and nature. Good, competitive touch football games in the autumn followed by a cold beer made a hell of a lot more sense to him than spending hours in tight pants and silly little hard hats chasing some poor, terrified fox for miles and miles through the Virginia mud.
At the beginning, when she'd said she'd been thinking about Charlottesville as a location, he'd thought it was a strange choice. But she reminded him that fortunes had been made on such strange choices. No one thought Vegas was a food city before Puck and Emeril opened up there. No one thought rich New Yorkers would venture downtown to Union Square until Danny Meyer decided to open his Cafe there. And their research and marketing people assured him it was the right move. The D.C. intelligentsia and media folk had discovered the town over the past decade. They now had country retreats in the area. Even Hollywood had been coming in droves. A lot of the actors, producers, and directors who kept people's heads swiveling at the Jack's in L.A. and New York were now taking over the culture of the Virginia countryside. As the townspeople became more and more sophisticated, so too did the shops and the local theater. The only thing lagging behind was the food. All food explosions, he knew, followed two trends: coffee and bread. When serious coffee shops opened in a city, followed by upscale bakeries, the market was ready for top-of-the-line chefs. It happened in Seattle exactly that way. And Portland. San Francisco had not only followed that pattern, it had created it. And Charlottesville was filling up with wonderful quirky coffee bars and equally wonderful pastry and bread spots. Had been for a year now. The city was a bonanza waiting to happen for the right restaurant – the right name, the right combination of tastes, the right prices, and the right atmosphere – and Jack's was the perfect fit. Added to all of that, Charlottesville was also a huge tourist center, so close to Monticello, that testimony to the genius of man – or at least one man, Thomas Jefferson.
What pushed Jack into his final decision – although deep down, he'd known as soon as she suggested it that it was as good as done, as soon as he saw the pleasure in her eyes – was that he visited some of the Virginia vineyards and tasted some of the local wine. Not there yet, but getting there. The Alan Kinne Chardonnay was absolutely first-rate, satisfyingly oaky. The Dashiell Pinot Noir was fine, not far behind some of the midrange Washington and Oregon vineyards. And the Barboursville Cabernet was both delicious and a smooth fit with Jack's menu. In another few years, he could have a perfectly nice Virginia section on his wine list. He liked that idea. After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who'd introduced wine to the New World. The local reds would eventually go very nicely with some of the Southern adaptations of the restaurant's classic recipes.
So they agreed it was a go.
'Is it still fun for you?' she'd asked.
He'd thought a bit, surprised he had to think, then he nodded and said, 'It's still fun with you.'
She smiled – the answer had pleased and touched her – and she leaned over, kissed him on the top of the forehead, let her lips linger long enough that he could feel her breath rustling his hair.
They got a good deal on a location, in the middle of the brick-lined Downtown Mall, near enough to the glorious university so it felt as if they were hovering in Jefferson's overwhelming shadow, yet far enough away so as not to be lumped with the raggedy barbecue and burger joints or the more staid places with their fake Colonial decorations and wild melange of would-be sophisticated ingredients. Their staff came together easily, too, and would come easier in the future; Jack talked to the university and they agreed to start a small master's program in restaurant management. Not only would Jack and Caroline give several lectures a year, the students could apprentice in the new kitchen and on the floor. In the meantime, they brought several people up from Miami, including the manager, a wonderful woman named Bella who worked twenty-four hours a day. was scrupulously honest, and was in the midst of a not-very-friendly divorce, so that she was anxious to get out of town for a while. The sous chef in Chicago was definitely ready to take over his own place and staff, so when he willingly made the move, everything was set.
Now they were in the home stretch. One day to go before the opening.
Caroline had been down in Charlottesville quite a bit lately, two or three days a week for several months, making sure that this newest venture would run with the only two things that she demanded of everyone and everything around her: precision and elegance. He'd gone with her several times, of course, as often as he could, but there was much work to be done at home.
An overwhelming amount of work, really.
There was a lot more pressure being the president of the United States, Jack always said, but even the president didn't put in the kind of hours a topnotch restaurateur in New York did.
Now Jack glanced at the alarm clock: 4:45. He was fifteen minutes behind schedule.
I must be getting lazy, he thought. And then he went through, in his mind, what he had to do that day, and he laughed out loud. Lazy. Yeah, right.
With that, Jack started to swing his feet out of bed. But before they could touch the floor, he was startled to hear the phone ring. Then he was smiling, not so startled, as he picked up the receiver and, without asking who it was, said with mock sternness, 'Why are you up so early?'
'An annoying habit,' Caroline said on the other end.
'I've never been referred to quite that way,' he told her, 'but I guess it's better than nothing.'
'You're running behind schedule.'
'How do you know I'm not on my way out the door?'
'You sound too cozy. My guess is you're still in bed thinking about how much work you have to do.'
'Lucky guess,' he said.
Her response was a confident 'Mmmmm.'
Then she filled him in on what her day was going to be like, said that she was going back to sleep for a few hours, that she'd just felt like speaking to him before he headed out.
'You're talking so quietly,' he said. 'Everything okay?'
'Everything's perfect. It's just so quiet and peaceful here right now. It doesn't seem right to spoil it.'
'You, my sweet, are incapable of spoiling anything.'
'And you, my sweet, are going soft in the head. When are you coming down?'
'Tonight. I'll have an early dinner with Dom and then I think I'll drive. Probably leave around eight, get there around midnight. Should I come to the house or the restaurant?'
'Restaurant. I'll still be there. And you know you have a meeting with the Beauferme vineyard guy at five-thirty tonight,' she said. 'He wants to sell you a new Rhone.'
'Oh, Christ. I forgot.'
'Write it down.'
'He's going to want me to drink with him and I'm going to have to argue with him-'
'Write it down, please.'
'You know I don't taste wine that way. I don't drink with the salesmen. I drink it with dinner, the way you're supposed to drink it.'
'Write it down and stop whining. Or wining…'
'Very funny.'
'… as the case may be.'
'Even funnier.'
'Write it down.' And during the pause, as he made a face at the phone and waved his hand in the air, pretending to write down the information, she said, 'Jack, don't just make faces and humor me. Write it down.'
'I'll never understand how you do that,' he said. 'But it kind of steams me.'
'Oh,' she said. 'Will you bring the hunting rifle? I want to go shooting tomorrow.'
'It's here?'
'In the foyer closet. I brought it back to be realigned.'
'This ain't what I thought romance would be – 'Yes, darling, I'll bring your rifle.''
'Don't forget,' she said.
'I'm writing it down,' he said, and again he moved his fingers in the air.
'Go to work.'
'Sleep well,' he told her and then they hung up.
The next few minutes were as always: a trip to the kitchen to put the coffee on, a quick shower, a few moments to throw-on a pair of jeans and a comfortable sweater-shirt, back to the kitchen to pour a large mug of coffee, then a few steps over to the enormous wraparound balcony to sit – not too close to the rail, never too close to the rail – and sip the hot liquid, looking out, from on high, at the lights of the city caught in the fading night and
