Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Bianca
I get to Regalia before the dinner shift starts and tell myself I’m only here to watch.
Not to cook. Not to fix. Just to see how the place works without Nonna hovering in the doorway with a spoon and a word.
I pull the metal gate up and step inside.
The bell on the door does its little ring.
The room smells like tomato and cleaner, and wood that’s seen a lot of elbows.
The front windows fog at the bottom, just as they always do after lunch.
The lights are off except for the bar glow and the red “EXIT” sign.
I stand a second to let my eyes catch up, then head for the kitchen.
The swing door bumps my hip. Heat meets me.
The big pot is on low, lid cocked. The red sauce has that lazy roll that says it’s been tended to all afternoon.
Steam carries tomato, garlic, the last edge of wine burned off.
Carmen’s at the prep table, slicing basil into ribbons so thin they’re almost thread. She doesn’t look up.
“You’re early,” she says.
“Just observing,” I say. I wash my hands even though I’m supposedly just watching. Habit.
She flicks her eyes at me. “Observing, huh?”
“Yes,” I say precisely. “Observing.”
“Uh-huh” is all she says.
Carmen keeps working. The knife rhythm is clean, no wasted motion. She brushes the basil into a deli tub and snaps the lid.
“Ma here?” I ask.
“Up front with Tomas,” she says. “Probably arguing.”
The walk-in hisses when Elio duck-walks out with a bin of lemons. He nods at me, then at the pot. “On point,” he says, proud of it like it’s his.
I drift to the pass. Lowboys are stocked.
Squeeze bottles lined up like soldiers—oil, lemon, chili, balsamic, one unlabeled that I open and sniff.
Anchovy. Good. The grill is hot; Carmen throws a test piece of bread and watches it mark.
Fryer reads two-seventy-five. I make a note to bump it when the second basket drops. In my head. Not out loud.
The back door pushes in, and the bread guy shoves a plastic tote through, says, “Bread,” and is gone. He never waits to be thanked. Carmen slides the tote into the rack, covers it with a towel, done.
Francesca comes through the door like a small storm.
Black slacks, white blouse, hair sprayed so tight nothing will move.
She doesn’t see me first. She goes straight to the red, lifts the lid, stirs once, tastes.
Her face doesn’t give much. She parks the spoon in the same porcelain rest Nonna used, in the groove the old woman wore into it. Then she sees me.
“You’re here to work?” she asks. The tone is neutral. The eyes aren’t.
“Just to watch,” I say.
“Then keep your hands in your pockets,” she says, and goes to the board.
I do a lap through the dining room. Tomas has the chart open at the podium, a pen behind his ear, glasses sliding down.
He runs me through the book: “Five-thirty two-top window, six o’clock a four, six-thirty a six with a high chair, seven o’clock city hall trio—‘no photos’—and the usual amount of walk-ins. ”
Zia is polishing glasses, eyeing each one carefully. She glances up. “Coming to work?”
I stifle a sigh. “Just watching tonight,” I say.
“Good girl.” She goes back to her glasses.
After a while, the sign is flipped to OPEN, and the door chimes immediately.
Everyone pushes their shoulders back and pastes on a smile.
First in are the Schultzes, table three.
Apparently, they do the same order every time but they pretend it’s all a surprise.
After them, two suits slide onto bar stools and ask for Negronis.
A family with a stroller squeezes through, already apologizing about not having a reservation.
Zia waves them quiet and parks them near the corner with space for the stroller.
Back in the kitchen, the first tickets hit. “Two meatballs, one clams, one salad, no onions,” Carmen calls. The line repeats without looking away from their pans. The printer starts its cough.
I post up by the pass and watch. My mother stands where Nonna stood for thirty years—center, one step back, eyes everywhere. She checks plates without scolding. She wipes what needs wiping. She moves a parsley leaf like it matters. It does. She doesn’t talk unless there’s something to say.
“Bibi,” Elio says, sliding by with a pan of dishes to clean. “Since you’re just standing around tonight, want to pitch in on dishes?”
“Just watching tonight, Elio,” I repeat for the millionth time.
Carmen flicks her eyes up at me. “How long you staying in ‘observe’ mode before your hands start doing things on their own?”
“We’ll see.”
She snorts, goes back to the sauté. The flame licks up, and she doesn’t flinch.
Out front, Tomas is playing traffic cop, but charmingly. Two tables arrive at the same time; he smiles at both, sits one, buys time with olives for the other.
The room fills. The printer speeds up. The grill guy curses when a steak gives him trouble. He presses with his finger, tests the give, calls it correctly. Marnie runs desserts early to defuse a whiny kid; she’s been doing this long enough to know when to sugar-bomb preemptively.
A ticket hits the rail: Two “whatever Sabina would have wanted.” Francesca looks at it for half a second and says, “Eggplant.” Carmen’s already salting the slices.
The smell off the pan is right—oil, garlic, a hint of scorch.
Cheese goes on, then under the salamander. It bubbles, sets, comes out clean.
I don’t touch it. I want to.
I do short loops. Host stand, bar, kitchen, alley door.
I clock small things. The lowboy is light on butter.
The fryer dips when both baskets drop. Table six’s leg still wobbles unless you wedge the shim the right way.
The air vent near two is too cold. I file each thing and say nothing. My hands stay in my pockets. Mostly.
Francesca glances at me after tasting the red for the third time. She drizzles a thin line of oil to finish the dish and sets it on the pass. Then moves on.
At 6:00, the room is loud enough to feel it in your chest. People lean in, and laughter booms. Forks scrape.
A kid taps his glass until his mother takes it, and he taps the table with his finger instead.
Theo sells a good bottle of red to a table that only wanted glasses.
He’s good like that. Zia explains aglio e olio with a smile, even though she’s probably done it about a thousand times before.
Back in the kitchen, the clams come back gritty.
Carmen swears in two languages. “Fire again,” my mother says evenly and without heat.
Elio double-checks the rinse, runs a finger through a shell like he’s feeling the beach.
New plate goes out. Problem solved, no lecture. I nod to myself. That’s how you do it.
I get stopped by Mrs. DeLuca on my way past table nine. She grabs my wrist like she always has and says, “Tell your mother the sauce is right,” then pats my hand like she’s stamping approval. “And eat. You’re too thin.”
“I’m tall,” I say. Reflex. She smirks.
At the pass, a new server bumps a plate and says, “Sorry,” and Francesca says, “Say ‘behind,’” acting the teacher. The girl says “behind” to the air and moves on.
I keep making mental notes I’ll hate myself for later. Sink sprayer leaks. Salt crock needs a lid. The salad guy is heavy-handed with dressing on the arugula. Theo’s white wine is frosty to the point of ruin. Small things. Fixable tomorrow, not tonight.
Tomas brings me water because Zia sent him. I drink because I always forget to. “You sure you don’t want an apron?” he asks, half-joking.
“I’m sure,” I lie.
The noise downstairs passes through the ceiling and into my aching head. Laughter, the clink of forks, a burst of plates through the pass, the printer coughing. It’s all normal, but without Nonna moving through it like a current, it feels wrong.
Too loud in some places, too quiet in others. I tell myself I’m only here to watch and end up standing at the bottom of the stairs like a kid who needs five minutes.
I take them.
The hallway upstairs is cooler. The air smells like old paper, and the faint metal tang of the old radiator, even though it’s not cold enough yet for it to be on.
The carpet is the same short, brown stuff that’s been here forever, hammered flat in the center from decades of feet.
Even my feet. The light over the landing flickers and adds something else to the growing list in my head.
I lean a shoulder against the wall and let my heartbeat settle.
From here, the restaurant sounds are a little softer, like a radio in another room. The floor under me vibrates a little when someone drops a pan on the line. I could stand here all night and not be missed. That thought makes my chest feel tight.
But not Nonna. She’s missed. By everyone.
I touch the banister. Smooth wood, nicked in the same places my fingers know by heart.
I head for the office.
It’s at the back, just past the storage closet and the weird dead-end turn where the wall angles because of the old chimney.
The office door is usually open, fan rattling, ledger on the desk, pen jammed through the spiral of one of the order pads because Nonna always lost those “damn pen caps.” I need that room like a breath of fresh air, a drink of cold water.
Just to sit in her chair for a minute. Maybe flip a page in the book and see numbers that will tell me what I already learned from observing downstairs.
Halfway there, I hear voices.
I stop with my hand on the cool plaster.
The door is mostly closed. Not shut all the way.
A wedge of light cuts across the hall. I know my mother’s voice anywhere.
The thin thread in it when she’s trying to keep herself calm.
The other voice is deep. Not familiar. Calm in a way that makes the hair on my arms stand up.