Food Whore

by Jessica Tom

  One of the frat-­boy-­bankers ordered another round of beer, and the guys cheered, filling the restaurant with their voices. I pushed my phone closer to Michael Saltz.

  “Why do you know about the batter? Did you ask a twenty-­two-­year-­old girl?”

  “No!” Michael Saltz said, brushing my comment aside. “I tasted it.”

  “Your taste is back?” Relief instantly, instinctually, washed over me.

  “Well,” he elaborated. “Not like that. It’s the texture. It’s as forceful as a flavor.”

  I took another sip of wine as our waiter approached. So his taste hadn’t returned. But that was okay. Better, in fact, for my plan.

  “I already ordered the whole menu,” Michael Saltz said.

  “But I can’t eat some of these shellfish courses.”

  “Oh, yes, I always forget about that allergy.”

  After the scare at Le Brittane, you’d think the knowledge would have been seared into his mind. But of course he wouldn’t remember it. I was just a disposable pawn in his plan. Who cares if you lose Tia to a deadly allergic reaction? There were plenty of others who’d take my place.

  “We’ll have the waiter identify them,” he said. “I have a good feeling about this place.” He took a deep breath, as if he were at the top of a mountain and Bay Derby’s smoky, garlicky air was invigorating his very being.

  “Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Maybe I should write the whole review right here on the spot. Without tasting a thing. Just like you.”

  “Tia, watch yourself.”

  The wine rushed to my head. “Why bother eating anything? I’m better off without all the calories,” I growled. “Let’s see . . . The crab cakes offer a luscious bite of the seashore, a satisfying blend of citified grade-­A sophistication and down-­home buttery crumb . . . the goat meat and goat cheese ravioli is a rustic, sloppy dish with a papery-­thin dough encasing a burst of savory decadence.”

  “Tia, I’m warning you.”

  “No, really, Michael, I can write these in my sleep.” Rage bubbled up inside me and my volume rose. “It’s a fun game. You can play along, too! The foie gras, flown in from Marin Cress, the famously sustainable farm in Sonoma, had piercing earthy undertones, but a grainy texture I found off-­putting . . . the quail with rosemary and red grapes felt like supper in some Tuscan wonderland, though the bird would have benefited from a ­couple more days on the feedlot to fatten itself up.” My voice carried through the restaurant and now I knew for sure that the staff was looking at me, my face wide open for everyone to see.

  “Tia, please.”

  “It’s all bullshit,” I said. I glared at him, but he looked at me with such horror I had to look away. “You must think so, too, if you wrote reviews for so long with a dead, burnt-­out palate.”

  “Shut up, will you?” he said. “What’s gotten into you?”

  He still wasn’t giving me what I wanted. I kept silent and thought as the waiter brought us our meal, dishes upon dishes, like some gag assembly line where the food just doesn’t stop: oysters with five mignonette sauces, the crab cakes, rabbit sausage with kale chips, goat ravioli, chicken under a brick with warm bread and dandelion salad, a strip steak with horseradish-­scallion mousse, grouper with carrot and pine nut risotto, pork shoulder with a caramelized potato and apple galette, and finally a bowl of classic San Francisco cioppino, a rustic seafood soup.

  When the waiter left, I went on the offensive again. “Tell me the truth—­is this surgery ever happening?”

  Michael Saltz furrowed his brow and took a sip of his wine. “Why would you ask such a thing? You know it is.”

  “I saw that New York–Presbyterian canceled their experimental trials a year ago. Were you planning on stringing me along forever or just dumping me on the side of the road?”

  “Tia!” He kept shaking his head, confused, even aggrieved by my accusation. But I didn’t back down.

  “I don’t know the whole story, but I know you’ve been lying. The FDA has nothing to do with experimental surgeries.”

  Michael Saltz put his hands in front of him, as if I would flip the table on top of him. But he didn’t have to worry about physical assault. I’d flip the tables another way.

  “Now, Tia. Please don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s an explanation. You are . . . not incorrect about New York–Presbyterian. But experimental surgeries aren’t like haircuts. You can’t walk in, pick from a celebrity gossip magazine, and get one. So, yes, there have been bureaucratic complications. And, yes, I haven’t been totally honest with you. I’m rather embarrassed that I cited the wrong government agency. But . . . well, I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you.”

  Michael Saltz pushed the bowl of cioppino toward me. “Can you try a bit of this? Here, I’ll take out the shellfish.”

  “I asked you about your surgery, and now you’re giving me soup you know I’m allergic to?”

  “Tia, please. You would help me immensely.”

  I crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat. His face had gone pale and his eyes—­normally beady, precise—­were big and mournful.

  “We will review this place,” he said, “but I also brought you here for a personal visit . . . as a friend.”

  “Personal how?”

  Michael Saltz sighed. “This cioppino was my last meal before I lost my sense of taste. I was sitting in that back booth over there. Every now and again, I still experience the phantom taste of it. It’s true that the New York–Presbyterian trial suffered setbacks, but I have five other hospitals I’m talking to. Just a ­couple more months of this charade. Think about how much you want me to get this surgery, how that will help you start your life. Now think about me. You’re not the only one who wants to start their life, Tia. We’re on the same team. Yes, once in a while I might lie. There might be secrets. The world runs on secrets, and the sooner you understand that, the better. Your writing—­our writing—­is essential to New York. You go to any restaurant and ask them—­would you rather the New York Times come to your restaurant and judge you anonymously, or would you rather be passed over—­neither forgotten nor known, but never was?”

  I stammered for an answer. I hadn’t made a career out of secrecy and I obviously couldn’t weave in and out of the shadows like he could. But I also didn’t want to.

  He pushed the bowl closer to me. I eyed it but kept my hands on my lap.

  Just a little more information. I already had enough for my other purpose, but this I wanted to hear for myself.

  “Answer one question and I’ll taste the soup for you,” I said.

  “Okay, you taste the soup and then I’ll tell you what you want.”

  “No,” I said. “You answer me first.”

  “. . . Or what?” Michael Saltz said.

  My nerves picked up. I wasn’t as sneaky as Michael Saltz. Lying would never be second nature to me, and for that I was grateful. I wouldn’t take him down with lies—­the truth was better.

  “Or nothing,” I fake-­demurred. “It’s an easy question. Did you ever talk to Helen about my interning with her?” I asked.

  “Tia, of course I’ve spoken to her. I told you I’m a man of my word.” He sighed, and I assumed he was happy that he could just flick my question away, but he was too skilled to show any triumph.

  “And she knows that I’m supposed to work with her this summer?”

  “. . . Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “But she’s going to be in Paris.” Then I stood up and leaned over the table, my face a foot away from his. “You’re full of shit.”

  And now—­finally—­I saw panic on his face. The moment when he realized that he couldn’t stay two steps ahead of me. That I had caught up and wouldn’t back down.

  “Well . . . she is a busy woman. These things take finesse. I was meaning to em
ail her about it.”

  I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to swipe every one of these plates onto the floor.

  “You lied. She was never planning to be in New York in the spring or in the summer. You probably never even gave her my essay. You probably made sure I was placed at Madison Park Tavern so you could corner and con me.”

  He pursed his lips and sat up in his chair. “I planned to do it soon enough, Tia. I would have made it happen given enough time.”

  “You robbed me,” I said, disgusted.

  “I gave you all the food, those clothes, an opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “You gave me misery! I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

  “I will admit to manipulating you. But you must own that you wanted this for yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come now, Tia. You wanted the power.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “And I never wanted to lie.”

  “Maybe not. But you loved taking restaurants down. Madison Park Tavern. Le Brittane . . . you did it without flinching. And you loved bringing them up. Bakushan?”

  Just hearing the name sent me backward into my chair.

  “You cannot tell me that you didn’t like benefiting from that, too.”

  I realized with a sting that what he said was all true. I sat and thought and started idly spooning the cioppino, letting the broth’s scent fill my nose, a rich tomato infused with fish and shellfish, salt and seaweed. I imagined what it would be like to have this as my last meal, an ocean of bloodred soup, vast and complete and deep.

  I could have tasted it, as he had asked. Part of me wanted to. I could’ve cleansed myself of every awful and fraudulent thing I’d done over the last few months. Tasting this soup would’ve destroyed me, and that’s what I thought I deserved. I could gulp the cioppino until that point where consumption was no longer about pleasure but about filling your belly and thumbing your nose at hunger, as if it was some childhood lisp, some mean friend, some sadness that thought it could get the best of you.

  “So there, Tia Monroe. No secrets. We’re truly on the same team.”

  But we were never on the same team. Not now, not ever.

  I put the spoon down, picked up my phone, and got up from my chair.

  “Where are you going?” he said, standing up. “Did someone call?”

  “Yes,” I said, then showed him the screen. The last forty-­five minutes, recorded and still going.

  “Our lovely conversation has been uploaded into the cloud, out of your reach no matter how hard you try, or whatever bullshit you spew.”

  Then I walked out, leaving Michael Saltz slack-­jawed at the table.

  I WENT STRAIGHT home, closed my bedroom door, and listened to the entire conversation. Some parts were hard to hear, but the story line was intact.

  Journalistic fraud. Exploiting and intimidating a young woman. Even insisting she eat a dish he knew she was very much allergic to. That one was a bonus.

  I edited out my name and everything about Helen. I was just a female voice, a nobody, but Michael Saltz’s arrogant lisp came in loud and clear.

  This was nothing like sending my reviews to Michael Saltz. This wouldn’t go out to the entire globe. The recording had no sense of art, and in fact was rather disturbing to listen to. But Carey’s Wiki reached the right ­people and I knew this news would ignite their world.

  I titled the entry: Michael Saltz exposed as fraud, using young woman as ghostwriter for three months.

  I wrote an overview, so ­people could make sense of the conversation more easily. As further evidence, I also included screenshots of the reviews I’d fed to Michael Saltz, with my name and email blocked out. I signed it “Guest 59.”

  Finally, I uploaded the file.

  I wanted to bring Michael Saltz down without taking myself with him. I had a name to protect and to build. Though there was a chance that Felix or someone else would reveal me, I hoped that Michael Saltz would be destroyed before that happened. He could try to bring me down, but who would listen to him or take his side when he himself had disrespected his craft and his peers so egregiously? That’s what I kept in my head as I pressed Publish.

  I kept waiting for freedom to wash over me, but it never did. Like always, I had sent my words into the world and all I could do was wait and wonder if ­people would believe me, if I had cut to the bone of truth.

  Chapter 32

  BY THE NEXT DAY, THE NEWS HAD GONE VIRAL. REALLY VIRAL.

  Based on what I could see, first a ­couple of waiters tweeted something about it. Something to the effect of: What the fuck?

  Then more ­people tweeted. Grub Street picked it up first, but just a ­couple of minutes before Eater. By ten thirty A.M., the New York Times had issued a curt, inscrutable tweet: “Since 1851, our number one priority has been journalistic integrity.”

  Other national newspapers jumped on it next.

  From the Washington Post: SECRETLY HANDICAPPED NEW YORK TIMES RESTAURANT REVIEWER CAUGHT IN EXPLOITATION SCANDAL.

  From the L.A. Times: INTERNET RECORDING SUGGESTS MICHAEL SALTZ, NEW YORK TIMES RESTAURANT CRITIC, FALSIFIED 6 MONTHS OF REVIEWS.

  From the Boston Globe: NEW YORK TIMES REVIEWER DISGRACED AFTER LEAKED RECORDING ON INDUSTRY WEBSITE.

  As an admin, I could also see that the Wiki’s traffic had spiked to ten thousand unique views, fifty times what it normally received.

  Yet no one had come close to guessing that I was Guest 59. Thankfully, my payback had been bloodless and quiet. I got no phone calls or texts or emails for the first half of the day.

  I imagined Michael Saltz in his apartment, watching everything escalate. Him and his jars and his one coaster and his huge dining room table with every chair but one buried under a pile of books. Why had I thought following Michael Saltz would lead me to the life I wanted? Thinking about his apartment, that life was everything I feared.

  I wanted to call Carey, but figured it was better to wait, to pretend I was just as surprised as everyone else. But I didn’t have to wait long. She called me around noon, right as I stepped out of class.

  “Hey,” she said. “Do you have a sec?”

  “Yeah . . .” I thought she’d be excited that her Wiki had made it into the mainstream. But instead, her voice was strangely level. “I guess you’ve heard about Michael Saltz?”

  I could hear her take a breath. “Yeah. I have. I’m at the restaurant now and Jake wants you to come by. Michael Saltz is here.” Then she hung up.

  I WAS THERE in less than ten minutes, checking my phone every ­couple of seconds for new articles about the revelation, but they had slowed down.

  The lunch crowd at Madison Park Tavern was still going strong, a mix of early Christmas tourists and business­people taking extra-­long meals in the wintry chill.

  So Michael Saltz wanted to meet in person. Maybe he was afraid of emailing or calling me. Smart. I knew he’d want to intimidate me, to tell me I was done for, but so far only he had suffered, not me.

  I saw him sitting at the bar, drinking a martini. No one would have suspected that he was a man at the edge of his demise. In fact, he looked downright cheery and I hated him more for that. When could I actually be rid of this man?

  I took the seat next to him and saw Carey and Jake from the corner of my eye.

  Michael Saltz took another sip of his martini, then slowly lowered it down to the bar.

  “Tia . . .” he said, still looking forward at the bar and not at me.

  “Michael . . .” I was glad we were in a public place now. No more clandestine conversations, no more hiding our identities.

  We sat there for two more minutes while my mind raced. Was he losing his mind? Would he lash out at any second? I had come in thinking that this would be our showdown, and yet he had barely looked at me.

  Nea
rby, Angel was giving me looks like, If he does anything, you just holler. Jake and Carey were circling around us.

  Finally, I spoke up. “Michael . . . why did you ask me here? I’m done with you . . . with this.” I moved my hand in the space between us.

  He turned his head and seemed to let the thoughts in his head boil over. “You silly, stupid girl. The recording was a waste of your time. The New York Times is never going to fire me based on some anonymous posting on some no-­name website.” In this beautiful bustling room, his words oozed like venom.

  He wasn’t bothering to take me down because he didn’t think I was a threat. I loathed his egotism, that he was so sure he was above justice.

  “You missed out on your one chance. You had it so good with me and you ruined it. And now you’ll never get Helen. You’ll never make it in this industry. Done before you even started. I’d say it was tragic, but you deserve it. Good-­bye, Tia. Good luck getting on without me.”

  He downed the rest of the martini and got up from his seat. “I’ll leave you the bill. God knows you owe me.” He put on his cashmere coat and swaggered away.

  I sat at the bar, frozen.

  Angel ran over first, then Carey, then Jake.

  “What did he say?”

  “What did he want?”

  “Are you okay?”

  I came to the sickening realization that he was probably right. Who would side with the anonymous Guest 59? Sure, some ­people knew about me and my “special relationship” with Michael, but they didn’t know the exact nature, and even if they did, would they risk coming out against the most powerful man in NYC food?

  Restaurants were a world of PXs and status codes, rooms where your worth was explicitly mapped in seatings and servings. I had seen disgusting, terrible men being treated with the utmost respect at Madison Park Tavern. Who was I kidding? Restaurants didn’t care about character or even truth. They cared about influence. And by that score, it was no contest. The press may have jumped at the story, but at the end of the day, he was still the powerful man; I was the “silly girl,” that “ignorant slut.”