by Grace Palmer
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?”
Sara laughed and swatted him with a dish towel, just like her mother had done to her for her entire life. “You like everything.”
He nodded solemnly. “Guilty as charged.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “It’s one of your best qualities. Now get out of my kitchen, civilian, before I do something drastic.”
“You’re always about to do something drastic,” Joey called over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the kitchen, licking his lips. “It’s one of your best qualities!”
Then he was gone, leaving her laughing. She surveyed the kitchen. Everyone had returned to work at once. She was standing in the middle of a hive of activity. It was chaotic, it was beautiful, it was perfect.
It was hers.
5
Holly
It was dinnertime at the Goodwin household. This time of year, Mondays meant meatloaf, which was just about ready to come out of the oven.
“Grady, did you wash your hands?” Holly asked her son as he went to sit down at the dining room table.
“Mhmm,” he mumbled nonchalantly.
“Show me.”
He hesitated for just a second. That was all the answer she needed. “Up. Go. Scrub good, twenty seconds at least.” The guilty party slunk off towards the kitchen sink. Holly glanced towards her daughter, Alice, who was already ensconced in her seat across the table. The seven-year-old waggled her freshly scrubbed fingertips at her mom. She’d painted each of them a different color, courtesy of the at-home nail salon that Aunt Sara had gotten her as a Christmas gift.
Pete came sliding into the dining room right on cue, propping his briefcase up against a wall and loosening his tie as he took his seat. Holly walked around and set the tray with the meatloaf on the lazy Susan in the center of the table. “Bon appetit,” she said.
“Looks great, babe,” Pete said at once. He was licking his lips.
Grady slipped back into his seat, hands scrubbed and soapy, though Holly noticed a few nails that could’ve used a little bit more TLC. Oh well. There was only so much a mother could do with a nine-year-old boy, especially a rough-and-tumble type like her firstborn.
“How was work, Daddy?” asked Alice.
“It was good, darling. Thanks for asking.”
“Ready to be out of that place?” Holly inquired.
For the last year, Pete and his partner in his new venture, Billy Payne, had been working out of a conference room at a property owned by one of Pete’s high school buddies. It was only meant to be a temporary solution—cut costs while the law firm got up and running—but it had gone on a little bit longer than either one of them had ever intended.
Gradually, though, they’d won enough business to start looking around for office space of their own. Just last week, they’d found the perfect site. It was actually an old firehouse that was no longer in use. With some small renovations and a thorough redecoration, it was going to be a lovely little space for the two of them to work, host clients, and—one day—hire in new employees.
“You don’t even know the half of it.” Pete sighed as he devoured his plate of meatloaf and green beans. “I will forever be grateful to Ethan for letting us camp out at his place. But if I have to smell his secretary’s god-awful perfume one more time, I’m gonna lose it. I swear, it’s like she sprays a skunk on herself every morning.”
Grady cackled maniacally at that. Holly just shook her head and chewed thoughtfully. The boys in her family were two peas in a pod, always getting into trouble together and cracking each other up. She thanked the heavens every day that she still had a sweet little mama’s girl to see things from her perspective, even if Alice’s independent streak only continued to grow with each passing year.
“How was school, kiddo?” Pete asked Grady.
“Good!” Grady chirped. “We made rockets. Mine went the highest.”
“Did you do what I said with the fins? Those instructions the manufacturers give out are always wrong. The secret is …” The two of them went off on a tangent about optimal rocket ship design while Holly and Alice rolled their eyes and looked at each other knowingly. She might only be seven, but Alice already had that “Men—what’re we gonna do with them?” look down pat. It made Holly laugh every time.
“How was your day, sweetie?” Holly asked.
“It was fine,” Alice answered. She was stirring the peas on her plate around with a fork, not eating much. “Lila and Jillian were being mean, though, so I didn’t really hang out with them.”
“Mean to you?”
“Just mean. They’re not nice sometimes.” Alice had a way of retreating within herself sometimes that was starting to worry Holly a little bit. There was a kind of world-weariness about her when she was down. Every now and then, she mentioned something about missing Grandpa. That took Holly by surprise. Alice had been so young when her grandfather passed away. It didn’t seem like she ought to have been quite so affected. But evidently there was a little grain of sadness still tucked away in her heart somewhere. Just something to watch, that’s all. Not every kid grew up in a smooth, straight line. And even the ones who seemed like they did often turned out to need a little bit of remedial self-care later in life. Just look at Eliza, Holly’s oldest sister. She’d aced the first thirty years of her life with flying colors. But she’d pretty much undergone a complete reset in the last two or three years. The wedding this weekend would be a culmination of that whole process. A new Eliza, a new name, a new life. Holly smiled at the thought of her big sister’s happiness. Weddings always made Holly giddy. She loved love.
“Oh! I forgot,” Pete said after dinner, when the kids had been cut loose and the two of them were washing up together. Pete was a fastidious scrubber of dishes. He drove Holly nuts sometimes with how carefully he went over each one, again and again, examining it from every angle until he was sure the thing was spotless. He cared about the dishes so much, and yet the entire concept of folding clothes before putting them in the dresser drawer seemed to have missed him completely.
“Forgot what?”
“I talked to Billy today, and we’re all cool with you taking lead on the office décor stuff. That’s your cup of tea anyway. Neither of us are much good at it.”
Holly set down the pan she was drying and squealed. “Really? Yay! Aw, honey, thank you. I’m so excited.”
The question of who got to decorate the office had been lingering over her head for the better part of a year now, pretty much ever since she and Pete had moved from Plymouth, Massachusetts, to Nantucket so Pete could start this new law firm. It had almost been waged like a proxy war between Holly and Billy’s wife, Cecilia, who was a witchy woman if ever there was one. They interacted as minimally as possible. After the dual shock of discovering that her dream house had been snatched out from under her and learning that the woman responsible was the wife of her husband’s new business partner, Holly had been determined to steer clear of Cecilia Payne.
The night of that twin discovery had been a doozy to say the least. They’d gone to the debut night of Holly’s sister’s new restaurant and proceeded to have what was easily the most awkward dinner of Holly’s life. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. By the time the meal was close to over, she’d made at least half a dozen trips to the bathroom, just to escape the oppressive atmosphere that hung over their table. Billy and Pete were completely oblivious at the time, of course. Pete had treated the whole house theft affair as an “Aw, bummer ” kind of thing. Holly couldn’t possibly disagree more with that. This wasn’t “Aw, bummer.” This was a high crime and misdemeanor. A mortal sin. What kind of punishment Cecilia deserved, Holly couldn’t say for sure, but she definitely shouldn’t get off scot-free.
Pete, for his part, had done his be
st to calm Holly down. The best way to do that seemed to be to just keep the two women far apart. Fine, fair enough. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying went. Holly had a life to live. She didn’t need to devote time or mental energy to that condescending woman.
But then the question of who got to decorate their husbands’ new office had emerged. Holly had gathered from little things that Pete had mentioned here and there that Cecilia once had a small interior design business a few years ago. Nothing super professional or notable. It seemed, though, that Cecilia felt that her experience in that area made her the obvious choice to handle the décor.
The problem was, Holly wanted to take charge of it. She’d been a stay-at-home mother for so long—nine years now! She badly craved a project. Something big, something fun, something new. This would fit the bill perfectly. And she loved the spot they’d chosen. The layout of the old firehouse meant there were so many fun, quirky things she could do with the space. Her mind had started whirling from the moment she’d first set foot in what was soon going to be the office of Goodwin & Payne Law Firm.
So hearing Pete say the project was hers was a big, big victory, small as it might seem in the grand scheme of things. She kissed her husband on the cheek, still squirming with excitement, and ran off to the second bedroom they used as an office to start sketching out her ideas.
6
Sara
The Monday night dinner service at Little Bull was over, and Sara had retreated to her office. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the wheeled chair behind her desk, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. Outside, she could hear the clink and clatter of tables being cleared, the kitchen being scrubbed down, and the muted gossip of her staff as they put everything away for the night. Inside the office, though, all she could hear was her own breathing.
She wanted to sit and soak in the silence for a minute. It had been a good dinner service. Fabulous, actually. The dish had come out to rave reviews. She hid in a corner and watched each diner take their first bite. She saw their faces twist up in ecstasy, eyes fluttering, cheeks sagging in that Wow, this is something else expression that she’d come to cherish and crave so much. She loved watching people eat food she had poured herself into. Each time they took a fresh bite, she got to experience a fraction of that joy with them.
So why the long face?
She knew exactly the reason. It was hiding in her back pocket, folded and tucked away. A well-worn sheet of paper. Her fingers itched. She wanted to reach back there and retrieve it, unfold it across her desk and read it for the billionth time. She started to move her hand towards her pocket and—
No.
Not tonight. Don’t do it, Sara. Don’t give in to the stupid, self-hating temptation. Tonight was good. Tonight was successful. Tonight was a win.
Let it go.
She leaned forward and planted her elbows heavily on her desk. It wobbled a little bit—she’d been meaning to get Joey in here to fix the one leg that was shorter than all the others, but it kept slipping her mind. Rubbing the heels of her hands into her tired eyeballs, she let out one more long sigh before turning her attention to the stacks of paper lined up on her desk.
The numbers painted a clear story. Little Bull, against all odds, was doing just fine. It wasn’t a gold mine just yet, but nor was it a money pit. There was a clear route to financial success if they just kept doing the things they’d been doing since the day they opened: pleasing customers one bite at a time. She was proud of the systems she’d put in the place, the staff she’d trained, the menu she had sweated over until it was as perfect as she knew how to make it. And, night after night, that work was rewarded. With smiles, with mmms, with laughter.
She spent a few minutes shuffling through the stacks of invoices and budget reports. There were food shipments to order, lease payments to schedule, special reservation requests to approve. Just the million and one little tasks of drudgery that filled the life of a new business owner. Sara didn’t mind. Honestly, she found herself liking this part of the job. Every time she finished a task, she got the satisfaction of saying to herself, That’s done now. It was so unlike the art of cooking, which involved two steps forward and ten steps back over and over. This was straightforward, rote, systematic. She turned her brain into a spreadsheet and let the numbers populate the cells. In that way, she forgot for long stretches of time about the paper tucked in her back pocket.
But tonight, the magic spell of busywork wasn’t doing such a good job at keeping her distracted. Her fingers still tingled to reach back and pluck the sheet from her pocket. She knew what it said, of course—she’d memorized every single word on the printout months and months ago. It wasn’t about being reminded of its contents. It was a ritual. A destructive one, and yet one that she didn’t know how to quit.
After reading over the same itemized line on a kitchen equipment invoice fifteen times in a row, she growled in frustration, gave up, and yanked the paper out of her back pocket.
Her hands were trembling as she started to read the words she’d read a million times already and would no doubt read at least a million more before this sheet gave up the ghost and just straight-up crumbled into dust.
Arrogance Meets Incompetence in New Nantucket Wannabe, the headline read. Next to the byline was the smug, unsmiling face of Martin Hogan, the country’s preeminent food critic.
Sara’s stomach churned.
But she couldn’t stop. Once she got going, it was like an addiction. She knew how she was going to feel by the time she finished reading Hogan’s review. It just wasn’t enough to make her put it away before it hurt her one more time.
In thirty-plus years of sampling the best this country’s chefs have to offer, it has been thankfully rare that I have to plant such a blatant “You Shall Not Pass” in the path of a young culinary artist. And yet, such is my unfortunate responsibility after spending a misbegotten evening in the gastronomical care of upstart chef Sara Benson, founder and creative driving force behind Nantucket’s Little Bull restaurant. For those of you without the stomach to read about the gross crimes committed on good taste under Chef Benson’s watch, I suggest you read no further. You need to know only this: it is an offense to your palate to ever frequent this establishment.
If you are still with me, let us embark on our tour through the Little Bull “House of Horrors”…
Sara stopped reading for a second. Right on schedule, there was a tear leaking from one eye down her cheek. That only happened some of the times when she subjected herself this savage, brutal hit job. Other times, she got mad. Mad enough to break things. Snapped-in-half pens and pencils filled her office trash can on a regular basis. The broken short leg on the desk was her fault, after maybe the twentieth or thirtieth time she had pored over Hogan’s words. Tonight, though, was apparently destined to be a sad, self-pitying night.
She knew this was her fault. Sort of, that is. She’d been offered a way out of this swamp, and she’d chosen to reject it.
The thing was, she stood by that decision. Her mind flashed back to that night a year ago when Gavin Crawford, her old boss and sort-of flame, had shown up unexpectedly at Little Bull with his good pal Martin Hogan tagging along for the ride. It was only a few short months after Gavin had wrecked her life for the second time. Bad things came in threes, apparently.
Gavin had given her the choice: come see him in his hotel room that night, or face the wrath of a nationally published food critic set loose to tear Sara’s hopes and dreams to shreds. She’d weighed her options, but at the end of the night, she’d spit in Gavin’s face—metaphorically speaking. Actually, now that she thought about it, she wished she’d done that literally. Gavin deserved it. He didn’t know how to leave her alone. She was “the one that got away,” but in less of a Hallmark lovey-dovey sense and more of a serial-killer-whose-victim-has-escaped kind of way. Like he had seen her living her best life away from him and thought to himself, “My collection isn’t complete without her in it.” Beneath his pretty bo
y smile and overly full trophy shelf, Gavin Crawford was a smug jerk and a narcissist. If only she’d seen that a long time ago. Before it was too late.
Now, she just had to take the damage and keep on keeping on. What else was there to do? It wasn’t like she could accuse Gavin of pulling strings to get Martin to slander her, even if everyone involved knew that that’s exactly what happened. No one cared about her version of events, no matter how true it was.
She didn’t have to keep reading to know what the rest of the article said.
… unholy chimera of over-acidity and so much salt that I almost wondered if they’d accidentally dropped my dish in the harbor before serving it to me …
… foul concoction, utterly lacking in nuance and craft …
… My grandmother would roll over in her grave if she could see how this poor lobster had been mangled and maligned …
It went on like that, each line worse than the last, until the very end: If she has any sense of humility at all—which would seem like a dubious proposition at best—she will close up shop and apologize to her betters at once.
Boom. Kill shot. A dagger to the heart.
Sara let the sheet fall from her hand onto the desk. The tear on her cheek fell with it.
She herself hadn’t always been the nicest of girls. In middle school, she’d told Mary Claire McGuire that her nose looked like a carrot. Once, she’d lied to a professor at culinary school about a tree branch falling onto her car in order to duck out of an exam she didn’t study for. She regularly snuck candy into the movie theater.
But no one deserved to be treated like this.
How Little Bull managed to continue operations despite the heat of Hogan’s review was beyond Sara. She was glad it had kept chugging along. There were far more interests than just hers at stake. Her father’s life insurance payout was what had enabled this dream to take root in the first place. That, along with the hard work of her family and her staff, were all crucial factors in getting Little Bull up and running.
