by Sean Platt
“So $75 a week for now, and $150 per day for the flowers?”
“Six days a week,” said Allison. “He said that Bella could afford it in a way that made me think he feels bad about his prices.”
“People agree to pay it, so he can charge it,” said Lily.
“That’s what I think. But what can you say; he’s old school. A night’s dinner for one couple is probably more than his parents made in a month.”
Lily looked at the arrangements and a nondescript box of candles. She did the math.
“That’s almost four grand a month. From a single client.” She sighed. “We really could have used it, Al.”
“Don’t worry about it. You just got us evicted anyway.”
Lily punched her arm.
“But for a good cause,” said Allison. “Kerry won’t mess with you anymore … again assuming we don’t get the boot.”
It had felt that way to Lily for a few minutes in the bathroom, too, but now she wasn’t so sure. Sometimes you stood up to bullies, and they crawled off to pick on someone who wouldn’t fight back. Other times, they rallied their gangs and returned even stronger, content to escalate for as long as it took.
Lily took a long, deep sigh.
“Four grand,” she said.
Lily was still shaking her head when Matt Vitale entered La Fleur.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BELLA BY THE SEA
Matt said nothing about his father’s reaction from the day before. Allison and Lily, again fearing a rocking boat tipped, didn’t ask. He also said nothing about the fight in the courtyard, despite its occurrence on the restaurant’s doorstep.
Matt merely came in, fixed Lily with his X-ray blue eyes, and said, “Where is it?” Lily pointed, wondering if she should offer to help. Some mixture of Matt’s annoyed attitude and her own fear of being toppled to the tune of nearly $2,500 in profit per month stayed her hands. She watched him stoop, gather a handful of arrangements, and leave. He’d be back for the rest, just as surly and superior. But even while he was out of the shop, Lily and Allison didn’t speak, watching and waiting, afraid to shatter the spell.
After the final load was gone, Lily was exhaling with relief when Matt returned a final time.
“Do I have to pay?”
Lily blinked. The question was aggressive. He could have asked for the same information in a dozen more pleasant ways, but he was choosing the most confrontational way to inquire. He wanted her to know how much he resented all of this — possibly enhanced, now, by whatever offense Lily had unknowingly committed against Marcello.
“We’ll bill you at the end of the month.”
“He said I have to come here every day now. Didn’t know if it was still a one-month bill.”
In spite of her nerves, Lily couldn’t help thinking, What an asshole.
“Whatever you want.”
“Fine.” He turned to go. But something inside Lily spoke up — a what the hell kind of something riled by her earlier confrontation with Kerry — and she found herself calling after Matt without meaning to.
“How are your diners liking the flowers?”
He turned. Allison, usually imperturbable, was looking at Lily with surprise.
“I was just wondering,” Lily said, then added, “in the name of us helping improve.”
Matt’s surprise trumped his arrogant shell. In a voice that was somewhat different than normal, he said, “They seem to like them fine.”
“Have you had any compliments?” But that was too needy, so Lily added, “Or any suggestions for improvement?”
“People say they’re nice.”
“Just nice?”
“It’s hard to pick it apart. Our whole atmosphere works together.”
“So no one has said, ‘Wow, I’m so glad you added flowers.’ Or do you not get the same customers returning again and again?”
It was an intrusive question, but Lily had left caring behind. She’d stopped taking Kerry Barrett Kirby’s shit. She might as well stop taking Amadeo Vitale’s.
“Yeah, we do.”
“And?”
“If my dad didn’t like your flowers, he wouldn’t keep ordering them.”
It wasn’t an answer. Lily should stop pushing, but she didn’t want to.
“But aren’t you ordering them too? You’re partners, right?”
“Yeah.” Unspoken, Matt added, And what business is it of yours?
“So you must like them too.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m just curious,” Lily continued while Allison kicked her under the counter.
“It’s fine,” he repeated. “If it’s what he wants.” Reluctantly, he added, “And like I said, people say they’re nice. Including the repeating customers.”
Again without meaning to, Lily blurted, “Can I see?”
“See what?”
Oh, what the hell. She’d come this far.
“The dining room. Can I see how you’ve arranged them?”
Matt’s gaze hardened, then fell into confusion. His strong, dark jaw was set. The man was impossible to read, but until he said no, Lily wouldn’t back off. Let him deny her if he had to, but she was done being intimidated.
“I’d rather not,” he said.
Lily came around the corner. She’d never stood so close to Matt, and his presence was, substantial. But she looked up into almost see through blue eyes and said, “Matt.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re our best customer. I want to do the best job I can for you. What helps Bella helps me. Do you see what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“I know your dining room is exclusive, but I’m not asking to eat there. I’m asking, as your business partner of a kind, to help you make the most of your investment.”
“We haven’t invested with you.”
“Of course you have.” Lily considered her earlier tally, weighing whether or not broaching the dollar amount would be a good idea (owning her worth) or bad (drawing attention to a sum they may not have fully internalized). But again, the earlier feeling surrounded her, and she forged forward. “You’re spending almost four thousand dollars a month on flowers and candles to make your space beautiful. But not just beautiful. You’re selling atmosphere and mood.”
“Right … ”
“Well, no offense, but you don’t know flowers, and I do. If you’re not arranging optimally, you’re getting beauty without the mood. People will think, ‘That’s pretty.’ But that’s not what you want. You want them to think, ‘I feel amazing being here.’ Would you agree?”
Matt assessed her. He was oak tree tall and had to look down, as close as she was. He was silent, his eyes hard to meet for long due to their sheer intensity. But something in them had changed. They’d gone from ego and irritation to something that resembled respect.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Then can I see the space?”
Matt regarded her for another second, then said, “Come with me.”
Allison touched her back as she left. When Lily turned, Allison seemed caught between trying to ask what she had in mind and waging war with a jealous urge to follow.
He didn’t walk in front of her like an escort, nor was he precisely to the side. Lily fell a half step behind almost immediately because Matt took long strides that, although he didn’t rush, easily outpaced her. Part of Lily, she had to admit, felt she’d better not press him too hard. She’d been trying to figure out how he felt about her, and it changed almost hourly. Sometimes he looked intensely at her in a certain way and she thought Antonia might be right — that he might see something in Lily that he didn’t see in the women who paraded around the plaza all day long looking like they’d stepped off the world’s most exclusive runway. Other times she was sure he disliked, distrusted, and resented her presence in the Palms almost as much as Kerry. He was about to usher her into his inner sanctum, and Lily couldn’t help but feel like he might turn around at any moment, decide that she’
d tricked him, then call the whole thing off.
He stopped in the lobby. Lily kept her gaze from the desk girl, whose eyes widened upon seeing her. Lily had tried to spontaneously dine at Bella before anyone had known who she was, but she’d seen the girl a few times since, never exchanging another word or learning (or wanting to learn) her name. The girl hadn’t softened her first impression even after seeing that Lily was a fellow tenant. If anything, her uptight sneer had intensified.
Matt held the dining room door open. Lily couldn’t help herself. She looked from Matt to the clerk and smiled, giving a little wave that could be interpreted any way the girl chose.
Lily stepped through the door. Matt closed it behind her.
She felt like she’d somehow ended up in the wrong place. Bella was far more elegant and charming than even Lily’s wildest ideas, but it was also much smaller than she’d realized, and much more intimate. The space was maybe twice the size of her parents’ modest living room back home, and the far wall was a bank of windows that spilled their view onto a stunning stone deck overlooking the sea. The space had three tables, each slightly larger than a four-top at the more pedestrian restaurants Lily could afford to frequent. They were covered with brick red tablecloths, their tops bare save a narrow, thick-bottomed vase filled with creamy Dutch calla lilies, tightly packed. The kitchen’s prep must have been in full swing because Lily could smell something delectable on the air — a particular combination of olfactory flavors she’d never sensed before.
The view beyond the window was astounding. Sand sloped away to the north and south, around the plaza’s far end, but Lily hadn’t realized how high the Palms actually was. The beach gave way to rock cliffs along the center’s frontage, curving toward the beach at each long end like the trailing ends of an apron.
“Apologies for the mess,” Matt said from behind her. “We’re obviously not set up for dinner yet, so everything is in storage mode.”
“Storage?” Lily looked around. The tables weren’t set, but the restaurant hardly looked shut down. Clicks and clangs clattered from the kitchen, but the door must have been somehow concealed, because she couldn’t see it.
Matt walked over to the wall of windows and pressed a button. The wall parted like a curtain, opening the dining room to the sea air.
“Most nights, we have this open for service,” he said, watching the wall vanish at the room’s edges. The whole place had become a partially covered patio. The simple change made for a dramatic transformation. What had been quietly elegant was now almost fairy-tale romantic. “But we close it after the customers have gone home, and move the tables inside.”
“The tables are normally outside?”
“We only have three couples per night. We contact them and adjust the seating to wherever they’d most like to sit, changing whatever they require. Our low number makes dining intimate — but not just between the couples. They are intimate with us, too. With my father as host. And they are intimate with me, through the food I prepare.”
“You don’t have a staff?”
“Of course. But it’s very small, and they step mostly aside after prep, helping only as I need them.”
“I guess you don’t get vacations.” Lily imagined she was staring. The restaurant’s entire concept was as simple and audacious and beautiful as La Fleur’s: few options, fewer bells and whistles. Instead of excess, both businesses focused on growing a gorgeous garden with a few premium seeds.
“I don’t really want them,” said Matt. “I love to cook. More: I love to cook for people who appreciate what I prepare.”
Lily looked across the sea. With the possible exception of Cameron, Matt Vitale joined Len as one of the only men she’d spent much time thinking about since moving to California. And while her thoughts of Len had been positive while those about Matt had been mostly negative, both men were chefs. Practiced arts as sensuous as hers, from opposite ends of the price and presentation spectrums. Did that explain what had happened with Marcello? Lily was suddenly afraid that Matt’s father might emerge from the kitchen, see her in his stone-and-linen nirvana, and toss her out as an associate of a man who dared to serve haute cuisine in an atmosphere of inadequate finery.
“We’re only open five days a week, and only for dinner,” he went on. “If there are no bookings for one of those nights, we close.”
“Does that ever happen?”
Matt smirked. She thought it might be the first time she’d seen him do anything but scowl. “Not anymore. Fifteen couples per week. Thirty customers, thirty meals. I could hire a chef and leave whenever I wanted, but why would I want to?” They’d strolled onto the deck. It was heavy stone from end to end like something carved from the bedrock rather than built. He put his large, dark hands atop the lighter stone railing and sighed across the sea, his broad back to Lily. “I already live in paradise. There’s no need to go anywhere else.”
Matt’s wistful tone — plus the fact that he was actually talking — filled Lily with questions. She wanted to ask about Bella’s history, about the meals Matt cooked for the couples who dined here, about the guts required to open a restaurant with such an outrageously audacious premise. But she knew all those answers from her own experience, didn’t she?
Matt turned, his back to the railing. He wasn’t smiling, but no longer looked as if he hated or resented her presence. This was what he must look like during service, when wealthy lovers came to be doted over by Marcello with his charm and accent, served by a chef who found the intimacy of sharing food to be but a few steps from making love. He was in his element, whereas up until now she’d seen him only in hers. As out of place as she felt now, maybe Matt felt the same in La Fleur.
“So,” he said. “What do you think?”
She looked around, wanting to sit or at least back up against a wall. As it was, Lily felt as if she were in the middle of a spotlight, perhaps being asked to twirl amid the elegance like a princess at a ball. But she’d worn slacks, her hair done but loose, no longer tousled by her spat with Kerry. She wasn’t wearing diamonds or crystal slippers of precisely the right size. She was just a girl, and even Matt’s simple question made her feel inadequate.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“So you like it.”
Lily felt like she was being shown. This is all for you. But she shouldn’t be here. She’d never experience an evening this intimate, and felt strange being asked about the setting as if it required her approval.
“Yes, of course.”
Matt stood upright. He looked at her askance, probably noticing the way her head was floating into the clouds. “I meant the flowers.”
Lily blinked. Of course. That’s why she was here.
She drew in the room with her eyes, slowly revolving. They’d done an excellent job, somehow sensing much of what Lily took for instinct. There had been a large arrangement at the front desk: hydrangeas, peonies, and hybrid delphinium in whites and creams. Smaller arrangements of Sahara and Vendela roses, peeking through heads of hydrangea and laced with freesia, bloomed from tables and pedestals around the room’s edges. The room itself had been sectioned by obvious but somehow nonintrusive stone partitions designed (Lily imagined) to give diners increased privacy when the patio wall was closed due to rare inclement weather. A genius design; customers would prefer dining outside but would in no way feel disappointed if they couldn’t. With the open wall, Bella felt like a private mansion’s patio. Closed, several small fountains and waterfalls linking a water system around the room’s edges, it melded with the partitions to make it feel like a grotto.
Marcello or someone had arranged flowers in vases along the stone partitions. The spacing and quantity was close to ideal: enough to feel slightly over-the-top extravagant and soften the room’s otherwise hard edges, but not so much as to be excessive or gaudy. Wall sconces functioned as vases, most stuffed with roses. A table near the room’s center that looked as if it might hold a tapas buffet during service was naked, draped with a
taupe tablecloth that contrasted with the reds while matching the rich color of several large and gently flapping drapes tucked behind plinths at the room’s edges, all shades that echoed La Fleur’s supposedly singular palette: eggshell, oatmeal, bone, powder.
“Who placed them?”
“I did,” said Matt.
Lily looked over, feeling slapped. “You?”
“Did I not do a good job?”
“I … ” Lily paused, wondering if she’d earned the right to say something forward. “I thought you didn’t like flowers. That’s what Marcello told me.”
He leaned against the railing, almost sitting. “It’s not that simple.”
“Well, you did it brilliantly. It’s as if you’ve done it all your life.”
Matt looked like he might be about to say something and perhaps agree with what Lily just said, then shrugged.
“I’d only make a few changes.”
“Okay.”
“The vases on the tables are probably too tall. They’re beautiful, but you have the chairs set opposite each other rather than side by side. If even half of your diners sit across the table from each other, they’ll … ”
Matt vented a small laugh. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that.”
“You could probably move the vases to the side for people who sit across from one another so the tall flowers aren’t right between them, but—”
“No, you’re right. The tall arrangement makes a wall. And moving them once people sit draws attention to them, which breaks the mood they’re there to create.”
Again, Lily took a few long seconds to look at Matt as he came forward, fussing with one of the vases as if testing his preference. He shook his head. Watching, Lily almost shook hers. Matt’s understanding of mood and aesthetics was instinct. He’d been exactly right; there was a big difference between moving the arrangements around to fit the diners and making certain they were in the right place, untouched, to begin with.
