A Memorable Bottle at Chez Lily

Raindrops pelted the roof of the small Brooklyn restaurant like the fingers of a nervous typist. Victor could hear cars outside rushing by in what was temporarily the 7th Avenue river. The prospect of filling any of the twenty tables at Chez Lily seemed dim at this hour, and he decided to send his one waitress and the chef home for the night.

“Thirty-five covers tonight. Not too bad for a Tuesday,” said Henri, removing his Chef’s hat. “But they need to drink more wine if you want those checks to be higher, eh?”

Upon hearing this, Victor’s French Literature graduate student waitress, Amanda, pursed her lips and looked guilty. She was more comfortable pronouncing the name of every dish on the menu with a perfect Parisian accent than pushing the bottles of Beaujolais and Bordeaux so necessary for a restaurant’s bottom line.

“It was a good night, you two. We can figure out how to get the wine flowing tomorrow,” Victor said.

“D’accord,” said Henri and gave Victor a couple of la bise kisses. Not to be outdone, Amanda approached him for the same ritual. Henri produced a smart umbrella that looked like it once belonged to Inspector Clouseau and offered his arm to Amanda as they disappeared into the rainy night. They were—the whole restaurant was—quintessentially French, the way Lily would have wanted.

Now alone in the restaurant, Victor examined the still life that consisted of neatly appointed white tablecloths, chairs with rich black velvet cushions, and muted candle-like lights at each table. He looked at the walls which had copies of famous paintings celebrating the romance of life in Paris. There was Chagall’s “Paris through the Window” with its Janus-faced man: one half devoted to the cares of the day, the other half a dreaming creature of the Parisian night. There was Picasso’s “Le Moulin De La Galette”: a vibrant blur of carousing French men and women that makes the viewer feel as if he has drunk from the same bottle as the subjects of the painting.

Lily had insisted on actual paintings, not posters. She had hired a former student of hers who was trying to make his way as an artist in New York. Victor remembered Lily’s words when she called the young man.

“I have a commission for you,” she said. The young man agreed to the commission and the generous fee that Lily promised him but asked for one favor in return—that Lily allow him to paint her portrait.

The portrait now hung above the desk in Victor’s small office in the back of the restaurant. Though Lily had posed for the portrait, it depicted a younger version of her—the teacher that the young man remembered who had taught him the French language and inspired in him a love of French art. It was part of a small shrine that also consisted of a photograph of Lily on their wedding day and a bottle of her favorite Merlot that the two of them were going to drink together once the restaurant was open. Lily did not live to see that day, and now, Victor, a retired accountant, was fulfilling the dream of his Francophile wife who had always wanted to open “a petite café.” As Victor sat at his desk, memories of Lily flooded his mind. Memories of their trip to France when they visited Paris and Lyon in search of recipes indiscriminately mingled with painful memories of her last days in the hospital. What would Lily want him to do now? The restaurant had opened, but could he run it? More importantly, did he want to?

The sound of the bell that signaled the front door opening interrupted Victor’s reverie. He gathered his wits and ran into the main dining room to find a worried-looking young man talking to a smiling young woman who had spotted Victor in the corner of her eye.

“I don’t think they’re…” started the young man.

“Yes, we’re open,” interrupted Victor, surprising himself. He didn’t have the heart to turn them away back into the rainy night. That and some other nameless feeling possessed him as he led the couple to their table.

“May I offer you some wine to start?” Victor asked.

The young man perused the wine menu with a sharp eye not for flavor or vintage but dollars and cents. After a few moments, he was rescued by the young woman: “I’m not drinking tonight, are you Michael?”

“I probably shouldn’t. I have an engineering exam tomorrow,” he said with an audible sigh of relief.

Victor left the couple to study their menus. He smiled at Michael’s budget approach to fine dining, but also at the way that the young woman—he didn’t know her name yet—helped him save face. He thought back to the year when after being laid off from his accounting firm, he had taken a job as a math teacher.

…His room was next door to a pretty French teacher, and Victor made a habit of visiting her daily to borrow an eraser, chalk, attendance sheets, and anything else he could think of. This continued until one day Lily called his bluff: “I can let you continue depleting my supply closet, but I think you want to borrow me for dinner,” she had said.

Suddenly, Victor noticed that the quiet conversation between his two diners had stopped. He also realized that he only knew how to prepare one of the dishes on the restaurant’s extensive menu. When he peeked out from behind the curtain that separated the kitchen from the dining room, he saw two young people staring at their cellphones. He grabbed a plate with half a baguette and rushed into the dining room. As he approached the table, he saw the screen of the young woman’s oversized phone.

“Not going well, “she had texted.

“Excuse me if I’m being forward,” Victor said, “but is this your first date?”

The young man and woman furtively put away their phones and responded in unison: “Yes, how’d you know?”

“I had a hunch,” Victor said. “Here, at Chez Lilly, we offer our first date diners two complimentary glasses of wine. If you’ll reconsider…”

“Absolutely!” the young woman exclaimed.

“Well, thanks Susannah. I guess I could use the help,” Michael said and the two exchanged wry looks that quickly turned into laughter.

Thinking about a bottle he could spare, Victor walked to the wine cellar at the back of the restaurant near his office. He felt a draft coming through the back door and then saw Lily’s photograph slide down from its usual position where it rested against the bottle of Merlot they had intended to open together. Victor caught the fluttering photograph before it could fall to the ground. He stared at the bottle of Merlot and knew he had to open it. Lily had chosen the bottle and it reflected her taste, her judgment, some part of her that remained even though she was now gone. Victor opened the bottle and poured himself a glass. The wine was a dark purple color and as he raised the glass to his mouth, Victor could smell plums and blackberries.

Victor grabbed the bottle and brought it out to his two diners. He filled their glasses and asked Michael to taste the wine.

“It’s wonderful, sir,” Michael said.

“No need to be so formal,” Victor replied and the three of them shared a smile.

“I’m afraid the Chef has informed me that it has been a particularly busy night,” Victor continued, “and we can only offer our meat entrée, steak frites.” This was a dish that Victor and Lily had learned to make at a cooking class in Lyons and Lily had prepared countless time afterwards. It was the only dish that Victor could offer now that Henri had gone home.

“That sounds delicious,” the young woman answered, and Michael nodded in approval.

As Victor seared two succulent flank steaks, he overheard snippets of conversation from the dining room: “You really know a lot about all things French,” Michael said.

“Because I knew that frites means French fries,” Susannah teased.

“That and you identified the magic wine we’ve been drinking as Merlot,” Michael replied.

“So, it sounds like I’m converting you. Does this mean you’ll take me to French art films and French ballets?” Susannah asked.

“Only if you give me a lesson in French kissing,” Michael teased.

As Victor brought out the beautiful steaks, he knew the transformation in the young couple was at least in part a result of the wine. Not just the wine, though. It was the ambiance of his café, the taste of the food, the evocation of something beyond the ordinary that had enlivened the couple. This willingness to celebrate life and its pleasures was what Lily had taught him and what she wanted to share with others through their restaurant.

Before Victor knew it, it was close to midnight, but the young couple continued enjoying each other’s company, looking more and more like the revelers in Picasso’s painting. When they finally stood up to go, Victor noticed that Michael chivalrously helped Susannah with her coat. They were already out the door when Susannah returned telling Michael she had forgotten something.

“I know you’re the only one here. You didn’t have to cook for us and wait on us by yourself,” she said.

“I guess you two remind me of a couple I once knew,” Victor answered.

“Thank you for everything,” Susannah replied.

Victor sat in his office, more confident that he, a former accountant, could and, indeed, wanted to own an enchanting French café. Tears formed in his eyes as feelings of mourning intermingled with his newfound resolve. As he drank a third glass of Lily’s Merlot he saw, through the prism of his wine glass, the image of his wife in her student’s portrait merge with the likeness of her in the wedding photograph. It was as if she was present in the restaurant: Lily from all his memories both distant and recent. Victor hesitated because he knew the voice in his mind was the wine talking. He also knew that what it said was true.