“Let them have it,” Adrienne said.
“Let them have it?” Caren said. “You bumped the Parrishes for Harry Henderson of all people, and now you’re going to let them have the fondue first seating?” She gave an incredulous little laugh. “This isn’t your restaurant, you know.”
“Let them have it,” Adrienne said. She walked away before she and Caren moved on to more sensitive topics, like how Caren was still pissed at Adrienne for putting Tam Vinidin at the bar, or how, technically, Adrienne was Caren’s boss.
Adrienne thought Antonio might veto her decision about the fondue, but a little while later Caren passed by holding a pot of oil. She wouldn’t meet Adrienne’s eyes and Adrienne’s confidence wavered. She had never even worked at Pizza Hut. What was she doing, breaking all the rules while Thatcher was away? Was it all in the name of selling the restaurant, or was it to exercise power in a situation where she felt utterly helpless?
A couple of minutes later, she checked on the Elperns again. Scott Elpern lifted a golden brown shrimp from the pot and dragged it lavishly through the green goddess sauce, then the curry. Was it any surprise that the man had no table manners?
“How’s everybody doing?” she asked.
“Adrienne,” Harry Henderson said before he popped a shrimp into his mouth. It wasn’t a response to her question so much as a demonstration that he had learned her name.
Lucy Elpern finished her glass of champagne. “Never better,” she said.
Adrienne approached the Parrishes. They were eating in complete silence.
“Is there anything at all I can get you?” Adrienne asked.
“We love the new table,” Darla said. “We like it better than the other table.”
“You’re kidding.”
“At the other table, everyone watches you.”
“Yes, they do,” Adrienne said. She glanced at table twenty. The Elperns were having the time of their lives. There was no doubt in Adrienne’s mind that this time next year the floor under her feet would be the Elperns’ new living room.
Adrienne stopped at the bar to pick up her champagne.
“Another shot?” Duncan asked.
“Your girlfriend’s pissed at me,” Adrienne said. “She thinks I put too many pretty women at the bar.”
“If you stop, I’ll be pissed at you,” Duncan said.
Elliott, who never said a word unless spoken to, chose this moment to interrupt. “Where’s Thatcher?” he said. “Does he normally take a vacation in the middle of summer?”
Adrienne was saved having to answer when she spied Harry Henderson on his cell phone, which was a Blue Bistro no-no.
“Excuse me,” Adrienne said, and she hurried back into the dining room.
Before she could scold Harry for using his phone, she sensed something was wrong. The atmosphere at the Elperns’ table had altered. Lucy’s face was screwed up and Scott hovered close, squeezing her hand. Darla was right. Every other table in the restaurant had their attention fixed on the Elperns. The hundred-year-old woman in the wheelchair touched Adrienne’s arm.
“I think that woman is having her baby.”
Adrienne smiled. “She may have started labor. We’ll get her to the hospital.” She sounded preternaturally calm, thanks to the kamikaze shot, thanks to the fact that she’d prepared herself for this possibility. You didn’t invite a woman three days past her due date to dinner and not consider the worst-case scenario.
Harry snapped his cell phone shut. “I called nine-one-one. An ambulance is coming.”
“An ambulance?” Adrienne said, thinking: sirens and lights, the pall of emergency and doom. “The hospital is less than two miles from here. You could drive.”
Scott Elpern glanced up. “We’re in a rental car.” These, Adrienne realized, were the only words she’d heard him speak other than Nice refrigerator.
“So?”
Lucy spoke through pursed lips. “My water broke,” she said. “I’m sitting in a huge puddle of yuck.”
Adrienne nearly laughed. Was this or was this not the theater of the absurd? She caught a whiff of something acrid: Three shrimp burning in the peanut oil. Adrienne fished them out, then she lassoed Spillman. “Let’s get guests their checks. This could turn into a circus.”
Unfortunately, it was too late. A minute later, Adrienne heard sirens in the distance, then lights flashed through the restaurant and three paramedics stormed in like they were rescuing a hostage. Conversation in the restaurant came to a dead halt; Rex stopped playing. Adrienne led the head paramedic, a woman with a long, scraggly ponytail, through the now-hushed restaurant to the Elperns’ table.
“She just started labor. I really don’t think there’s any reason to panic…”
The paramedic knelt down and spoke quietly to Lucy Elpern. Adrienne wondered what to do in the way of damage control. They would need a towel. She retrieved the Sankaty Golf Club towel from the wine cave, and on her way back to the Elperns’ table, she passed Darla and Grayson leaving.
“We loved the table,” Darla whispered. “But we’re going to get out of here before there’s any blood.”
“There won’t be any blood,” Adrienne whispered back. Would there? Grayson palmed Adrienne a hundred dollars.
The golf towel was very little help. The back of Lucy Elpern’s muumuu was soaked and this seemed to be a cause of concern for her; she didn’t want to leave the restaurant.
“Everyone will know,” she whispered.
“Everyone already knows,” Adrienne said. “And it’s no big deal. It’s perfectly natural.”
“This is so embarrassing,” she said.
The head paramedic called one of her guys for a blanket and once they had wrapped Lucy Elpern up, they led her out of the restaurant to the ambulance. The guests at the remaining tables applauded politely, much like they did when the sun set, and the decibel level rose back to normal. Adrienne trailed Lucy and the paramedic to the front door. The phone rang. Adrienne glanced over the top of the podium: It was the private line.
“Good evening,” she said. “Blue Bistro.”
“Hi,” Thatcher said. “It’s me.”
Tears welled up in Adrienne’s eyes so that when she looked out the window, the lights of the ambulance blurred and became a psychedelic soup. She didn’t know exactly why she was crying though she imagined it was a combination of anxiety, relief, and the kamikaze shot. Where the hell have you been? she wanted to scream, but she held her tongue. She should ask about Fiona, about the hospital. However, there wasn’t time to listen to the answers.
“Can I call you back?” she said. “In, say, fifteen minutes? I have to get first seating out of here.”
“Sure,” Thatcher said.
There was a long pause during which Adrienne tried to think of something else to say, but then she realized that Thatcher had hung up. She replaced the phone as the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot, sirens screeching. Tyler Lefroy was standing at the podium, a put-out expression on his seventeen-year-old face.
“Do I really have to clean that gross shit up?”
“Get a mop,” Adrienne said.
Adrienne wanted to call Thatcher back, but she couldn’t. Tables had to be turned; there were a hundred and twenty people sitting down at nine, and because of the Elpern spectacle, first seating was running behind. Adrienne monitored the progress of dessert and coffee; her foot was actually tapping. Turn ’em and burn ’em, she thought. The busboys were humping. Then Caren had a credit card war. Adrienne had heard about these but never seen one. Two men at table eight (by chance, the very men Harry Henderson had stopped to greet) wanted the bill. They were fighting over it. Adrienne’s attention was called to the problem when she heard Caren’s voice, much louder than it should have been.