“So you’re taking the job at Blanchard’s?”
“I’d be crazy not to.” She looked at Charity with beseeching eyes. “Just don’t tell Elizabeth about . . . you know.”
Charity glimpsed Daisy long enough to catch the I’m kidding, but not really glimmer in her eyes. It was ridiculous, of course, worrying about Elizabeth’s feelings, but it was equally endearing and sooo Daisy. Was it any wonder Max loved her?
“Not a word to Elizabeth,” Charity promised.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Max Kendall braked his mother’s black vintage Mercedes in front of the diner. He considered the odd-looking establishment that was tucked between a print shop and a dressmaker along a narrow side street dotted with parked cars. THE LOBSTER SHACK glowed in red neon above the mustard-colored double doors. Small windows on either side gave no clue as to what existed behind the brick front.
“Are you sure this is where you want to have lunch?” Max asked his mother in the passenger seat beside him.
“Yes, dear, absolutely,” Maeve Kendall insisted.
“Blanchard’s is only a few blocks away. Why don’t we eat there instead?”
For the third time, Maeve said, “I don’t want to eat at Blanchard’s. The Lobster Shack has the best cioppino I’ve ever tasted and the seafood chowder brings back memories of Ireland.”
Max scrutinized the diner again. “Really?”
“Y’ can’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Let’s hope not.”
A foursome of suits came up the sidewalk and one by one entered the diner through the mustard doors.
“It gets quite busy at lunchtime,” Maeve said. “I should go in and nab a booth while you park the car.”
“If you’re sure.” Max shifted into Park.
Maeve stopped his exit; she grabbed her black patent leather purse and swung open the door herself. “Try to park next to a nice car,” she said before gently closing the door.
Max waited until his mother was safely inside the diner, then he checked over his shoulder for traffic. A taxi passed and then a Mazda before the way was clear.
A parking space was available a few cars down, in front of an Indian boutique named Nirvana, but Max would be putting his mother’s beloved Mercedes between a work truck with a dented front fender and a rusted van with a hand-painted peace symbol on its rear.
The next space in front of an architect’s office looked promising. Behind was a silver Jaguar and in front was a shiny red Pathfinder with a Greenpeace bumper sticker on the left and a SAVE THE TURTLES proclamation on the right. He parked the Mercedes and an unexpected image of Elizabeth appeared in his mind before he banished that and every related thought.
Seven weeks had passed since he loaded up Daisy’s remaining boxes into the Homer Air 206 for the first leg of a long trip back to Seattle. Seven weeks and two days, to be precise, as if precision changed anything.
It had all blended together, one day into the next as he tried to keep it together with a lodge full of guests and one less plane, one less pilot, and one less chef. But the Tilt-A-Whirl was finally winding down. Fitz had returned two days ago, Max’s plane was due back next week, and Rita had a line on a chef after weeks of trying to duplicate Daisy’s recipes with mixed results. Now, after repeated calls from his doctor, he’d finally found the time for a post-surgical checkup and a visit with his parents—a quick two-day trip to Seattle.
Max locked the Mercedes and stepped onto the sidewalk. For the first time in years, he had no pain, no hitch, no limp. He walked briskly toward the diner, past the businesses lining the sidewalk while thinking that, one of these days, he’d have to thank Daisy for forcing the cure. If he ever saw her again. But what would he say if he did? Remember me? I’m the guy who sent you packing . . .
What had he been thinking, suggesting Blanchard’s for lunch? Was he hoping for a glimpse of Daisy? Intending to spy on her? Or did he think seeing her happy would make him forget her?
Whatever he’d been thinking, he hadn’t been thinking, or he never would’ve entertained such a sentimental urge. Relief washed over him that he wasn’t at Blanchard’s now, making a fool of himself.
He arrived at the mustard doors in front of a trio of casually dressed women, but entered behind them after holding the door open. Their penetrating gazes and inviting smiles spoke volumes, but Max dismissed them with a smile, like background noise. A quick scan around the diner, rapidly filling to its small capacity, and Max found his mother hailing him from a corner booth. He passed the counter with its many occupied stools, doing a double take at a familiar blonde whom he couldn’t quite place, before shrugging it off and joining his mother.
The waitress had already delivered water and menus.
“How in the world did you find this joint?” he asked, perusing the laminated selections.
“A friend.”
“A friend?” Max looked up from the soup choices. “Which one of your friends would come to a place like this?” He checked out the rustic decor, reminiscent of a surfer’s shack If you stretched your imagination. Otherwise, it looked like a run-down café with fake palms crowding every corner. An untalented attempt at a mural of blue skies, ocean waves, and sandy beaches spread across one wall. But the real scene-stealer was a bubbling glass tank behind the counter filled with—no kidding—plastic lobsters.
“The food is excellent,” Maeve said. “And when did you become a snob?”
Max looked at his unmatched flatware, one tine on his fork slightly askew. “I have no idea.” He returned to the menu. Too bad the prices weren’t as cheap as the decor.
“Are you ready to order?” the waitress asked, appearing from the crowd. She wore a white T-shirt with the words THE LOBSTER SHACK emblazoned in red across her modest bosom.
“Yes,” Maeve answered brightly. “I’ll have the half plate of coconut shrimp to start, along with the salmon nuggets and a cup of chowder.”
“And I’ll have—” Max began before being silenced by a glare from Maeve. “Sorry. Thought you were done.”
“And I’d like a bowl of cioppino—”
“No cioppino today. Cook didn’t like the mussels.” The waitress sighed as if disapproval was a common, albeit annoying, occurrence in the kitchen.
“Then I’ll try the curried halibut with a side of chipotle salmon penne pasta and . . . let me see . . .
Max stared at his mother. “Are you kidding?”
“. . . the garden salad with blueberry vinaigrette,” Maeve continued. “For dessert, save me a bananas Napoleon. And I’ll have a Killian’s.”
The waitress finished writing on her pad, then turned to Max. “And for you?”
“Just bring me a Killian’s and a plate.”
The waitress nodded, took back the menus, and went to the next booth.
“You’re not eating?” Maeve asked.
“I’ll be eating plenty. Everything you don’t.” He trained his eyes on Maeve. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what y’ mean.”
“You drag me down to some obscure diner that I know you would never go to, and then you order for a group of dockworkers.” The seconds ticked. “I’m waiting, Mother.”
“Fine. You’re so stubborn, y’ never would’ve come otherwise.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve found you a cook—”
Max jerked back. “What?”
“—for the lodge.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t mother me, Maxim Avery Kendall. Y’ve got poor Rita running ragged without a spare second for a personal life. Just because you aspire to be Uncle Arvis—”
“Enough with the pigeons.”
“—doesn’t mean y’ have to force that on your employees.”
Max sighed. “This summer has been tough on everyone.”
“So I’m helping out. I’ve found y’ a cook. And for your information, Jeanne brought me here and I’ve come back three times since, o
nce with your da. And each and every time the food was the best.”
Max glanced around. “Uh-huh.”
“You’ll see.”
“Even so, Mom, you’re presuming a lot to think this cook would want to move to Otter Bite. The guy’s probably married . . . with a dozen kids . . . and has his own double-wide. He’s undoubtedly happy right where he is.”
“Well, now, depends on your offer, don’t y’ think?”
“Why don’t we try the food before we even go there.”
As if on cue, the waitress arrived with two beers, the coconut shrimp, the salmon nuggets, a cup of chowder, and the salad with blueberry vinaigrette. She placed an empty plate in front of Max.
“Y’ forgot the dipping sauce, dear, for the salmon nuggets.”
She surveyed the table. “Be right back.”
“Y’ve got to try this,” Maeve told Max as the waitress delivered a small bowl of pale orange sauce with bits of something vaguely familiar.
Max eyed the concoction, forked a salmon nugget, and dipped.
Maeve followed suit, blowing delicate puffs of air onto the hot salmon before popping it into her mouth. “Have y’ ever tasted anything so delicious?”
Stabbing salmon, Max repeated the process. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Order!” the waitress called, ripping a sheet off her pad and stuffing it in the turnstile.
“What is it?” Daisy whisked curry sauce in a small saucepan as halibut chunks cooked on the grill.
“Two salmon burgers and a spinach salad. And a woman at the counter wants consommé tort-something. Do we have that?”
Daisy softly laughed as she turned off the flame beneath the curry. “I’ll take care of it.” She flipped halibut chunks with a spatula. Then she grabbed a plate, scooped rice onto it, nested the halibut, and poured the curry over the mound. She set the steaming dish in the garnish line for her assistant to finish.
From the fridge, she grabbed two fresh salmon patties and placed them on the grill. Before they started sizzling, she was dishing out baby spinach from a large bowl onto a small oval platter. She set it in the garnish line for almonds and sweet mustard dressing. Then she ladled out a hearty helping of chowder and cut a slab of sourdough bread. “I’m taking a quick break,” she told her kitchen staff. “Watch the grill.”
“Daisy doesn’t know I’m here, does she?” Max asked his mother.
“Mmmm. Not exactly.”
“Then we can leave without her ever knowing.”
“But you haven’t tried the curry or the pasta.”
“I’m sure they’re delicious. Daisy’s an excellent chef.”
“I’ll tell her you said so,” the waitress said, delivering the two entrées.
“Don’t bother. I mean, I’ll tell her myself—” Not. His escape from the booth blocked, Max drummed his fingers on the table.
“Anything else?” the waitress asked.
“The check.”
The waitress looked perplexed. “Should I bring the bananas Napoleon at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Maeve scowled at her son. “Yes!”
“Be right back,” the waitress said.
“Max, you’re acting foolish. A half hour ago, you were practically begging to go to Blanchard’s, as if I don’t know why. Now here’s your opportunity to do what y’ wanted to do all along and you’re like Haemish Hamlish.”
“Who?”
“Your cousin, twice removed. Youngest boy of your Aunt Eileen’s oldest daughter, Anna.”
Clueless, Max craned his neck for the waitress with his check. “I give. How am I like Haemish?”
“You’re being foolish.”
“Yeah, Mom, I got that. Look, I don’t know how you know about Blanchard’s or what you think you know about Daisy and me—”
“Rita told me everything. How grumpy you’ve been ever since Daisy left, your twenty-hour work days, you refusin’ to hire another cook.”
“I’m grumpy because I’m working twenty-hour days and I’m working twenty-hour days because I’m understaffed and I haven’t hired another chef because there haven’t been any good applicants and putting Daisy and me on a collision course will not change any of that. Can we go?”
“I differ with that opinion. And so does Dr. Wagstaff.”
“Who’s Dr. Wagstaff?”
“Don’t y’ remember? We met her at Daisy’s garage sale. She introduced herself as Charity.”
The honey-blonde at the counter. He spun around to find Charity and was stunned by the sight of Daisy in these cheap surroundings, wrapped in a stained Lobster Shack apron, a ridiculous fifties hair net unnaturally helmeting her cherry-colored spirals.
Max always seemed to be there at her worst moments.
Then, unexpectedly, Daisy’s gaze left Charity; she casually scanned the crowd and stopped—along with his heart. Her eyes lost their smile and widened into horror—or so it seemed to Max. She gawked at him, then exploded into motion, dashing from the counter like a sprinter at the gun, crashing through the kitchen doors and disappearing from sight.
Max turned to Maeve. “You still think this was a good idea?”
Sadness tugged at her mouth. “I don’t understand. Charity said—”
“Apparently you and Charity don’t know everything.” He tossed a pair of hundred-dollar bills onto the table. “Let’s go.”
Reluctantly, Maeve obeyed, leaving plates of untouched food behind. They passed a speechless Charity, who looked as chagrined as Maeve. Max herded his mother out the door and into the drizzle of a typical Seattle afternoon.
Beneath the dim light of a bare bulb, Daisy stared at her reflection in the small cracked mirror of the employees’ bathroom. She looked absolutely hideous in her hair net and tacky apron, and imagined how much worse she appeared surrounded by fake palms and plastic lobsters.
In her fantasies, when she and Max met again, she was gorgeous and successful, in a starched white chef’s jacket, surrounded by expensive linen and gleaming china, and commanding a kitchen army. Not in a cheap diner like a whore on a street corner.
Why was Max always seeing her at her worst?
Three knocks on the bathroom door, and then Charity called her name. Daisy opened the door and Charity crowded inside.
“Are you okay?”
“No. I look like crap. Why did he have to see me like this, here, a complete and utter failure.”
“That’s why you ran? You’re ashamed?”
Tears welled. “Max is probably gloating up a storm right now. A short-order cook surrounded by fake palms and plastic lobsters, paper napkins and bent forks. And not even the head cook. The lunch cook.”
Charity cupped Daisy’s cheeks. “Listen to me. You’re not a failure. You’re the bravest person I know. You have principles and you’re willing to stand up for them. I’m proud of you for leaving Blanchard’s. Every night you made that stupid turtle soup, you died just a little. And you’d hate it if this diner had real lobsters. And I don’t believe Max thinks any less of you for working here. But if he does, then he’s a bigger moron than Haemish Hamlish—”
“Who?”
Charity waved away the question. “Some nut case. Tried to marry a goat. But that’s a different story.”
Daisy sat on the lidded commode. “Why did he have to come here? Of all the diners in all the cities in all the world, why’d he have to walk into this one?”
Charity innocently shrugged. “Who knows? But maybe this is a good thing. Maybe, now that he knows where you are . . .”
“He’ll what? Beg me to come back? Yeah, that’s going to happen. And I couldn’t, even if he did. It would seem like I was returning to get out of this dump instead of—”
“Going back because you want to?”
Sadness flooded her eyes. “It’s my Brigadoon.”
“Funny story.” Charity digressed. “I gave the DVD to my mom for Christmas. One of her favorite old movies. But she
just stared at the case and then I realized she didn’t have a DVD player.” Charity chuckled but stopped when Daisy looked wretched. “Right. Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. He gave up his world to live in hers.” Charity sighed. “You love Max that much?”
“I don’t know. But I think I’d like to find out.”
A pounding on the door startled them both. “Need some help out here, Daisy,” her assistant said.
Daisy wiped away an escaping tear. “I’ve got to get back to work.” She checked herself in the mirror, then turned away in resignation.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go out tonight. We’ll have a few drinks at Mama’s and forget all your problems.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
The pounding repeated. “Daisy!”
“Coming!” Daisy looked at Charity. “I’ll call you tonight.”
“Chin up, Daisy Mae. I promise, it’ll all work out.”
Daisy nodded without believing and then said, “I only caught a glimpse, but the woman with Max looked like his mother. Was that Maeve?”
“I think so.” As if Charity didn’t know so.
Daisy moaned. “I can imagine what she thinks.”
Chapter Forty
Daisy whipped off her hair net, shook out her curls, and grabbed her purse, jacket, and the evening newspaper. She dashed out the front doors, passing a couple collapsing an umbrella before entering the diner. Hugging the buildings, she hiked up the sidewalk past the closed print shop toward her parked car, hurriedly stuffing her arms into her jacket as she went, then snuggled into the fleece against the cold drizzle.
She passed Nirvana as a woman in a sari locked the front door while her two daughters in blue jeans waited under the awning. Slowly the street emptied of its parked cars, headlights shining, wipers sweeping windshields, as businesses closed and people left for brighter, warmer locales. A jovial group of four men in similar tan trench coats spilled from the architect’s office into the fading daylight, then dispersed as the sky rumbled. Daisy stepped beneath the overhang and searched her purse for her car keys as the drizzle became a shower that turned into a downpour.
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