The Last Reservation

Cyndi Farrell, a white woman of thirty-six, professionally annoyed, pushed through the door of Sergio's at 7:04 on a Friday night in late September. The dining room was packed. The exposed brick walls were sweating, or maybe that was the ceiling. Every surface she touched seemed faintly sticky.

She found Barry Whitaker, a tall Black man in a corduroy blazer, at the bar with a negroni and a smirk, which was honestly his most consistent look.

"You came," he said.

"You invited me. To discuss the cookbook display. That's a work obligation, Barry."

"Sure it is. Sit down."

She sat, mostly because the hostess was hovering and the barstool was the only territory not currently claimed by someone's coat. Barry pushed a menu at her as if he were handing over a peace treaty he fully intended to violate.

"I ordered you a negroni," he said.

"I drink chardonnay."

"I know. I ordered it anyway, because the bartender here makes the best one in the city and you're going to admit it."

"Or I'm going to drink my chardonnay and note in the minutes that you wasted four dollars."

The bartender, who had clearly heard worse conversations, set down a chardonnay without being asked. Cyndi took it as a small victory.

The hostess appeared then, a young woman with a clipboard and the confidence of someone who had never once lost a reservation. "Whitaker, party of two?" she said.

"That's us," Barry said.

"Anastasia," she said, sticking out her hand to Cyndi. "I'm Barry's cousin, so anything embarrassing he says tonight, I can confirm or deny from childhood records."

"She has no records," Barry said.

"I have photos, Barry."

Cyndi felt one corner of her mouth betray her. She hated that. Eight months of jockeying for the same promotion and here she was, smiling at the enemy's cousin. "Cyndi," she said, shaking the hand. "Librarian."

"Barry says you two are rivals," Anastasia said, leading them toward a table that did not obviously exist yet.

"We're colleagues," Cyndi said.

"We're rivals," Barry said. "She's threatened by my storytime voice."

"Your storytime voice is theatrical. You do a bear voice. Grown adults bring their toddlers and you do a bear voice."

"The bear voice is beloved."

"The bear voice is why the Friends of the Library newsletter called you 'a delight' and called me, and I'm quoting, 'aggressive.'"

"You did reorganize the 641 section with the energy of a woman clearing a building."

"That's called shelving, Barry. It's called doing the job."

Anastasia stopped at a two-top wedged against the brick and lit a candle that was already lit. "Okay," she said, in the tone of a woman making an executive decision. "You two are either going to scream at each other or fall in love, and either way I need you off the waitlist in ten minutes. Sit."

"We're colleagues," Cyndi said again.

"Uh huh," Anastasia said, and left.

Barry sat. Cyndi sat. She told herself the seating was tactical, since the alternative was standing in the doorway like a disappointed mail carrier. She'd been divorced two years, and she'd learned that most evenings were just negotiations about where to put your body until it was acceptable to go home.

"So," Barry said. "The cookbook display."

"The cookbook display," she agreed.

"I've drafted a plan."

"I assumed. I assumed you drafted it in a leather journal with a fountain pen, because you think you're a character in something."

"It's a spiral notebook," he said, wounded. "It's from the library supply catalog."

"From the discount bin."

"From the FREE BIN, which I feel is different in a way that matters."

She drank some chardonnay. It was, annoyingly, very good. She decided not to admit it, which she was pretty sure made the evening a tie so far.

A runner appeared and set down a plate of arancini without either of them ordering it. Golden, fist-sized, steaming.

"Compliments of the chef," the runner said, and vanished.

Barry leaned forward with the face he made in staff meetings right before he said something unforgivable. "Do you know the history of the arancini?"

"Barry."

"Because it's fascinating. Sicilian, obviously. The name means little oranges, because of the shape, and they date to..."

"Barry. I know what an arancini is. I've eaten food before. I've even read a book about food, which is a thing librarians do."

"I was going to say tenth century."

"You were going to say tenth century and then keep going for four minutes."

"That's fair," he admitted, and picked one up. "I spent five years in New Orleans, you know. Worked in a bookstore. Dated a chef. She'd have slapped my hand for talking over the food."

"New Orleans isn't Sicily."

"No, but the food logic is the same. Everything fried is a love letter. Everything braised is an apology."

"That's not logic, that's a greeting card."

"You should open a greeting card line. 'Sorry I burned the roux.'"

Despite herself, Cyndi laughed. Then she reeled it back in, because the man across the table was her direct competition for the head librarian job and laughing at his jokes was how you lost promotions. She had a spreadsheet about this. Somewhere.

"Here's my issue with your display plan," she said, getting to business. "You want to front-load the Italian titles."

"And you want to front-load the French ones, because you're a snob."

"I want to front-load what circulates. Jacques Pépin circulates. Your precious Sicilian home cooking book has been checked out four times since March, and one of those was me, for research."

"Research."

"Professional research."

"You checked it out to spite me."

"I checked it out to know what I was spiting. That's due diligence."

Barry bit into an arancini, chewed, and pointed the remaining half at her like evidence. "The fact is, this neighborhood used to be Sicilian. Three generations of it. The display should honor that."

"The neighborhood is now half yoga studio, Barry."

"Then the display should shame them. Food history as judgment. That's a theme."

"That's not a theme, that's a hostage situation."

Anastasia drifted past with a tray and paused, which Cyndi suspected was not an accident. "You two have been arguing for eleven minutes and neither of you has checked your phone once," she said. "That's basically a marriage."

"We're discussing the cookbook display," Barry said.

"You're leaning toward each other over a candle," Anastasia said. "I've seated a thousand dates. I know leaning."

"We're not on a date," Cyndi said. "He asked me to dinner to discuss a work project, which is a normal thing colleagues do."

"He asked you to dinner on a Friday," Anastasia said. "At the hardest reservation in the neighborhood. I gave up my uncle's anniversary table for this."

"You gave up what?" Barry said.

"Uncle Sal's going to be fine. He has the table every week. He just likes the drama of thinking he might not."

Dirk, the head chef, chose that moment to stick his head out of the kitchen, a wide man in a white coat with the expression of someone counting down to midnight. "Whitaker," he said. "Is this the librarian?"

"This is Cyndi," Barry said.

"The rival librarian," Dirk said. "He talks about you. At length. We have a book club partnership, so he talks about a lot of things, but mostly you."

"He exaggerates," Barry said.

"He does not exaggerate," Dirk said. "He once brought the arancini history to book club with visual aids."

"The visual aids were a map."

"They were a map you drew yourself," Cyndi said.

"Which is commitment," Dirk said, and disappeared back into the kitchen before anyone could agree with him properly.

Cyndi looked at Barry. Barry looked at Cyndi, wearing the specific face of a man whose cousin and chef had just jointly testified against him.

"So," she said. "The visual aids."

"There were visual aids."

"You drew a map. Of Sicily. For a book club."

"The club asked questions. I believe in answering with accuracy."

"You believe in answering with performance. There's a difference, and it's the difference between us getting this promotion and one of us getting it."

"One of us," Barry repeated, and something in his voice went quieter than she expected. "Yeah. That's the whole ballgame, isn't it."

He picked up his negroni. She picked up her chardonnay. Neither of them toasted anything, but they did both drink at the same time, which Anastasia, watching from across the room, counted as progress.

The main courses arrived, which meant Barry had to move his notebook off the table, which meant Cyndi finally saw how small the booth actually was. She had assumed the closeness was Anastasia's doing. It was not.

"You bribed her," Cyndi said.

"I incentivized her."

"You paid your twenty-nine-year-old cousin to put us in a booth the size of a filing cabinet."

"Incentivized. There's a distinction. Bribing implies wrongdoing. This was logistics." Barry cut into his branzino like someone buying time. "Uncle Sal's table seats six. This one seats two, and the two sit close, and close people talk instead of presenting slides."

"You manipulated the seating chart of a restaurant to force intimacy."

"Logistics," he said again, and she pointed her fork at him.

"You are the single most manipulative man I have ever shared a meal with, and I was married for nine years to a man who faked a