"You didn't make anyone sick," I say.
"No."
"So tell the truth."
She looks at me, finally, directly. "The executive chef is a James Beard finalist. His restaurant has been in Canada's 100 Best for four consecutive years. I'm a burnout with no current kitchen, tasting beer in a small-town brewery in the interior of BC." A pause. "Who do you think people believe?"
"People who know you," I say.
"Nobody in the industry knows me here."
"I know you here." I get up from the table. "And this is my town."
She looks at me. Eight months of doing everything alone and you can see it in how she receives an offer. "I'm not asking you to fix this."
"I know." I come to the door. "I'm offering because I want to. Not the same thing." I look at her. "Do you have documentation? Anything?"
"There were prep logs. Kitchen logs. A health inspector report that contradicts the original piece." She pauses. "I kept copies. I don't know why. I wasn't planning to do anything with them."
"You were planning to do something with them," I say. "You just didn't know what yet."
She looks at me.
"Can I call some people?" I ask. "I know the person who writes about food for the regional paper. I know the food editor at the valley arts magazine. People who work this beat locally — if the real story hits before Shanfield's piece does, the piece doesn't have the oxygen it needs."
"You can't guarantee that."
"No," I agree. "But I can make a few calls this afternoon and we'll see how far the truth travels before the other thing does."
She goes very still. Holding something back.
"I'll think about it," she says.
"Okay." I don't push. I've been behind a bar for four years and the most useful thing I know is when not to push.
She turns toward the pub and then stops. "The festival entry," she says. "If the piece runs while we're…if it goes badly…"
"It's our entry," I say. "That doesn't change."
She leaves.
I wait until her car is gone and then I call Smith at the regional paper, who answers on the second ring because Smith always answers on the second ring, and I start the conversation that I should have started as soon as I heard Shanfield was in town.
The truth travels fast when you give it a vehicle.
By the next day, Smith has spoken to the health inspector whose report directly contradicts Shanfield's original account. A contact of Smith's at a Vancouver food publication has three sources in the kitchen community willing to speak to what actually happened. Mara, Sage's journalist friend, has a piece drafted.
I don't tell Sage any of this yet.
She came into the brewery that afternoon and she was quiet, distracted.I put a glass of the festival beer in front of her and we sat in the tasting room. I let her be quiet because sometimes people need to be quiet and have the beer be good and have the company be easy, and that's something I can provide.
What I can't provide, it turns out, is the right response to what happens next.
I come out of the production side at five o'clock to find Bev standing at the interior window with an expression that means something is happening in the pub that requires attention.
Sage is at the bar. Patrick Shanfield is beside her, speaking in a low voice, his phone on the bar between them. I catch the last few words:just want your side of the story before I publish.
Her face is blanked completely. The expression she gets when she's managing something very large with all the energy she has.
