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this woman were a respite not only from that but from arguments with Leo over finding a new pastry chef and from unreliable suppliers and the kitchen’s latest turf war with the servers.
    She was also a useful barometer for Alan’s progress as a maître d’, a position he had continued to occupy a few nights a week after Helene returned from vacation. Alan was slowly abandoning his Continental undertaker mode and honing his instincts for how and when to woo a guest with small displays of welcome, which had to be dispensed judiciously or else the guest would expect some free thing every time.
    By this time Britt had learned her name, and so despite his general distraction he brightened when, just after Halloween, he saw her on the reservations sheet, slated for a window table overlooking the half-leaved trees and the darkening gray sky. He had noted a
BC
next to her name, which was Camille.
    BC no longer stood for an actual blue index card but for a file on the computer system of frequent guests and their habits . A note on the servers’ ticket would alert them to check it before approaching the table, so they would know who hated salmon, who was allergic to gluten, who adored soft-shell crab, and who liked to linger over coffee. It was a habit Leo had picked up years ago, at a place where he had worked in college . T here the staff had kept a small recipe-card box at the bar, containing alphabetically arranged blue index cards with additional notes jotted on, crossed out, and amended . T he cards bore family names and configurations, the dead and the divorced neatly crossed out, new names in fresh ink to one side . T hey knew who married, separated, and gave birth . T hey knew birthdays and anniversaries and wonky food issues like an aversion to onions but a love of chiles, a rotating circuit of odd diets, favorite cheeses, and beliefs about meat temperature. However wise a business move the files were, scrutiny of them revealed lives in a way that was also oddly moving, and sometimes—perhaps—unflattering.
    The staff was continually admonished to keep the cards’ language simple and neutral. No jokes, no giving in to moments of rage. Nevertheless, unable to resist, several servers had amused themselves by writing cards for one another:
Often leaves table to weep in lavatory
, read Alan’s file,
likes server to offer brave smiles upon return
. T he file for a longtime server named David was nearly a novel, from
Likely to arrive with chorizo in pockets; do not be persuaded to cook it for him
to
Frequently unmanned by hiccups
. No one had made a card for Leo, who was just distant and intimidating enough that the servers weren’t sure how he’d take it. Britt would have told them to write one for him—Leo would love it—but the cards were not the kind of thing one could direct. Every now and again Britt read through them, hoping to see one for Leo appear. Britt’s blue card file read simply,
Mouth breather.
    When they first set up the filing system, Britt had had the idea to try to configure it so that descriptions could be sent to a portion of the servers’ tickets but would not print out with the final bill . T he idea was to eliminate a step, precisely the sort of efficiency that kept a restaurant lean and quick . A nd it might have worked quite nicely except for a glitch that left the notes on the bill, forcing Britt to be summoned by a woman with silver hair in a brutal little knot at the back of her head, who opened her billfold and read aloud, “‘Likes to talk, but not to server.’” He’d had to buy her table an additional round of cognac to smooth it over, and afterward Britt and Leo had accepted the need for a less efficient filing system and an additional procedure even on the busiest nights—whatever it took to safeguard their guests from knowledge of themselves.
    The blue card for Camille was no help at all. Britt stood at the maître d’ podium, watching Helene rearrange flowers and the