it out of habit.”
“You’re a good mom.”
“I don’t know about that,” she says. “Speaking of moms, how is ours? I haven’t seen much of her since she started dating Sid. I miss her.”
There’s sadness in her voice, but when I look at Allison, she’s smiling. I put a bowl of freshly cut chives on the table. “Did you tell Mom? That you’d like to spend more time with her?”
“No.” Allison shakes her head vigorously. “She’s enjoying herself. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
While I make coffee, I make a mental note to suggest to Mom that she schedule Allison time. But how can I do that without sounding judgmental? Also, I haven’t been so good at scheduling Allison time for myself.
“Mimi, how much do you think we’d get if we sold the restaurant?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Just curious.” Allison avoids looking at me by sprinkling chives on her bagel. She changes the subject. “Met any interesting men?”
“Two of them, actually.” I tell Allison about Joe and Aaron.
“Joe sounds hot,” she says.
“Yeah, but Aaron’s probably the better choice.”
“Why?”
Pouring coffee into two mugs, I say, “Aaron’s a nice Jewish boy. Marriage material.”
“You don’t have to decide right away, do you?”
“I have to get on the marriage track.” I tell Allison my mathematics equation. “How else am I going to catch up to you?”
“Me?” Allison laughs. “You don’t want to catch up to me.”
“But you have it all, Ally.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
Allison takes a bite of her bagel. “You’re coming over tomorrow? For the barbecue? It’s Father’s Day.”
“Is it?”
Family Business, Part Three
“Do you make special deliveries to all of your customers?” Farmer Joe has once again brought boxes of produce to the restaurant. It’s the middle of Saturday, a slow, hot day, and we are standing in the shade of the awning that covers the restaurant’s back door.
“Your deliveries are always special,” Joe says. He looks at the opened boxes, which I have inspected to make sure they match my order. “Everything here?”
I nod. “We don’t need much. Tomorrow will be slow because it’s Father’s Day.”
“Yeah.” Joe leans against his truck. “Not my favorite day. Not yours, either, huh?”
“No.”
“It’s not even a good restaurant day,” Joe says. “Mother’s Day. Now that’s a big business day for restaurants, and thusly for me. But Father’s Day? Most people stay home and barbecue. Not good for us restaurant folk.”
“No,” I agree.
Joe pushes his baseball hat back on his head. “You all right, Mimi?”
“Yeah.” I lean backward, against the whitewashed wall of the restaurant. “Well, no. This is the first Father’s Day that I’ve been home. Kinda sucks.”
“Where have you been?” Joe asks.
“Oh, lots of places. Most of my restaurant clients were in Europe. Paris, Rome, London, Budapest, Berlin.”
Joe asks, “Do you miss traveling?”
I think for a moment. “Yeah, I do. I’m glad to be home, but I miss traveling.”
“Me, too.”
“You’ve done a lot of traveling?”
“Yep.”
“Why, Farmer Joe, where have you been?”
“Let’s see. All of America, Western Europe, some of Eastern Europe, bit of Canada, Mexico, a lot of South America, none of Asia, a little of Australia, Israel, Egypt, and the Rock of Gibraltar.” Joe smiles.
“It must have taken you years to do all that traveling.”
“Six years,” Joe says. “After college, I had a job with an agricultural research firm. I went to different farms in different countries to see how American farms could adjust their methods to better compete in the international market. I did that for four years, made a lot of money, got the traveling bug, and kept going.”
“You came back to take over the farm when your father died?”
“No,” Joe says. “I came back long before that.”
“You came back because the farm was in trouble?”
“I came back because I wanted to.” Joe looks over at me.
“I guess you can’t imagine someone actually wanting to be a farmer.”
“It’s a hard life, isn’t it?”
“I love it,” Joe says. “It’s in my blood. My family has owned the farm for generations. My forefathers were original settlers of the area. Quakers. Welsh and British.”
“My forefathers were Russian peasants.”
Joe smiles. “I guess it depends which boat you got on.”
“So, you worked the farm with your dad? That must have been nice.”
“Not at first. Dad kept trying to get rid of me. He wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. I had to convince Dad that I wanted to be a farmer for myself, not for him.” Joe looks over at me. “I guess you made the same choice.”
“I don’t know. I guess.” I look