The Pearl Diver by Sujata Massey

hold sway over so many people’s dining habits? Jiro had talked seriously with Marshall about it beforehand. There were at least three dishes on the menu that met Atkins requirements. I couldn’t remember if soy was on or off the diet. I became nervous thinking about it, so I asked Justin to find Kendall and ask.
    “What do you think I am, suicidal?” he snapped. “Rei, I’ve got lots of tables to serve—oh, damn, look what that little boy of yours did to the flowers.”
    Hers, not mine , I could have said, but didn’t. Win Junior had rearranged the camellias that a Georgetown florist had so carefully arranged in a low bowl earlier that afternoon. One camellia was in his hair, and the other on his sister’s plate. She was picking up her blossom to eat it.
    “Not for supper! Supper’s coming soon,” I said, taking the camellia from her lips and tucking it back into the dish. “Please check for me, Justin. I beg you. I’m not a child care expert—you need to get her back or who knows what will happen.”
    Justin came back with the news that Kendall wasn’t in the hall, and that Marshall wanted me to stop by table 5, because the patrons had a question about the origins of the tansu behind the bar. I glanced across the room and saw Marshall sitting with them. Great. I had to do it, but I couldn’t abandon Win and Jacqueline, leaving them alone at the table.
    I hung on to Jacqueline’s sticky little fingers with one hand while I unbelted Winnie from his booster seat with the other. We proceeded slowly to table 5, hampered by Winnie’s attempts to grab things off the tables we passed.
    When we reached the table, I did my best to talk intelligently about the tansu with a pleasant older gentleman who’d spent some time in Japan. But Jacqueline kept up a patter about where her mommy was, and Win grabbed a menu out of the hands of the man’s female dining companion. I decided to make a quick exit. Glancing across the room, I saw that Kendall still hadn’t returned.
    “Let’s visit the lavatory,” I said in my most cheerful voice.
    “No potty!” Jacqueline cried.
    “You don’t have to go potty there, don’t worry. I want to show you some—fish! Fish on the walls. Don’t you like fish?” I led the two of them into the ladies’ rest room. Win decided he wanted to try to potty, and I undid his pants and struggled to undo his diaper. I spent too long figuring it out, because Win wound up exploding on the Italian-tile floor.
    I pulled up his diaper in horror and scrubbed quickly at the floor with paper towels as a couple of women walked in and gasped at the sight before them. I concentrated on cleaning up,and after I’d washed and dried everyone’s hands and was leading them out, I caught sight of Andrea.
    “May I make a quick phone call from the maître d’s stand?” I grabbed her sleeve, because she seemed as if she was trying to ignore me.
    “Those are for incoming calls only.” She pulled away her arm and examined it, as if I might have torn the lace on her long-sleeved blouse.
    “This is an emergency.” I planned to call Kendall’s cell number, which I knew better than her household one, since she was always out.
    “What kind of emergency?” Andrea prodded.
    I was losing my patience. “A child care one. These kids are going to be in the restaurant all night if we don’t get their mother to come back from wherever she’s hiding.”
    Andrea grudgingly let me use the telephone, but my call just went into her voice mail. She had to still be chatting with Harp Snowden. But where was she? Kendall couldn’t have gone far, because I could see, through the restaurant’s front door, her Volvo parked on the street.
    Maybe she’d stepped out back. Trundling the children along with me, I moved through the masses and then the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. I was blindsided by a tray carried by one of the runners. The tray teetered and broth leaped from a bowl and onto me.
    “Wrong