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Carol sighed. “Seems like everybody wants my company these days.”
Not everybody. Not all the time. Ruth managed to keep her smile in place. “It feels good to be popular, doesn’t it?”
“Right.” Carol’s forehead furrowed. “What about your date with Liam Dempsey?”
Ruth blinked. “What about it?”
“You’ll do it even if I’m not here, won’t you?” Carol looked concerned all of a sudden.
Ruth narrowed her eyes. Why would her daughter care whether she went out with Liam? That seemed slightly weird. “Of course.”
“You already had Bunny lined up to babysit. Will you still have to pay her?”
Ruth shook her head. “Nope. I already cancelled.”
Carol’s frown became more pronounced. “That doesn’t seem fair. Suppose she’d turned down other jobs to babysit me?”
“Don’t worry about it.” This time Ruth did grit her teeth. The last thing she needed was her daughter playing Jiminy Cricket.
“But—”
“Carol, go home and pack. Bunny’s fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. And your aunt Ginger needs you. Go.” She pushed herself up from the table. “I’ll swing by after closing to say goodbye.”
Carol looked like she still wanted to argue, but apparently she knew a losing battle when she saw it. “Okay. You’ll have to tell Peaches I won’t be able to help anymore until I get back.”
“I will. She’ll be okay. She’s getting everything set up in the kitchen the way she likes it.”
Carol gave a mighty sigh, pushing herself up from the table. “Okay. I’ll go pack. If you’re sure you can spare me here.”
Ruth controlled her grin. “I’m sure.”
Her daughter the martyr headed for the door, ready to sacrifice herself for the good of her aunt. The fact that she’d be spoiled rotten by her aunt and uncle was a minor point.
Only one question remained for Ruth. Did she tell Liam before dinner, or after?
…
Just as Peaches had predicted, Tim Stanton installed a new cook the next afternoon, but Burt McCullough didn’t impress anybody, least of all Liam. He looked like a refugee from a greasy spoon with his unwashed hair and stained T-shirt. It went without saying that his cooking wasn’t close to being in the same league as Peaches’s, and he was unfailingly surly to both Liam and the waitresses. By the second hour of McCullough’s tenure, they’d all started to avoid him. It was easier to just make up answers to customers’ questions about the food than to try to get an answer from him.
Then a customer sent back his burger for being overcooked.
Nobody wanted to tell McCullough, but the waitress couldn’t very well leave the customer sitting there with no food. Predictably, McCullough didn’t take it well.
“What the fuck?” he yelled. “It’s a fucking hamburger, not a T-bone. Who the fuck cares if it’s medium or medium rare? Who the fuck asks how you want your hamburger, anyway? It was fucking cooked. That’s all he should fucking care about. I’m going ram this fucking burger down his fucking throat.”
Liam was caught between grudging admiration for the way McCullough managed to work the word fuck into every sentence and reluctance to have the tavern thrown into chaos. Chaos never produced tips.
Plus, it ruined the laid-back ambiance they’d all worked to establish, Liam most of all. He still had some loyalty to the tavern, or at least to what the tavern had been once upon a time.
He motioned the waitress out of the kitchen, then turned to McCullough himself. “It’s not a big deal. The guy’s probably from California or something. Just put a burger on the flat top for a couple of minutes a side, and send it back out. He’ll be satisfied and the rest of us can get on with the afternoon.”
McCullough’s face was still scarlet. He was at least three inches shorter than Liam and built like a fireplug. His mouth twisted in derision. “‘Just put a burger on the flat top for a couple of minutes a side and send it back out.’ Jesus, where did you learn to cook, anyway? You don’t know a damn thing about it, asshole. You think I’m going to throw out a good burger just so some fucking cocksucker from California can see his food bleed? Fuck him!”
