Love, Life and Linguine - By Melissa Jacobs Page 0,3

he’s playing with DI money. The labor cost is double what it should be, but I expect Chef to fire half his kitchen staff before the end of the month. The wine list needs to be expanded once Chef is convinced that Burgundy isn’t the only region in France which makes excellent wines.”

My colleagues laugh. To Claire, I say, “You need to be tough with this chef. You need to know everything that goes on in that restaurant. When he cooks, when he doesn’t cook, who he hires, who he fires, how much he drinks, who he screws and how much his wife knows. DI’s made an investment in this man. Remind him of that. Understand?”

Claire blinks at me. “Okay,” she says.

“Mimi,” says Peter Exter, president of DI. “Your stilettos will be hard to fill.”

My farewell dinner takes place in Dine International’s office, which is a renovated brownstone complete with kitchen and dining room. We have to audition chefs, so it makes sense to have our own facilities. What Peter has arranged is a dinner featuring dishes from the four restaurants I opened this year in Philadelphia. Chicken satay with peanut sauce from Kai’s Thai, bouillabaisse from Brasserie X, paella from Blanco, and a huge dessert tray from Le Sucre. After dessert, my boss brings out the champagne. Veuve Clicquot. My favorite. “By the way,” my boss says, “we didn’t get food from Nick’s because you’ll be eating that for the rest of your life.”

“God I hope so,” I say. “Thank you, Peter, for this great party. DI has been my home and you all have been my family. Which is why I feel comfortable saying that, if you really love me, you’ll come into Il Ristorante and spend mondo money.”

Peter raises his glass. “Good luck, Mimi. Bonne chance, salud, and santé.”

By ten o’clock, the party is over. I’m only a few blocks from Il Ristorante. Might as well haul my jet-lagged tush over there and wait for Nick. What with all the crap in his office, Nick will probably forget about my suitcase.

When I get to the restaurant, the last diners are drinking six-dollar espresso concoctions. Smiling at the servers doing their closing side work, I walk through the kitchen and see the cooks cleaning their stations. When I get to Nick’s office, I knock on the door, but there is no answer. Has Nick left for the night? I have to get Olga. Using my key, I swing open the office door.

Nick stands with his chef pants around his knees. A young woman in a waitressing outfit kneels on the floor in front of him. At the sight of me, the girl’s jaw drops and I see that her tongue is pierced. That, for some reason, is the ultimate insult. I may have more money, more career success, and more intelligence than that girl. But she has a pierced tongue, and I don’t.

Olga, the Diva, and Me

Happy? I ask the diva as we stride up Walnut Street toward Rittenhouse Square.

Of course I’m not happy, the diva says. Listen, darling…

I’ve listened to you quite enough. If I’d gone straight to my office from the airport, I wouldn’t have left Olga at the restaurant. If I hadn’t gone back to the restaurant to get Olga, I wouldn’t have walked in on…that.

It’s better that you know, the diva says.

I don’t want to know, I say.

Oy, Olga says.

We reach Rittenhouse Square. I sit on a park bench and pull Olga next to me.

I can’t believe Nick did that, I say. And in front of Olga.

I saw the whole thing, Olga says.

Tell me what happened, I say.

You know what happened, the diva says. And you know why it happened.

We should go to Madeline’s, Olga says.

If I hadn’t listened to you, I tell the diva, I never would’ve dated Nick.

The diva is silenced.

Breakup Cake

“Oh, and I didn’t even tell you the funny part,” I say to Madeline.

There is no funny part, but Madeline is my best friend and will listen to whatever I have to say. She also has to listen because I am shouting. In her apartment.

“What’s the funny part?” Madeline asks calmly from her couch.

“I hired that waitress.”

Madeline sighs. “Chefs make horrible boyfriends and girlfriends.”

“You’re a chef.”

“That’s how I know,” Madeline says. “But I’m a pastry chef. Different species.”

Madeline is the executive pastry chef at Tiers, the homonymly unfortunate name of Philadelphia’s top wedding cake shop. Madeline is short and thin but muscular, with dyed blond hair and dramatic black eyebrows. She