by Nancy Warren
“Benedict,” a young, female voice said. “How can I help you?”
She could hear the bustle of a busy Sunday brunch at the restaurant. The sounds pulled her back to thinking of Sam and the incredible night they’d had.
“Ask for him,” Morgan said in a loud whisper.
She gaped at her friend, who was nodding reassuringly. She was right. What did Jessica have to lose? “Is Sam there? The waiter?”
“We don’t have any waiters named Sam. Do you mean Sam Benedict? The owner?”
“Um. I’m not sure. I’ll call back.”
She ended the call.
“What?” Morgan asked. “You look stunned. He left? He died? His wife is at the hospital giving birth?”
She laid the phone back down on the newspaper. “The woman who answered said the only Sam who works there is the owner. Sam Benedict.”
Morgan chortled. “You made out with one of the top young entrepreneurs in the city?” She slapped her black, stretchy yoga-panted thigh with her open palm. “Oh, that’s funny.”
“No. It’s not. I thought he was a waiter. I was so proud of myself for falling for somebody for once who isn’t driven to succeed.”
“Did he ever actually say he was a waiter?”
She recalled their talks about life and career—which had been very brief. She remembered that he’d taken her to task when she’d asked if he aspired to something other than waiter, but by doing that he’d also avoided telling her that he wasn’t one. “No. He didn’t say he was the owner, either.”
“Like you never said you weren’t from out of town. You both assumed stuff and neither of you made corrections. That’s interesting, don’t you think?”
But Jessica didn’t answer. She was too busy searching online for Sam Benedict on her smartphone. And yep, there he was. Even on the tiny screen, the sight of him made her heart bump. He was pictured in the Post-Intelligencer in an article about the best new restaurants in town. And there was another photo with him and some foodie that had been published in Gourmet.
She held the phone out for Morgan, who oohed. “Yep. That’s the same guy who posed for you outside Starbucks. No wonder you’re pining. You can see by looking at him that he burns up the sheets without even trying.”
“I must be losing my touch,” Jessica said. “How did I not recognize him? I know all the hot, trendy places in town. I stay abreast. It’s my job!”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You’ve been doing all those boring conferences and corporate openings lately.”
“It’s true. And I did suggest that restaurant because I knew it was the hottest new place. But still. I am losing my edge.”
“Oh, I think Sam Benedict sharpened your edge for you just fine.”
“Morgan!” Jessica darted her eyes in the direction of the grad student who hadn’t turned a page in Ulysses for quite some time. His coffee cup was long empty.
Morgan was sublimely uninterested. She always took people eavesdropping on her conversations as a compliment.
“You know what you should do?”
“Yes.” She was already thinking. She had a high-end charity fashion show she’d been asked to organize. She’d been thinking of interesting venues. The people who supported events like this got sick of the same hotel ballrooms. She was thinking that if they upped the ticket price and made the event seem even more exclusive, Benedict would be the perfect spot. The restaurant could open during a time it was normally closed or slow, a Monday lunch, perhaps. “I could organize a special event there.”
“So not what I was thinking.”
“Don’t even share with me what you were thinking, because I can tell from the wild look in your eye I’m not doing it.”
Morgan turned to the grad student. “Excuse me,” she said, as though he hadn’t been listening to every word. “You’re a man. If a woman was hot for you, would you rather she throw some business your way or would you rather she show up in a trench coat and heels with nothing on underneath.”
When he pushed back his glasses and grinned, he looked like an intellectual Seth Rogen. “Those two options aren’t even in the same league.”
“Not doing it,” Jessica said, rising.
“I could lend you a trench coat.”
“Rather die.”
“Too bad,” both Morgan and the Seth look-alike echoed, like an embarrassment duet.
“I’ve got to go and get groceries. I’ll see you later.” When she headed out the door, she glanced back and found Morgan and her new friend in conversation.
She didn’t need Sam’s expertise in body language to know what they were talking about.
CHAPTER TEN
When Jessica got home, she put away her groceries, showered, combed out her hair, climbed into comfy jeans and a sweater and settled herself in front of the computer.
How hard could it be?
Hi Sam,
She noticed one of her nails was chipped and went for a nail file.
She scraped the nail until it was smooth and, as she did so, she stared at the two tiny words on the screen, then deleted them.
Then she picked up the phone and called her mother. Her mother wasn’t home. She was probably on a date—because her mother was a good communicator.
Back to the email. She did a few neck rolls but she was already loose from the yoga. Okay. She pictured Sam, not so very far away, busy serving customers. Actually, he probably didn’t serve customers all that often. He probably oversaw the entire care and feeding of the first dates, the bad dates, the too-long marrieds and the out-of-towners. Hopefully, there were some lovers there, too. The kind who made you believe in forever.
Dear Sam,
I thought about you today.
Was Morgan right? Should she let him know she lived closer than he’d believed?
She pushed her hair around, helping it dry faster while she thought about the idea of putting herself out there, turning fantasy into reality and facing the possibility that some fantasies are meant to be left as exactly that.
Further internet research revealed absolutely zero about Sam Benedict’s private life, though she did see a couple more photos of him at a media event she’d have attended herself if she’d been in town. And there he was on the website for the restaurant, though he only appeared in a group photo with the key staff. She liked that he didn’t splash his big ego all over the website. He made it clear he was part of a team. She supposed that’s why he’d been waiting tables the other night. He probably chopped veggies when they were short of kitchen help, too. He was that kind of guy.
I went to yoga this morning and while we were lying in corpse pose at the end, instead of emptying my mind and meditating, I thought of you.
And our time together.
Thanks for turning one of the worst nights of my life into one of the best.
I would love for you to cook for me. What are your specialties of the house?
Jessica
* * *
The air was cold and crisp and Sam’s lungs ached from the workout. The skins on his backcountry skis gripped the fresh snow as he and his three buddies hiked their way up a remote slope in the Cascades.
It was Wednesday, the day Sam usually took off, but they were close enough to town that he’d be back in time to help out with the dinner shift. Carson, a medical resident, also had the entire day off; Mitch, a heavy crane operator, was currently happily laid off for a couple of months; and Lars, a guy he’d met when he’d been traveling in Sweden, was doing his own round-the-world adventure.
The four were all fit, compatible and experienced in the backcountry. Avalanche risk was low and the sun was not something a person ever took for granted when living in the Pacific Northwest.
As he sweated and toiled his way up the slope, hearing the hush of fresh snow as he packed it down, the odd squeak of equipment and his own heavy breathing, Sam wondered what Jessica was doing at this moment. It was a thought that bounced into his mind too often. But it was strange. Now t
hat they were emailing each other several times a day, he felt he was closer to her than anyone in his life. He told her things. Dumb, unimportant things. Important, deeply personal things.
Because she always got him. If he made a joke, even on email, she didn’t misunderstand. If he told her a story, she offered one back. It was like their relationship was deepening.
With one huge drawback.
No sex.
No contact of any kind.
How could he fall for someone he’d barely spent any time with?
He’d heard about people falling in love online and, even stranger, falling in love with avatars at Second Life, so he guessed he wasn’t that crazy falling deeper for someone he’d spent less than twenty-four hours with. At least he’d met the woman.
Sam was so busy with his thoughts he didn’t realize he’d powered ahead until he found himself alone at the top of the hill. Virgin snow surrounded him. Evergreens hunched, weighed down with layers of snow like frosting, and sun sparkled off the pure white surfaces. He could see the crisscrossing tracks of a rabbit, feel the sun on his face. He waited until his companions caught up.
They pulled the skins off their skis, stuffed them in backpacks. This was the moment they’d toiled uphill for.
With his skis pointed into the virgin powder headed down a slope few knew about, he let out a rebel yell and took off. The three others fanned out, all of them finding their own routes, carving their own signatures into the new snow.
For a two-hour hike uphill hike they maybe got a twenty-minute run down. They didn’t care. Every turn was a rush, it was like sex, he thought, the pump and glide, the feeling of blood pumping and excitement coursing through his veins.
And of course, the thought of sex brought Jessica to mind. He’d love to bring her up here. He wondered if she skied. He’d ask her tonight.
He looked forward to their emails far too much.
He was seriously thinking of taking a few days off and flying down to Chicago. Why not? He’d worked hard for months with barely a day off. There were restaurants in Chicago he wanted to try, and he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have sitting across a dinner table than the sweet woman who had rocked his world.
After their ski down, all wind-reddened and pumped, the four decided to head to a local brewpub for a late lunch. Sam could only spare an hour, but he wanted to hang out with his buddies a little longer. They were all so busy it wasn’t easy to find time for all four of them to get together. They piled onto a green leatherette bench and all ordered burger platters. The other three had beer but, knowing he had to work later, he stuck with iced tea.
They spent a few minutes congratulating themselves and each other on their great timing—getting out on a day when not only was there fresh snow but sunshine, too, and on their great run down the hill.
When their food came, they chomped into it with big appetites well earned.
“Who’s up for doing this again sometime this week?” Mitch asked. He had the most time of all of them. But it was sure tempting to try and carve out another half a day.
“I am not certain,” Lars said, then announced that he was thinking about heading back home to Sweden earlier than he’d planned.
“Why?” Mitch asked the question, but it was obvious all three of them were wondering.
Lars looked a little sheepish. “It’s a woman,” he said, in his accent that American girls seemed to think was pretty damned adorable. With his blond hair, bright blue eyes and the physique of a Nordic prince, he never lacked for female company. He’d mentioned a girl back home a time or two, but Sam had never thought it was serious. But then, as he’d admitted to Jessica during their late-night secret sharing, guys weren’t big into blabbing intimate stuff.
For a second he considered asking his three companions if they’d ever faked an orgasm and had to gulp iced tea to hide his grin. As if.
But Lars wasn’t talking about faking it—he was talking about cutting his world tour short. For a woman.
A week ago, Sam would have called him crazy and tried to talk him out of such an insane idea. He’d have reasoned that he had the whole rest of his life to settle down but limited years for travel and adventure. Now, he had a lot more sympathy for the romantic Swede.
“You’re crazy, man,” Mitch said into the stunned silence. “You’re like a babe magnet. Sow your wild oats. Sow them all over the place. Then you can go home with a full bank of memories stored up for the days when you’ve been married for a few decades and you’re old and wrinkled and can’t get it up anymore.”
Lars grinned, showing toothpaste-commercial-white teeth, and said, “I miss her. I knew I loved her, but I thought I could put it all on hold for a year, you know, meet some other women. Make sure.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Carson said through a mouthful of fries.
Sam kept quiet, feeling oddly cheered. Maybe he wasn’t the only romantic fool on the planet.
Lars glanced around at each of them. “She phoned me. She thinks I don’t care enough. There’s a guy who keeps asking her out. She was thinking of going with him.” Lars shrugged his shoulders, but there was a gleam of fury in his eyes. Sam was uncomfortably reminded that he was from a land of Vikings famous for plunder and violence. Lars might be modern and civilize but, deep down, nobody was going to mess with his woman.
Carson didn’t see it that way. He snorted. “She’s playing you, dude.”
Lars shook his head. “Astrid’s not like that. She wanted to be honest with me. It’s one of the things I like best about her. Her honesty.” He dipped a fry into ketchup and stared at it for a moment. “It means giving up South America,” he said.
“There’s a woman who’s better than South America?” Mitch sounded shocked.
“To me, she is.” He ate his fry. “You all think I’m crazy?”
“Yes,” Mitch said.
“Totally,” Carson agreed.
“No,” Sam said. He reached out with his glass and toasted Lars. “Not at all. South America’s not going anywhere. You could go for your honeymoon. But love? That doesn’t come along every day.”
If he’d announced he was going to be twerking in Miley Cyrus’s next music video his buddies couldn’t have looked more surprised.
Mitch found his voice first. “You’re saying you agree with him?”
“I do. Yeah.”
“What happened to you?”
“I met a woman, too.”
“The kind you give up South America for?”
“I think so. Maybe.” He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Who is she?” Lars asked, sounding happy to have a fellow lovesick fool to hang out with.
“You’re not banging another crazy cook, are you?” Carson demanded. “I am not stitching your hide back together if this one has better aim with the knives.”
“No. I don’t think she’s the violent type. She’s not in the restaurant business.”
“You only meet women in the food trade. We barely see you. When did you meet a girl?”
No way he was going to share the details with this crew. They were his closest friends, but still, some things a man didn’t tell. “She’s an event planner,” he said. Which was true. “She came into the restaurant and we hit it off.” Also true.
“And it’s serious?”
“I think it might be.”
“How long have you known her?” Damn, the question he’d have rather avoided.
“Let’s see, today is Wednesday.” He counted back. “Six days.”
Now the three of them were staring at him. Even Lars no longer looked like they were fellow travelers on the road of love.
“Are you crazy?”
“I think so. Yeah.”
“So, you’ve spent six days, that’s—” Carson calculated swiftly “—a hundred and forty-four hours, minus the time you work and—” he gestured around the table “—the hours you’ve spent with us. Even if you are spending every second of every day together, there’s
no way you’re in love.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?”
Mitch looked vaguely nauseous. “You’ve been hanging around the Valentine’s Day card section in Walgreens again, haven’t you?”
“So, how are you going to wine her and dine her on the fourteenth when you own a restaurant?”
He blew out a breath. “She lives in Chicago.”
Mitch hit his own forehead with his fist. “Dude,” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Does your clown do dogs?” Walt Miller asked Jessica. Mr. Miller was the CEO of a medium-sized tech company that was hosting its first public open house. They’d nailed down the displays, the caterer, the media, the promo giveaways, and now he was talking about some special events for children. The clown had been her idea. Uninspired, but usually popular.
Does your clown do dogs?
Jessica blinked. Who knew these days? “I don’t think so,” she said carefully.
“Giraffes? Elephants?” The man twisted his two hands as though he were wringing out an imaginary towel.
“Oh, you mean does my clown make balloon animals?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
She really needed to get her head back in the game. “I can absolutely find a clown who does balloon animals. I wonder if we should have a second person doing a craft of some sort. Some kids are frightened of clowns.”
“Sure. Good idea.”
She made some notes, and they talked about some ideas for computer-related games that might appeal to the tiny Jobses and Gateses who would show up at the open house, dragged there by their parents and relatives who worked at the company.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back in her car and on her way to a meeting with the charity putting on the fashion show she was hoping to organize at Benedict.
An hour later, she walked out of the meeting feeling that this event was going to be something out of the ordinary. She hadn’t mentioned Benedict specifically, only the idea of something more intimate that would take over a restaurant. She’d make sure she could get the venue first, then wow the committee.
