we will not feel bad, embarrassed, or awkward if we happen to make a comment like that. It’s part of our lives, part of who we are, and there’s no point dancing around it.”
She nods, tries a small smile. “I think that’s good. And actually, that’s one of the first times that I’ve mentioned him that hasn’t left me feeling like I’m going to break down in hysterics. So there’s that.”
“‘Baby steps to the elevator, Bob.’”
She snickers. “I want, I want, I need, I need.”
We laugh at the shared reference, and then I pull open my truck door. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she says, and without giving me time to process what that might means, heads for her car.
I don’t have to wonder too hard what she means, though, because I get it. You’re never ready. You can’t be.
It’s a bit farther than I thought it would be, getting to the restaurant—closer to thirty minutes than fifteen. When we get there, the parking lot is speckled with vehicles, mostly luxury vehicles that were cream of the crop a few years ago and are now aging a bit, but still very nice. A few trucks like mine, and couple dusty little sensible sedans. Not full, not waitlist busy, but a decent crowd for…whatever day of the week this is.
It’s bigger than I expected, too, a long, low building spreading out around the curving end bank of a long, thin lake glittering in the red-gold sunset. Waist-high wood posts connected by thick nautical ropes line a wood plank leading to the front door. The building is white with blue shutters and a slate-gray roof, lots of tall, narrow windows running around back. I open the door for her, and she pauses as she passes me.
“You smell good,” she murmurs.
I’m tempted to reveal my secret, but she moves the rest of the way in, and then the hostess is greeting us, asking if we have a reservation.
“Yeah. Two, for Fischer, at six forty-five.”
Nadia glances up at me. “You made reservations?”
“This morning, after we said we’d go. I just didn’t want to get all the way here and have to wait an hour for a table.”
“Oh. Probably smart.” She looks like she’s feeling as unsure about this as I am.
The place is swanky. I’d expected a cute little place, nice but not super upscale. This is…more than that.
Low ceilings, heavy wood beams. Lots of pillars, high-back booths with a handful of tea lights and a single flower in the middle. All exactly as in the book. Which, in the description, sounded cozy. The overall effect, now that I’m here, is far more intimate and romantic.
The hostess leads us to a table at the back of the restaurant, overlooking the lake and the docks. The walls along the back slide open and accordion against the far corners so the whole rear of the building is open to the warm early fall evening. Our table is small, the walls at our backs tall. The only light except for the sunset is from the tea lights, which are scattered in an artfully haphazard way around the small vase of bubbled blue glass, which contains a single lavender Gerbera daisy. White linen napkins rolled around the silverware. The table is rough old wood—actually old, not fake-old; as a carpenter, I can tell the difference. French-inspired, semi-nautical music plays low in the background.
She’s looking around, taking it all in. And looking, to my perhaps unpracticed eye, a little green around the gills, so to speak. As if this is more than she expected, more than she was ready for.
The waitress is young, effervescent, and efficient. Some instinctual part of me takes over when she asks if we’d like to start with some wine, and I don’t even need to look over the rest of the wine menu when I see Joseph Carr, and I order us a bottle—she likes J-name red wines, I think. She eyes me as I order for us, apprehensive and reticent. The wine comes, and we’ve exchanged a half dozen words. I order us a charcuterie appetizer, and her eyes light up. She loves cheese. She dips the crumbly white goat cheese in the fresh honey which comes complete with bits of honeycomb, and there’s fancy little white almonds dusted with salt and parmesan and oil, and pitted olives, candied walnuts, thin slices of pastrami and other fancy meats with names I can’t pronounce, all piled in artsy coils.
The wine loosens our tongues, and the