Eight months ago near the end of spring last year, Celeste told him, ‘I’m forty-eight. If I don’t do this now, I’ll never do it.’
She had two hundred seventy-one thousand dollars saved over seventeen years for the sole purpose of opening a restaurant. But the tipping point was when her mother died about a year ago and Celeste inherited $185,000, and with that felt sure she had enough money. Her mother’s death also made life much more finite for Celeste. That started the summer of eating and looking at other restaurants and places for lease.
They had fun with it right up to the point where she signed a lease and the clock started. The second thoughts arrived then and the fear she was in over her head in a competitive city woke her at night. She planned to serve food at the bar but had last cooked professionally twenty-five years ago when she imagined a career as a chef before becoming a bartender and later a wine broker.
During the heatwave last September when city temperatures broke one hundred degrees for the fourth day in a row, she had an anxiety attack that almost derailed the project.
She wept and shook as she told him, ‘I’m wasting everything I inherited and all the money my mom saved on a vain idea. I’ll get panned in the first reviews and will never be able to compete.’
But by then she was committed to the lease and had already spent fifteen thousand on architectural drawings. She broke out in hives. She fought panic with manic focus on restaurant design and construction and by testing drink recipes at home. But the low point was yet to come. It arrived a month later as she got the first construction bids from two general contractors, both of whom had come highly recommended.
The bids were nearly double what her architect had estimated. She found a third contractor and got another bid, then two more before realizing that she needed to scale back her plans radically. She kept the idea that you could still eat at the bar or a bar table. Not a restaurant style meal, and very casual eating, with the idea there would be six to eight small plates and always pizzettas. You’d get paper napkins not cloth but food would be part of the draw. She focused on the mixology, on bartending, on a culture that would treat customers like friends.
She didn’t have to but she also focused on sustainable. She found recycled materials. She bought used bar equipment and chairs and tables. She refinished the tables with Raveneau’s help. She found a used pizza oven and the architect came up with a way to capture waste heat from the bar dishwasher, running plastic Pex lines embedded in the concrete bar top so if you rested your elbows on the bar top concrete they would stay warm.
She fought. She negotiated. The flue rebuild became yesterday’s problem. The Health and Building Departments signed off. A local advocate for handicap rights came by and measured the bathrooms. Then Bo Rutan pulled up in his old El Camino with Louisiana plates saying he had in fact trained in Rome not New Orleans. He was in chef whites making pizzas when Raveneau walked in tonight.
‘It’s really up to the bar,’ Celeste had kept saying. ‘The bar will make or break the place.’
There were twenty-five small tables and rattan chairs, a floor of reclaimed bamboo. The old beams of the ceiling were exposed, the walls white-painted and softly lit. He caught her eye now and she waved for him to come around the back. Her forehead was moist with heat from the oven, face flush, eyes lit with excitement and happiness. People looked happy and it felt right to Raveneau. She pulled him around the corner out of sight of the bar.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s going to work.’
‘You like the bar.’
‘Yeah, it’s got a good feel.’
‘I’ll come out in a few minutes. It’s been crowded like this since we opened the doors at five thirty. Kiss me and tell me some of these people will come back.’
‘They will.’
Raveneau saw la Rosa walk in. She spotted him immediately, looked at his clothes and asked, ‘Did you even go home?’
‘Never got a chance.’
‘How did it go?’
‘It’s all set up. It’s working.’
‘How long before the media gets it?’
‘My guess is a week at the most.’
‘I’ll bet it’s out in less than three days.’
‘Let’s get you a drink and then let me introduce you to someone.’
When Raveneau touched his shoulder Ryan Candel turned from his friends. He looked drunk. He looked puzzled. He asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘This is my partner, Inspector Elizabeth la Rosa.’
Candel waved one of the smooth rounded glasses Celeste had searched for months to find. It held a dark rum drink.
‘Hello, Inspector Elizabeth.’
The drink slipped through his fingers, almost fell, and one of his friends said, ‘That would have sucked.’
Candel gestured with his glass toward his friends. ‘These are my drinking friends.’ He turned and pointed with the glass at Raveneau. ‘This detective here is looking for my dad. Together we’re going to prove he was a murderer. Isn’t that right, Inspector? We’re hunting the fucker down.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, Dad. We’re coming for you.’
On his left la Rosa said, ‘The place is beautiful. Introduce me to Celeste. Let’s get away from these guys. I don’t need this tonight.’