Dirty Dishes by Pino Luongo

Author:Pino Luongo
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-10-22T21:00:00+00:00

In fact, there was no discussion. A typical exchange went like this:

Ring. Ring.

JESSIE: Sapore di Mare, good evening.

CUSTOMER: This is Ms. So-and-So. Do you have a table

available at nine P.M.?

JESSIE: No, I’m sorry, we’re fully booked.

CUSTOMER: Just tell Pino we’re coming over.

JESSIE: But . . .

Click. Dial tone. Sound of Jessie slamming the phone down.

“Tell Pino we’re coming over” was the most-uttered phrase in the Hamptons that summer, along with “I’m a friend of Pino’s,” favored by guests who didn’t even bother to call and instead just showed up—their version of “Open Sesame.”

About once a night, poor Jessie would come swinging through the door to the kitchen, which opened right onto the pasta station where I usually cooked. She would tell me of the latest inhuman treatment she had received, and then sulk back to the dining room.

It broke my heart to see her looking so sad and mad, but I didn’t know what else to do. I needed her out there.

One night, I was going about my business at the pasta station when I had that sixth-sense intuition, unique to restaurateurs, that I had better go check on the dining room. I did: everything looked fine. But my radar wasn’t totally busted. Sitting on the reservation desk was Jessie, staring off into space, shell-shocked.

It was clear that this couldn’t continue. All that lay ahead for me was trouble: a series of tense battles on the home front. Moments later, as I watched my dear wife withstand an earful of abuse from yet another unannounced group, I decided that I had no choice. I had to relieve her of her pain.

But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.

At the end of the night, I pulled Ariel aside and told him, “Tomorrow morning, the moment you get up, find me a new hostess. Don’t go to the beach. Don’t come in here. Get on the phone and find me someone and have her here by three thirty”—an hour before Jessie’s scheduled arrival.

The next day, Ariel had a new hostess installed, as directed. When Jessie showed up, she jerked a thumb in the girl’s direction and asked Ariel what was going on.

“Pino had to replace you,” he said, trying to sound soothing on my behalf. “It was too much stress for you.”

“Oh really?”

Jessie came swinging into the kitchen and stared at me with a look so cold that the pasta water stopped boiling: “You know, I really don’t care about working here,” she screamed. “I was trying to help you out. But you . . . you . . . you coward. You couldn’t tell me yourself?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I couldn’t do it. But what’s important is I’d rather keep you as a wife than as an employee.”

One of the things I’ve always loved about Jessie is that she can call me on my bullshit. (In my humble opinion, this is something all real men love in the women they choose to spend their lives with.) She spun around in a rage and stomped out of the kitchen.

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