The Chosen

spacious beauty and peace. R.M. at The Emerald Room had been a good job but, she realized now, it had entombed her. There is life after the city, she amused herself with the thought. A better life.

“Come on, man, get with the map,” Dan B. complained at the wheel. “We almost there yet or what?”

“How about eating my shorts?” Lee returned, his lap full of a clutter of maps. “This thing says—”

“We’re about an hour away, Dan B.,” Vera verified. “It’s pretty much a straight shot up the route. Would you relax?”

“I’m excited, I can’t help it. I can’t wait to see the place.”

Neither can I, Vera wondered. If Feldspar was exaggerating, she’d know soon enough. A complete renovation of Wroxton Hall would cost millions. If Feldspar’s company had that kind of money to pump into refurbishments, she couldn’t imagine what kind of money he’d be able to sink into advertising and promotion.

“I don’t quite understand it all,” Dan B. queried. “This place is going to be like—”

”A country-styled bed and breakfast type of place,” Vera answered. “With a separate restaurant to cater to locals. Feldspar wants to target upper-market businessmen and rich people—a weekend get-away-from-it-all sort of thing. But he also wants a full-time restaurant to cater to the better-off people in the area. That’s where we come in. Feldspar says it’s cost-no-object; we’ll get to do pretty much what we want. He’s more concerned with the hotel operations himself. He’s entrusting the entire restaurant to me, or to us, I should say. The whole thing sounds really great, but what we have to remember is the only reason he’s paying us all this money is because he doesn’t want the headache. What he wants is a state-of-the-art dining room without having to worry about it himself.’’

“So if we fuck up,” Lee remarked, “our shit’s in the wind.”

“I’d put it a little more eloquently than that, but yeah. Feldspar seems like a real nice guy, but you can bet he didn’t get to where he is today by passing out second chances. If we don’t turn The Carriage House into something that meets all of his expectations, he won’t think twice about giving us our walking papers and finding someone else.”

“What are we all worried about?” Donna proposed. “We did it at The Emerald Room. We’ll do it here.”

“Damn right,” Vera said. “The Carriage House is going to blow Feldspar right out of his Guccis. I figure we’ll run with a menu close to what we had at The Emerald, but with a lot more exotic specials—”

“Just show me the kitchen,” Dan B. said.

“Feldspar’s talking anything and everything good. He doesn’t even care what the food invoices are. He just wants excellent food every night.”

“I’ll give him that,” Dan B. promised. “I’ll show him.”

“And excellent service.”

“I’ll give him that,” Donna said.

“And clean dishes, right?” Lee mocked.

“That’s right, Lee. Clean dishes. And I don’t want to see you sneaking carafes of beer into the back. This isn’t going to be like The Emerald Room—it’s going to be better. So I don’t want any fooling around back there. And no drinking during your shift, okay?”

Lee shrugged, smirking. “For twelve bucks an hour, I can even do that.”

Yeah, Vera