No Wedding Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  The smile never let his face for even a second.

  Monday night.

  “Mama, can I be excused?” Susanna asked.

  Rose glanced over at her six-year-old daughter’s plate. “Did you finish all your vegetables?”

  “Yes!”

  Brent tried his best to suppress his laughter. Susanna had been feeding the cat green beans since the moment they sat down. But he wasn’t going to be the one to snitch on her, so he just focused on his lasagna and kept his face down towards his dish.

  Rose looked suspicious of her daughter, but without any evidence to detain her, she nodded. “All right then, you can go.”

  Susanna scampered off before she could be subjected to any further questioning. Brent took a big sip of water until his laughter finally settled down.

  “Delicious, as always,” he said when he’d cleaned his plate.

  “Thanks, boo,” Rose replied.

  “I’ll wash, you dry?”

  “Tell you what: you do both, and I’ll sit and watch you with a glass of wine.”

  Brent groaned and rolled his eyes. “Once again, I draw the short straw. My life is nothing but suffering.”

  “Quit being a drama queen,” she reprimanded as she picked up her plate and walked around the table towards the kitchen. She stopped and kissed him on the top of the head on her way.

  Laughing, Brent cleared the table and took it all over to the sink to start washing up. True to her word, Rose poured a small glass of chardonnay and hopped up on the edge of the counter.

  “You sure you want to do this?” she asked after a moment.

  He looked up at her. He was still smiling, but it was a serious kind of smile. A yes, duh kind of smile.

  “This” was something they had been discussing for a few months now: the prospect of moving in together.

  Ever since the night a year ago when Brent had come to Rose in the pouring rain and said he couldn’t let her go, they’d been careful about their newfound relationship. They took each step delicately. One kiss at a time, one night at a time. Rose was wary of Susanna’s feelings—it wasn’t good to have a man flitting in and out of her daughter’s life, here one day and gone the next. She was wary of her own heart, too. Brent knew that. His feelings weren’t exactly the most durable at the moment, either. But there was a real kind of beauty in moving slowly together, in treating each other like fragile glass. This was the biggest step yet, but he was as sure of it as he had been the moment he first kissed her.

  He wanted this. He wanted her. He wanted them.

  “I’m sure,” he answered.

  She nodded slowly as she gazed into the distance. Brent scrubbed a few dishes and set them out to dry.

  “What’s on your mind?” His hands stayed busy.

  “Thinking about you,” she answered at once.

  “Oh yeah? What about me?”

  He felt her eyes shift onto him, and he could hear the sly grin in her voice. “You were great with the kids today.”

  His face burned at that. He wasn’t exactly sure why. It felt like there was more to that comment than the mere fact that he’d hung out with a motley crew of five- and six-year-olds for an afternoon. If there was in fact a deeper meaning to Rose’s innocent comment, he knew what it might refer to.

  Would they have kids together one day?

  To be perfectly honest, the thought had never even occurred to Brent. He was young in years at twenty-four, but he felt like he’d lived so much during that time. The last three years alone had aged him at double the normal rate at least. Everything about his life now had a different vibe to it than what he thought of as a “normal” mid-twenties lifestyle. He had a serious girlfriend, a business. He was a father of sorts to a young girl who looked up to him. Nothing was normal. But nothing was out of place, either.

  Henrietta, his dog, came up and nipped at his hand where it hung by his side. He looked down at her. She always knew when he was thinking deep thoughts. There was a skeptical look on her face right now. It was almost reassuring, in a strange way, although he knew he was almost certainly projecting. Henrietta alternated most of the time between hungry and sleepy. The nuances of fatherhood and a man’s responsibility to his family weren’t exactly in her wheelhouse.

  And yet, he felt like she understood him at least as much as anybody. She sensed his fear, his hope. She saw what he wanted for himself and for his future. So, when she licked his hand, he looked down at her, and something in her face said, It’s okay.

  That felt good, for reasons he didn’t know how to say out loud.

  He glanced up and met Rose’s gaze. “Thanks,” he said with a smile. “I liked hanging out with them.”

  There was something significant in that answer, too.

  4

  Sara

  Monday night.

  Six days until Eliza’s wedding.

  “So how much are you gonna miss me?” Sara asked Joey.

  “Hmm …” he said, scratching his chin and pretending to weigh the question in his head. “How many stars are there in the sky?”

  “It better be more than that.”

  “Grains of sand on the beach?”

  “Better, but still not good enough.”

  “As much as Joanie loves Chachi?”

  Sara groaned and punched him in the shoulder. “That reference is way too old for me, so I know for a fact that it’s too old for you, ya whippersnapper.”

  Joey laughed as he pulled into the parking lot of Sara’s restaurant, Little Bull. “You’re right. I honestly have no idea what it means.”

  “Add it to the list.”

  He popped a finger in his mouth, then aimed it towards Sara’s ear, trying to give her a wet willy. She shrieked with laughter and ducked away from him towards the passenger side of the car. “Joey, get that thing away from me right this second!” she squealed.

  He sagged back in his seat, chuckling.

  “You are a child,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear. A child.”

  “Then we know for sure you’re a cradle robber,” he responded with a twinkle in his eye.

  Sara groaned for a second time. “Don’t remind me,” she said. “Jose has already started purring every time I walk into the kitchen. The cougar, he calls me. I’ve had more flattering nicknames in my lifetime, lemme tell you.”

  Sara didn’t actually care that she was thirty-one to Joey’s twenty-seven years old. He was an old soul, wet willies aside. Other twenty-seven-year-olds were still out prowling the bars in Nantucket, looking for easy fun. But Joey liked working—he was a firefighter—and hanging out with Sara at the apartment they shared. They both spent a lot of time at their respective jobs, so they valued the quiet time they could finagle together, just the two of them. Cuddling on the couch and watching a movie, playing cards, stuff like that. Simple little moments of laughter and conversation. Sometimes not even that. Sometimes they just sat with each other and enjoyed being with another person who didn’t expect much from them other than the steadiness of a heartbeat, a warm hand, a soft kiss.

  Ask Sara from three years ago if she thought she’d end up in a relationship like this and she’d have laughed in your face. Sara 1.0, as she’d started to refer to her past self, wanted to get drunk in a speakeasy in New York City with her fellow chefs. She wanted to get in trouble with the wrong guys, wake up with a hangover and hazy memories, then do it all again the next night.

  That Sara was long gone.

  Sara 2.0 was night-and-day different. Sara 2.0 was a business owner who said things like, “I’d better get to bed early; I have to do taxes in the morning.” Sara 2.0 separated her recycling out and sent her employees handwritten notes on their birthdays. Sara 2.0 volunteered at the food bank with her mother and showed up at town council meetings to vote on new traffic and parking ordinances. Sara 2.0 was reliable, responsible, boring.

  And she was living her best life.

  “You nervous?” Joey asked her.

  Sara gulped. �
�No,” she declared defiantly. She looked over to him and blushed. “Okay, yes. Very.”

  Tonight would be the debut of a new main course at Little Bull. The dish had a long history, dating all the way back to Sara’s earliest experiments during her stint at the Culinary Institute of America. Pulled pork and clams atop Spanish orzo with a gremolata of sun-dried tomatoes and pineapple. She was well aware that it sounded foul. In fact, everyone she’d described it to over the years had nearly yakked in response. But there was something in it that kept her coming back. Sara had continued toying with it during idle moments despite others’ reactions. She never put much stock in other people’s opinions, anyway.

  Over the last few months it had started to come together, almost by accident. She’d had a dream about it one night and woken up sweating, terrified that she would forget the magical breakthrough that was going to make the dish sing. The next morning, she’d put the new fix into play, and it came out beautifully. One by one, she made her chefs try it, until they all agreed that it was flawless, bold, perfect. Tonight would be its unveiling to the outside world—or to the four dozen lucky diners at Little Bull, at least.

  No matter how many times she did this, though, she still got nervous. There was an intensely personal aspect to the kind of cuisine Sara made. She had more in common with an artist than a line cook. The things that came out of her kitchen were memories in the form of food. The brininess of a mouthful of Nantucket ocean water when you wiped out while surfing in the summertime. The sweet tang of cherry popsicles at the fair. When people ate her food, she wanted them to feel like they’d lived her childhood along with her. Or, better yet, for it to speak to their own lives. Everyone brought their individual story to the table at Little Bull. That’s what made it special—food was a language for conversation between perfect strangers.

  “It’s gonna be great, you know,” Joey consoled her.

  Sara rolled her eyes. “You’re required to say that.”

  “I am not,” he replied, mock-offended. When she fixed him with a glare, he admitted, “Okay, fine, yes, I am. But I’m not saying it because I have to. I’m saying it because I know it’s gonna be great. That’s all. Boy Scouts’ honor.”

  “Were you even a Boy Scout?”

  “For about three weeks,” he said with a straight face. “I lost at the wooden stock car races, so I cried and smashed my car. My dad made me quit after that.”

  “Classic JoJo,” Sara chuckled. “Sore loser.”

  “Says the one who flipped over the Monopoly board literally a week ago when you landed on my Park Place hotel three times in a row.”

  “You cheated!” Sara exclaimed. “Loaded dice! You switched the cards! Witchcraft and wizardry! Something!”

  He laughed and shook his head sadly, as if to say, What am I gonna do with you?

  Sara smiled back, then checked her watch. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late. Wish me luck.”

  “Luck,” Joey said, leaning over to kiss her.

  “It’s supposed to be good luck,” she admonished.

  He paused with his lips just a millimeter away from hers. “Well, you should’ve specified.”

  “I shouldn’t reward this kind of sass with a kiss.”

  He pecked her on the lips before she could pull away. “Too late,” he said with a grin as he straightened up. “Now go on, scoot. You’re not the only one with work to do.”

  She grinned. “One more kiss first.”

  He rolled his eyes, but leaned forward and gave her what she asked for.

  Satisfied and buzzing with the warmth of his lips on hers, Sara unbuckled, popped open the door of Joey’s truck, and hopped out. “I’ll be by later to get you,” Joey called out from the driver’s seat.

  “You better,” she teased.

  “On second thought, maybe I won’t.”

  “No leftovers for you, then!”

  He hit the steering wheel in mock frustration. “You’ve got me over a barrel there. Guess I’ll be here after all. Later, sunshine.” He blew her another kiss. Then she turned and walked into her restaurant.

  Cassandra, the former head hostess who had recently been promote to maître’ d, gave her a friendly smile and wave as Sara swept in.

  “Any special requests tonight?” Sara asked as she set her stuff down in her office.

  “For a change, not a single one,” Cassandra answered after checking the evening’s reservations in the online system. “Word on the street is that you’re debuting a new dish. The people are clamoring for details.”

  “They’ll know soon enough,” Sara responded with a cheeky smile. Assuming this tasting goes well.

  The rest of the staff—mostly front-of-the-house folks and the prep chefs, those who weren’t involved in the menu creation processes—was going to try the pork and clams dish tonight. If that went well, the dish would go to the restaurant’s guests. If it bombed—well, Sara would figure something out.

  After getting settled into her office, Sara went around and stuck her head in the kitchen. It was abuzz with activity as each of the chefs got their mise-en-place set for the evening and finished the final stages of prep. They had about forty-five minutes until first seating, so Sara would need to do the tasting and brief the servers on the new dish in T-minus twenty. Time was ticking away.

  She searched the room until she found Jose, her right-hand man, standing in a corner at the back. He was a blur of activity, chopping, whipping, tasting, repeat. When he looked up a moment later and saw her standing there, he waved her over urgently.

  Sara made her way over, doing the delicate dance required to move through a professional kitchen without causing absolute disaster. It took precise timing to avoid crashing into each other. But that was one of the things she loved about this environment. There was a place for everything and a thing for every place. A sense of belonging radiated everywhere; order amidst the chaos. It was beautiful in its own way.

  When she came up to Jose, he looked grim. “Talk to me,” she ordered. “You know I don’t like it when you get all serious like that.”

  He fidgeted, sighed, shook his head like a wet dog, scratched his thick beard. “It’s just … It’s not working.” He looked up at her. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”

  Sara felt crushed. Flattened, actually, like fresh dough that someone had worked for hours with a rolling pin. They’d have to pull the plug on the star dish of the night then. The diners would be disappointed. Maybe there was a reviewer in attendance tonight who’d been looking forward to something innovative …

  She glanced up at Jose again and saw him grinning.

  “Jose,” she said in a warning tone. “If you’re messing with me …”

  His smile split wider and he started to laugh. It was a real belly laugh, the kind that started from deep within and blossomed outwards until he was laughing with every part of his body, slapping his knees, wiping tears from his eyes. Like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus was from Guatemala.

  “Chica, I’m kidding, I’m kidding! It’s perfect. You are a genius. A genius, cierto.”

  Sara’s first reaction was to grab a wooden spoon from a cup nearby and whack him over the head with it. He laughed and shielded himself, ducking, as she whaled on him a few times.

  “I! Told! You! Don’t! Do! That!”

  After a few solid connections, she was laughing, too. The rest of the kitchen looked over, wondering what on earth was going on. Sara’s crestfallen feeling had disappeared, swept away by the fist-pumping euphoria of nailing something difficult. She found a tasting spoon nearby and took a bite of the plate that Jose had assembled.

  The flavors exploded in her mouth. The salty fattiness of the pork, with that sweet smoke lingering in the background, worked so well with the deep ocean deliciousness of the clams. The orzo soaked it all up and magnified it ten times over, adding layers of depth like bass notes to a melody. The twin bursts of sun-dried tomato and pineapple were playful, unexpected, surprising, and yet so perfect
that it was like they’d been created specifically to go together.

  It was a smash hit in the making.

  She hollered for everyone to come over and join her. The crew fell in at once, circling up around her. She told someone to go get the front-of-house gang, too. A moment later, she had her entire staff of twenty-one standing at crisp attention around her.

  It was impossible to keep the smile off her face as she gave them the rundown on the dish. She’d already planned out how she wanted them to describe it to their guests, how to plate it, how to present it. She ran through the details one by one, luxuriating in the booming “Yes, chef!” that resounded from her assembled employees every time she asked if they understood.

  Then, briefing complete, she got out of the way so that Jose could distribute the tasting sample to each of them. It was important to Sara that her servers and chefs knew firsthand what they were offering to their guests. How else could they make diners feel like a part of the environment? Everyone was on an equal footing at Little Bull, because without any single one of them, the place wasn’t complete. Sara had always loved that about restaurants. At good ones, at least, there was no such thing as more or less important. They were all essential, from the head chef down to the greenest dishwasher.

  Sara turned away to answer a few questions for one of the newer members of the serving crew. When she turned back around, she was stunned to see her boyfriend bringing up the rear of the tasting line. Joey had his mouth full already. He gave her a big thumbs-up and a smile when he saw that she had noticed him.

  “What happened to ‘You’re not the only one with work to do?’” she teased with her hands on her hips.

  He shrugged. “I like listening to you be the boss,” he explained. “So I just snuck in the back for a sec. And when I heard there were samples to be had, I couldn’t resist. Sue me. This is amazing, by the way. Pineapple and tomatoes. Who woulda thunk it?”