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“Are you okay?” His voice was soft.
“I’m fine.” She raised her chin in a pale show of confidence.
“Um, okay. Ready to go?” He sounded concerned. Or he was really good at reeling them in like the rest of the rich tech dickheads around here. I needed a different job, away from this place, now.
“Hey Pamela, can I get your number?” I gave Lucas the eye. “I want to make sure you get home safe.”
I unlocked my phone, and she typed in the number. Lucas didn’t seem upset about my plans to check up on her. In fact, his expression softened like he was relieved.
“I’ll text you, and you can text me back when you're settled.”
“Okay. I will,” Pam said.
I watched as they walked off. Pamela seemed to trust him, but I was still a little worried.
I helped Annie unload the van as quickly as possible. The sooner we finished this dinner, the sooner I could leave.
(SAMMY) JO
PRESENT
Standingon the landing outside my apartment, I inhaled the briny Pacific Northwest coastal air laced with the scent of diesel fuel and looked out over the tugboats moored between the pilings of the Perry Harbor commercial boat dock. The January chill, intense this close to the water, invigorated my tired body, awake since three-thirty this morning. The San Jose catering gigandthe Seattle restaurant gig were behind me, and I was in this wealthy vacation town north of Seattle to finally chase my dreams.
“Sammy Jo, now, when money gets too tight, you come on home. I don’t like all this movin’ around you’re doing. You know there are plenty of places in Nashville that need a good cook or pastry person. I read inThe Tennesseanabout a new one opening on Second Avenue, right off Lower Broad. Another country star, I think. I can’t keep track. The place is supposed to be nice. You could work there.”
My mother’s confidence that I could get any job in my hometown never wavered. I took guitar lessons in middle school because, well; it was Nashville, and you can’t swing a stick in that town without hitting someone playing a guitar. Mom told me I would have a glorious life as a session musician as if bus-loads of people didn’t arrive monthly planning to make it big with their guitar and then hoping to make beer money a few months later. She had big dreams for me as long as they kept me in Nashville. It didn’t help that my two sisters had stayed close to home,andthey gave her grandbabies already. I was definitely the black sheep that left the fold.
I had to get out of Nashville. Do something different and do it on my own, if only to prove I could. I wasn’t thin and cute like my sisters. I wasn’t on the path to get married and have babies. So, this was my path. Build the life I wanted from the ground up on my own. Pay my own way. Make my own rules. Live up to my expectations and no one else’s. To me, it had felt like a matter of survival.
“Is it wrong for a mother to want her child close to home?” A ubiquitous dash of Southern guilt infused her tone. I left home for culinary school in,of all the places on God’s green earth, California. I finished a four-year degree with an emphasis on pastry. Mom convinced herself that I hadnotlost my mind by assuming this was a phase and I would soon return to the family home, as all wayward daughters should. Southern mothers, I loved mine. I just didn’t want to move back home to prove it.
“Mom, I’m good. Really,” I lied. “I should go, or I’ll be late for work.”
“All right. Well, your daddy and I love you, and you’re always welcome when the going gets too rough. I don’t want you homeless. I saw on channel four news that the homeless crisis is terrible out there.”
“Mom, Perry Harbor is not Seattle, and I’m not homeless. Look, I gotta go. I love you too. And kiss your grandbabies for me.”
“All right, dear heart. Everyone misses you. Take care.”
“You, too, Mom.”
It wasn’tthatbad. My student loans were getting paid, and I was making rent. My car wasn’t as reliable as it should be, but when I lived in Seattle before I moved a month ago, I took the bus most of the time.
Perry Harbor didn’t have mass transit, but it had the water, mountains, and natural beauty of the San Juan Islands near Washington’s border with Canada. The Elliott Inn and Spa, a small boutique hotel, needed a part-time pastry chef, and I jumped at the chance to leave the twelve-hour days, six-days-a-week restaurant grind. Catering in Silicon Valley and then working in an up-and-coming restaurant in Seattle had given me good job experience but not so good life experience.
It was personal, loving people with food, and I dreamed about being a personal chef. I wanted to cook for people at a reasonable pace. Building a business serving the island’s wealthy residents and seasonal tourists was a good place to start. The Elliot job was my foot in the door.
I even had an apprentice, one of the cooks getting her certificate in pastry. I would mentor her this spring, and by the busy summer vacation season, she’d take some shifts, and hopefully, I’d have enough clients to make a go of my own business.
I made desserts for the hotel restaurant early in the morning and stored them in the walk-in cooler before the heat and bustle of the kitchen took over. My co-worker Emily, from The Elliot’s spa, kindly recommended me for this gig today after I helped the kitchen cater her friend Carrie’s wedding on New Year’s Eve.
The job was straightforward. A large family-style meal for thirty people two Fridays a month at Bakker Farms tulip fields. The meal was a longtime tradition and a cool perk for their crews. Good food for good people.
I checked my watch and tried not to spill the roast beef and au jus as I loaded it into the back of my little Subaru. I finished at The Elliot this morning around ten, leaving me just enough time to get the pre-prepped food to the farm and cooked for the noon lunch.
The oven in my apartment was an oven only in the academic sense. Fortunately, Emily said the large room used to serve lunch had an adjacent full kitchen, including a double-oven, six-burner gas range and a large fridge. I would cook these meals on-site going forward.
I checked the directions on my phone and blasted the heat against the damp chill. Roast beef, chunky garlic mashed potatoes, blanched green beans, roasted carrots, and apple pie would warm people up.
