Page 39

SETTING THE TABLE

IN THE WEEKS before previews, Kostya hired bartenders and servers, runners and busboys, hosts and a ma?tre d’. He trialed florists and laundries and cleaning services. He unpacked endless boxes of linens in every imaginable shade of black. He ran through dinner service on the line, Rio and Ale and Big Mike and a dozen others making dishes to Kostya’s specifications, following his lead in the kitchen, calls of Heard that! and Seven buff chix all day! and Dorade on the fly for Table Six! music to his ears as the senior servers rapid-fired tickets for the rail. He finalized arrangements for the deliveries of food, single cases of hundreds of different ingredients, order sheets that drove Baldor and Rozzo and D’Artagnan crazy.

With all this going on, Kostya should have been laser-focused. Eating, sleeping, and breathing DUH. And he was, mostly. Whenever he wasn’t obsessively worrying about Maura.

He’d be in the kitchen, showing someone how to plate a dish, and picture her passing out while crossing the street. He’d be going over inventory with Rio, and pause mid-sentence, imagining Everleigh just showing up, uninvited, fire and brimstone and ghostly wrath. He’d be looking at a table Stella had set, staring too long at an embroidered napkin, envisioning some sort of Freaky Friday scenario—Maura and Everleigh trading places, one sister possessing the other.

Maura hadn’t had another episode since the hospital (at least, not that she’d admitted), but Kostya couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t telling him everything. Each time he asked about it, she waved him off. Eye-rolled. Laughed. Like he was making a croquembouche out of a donut hole.

And maybe he was! Maybe he was freaking out for no reason!

Or maybe his instincts in that hospital room had been right and Everleigh was responsible, was somehow drawing Maura toward those freaky deathless deaths. Maybe she was dangerous. Lashing out. And maybe Maura was protecting her, or in denial about the whole thing.

All Kostya knew was that he didn’t trust Everleigh, but that he had no idea what to do about it. Not that he had much time for ghostbusting even if he did.

After , he promised himself. Once DUH opened, once things were running smoothly, he’d revisit this thing with Maura and her sister. Hopefully, by then, she’d be ready to tell him the truth.

WITH TWO WEEKS to showtime, Kostya studied the etching on the entryway door— DUH by Executive Chef Konstantin Duhovny— and felt his hands shake. He traced the letters—of a name he didn’t even like!—and had to take several steadying breaths. Seeing it there, written, he felt like he’d finally arrived, not just on the culinary scene, but at the doorway to his life.

With a week to go, he walked through the space that they’d built—that he’d built—feeling as though he’d been reborn. The kitchen was breathtaking, soaring, its deco arches doming over top-of-the-line ranges, a row of ovens, salamanders and sous vides, two enormous walk-ins, a lowboy at each station, a reach-in freezer, a blast chiller, every imaginable kind of gadget reflected in the row of antique windows, the 6 Train shooting past at regular intervals, dazzled by the gleam.

Upstairs, the entry hall—dark-mirrored floor; curtains the color of smoke; an enormous host stand shaped like vertebrae—led to a cocktail chamber—leather and bone; chrome; black glass; the double bar fanning out from a central column of stools, like a rib cage—where guests would wait to be taken either to the main dining room or to a private aftertasting chamber. There were ten of these in all, five along each wall, flanking the sleek black tables and skeletal seating of the main dining room. Each chamber was enclosed in mercury glass, the décor within dim and minimalist, the lighting sultry and low, the effect like walking through a rhodium mine.

What you couldn’t see from the bar were the gaps in the mercury coating, places where light could bleed through the iridescent glass. When Kostya retrieved Stella’s mom, the lights that heralded her return had given Stella the idea. She designed the rooms so that, as diners met their ghosts, their chambers would glow from within, a preview for the next guests waiting to be reunited. A paranormal light show.

“Like an aurora of souls,” she’d whispered, showing him the sketch.

“It’ll be incredible, if it works.”

“ When ,” Stella corrected him.

THE WORLD—THE CULINARY world, at least—seemed to agree.

It was only a matter of time. Chef Duhovny, heretofore unknown (not even a chef!), was being heralded. There were articles in Time Out , in Epicurious , in Nosh and Foodie and Eats , all speculating on what would actually go down at DUH, and whether it was worth the hefty price tag. Several chefs he’d never met, as well as—color Konstantin surprised—Michel Beauchêne had come out in support of the endeavor, with hot takes like how Kostya was resurrecting FiDi’s culinary wasteland, bringing attention to worldwide traditions centering food and loss, reminding us how powerful the connection was between eating and mourning, and eating and memory.

They prerecorded a feature for Good Morning Manhattan , set to air the day before the opening, Kostya talking into a mic on a sound stage, bantering with the host as beauty shots of the restaurant aired on a screen between them:

“The space is just divine!” she gushed, grinning, her teeth blindingly white and square. “And speaking of divining—before we wrap, let’s set the record straight. I’ve heard some rumors that a meal at DUH includes more than just food.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Are you really offering people the chance to resurrect a loved one? And you’re saying you can do that through a meal?”

Kostya felt like someone was holding his hand to a hot burner, but he kept a calm smile plastered to his face.

“DUH means soul,” he said, reciting what he’d practiced with his media trainer. “At our restaurant, the goal is to create a reunion of souls, through food.” He wove the fingers of his hands together, cat’s cradle. “To bring diners—especially those who have lost someone—closure, by helping them revisit their past through taste. And whether raising the Dead is part of the dining experience at DUH”—he gave her the mysterious smile he’d practiced in the mirror, the come-find-out variety—“I’ll tell you that our food certainly offers a spiritual experience. Beyond that, you’ll have to get on the wait list and see for yourself.”

They’d been careful not to lead with the idea of ghosts in the press. To tiptoe around it, play it off like an intriguing mystery. The publicity team was adamant that mention of actual ghosts had a chance of blowing up in their faces, of making the whole thing into a joke. A gimmick. To make this work as a high-end, elevated restaurant, they had to sell people on the idea of the food first, and let the word of mouth—and there would absolutely be word of mouth—do the talking.

Which, it turned out, had been the right move.

When the reservation system went live, the available slots booked up in hours. By the end of the day, all the seatings—even unpopular ones, the early and late tables—were gone. Their week of previews, beginning in just a few days, had been filled way in advance; the publicist was actually turning media away, cherry-picking only the biggest outlets and most notorious critics.

“You better wow them next week,” she warned Kostya. “Some of these guys—they’ll make or break you.”

THE LAST FEW days were a ticking clock. Kostya worked the kitchen hard, his own anxieties—worries about impressing the critics, and Maura’s thing , and living up to the promise he was making every person who came to eat his food, a promise he wasn’t certain he could always keep—worming their way into every dish he made.

He overcooked chicken and undersalted liver and tore the skin right off the cod during demos. It was amateur. The kind of thing that would get you fired off the line at Saveur Fare. Worse still, when his guys fumbled an execution, he couldn’t explain what was wrong with their food, only that it didn’t taste right. They needed to be a well-oiled machine, but the assembly instructions were only in his head, difficult to articulate. You couldn’t “salt to taste” if you didn’t know what it was supposed to taste like .

His cooks all felt it, the saucier and chef de partie and even the lettuce-green commis (the stones on him!) ragging on Kostya until Rio stepped in and shoved them back in line.

“Yo, ballbusters! We’re days out and I don’t got soigné from any one of your stations. You got time to run your mouths, your food better be on point. Miguel, you got four buffalo soups on the fly. Let’s go, papi chulo ! Stephanie, I want livers—seven. You gonna give me a look? Make it eight. Ricky Martin—three tuna rye. And I walk in that pantry it better fucking sparkle.”

“Heard!”

“Yes, Chef!”

“On it, Chef!”

But privately, in Kostya’s office, Rio told him to get his shit together.

“You’re leading them into battle. You gotta show them you’re in control. That you got this. That you got them . You do that, they’ll follow you anywhere. But you fall, they fall. Feel me?”

THE NIGHT BEFORE previews, Kostya lingered in the restaurant long after his staff had gone home. He double- and triple-checked the dining room—Were the places properly set, the napkins folded, the silverware polished? Were there typos on the menus, nicks in the furniture, scuffs on the floor?—until it could have earned the approval of a stodgy English butler. He inventoried the pantry, the walk-in, the bar, running all sorts of scenarios and hypotheticals to make sure there’d be enough food. He turned all the lights in the place on and off, checking for dead bulbs, for short circuits, for fire risk—a painful snatch in his chest for Frankie as he tested the fire safety latch inside the walk-in—and then did the same with the sinks, the toilets, the water heaters, looking for leaks.

When he was done, Kostya stood in the dark in DUH, in his kitchen, and held a long breath. It was happening. The air felt thick with what he was about to do, this thing he was about to unleash, to usher into the world. There was something almost palpable in the room, like if he reached out just far enough, he could touch it.

He thought of his father, of how it would have felt to bring him here, cook him a meal, show him what he’d done. He would have been proud; he would have told him every single thing tasted delicious. He might still, when Kostya brought him back; next week, he’d promised himself. Once they opened.

He thought of Frankie, pain unfurling in his chest, a power blend of sorrow and guilt. It should have been him there instead, helming Manhattan’s hot new culinary kingdom. Kostya owed it to Frankie to make this place matter. To keep his flame alive.

He thought of the ghosts. All the ones he’d returned to life, their spirits overflowing with gratitude. All the ones he’d failed to resurrect, the unfulfilled promises of Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club. All the Living he’d helped and harmed, the diners who walked away floating and the ones who slunk back in grief, maybe more than before, because he’d given them hope that had never materialized. He didn’t want to make anyone feel that again.

Just stay the course, he reminded himself. The aftertastes had led him this far. And they’d take him to the finish line.

The 6 Train blistered suddenly past the windows, casting the kitchen in thunderous sound and strobing light. Kostya watched it race, his face reflected in the panes of glass, hovering among the gleaming counters, the knives and pans and tools. His own expression surprised him. It was the face of someone at home. Easy. Relaxed. Happy.

And then the 6 was gone, its light slurped into the mouth of the tunnel, the whole event so brief that he hadn’t even had time to look up, to lift his gaze just a few feet higher. If he had, he might’ve seen the other faces reflected in the windows’ panes, all the ghosts casing his kitchen, gathering like a storm.

WHEN KOSTYA FINALLY crawled home it was close to 3:00 AM. He stumbled through his dark apartment, stripping clothes in a bread-crumb trail. He was exhausted, and he’d have to be back at DUH in just a few hours for prep, but sleeping felt impossible now. This time tomorrow, either he’d be reprising this walk, peeling off his chef’s coat, his checks, his steel-toed kitchen shoes, in abject defeat, or he’d be across town, drinking heavily, hugging everybody, toasting his triumph with his entire staff.

He paused at his bedroom to pull off a sock and froze.

Maura’s skin was so pale in the moonlight, her body so still it barely looked like she was breathing. She was curled in his bed, violet hair across his pillow, fast asleep.

He hadn’t seen her all week—his schedule had been crazy, and they’d agreed he needed focus—but he’d missed her, more even than he realized, and seeing her there, waiting for him, sent warmth flooding through his chest. His heart felt full. Bursting.

She rolled over, blinked awake. “Honey, you’re home.” She gave him a sleepy smile.

“Honey, you’re here.” He sat down on the bed beside her.

“I wanted to be with you. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“Yeah.” He released a puff of air. “Real big.”

“It’ll be amazing.” She scooted up, leaned against him.

“I hope.”

“It will. Look at everything you’ve done.”

He gave a queasy smile.

“Hey, I know it’s hard, doing this without your dad. And Frankie. The people you love who—”

“You’re right here,” he whispered.

He felt it all welling inside him, joy in one hand, grief in the other. His jaw got tight. His eyes stung. His body ached, spent, but he was wide, wide awake.

“I—I love you, too,” she whispered back.

He’d felt it for months, maybe from the first time he laid eyes on her, but it was new now. Tremendous.

“No.” He shook his head.

“No?”

“No. I don’t love you, Maura. Not just love.” Her face was a question and the answers flowed out of him, things he didn’t have the words for, feelings like flavors. “It’s more. So much more.” He was staring at the floor now, afraid to look at her. “I adore you. I worship you. I like everything about you. Every single thing. Even the things you hate. Even the ones that scare you. You drive me crazy; not just spring fever raging-hormone teenage boy crazy, but out of my mind, conquer the world, run away with me crazy. You make me want things. You make me try. You make me happy—like stupid happy. Like I can’t imagine happiness without you. You make me feel alive. And I can’t imagine living, Maura, not without you. You’re my coffee. My wine. My—”

“Sugar?” She smiled indulgently at him, but he shook his head, hard.

“Salt.” He looked up at her, daring, nodding, finding what he meant. “You bring out the best of everything—the sweet, the sour, the bitter. You’re the reason to savor things. You’re the first seasoning, and the last. You’re the sea. You’re the stars. Life is built on salt, and I—I want to build mine with you.”

“Say it again,” Maura whispered, and he thought for a moment she was teasing, but her eyes were glassy, wet.

“I love you like salt.”

She blinked, and a tear streaked her face.

“I love you, too. Like that.” God, the way she looked at him. “Like salt.” She moved close, her breath against his face. “A circle of you keeps the bad stuff away.”

He wrapped his arms around her, fingers looped behind her back. A ring of salt.

She pulled him closer, down into the sheets.

“Make salt to me.”

IT WAS WINE, decanting in a glass. Breathing slowly, opening, releasing, transforming; growing full, and bodied, and smooth; their edges blurring, every sip softer, deeper, more complex and intense, dark fruit and terroir, tasting of all the places they had been, the barrels they’d aged in.

HE KEPT WAITING for her to vanish, for her eyes to empty, so brief he could almost convince himself he’d imagined it. But she didn’t; she stayed. She stayed the whole time.

It was he who disappeared instead, tasting something.

Maura squeezed his hand and there it was, in the back of his throat. Sweet grainy chocolate peanut. The edible haunting he kept on swallowing.

A craving—her sister’s—reaching for Maura, unwilling to let go.