Set against the backdrop of the bustling restaurant scenes of New York City and New Orleans, The Coat Check Girl is a compelling tale weaving together threads of sorrow, redemption, and the enduring power of connection. Join Josie as she discovers that sometimes, it’s in confronting the shadows that we find the brightest light.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Laura Buchwald’s The Coat Check Girl, which is out now.
Sometimes, it’s in confronting the shadows that we find the brightest light.
Embark on a touching journey with Josie Gray as she navigates the turbulent waters of loss, love, and the supernatural. After bidding farewell to her cherished grandmother, Josie finds herself adrift in a sea of grief, compounded by the complexities of an ambiguous romantic entanglement and the return of her unsettling “gift”—the ability to sense and communicate with spirits. A presence haunts the restaurant where she works, dredging up long-buried memories from her childhood.
But amidst the shadows, a luminous figure emerges—the restaurant’s new coat check girl. Mia is a beacon of understanding and solidarity, offering solace in shared experiences and a determination to unravel the mystery shrouding the restless spirit. Bolstered by a vibrant ensemble of characters, from restaurant comrades to familiar faces in the neighborhood, Mia keeps Josie afloat during one of the most difficult seasons of her life, helping her to embrace her unique talents and confront the ghostly enigma looming over them.
Just as Mario, the head porter, turned on the outside lights against the darkening afternoon, the front door opened, sending a gust of humidity into the air-chilled room.
Someone stood inside the vestibule shaking a mess of umbrella spokes and running her fingers through damp hair. Josie recognized her but couldn’t place her. Her long, mermaid waves were tousled by the rain. She had pale skin, kohl-lined eyes, and wore a pastel yellow raincoat over a short dress and shiny white rain boots.
Manhattan was filled with beautiful women, but this one was a different animal. Josie looked over to the bar—Derek had disappeared down the trap door to the subterranean liquor room.
As the girl approached, Josie realized she didn’t know her after all. Yet there was something familiar about her, as though she’d had a cameo in a dream, or they’d made eye contact on the subway. And what eyes she had, like a cat’s, irises a mosaic of green, gold, and violet. Her lips were pink and glossy.
With her utilitarian black uniform, her makeup-free face, her hair a messy knot on top of her head, Josie felt dowdy. Dressing up, though, would have been an affront to her grief. At least that was how she’d justified her choices that morning.
The girl stood in front of Josie, seemingly awaiting a greeting.
“Hello. May I help you?” Josie slipped easily from grieving survivor to hostess mode, robo-smile and all.
“Hi, Josephine?” the girl said with an easy smile and a thick southern drawl. She extended a hand. “I’m Mia Boudreaux.”
Josie shook her hand and wondered why Mia Boudreaux knew her, and knew her as Josephine. Few people called her by her full name.
“I’m sorry—have we met?”
“Oh!” Mia Boudreaux’s eyes crinkled when she laughed. “We have now. I’m here about the coat check position. They mentioned how you’d be the first person I’d see.”
Andy emerged from his office in the back of the restaurant, rolling down the sleeves of his pink Oxford, and slid into the first booth, from which he conducted interviews. He started scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad.
“Of course. Let me introduce you to our manager.”
She walked Mia to the booth.
“Well hello,” Andy said.
“Hi Andy. This—”
“I’m Mia Boudreaux,” Mia said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
She took the seat across from him with a quiet confidence that impressed Josie.
“Josie—tell Mario to turn down the air,” Andy tossed her way without looking up from his notepad. “It’s like the North Pole in here!”
“Please,” Josie mouthed, and rolled her eyes. Mia gave her a conspiratorial smile, a tiny gesture of solidarity that Josie, at times suspicious of the motives of other women, deeply appreciated.
She walked back to the front as Derek trotted up from the cellar, his head emerging from behind the bar, followed by the rest of him. He carried three bottles of Malbec and a jug of Jack Daniels. He looked over to Andy’s booth and then winked at Josie. She got it. He liked women.
“You, my dear, are becoming a caricature of yourself,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked, all big eyes and feigned innocence. “Can’t a guy appreciate beauty?”
“You’re nothing if not consistent, Magnus.”
***
Shortly before dinner service began, Josie climbed the front staircase to the ladies’ room and stared at her reflection in the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her irises were muted, as if all the depth had drained from them. She found a dull-tipped brown pencil in the bottom of her bag and attempted to make herself prettier. She wrestled her dark hair out of its bun and ran her fingers through it. Ignoring the sign asking people not to do this, she opened the complimentary Listerine and swigged from the bottle, then felt guilty and wiped it down with her sleeve.
A creaking sound came from one of the two stalls, startling her. Mia was downstairs and there were no other women on staff that night. But the building was old, and strange noises came with the territory. She continued to scrutinize her face. Grief was exhausting. Her lips were chapped. She tried to exfoliate them with a paper towel and heard a set of keys clatter to the floor.
“Hello?” She bent down to check for shoes in the stall. There were none. She bolted upright, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck standing up, and stared at her reflection with eyes like saucers.
“Shit,” she whispered, as a long-dormant sensation washed over her.
As a little girl, Josie learned that she and her grandmother shared an unusual trait—the ability to connect with the spirit world.
“You and I are lucky, Josephine. We see more than most people, and not just with our eyes,” Nanette would explain when something intangible frightened Josie, when she couldn’t bring herself to enter a room, or when she heard voices where there shouldn’t have been any. The problem was, Josie didn’t want to see more than most people. She wanted to be normal.
So she learned early on to keep these experiences to herself—besides Nanette, most people didn’t understand. And when they did it meant that there might actually be such a thing as ghosts, and this was equally inconvenient. Josie’s mother, a staunch disbeliever, thought it was a cry for attention on her daughter’s part. To avoid such accusations, Josie learned to compartmentalize her experiences and developed a protective, wild imagination to explain away the things that didn’t make sense. Nanette urged her to see her ability as a gift.
“Spirits only make contact because they have a message for us or need our help. It’s a good thing.”
It had been a while since a spirit had needed help from Josie. In her younger days, she mustered all of her willpower to consciously ignore even the clearest signs that spirit was present until, eventually, the signs tapered off and then disappeared altogether. She did not need them to come flooding back now, did not need fear to join the list of complicated emotions she was juggling. She left the ladies room and ran down the steps to her post.
