Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Also at the café on opening day were the hosts Patty and Joan had hired thus far, three women and two men, whose ages spanned twenty-five to seventy.
Lee was in the back, helping to prepare drinks and plate dessert; Jamie was in training and unable to come.
Joan had also invited the local newspaper, The Palo Alto Gazette .
They had run an article about the café’s opening weeks prior, a result of her first and only attempt to seek “press.”
Nelson came to the opening. He showed up on time, as he knew how terrible it was to throw a party and have everyone decide to arrive fashionably late while you paced the house and the food got cold.
As he’d feared, he was the first guest, although Joan didn’t seem to mind. She said hello and led him to a table.
“It looks wonderful done up like this,” Nelson said.
He’d visited the space months earlier, when he’d reviewed the business paperwork with Joan.
“I’ll be honest, when you first told me the idea, I was worried.
But it’s not so different from paying a therapist for an hour, or chatting with a stylist while they cut your hair, is it?
As long as everyone feels it’s a suitable arrangement.
” Nelson spent most of his own days assuaging clients, making them feel good, more prepared and less anxious.
And he didn’t get to eat club sandwiches and drink tea while doing so.
“Yes,” Joan said happily. “You understand.”
Suspended over their table was a chandelier from which dangled white iridescent shells. Nelson told Joan he liked her dress, which was deep green and went to the calf. “You should wear more color.”
Joan asked what he thought of the furniture, which she said she was renting. “I wonder if I’m being too picky.”
“I like the chandelier,” Nelson said diplomatically.
He did not like the tables or chairs—it was precisely their unoffensive nature that he found off-putting.
As they sat together, Nelson was aware, very much so, of no other guests arriving.
How awful it would be if no one came! He kept up a steady stream of prattle while observing Joan; she didn’t seem nervous, which he admired, for he knew she must be very nervous and was only trying to save both of them from the emotion.
And then: finally! The door did open—and a person entered, a new person, a man wearing eyeglasses and a soft jacket. He had a dry cough which drew everyone’s attention.
The man took a few steps. “Is this the Satisfaction Café? I read about it in the paper. Is it for real? You have some food and a conversation?”
There went through the café what felt like a collective exhale. “I’ll let you attend to business,” Nelson offered, but Joan waved this off.
“They don’t need me,” she said. She watched Patty settle the man at a table, after which she brought over one of the hosts, a former trucker named Tracy.
Tracy possessed a high energy, as well as an unending string of exciting and bizarre stories from the road.
Tracy greeted the customer, and after a few minutes Patty delivered a bottle of sparkling water and a generous slice of lemon cake. Soon after, the customer was laughing.
“I bet you’re feeling wonderful,” Nelson said.
“I am,” Joan said. And she was. Joan had worried that when the café opened, she would feel deflated, as if it might have been only the concept that interested her, an idea which lost all its fizz once the various compromises and practicalities were revealed.
How awful it would be to invest all this time and then feel nothing!
But no, she had so much joy. Not only that, but her joy was spilling out into the very air around her—she had so many ideas!
Perhaps one day they could offer a service for hosts to teach social skills— because Joan knew how unfair it was when a perfectly lovely person missed out on all sorts of things in life simply because no one had ever taught them how to behave.
Or lessons on flirting, or how to walk up to a group of strangers already in conversation and successfully insert yourself.
And how about a special service, a confidential and objective means of assessing how good-looking you were!
Joan had always wondered whether she was good-looking; it would be nice to settle that (although she ideally would have learned this earlier).
Wasn’t that a smart idea? And perhaps they could expand the menu, add some of her favorites, like fried chicken—but they’d have to buy more equipment, maybe extend the kitchen. How much would that cost?
“Do I have enough money?” Joan asked suddenly.
“Joan, you know I am not a financial adviser,” said Nelson, who nonetheless knew she did have enough money.
He had confirmed with Joan multiple times: Do you understand you are giving up Falling House, not just now but likely forever?
Do you understand how hard owning a business can be?
But she had insisted, and so he hadn’t pressed further.
Ah, well: Joan had made her choice. Nelson had certain clients who were always comparing, going back in time, litigating whether they’d received the best of all possible outcomes.
If only I hadn’t married so-and-so, they said.
If I’d just closed that big deal. Optimizers, Nelson called them.
He attributed it to human nature—if there existed a hundred universes, it was understandable for people to want to live in the best one.
To be the most happy. Though in Nelson’s experience, happiness was only a concept, anyway: a clever, slippery creature that slips through your hands right at the moment when you think you’ve finally caught it.
Later that evening Nelson was surprised to discover, looking around, that the café was full. Most of the tables were occupied, and Joan had resumed greeting customers. Adam called, and Nelson went outside.
“Where are you?” Adam asked.
“My client’s opening. The Satisfaction Café. I told you about it.” Adam never remembered anything.
“Oh, right. How many cocktails have you had?”
“There’s no alcohol. They have tea and coffee and pastries.”
“I thought there were going to be champagne fountains and exotic dancers. Men in jackets without shirts.”
“It’s not that sort of place.” It seemed to Nelson that Joan had deliberately designed the café to prevent anything untoward.
While the tables were far enough apart for private conversation, the arrangement was open, observable, and the entire space well lit, with the refined but asexual air of an English garden.
“You’re not actually going to have a conversation or whatever it is, are you? You hate talking about yourself.”
“I might,” Nelson said, surprising himself, and he could tell that his answer surprised Adam too.
Well, I should surprise him, Nelson thought.
He’d known for months, maybe years, to be honest, that they were becoming stale—age had crept in and instead of putting up a fight both of them had settled into its soft crevices.
They went shopping at warehouse clubs now and had specific seating preferences for air travel.
It wasn’t bad, but sometimes, even if you weren’t lonely, it was nice to have different.
When Nelson went inside, Patty informed him there was only one host available, a young, somewhat sullen-looking woman with dirty-blond hair.
“Is that acceptable?” Patty asked, looking curiously at him. Nelson shot a millisecond’s look at one of the occupied hosts, a surfer sort who resembled (only a little, but it was enough) a young Paul Newman.
“It’s fine,” Nelson said.
His host was named Gina. “How do you know Joan?” she asked as they took their seats.
Was she supposed to ask that? Wasn’t she supposed to treat him like any other customer? “I’m her lawyer.”
“That’s cool.” Gina opened the menu and placed it flat before him. “I’ve already eaten, so just get whatever you like.”
“What qualifies you to do this?” The question came out harsher than intended, but he was irritated, for both himself and Joan, as Gina didn’t seem professional at all.
“I’m not usually a host,” Gina said. “I was hired for the kitchen. But we’re only doing dessert today, so I’m helping out up front.”
“Then you’re a chef?”
“Yup. I used to work at Mountain House.”
“Huh,” Nelson said, opening the menu while he collected his thoughts.
For Mountain House was Nelson’s favorite nice restaurant in San Francisco; he’d been trying to land a reservation for months.
The place utilized a rather maddening booking system—requests were taken at precisely eight p.m. on voicemail, and the line was always busy.
What kind of chef had Gina been? Why had she left?
And, more importantly, could she get him a dinner booking, preferably a four-top near the back corner?
Gina knew what Nelson was thinking. She recognized from prior interactions with the moneyed and fussy that sometimes they had to release a certain amount of hostility before settling down.
“I was a pastry chef,” she said once he’d ordered.
“Though before that, I did savory. Sixty-, seventy-hour weeks for years . The head chef, Dion, he’s all right.
But he leaves all the operations to his partner, and Fredric is a jerk.
He harassed a bunch of the staff and finally we all quit. ”
“It seems terribly unfair that one bad apple could cause so many problems.”
“That’s how it usually is, in my experience.”