Outside the back door, Britt picked up a flat cardboard box from a stack beneath the eaves and followed Harry up the hill to the apple trees. For a few minutes the two of them parted the remaining leaves of the trees, peering into the branches for fruit. It was early November now, and the trees were giving up their last meager harvest. Their mother would make apple butter and give it away for Christmas.
Harry circled a tree, reaching up occasionally. He had new glasses, Britt realized, tortoiseshell horn-rims that gave him a professorial air. He wore a red corduroy shirt and brown work boots. His face seemed older, the beard neatly trimmed beneath sharp cheekbones. What was he now, thirty-one? Thirty-two? Britt wondered how long Harry intended to stay with their parents—he couldn’t be paying as much as if he’d had his own place—while the restaurant siphoned off as much cash as Harry could give it. These things had a way of becoming permanent if you weren’t careful. If Leo hadn’t dragged Britt out of the PR agency and into the restaurant, he might still be there.
Then again, their parents and Harry seemed to be enjoying each other, playing cards and puttering around the house, anticipating Harry’s latest test of some new dish. Britt was even feeling slightly intrusive, which reminded him in a disquieting way of having had the same sensation in college. Then, his visits home had revealed that whereas in high school Britt and Leo had been furtive and absent, off sneaking weed and trying to recall where they’d hidden the condoms, Harry was a brash but winning teenager who was allowed to split a beer with his father, his curfew tacitly extended well beyond his brothers’ old ones; a teenager who felt no need to lie about parties or to stay in the family room when a girl was over. Britt had been torn between envy—why not have Harry go through the same motions of rules and secrecy as his brothers had, just for form’s sake?—and admiration for Harry’s sheer finesse.
“We were never allowed to have girls in our rooms,” Britt had once noted. He’d been visiting from Penn then, where he was a senior and free to take a girl to his apartment whenever he liked, yet for a moment he had felt that his little brother commanded more freedom in his parents’ house than Britt enjoyed miles away from home. “They don’t even have to keep the door open.”
“Well, they never stay in there more than an hour or two,” his mother had said, turning the page of her novel.
“Mom, how long do you think it takes?”
“Oh, Britt, don’t be crude. You can’t police people forever.”
She’d bestowed on him an understanding smile, which had the effect of shifting Britt’s halfhearted envy into regret. Harry wasn’t getting the fun of being sixteen, he realized, of sneaking around, the exhilaration of slithering out a bedroom window and jogging down the block to where a car wouldn’t wake his parents, the extra snap of the night air long after curfew. He decided to make up for it that weekend. He told their parents they were going to a movie and then took Harry out for a tour of accommodating dive bars, where Harry charmed the waitresses, bought a round of shots for a mangy crew of guys Britt would have crossed the street to avoid, and finally came in second in a pool tournament, winning a beer cozy and a free pitcher of Bud.
Feeling nostalgic, Britt took off his jacket and laid it carefully on the grass. “Hey,” he said. “You’re not so far from that dive bar I took you to once. The Tip-Top. You see if it still exists?”
For a second Harry looked confused, then his face cleared. “The Tip-Top,” he said. “If it’s not there anymore, then there’s something just like it. I still have a soft spot for dive bars for some reason.”
“You must, if you went to Mack’s. Now that’s a dump.”
“Yeah, but it’s like a Linden restaurant convention. Pretty handy for research. And they have an okay jukebox.”
Britt climbed onto a stepladder his parents kept propped against a tree trunk during fruit season and reached further into the branches. These apples tended to be tart and hard, better for cooking than eating out of hand, but he sometimes tried a bite, just in case something had changed from year to year. He broke them off by the stems, then realized he’d left the box on the grass. He was about to climb down when Harry appeared below him, holding out the box, and took the apples from Britt’s hand. “Hand ’em down,” he said.
They worked that way for a few more minutes, Britt climbing a step and then another further into the tree, bracing one hand against the trunk while he reached. The remaining leaves gave way and drifted to the grass. The air smelled faintly of grill smoke from the neighbors’, and the sun kept flashing golden through the branches, like a reflection off metal.
“So,” Britt ventured. “You ever find your in?”
Harry glanced up. “What do you mean?”
“With Camille. How was dinner?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, dinner was great. Maybe I’m finally getting somewhere with her. I owe you.”
“Great,” Britt said, sounding toneless even to himself. The intensity of disappointment caught him off guard. Maybe that rugged, well-read cannery worker thing was Camille’s style after all. Britt felt fussy and sheltered in comparison, a state of affairs so unexpected that he stopped, one arm midair, just identifying it. He was jealous of his kid brother. Jesus.
He redirected the subject, not wanting to hear any details about why Harry thought he’d gotten somewhere but still enjoying a little reminiscence. “Remember the O’Connor kids? We used to play kick the can with them,” he said. “Terri O’Connor came into the restaurant a few weeks ago. She married a banker or something. She got all sleek. I didn’t even recognize her.”
“I think I got to play, like, one summer before everyone else got too old and quit,” Harry said. “I remember Terri, though. ‘Sleek’ isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.”
Britt laughed. “Tell me about it.” Terri O’Connor had had dark-lined brown eyes and uncontainable flesh, her hair thrillingly roughened with hairspray and cigarette smoke. Britt had made out with her once at a party when she was a senior and he a junior. She was surprisingly sweet to kiss, mentholated and tentative, her hands resting lightly on his back. It was a little disappointing, actually; for years he’d entertained fantasies about the carnal riot that must be Terri O’Connor. “She was nice. Two kids.”
Harry nodded. “What’d she order?”
“Fish in saffron broth with the aioli on the side. Her husband was not impressed by the wine list.” As Britt looked down at his brother, he saw Harry open his mouth as if to speak and then shrug. “What?” Britt said.
“What do you mean, what?”
“You looked like you wanted to say something.”
Harry stepped back from the tree. “Come on down,” he said. “We’ve got them all. Dad won’t break his neck trying to pick them, at least.”
Britt jumped down and brushed at his hands. “Hey,” he said. “What?”
“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” Harry said. “Not the wine list—that’s good.”
“I know it’s good,” said Britt. “Terri’s husband was the sort who thinks it’s sophisticated to harp on rosé.”
“You guys really did a serious meal for us last night,” Harry said. “And I appreciate it. Helene wouldn’t even charge me what she should have. Which you don’t have to do.”
“I know, you don’t want to feel like you’re using a coupon in front of Camille,” Britt said.
“Camille wouldn’t care—she’d be glad to see it,” Harry said, mystifyingly. “It’s just that I’ve been coming into Winesap for years, obviously, and I’ve always been proud as hell of it.” He hesitated, and Britt realized that Harry might be angry at him for not being equally proud of Harry’s ventures. Britt was so used to needling Harry that he forgot to do anything else, even when Harry really did impress him.
“I’m still proud of it,” Harry went on, “but I just think there have been a lot of changes.” He hesitated again and then lifted one hand as if to give up altogether and said, “I think you’ve lost focus, to be fra
nk.”
“You think what?” Just when Britt had been feeling so nostalgic and familial.
“I don’t know if it would have seemed as clear if we hadn’t eaten pretty much every dish on your menu. Well, that’s not true. A look at the menu does kind of make it clear. But when you wade in like that, it becomes really evident that it just needs some editing. Like that toro dude—he doesn’t make soba, you know? He doesn’t do any pan-Asian crap, he doesn’t even do pan-Japan. He learned how to source and cut sashimi and sushi and that’s what he does. That’s what you get, fucking perfect fish and rice. It’s a little austere. But it feels all of a piece, it feels right for the place, you know.”
Britt couldn’t decide whether this was wisdom or effrontery. Harry had a way of ostensibly explaining his own learning process when in fact he was aiming to educate the listener. It was always a rather galling attitude for a younger brother, even when he was saying something genuinely insightful. And while Britt liked to think of himself as open to criticism, at the moment his indignation felt so piercing and vital that he went with that instead.
“I get it,” he said. “You like the toro. But do you really think I don’t know about fish? Have you even started talking to your purveyors yet? Do you even know who they are around here?”
Harry shook his head. “The toro’s not my point. My point is that you walk into that place, or a pizza place, or whatever, and you know exactly where you are. There’s a clarity of vision that you trust, because it’s clear the chef has done the hard work, made the choices, and you can relax and you can get a little excited too, to see what they’re going to show you. But I don’t even know if you guys know. You do everything now. I mean, Jesus, the venison brittle is this kind of molecular gesture, I guess, and now you do your own pasta, and then you get kind of Alsatian on the foie gras, but then there was rösti with something else, and it’s too much, Britt. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s all over the place.”
Britt picked up his jacket and shook out the grass from its sleeves. He shook his head. “Your restaurant isn’t even open yet,” he said. “Harry, you’ve done all this stuff over the years, you bounce from idea to idea, and you land on my idea and start correcting me about focus?”
“I know,” Harry said. “I’m not really one to talk about laserlike focus, but I’d rather tell you than not. I think Leo is the one who’s lost some focus. Leo’s the one who created it in the first place. And Leo’s brilliant. But I don’t want you to hear from a reviewer that your pistachio currant brittle doesn’t work. Wouldn’t you rather hear it from me?”
“You were psyched about the brittle!”
“I thought I would be. But it’s a little off-putting, to be honest. It softens in a really gluey way. I get the idea, and the flavor was good, but texturally, it’s a failure. Thea’s usually on that kind of thing. I’m actually kind of surprised at her.”
“Well, thanks, but you really might want to worry about your own reviews.” Britt tried to sound unconcerned, but it came out catty instead. “Because that’s the fun part. Soon you’re going to experience the joy of working your tail off so every single person can nitpick your brittle.”
Harry gave a bark of laughter. “Okay. Britt, where did I live for the last three years?”
Britt stopped brushing at his jacket sleeves. “You were in Michigan or something. Iowa.”
“I was on an island in Lake Michigan,” Harry said. “And what was I doing?”
“Come on.”
“No, seriously, what was I doing?” Harry set down his box of apples and crossed his arms. For a moment Britt almost laughed at them, sparring beneath an apple tree. At times the food business wasn’t exactly a roar of masculinity.
“You and Shelley were working at some restaurant,” he said, more softly. He was feeling foolish. So Harry needed to take him down a peg—so what? He understood. It couldn’t be easy to enter the fray when your brothers had already done it.
Harry smiled at him. “Shelley and I were managing a restaurant and cooking for it too. And it was fun because we did whatever we wanted. Amanda had us just branching out in any direction we wanted to try.”
“I have no idea who Amanda is,” Britt said.
“She was the owner and the chef,” said Harry. “I sent you that article.”
“Blond, flinty-looking, chef-on-the-cusp kind of thing?”
“Exactly. She had this concept for years, but she had a hard time getting funding till she got nominated for a James Beard. It was completely different from what you guys do, and yes, it turned out to be unsustainable over the long haul, but it was also like getting a Ph.D. in restaurants and food. We grew a lot of what we served. And forget all this fish distributor shit—I caught fish. Or I hired someone directly to catch it. If we wanted flour, we got a local guy to grow the wheat and then I bought myself a mill and ground it. Chefs from all over the place were trying to buy the stuff, except no one had time to hire another person to grind it. Shelley made her own butter, I made my own ricotta, and we figured out how to cure our own bacon. And it was really shitty bacon at first because I got the wrong breed of pig, and it turns out I have no aptitude for cheese-making. But I really wish you guys had seen it. If you’d come up then, you’d see why I’m doing this now.”
“Well, you never told us that,” Britt said uncertainly.
“I don’t know, I thought I did. I could’ve sworn I e-mailed you guys about it, or at least I figured Mom and Dad would tell you. The point is, you think I have no idea what I’m doing, but I do. To some extent. And I’m telling you, every now and again you could listen to me.”
“Okay,” said Britt, holding up his palms.
“Not really,” said Harry.
“No, really,” said Britt. “I get it. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay.”
There was a long silence while they looked around the yard uncertainly, wondering what the next thing should be. Maybe a handshake. “I have to say, though,” Britt began. Harry looked sharply at him, tilting his head, and Britt went on. “No, I really mean this. Harry, you don’t have to make life so hard on yourself. You’re not going to make it so difficult here too, are you? Let the world sell you flour. Pounding your tablecloths on a rock in the river isn’t going to make it a better restaurant, you know? Get a linen service and call it a day.”
Harry laughed and handed the half-full box of apples to Britt. “Now you tell me. No, listen, half the reason to come back here is that there’s just more infrastructure. But when we were getting it right, we were making better food. It’s a lot of Sysco around there, that far from the farms. And that island was struggling economically. Why not try to build more than just a restaurant? That was the idea, anyway.”
“Okay,” said Britt. “I get it.” They began walking back to the house.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” said Harry. “We could bring a little of that here. Build up some relationships with the farmers.”
Britt sighed. “We do a little of that,” he said. “Thea’s the one in charge of it.”
“You guys helped start that here. You take a town like Linden that was in a downturn for so long. I always wondered why Mom and Dad stayed.”
“Their parents were still around then. And Dad’s attached to Linden. I think he still sees it the way it used to be.”
“I suppose. And to be honest, now I feel attached to it in a weird way—you know, I even feel fond of the crappy sections. The Tip-Top! Now I have to go see if it’s still there.”
“Probably with all the same patrons,” said Britt. “But listen, Harry, if what you were doing out there was such a great idea, why’d you stop?”
Harry held open the side door for him. “Amanda closed it down. It just didn’t make enough money. And I think she just got so fucking tired. We all did. I loved it, but it was pretty lethal. That’s why I’m not doing the same thing here, not on that scale. I’ll make it manageable—I’ll make it fit the
town. I know you guys are afraid I’m in over my head, but I have a good feeling. It’s going to be great.”
“We don’t think that,” Britt said, but it was for form’s sake. “I didn’t quite see your plan before,” he admitted.
In the kitchen their parents were just finishing breakfast, and their father shooed them out of the kitchen when Britt tried to help with dishes. Harry disappeared into his room, and Britt watched his parents move about the kitchen, putting lids on jars and covering up the leftover corn cakes. He watched his father wrap half a slice of bacon in plastic and set it in the fridge. Harry took good care of them when he was here; there was no denying it. And so when he appeared again wearing a jacket and holding his keys, Britt said, “Let’s go see how it looks,” and followed his brother to the waterfront.
IN THE TWO MONTHS SINCE BRITT had seen it, Harry’s restaurant had developed from an empty space with glimmers of possibility to a place that looked almost ready. The most amazing part was the ceiling: Harry had had it opened up, the beams exposed, raising the height of the room by three or four feet. It changed everything. Suddenly the room was airy and industrial, lively and unfussy. The tables were in; the long zinc bar was installed and ringed by stools with cracked saddle-colored leather seats. Behind the bar at one end was a beverage station and at the other, toward the back, were the grill, the oven, the salamander, and a fryer. The refinished floors glowed a warm honey. The east wall was freshly drywalled and painted the color of vellum. The wooden support beams were a rough chestnut color, sturdy and grand against the brick wall and the old leather seats, the gleaming curve of the bar and the tall windows and pale linen. A grandly proportioned mirror with an old gilt frame was propped against one wall. Harry gestured at it and said, “I still have to get that hung.” He paused before it, cocking his head. “I wanted a darker frame, though. But it’s really expensive. I could strip it, I guess.”
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