Summer By The Sea. Susan Wiggs

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      “Come again?”

      “This is premium meat, our signature cut. Serve it without the garnish.”

      “I’ll remember that,” he said, and set the plate on the counter for a server to pick up.

      She planted herself in front of him. “Go back and replate the steak, please. No garnish.”

      “But—”

      Rosa glared at him with fire in her eyes. Don’t back down, she cautioned herself. Don’t blink.

      “You got it,” he said, scowling as he returned to the prep area.

      “Well?” asked Lorenzo “Butch” Buchello, whose fresh Italian cuisine was drawing in patrons from as far away as New York and Boston.

      “Yep.” Rosa grinned and selected a serrated knife from the array affixed to a steel grid on the wall. “Went down on one knee and everything.”

      Neither of them stopped working as they chatted. He was coordinating dessert while she arranged fluffy white peasant bread in a basket.

      “Good for them,” said Butch.

      “They’re really in love,” Rosa said. “I got all choked up, watching them.”

      “Ever the incurable romantic,” Butch said, piping chocolate ganache around the profiteroles.

      “Ha, there’s a cure for it,” Shelly Warren cut in, whisking behind them to pick up her order.

      “It’s called marriage,” Rosa said.

      Shelly gave her a high-five. She had been married for ten years and claimed that her night job waiting tables was an escape from endless hours of watching the Golf Channel until her eyes glazed over.

      “Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Rosa,” said Butch. “In fact, what about that guy you were dating—Dean what’s his name?”

      “Oh, actually, he did want to get married,” she explained.

      Butch’s eyes lit up. “Hey! Well, there you go—”

      “Just not to me.”

      His face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

      “It’s all right. He joins a long and venerable line of suitors who didn’t suit.”

      “I’m starting to see a pattern here,” Butch said. He took a wire whisk to a bowl of custard and Marsala, creating an order of his famous zabaglione. “You run them off and then say they didn’t suit.”

      She finished up with the bread baskets. “Not tonight, Butch. This is Linda’s moment. Send them a tiramisu and your congratulations, okay?”

      She headed back to the dining room and went over to the podium, which faced the main entrance. It was a perfect Friday night at Celesta’s-by-the-Sea. All the tables in the multilevel dining room were oriented toward the view of the endless sea, and were set with fresh flowers, crisp linens, good china and flatware.

      This was the sort of scene she used to dream about back when the place was a run-down pizza joint. Couples danced to the smooth beat of a soft blues number, the drummer’s muted cymbals shimmering with a sensual resonance. Out on the deck, people stood listening to the waves and looking at the stars. For the past three years running, Celesta’s had been voted “Best Place to Propose” by Coast magazine, and tonight was a perfect example of the reason for its charm—sea breezes, sand and surf, a natural backdrop for the award-winning dining room.

      “Did you cry?” asked Vince, the host, stepping up beside her. They’d known each other since childhood—she, Vince and Linda. They’d gone through school together, inseparable. Now he was the best-looking maître d’ in South County. He was tall and slender, flawlessly groomed in an Armani suit and Gucci shoes. Rimless glasses highlighted his darkly-lashed eyes.

      “Of course I cried,” Rosa said. “Didn’t you?”

      “Maybe,” he admitted with a fond smile in Linda’s direction. “A little. I love seeing her so happy.”

      “Yeah. Me, too.”

      “So that’s two of us down, one to go,” he said.

      She rolled her eyes. “Not you, too.”

      “Butch has already been at you?”

      “What do you two do, lie awake at night discussing my love life?”

      “No, sweetie. Your lack of one.”

      “Give me a break, okay?” She spoke through a smile as a party of four left the restaurant. She and Vince had perfected the art of bickering while appearing utterly congenial.

      “Please come again,” Vince said, his expression so warm that the two women did a double-take. Glancing down at the computer screen discreetly set beneath the surface of the podium, he checked the status of their tab. “Three bottles of Antinori.”

      Rosa gave a blissful sigh. “Sometimes I love this job.”

      “You always love this job. Too much, if you ask me.”

      “You’re not my analyst, Vince.”

      “Ringrazi il cielo,” he muttered. “You couldn’t pay me enough.”

      “Hey.”

      “Kidding,” he assured her. “Good night, folks,” he said to a departing threesome. “Thanks so much for coming.”

      Rosa surveyed her domain with a powerful but weary pride. Celesta’s-by-the-Sea was the place people came to fall in love. It was also Rosa’s own emotional landscape; it structured her days and weeks and years. She had poured all her energy into the restaurant, creating a place where people marked the most important events of their lives—engagements, graduations, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, promotions. They came to escape the rush and rigors of everyday life, never knowing that each subtle detail of the place, from the custom alabaster lampshades to the imported chenille chair covers, had been contrived to create an air of luxury and comfort, just for them.

      Rosa knew such attention to detail, along with Butch’s incomparable cuisine, had elevated her restaurant to one of the best in the county, perhaps in the entire state. The focal point of the place was a hammered steel bar, its edges fluted like waves. The bar, which she’d commissioned from a local artisan, was backed by a sheet of blue glass lit from below. At its center was a nautilus seashell, the light flickering over and through the whorls and chambers. People seemed drawn to its mysterious iridescence, and often asked where it came from, and if it was real. Rosa knew the answer, but she never told.

      She checked the time on the screen without being obvious. None of the servers wore watches and there was no clock in sight. People relaxing here shouldn’t notice the passing of time. But the small computer screen indicated 10:00 p.m. She didn’t expect too much more business, except perhaps in the bar.

      She could tell, with a sweep of her gaze, that tonight’s till СКАЧАТЬ