The Complete Eagle Cove

Chapter 3 -1

Chapter 3

Friday Night

The Judge didn’t cook on Saturdays or Sundays—Don’t much like damn tourists anyway—so there was no urgent need to finish cleaning up The Puffin, but ten years of habit had Greg staying even after the others left. He liked making sure that everything was shipshape and tucked away.

He’d also enjoyed the chance to think about the night. He’d often received thanks and handshakes for his meals, but he’d never received a round of applause like that before.

He still didn’t know what to make of his father’s offer. His parents had set up a college fund that had seen him through the two years at CIA, plus the extra courses he’d crammed in during summers and weekends. The day he’d graduated the Judge had taken him aside and handed him a check for ten thousand dollars.

“This is your startup fund, Greg. We gave the same to your brother. You work your a*s off and you make this last. It’s all there is until your mother and I pass. Not because we can’t afford it, but because a man has to make his own way in the world and he won’t do that if there’s some damn safety net bailing him out every time he goes overboard.” It was one of the longest speeches of the Judge’s life.

Greg still had every cent of that original ten grand in a savings account. For ten years it had been the symbol of his own restaurant and he’d built on that, never once touching it. He hadn’t done it fast. That money in the bank gave him a confidence that allowed him to work for less where he could learn more.

And his father had just broken his own rule and offered to bankroll his new restaurant. Greg had thought that was still two or three years away. He didn’t want to squander the opportunity, so it was going to take some thinking and planning before he took any action at all. He’d treat it as a venture capitalist’s investment which he would repay with very high interest.

One last check and he could find nothing else to clean or straighten. The kitchen stood ready for whatever came next—a blank template. He liked that. Unlike so many of the restaurants he’d worked, this one wasn’t all pre-stocked for some repeat performance of a fixed menu. There wasn’t a dinnertime’s estimated stock of a dozen racks of lamb, fifteen lobster tails, twenty pounds of beef tenderloin ready to be made into filet mignon, and all of the other culinary traps of a successful restaurant.

His favorite part of any restaurant had always been the Fresh Sheet. What was at its very best today. What could be done with it. His Puffin’s kitchen was like that. Nothing pre-decided. A halibut had been caught a dozen hours ago, reached his hands two hours later, and had now fed fifty-three people.

He patted the thousand dollars in his pocket. Even after paying back all of the vendors—because Ralph had comped him the fish in exchange for dinner for his family, making it a very expensive meal for Ralph—he’d have over seven hundred dollars which was going straight into his restaurant fund.

Lights out, he pulled the door shut behind him and turned to face the night. It was warm and the ocean freshness was thick on the air. The Flicker’s marquee was out. The late show was done; it must be later than he thought. Usually it lit this entire end of Beach Way.

Everything was shadows.

Like most coastal towns, Eagle Cove had rolled up its sidewalks and only the Bobbin’ Red Robin Tavern remained open, its neon sign advertising “5B Brews On Tap” as a muted statement in the front window that barely lit the stretch of sidewalk in front of it.

“What the hell, Slater?”

He jolted. The voice, the tone, even the words themselves told him exactly who sat in one of the big wood chairs on the diner’s dark porch. The three elements blended together made a nuanced statement even without the visual.

“Hi, Baxter,” he wondered what Jessica was doing here. He’d bet that falling into his arms wasn’t exactly likely.

His eyes had adapted enough to the dark to see her sitting in the second chair to the right of the diner’s door. Greg could just make out the dark spot of the red dahlia that he’d tucked into her light hair. She still wore it. Had she been here since the patrons had left hours ago? Maybe, which was interesting.

He sat in the first chair and only in that moment could feel the familiar pounding of the blood in his feet. Restaurant work did that to you and it wouldn’t be the end of a good day without that particular throb and ache. He kicked off his shoes, peeled his socks, and rested them on the cool, rough wood of the porch.

“Oh god, that feels so good.”

“When did you start?”

“Today? After working for Dad from six to ten, I spent a couple hours helping Vincent with some cabinet work before your dad called with the halibut.”

“Does he do that a lot? Or was it just because I was here?” He caught that the second part of the question was the important one, but answered the first.

“Some. I get fish from him. Danny McCall gets me crab when they’re in. Tiffany brought me bear once, but more often sells me some elk.”

“Tiffany? Quiet woman about my age with long hair? A good knitter?”

“She knits? I didn’t know that. And she’s definitely not quiet; she’s always talking to herself—probably comes from living alone up in the woods. But the long hair fits. She’s one of the best bow hunters in town. And you remember what they say about deer in this town…”

“Don’t need a g*n, just need a baseball bat.” It came out in unison and they both laughed. He’d forgotten that Jessica Baxter had such an amazing laugh. The deer in Eagle Cove were so tame, that you could practically walk up and pet them.

“A lot of folk bring me venison whenever I need it. Beef in the fall from Mr. Greene… I get food from all sorts of folks in town.”

“I actually meant how long have you been doing this?”

“Irregular Fridays at The Puffin or cooking?” Or crazy about you? But he wasn’t going to say that one out loud. Or answer it.

“Both actually.” In other words all three, but she wasn’t any more willing to ask him about the unspoken part than he was to say it.

He wished he could see her more clearly than just her general location. She was facing him, in a casual posture that didn’t place her hand on the chair arm next to his, but still she sat in an open way. In a…journalist’s way. As a matter of fact, her questions were…

“Writing an article about me?”

“No. I just…” Jessica slipped into silence. When she spoke again, her tone had softened. “I don’t know you, Greg. Everyone says that you’re crazy about me, but you don’t know me either.”

“Making me just plain crazy.” He slid down in his chair, extending out his feet until his toes were wiggling in the cool night air. “I can live with that.”

Again that patented, secret sauce Jessica Baxter laugh.

He decided to go back to the first questions for safety. “Mom started teaching me to cook when I was tall enough to work on the counter while standing on a stool. I can’t even remember when I didn’t cook. What about you?”