Then a tall, bald gentlemen in a checked jacket races beside her, also staring at the floor. Nadia leaps at him, wrapping her arms and legs around him like a snake. She points at the ground. I look, too. Now I see it.
Rats. A dozen of them, maybe more. Big, fat, New York City varmints; some bigger than the teacup dog breeds the old ladies in the Upper East Side like to carry in their purses. One skitters across my shoes. Now everyone in the room has started screaming, fainting, and leaping onto their chairs and tables.
A glass breaks somewhere. One of the rodents races across the bar. It’s a fucking infestation.
I can think of almost nothing worse than having a rat free-for-all break out in your high-end restaurant on opening night.
Except if there was a TV crew shooting a show there.
Kenny orders the cameramen to pick up shots of the little beasts. The waitress looks horrified. I see her looking all around, unsure of what to do.
Where the fuck is the head chef? I think. Or the owner?
I place a reassuring hand on her back as I stand up. But, before I can say anything, the tall bald man in the checked jacket calls out to us. He’s managed to extricate Nadia from his person. He looks pissed.
“Mr. Kinzer!” my waitress says, recognizing him.
I shoot Chase a glance. He knows everybody and this guy carries himself like a Somebody. Chase mouths two words that make my heart sink: Health Inspector.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask him, hoping to redirect his wrath away from the waitress. “Kind of shitty to try and crash someone’s opening night.”
Kinzer looks me up and down disdainfully. I move my position to make sure Kenny’s team gets a good angle on the pompous puss. “I’ll have you know I was invited,” he informs me. “My wife loved Cynthia’s first place and was heartbroken she shut it down to open this swanky joint.”
“Wait, who’s Cynthia?” I ask.
“I’m Cynthia,” my waitress says sheepishly.
“We knew you’ve become too big for your britches, and this outbreak just proves it!” Kinzer shouts at her, red in the face.
“Wait,” I interject, turning fully to face my waitress – I mean, Cynthia. “This is your place?”
Cynthia shrugs.
That explains the competency she displayed in the kitchen, why she knew so much about every dish, and why she took such pride in them.
“So, this is all your food I’ve been gushing over all night?” I ask.
She nods quickly. Then she watches in horror as patrons start rushing out of the restaurant. One of the hostesses dashes out, too. The Health Inspector whips out his cell phone. Everything’s going to shit.
Which is also when I feel one of the cameras getting too close to us. It breaks my heart, but I know what I need to do for the show’s sake. I turn right to the camera and say, “I think we’ve discovered that secret ingredient.”
“Wait – what?” Cynthia whips her head around to me.
“I’ve seen fewer rats in the Times Square subway station.”
“I don’t know how these got here!”
“They’re attracted to trash.”
I notice something moving out of the corner of my eye. It’s one of the rats. He’s seated comfortably on my table and munching the dessert. “I hope he brought cash,” I quip, “because I’m certainly not paying for this meal.”
I turn back to Cynthia with a grin. It freezes on my face. She looks at me like I just stomped on her baby, which I guess I kinda just did. But she must know it’s just for the show – right?
“Yes!” I hear Kinzer shouting. Cynthia and I both watch him as he shouts into his phone. “I’m shutting it down immediately!” He hangs up and stares daggers at Cynthia. “That was my wife. She says good riddance!” Then he storms off toward the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I closed the other spot!” Cynthia calls after him, to no avail.
We watch helplessly as Kinzer stomps into the kitchen, grabs the health certificate and rips it off the wall.
Nadia shrieks again. I look over just in time to see her struggling to retrieve a rat that has somehow slipped down the front of her dress and is now suffocating between the huge globes of her breasts.
When I look back to speak to Cynthia, she’s gone, having disappeared into the kitchen.
“And… cut!” Kenny calls. “That’s a wrap on Origin,” he adds.
Tell me about it, I think.
Nine
Cynthia
If I could make myself any smaller, I