Free Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen

he associated the place with Frances in her most Circean element, three days spent eyeing her through a constant, glowing buzz. But that year she’d said she hated the whole business, actually, that she wanted to go home at six o’clock like a normal grown-up, and that she was sick of discussing food as if it were art or a cure for AIDS. “But I don’t do that,” Leo had protested on the plane ride home. “Food’s our craft, that’s all. I just want to do it well.” “But all those assholes, arguing about ramen broth,” Frances had said. “We’ll never get away from those people if we stay in it, you know. They’ll break our spirits and we’ll end up running an Olive Garden.” “I think there’s a third way,” Leo had said mildly. He’d snapped open a magazine while Frances turned toward the window. Frankly, he was insulted. He didn’t enjoy the rabid foodies any more than Frances did, but he recognized that they would provide a livelihood. Let people caress their slices of pork and argue about seasoning . W hat did he care? They could photograph their food all they wanted. Leo thought Frances—who’d spent a few years rolling wine around her tongue and gazing at the ceiling herself—was being snobbish and reactionary. Leo liked being out among people he knew; he liked to finish a shift and go out for late dinners of a few first courses and a free glass of grappa or a comped dessert. Frances just wanted to go home and wake up early to go for a run. She was a morning person. Sometimes Leo thought it all rested on that.
    The rupture took on other forms, but within a year she’d gone back to school to be a teacher and moved out.
    Now and again it hit Leo all at once, the fact that of the three of them, him and his brothers, not one was happily married or attached, and any lessons from their parents’ long marriage must have passed them by. Leo feared that he and Britt were just getting too old now to reorder their lives for a woman, and he feared even more that Harry would follow their example.
    THE DESSERTS WERE NOT BAD. Once the Makaskis disappeared, Leo and Britt looked hard at their plates and tried to be subtle about poking around in them . T he ice cream trio arrived on a black plate scattered with fruit . A tuile, rolled at the edges like a potato chip, perched on top . T he roasted pear was halved and opened, filled with something creamy; the sour cherry cake a little golden loaf in a pool of compote. The chocolate quills arrived tied up in a strip of orange peel and set in an upright bundle.
    They started on the ice creams: cinnamon, crème fraîche, and Damson plum.
    “Ever had Damson plum ice cream?”
    “Nope. Nice color.” The plum ice cream was vanilla marbled with a rich winey purple.
    “By ‘cinnamon,’ do they mean cinnamon the spice?”
    “As opposed to what?”
    “The candy. Try it. Plus, it’s pink.”
    “Oh.”
    “I would have plated this differently.”
    “Yeah. The plum is perfect, though. So’s the crème fraîche.”
    The quills were filled with a boozy ganache. “Do we eat them with our hands?” Britt asked. Leo shrugged. They tried them both ways: Leo ate a quill as if it were a French fry, and Britt ate one with a fork. It shattered easily under the tines, and Britt found himself absorbed in trying to get every shard of chocolate. Leo’s fingers were printed with chocolate after the first bite. “It tastes pretty good,” he said. “A little uniform. But it’s kind of impossible to actually eat.”
    At the other end of the bar, Barbara was in conversation with a server, her eyes trained on them . W hen Leo smiled at her, she inclined her head respectfully and turned away.
    They set aside the quills and inspected the roasted pear, which was filled with mascarpone and scattered with pistachios. Leo considered. “The mascarpone’s a good idea,” he said. “It’s not sweet . T here’s some cardamom in there too.”
    Britt nodded . T he tuiles that