Chapter 1
ONE
NOW: MARCH (THREE MONTHS LATER)
Sam’s always liked that about it. When he was a child, he’d loved a picture book called The Little House, about a house that watched a whole city get built around it.
Even then it had made him think of the deli, and his aunt’s warm, practical presence within.
He’s glad the place can’t help but stand out.
It allows Silverman’s to distinguish itself from its surroundings as something worth noticing.
Currently it’s distinguishing itself by way of the cacophony coming from the little break patio around the back of the building, but Sam doesn’t imagine that’s doing much for their marketing.
“It’s character assassination, that’s what it is.
For restaurants. Restaurant assassination.
Not to mention libel.” Alphonse, who was the Head Chef when Sam took over as General Manager, has been both the Kitchen Manager and the Head Chef for the last few years.
The man insists, very fairly, that it’s two jobs and he can’t possibly keep doing both, but is equally insistent in refusing to give either of them up.
He keeps saying things like “I’ll fight any challengers to the death!
” Sam thinks he’s spending too much time at work, and it’s made him a little hysterical.
Then again, he might not have any right to judge, because:
“I know! I know! And do you know what else? I’ve been through every ticket and I’ve double checked every order and no one, I mean no one, who dined in has ordered that combination of things in the last year.
So how many rats, I ask you, could Mr. Norman Endicott possibly have seen?
None! That’s how many! He never came in!
It’s all a conspiracy!” Sam, realizing he’s beginning to sound like someone you might see on the news for bad reasons, takes a breath and tries to calm down.
Alphonse, next to him, does the same, and they slump together for a moment against the brick.
They’re talking about the Kiss of Death review.
How could they not be talking about the Kiss of Death review?
Since it was published two months ago in Hearth Magazine, and splashed across their website and social channels, it’s all anyone at Silverman’s has been talking about.
Even when they try not to—even when they resolve, very firmly, to stop bringing it up—the conversation drifts inexorably back towards it.
It’s as though they can’t quite resist the temptation, the way the pain of pushing a stretch too far can feel almost good, right up until the moment you tear something.
Also, the whole topic has the added air of an unsolved mystery, due to the sheer volume of unanswered questions associated with it. Questions like:
Why would Hearth, an incredibly famous publication that punches in the same weight class as The New Yorker or Harper’s Bazaar, run a vicious hit piece on a deli in Cleveland, Ohio?
For that matter, why would Kiss of Death, the equally-if-not-more-famous review column that Hearth occasionally publishes, go after Silverman’s?
Sam’s been reading it for years. He’d been a huge fan until two months ago.
But he’d liked it because it always punched up, targeting high-end places in much bigger cities, restaurants that were cheating their clientele or mistreating their staff.
Norman Endicott didn’t take down local mom-and-pop shops in the Midwest!
His whole brand was attacking celebrity chefs who were selling people bad Camembert or moldy squash blossoms!
Speaking of Norman Endicott: Who the hell did he think he was?
Had he lost his mind? The whole article was full of lies, one thing after another that Sam knew couldn’t possibly be true.
That Sam has spent many, many years of his life ensuring would never be true!
The man had suggested seeing both roaches and rats, although in a sneaky, tongue-in-cheek way that didn’t actually go so far as to constitute libel.
Apparently. Sam had checked that one with a lawyer, who was both condescending and deeply unhelpful, and Sam was sorry he’d bothered.
Speaking of lies, who were the mysterious unnamed sources who claimed they’d gotten multiple rounds of food poisoning from Sam’s kitchen?
Why didn’t any of them call in and say something?
To the state, even, if not to the deli itself?
What, exactly, had poisoned them? Sam’s fairly certain that on a batch-wide level, nothing has left his kitchen without his at least tasting it in months, and he’s a stickler on the food-safety rules to the point that his staff tease him about it.
But nothing’s impossible—a tainted batch of something straight from a supplier, a one-off bad piece of chicken, things happen.
Sam would just have liked to be told, if it was true, although he suspects very strongly that it wasn’t.
And, somehow worst of all, Endicott had hated the food.
How could he have hated the food? Obviously, deep in his heart, Sam knows that not everyone likes his food.
He can even admit that the menu is a little dated, to put it a lot more mildly than the article did.
But the article talked about the flavors and the textures being wrong, the temperatures being off.
He’d even suggested there was a whiff of rancidity to some of his dishes, which is just impossible.
Silverman’s food is good! It has been good for seventy-five years!
Sam would sooner die than serve a rancid batch of anything!
Mostly to himself, he mutters, “It must have been one of those delivery apps.”
“I said we shouldn’t do the delivery services,” Eileen puts in, sharply, from the back.
Silverman’s Head Baker for as long as Sam can remember, she had been a ferocious, graying terror of a woman even when he was a child.
The only thing that’s really changed since then is her hair; the “ing” in “graying” has long since left the building.
Sam groans, but his voice is good-natured as he says, “I know you did, Eileen. We all know you did, because you remind us every time we get slammed.”
“Well! Just because I think you should listen to me sometime, that’s all!
” She sniffs, clearly offended in spite of Sam’s best efforts, and disappears back into her half of the kitchen.
That’s Eileen all over—she loves to dish it out but can’t even begin to think of taking it.
Sam sighs, wrestles down the urge to go make peace.
He’d tried that with Eileen for years, with inevitably frustrating and terrible results, until Deb had gently pulled him aside and told him that with some people it was best to leave things alone and let moments of discomfort flow away without further discussion.
So instead of giving in to his desire to smooth things over and make it all fine, Sam turns back to Alphonse and says, “I tried to call the magazine, you know. Have them retract it.”
Alphonse blinks at him, surprised. “Wait, really? I didn’t know that. You called Hearth? When?”
“Last month.” Sam rubs the palm of his hand briefly against his forehead, as though trying to force his growing tension headache up and out through the top of his skull.
“I called to see if I could talk to Endicott and ask him what the hell happened, and they said he was out of town, so then I asked if I could talk to his editor and they connected me to some… well, some person!” Sam wishes that he had a more unfriendly descriptor to use, but he’s honestly hesitant even about “person,” since whoever he spoke to had been so flat and nondescript as to be essentially a robot.
“They said, ‘On what grounds would you like the review retracted, Mr. Silverman?’ and I said, ‘It’s Adelson, actually, and on the grounds that it ripped us a new one over a series of things that I know aren’t true, and also, I’m pretty sure Norman Endicott’s never even been here!
There was no fact-checking, and nothing about the seventy-five-year history of the place or the dying deli culture in Cleveland or any research or anything.
I don’t think it’s fair to call us “an overrated, outdated stain on the otherwise delightful West Ninth Street,” especially in a column that usually focuses on places that charge hundreds of dollars per plate.
Places with Michelin stars!’ And they said, ‘Well, it’s an opinion piece, Mr. Silverman, anyone can have an opinion,’ and I said, ‘Again, my name is Sam Adelson,’ and they said, ‘Oh, so sorry, I must have picked up the wrong extension then,’ and hung up! ”
Sam is breathing hard by the end of this little speech.
Alphonse is looking at him like maybe he thinks that Sam spends too much time at work, which, in all fairness, would not be wrong.
This is one of the dangers of having your apartment directly above your place of business, especially when that apartment technically still belongs to your aunt, and you feel guilty about changing anything around from the way she’s always kept it.
Not wanting to share this with Alphonse, and hoping, at last, to set aside the topic of the Kiss of Death review, Sam sticks his head back into the building and yells, “Anyone need anything? Any new customers?”
“Doornail,” Joey—the deli’s current primary counter minder, cashier, and customer wrangler—calls from the front.