I hadn’t come out brain damaged. I was pretty sure I had the nuns at St. Anne’s to thank, since that was where the underage, unwed mothers who weren’t allowed to attend Barrett Crossing High School went. She had been sober through the important part of her pregnancy, when my brain was developing, but not toward the end. I always gave the sisters free appetizers when they stopped in.
Opening the doors that led out to the enormous patio, I ordered the frat boys to wipe down the picnic tables while I flipped on the lights that framed the area, as well as the fairy lights that had been meticulously strung over the summer when we closed for two weeks to renovate the kitchen and the bar.
At the hostess stand, I checked the list of people waiting, called out names, and had them led quickly through the restaurant and out to the patio. It was a beautiful night, cool, with the crisp smell of fall in the air, so no one declined moving out on the deck, with its gorgeous view of the stars through the arbor of enormous oak trees. I had the four guys out there pouring water, taking orders, and putting the pretzels, boiled peanuts, and cornbread crackers on every table.
The bar crowd thinned immediately, and I darted to the pickup window, where servers were stacked up, some carrying food away, all of them looking frazzled and pained, and a couple only barely held it together. Mackenzie shot me a look of total betrayal, so as I walked by, I gave her a shoulder squeeze before I pushed through the right-side swinging door and into the kitchen. Slipping around the island in the center, I looked over at Lance, who was frying something in a wok that appeared to be on fire, while Oz and Harley, the two sous-chefs, were both doing what looked like five things at once.
“You’re the chef at a down-home restaurant,” I reminded Lance, who jolted at the sound of my voice and then glanced over his shoulder at me. “If you want a Michelin star, you need to open your own place and make it happen.”
“The menu is not to be––”
“I called your grandmother.”
He slammed the wok down and whirled around to face me. “You fucker!” he roared at me. “You better call her back and––”
“I’m here!” Jennifer Bowen announced as she walked through the door, followed by her bear of a husband, Melvin. “And dear God in heaven, I’ve never seen a restaurant with so many folks not eatin’.”
“Gramma.” Lance groaned in agony. “You can’t just––”
“I ran this kitchen for over forty years, Lancelot,” she informed her grandson, using his full first name, which his mother had given him and Jenny had told me she never liked. “I can do whatever I want.”
“I’ll pay you for the night, Jenny, plus your ten percent of the––”
“No, no,” she told me, going right to the long row of tickets and checking them over, as adorable as ever with her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and the attached beaded chain so she wouldn’t lose them. She put on the apron she’d brought with her and then started pulling pots to cover the stove. “Jere, honey, paying me for the night is enough.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, because nobody fought with her.
“Oz, Harley, c’mere, boys,” she barked at them.
They both scrambled to reach her.
I turned to Melvin. “Since I’m about to clear the entirety of the pies and cakes in the display case by making dessert on the house tonight, if you could get to baking for tomorrow, I would appreciate that, sir.”
“Of course,” he acceded warmly, hand on my cheek, patting gently. As the man stood six six to my own six two, I smiled up at him. It had been a surprise, the first time I met him, that he was such a gentle giant. What was also fun was when new people met Melvin, who had played basketball in college, and then Jenny, his wife of just over fifty years, who stood, in her bare feet, at five feet two inches.
Taking a quick breath, I turned and headed for the door. Lance caught my arm, his grip on my bicep meant to be painful.
“What?” I asked him, my gaze locked on his.
“You think this is fuckin’ funny?”
“No, dickhead, I don’t,” I snapped at him. “But I need the food to fly out of this kitchen, and if you’re going to