by Grace Palmer
“Oh, okay. Great.”
Sara tried to hide her disappointment. Idle hands were doing her no favors at the moment.
At least she could still run the cash-out to the bank. That would give her something to do.
As if he could read her mind, Jose continued, “I also cashed out the register and took the cash to the bank. I know you said to leave the envelope in your desk drawer, but I wanted to try out the new auto-teller robot. It worked super well.”
Scratch that. Jose had done everything.
“I’ll check the bank statement and make sure that robot didn’t steal our money,” she joked.
“I already texted Patrick this morning and he said the accounts looked normal. Go home and sleep in,” Jose said. “That’s what I’d be doing right now, but we ran out of diapers at home. I actually just pulled in the drive, and I can hear the baby crying from outside. I’ve gotta go.”
Jose hung up without a formal goodbye, which Sara didn’t mind. Jose was her right-hand man. They were comfortable with one another.
Though right now, she wished he was a little less dependable. She could use the distraction of getting lost in dinner prep.
She opened and closed cabinets for a few minutes and contemplated trying her hand at a fun new dessert. But Annica was too good at her job for Sara to even pretend she could out-bake her pastry chef.
So, with nothing to do in the kitchen—and really, more as a way to keep herself from calling Joey than anything else—Sara left her phone on the counter and took off out the back door to go for a walk.
Almost immediately, this proved to be a bad idea.
The morning was beautiful. The air was crisp and humid. Dew stuck to the grass and glimmered in the soft morning sunlight. But Sara’s head was stuffed with too many thoughts. Troublesome, inconvenient thoughts.
Could Joey have been right about everything?
Did Sara ignore him? Did she take his dreams less seriously than her own?
And did that stem from her not taking him seriously, or from jealousy?
If Joey had been right about his “big break,” he might’ve taken off and left Sara behind. Nantucket wasn’t exactly known for its acting scene, after all.
Maybe Sara hadn’t supported him because she was afraid she’d have to let him go.
The cobblestone sidewalks of downtown were still empty. The shop windows were dark, signs flipped to closed. Most of them wouldn’t open until mid-morning when more tourists were out and about.
There were no people to watch or any retail therapy to distract Sara from the pulsing reality that she hadn’t been a very good partner.
Her walk took her north down Main Street, past Two Birds Coffee with a wave to Chris through the front window, and back around the block where the business district gave way to residential.
Sirens wailed nearby, no doubt coming from the shoreline. Downtown was close enough to the water and the marina that sirens were common ambience. Beachgoers cut their feet on rocks or stepped on lion’s mane jellyfish and then called the emergency line in a panic.
She passed kids kicking soccer balls in the front yard. She passed wives kissing husbands and mothers kissing children as everybody dispersed out into the world to enjoy the day.
A few of the locals gave her odd looks as she meandered down the road, and it took her a second to realize that the furrowed brows were aimed at her chef’s jacket. She probably should have taken it off before she left the kitchen, but Sara forgot she was wearing it more times than not.
These days, it felt like a second skin.
“Why’d you stop catering?” Sara had asked her mom one day when she was a little girl.
She was watching her mother break down a whole chicken on a large wooden chopping block. There was nothing prim or proper about the way Mom snapped bones and cut tendons. It was hard, physical work, all done with a razor-sharp knife.
Sara was in awe.
“Because I wanted to be a mom,” she had said. “Daycare was expensive. Catering had long hours. And weekends were always hectic.”
“But you love to cook.”
“I love you more.” She’d winked at Sara over the splayed open chicken carcass in front of her.
Turned out that Sara loved cooking just like her mom did. And through culinary school, through terrible jobs at terrible restaurants, through Gavin Crawford and all the headache he’d brought into her world, she’d kept on doing it.
Kept on chopping tendons. Kept on snapping bones.
And what’d her mom do the whole time? Supported her, of course. Mae Benson was nothing if not supportive—even when it came to her headstrong youngest daughter.
Why couldn’t Sara do that for Joey?
It wasn’t so hard. She could’ve just listened. She could’ve forgone her peanut-butter-dipped Oreos and gone to see him in action instead. She could’ve told him he could do whatever he wanted, and if that was fighting fires, then that was all well and good, but if he wanted to act instead, then he should and he could and he would.
No matter what he chose, she’d keep right on loving him.
There it was again—the L-word. It felt a little easier to think this time around.
The exercise didn’t do as much to clear Sara’s head as she’d hoped, but it did kill an hour. And she did feel slightly better.
That didn’t last long. As she rounded the corner back onto Main Street, Sara saw the fire trucks.
They were parked in front of Little Bull.
When Sara looked up and saw dark smoke spiraling up from the rooftops, bruising the sky, she broke into a sprint. And when she got to the edge of the gathering crowd, she kept right on running. Straight into the mayhem.
Two large canvas hoses lay across the ground, feeding into the open front door of Little Bull. A few firemen in soot-covered gear drank bottled water on the sidewalk.
“What’s going on?” she asked, breathless.
One of the men looked over at her and then picked up a radio. “Owner has been located outside the building.”
Sara didn’t recognize the man, but he clearly recognized her. Sara looked around for Joey’s mop of bedraggled hair, but didn’t see him.
“Is there anyone else inside?” he asked her.
Sara shook her head. “No. What happened?”
The man with the thick mustache who had radioed in to announce where Sara was looked up at the building. “A fire. In the kitchen.”
Sara stared at him, waiting for more information. But it didn’t seem like he had anything else to say.
“What started it? I was just in there. I didn’t have the ovens on or anything. I wasn’t even cooking anything.”
“Coulda been anything,” the man said with a shrug. “You’ll get the report when we’re done.”
“I was alone inside. I’ve been gone for less than an hour. When did this start?”
“You’ll get the report when the scene is secure,” he repeated.
“When will that be?” Sara looked down at her wrist even though she wasn’t wearing a watch. “I’m supposed to open in two hours.”
The man lowered his water bottle and turned to Sara slowly. “Sorry, hon. That’s not going to happen. Not today.”
“When?”
“Not for a while, I’d guess.” He shrugged again. Sara’s heart squeezed.
“How long is ‘a while’?”
He took another long drink of water. “However long it takes for repairs. A couple weeks?”
Without another word, Sara turned and ran through the front door, the fireman shouting after her.
He had to be wrong. There had to have been some mistake. Sara had just seen Little Bull and it was fine, it was good, it was great. Jose’s special was ready to go and Annica was going to make apple Sharlotka.
Sure enough, the front of house looked untouched. For a second, Sara convinced herself the firemen had made a mistake.
Then she noted the thick haze in the air and the smell of smoke. She t
hrew an arm over her mouth and coughed.
Sara had helped her mom after the inn fire last year, and they’d had to scrub, wash, and sanitize every nook, and cranny in the entire house. All this time later and Mom still found the occasional soot smudge they’d missed.
It would take weeks for this smell to clear out of here.
She pressed forward, moving towards the swinging double doors into the kitchen.
The circular port holes were dirty, impossible to see through. And just as Sara was gathering the energy to push the door open, it swung towards her.
She lurched back to avoid being hit in the face with the door, and instead found her face pressed firmly into the front of a fireman’s suit.
“Sara?”
She recognized Joey’s voice and looked up. She couldn’t see much beyond his eyes. They were a bright blue, the whites around rimmed in red.
“What are you doing here?” Joey started pushing Sara towards the front door.
“Wait. I want to see!” she argued.
Joey kept a firm grip on her arm. “No, you don’t. Not right now.”
“Is it bad?” she asked.
Joey hesitated long enough Sara didn’t think he was going to answer.
When he did, his voice was gentle. “It’s not good.”
Twenty minutes later, the firemen on the sidewalk were still ripping into one another about whose fault it was that Sara had raced past them and into a smoldering building. And Sara had the preliminary report in her hands.
Electrical ground fault, they were blaming. Sneaky little bugger.
“The fire seems to have started in the wall behind the refrigerator,” the mustachioed fireman said. He’d given Sara his name at some point, but she couldn’t remember it. “We’ll know more in the coming days. In the meantime, you’ll need to close down for repairs and clean-up.”
Joey held her hand as the news was delivered. The drama between them didn’t seem to matter in that moment. Sara was just glad to have him there.
“Luckily,” the man continued, “no one was hurt. That’s what is important. You and your employee made it out safely.”
Sara frowned. What employee? There hadn’t been anyone else in the restaurant with her.
But she was too overwhelmed and exhausted to follow up. It was probably just a slip. Nothing to worry about.
“We’ll take you on a guided walkthrough of the restaurant here in the next half hour,” the man said. “Guided. One more time: that’s a guided walk.”
“Right,” Sara murmured. “Guided.”
Grimacing, the man stomped away.
“Sorry I ran into a burning building,” Sara said to Joey once he was gone.
“Not your best move,” he admitted.
“And sorry I embarrassed you in front of your friends.”
Joey smiled. “It’s okay.”
He was forgiving her so easily. Somehow, that only made everything worse.
Sara groaned. “Today has been a terrible day.”
Joey smoothed a hand over Sara’s back, rubbing his palm in small circles that did little to ease the tension. “Does that mean I should wait to tell you the other bad news? Or would you rather hear it all right now?”
Sara waved him on. “Lay it on me.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to overwhelm you when—”
“Tell me,” she said. “Is the building beyond being saved? Will I have to scrap everything?”
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. It just that… I was the first person inside the building and—”
“You were?”
He nodded. “I heard the call come in, and I freaked out. I called you three times on our way over, but you didn’t answer.”
“I left my phone inside,” she said, hitching a thumb over her shoulder.
Joey leaned sideways and pulled Sara’s phone out of his back pocket. “I know. I found it on the counter.”
“Thanks.” Sure enough, she had three missed calls from Joey. She’d been waiting for him to call all night and when he finally did, she’d missed it.
“No problem. But anyway,” he said, “I was looking for you, and I went to your office, but there was a shelf blocking the door.”
“A shelf?”
“One of the steel shelves fell off the wall and lodged against the door. It wouldn’t open.”
“My shelves fell down?” Sara pressed her palms against her temples and rubbed. “Of course they did. There’s a fire. I don’t know why I keep assuming there won’t be much damage. How bad is it?” She thinks about the question and shakes her head. “Actually, don’t tell me. I’ll see for myself soon enough.”
Then she frowned. “Was that the bad news?”
“Afraid not.”
Sara took a deep breath, trying to ready herself for whatever Joey was going to say.
“I moved the shelf out of the way, and as soon as I did, the door hurled open and someone fell at my feet.”
Sara gasped. “Who was it? Are they okay?”
Joey laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I thought it was you at first, but it was a younger kid. He said his name was Casey.”
“Casey was inside?” Sara frowned. “He doesn’t have a key. And he is on waitstaff. He doesn’t need to show up until we open for service. Why would he have been in there?”
“Isn’t he the employee you’ve been having the issue with?” Joey asked, not waiting for Sara to answer. “He’s fine. And I don’t think he set the fire, but I guess we’ll find out. But yeah, he was in your office.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sara said, shaking her head. “I was alone in the kitchen.”
As she spoke, she remembered the noise she’d heard in the pantry.
The sound of the back door latch clicking closed.
Had Casey come in and gone to her office without her knowing? It was certainly possible.
But why?
“I went into the office to make sure you weren’t in there and your desk drawers were open,” Joey continued. “It looked like he’d been rifling through your stuff.”
Realization hit Sara all at once. “Casey was looking for the cash-out from last night. I always have Jose leave it in my desk on Monday nights when I’m off.”
Joey straightened, his hand tensing on her back. “Do we need to pat him down? No way is he walking out of here with your money.”
“No, Jose took the money to the bank for me last night. But Casey wouldn’t have known that.”
Her conversation with Casey that day in her office, when he’d been so defensive and offended by her accusation, made Sara feel nauseous.
He was lying right to her face. And he had the audacity to make her feel bad for even accusing him.
Not to mention he’d been inside the restaurant with her. Bold enough to steal while she was literally in the room next door.
Joey relaxed. “Well, he’s still giving his statement in the back if you want to confront him. But if you don’t want to, it can wait. Today has been a lot already.”
Sara slid from the bench and stood up, shaking out her limbs. “No, I want to do this now. I need to.”
“You sure?”
“Extremely.”
He nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
“Thanks, Joey.” Sara smiled as best she could, losing herself for a moment in the sweetness of Joey’s expression.
He was worried about her. Sara was worried about herself, too. But it felt nice to know he cared.
“…But I think I should do this alone.”
“Are you sure?”
Guilt twisted Sara’s stomach. “I do want you there with me during the walkthrough. If you can stay?”
“Of course I can. Anything you need,” he said. No hint of bitterness in his voice, even though Sara felt like he had every right to be bitter.
Maybe it wasn’t the best time, but Sara couldn’t hold it in another second to add, “I’m sorry, by the way. About not being supportive. Of you.
With the movie.”
So maybe her delivery needed some work. But the sentiment was there.
Joey’s mouth opened and closed, probably surprised by the sudden shift in the conversation. “We can talk about this later, Sara.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to do that now, too. I could have died in there. I mean, probably not. I’m sure I would have made it out.”
“You would have.” Joey’s voice was tense, eyes narrowed. “I would have made sure of it.”
“But still,” she continued, “I don’t want to fight anymore. Because I was wrong. I should have been more supportive.”
Joey took a deep breath. “I always thought I’d celebrate the day I heard you say, ‘I was wrong.’ This is a little more bittersweet than I expected, though, because I was wrong, too.”
“About what?”
“About Casey. You were right about him. And I wasn’t listening.”
Sara waved her hand. “I trusted him when he told me he didn’t do it. That’s on me.”
“Your instinct was right, though. And if I’d been listening, we could have talked about it. You probably would have figured out he was lying to you.”
“It’s fine,” Sara said, laying a hand on Joey’s hand. “This was my apology, after all. You’re kind of stealing my thunder.”
Joey laughed. “Fine. Then you go deal with Casey before he gets sent home, and when you come back, it’ll be my turn to apologize.”
Just like Joey said, Casey was standing in the alley behind Little Bull. He had a foil blanket over his shoulders even though the morning was giving way to warmer weather. When he looked up and saw Sara walking towards him, his eyes widened.
He looked like a rabbit, waiting to see if it was in danger and needed to run or if it could carry on with its business.
All at once, he decided which route to take and rushed towards Sara, arms outstretched. “I’m so glad you are okay!”
Sara didn’t say anything. Casey kept talking, too nervous to stop.
“I saw your car in the back. I wanted to come in and talk to you. About last week. I wanted you to know it’s all water under the bridge. I forgive you. But you weren’t inside. So, I was waiting in your office, and the fire alarms went off. It was just so—”
