Short Order

he directed me into the alley to park in back of the restaurant next to David’s Mazda, I shook my head. “I looked through the window of the Star the other day. The place doesn’t need more holiday stuff.”
“Yeah. I think that’s the point. I think David was disappointed with what he got. The decorator to the stars tried to get away with ‘one design fits all’ for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t know much about stuff like this, but as far as I’m concerned, the dining room looks like a warehouse, not a classy restaurant.” He shook his head. “But I could be wrong.”
We met up with David in the kitchen where a big guy in jeans and a Thug Chef T-shirt gave me a thorough once-over.
“So who’s this, John?” The Thug smirked at my landlord and friend.
John introduced me to the famous chef, who eyed us, grinning like he knew something we didn’t.
“Oh, stop, Adam. John’s allowed a boyfriend without you harassing them.” David was frowning and looked pissed at the chef.
I stopped and stared at John. We were boyfriends?
Now he blushed. Huh? Cool. Guess in his mind maybe we were. Wow. Something to think about later when David and Thug Chef weren’t watching our every move.
“Hey! I didn’t say anything,” the chef complained. He turned to me. “I’m Adam, by the way. Don’t let either of these two give you any shit.”
As David walked past him, he swatted the chef on the back of the head. “Shut up and go cook,” he said quietly.
John looked at me and rolled his eyes. Ooookay. Whatever. At least now I could tell my mom that I’d met the world-famous chef. She’d be really impressed.
The dining area wasn’t quite as bad as David had made it sound. Actually, it was kinda cool, all professional looking in a frontier jail kind of way, not kitschy at all. The windows had iron bars, and the walls held photos of men in old-time clothes. The holiday decorations were mostly standard stuff, jumbled together like someone went on a fast buying spree in a drugstore’s or a hardware store’s holiday section and then dumped off all the purchases.
“Think you can do something for us?” David asked.
I looked around. Well, I wasn’t a decorator, but if nothing else, I could make the wreaths and swags of natural materials and not plastic. Then at least the place would smell nice. Maybe I could also sell him on some everyday plants to keep the room fresher during the rest of the year.
I could feel his eyes watching me as I walked around the room looking for places with sunlight. Why hadn’t he or Adam called Beth before this place opened?
“Can I ask you a question?” I didn’t want to come off as quarrelsome, but I really wanted to know. At David’s nod, I asked, “Why’d you go out of town for all of this? Why didn’t you go local?”
His eyes left mine, and he looked down.
“I didn’t know Cuttings was here,” he admitted.
He hadn’t even bothered finding out. But I let the argument drop. Water under the bridge, right?
“What do you want the room to look like?” I asked.
We chatted, going over the possibilities. John went back to the kitchen and the Thug Chef as I got out my pocket notebook, took measurements, and wrote my observations. David and I settled at one of the tables.
“Lemme think about this. You’ll want something exclusive so this place doesn’t look like every living room in the area. I guess you’ll want a sketch and an estimate in the next couple of days?”
David looked surprised. “What? Uh, yeah, sure. That’d be great.”
“The decorator didn’t go over a sketch with you? Give you an estimate?”
He shook his head. I sighed. Too much money and too few brains. No wonder the locals had so little respect for these people.
* * * *
That night I went down to dinner at John’s, something I hoped would be more frequent. When he was working late at the restaurant, he had promised to leave meals for me to heat up. As I saw it, I had a win-win going and wasn’t about to blow it.
Tonight I thanked him for leading David Beth’s way. I also complained about newcomers who ignored local businesses in favor of more expensive and often less competent celebrity ones.
“It’s the way they’re used to doing business.” He was fixing something that smelled delicious.
I hated to argue with the cook, but really?
“Well, all your little clique is doing is alienating people even more.” I picked up some carrot rounds and popped them in my mouth. “People like Bernie Phillips might be major dicks in town and against the gays coming in and opening stores, but you’ve got to admit, they only have clout around here because they’ve kept this small town going and the businesses making money. My cousin and her wife are lesbians, but nobody’s ever given them any trouble at all. They came in, opened a business, bought from the locals, treated people well, and became part of the community.” I shrugged.
He’d stopped chopping and was standing there staring at me.
“Anybody who wanted to could have come to the restaurant’s opening and the gala. They can eat at the Star any night we’re open,” he argued.
He didn’t get it.
“Yeah, anybody with the money. But your group priced the locals out of the picture, especially those with downtown businesses. Then to add insult to injury, you gave the profits of the gala to Bay Area charities. It was like the people around here didn’t exist.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know everybody was invited.” He turned and started wiping the cutting boards and his knives.
“Like I said, everybody with enough extra money could buy an invitation to the opening gala or can eat at the restaurant. But most people are running on tight budgets and have been since the recession. It’s harder for them to bounce back now that the economy