier ones for the bussers and backservers—­the smell of sweat and food and coffee, lots of coffee. Garment bags from Calvin Klein, Armani, and Paul Smith covered the walls. Emerald had been right about all the waitstaff dressing in designer suits. Now that I had my own windfall of designer clothes, I finally noticed.

  A bunch of staffers came in all at once with one of the assistant managers trailing behind them yelling, “Get moving, first seating in thirty-­five minutes. Now, now, now.”

  I crammed everything into my little locker.

  Carey stood in front of a mirror and smoothed out her frizzy hair with an extra-­strong hair gel. Angel wiped his sweating forehead with a festively colored handkerchief. Chad was rescheduling something on the phone, saying, “The next ­couple weeks are fucked and Monday I’m stacking interviews back to back.”

  Outside, I heard Jake and Gary walking into the prep kitchen, Gary talking in unintelligible but triumphant garble like he had just landed a hole-­in-­one.

  Someone had posted a picture of the new, skinny Michael Saltz on our staff corkboard, and it had already been defaced with a mustache, devil horns, buckteeth, a hairy mole, and an ax severing his skull. A grading rubric had also appeared. The waitstaff was now evaluated on personal presentation, menu expertise, client emotional intelligence, and something called “CTD.” As a new backserver, Carey barely made it onto the board, but she had the highest CTD score.

  “You’re lucky you’re not subjected to this shit,” Chad said, nodding to the grid. Chad rated high on client emotional intelligence and menu expertise, but was below average in personal presentation and CTD. Now, I noticed he had shaved his goatee and put on moisturizer or something. He looked younger and smoother. I’d liked him better before.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Carey asked, seeing me in my daze.

  “Oops, sorry. I’m just feeling out of it.” Two stars. That was big—­huge. Seeing it in writing, it felt so distant. But standing here, bumping up against the ­people it affected, I could see it was more than a grade. It was lives. I was beginning to really like these ­people, a thought that clashed with my Michael Saltz dealings. They were two sides of the same coin, always opposites, always opponents.

  “You worried about the review?” Angel asked. “Nothing we can do about it now. Tonight, we kill it.”

  “Yeah,” Chad said. “That shitface Michael Saltz doesn’t know a thing.”

  That shitface knew some things, I thought, stabbed with a dagger of guilt.

  Then Chef Darling barged into the locker room, took out a flask, and chugged. Carey ran up to him.

  “What happened, Chef?” a waiter asked.

  “This shit’s fucked. I’m on probation. Gary is on the warpath.”

  The locker room quieted as everyone crowded around Chef Darling, asking him questions and trying to comfort him.

  “Come on, Matthew,” Carey said carefully. His body radiated anger. “Don’t drink any more. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,” she crooned. By now, she was stroking his leg. He had calmed down and even lowered his flask.

  Then the locker room door creaked open, and Jake inserted his lightly gelled head inside. “Tia,” he whispered. “Gary and I would like to see you in his office.”

  “Oh!” I said, panic prickling up my spine. Shit.

  Of course they would find out. What had I been thinking—­that I’d get away with this Michael Saltz arrangement? Someone had spotted me exiting his building. Or maybe I had dropped his note. Maybe they’d read our emails. Had I been on the resta
urant’s Wi-­Fi that whole time?

  I followed Jake down the hall and up two sets of stairs to the offices. I had never ventured upstairs and saw that the finesse and elegance of the restaurant didn’t continue up there. The rug said “institutional” and the walls cracked with old, carelessly applied paint. I ran my fingers across them and realized they were hollow and cheap.

  I’d been arriving at work on time, and Jake had said I was doing a good job, so they had to know about Michael Saltz. Our every correspondence rushed through my head. What would be the thing that did me in, and how could I talk my way out of it? How could I diminish what I’d done?

  I had no idea who he was.

  Didn’t realize he’d use my words.

  Wasn’t thinking when I wrote back to him, and went to his apartment, and took his money.

  All lies, of course. I’d known what I was doing, I realized with a thump of nausea. Ultimately, I’d put myself before ­people I liked and cared about. I could have looked out for them, but instead I’d looked out for myself.

  That was bad, but was it a crime if my intentions were pure?

  We passed Jake’s office and I caught sight of a tube of Pringles, some paperwork, and a pile of large black binders. He had taped a picture of a woman with two tiny babies on the shelf behind his desk. Chef Darling’s office was filled with books and magazines, dirty tissues, and opened bags of gummy bears—­nothing like his immaculate kitchen. The reservationist’s room must have originally been a walk-­in closet, because a closet rod and shelves hovered over her tiny desk.

  We continued to the only room that had any windows: Gary Oscars’s office. If the dining room were a hotel lobby, Jake’s and Matthew’s offices would be the custodial closets, and Gary’s office would be the penthouse. Gary sat at a humongous wooden desk, leaning back in an expensive-­looking leather chair.

  And there, sitting across from him, was Dean Chang. Now I knew I was in big trouble. She folded her hands on her tweed pencil skirt. Jake sat down and gestured for me to do the same.