“Dining alone tonight?” Jennifer said, then winced inwardly. She'd read Every Restaurant's Fifteen Worst Behaviors on some 'site not a week ago and she was pretty sure that was on their list, somewhere between “poorly-maintained restrooms” and “refusing to seat a party until all guests have arrived.” Never ask a customer if they're dining alone. If they're expecting someone they'll say so and either way, they'll take a two-top. All you're doing by asking the question is making them feel awkward and ostracized.

Jennifer grabbed two menus to overcompensate and immediately gritted her teeth hard enough to ache. Two-TOP, not two menus! She attempted to slyly sneak one back into the stand -

“Yes. Yes I am.”

He was a striking man even if he'd most easily be described as “average.” Not too tall, not too short. Fit. He wore a suit that hung a little loosely upon his frame, as if he had bought it when he was stockier. Or as if he hadn't been eating right lately. But maybe that was his eyes. Deep, hard and blue, not wanting to miss too much by blinking. Crow's feet at the corners from too much squinting. Or worrying. Graying at the temples.

Jennifer smiled quickly and easily. Maybe she got away with it this time. It wasn't like she could afford to lose customers, even potential ones. Best seat in the house for Mr. Dining Alone. Not that there was a lot of competition at the moment. Wednesdays were always slow but with a location as prime as hers there should have been some walk-in traffic. Every Wednesday, Madison popped unbidden into her head – If Tragideli can't keep the lights on in this hole, what makes you think you can?

“Can I sit over there?”

Dining Alone pointed at a window booth back in the direction they'd walked. He'd stopped a half-dozen paces behind her and she'd been too flummoxed to notice. Jennifer Marchand, senile at 38. She turned and smiled – when in doubt, smile. That's what I love about you, Jen, you've got an easy smile. Good ole Yves. When he said it – how many years ago? - they were self-consciously living out someone else's bohemian fantasy in France. He'd laugh if he knew what she was doing now.

“Of course! Anywhere you want!” Jennifer gestured around the room expansively and congratulated herself on not asking the man why.

“Over here is fine,” the man said, and walked softly towards the booth. Jennifer covered her awkwardness by sweeping past the bussing station to grab a pitcher and a water glass. She poured as he sat and opened the menu.

“We've got some great crab enchiladas today. The soup is ham and navy bean. And I think we might have a sole almondine left; I'll have to check.” The lie sounded hollow even to her. There was plenty of sole. Lately there was plenty of everything. Much like the rest of the marketing advice her business group had offered up, “create a sense of scarcity” landed with a wet thud every time.

“What happened to Tragideli's?” The man looked up at her with those intense blue eyes. Vaguely accusatory, vaguely wounded, largely inquisitive.

“Giuseppe retired to Florida and Junior's heart wasn't in it.” Heart or head. His hands were deep in the purse though. If the Knicks played better ball Tragideli's might still be here… “We took over the lease in March.”

“Are you Jennifer?”

“Whether I like it or not.” Jennifer flashed her teeth ruefully. Instill confidence in everything you do, ToastMasters scolded in the back of her head.

The man just nodded. He looked down into the menu.

“I'll be right back with some bread,” Jennifer said and bee-lined for the kitchen.

Carlo leaned against the counter, his arms crossed. The rollscreen leaning against the wall showed something resembling lawnmowers taking each other apart with dental drills, all of it overlaid with muted katakana. Or maybe that was the OLEDs fritzing. Tobey told her to avoid the Indonesian rollscreens because their dyes weren't hydrophylically stable, whatever that meant, so she'd bought a Daewoo. Carlo rolled his Jonsunny up every night, another thing Tobey told her never to do.

“What the hell are you watching?” she asked as she pulled a baguette out of the warmer and cut crusty, crumbly slashes from it.

“Anything that isn't f'in Sky Arc,” Carlo said, his arms crossed. “Feeds are so clogged with that crap you can't even queue up a Missy Starstruck rerun.”

“So you're watching drill presses hump.” She folded a clean white towel into a neat metal basket she'd payed too much for at Bargreen, then arranged a tasty payload of baguette within.

“F'in over-the-air, you believe that? And even them, only station not showing the exact same nuthin' shot from orbit is some weirdo pirate transmitter out of K-town.” A station with terrible dubbing to boot; every time the frenetic Japanese announcer spoke, his audio ducked clumsily under a bored woman's Cantonese mumblings. White subtitles in some language she could barely guess at – Amharic? Armenian? - partly obscured yellow blocks she guessed were Korean but couldn't be sure.

“What you got against space travel, Carlo? I always figured you for the explorer type.”

“What I got against it is I ain't goin'.” The admission lacked the light-hearted bantering tone that characterized Jennifer's interactions with her chef. Carlo looked away and made a move towards the walk-in.

“What, and leave all this?” Jennifer held the bread aloft in one hand and gestured widely with the other. Carlo snorted through his nostrils and turned his back.

“Look alive, Carlo. You might actually get to cook tonight,” Jennifer said as she headed for the too-silent double doors to the dining room.

“'M'I gonna get paid, too?”

“That only happened that one time.” Jennifer paused and looked Carlo in the eye. Could be worse, Carlo. You could be Audrey. Hard to make a living on tips when you can barely turn eight tables on a Friday; Jennifer was sad to see her go but hardly surprised. Or you could be me…

“Sorry, boss. I know.” And Jennifer knew he did. She never would have pried him free of Gaultiera if he didn't believe in the cafe. If he didn't believe in her. Jennifer nodded and brought Mr. Dining Alone his bread. His eyes were looking straight through the wine list and on to infinity without bothering to stop.

“Thinking red or white?” Jennifer's demeanor often straddled the dangerous and muddy borderland between “attentive” and “smothering” but she hoped, somehow, that Mr. Dining Alone wouldn't care to differentiate this evening.

“What's your house red?” He looked up, snapped out of his non-revelrous reverie. Penetrating eyes, Jennifer thought.

“It's a little merlot from the central coast.”

“I hate merlot.”

Jennifer smiled quickly. Can't catch a break with a butterfly net and a taser this evening. “I'll tell you what. Pick a red and we'll open a bottle. House red price.”

“Oh, but I'd hate to waste - “

“No waste. I could use a glass myself – I would have gone on vacation if I'd known all of humanity would be glued to the feeds for a solid week.” Like she could afford that.

“I shouldn't even be drinking,” he started, the protestation of a man who knew he was about to do it anyway.

“Neither should I. I won't tell if you won't. I like the Lebanese reds myself; I've got a great Zinfandel from Kefraya but it'll depend on what's for dinner. Any ideas?”

Mr. Dining Alone glanced quickly down at his plate. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his hands folding in his lap.

“I thought I – well... Tragideli's was kind of a special occasion place and I really had my heart set on...” The man trailed off. Something not on the menu. He wasn't even her customer. She'd never see him again, she knew it. She was borrowing him from some fond memory of meals past and gone and now he was trying to find a manicotti or a lasagna in amongst Marco's nouvelle Americain.

“...macaroni and cheese.”

Jennifer's eyebrows retreated halfway to her forehead. She didn't even try to stop them.

“Giuseppe Santorini had mac'n'cheese on his menu?”

“No, no, he most assuredly did not,” Dining Alone said, a little smile on his lips. “But we were kind of regulars... before... and - “

We. “So if I make you mac'n'cheese are you gonna be one of my regulars?” Jennifer asked, and sealed the question with an easy smile. It's gotta be the eyes. You haven't flirted like this since college, you hussy.

“No.” The syllable hung in the air like a storm cloud, neither one of them sure how to chase it away.

“I'm... going away for a while. A long while. I wish I could say yes but I don't know when I'll be back. I don't know if I'll be back.” Dining Alone looked directly at her, then away. “It does look like my kind of place.”

“Comfort food.” Jennifer looked at him. White collar crime most likely. Paula's dad had been given a week to “settle his affairs” when he pled to wire and mail fraud; he'd done the nostalgia tour, too.

“I guess. Is the lobster risotto anything like - “

“Mac'n'cheese? No. If you want mac'n'cheese you're getting mac'n'cheese. And bordeaux.”

“Really, I couldn't - “

“Relax. The kitchen ain't exactly rushed tonight.” Jennifer turned and headed for the kitchen, a little lilt finding its way unbidden to her hips. She hated herself for growing fonder of him the more dangerous he became. Jennifer turned around and stole a glance at Dining Alone. Ring? Ring, plain and silver. Still, it's not like the chair opposite him was full.

Jennifer walked into the kitchen to see Carlo grating a block of gruyere. A stockpot sat on the range.

“Eavesdropping, Carlo?” Jennifer teased the chef with her eyes.

“What else am I gonna do, watch kung-fu vacuum cleaners?” Carlo gestured at the rollscreen with his chin – on it, the Virgin Galactic SkyArc spun on its long axis, the 'habs like donuts on the spine of the RAIR drive. An American commentator attempted to fill the dead air with laconic, oft-repeated factoids about the craft that half the world knew by heart – “suspended animation isn't the same as sleeping,” “Four years for light, twenty-two years for Earth, six years for the crew,” “the ramjet won't be deployed until the SkyArc is past Jupiter” and other trivial details that had absolutely nothing to do with macaroni and cheese, dark and handsome strangers or how exactly Jennifer was going to get the deep fryer fixed under the credit hold Jenn-Air had leveled against her last week.

“You could turn it off, you know,” Jennifer said to the chef, half-chiding. By the look in his face Carlo had not considered such a fanciful notion – nor did he favor the idea now. “So are you makin' mac'n'cheese?”

“I wanted it on the menu – remember?” Carlo pinned her gaze accusingly with the microplane. “Nuthin' more American than mac'n'cheese. Nuthin' with a higher profit margin. Nuthin' with more potential variations.”

“I wanted to open a bistro, Carlo, not a hash house.”

“So we dribble a little black truffle oil on it and charge thirty bucks. That make you happy?”

Jennifer was vaguely ashamed to admit that it would. If the past six months had taught her anything, it was that she didn't so much want to own a restaurant per se as she wanted to be a “restauranteur.” Yves had always maintained that club ownership was entirely about selling alcohol at inflated prices and very little about being cool and hanging out with the glitterarchy. It was the latter Yves had shared with her. Her own fault, really.

“I'll make you a deal, Marco.” Jennifer pulled a dusty bottle of bordeaux off the chromed steel rack. “If we're still here next month, you can put whatever you want on the menu.”

“Why wait? If you like this, put it on the menu tomorrow.” Marco scraped a fresh pile of emmenthaler cheese into a blue enamelware casserole.

Jennifer slapped the bordeaux into a bench-mounted screwpull and grabbed two fine-stemmed Riedels. “Deal,” she said as she poured a glass for Mr. Dining Alone... and another for herself.

“Toast on it,” Marco said, his eyes indicating the bottle.

Jennifer smirked and grabbed another glass. She filled the goblet halfway and handed it to Marco.

“Cheers.”

Part 2