The Complete Eagle Cove

Chapter 2 -6

Greg waded into “the zone” on occasion as much by chance as by planning. Sometimes it was a smooth slide, other times a heart-stopping plunge as bad as when the surfboard dumped him into the ocean and the wave action didn’t release him until his head ached with the cold.

Tonight there’d been too little warning for him to be anywhere else except the zone. By the time the seventy-pound slab of cleaned halibut, Airport Peggy, and the Judge all arrived at the restaurant, prep time had already been tight.

In minutes he was spewing out directions like a master chef. He was so wound up that he slid into his commercial kitchen mode. He only ground to a halt when Peggy came to stand directly in his path and wouldn’t let him by to reach the fresh herbs he kept growing in the restaurant’s south window.

“What?” He snapped at her.

Peggy stood still. She was half a foot shorter than he was…and could snap him over her knee if she’d felt like it. She should have been an Alaskan bush pilot. Not like Maggie O’Connell in Northern Exposure, delicate for all her bravado. Peggy Naron was shorter than the model who had played Maggie and not much bigger around. But Peggy gave the distinct impression that if she had to wrestle a polar bear, it was going to be a bad day for the bear. She had dark curly hair pulled back in one of those ponytails that exploded behind the rubber band making it look as if she was racing in his direction just the way a diving eagle might moments before it killed its puny prey. She was closer to the Judge’s age than his own, finishing high school while he’d been starting diapers.

“What?” He managed to tone it down this time.

“I’ve known you since you were still inside your mama, Greg. Babysat when she needed a break from you and Harry. Now answer me one question straight and I’ll let you by.”

What was it with tricky women today? First Jessica, then Dawn, and now Peggy. “Okay,” he said cautiously.

“Where are you right now, Greg?”

“The Puffin Diner.” He tossed it out as a joke, then wondered if he was about to get another plate of greasy food down his pants for being so flippant. How else was he supposed to answer such a weird question?

“Good boy. Remember that,” and, that simply, she stepped aside. She returned to her work of shelling the scallops with knife and spoon. At least he hadn’t wasted the beautiful shellfish on some earlier test just for himself; they’d be perfect in tonight’s dinner.

He’d been moving so fast that, having come to a halt, there was an inertia against moving again. He glanced at his father. The Judge had been shaving shallots on a mandoline, but now had stopped. He wasn’t watching Greg, instead he was looking at Peggy. Inscrutable as ever, there was no way to tell what he was thinking, and Greg wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

Then the Judge looked up at Greg and offered his “my decision is final” nod in obvious agreement.

I’m in the Puffin Diner?

Which meant what?

Oh! Duh! He wasn’t in a pressure cooker like the Westin or The Herb Farm before that or the…he was in Eagle Cove, Oregon. He’d never enjoyed those high pressure kitchens, so why had tried to bring that attitude here? The only place more laid back than a small town on the Oregon Coast had probably been left behind along with the 1960s.

Greg hadn’t done that on Friday night before, entering the commercial kitchen frame of mind, at least he hoped he hadn’t. No, if he had, Dawn wouldn’t have the least compunction about reaming his a*s and she wouldn’t have been half as gentle as Peggy had just been.

And the time pressure wasn’t that bad. He glanced at his watch. Okay it was that bad, but that didn’t make his manners any more excusable. Peggy and his father were helping him out of kindness; they wouldn’t be paid much more than food. The twenty dollars prix fixe often barely covered the ingredients he used and the beers that he paired with them.

Yes, Oregon now boasted the number two wine region in the country, gaining ground on Napa, but for some reason all that changed when you crossed the Coast Range. Out here beer ruled. The first microbreweries of the new era had been founded in Oregon. Now you couldn’t drive a dozen miles down the coast—except in the long wilderness gaps—without finding another master brewer with their own set of techniques and flavors. He’d worked a lot with Becky’s flavors from her 5B brews and already knew exactly which pairings he’d use tonight…except with the dessert. Blackbird Porter or Deep Bay Stout? The porter. Just a four-ounce glass with the dessert—No! He’d go with tiny servings of the Espresso stout. Crap! Except he had no dessert. He needed a dessert to complete the meals’ overall flavor profile and if he couldn’t think of—

Calm. Take a breath. Be calm.

Yeah, right.

He was being totally stressed, but he couldn’t dump that on his crew. He was trying to arrange the most complex dinner ever of his Irregular Fridays and there were so many elements to coordinate. He wanted to blame it on his father’s presence, but the Judge had taken instruction well and without comment.

Yet still Greg couldn’t move from where he stood rooted in the middle of the kitchen.

It was so important that this meal was utterly perfect because…

The first question he’d asked Ralph Baxter even before how much halibut he’d be bringing ashore was whether or not his daughter would be here tonight.

Vincent, who’d been standing close by, had slapped his back hard enough that Greg had almost lost his phone into the sawdust.

Ralph promised that he was calling his wife next to make sure all three of them were there. That’s when the panic had settled over him nastier than a bar rag at the end of a busy night.

Greg took one last deep breath…and didn’t feel cleansed at all. He could hear the scraping of metal spoon on scallop shell and the light tick of his father once again sliding the shallots back and forth on the mandoline to make paper thin slices.

He could do this.

He could make it good.

And it was as he rushed toward his window box herb patch that he understood the second level to Peggy’s question.

Where are you, Greg?

He was in The Puffin Diner, though he preferred to think of it as The Puffin when he was serving fine dining here. He was in a kitchen that he knew better than any other in his past. And he was here to serve a meal to his family and friends.

His real goal however—absolutely proving just how totally lame he’d truly become—was to impress the hell out of a beautiful woman he hadn’t seen in fourteen years.