Free Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance by Nancy Verde Barr Page B

of the most happening lunch places in the city. I
wonder
how we will get in,” I teased. Never had a restaurant been too crowded to seat Sally.
    Sally took out her cell phone and little black address book. “I’ll make a call.” After waiting a few minutes for an answer, she boomed into the phone, “Jeannie, this is Sally . . . Woods. Do you think your brother could get two of us into lunch at Jean-Georges’s new place, today at one o’clock? Okay, call me on my cell phone.” She gave Jeannie her number and folded the phone shut.
    “Who’s Jeannie?” I asked.
    “She’s my hairdresser here in New York. Her brother is a dishwasher at Jean-Georges’s.”
    “Did it occur to you just to call the restaurant and tell themwho you are? Or, for that matter, just say, ‘Hi, I need a table.’
Everyone
knows your voice,” I said.
    “Oh. They wouldn’t care that it was me. They see real star types all the time.” Sally was probably the only one who really believed that restaurants weren’t wild to have her eat there. Even the haughtiest of places are willing to bend over backward to accommodate her. When we were in San Francisco on our way to Napa Valley, we decided at the last minute to eat at a trendy new restaurant known for its crab claws and attitude. I got there before Sally, and when I asked the very bored maître d’ for a table for three he looked at me as though I had warts covering my face and asked if I had a reservation.
    “No. We just decided at the last minute because we heard how remarkably good the food is.”
    My flattery did not impress him. He made snooty, snorting sounds and said, “We are full months in advance. And we never have empty seats.” That’s when Sally and Sonya arrived and Sally asked me if we could get in.
    “Not for a few months,” I said.
    There was a lot of undecipherable stammering on the maître d’s part, but we did make out the words “sudden cancellation.” Next to the crab claws, the best part of lunch was having him fawn all over us.
    Just before noon, Sally’s phone rang and she had a brief conversation with Jeannie. “We’re all set,” she told me. I hope we don’t have to wait a long time at a crowded noisy bar. I’m hungry.”
    W E ARRIVED AT THE restaurant, and Jean-Georges himself met us and led us to a table in the center of the room, where a nervous-looking waiter was shifting flatware and plumping napkins. Jean-Georges pulled out a chair for Sallyand with some effort shifted her back in to the table. “We are so happy to have you here, Mrs. Woods. We’d love to send some
amuse-gueules
to the table for you.” Loosely translated, the term refers to small, one- or two-bite portions of food meant to tickle the appetite. I was tickled already.
    Sally folded her hands together in prayer-like fashion and dipped her head demurely. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”
    “I guess he had time to Google you up and found out you were somebody,” I said when he’d left the table. “That’s great, because now we’ll get all kinds of goodies.”
    The goodies began to arrive in short order. In addition to the appetizers we had chosen, the waiter delivered three complimentary ones from Jean-Georges. Sally finished the soup she had ordered, tasted my crab spring roll, and was plunging her fork into a complimentary mushroom tart when she reached her free hand over to touch my hand, the one that wasn’t shoveling food into my mouth. “You’re still very sad about Richard, aren’t you?”
    “More disappointed. And still angry, I guess. But, truthfully, the breakup was coming for a long time. Our relationship wasn’t going anyplace. When we weren’t arguing, we were more like good friends than lovers. I just hate how it happened.”
    “It was mean. In my day, you did such things directly, like a gentleman. Unless, of course, it was during the war and you were in a hurry to marry someone else. Then you sent a ‘Dear John’ letter, but it was on decent