Happy Birthday: A Novel

She had spent six years in France and Italy going to school and apprenticing to become a chef, and she eventually worked at some of the best restaurants in Europe. She had been an apprentice of Alain Ducasse in Paris, and later an under pastry chef at the Tour d’Argent. She had worked in Florence and Rome, and by the time she came back to the States at twenty-five, she had some serious experience under her belt. She had worked for a year at one of the finest restaurants in New York, and then, thanks to her mother, had spent a year setting up the restaurant of her dreams. What she had wanted to do was serve the best of everything, both favorite delicacies and simple foods that people loved to eat, not drowning in elaborate sauces or a menu people wanted to face only once in a while. She offered fabulous pasta, which she made herself as she had learned to do in Rome and Florence, steak tartare exactly the way they made it in France. She served escargots for those who loved them, foie gras both hot and cold, and boudin noir. She offered the finest salmon, unforgettable cheeseburgers on homemade buns, mac and cheese, meat loaf and corned beef hash like your grandmother used to make, gourmet pizzas, roast and Southern fried chicken, French leg of lamb, and mashed potatoes that melted in your mouth. There was caviar and blinis, spring rolls and dim sum, Maine lobsters and crab, and soft-shell crab in the summer, fabulous shrimp and oysters that she picked out herself. The menu was a combination of everything people loved to eat, and she loved to cook, with an entire section of comfort food, everything from matzoh-ball soup to polenta, pastina, pancakes, French toast and waffles, at any hour of the day, not just for Sunday brunch. She had brought the pastry chef from the Hotel Ritz in Paris to make exquisite pastries, desserts, and soufflés. She also had good, moderate-priced wines from all over the world, with an excellent sommelier to help choose them.

The restaurant had been a hit overnight, not only with her clients but with their kids as well. Her children’s menu included grilled cheese sandwiches that kids and adults loved, hot dogs and hamburgers, tiny pizzas, plain pasta with nothing on it, mac and cheese, tiny bite-sized servings of fried chicken, and French fries the way she had learned to make them in France, which everyone loved. And for the kids’ desserts, hot fudge sundaes, s’mores, banana splits, milk shakes, and root beer floats. When parents told their kids they were going to April’s, their children were ecstatic. And if an adult wanted to order from the children’s menu, that was okay too. It was the kind of restaurant that April would have loved to go to as a child, and that she enjoyed as an adult. And so did everyone who went there.

They were constantly booked for lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch. And at this time of year, for the month of November, she served white truffles with pasta or scrambled eggs for those who loved them. She paid a fortune for the white truffles, which could only be found in one area of Italy, and were flown in from Elba every November for a brief three-week season. They had just come in from Italy two days before, and only serious food enthusiasts knew and loved the delicate roots that were found underground and were pungent and aromatic when shaved on pasta or risotto. She was going to start serving them that night. One of the things she loved about her birthday was that it was white truffle season, which she was crazy about. They were a big investment for her since white truffles cost a fortune.

April in New York was a smash hit, and it was her entire life. She had no time for, or interest in, anything else. And it was only on a day like this that she allowed herself to think about what else she didn’t have in her life. In fact, she had nothing else, but she didn’t want anything other than a restaurant. She hadn’t had a serious romance in five years, but she didn’t have time for one anyway. Before that, in Paris, she had been in an abusive relationship, with another chef who walked out on her every five minutes and had once threatened her with a butcher’s knife. It had taken her two years, a shrink, and eighteen months on Prozac to get over him, and she’d been gun-shy ever since. Since then, her relationships had been brief, infrequent, and superficial. The restaurant seemed to satisfy all her needs for now.