Jane is gorgeous, the kind of Asian beauty who graces advertisements for fancy watches and expensive skin care products. She’s tall, with the silky black hair of a Japanese anime character, and sensuously slender. When she enters a room, most men, and a few women, stop and gape at her.
Me, on the other hand, I’m short, barely five-foot-two. My hair is wavy, and in humid weather, it has a mind of its own. While Jane is willowy, I’m more “well-proportioned,” as Dad would put it. I’ve become used to all the attention Jane gets. I’m quite happy to fade into the background behind her beauty. Actually, I’ve come to like being underestimated.
Jane orders a couple of bottles of each wine. I ask Charlie about holding a dinner focused on her selections. He leaps at the proposal, telling me he would be happy to come in that night and pour while explaining to guests the special qualities of each wine. We plan on a date two weeks from now, with Jane stepping up to her practiced role of public relations/social media manager. We have something tangible now to work towards, and it feels good to have a goal.
“So Jane,” I start, once Charlie has left. “What do you think of Mr. Bingley?”
She blushes, which tells me everything I need to know.
“I find him quite charming and cute, but then again, he’s supposed to be. He’s a salesman, and I think that’s why he’s such a smooth talker. I don’t think he treats me any differently from any of his other accounts.”
“Oh yes, Jane. He treats all his other accounts with the same degree of attention, I’m sure. I am certain that he steals looks at the other restaurant owners when they aren’t looking, and then blushes, just because he’s such a savvy salesman.”
Jane punches me playfully in the arm, and then busies herself collecting the wine glasses. “Shush, Lizzy. You know Mama would never let me date, much less marry, a salesman. And I’m off for drama school, soon, one day... some day. I can’t get involved.”
“Whatever!” I reply, and trot off to the kitchen.
Chapter Six
Elizabeth
Stage Left, Mr. Darcy!
The night of the wine dinner arrives, and all seats are taken. Our guest list is comprised mostly of locals. I am grateful so many of our neighbors are coming out to support us. They are happy for a diversion at the end of a long winter season. Any reason to celebrate during the short dark days of a Pacific Northwest winter is welcome.
At the last minute, Charlie Bingley calls us to ask if he can add a guest, his friend Peter Darcy. Of course, we tell him, and with that, we are completely sold out.
The night goes as planned, each course carefully timed to serve with the wine. Charlie is on hand to pour the wines, and then tell the guests about the pairings. Jane and Mom serve the food. Dad acts as dishwasher; it’s one of the few things he still remembers how to do. Lydia has been bribed into polishing all the wine glasses with the promised use of Jane’s favorite pearl earrings.
Charlie’s friend, Peter Darcy, sits alone at a table. His scowling face deters any of the locals from approaching him with small talk. He is tall and lanky, raising his utensils to his mouth in careful precise motions. Every now and then, he brushes his dark hair off his forehead, irritated that its unruliness while the rest of his movements are so measured and deliberate. He eats mechanically, devoid of any enjoyment. He swirls and sniffs the wines with a practiced bored air, listening politely to Charlie talking. He nods curt thank you’s when he is served, and then again when his plates are removed. He is all frosty flat politeness.
He glances impassively around the room, surveying his fellow diners with disdain. He reminds me of a solitary tree in the middle of the arctic tundra and I shiver at the thought.
I don’t know who he is or what he does for a living. I assume he is another wine rep, which is how he knows Charlie. They must have an odd friendship, however, being polar opposites in personality from one another. Maybe that’s why they get along? The unexpected thought, “He must be a crappy man to date,” pops into my mind.
At the end of the evening, Charlie beckons me out from the kitchen. As I enter the dining room, the guests applaud loudly in appreciation. I look over to Mr. Darcy’s table, only to find it empty, his napkin neatly folded and set next to his plate. I’m oddly disappointed I have not been introduced to him, and that we have not had the chance to formally meet.
I circle around to each table and thank our guests for joining us. I hear them sing my praises about how the food was perfectly matched with the wines, along with comments about how charming Jane and Charlie are together. More than a couple of locals smile extra widely when they say this, making Jane blush at my side.
When the night is over and the restaurant is clean and ready for the next day, we shut off the lights and close the doors. It has been a very good day, and hopefully a harbinger of the summer season to come.
A few days later, Lydia comes screeching through the dining room at home as I sit with my first cup of coffee for the day. She throws a newspaper in front of me.
”Lizzy!” she shouts. “You were reviewed in the - - Times!”
My cup hits the table hard, sloshing out the coffee.
The --Times? When did a reviewer come out to our little town and eat here?
I pick up the paper, and read:
“Coastal dining is caught in the ‘70s…… the Ocean Breeze might have once been the destination for the discriminating traveller exploring the Pacific Northwest coast, but now the dishes are tolerable, definitely not delicious or inventive enough to tempt this writer to visit again and give consequence to a place ignored by other food critics. The only fine highlight was Miss Murasaki’s Seared Scallops with Madeira and Truffle Butter. Sadly, this restaurant is resting on its laurels and time has moved on without it. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever, just like the allure of this establishment. I begin to understand more clearly why the best chefs in the world are predominantly male.”
The critic’s name: Fitzwilliam Peter Darcy.
Before reading the review, my hands were shaking with anticipation. Now, they are trembling with rage.
Charlie Bingley’s friend! How dare he? How could Charlie do this to us, not even warning us? I am spitting mad like a cat doused in icy water. Jane walks in and I push the paper towards her forcefully. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I order from Mr. Bingley again!” I rant.
I fume at the reviewer’s arrogant pronouncement that women cannot be chefs. This pompous twit has no idea of what women have to endure to become chefs. I still remember the first time I showed up for a working interview at one of the best restaurants in California. The stares of disbelief from the all-male crew when I walked in, the not-so-sly nudges, and the whispers. The cursory once-over as the guys measured my culinary abilities by my body measurements and face. The sous chef who didn’t talk to me for my first three months there, until I could prove that I belonged there.
I rose above all that crap, proved the boys wrong. Why am I still fighting the same battle of sexism in a kitchen? How much more do we women need to do to prove we belong and can succeed in the restaurant world?
I don my sneakers and call Dido for a run. Together, we sprint down the road heading for the beach. With each step, I am pounding the smug face of Mr. Darcy into the pavement. Will I never outpace these men and their Neanderthal thinking? Dido pants and barks as she lopes besides me, and eventually, her playfulness distracts me from my anger. I return home, my pride deflated at being so publicly excoriated in a national newspaper, no less.
A couple of hours later, I am in the Ocean Breeze dining room, talking with Jane about the day’s reservations. Charlie walks through the restaurant door, proverbial hat in hand. I give him my best Death Glare, and he gulps nervously.
“Look,” he begins, “when Peter told me he was flying out to Seattle to visit his sister, I invited him to the coast for this wine dinner. I asked him as a friend, not as a critic. I had no idea he would write about his meal, or, believe me, I would have
warned you. I didn’t think he would actually show up! I was surprised when he did accept, because he usually doesn’t. I… I am mortified by what he wrote. He knows better than to review a place after just one visit. I don’t know what he was thinking! He usually is the picture of professionalism!
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix this, and all I can say is that I am so very sorry. I’ll call him, tell him that he’s being unfair, and he needs to hear the whole story about your restaurant. I don’t expect him to write a retraction, but maybe, oh, I don’t know what…”
I look at Charlie, and know he’s speaking the truth. He feels horribly about what happened.
“Charlie, clearly Mister Darcy is in his own highfalutin world and can’t be troubled with what the rest of us plebeians struggle with,” I vent. “I know reviews are supposed to be impartial, but this really hurts. I’m embarrassed and livid! I’m also afraid of what this will do for our upcoming season. We need to have solid sales or we’ll have to close the restaurant for good. I hope Mr. Darcy’s words aren’t the final nail in this restaurant’s coffin!”
Charlie nods gravely. “Please try and understand, Peter hasn’t had an easy life. I know, I know. It’s hard to feel sympathy for someone so imperious and dismissive. I agree, he wrote some truly horrible things about you and your restaurant.
“But the real Peter Darcy is hiding behind that jerk facade he puts up. His parents died when his sister was really young, leaving them quite a fortune. Peter had to be both brother and father to her, and he had to take over the family’s money management. He moved back to the East Coast from the Bay Area just so he could keep his sister at home and be near her. He’s tried to keep her from being a trust-fund baby, while trying to ward off the gold digging women out catch him. They don’t see him, just dollar signs. Over the years, he’s shut down outwardly and acts like a jerk just to put people off and keep his distance. He really is a good guy and a loyal friend! Really!”
I snort as I hear Charlie talk. “So what you’re saying is Mr. Darcy is a poor little rich boy, tortured because he has too much money? I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time feeling any sympathy for him and believing his life is so difficult because he's wealthy.”
“You know, Lizzy, there’s the old adage that some people are so poor, all they have is money,” Jane says softly.
I pause and for one split second, feel sorry for poor Mr. Darcy. Then I remember what he said about female chefs and my fury flares up again.
“Rich or poor, it doesn’t make any difference to me. He should have eaten at Ocean Breeze three times before writing a review. So much for being a professional. That guy is nothing to me. You can’t convince me he’s really a nice person underneath. He can take his millions of dollars, his opinions of our restaurant, and especially his sexist views and just fuck off.”
Chapter Seven
Elizabeth
Ferociously Faithful Friends
It’s been four weeks since Mr. Darcy’s scathing review in the paper. Memorial Day weekend is here, and our restaurant’s high season is about to hit us. Right on cue, Charlotte Lucas shows up for the summer, ready to work hard for three months straight.
Charlotte is one of our seasonal servers. She comes to the coast each summer from Seattle, returning to the seaside town where she grew up. At the end of the season, with a sizeable nest egg in her bank account, she returns to Seattle to her barista job. When she’s not waiting tables or pulling shots, she’s writing an opera about the rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. How she will manage to set this story to music is anyone’s guess, but she’s been working on this project now for ten years. She is nothing if not persistent.
Charlotte is three years older than me. We formed an unlikely friendship when I was a high school freshman and she was a senior. One day, I came across the school bullies cornering Charlotte in the bathroom, taunting her about her constant music practice and the tuba she carried around. It didn’t take much for me to launch myself at them like a human cannonball, even though the five of them outweighed me several hundred pounds over. The shock was enough to make them stop for a moment. That gave me time to dive in low again, hitting their kneecaps and toppling three of them over before they could regain their swagger.
Suddenly, the ridiculousness of the situation hit us all, and we stopped to make a truce. From that day, Charlotte walked the halls unhasseled, and I became the mascot for the Infamous Five, as they called themselves. They even became Charlotte’s bodyguards when a couple of jerks on the football team gave her grief about her awkward adolescent face and nerdiness.
Charlotte’s been my unwavering friend ever since, and she makes her way to us without fail each summer to help serve at the restaurant.
I leap out of my chair at her entrance, and we hug each other. It’s been too long since we’ve worked together. The last time we did was eons ago; I was my dad’s pantry cook and she was my mom’s sassiest server. We may be older now, but we are still smartass high school besties at heart.
“Charlotte! Are you ready to have the Best Season Ever?” I yell out as we do our happy jig together.
“Sure,” she replies. “Let’s prove I’m-So-Great Mr. Darcy and his bullshit review wrong! I hope I get to meet this dude face to face to give him what he’s due!”
“Easy, girl, easy!” I cry. “I don’t care what some ignoramus in New York thinks. What matters to me is you’re here, Jane’s here, and we’re going to have a very good summer. So, let’s get to it!”
Chapter Eight
Darcy
Luddite at Large
Charles Bingley’s name flashes across my phone’s caller ID. I have been expecting his call ever since my review was published four weeks ago. I’m surprised it’s taken him this long to contact me. Is he angry with me?
I am in the middle of writing, so I flip my phone over and let Charles’ call go to voicemail. I cannot take the time now for the emotional tirade I suspect I will hear from him. I put my phone on silent mode, and work for another three hours. When I finally turn my phone over again, I see that I’ve missed three calls and several texts from Charles.
“Pete, call me! I know you’re there, and ignoring me. Call me!” says Text Number One.
“Pete, that was a move! Call me!” reads Text Number Two.
The third text is in ALL CAPS: “PETE, CALL ME. DON’T BE AN !
I sigh, and dial Charles’ number. He picks up after one ring. Yes, he is definitely irate.
“Charles, why, precisely, am I being an eggplant?” I ask him without preamble.
There’s a moment of silence, and then Charles starts laughing uncontrollably in disbelief. After a minute or so, when he can finally speak, he gasps out, “You take everything so literally, don’t you? And always in a food-related way. That eggplant is not an eggplant, you Luddite! That eggplant is supposed to represent a dick! You’re being a dick! Don’t be a dick!”
I frown, and think to myself, when did food take on other meanings? I understand vaguely to what a peach alludes. I know that the word avocado has its roots in the ancient Aztec word for testicles. Does this make an avocado emoji all about that part of the male anatomy? But how does this make an eggplant turn into a penis? It will do me no good to ask Charles why, so I wait for him to continue.
“Pete, do you even know what Lizzy and her sister Jane are doing? They are trying to hold things together as their father’s mind is being ravaged by Alzheimer’s. Lizzy came back to town a month ago, giving up her fancy chef gig at Le Lyonnaise in San Francisco in order to take over the Ocean Breeze’s kitchen for her dad. Yeah, the menu is from the ‘70s because that’s what their dad could remember how to cook. She hasn’t had a chance yet to make all the changes she wants to.
“Lizzy’s been trying to update the menu, but she’s got to convince her mom to do this. That wine dinner was the first time Lizzy had any sort of control over the menu, and she was only allowed to put one of her original dishes on it, the scallop
s.
“I invited you out there for a little R and R, not to write a review! But you wrote a review anyway! After just one visit! Why? What’s going on?”
By this time, I’m pretty sure Lou-Lou, my tabby cat, can hear Charles’ yelling from the other room. On cue, Lou-Lou meows and stands hesitantly at the door to my study. I reach out to her with my hand, wiggling my fingers, and she jumps up onto the desk, purring.
“Bingley, Bingley… Charles… ” I try to talk over Charles, and finally he stops his explosive vituperation.
“Charles, look, I am sincerely sorry if I hit a nerve. I was never planning to write a review of their place, but when I returned to New York, my editor needed some fluff travel piece for the upcoming summer season. I did not think my review would have significant weight on a little restaurant three thousand miles away. Had I known about the Murasaki family’s troubles, maybe I would have softened what I said. But let us be honest, their restaurant is not long for this world, with or without my review. I only pointed out the obvious.”
“That’s all you have to say?” sputters Charles. “I put up with your haughty snooty ass, your holier-than-thou crap and more, because you’re my friend! But dude, I gotta tell ya, I’m seriously reconsidering this friend thing! I gotta go now. I’ll call you later when I’ve calmed down, but right now, you’re Number One on my shit list!”
Charles hangs up, and I know our friendship of twenty-five years is at an impasse, the likes of which we have never seen before. I consider calling him back, but I cannot see how I did anything wrong. I wrote truthfully about what I experienced at the restaurant. I wonder if Charles has a tendre for one of the Bennet girls and is taking my review too personally.
I sigh, rubbing my forehead. I can feel a headache coming on. I should tell Charles why I was in Seattle and why I accepted his dinner invitation, but I am afraid whatever I say will sound like an inadequate excuse. Charles is a good-natured guy; he will calm down soon enough and then we can talk more rationally.
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