Mom exhales loudly. "What do you think, Ally?"

Allison wipes a blob of tomato sauce from Gideon's face. "I don't know anything about the restaurant business."

"But you must have an opinion," Mom pushes.

Why does she care so much about what Allison thinks?

Allison shrugs. "If Mimi really wants this..."

"I do."

"...then I guess we should support her."

"Great. Thanks." I'll take it.

M&M's Seeking more validation, I invite Madeline to The Garden. "Take the Ben Franklin Bridge to Route 108. Make a left at the Home Depot. Turn right at the Dunkin' Donuts. Bear right at the Starbucks. You'll pa.s.s Target, McDonald's and Burger King. Turn left at the Dunkin' Donuts, right at the Starbucks and after the Home Depot, turn left on Kean Road and you'll see the sign for The Garden. The address is 32 Tomato Road."

Madeline arrives wearing three-inch mules, camo pants, and a white tank top. I can see both her bra and her biceps. Madeline hands me a white box. "Your favorite," she says.

Inside the pink and white Tiers box is a piece of vanilla sponge cake filled with kirsch mousseline. "Merci mucho," "Merci mucho," I say. I say.

She smiles. "Who's your Maddie?"

We sit on Mom's cream-colored couch. Maddie picks up SJ SJ magazine and starts to leaf through it. I clear my throat and say, "Maddie, I'm going to run my dad's restaurant." magazine and starts to leaf through it. I clear my throat and say, "Maddie, I'm going to run my dad's restaurant."

Madeline puts down the magazine.

While I tell Madeline about my plans to revitalize Cafe Louis, she picks at a scar on her forearm. Madeline has scars up and down her arms. They are a result of her years working in professional kitchens. Hot liquids, knives, and ovens have left their mark on her. Of course, Madeline has other scars that aren't visible.

"What do you think of my plan?" I ask.

Madeline shrugs. "You're the restaurant consultant. I'm just a cook."

"You're not just a cook," I say.

Madeline shrugs. "It seems to me like backward momentum. Still, I am your friend and I'll support you."

"Thanks. I'm overwhelmed."

To catch some spring sunshine, we move into Mom's courtyard garden. I sit in one of the outdoor club chairs. Madeline pulls a pair of purple sungla.s.ses from her bag. Like a cat in the sun, Madeline stretches her limbs on a chaise longue. She smiles at me. "Where are we with the Nick fallout?"

"I'm still in the sulk," I say. "Let's face it. I'm homeless, jobless, and manless. I can figure out the living situation and the employment issue, but I hate being single. It sucks."

"I don't think singledom sucks," Madeline says. "I like my freedom."

"I don't want freedom. I want a mortgage and a diaper bag."

Madeline sifts through her hot pink tote. "I thought I put sunscreen in here."

"What I'm thinking is that I need to change myself in order to get what I want. Maybe I need to be more feminine."

Madeline says, "What is feminine?"

"I don't know. Less tigery, more kittenish."

Madeline kicks off her mules. "Don't get all damsel-in-distress, Mimi. It doesn't become you."

"I don't know how to damsel. But there's an in between, isn't there? Look at Ally. Hair, makeup, att.i.tude. Ally is so well done. I'm too raw."

"Not raw." Madeline waves her hands in the air. "Rare. As in special. You're a filet mignon, cooked rare."

"Filet mignon? I feel like a day-old Big Mac."

"You'll find a man who can savor your rareness. Speaking of which, you should get back in someone's saddle. Don't let living with Bobbi turn you into a nun."

"I am not in the mood for s.e.x. My diva has laryngitis."

"My diva is singing arias," Madeline says. "The lawyer I'm sleeping with is quite the conductor."

"Good for you."

Madeline smiles. "Yes. It is good for me."

Lipstick Theory Two We are heckling chefs on the Food Network when Mom comes home. "Hi, girls," she greets us.

Madeline rises from the couch to hug Mom. "You look very nice, Bobbi," Madeline says. Mom is wearing a pale peach, lightweight sweater and a cream-colored skirt that shows off her legs. And yes, Madeline calls my mother by her first name. Mom prefers it.

"Thank you, Maddie." Mom walks to her computer. "My friends and I went to a matinee performance of a new play at Arden Theater. We're going to get a bite to eat. I'm just going to check the e-mail and I'll be out of your way. I need to see if any men have contacted me."

"Men?" Madeline asks.

"I joined an Internet dating site for people over fifty."

"Good for you, Bobbi." Madeline pokes my arm. "You're lucky to have such a cool mom."

"I am cool, aren't I?" Then Mom sighs. "No e-mails."

"Don't be discouraged," Madeline says. "These things take time. Dating is rough."

"Mom, tell Maddie your lipstick theory."

Mom turns off her computer and turns to us. "My lipstick theory is that you should always wear lipstick because you never know who you're going to meet."

"Mom! That is not your lipstick theory."

"It's not?" Mom says. "What is it? I forget."

"You compared dating to shopping for lipstick. You said that we should go slowly and date carefully, just like we try on a lot of lipsticks before we buy one."

Madeline grins. "I buy all the lipsticks."

The Make-Up Bar "Look at them," Allison says as she waves her hand in front of my eyes. She's gesturing to my overgrown eyebrows, showing them to Lisa Severino, waxer extraordinaire. Allison insisted on bringing me to The Make-Up Bar so she could properly introduce me to Lisa, whom she described as her WMD in the war on hair.

Lisa looks at my face, and I look at hers. She is perfectly cosmeticked and coiffed. Lisa is an Italian-American version of my perfect sister-in-law. I feel vastly inadequate. But Lisa smiles. "It's not that bad," she says.

While Lisa applies the wax, Allison busies herself among the makeup samples. The salon is busy with hair-stylists and manicurists, and a bevy of women wait for Lisa to wax them. Meanwhile, I blink back tears as Lisa whisks the wax from my face.

"Look." Lisa offers me a hand mirror. In the harsh but natural light pouring in through The Make-Up Bar's windows, I see only the wrinkles around my eyes. Then I raise the mirror and see two well-arched brows. My eyes look bigger and my nose looks smaller. What a difference a wax makes.

"It's all about balance," Lisa says.

Bette's Counter "I heard it, but I didn't believe it," says Bette when I walk into Cafe Louis that afternoon.

"For better or for worse." I approach the counter. "I'm here."

"For the better, hon. Come here and give me a hug."

Bette is one of Cafe Louis's original waitresses. Now Bette is near sixty. She's still rail thin. What dates Bette is her Reagan-era makeup. Bette's eyelids are weighted with blue shadow and her lashes struggle against black mascara. She wears pink, frosted lipstick. "Bette," I say. "I've missed you terribly."

I have. When I was a child, Bette was the most glamorous woman in my world. She'd breeze into the restaurant on a cloud of Jean Nate and cigarette smoke, her lipstick smeared from kissing goodbye her latest boyfriend, whose Firebird or TransAm squealed and roared as it left the parking lot.

"I work the counter now," she tells me with pride. "Since your dad got sick, I've been keeping my eye on things." Bette smiles. "But now you're here. Things are going to get better. I just know it."

Bette's counter is filled with regulars by five o'clock. I watch Bette with admiration as she kibitzes with her mostly male audience. "It's Friday, Hugh. You think I don't know that you want the meatloaf?"

That night, after the other servers have left, Bette and I sit at the counter drinking coffee, sharing a piece of chocolate cake and talking. I tell her my plans for Cafe Louis. "That all sounds great," Bette says. "Now tell me about the jerk boyfriend."

I give her the Nick synopsis. She says, "Men never know what they want, do they?"

Menu Madness Madeline is late to the meeting I have called to discuss the changes I want to make to Cafe Louis. I can't be mad at Madeline because she is coming straight from Tiers, and because she has volunteered to come for moral support.

Grammy Jeff slowly walks to the tables I have pushed together for our meeting. She is tired. I can see it in her eyes, and her shoulders. "How y'all doin'?" Grammy says when she sits in the chair next to her grandson.

"How are you feeling, Grammy?" Bette asks. I realize that Bette and Grammy are within five years of each other. As is my mom.

"I'm doing just fine," Grammy answers. She reaches for the white container that holds packets of sweetener. Grammy pulls five white packets of sugar.

Nelson grabs the sugar out of Grammy's hand. He replaces the white packets with pink packets. Grammy frowns at her grandson. "Nellie, I want some sugar in my tea."

"You had sugar in your tea an hour ago," Nelson says. "I saw you."

"Nellie..."

Nelson interrupts her. "Don't make me come at you with the insulin."

"Here I am," Madeline says as she bounds through the door.

Introducing Madeline, I go around the table and realize that the staff has divided themselves into two teams. Representing the kitchen are Grammy Jeff and Nelson. The front of the house representatives are Christopher and Bette.

"Pleased to meet you all," Madeline says cheerfully. She puts two bakery boxes on the table.

"What's that?" Nelson asks, peering inside the first box.

"Cream puffs," Madeline answers. "We were making a croquembouche. It's a traditional French wedding cake made out of cream puffs. You stack them to make a four-foot tower, then caramelize sugar over the whole thing to enclose it. The bride and groom take a champagne bottle and swing at the tower, cracking the sugar. It's pretty cool. Anyway, I brought these because we made too many cream puffs."

"No such thing as too many cream puffs," Christopher says.

Madeline smiles at him, then opens the second box. "These are chocolate samples from different suppliers. Tell me what you think."

"What happened to Franco at Le Chocolat?" I ask.

"He cheated on me," Madeline says. "He said that he was importing his unsweetened chocolate just for me. Yesterday I found out that he's been selling to Aux Pet.i.t Delices behind my back. I had to break up with him. I mean, I have my pride."

"I like my chocolate like I like my men," Christopher says.

"Dark?" Nelson asks.

"French," Christopher replies. "And not too bitter."

"Can we start the meeting please?" I say.

Christopher nods at me. "Start your meeting, pea pod."

"As you may have heard, Cafe Louis has not been profitable for some time. A real estate developer has made an offer to buy the property. But I think we can turn around the restaurant and restore her to her former glory. I have some ideas on how to do that, but I'd like your input."

Grammy Jeff says, "If it's a good offer, maybe you should sell the restaurant."

"Not without a fight," I state.

"Who are you fighting?" Grammy asks.

Bette says, "Tell us your ideas, Mimi."

"Increase check averages by reformatting the menu. Right now, there's no section for appetizers. We need fried calamari. Nachos. As we add dishes, I want to remove the ones that don't sell. From what I've seen of the past three months' ordering slips, we should remove the chicken cordon bleu, meatloaf, and broiled flounder."

"Hugh will have a fit." Bette shakes her head. "He orders meatloaf every Friday."

"Hugh ordering the meatloaf once a week doesn't justify having it on the menu," I explain. "Also, I want to go to an a la carte menu. Right now, each entree comes with soup or salad and two sides. We're giving away food."

"Oy." Christopher rolls his eyes.

"Our customers won't like that," Bette says.

"We will fill each plate with a starch and veg," I continue. "Everything will be portion-controlled to lower costs. Which is the next thing. I'm going to find new suppliers so we can lower our food costs."

"This sounds fabulous," Christopher drawls, "but the waiters are the ones who will have to explain these changes to the customers."