lucy and the restaurant downstairs

the first time lucy went there was an august afternoon. she was alone, armed with a book or maybe the newspaper if it was a weekend. but if it was a weekend the place would have been packed and there would have been slightly irritated looking people with mock-turtlenecks and expensive purses standing around outside and that day, out of the fifteen tables, perhaps four were taken, with people who looked similar to her -- one guy, clearly not showered yet, reading a tattered flannery o'connor paperback; a couple, their plates smeared with the scant remains of their meals, their eyes humming down the pages of the times, sipping their coffee without looking at the cup; what looked like a mother and son, the mother overweight and in her 70s, the son overweight and in his 40s, speaking softly to each other about mundane plans for the day, waiting for one of the waitresses or the cook to emerge, to absorb tales of their travels (lucy would later know these two well, stuffed into their booth, the family of travel agents, the genetic carbon copy, the finishing of sentences and the way what they ordered for brunch reflected what had happened to them the previous week, or what they had in store for the next). when she walked in a boy about her age, cute but not intimidating, told her to sit anywhere shed like sweetheart, and so she picked the corner booth where she would later spot bjork and matthew barney, on top of which sat a spilled game of connect four. years later that boy, nate, the son, would take her and her friends there in the middle of the night, and they would get stoned and explore the insides of the cupboards, like a group of high school boys infatuated with the dyed organs of a frog.

when the waitress, a twin named miranda, asked what she wanted, she ordered the banana cream cheese pancakes and a white chocolate rasberry milkshake. miranda stopped writing and said, thats a lot of food, why dont i bring you the pancakes and see you how you feel after that? and lucy said, im pretty hungry. so miranda brought both out at the same time, and lucy ate it all, and when miranda came back to drop the check off and saw the clean plates she yelled back to the kitchen, the new girl's good.

the first time lucy brought people there she had been nervous. she had tried to prepare them -- macaroni and cheese pancakes! 90 soups! fluffernutter sandwiches! -- but worried that they wouldnt get it, that the rules, posted on the front door, would piss them off, or that they would have to wait for hours to get a table. of course her friends, three guys who had driven in from chicago the night before, loved it more than she could have hoped for, and from then on every meal there became a present she gave to another friend she deemed worthy of receiving it. she went every weekend with her best friend; the plate put before her, more of a personality than a meal, healing her hangover and giving her reason to get out of bed and walk down her 6 flights of stairs, take a right and walk into their doorway. the fact that she shared an address, shared a landlord and a basement and history with the restaurant was what made her believe in new york, what allowed her to feel at home there, what gave it all the more magic. she brought men who had spent the night with her there the next morning; miranda or nate never commenting on the new face but judging them silently, lucy could tell, based on their reaction to the menu, which had over 1000 items, judging them based on their choices and their appetite. when she started dating a man she thought she could love, and he bonded with nate over the mets, nate said "shit dont fuck this one up," and she wanted to hug him like how she imagined a sister would hug her older brother, grateful and glad.

lucy doesn't remember the first time she met nate and miranda's dad, the legendary cook, the man notorious for cussing out reporters, telling customers to go fuck themselves (we're closed when i say we're closed), and chatting over the soda counter, where he would wait patiently until one of his children fetched him a diet coke and ice in a glass the size of a pitcher, about his extensive and frequent use of hallucinogens to a shocked and giggling customer. the first time he ever said anything directly to lucy, he was in the middle of a conversation with someone else, probably, sitting at his booth, his apron covered in what looked like a tragic explosion, and lucy was probably standing across from him, choosing carefully what candy she would take from the dozens of boxes they had lined up on a shelf for customers to take for free. he looked at her, expectantly she thought, in the middle of a sentence, and the man sitting at the booth with him strained to look over his shoulder to see who had made him stop speaking. she smiled, happy to finally meet him, was about to say something when he rolled his eyes and said "what the fuck are you so happy about?" and continued talking to the man. lucy went upstairs and cried, embarassed to have been affected by something she had seen happen so many times. she didnt go back for a few weeks, but the next time she did, the busboy had been fired and she insisted on working there. just for one day, she pleaded, and they said sure. if you really want to. and she did, relishing bringing the heavy plates out to people, watching their faces in amusement and wonder at what had been made for them. she loved hearing the bell ding and rushing back into the kitchen to pick up a plate of tiger paws, or a french toast burrito, or a brunch plate that had 5 different and completely unrelated dishes all piled on top of one another (georgia bbq pulled pork, fried pickles, an avocado salad and two lemon ricotta pancakes), she loved hearing her name called, she loved going down to the basement to get buckets of ice, she loved wiping down the tables and feeling exhausted from never sitting and being so constantly engaged. she loved answering peoples questions-- "do you have any idea how much longer," "can we split up our party into two groups of three? please?" (the answer to both being no). as lucy was leaving that day, the dad was explaining to a dowdy middle aged woman who had seen the documentary recently made about the restaurant and had come all the way from long island why they were closed and why she would just have to come back another day. he looked at lucy and said, "whats your official title here?" and before lucy could say anything smart and clever, he looked at the dowdy middle aged woman and said "shes the resident lolita." and then he cackled loudly, wiped his doughy hands on his filthy apron, and screamed at nate to get him another soda.

lucy knew they were moving. nate had told her months before it was made public, on one of the first nights that they smoked in the restaurant. she said she didnt want to think about it, and really she doubted it would happen. she still doubted it even after the dad told her-- they put the down payment on a little place in the lower east side. it was going to be even smaller, but he said theyd always have a place for her. she left to visit family for a month over the holidays, and was looking forward to eating there more than any other part of returning to new york. they were closed mondays and tuesdays (and for a couple of months in the summer), so when she passed by on her way to run errands the monday after she got back she wasnt surprised to see the grate down and all of the lights off. on her way back from the bank, on the train, she realized she had locked herself out of her apartment. she had hidden a spare set of keys in a crevasse on the side door of the restaurant, but when she approached it she saw- there was nothing inside. no connect four, no grubby childrens games that have no name, no paintings on the wall, no portrait of the deceased matriarch, no "hi polar bear. bi polar bear" sign hanging from the wall. no boxes of marshmallow fluff in the corner. no candy shelf. they had closed while she had been away. she was angry- locked out and alone, no one had called to tell her it was happening so soon. it was as if your best friend had died last week and you read her obituary in the paper. she was sure the keys had been moved, she hardly dared to look. but as she turned the corner, her heart beating and the anger foaming in her blood, she saw the little bulge, her house key wrapped in butcher paper, super glued inside the divot of the door. when she ripped it off she read the tiny message, written with a pen that was running out of ink - its only the lower east side. she wasnt sure who had written it, but she knew that if any of them could have seen her then, they would have said "what the fuck are you so angry about?"