What do you write? Fiction and screenplays.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work? I think my most lasting influ­ence has been R.L. Stein. There’s one Fear Street book where a guy is swim­ming in the ocean and the killer tries to run him over with a jet ski. I remem­ber being so scared I had to turn all the lights on. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.

Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA? It was close to my house! (I’m a cancer sun, obviously.)

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory? The writer friends I’ve made. I love having smart people to text with about books and sub­mis­sions or just to com­plain about life in general.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future? My dream job would be to write for a multi-cam sitcom.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose? “Love is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The Final Course

By Halli Marshall

The maître d’ exploded into the kitchen. 

“We have a problem.” 

Out on the floor of the restau­rant, a woman was sitting alone at a table for two. She had arrived eight minutes ahead of her reser­va­tion, which Richard the maître d’ appre­ci­at­ed. What he did not appre­ci­ate was that she had arrived alone, and even now, sev­en­teen minutes later, the other member of her party had not appeared.

“Should we stall on the prep?” Miguel, the chef, asked.

The reser­va­tion was for Poca Cosa’s acclaimed prix fixe menu, which con­sist­ed of five dif­fer­ent courses, designed around the day’s produce, each accom­pa­nied by a care­ful­ly select­ed wine pairing. Richard pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. A delay in serving one reser­va­tion meant rearrange­ment of the whole evening. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from swear­ing at Miguel. Richard didn’t have the energy to endure another cold-shoul­der-apology cycle with the chef tonight.

“Cálmate, Dickie,” Miguel said, return­ing to his work. “You’ll pass out if don’t.”

There was nothing he hated more than being called Dickie, and Miguel knew it. Richard had signed on as the maître d’ of Poca Cosa when he heard Miguel would be the head chef. He hadn’t con­sid­ered Miguel’s brassy atti­tude when he made that choice. But Richard was con­fi­dent enough in his abil­i­ties that, most nights, he could ignore Miguel. He knew his success was not an acci­dent. He worked harder than every­one else, arrived on time every day, never called in sick, and took infre­quent and short vaca­tions. Once a busboy at a road­side diner in the middle of nowhere Ohio, he was now the face of a Miche­lin star restau­rant in Los Angeles. He rel­ished oppor­tu­ni­ties to explain that Miche­lin stars were awarded to the restau­rant as a whole, not to the chef as some other awards are. That honor was as much his as Miguel’s. But on that par­tic­u­lar night, Richard was dan­ger­ous­ly close to his break­ing point. He had very nearly been late for work for the first time in his career. 

Well accus­tomed to Los Angeles traffic, he gave himself ample time to travel the 7.8 miles to the restau­rant from the Spanish revival ranch he rented in Los Feliz. But on that par­tic­u­lar day, he had run into much heavier traffic than normal. Cars crept along at an imper­cep­ti­ble pace for blocks while Richard obses­sive­ly checked his watch. Even­tu­al­ly, he’d dis­cov­ered the cause: two ambu­lances and several police cruis­ers, lights flash­ing, in front of a house on North High­land. Para­medics were taking someone out on a stretch­er. He begrudg­ing­ly acknowl­edged that that person was having a worse day than he but was unable to forgive until he rolled into the parking lot at the restau­rant with two minutes to spare. Not ideal, but not late.

“The indi­ca­tion was that Mr. Miller would be along shortly,” Richard told Miguel. “He made the reser­va­tion more than a month ago. Why would he not call at the very least?”

Under normal cir­cum­stances, Richard never sat a table until the entire party was present. But Richard had a soft spot for couples who chose his restau­rant to cel­e­brate their major life events. He remem­bered when Mr. Miller called to make the reser­va­tion. The man paid for the entire dinner in advance over the phone, and the sen­si­bil­i­ty of the gesture spoke to Richard’s innate practicality.

“Just ask her if she’d like to get started without him. Let her decide to wait for him or not.”

Richard was unsat­is­fied, but without a better option, he had no choice but to compose himself and get back out on the floor.

#

“Excuse me, ma’am? I see you’re still waiting for Mr. Miller. Would you like to con­tin­ue to wait or shall I send over the waiter to get the first course started for you?”

The woman looked up at Richard, and a slow smile spread across her face. Her smooth, dark hair had been styled into a cascade of per­fect­ly imper­fect waves, parted not exactly in the middle. The effort of effort­less­ness. Her makeup fol­lowed suit. Her glowing skin, long, dark lashes, and plump lips almost looked as if they hap­pened nat­u­ral­ly. He noticed her teeth. Though straight and well cared for, they were missing the bleached, veneered look that con­sumes most Los Angeles trans­plants’ first few pay­checks. She must not be in show business.

“Ah, yes. He’s obvi­ous­ly been held up, hasn’t he? That’s very much like him. I think, if you don’t mind, that I’ll just go ahead with the meal. He can jump in when he arrives…if he ever arrives.”

Richard chuck­led politely.

“Unless that is ter­ri­bly incon­ve­nient for you?”

“No, not at all. I’ll send your waiter over right away. And in the mean­time, my name is Richard. If there is any­thing else that you need, please let me know. Would you like a glass of cham­pagne on the house for the inconvenience?”

“How very kind of you. You don’t need to apol­o­gize for Mr. Miller’s trans­gres­sions. But I will take that drink.”

#

“She doesn’t seem the least bit concerned.”

Richard hovered behind the chef as he stirred a pot on the stove. Miguel tasted the sauce.

“More salt!” he said.

The sous chefs leapt into action, maneu­ver­ing around Richard as he peered through the small round window in the kitchen door. He watched the woman lift her cham­pagne flute. She took a del­i­cate sip, then tossed her head back, drink­ing the rest like a shot of tequila rather than expen­sive champagne.

“You plan­ning on stand­ing here and giving a full play-by-play?” Miguel asked. “Because the rest of us have to work.”

Though he hated to admit it, Miguel was right. He had done his best with the present half of the Miller reser­va­tion, and it was time to turn his atten­tion to the many others he had to tend to that night. 

“Hey, Dickie?”

Richard resist­ed the urge to storm out of the kitchen and pretend he hadn’t heard. He stood still where he was, hand on the door. He didn’t bother to turn and face Miguel.

“Yes?”

“If you don’t relax, you’re going to lose your edge.”

#

Richard ate a packet of oyster crack­ers in the coat room. He wasn’t losing his edge. What did a chef know about running the front of the house? No one was more obser­vant than Richard. He smiled when, as if on cue, he heard the hushed sound of the door opening.

“Good evening, welcome to Poca Cosa.” 

“Isaac Roth­stein,” the nine o’clock reser­va­tion said. “My wife is just outside in the car.”

“It is our policy, sir,” Richard said, “to wait to seat a reser­va­tion until all parties are present.”

“She should be along in just a moment. She wants to hear the end of some news story on the radio. I guess there was a double homi­cide just a few blocks from here.”

Richard remem­bered the ambu­lances on North Highland.

“Ah, here she is.”

“So sorry to keep you waiting,” Mrs. Roth­stein said to Richard. 

“No problem, ma’am. Right this way.”

“Two people are dead,” Mrs. Roth­stein said quietly to her husband. “They’re looking for someone in con­nec­tion with it. A witness, I think. Some­thing Lambert.”

“Who was it? The mur­dered people, I mean.”

“They haven’t released the names. But my guess is that it was the husband.”

“It was the husband who did what?

“The mur­der­ing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“In a white neigh­bor­hood? It’s always the husband. Or the boyfriend.”

“Enjoy your dinner,” Richard said, hoping that none of the other guests had over­heard the word “murder” during their meal.

Return­ing to his station, Richard sur­veyed the restau­rant. The high, glass ceiling was barely visible through the vibrant green leaves of the plants that hung from the wooden beams in rattan baskets. The tables and chairs, all hand-carved, glowed warmly in the light of the candles that lined the outside wall. The fire-colored cush­ions and fern-pat­terned napkins coor­di­nat­ed with the hand-painted mural of Miguel’s home­town in Peru that that covered the entire back wall. Smiles graced the faces of the patrons, and a woman’s laugh rang out over the Quechuan music.

Finally, his eyes fell on the empty chair that should have been occu­pied by Mr. Miller. The woman enjoyed her dinner del­i­cate­ly, craft­ing each bite into its own little mas­ter­piece. From time to time, she set her cutlery down to enjoy both glasses of the paired wine. At the end of each course, when the waiter arrived to remove the plates, she request­ed that he box up the second portion for her to take home. A tower of black card­board boxes sat on the corner of the table.

“Thank you,” the woman said, raising her hand to stop the waiter from setting down the final course. “But I couldn’t pos­si­bly eat another bite.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?” the waiter asked. “Our cheese­cake is world-famous. The chef’s capulin and black cherry compote is his specialty.”

“It sounds divine. But I will have to enjoy it later. Would you mind boxing up both?”

The waiter did as asked and returned to the table with the addi­tion­al boxes and a bag. He packed up all the left­overs and handed them to the woman. When she took it, she pressed a one hundred dollar bill into his hand.

“Thank you, ma’am, but this is too much,” the waiter said. He was excited by the prospect of getting a large tip from a table he could have served with his eyes closed, but he felt guilty taking so much money from a woman who had been stood up on her anniversary.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I insist.”

Richard retrieved the woman’s trench from the coa­t­room. She draped it grace­ful­ly over one arm. He noticed that one of her man­i­cured fin­ger­nails had snapped off, leaving an obvious jagged edge. He hoped she carried a file in her purse.

“May I call you a car, ma’am?” 

“No, thank you. I’ve ordered an Uber.”

The woman gazed out the open front doors into the garden that sep­a­rat­ed the restau­rant from the street with the quiet com­po­sure she had main­tained through­out the meal. Richard won­dered if she’d heard from Mr. Miller at any point through­out the evening. She swayed a little, stand­ing there in her black jacquard dress, either to the music or from the wine. It didn’t help that she was tee­ter­ing on the pencil-thin heels of her red-soled pumps. Richard noticed a glob of a maroon, con­gealed sub­stance near the woman’s ankle. As he retrieved an unused napkin from the waiters’ station, he com­mend­ed himself for his astute obser­va­tion­al skills. He doubted Miguel would have noticed.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Before you go—I believe you have some capulin and black cherry compote near your ankle. Here, take this. Our compote is world-famous for its rich­ness and deca­dence. I would hate for your coat to brush against it. The stain would be near impos­si­ble to remove.”

The woman set down her bag of left­overs and took the napkin. She propped her foot up on a plant pot next to the open door and wiped the dark red smudge away. She said nothing to Richard, but simply handed back the soiled napkin and smiled.

A Land Rover pulled up in front of the restau­rant. The woman checked her phone, picked up her bag, and stepped toward the door.

“It was our plea­sure to serve you tonight. I hope that we’ll see you at Poca Cosa again soon.”

“The plea­sure was all mine.”

The driver got out of the SUV and walked around the front to open the back door. The woman stepped care­ful­ly over the side­walk and slid grace­ful­ly inside.

“Miss Lambert?” the driver asked. 

Richard saw the woman’s head nod twice before the door slammed shut and she dis­ap­peared from view.