Hello, Sunshine

I would emerge as a pared-down version of myself, tanned and happy and more effortlessly graceful than before. All that would be needed was a quick mea culpa that when you surround yourself with the wrong people, you can become wrong yourself.

But now I had surrounded myself with everyone right—my family, my old friends, and an extraordinary chef, my new friend, who anointed me as his protégé. And I couldn’t wait to share new, homespun and delicious recipes from the sea.

I would be legitimate again. Amber Rucci would be put back in her place.

But first, he had to anoint me—which was going to be no easy task, considering who he was. In a world where every chef wanted the cookbooks and the shows and the attention, he wanted none of the above. He wanted to be left alone—which was one of the main reasons he’d opened his restaurant in the Hamptons.

The restaurant, which he named 28, was a few tree-lined streets off Montauk Highway, on the way to Amagansett. It was called 28 because of its intimate twenty-eight-seat dining room and chef’s counter. The five seats at the chef’s counter were the most coveted, but getting a table anywhere in the small dining room was a serious coup. If you knew about food (or even if you didn’t), you knew about this restaurant. It was a destination restaurant, a place-you-get-engaged restaurant, a place-you-get-married restaurant, a place-you-can’t-even-get-a-reservation restaurant.

And, with any luck, it was also going to be the start-of-my-redemption-tour restaurant.

I got Sammy an ice-cream cone at Craig’s (two scoops, chocolate and vanilla) and left her to it in the foyer, so I could walk inside 28 alone. The dining room was perfectly understated: wooden rafters, dark stone tabletops, Windsor chairs. There were two paintings on the wall—one of Montauk, circa 1938, Hurricane written at the bottom; the other of a wooden spoon and fork, crisscrossed over a white canvas. I couldn’t explain why that painting was as compelling as it was, so simple and decent. And yet, kind of like the restaurant itself, you wanted to be a part of it.

A woman was standing at the hostess stand, placing the evening’s menus in their holders. She was in her early sixties and perfectly coiffed, in a white sweater and dress pants. Formal. And so slight that you could have missed her, if it weren’t for her perfume—a pungent mix of lavender and dandelions—as though someone had told her that if she bought a natural perfume, she could put as much on as she desired. And, apparently, she desired to wear a lot.

She looked up and noticed me in the doorway. “We’re closed until dinner service,” she said.

“I’m actually looking for the manager . . . Lottie Reese?”

She offered a forced smile, probably thinking that I was there to beg for a reservation. “I am she.”

I nodded like I didn’t already know that. I had known it. I’d done my homework and had picked this exact time to walk in, knowing she would be the one in the main dining room. Lottie Reese: Chef Z’s right-hand woman, the first employee he’d hired when he opened 28. Chef Z avoided the dining room whenever possible—didn’t like mingling with his guests—and Lottie handled everything front of house for him every evening. By day, she handled everything else.

I offered her a large smile, taking in the restaurant, listening to the noises already coming from the kitchen. And taking in the smells—a mix of citrus and freshly cut herbs—reminding me that I hadn’t eaten all day.

“What can I do for you?” she said.

“Peter Gerbertson told me to ask for you directly. I used to work for him at Per Se.”

Her eyes went wide, and I saw her trying not to react. Peter had been the general manager there and was famous in the world of high-end dining. Considering that I was lying to her—I didn’t even know Peter, let alone had ever worked for him—it was a risky move to use his name. But it added legitimacy. I knew she cared about Per Se. Even if Chef Z deplored the business of the restaurant business, Lottie liked to think the Per Ses and Blue Hills of the world knew of 28, that they were talking about her the way she talked about them.

Her smile went from forced to real, and I could see her take in my attire, which I had carefully chosen: a white peasant shirt, classic jeans. My hair was curly and loose. And I wore tortoiseshell eyeglasses: thick and oval, covering my eyes, obscuring my face. I didn’t look so much like myself with the glasses on—and without makeup. It was my Clark Kent disguise, in case I needed one. Though, of course, I’d never been Superman.

“How is Peter?” she said.

“He’s good,” I said. “He sends his regards. And he told me you’re the person to talk to about the possibility of working at 28.”

“Well, it was kind of him to send you my way . . . uh . . .”

She was searching for my name, which I took as a good sign. “Sammy. Stephens.”

I probably should have thought harder before using the kid’s name. But it was the first that came to my mind.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Though honestly, we’re already overstaffed for the season. But if you want

to leave a resume, I can let you know if something opens up.”

I pretended to reach into my bag for a resume I had no intention of handing her. I’d win or lose this battle in this moment.

“That would be great,” I said. “I imagine it must be hard, training people and then retraining them every summer season.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

Which was when there was yelling from the kitchen. A British accent. Strong and intrepid. Chef Z.

Lottie blew right through it, and took me in. For a second, she looked at me as though his loud screaming would give me permission to call her out on the obvious: how many people Chef Z fired. How hard it was for her to keep any staff at all here, no one good enough for Z, no one meeting his standards, the task all the harder in the Hamptons.

“It’s largely a summer community, so that’s the case with most establishments,” Lottie said.