Fed Up - By Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant Page 0,59
Josh would never cheat on me, would he? If not, why was he was getting secret calls from unknown women? But this was clearly not the right time to push him on the subject of her identity; although I hadn’t tackled him about her, we were already verging on the seriously irritable.
While I was changing clothes, I heard Josh turn the water off and then heard him talking. He had his phone in the bathroom with him, and I couldn’t help sticking my head into the hallway to eavesdrop.
“Dig? It’s me. Just FYI, Chloe is coming out with us. So just don’t say anything, okay? Cool. We’ll see you there in an hour.”
Don’t say anything about what? I didn’t like Josh’s odd behavior one bit, but I had to trust him not to keep anything important from me. I’d just have to suck it up and act maturely; he’d talk when he was ready.
“Babe? How’s La Morra sound to you?” When Josh opened the bathroom door, he looked totally normal, as though he hadn’t just made that cryptic phone call to Digger.
“Good. I love that restaurant.”
While I finished getting ready to go out, Josh spent twenty minutes snuggling Inga and cooing to her. “Who’s so pretty now? Who is all clean and cute and gorgeous? Aren’t you lucky to be living here with Chloe instead of with that nasty shithead who starved you and didn’t brush you? We won’t talk about what might’ve happened to you, okay? Gimme a kiss.” I heard goofy kissing noises coming from the living room.
Josh and I got to the restaurant a few minutes early and were seated at a table near the bar, where we had a view of the semiopen kitchen. La Morra was a northern Italian restaurant on Boylston Street in Brookline. Wood beams ran across the ceiling, and the wood tables were set with colorful place mats and white dishes rimmed with a warm yellow. The staff at La Morra were consistently warm, and the whole restaurant had a wonderfully cozy and rustic feel to it. Also, as I knew from previous visits, the food was fantastic. My mood improved the second we sat down.
“S’up, kids?” Digger’s rough voice echoed across the restaurant.
We waved to him, and then Josh stood up to shake his hand. Digger leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek before grabbing the seat next to Josh.
Our waitress welcomed us, handed us menus, and took our drink orders. The menu here began with cicchetti, which were preappetizers, little mouthfuls of amazingly delicious snacks. Digger, who was working at a small tapas restaurant in the South End, was bound to become a fan of these small dishes.
I looked up from the menu. “We have to get the Tuscan meatballs with porcini and prosciutto. And also the fried risotto balls.”
“Fried olives, too,” Josh added.
“Nice!” Digger agreed. “And then for antipasti, we’re getting the savoy cabbage salad with pomegranates, hazelnuts, and bagna càuda.” The bagna càuda was a strong anchovy and garlic dip that I could practically drink. “Do you guys mind sharing the soup?”
The lobster soup with spaghetti squash and toasted pumpkin seeds was another of my favorites. I certainly didn’t mind sharing a bowl with Josh and Digger.
Josh added his request. “And I pick the shaved sunchoke salad with pickled mushrooms and frisée.”
We spent a few more minutes deciding on main courses before placing our order and returning the menus to the waitress.
“Digger, you’ve recovered fully from Monday’s fiasco, I hope?” I asked the chef.
“Tough as an ox.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I could’ve used a few days off from work though, so maybe it’s too bad I got better so quickly.” He grinned slyly.
“Why? What’s going on there?”
“Ah, it’s a wreck. The servers suck, and they’re totally obnoxious. Every night they let the orders sit out until they’re practically bone cold, and then they get sent back. It’s crap, I tell ya! I can’t even believe I’m off tonight. I’ve worked the past two weeks straight, except for last Monday, and the goddamn owner is on my case about keeping food costs down.” Digger took more than a sip of his wine. “Did you see the Mystery Diner’s write-up about us? Frickin’ hated the place. Hated everything about it. The food, the decor, the staff. Everything. And you know what? He was half-right, too. The service is awful, and the customers get treated like shit.”
Digger’s colorful language reassured me that he’d recovered