McCall

by Patricia Evans Jordan

  A few hours later Sara looked around at the tables as the tasting wound down. No one tried the lavender mousse, which surprised her, although in hindsight it occurred to her she shouldn’t have listed in the description that it contained an “unexpected kick of habanero pepper.” Still, though, it was beautiful, and food-wise not that far off the beaten path, so the negative reaction was unexpected. Most of the plates people had sampled and left on the tables had only one or two bites gone, if that. It was as if they picked them up, tasted them, and put them right back down, which to a chef was the worst possible outcome. The one thing that did fly off the tables was the roast beef pie, wrapped in a layer of flaky crust, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  “Well,” Sara said to herself as she started to gather everything to take back into the kitchen, “At least they liked one of them.”

  She and Mara had the kitchen clean and sidewalk back to normal in record time, and Sara included an extra hours’ pay in the envelope she’d handed Mara when she left.

  The roast beef was a hit. Mara was great. Everything else was an undeniable disaster.

  “Shit,” Sara said under her breath as she pulled the door shut and locked up the diner. “What’s wrong with these people?”

  ****

  Sara took the comment cards home with her to go through with a glass of wine. Jennifer had all but moved into her houseboat that Sara hadn’t even seen yet, so the house was quiet. Sara took a long sip of her chardonnay and read the first card.

  “I liked the French fries,” it said, “But not sure what the side of mayo was for.”

  Sara looked into the golden depth of her glass and started to reconsider the wine. This was quickly turning into an evening that required scotch.

  “I wanted to try the dessert but was afraid the lavender stuff would taste like soap.”

  “Liked the salad, but I’m not sure I’d be able to find something here that my husband or kids would eat.”

  “I can tell the cook knows what he’s doing, but I would have liked that bacon stuff on a regular burger. What’s up with the noodles?”

  Even better. Now they were assuming Sara was a line cook. And a man.

  Only one of the cards was wholly positive. “Beautiful food, would love to take a date here.”

  Which, of course, was the complete opposite of what Sara set out to do. She wanted the gastropub to be a casual place for locals and visiting foodies, with elevated but familiar dishes, but clearly that wouldn’t be popular, to say the least. What did they want? Deep-fried mac and cheese balls?

  Sara sighed and pushed the cards away. She knew she was being petulant and unprofessional. The locals liked what they liked, and if Sara was going to run a successful business in McCall, maybe she needed to rethink the whole concept of the restaurant. But was that really the kind of food she wanted to put out? Dishes that any line cook worth his shift beer could put out in four minutes or less?

  The doorbell startled Sara enough to knock over her wineglass. The chardonnay quickly soaked into the comment cards and dripped off the table down to the wood plank floors with an audible splat.

  “Well,” Sara said, shaking the wine off her hands and going to get the door, “At least I don’t have to reread them now.”

  It was Sam. Sara suddenly remembered they were supposed to go out on the boat. She motioned Sam in and closed the door.

  “I may not be the best student tonight. I’m not sure I can take any more embarrassment today.”

  She grabbed the paper towels and Sam took them from her when she came back to the table, gently pushing her into a dry chair and refilling her glass.

  “That good, huh?”

  “Don’t you dare make fun of me, Draper.” Sara couldn’t even look at her. “I already get it that you predicted this.”

  “Sara,” Sam said, soaking up the rest of the wine with a paper towel, “I’m really sorry if it sounded like I was making fun of you; I honestly wasn’t. And you and I both know I was just being a dick when we closed on the diner.”

  She held up the cards that weren’t soaked through, blotting them with dry paper towels.

  Sara shook her head. “You don’t have to do that. I’ve already read them,” she said. “And I have no desire to read them again.”

  Once everything was almost dry, Sam sat down at the table opposite Sara. “Is that your first glass, by any chance?”

  “Second,” Sara said. “I totally forgot about our lesson. I’m sorry.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, looking over to the window, “It’s supposed to dump rain on us in about twenty minutes, so it doesn’t matter at all. I just came over to bring you this.”

  She pulled a paperback booklet, “Boating Safety and Regulations,” out of her pocket and leaned back in her chair to toss it onto the kitchen counter. “You’re fairly close to being ready.”

  “Really?” Sara said, “How long is the wait before I can take it?”

  “Usually only a couple of days,” Sam said, trying not to smile. “I totally made up the story about a long waiting list just to get under your skin that first day.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.” Sara smacked Sam with the stack of wet cards.

  “Afraid not, Miss Brighton.”

  “And did I really even need a licensed driver in the boat with me until I pass the test?”

  “That part was true,” Sam said. “But you have every right to punch me for the waiting list thing. I think I just wanted to see what you looked like pissed off.”

  Sara thought back, remembering how much she’d wanted to ball up that list and pitch it into her smug face. “Mission accomplished.”

  Sam grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat back down. “Are you in a time crunch with this restaurant thing, or could you be gone for a few days?”

  Sara looked up. “Well, considering that I’m now back at square one, a few more days won’t make any difference. Why?”

  Sam smiled. “I’ve got way too many vacation days stacked up that the Chief is always on me to use. What do you think about getting the hell out of town for a while?” She picked up the limp comment card next to her hand and balled it up in her fist. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “Really?” Sara said, “What?” Now this is getting interesting, she thought.

  “It’s not one thing,” Sam replied, hesitating. “It’s more of an…experience.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, with a smirk Sara tried like hell not to find sexy. “But this is purely educational, I promise.”

  “Why should I trust you?” Sara asked, narrowing her eyes at Sam and trying not to smile.

  “Because I think I may know how to help, but you’re just going to have to—”

  “Trust you?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, smiling and clinking her bottle to Sara’s wineglass. “Exactly.”

  Sam finished her beer, and told Sara to pack a bag as she walked out to the patrol truck. “I’ll pick you up here at eight in the morning.”

  “Wait,” Sara said. “What do you drive? I’ve never seen you in anything but a Lake Patrol vehicle.”

  “I’ll be in the truck that’s sitting in your driveway at eight in the morning.”

  Sam pulled out of her driveway and turned onto the road toward her house, just to the other side of Sara’s property line.

  ****

  The next morning, Sam pulled up and found Sara’s bag already on the porch. She stepped out of the cabin just after, holding two travel mugs, and locked the door.

  “You’re ready right on time?” Sam asked, picking up her bag. “I’m impressed. Have you eaten?”

  Sara shook her head, handed her a mug of coffee, and climbed in the passenger’s seat of a late model green Land Rover.

  Sara ran her hand over the leather seats. “I’ve got to say, I was planning to tease you about some beat up old truck, but I actually like this.”

  “Hey,” Sam said, pulling out
of the drive and onto to the road to town, “I don’t drive this thing because it’s pretty, I drive it because it’s the least likely to leave me stranded in four feet of snow on the side of the mountain.”

  “Oh my lord, you don’t drive it because it’s pretty?” Sara said, fanning herself with her hand, and doing her best southern belle impression. “I’m simply faint with the shock.”

  They cruised out of town and onto the road that wound down the mountain toward Boise. There wasn’t much in the way of other small towns that Sara remembered, although she hadn’t ever really paid attention. Twenty miles down the road, Sam pulled left onto a small paved road through the trees, passing a sign on the right. Mountain Harbor, population 865.

  “What’s this?” Sara said, watching the tiny town unfold on either side of the car.

  “This,” said Sam, “Is where McCall eats on the way down to Boise.”

  “I had no idea this was even here!” Sara said, leaning out her window to check out the old fashioned town square, tiny by any standard, but certainly charming, and it seemed right out of a fifties television show.

  They parked next to the courthouse and walked to the north side of the square. Sara smelled what could only be biscuits and frying bacon, then she spotted a plate glass window with a white poster board sign taped to the inside. “Just Deb’s.”

  “They used to have a regular sign out front,” Sam said, opening the door for Sara, a brass bell announcing their arrival, “It was called Mel and Deb’s Mountain Cafe.”

  “What happened?”

  “No one really knows, but one day Deb paid some teenagers to pull down the sign, trash it, and stuff it into the cab of Mel’s truck. Ever since then, there’s been that poster board sign with the new name of the place on it. Just Deb’s.”

  “Let me guess,” said Sara, “One of her waitresses was suddenly fired as well.”

  “Good guess.”

  They slid into a booth by the window, with coffee cups already in place and paper placemats.

  “Interesting,” Sara said, looking around. “Where’s the menu?”

  Sam turned her placemat over and pointed at the menu printed on the back in old typewriter font. There were three sections: breakfast, lunch, and supper.

  “This is to the point.” Sara said, scanning the short list of options.

  “You have no idea,” Sam said, turning over her coffee cup so the next waitress that passed could fill it.

  Sam didn’t need to look at the menu. In the breakfast section, there were three options listed: egg breakfast, pancakes, and biscuits and gravy. Six words total.

  “Wait,” Sara said, “Is this it?” She turned over the placemat again.

  “Let me give you a word of advice,” Sam said as she noticed the waitress on her way over to the table. She dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned over closer to Sara. “Choose what you want and say it just like it’s written. Don’t get picky with it.”

  An older waitress in jeans and a Six Flags T-shirt dug a paper order pad out of her apron with one hand and filled Sam’s coffee cup with the other. Sara caught on and turned hers over too.

  “What can I get ya?” She said.

  Sam nodded at Sara to order first.

  “I’ll have this one, please.” She pointed at the last line in the breakfast section.

  She nodded once, then poised her pen over the pad and looked at Sam.

  “I’ll have the egg breakfast, over easy.”

  She jotted Sam’s order down and headed toward the order window. Sara watched her put the order sheet in the window and ring the bell. A hand reached up to grab it and clipped it to the wheel with the others.

  “Was that Deb?”

  Sam looked around before she answered. “Probably. Deb’s usually in the kitchen on the line. She and Dad were good friends back in the day.”

  “So that’s how you grew to like the place?”

  “I spent a fair amount of time here in the years after Mel took off. Deb was too proud to ask for help, but Dad would stop in once or twice a week and just ask what needed doing.”

  “Wow,” Sara said, “That was really kind.”

  “They both grew up in McCall; Dad went to high school with her.”

  “So has the food here always been the same?”

  “Nope,” Sam said, pouring an alarming pile of creamer into her coffee from a glass holder with a steel spout. “When I was in sixth grade, she dropped the tuna melt from the lunch section.”

  “Seriously?” Sara couldn’t tell if Sam was kidding or not. “That’s been the only change in all those years?”

  “That’s all I know about, anyway.”

  A few minutes later, the food arrived, and the smell of the smoky peppered bacon alongside the biscuits was mesmerizing. It was cooked perfectly, crispy but tender, and had a hint of maple sweetness along the edges.

  “This might be the best bacon I’ve ever had,” Sara said, closing her eyes and leaning back in the booth with it in her hand.

  “Want to know the secret?”

  “God, yes.”

  “She takes a square block of bacon and brushes the edges with maple syrup before she slices it into strips.”

  The biscuits had been split open and lightly browned for a bit of texture, then smothered in sausage gravy with a light dusting of cracked pepper.

  “I’m assuming you know how amazing these biscuits are?” Sara raised an eyebrow in Sam’s direction.

  “I do,” Sam said, “But they’re dangerous. When she runs out of them on a Sunday, which always happens at some point, people have been known to get a little testy.”

  They finished their breakfast and the waitress cleared the plates, topping off their coffee and laying a handwritten paper bill on the table. Sam stirred more creamer into her coffee and reached for the sugar.

  “My dad died suddenly of a heart attack,” she said, looking into her cup. “There was no warning, no chance to figure anything out. But by eight o’clock the next morning, Deb had driven to McCall and had Mary let her into the diner. They both stayed there all weekend and cleaned the place top to bottom. They donated all the leftover stock, cleaned out the walk-in refrigerator, then made sure all the books were wrapped up and the staff were paid.”

  “I can imagine all that would have felt impossible if they hadn’t jumped in and just gotten it done,” Sara said.

  “I couldn’t have done it,” Sam said. “Not with everything else. It was just me and Dad by then, so there was no other family to help.” Sam looked toward the kitchen. “Every Friday evening for three months after he died, Mary would text me and tell me not to forget to get the casserole.”

  “The casserole?”

  “Mary calls everything casserole.” Sam smiled, dropping her voice and leaning closer to Sara. “Deb would bring pot roast or a pan of lasagna up to McCall and drop it off with her every Friday and I’d pick it up on the way home from work. Neither one of them ever said a word about it. Mary just handed it to me over the counter, but I’d been eating Deb’s cooking since I was a kid, and somehow just that made me feel like not everything was suddenly different.”

  After they’d finished, they walked out into the bright sunlight and Sara looked back at the front of the cafe. Faded plastic mistletoe still hung above the door from the previous Christmas, and the edges of the poster board sign were yellowed and curling up toward the center. But somehow, now it looked a little less shabby.

  Chapter Eleven

  The drive down the mountain towards Boise was crisp and beautiful. Even when she was a kid on the way home from camp, Sara had always loved the sight of the river crashing and falling down the mountain. It followed the road, and every twist and turn brought beautiful white rapids that eventually settled into a gentle flow during the straighter parts of the drive. Sara rolled down her window and let the cool air slip under her hand, the wind smoothing the edges of her thoughts until no sharp remnants remained. Boise eventually surrounded them, then slipped into
the rearview mirror as Sam turned into Lucky Peak State Park. Thick pines bordered the winding road that eventually led to the Ranger Station. Sam picked up a set of keys at the desk and they took the road that followed the edge of the lake, deep blue and shimmering in the sun.

  “So where are you taking me, anyway?”

  “One of my favorite places,” Sam said, looking over at Sara. She’d rolled her window down and her blonde hair whipped around her face. “I’ve always had a thing for log cabins, and I found this one when I was here for a canoeing trip when I was twenty-one.”

  “So is this where you take all the girls you’re stalking, or am I special?”

  Sam winked at her. “I refuse to answer that on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.”

  She turned down a wooded road that ended at the lake, with an old log cabin at the shoreline. It was small, just barely bigger than Sara’s, but had an enormous wrap around porch with white Adirondack chairs lined up and facing the water. Sam parked and tossed Sara the keys to open up the cabin while she got the bags. Sara let herself in and instantly saw why Sam loved the place. There was a loft bedroom with a handmade ladder, a kitchen to the left, and a gorgeous stone fireplace with a wide hearth and a stack of logs beside it. A heavenly looking sofa with a navy slipcover and white and cherry striped pillows begged Sara to stretch out on it. She didn’t resist.

  “Look,” Sam said, pulling a cooler into the kitchen with the bags on her shoulder. “I appreciate the offer and all, but it’s not even dark.”

  Sara tossed a pillow in her direction. “You wish, Draper!”

  Sam caught it and leaned into Sara on the couch, holding her face in both hands, kissing her slowly, then deeper, catching her lower lip between her teeth for just an instant before she let her go.

  “Time to go.” Her breath was warm on the delicate skin of Sara’s neck.

  Sara’s hands slid over the hard lines of Sam’s arms. There was a quiet power to Sam that made her instantly wet.

  “What makes you think I’m just going to jump up and follow you, Draper?”